Have We Created The Eighth Deadly Sin?

Listen, if you have your Bibles open, I'm going to invite you to turn with me to the book of Matthew, chapter four.

We're going to continue in this series called What Would Jesus Post?

And we're looking at contemporary events, current events that are happening in our culture right now, and seeing, okay, where where does the Bible intersect these truths?

And what we're seeing is that in a world that is created by sovereign, power, omniscient God, he cannot be hid, which means we can always find ways to connect and have stories and conversations with people about the work of Jesus in our life.

And like you may be asking yourself, why are we preaching like this?

Like why are we covering this material as we are?

And the main reason that I would give to you to that question is because this is what Jesus did.

And I don't know about you, but like I want to do what Jesus did, right?

Jesus, we're told in the Gospels, preached using parables.

He took something that people were familiar with in their everyday context.

Sometimes it was just an everyday story.

Other times it was a news event.

And he preached, he made that connection.

This is what he did.

In fact, Mark tells us that Jesus did not preach without using a parable.

I repent because I've not always done that.

Sometimes I will stand up and I'll just rutely start teaching stuff without making a connection to God's creation and showing how that this text applies and is lived out today.

God's word matters to this very moment.

Amen.

So let me tell you something that I learned this week.

I learned that I'm going to give you this truth.

It's not going to be on the screen, but I want to give you the truth, and then I think I will need to explain it to you.

Here it is.

Carpet will lie to you, but hardwood floor will always tell you the truth.

Here's what I learned because we moved into our new home.

And of course, before we moved in, uh, you know, we got all the furniture there.

And you know, the very first thing you do with hardwood floor is you do what, ladies?

Cover it with rugs.

That's what you do.

Now, we, I don't know why you do that, but that's just what you do.

And so we haven't quite done that yet, and we're still getting things moved in.

And so I'll get up and I'll walk around.

Kim's gonna hurt me for saying this to you.

I want you to know I make sacrifices to bring you the truth of the word of God.

I I walk around the floor my bare feet, and and like I can feel like stuff in the floor.

Now we're moving in, okay?

I mean, that's there's a lot happening, and there's some home remodeling stuff going on.

So I want you to know if the floors are dirty, it's all my fault.

But I I can feel that as I'm walking around on the hardwood floor.

Now, I didn't feel that at our previous place where we had a great deal of carpet, and the reason is is because carpet will lie to you.

Carpet will tell you, you see now, right?

Carpet will lie to you.

Carpet will tell you everything's fine, it's great.

You don't put that vacuum cleaner away, you don't need it right now.

But hardwood floor will tell you the truth.

I think that our, first off, God's word is like a hardwood floor.

It will tell you the truth.

You may not want to hear it, but when you walk across it, it's like, no, yeah, you you you got some things happening here.

But I think also the conscience that God has given us will tell us the truth.

We have to suppress it, Paul tells us.

We have to suppress the truth of God if we're going to continue in life that violates the standards and the rules for human flourishing.

Now, the the article that we're going to be glancing at this morning is a clear example of that.

The article was written, it's in the Atlantic, and it's written by one of their staff writers, a man named James Parker.

James talks about being at a coffee shop and he has his laptop open.

He's probably knows he needs to write something and can't figure out what to write, so he winds up writing this.

He says he's looking at the screen, this nebulous void, and he keeps waiting on emails to pop up, and he keeps closing and opening up programs the same way that you and I do on our phone.

And then it kind of dawns on him that this just doesn't feel right.

That there's something that feels wrong with the way that we engage with technology.

But then he asks himself the question which of the seven deadly sins is this?

If this is wrong, if this feels, if the hardwood floor of reality is telling me that the way I'm interacting with my technology is not right, which wrong is it?

Which one of the seven deadly sins is this?

Now, as a good Protestant, you probably aren't as familiar with the seven deadly sins as our Catholic neighbors.

But just to give you a brief history, the originally the list wasn't seven, it was eight.

It was uh originated, it was contrived by a um desert monk named uh um Evagoras Ponticus, and then later refined down to seven by an individual named Gregory the Great.

And so the list as we have it today, this may be familiar to you, the seven deadly sins pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, don't know anything about that one, uh, wrath and sloth.

And so the question that Parker was wrestling with is which of the seven deadly sins does this experience of opening up your phone and waiting for something to happen and then immediately closing down an app and reopening it and surfing for something to do and the scrolling that that we all partake in.

Like, where does that fit into here?

Well, uh Parker points out that some of it could be pride as of the way we post, greed with the way that we envy what other people have.

There's certainly some lust.

Gentlemen, be very, very careful.

Very, very careful.

Like there's some of that, right?

We all know it.

Uh, and then, of course, uh uh, you know, uh certainly quite a bit of wrath as we surf social media and maybe even a little bit of sloth, but there's not like one thing that defines what we're doing with our technology, even though that we know that it's wrong.

And Parker points this out.

He realizes this, and so he raises the question.

He says, So have we finally done it at last?

You, me, the kids, after 1,500 years, have we finally created an eighth deadly sin?

Now, I want to kind of wrestle with this this morning because um I think what we will observe out of this article, but more importantly, out of God's word, is that the innovations that we create, the new stuff that you and I make as evolved individuals, really it's it's all leveraged to make sin more accessible to us.

Now, originally, of course, there weren't seven deadly sins.

Scripture doesn't give us seven.

Uh, scripture only gives us three.

We read about it in 1 John chapter 2, verse number 16.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

We're on our way to Matthew 4.

I promise you, I wouldn't lie to you about that.

Here's what here's how John describes it.

John says, For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of the life, of life, is not from the Father.

Now, if it's not from the Father, we have a word for that.

What is it?

All right, sin, right?

If it's not of God, then it's it's sin.

And since it's not of the Father, there's only one other source that it comes from, and it comes from this cosmos, this fallen world that we exist in.

And so if you remember your King James Version translation of this, it's rendered that these three things are all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Now, if we were to define these words, these experiences today, we would give them these three terms, these three infinitive descriptions that is to feel.

All that's in the world is things that we want to feel, that we want to have, that we want to be.

Now, there's really no experience of sin that can't be plugged into one of these three categories because this is the root.

If if the seven deadly sins are the final product of temptation, then these three temptations are the tributaries that feed them.

This is this is what we do.

So, in other words, what I'm suggesting to you is that that sins aren't really something that you reach for.

Like you're not really, you're not really after the thing, the experience, the woman, the image, the new toy, right?

The anger.

You're not you're not in for that.

You're in for you're in for these things that are in the world.

You're pursuing, you're pursuing feeling something, you're pursuing having something, or above all, you're pursuing being something.

Now we see the example of this uh in scripture over and over again, but the problem that you and I live in in this fallen state actually actually comes and actually originated, it was created because Eve experienced this temptation, these temptations to feel something, to have something, to be something.

Genesis gives us the account, tells us that when she saw the fruit, the lust of the eyes, and that it was good for eating, that it would have it would be tasteful, lust of the flesh, and it could make one wise, the pride of life, that then she took it and she ate of it.

And so I think the point that I'm trying to make to you is that number one, none of this stuff is new.

Yeah, we create new ways to sin and to violate God's standards almost on a monthly basis at this point.

But the truth is the way we do it and what we're after is not new at all.

Now, in a way that's good because that tells us that if it's not new, then the old solutions can work still.

We don't have to innovate new responses to all of this stuff that comes at us from all of these different directions.

The the old ways still work.

Someone with gray hair in this room wanted to say amen right there, but you didn't.

The old ways still work.

They're tried and they're tested.

Jesus used them.

Thank you very much.

Jesus used them whenever he was tempted.

So here's what I want to do in the few minutes that we have together is I want us to walk through the temptation of Jesus after the baptism.

And I want to see how he managed temptation.

And so that when you and I face something so insidious as technology can be, that we develop a plan for how to manage it.

I mean, can we just acknowledge for a moment that we are like James Parker?

I mean, like I do this, I open up my tablet and I'm looking for something to do.

I want to be efficient.

I know I should be doing something, but I don't want to get off the couch.

And so I open up my tablet.

Anybody with me?

Open up my tablet or my phone, and I'll start cycling, scrolling, finding something to do.

And then I get into this little cycle, this pit, this rut that I can't get out of.

And I might not be able to name which one of the seven deadly sins that occurs at that moment, but I know it's not right.

Because three hours later, I'm still sitting there trying to figure out, you know, what color of rug I want to put down to cover up the dust and the floor that I've made.

But, anyways, Matthew chapter 4, verse 1.

Matthew 4:1

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit.

Notice this was not an ambush, this was an appointment.

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

That was his reason for being there.

You know, we can stop and ask the question why Jesus himself was tempted and brought into that place, and it has some very intriguing answers.

At some point, buy me a cup of coffee and we will talk about it.

We do know that you and I, when we are tempted, it's because we are drawn out by our own lust, and that's the place where we sin.

But God in his grace and his mercy allows us, as we talked about last week, to languish in our fallenness because the real problem in our life isn't the things that we do, sin, or the things that we don't do, sin.

It is the fact that we are trying to be our own God and we need to depend on Jesus more and more and more.

And so God leverages sin to do that, to bring us to a place where we feel our brokenness and our agony and we grope our way back to Jesus.

That's a great place to be, isn't it?

The more I get to deal with me and my fallness, the more I'm forced to deal with God and find there the one thing that I know that I need more than anything else, which is dependence on Him.

So after the testing or after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, here's the obvious statement of the morning.

Jesus is what?

Yeah, I would be too, right?

He's there 40 days and 40 nights.

The idea being is that he was in a physical weakened state.

Just a parenthetical here for anybody who needs to know.

It is whenever you are tired, whenever you are hungry, whenever it is late at night, and you ought not be up anyways, whenever the tempter comes the most diligently.

Because your spiritual self is connected to your physical self.

I wish it weren't so, but the truth is, as there is this line, as we again we talked about last week between who I am spiritually and who I am physically, and whenever I'm tired physically, I'm more likely to be cranky.

Whenever I'm tired physically, I'm more likely to be lazy.

Right?

When we're tired, we're more likely to be susceptible.

So Jesus, we find him here in his most vulnerable state.

And the tempter comes to him and begins to tempt him.

Now let's just pause for a second, and I want to connect us back to the Old Testament because that's what Jesus is about to do.

Anytime you hear the number 40, you know that's a significant number.

It has some biblical connection because 40 in the Old Testament, throughout the Old Testament, had something to do with trying or tempting or difficulty, or if you're a sinner, it's consequences for your for your sin.

And so whenever we think of 40, we go back into the Old Testament, my mind is automatically drawn to the 40 years of wondering that the children of Israel experience because they refuse to go into the promised land and to trust God.

And that's exactly what Jesus intends for us to see.

Jesus is about to do battle with the great enemy, Satan.

And as he does, you know what's going to happen.

If you've heard this story before, you're you know what Jesus is going to do.

Jesus is going to use the word to defend himself.

He's going to pull out the sword, as Paul calls it in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

He's going to pull out the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and he's going to use it to do battle with the enemy.

Now, the truth is, um, Jesus is the word, John tells us.

He is the logos, he's the very presentation of the word of God.

And so he could have used any of the passages he wanted to use.

In fact, Jesus could have spoken himself, new word.

In fact, at the end of this, he does kind of do that.

But Jesus could have referenced any Old Testament passage, passages that he wanted to, but he references three passages, and they all occur in the early chapters of the book of Deuteronomy.

How many of y'all did your devotional studies this week in the book of Deuteronomy?

Okay, it's some thick reading in there.

And Jesus goes back to that story, to that passage, and he pulls out verses to do battle with the enemy.

Why is he doing this?

He's doing it because Deuteronomy was written at the end of the 40 years of wondering, just before the children of Israel went into the land.

And it had three parts.

It had a part that pointed back, the first four chapters point back at what had occurred prior to the 40 years of wondering and how God had delivered the people.

And the last two chapters point forward into some date in the future when Israel was going to disobey God's law so much that they would be cast out of the land.

And in the middle of that section, there's a very large sermon.

And that sermon opens up with Moses telling the people what they needed to do if they were going to live fruitfully in the land.

Do you think that's an accident that Jesus is going to that section of Scripture to defend against the temptation of the devil?

No, not at all, right?

No, in the same way, you and I have been brought out of a sphere of wondering, and we have been placed at the threshold of the promised land.

In fact, in some ways, we now live in the promised land, in the kingdom of earth as it is right here, but not fully yet.

We live there, and if we're going to live there fruitfully, we have to follow Jesus' example as he did in Deuteronomy chapter six and eight, where we defend against the temptation of the enemy.

So all that to say, if I've lost you there, come back in right quick, because what all you need to know is that Jesus is bringing us back to the book of Deuteronomy and showing us how we live in the promises of God fruitfully and effectively.

Because the truth is we've been saved, and that's great.

Jesus has come into our heart and that we rejoice in that.

But how many of you know that sin can still wreck your Monday morning?

I mean, like I need to know how to deal with sin.

I need to know how to deal with the temptations.

I need to know how to deal with these urges to feel uh to uh to have and to be.

And so how do we do that?

So look at look at what happens here.

Let's just walk through these together.

So the tempter comes to Jesus and says, if you are the Son of God, of course it's a first class conditional sentence in the Greek, and so a better translation or understanding says, since you are the Son of God, like if this is really who you are, and it appears that you're that person, we command these stones to become loaves of bread.

Again, appealing back to this period of time.

Here's what's what's happening.

Jesus is hungry.

He has the right to eat.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with eating bread.

Now, if you eat as much bread as I have eaten, that might be one of those seven deadly sins.

But overall, there's nothing wrong with eating bread.

And yet Jesus knows for this period of time he's committed himself to being hungry, to denying self.

We don't do very well with denying self these days, do we?

We want to be gratified and we want to be gratified immediately.

Like we we aren't waiting.

I mean, we stand in front of the microwave and get antsy.

This must have been really something Jesus, like an actual temptation, if he could be tempted.

This is uh something that would have, I mean, it would have gotten me, because he could have done this.

The one who took a couple of loaves of bread and fed 5,000 could pick up a couple of grains of sand off the dirt and turn it into a meal for himself, but yet he's got another plan.

He turns to the enemy and says, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

This is a reference to Deuteronomy chapter 8.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

And Deuteronomy chapter 8 is a statement by Moses reminding the people how their fathers had blown it.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

He says, concerning what their fathers had experienced at a place called Massah and Meribah, that he humbled them and let them hunger and fed you with manna.

Why?

Well, because he was trying to teach something.

He was letting them go hungry and suffer because he wanted them to see something, to learn something.

So Jesus uh uh Moses continues here, he says, Nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes out of the mouth of the Lord.

This is a reference Moses is teaching here in Deuteronomy about an event that occurred in Exodus chapter 16.

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

When the people of Israel were coming out of Egypt, they looked around and there there was no um there was no sheets uh there where you can go in and get your made-to-order meals.

And you know, there was no fast food restaurants, and they're looking around, thinking to themselves, we didn't bring enough bread for this.

And so they go and they complain against Moses.

And they say to Moses, as they said repeatedly, Did you were there not enough graves in Egypt that you're gonna bring us out here to starve to death?

You should have just left us in Egypt.

And of course, that led to problems because they were not trusting the power of God to sustain them during their deepest times of need.

Boy, I wish I could hear that.

It's difficult whenever you're hungry and struggling and suffering or frustrated with things to wait on the Lord to know that I right now what I need to do is just wait because I know that the Father is teaching me something.

That man does not live by bread alone.

There is something more important than your daily bread, as important as that is, there's something more important, and that is the word of God that comes from the Spirit, from God's own heart that promises that He's going to provide everything that you need.

All right, Matthew chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, second temptation.

Matthew 4:5

Then the devil took him into the holy city and set him up on the principal place, the pinnacle of the temple, uh, and said to him, That the pinnacle of the temple uh was the southwest corner of the temple.

It was the highest point above Robinson's arch, would have been a beautiful view from up there, and it he would have been able to be seen by everyone from the city of David to the west side of the city, the Mount Moriah.

You could see it all from right there.

And during this period of time, Jerusalem was like the holy city.

And so it would have been a full place.

It would have been a place where Jesus could have stood up there and to do this thing the enemy was going to charge him to do.

Look at what he says.

He says, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, and then he misquotes Psalm chapter 91, he will command his angels concerning you, and on his hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone.

Psalms 91 · chapter mention

That's a Psalm 91 promise that God is going to provide and protect for his people, but it doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want to.

Jesus promises us that he's going to provide and protect us, but that doesn't mean that we get to live and do anything that we want to.

If you go out here and stand in the middle of Roanoke Street, Jesus' protection may include you, but he may let you suffer the consequences of standing out there in the middle of Roanoke Street.

Because Jesus, that's what Jesus does, the lovingly allows us to experience the consequences.

That's true in every aspect of life, by the way.

Jesus promises to forgive us, and he will forgive us.

But when we sin, when we commit one of those seven deadly sins, or one of those three categories of temptation we yield to, he will sometimes allow us to experience the consequences of that.

Because he's not to be tempted, he's not to be tested.

So what Jesus points back to here in Matthew chapter 4, verse 7, Jesus says to him, Again, it is written, he points back to the Word of God.

Matthew 4:7

He pulls out the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and he slices again the enemy.

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

Now, this is a quote from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16.

Deuteronomy 6:16

So just prior to Deuteronomy 8, where we were a minute ago, here's what the verse actually says in Deuteronomy.

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, just as Jesus just said, as you were tested at Mossess.

Now, this is another area where the children of Israel had complained against the Lord, this time not about bread, but it was about water.

They're thirsty in the desert.

I get that.

This is a valid need.

I mean, this is something that, well, I mean, if you're in the desert, you're going to be looking for a fountain drink or something.

And so they didn't have it.

And so they come to Moses, and instead of going to God and praying and requesting, their prayer comes off as a complaint, and they go back to Moses and they say essentially the same thing.

And of course, Moses becomes very frustrated and goes to the Lord and says, Hey, these people are about ready to kill me.

You got to provide something for them.

And God says, Take the rod that you have and go out to this rock and strike the rock, and it will produce water.

So that's this reference back to Exodus chapter 17, again, where the people had complained.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

And literally at that point, in that same passage, what Moses says here and what he points out is that you are testing the Lord because you are not trusting him.

You're saying he has brought you out here to die.

Again, he is saying just trust, rely on the Lord.

He's going to provide you what you need.

Man, I've been there many times where my prayers don't come across as requests, they come across as complaints.

Happens a lot, doesn't it?

Not the only one.

Here it would have been very easy for Jesus to follow the enemy's lead.

He had a tough road ahead of him.

This is the beginning of his ministry.

He's got three years of forming a team, listening to them argue, and to do just the dumbest things and to be maligned and spit upon and made fun of and rejected and beaten and crucified.

He's got three years for that.

And the enemy is coming to him and saying, if you were to stand up here, check this out, Jesus, if you were to stand up here at the top of this pinnacle where thousands of people can see you, and you jump off and they see you start flying around like Superman, everybody's going to be posting about you.

You're going to be so famous that you're not going to have to go through any of that other stuff.

This is going to be a quick workaround for God's plan.

But Jesus recognizes that God's plan, even though it may be more difficult at the end, it is better because it brings glory to God the way that God intended.

All right, look back at Matthew chapter 4, verse 8.

Matthew 4:8

This is the final temptation.

So the temptation to turn stone into bread, connecting to Deuteronomy chapter 8.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

The temptation to jump off the temple, connecting to Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16.

Deuteronomy 6:16

Look at what the enemy does here at the very end.

This is a straight frontal attack.

Now the enemy's going directly for what he's after because the truth is what the enemy is ultimately after is your heart.

He's not trying to get you to just look at porn.

He's not trying to get you to just covet your neighbors, whatever.

He's not just trying to get you to steal something that doesn't belong to you.

He's not just trying to get you to be rage, angry, to be hateful.

Like all of that is a gateway to what he really wants.

And what he really wants is for you to be his servant and he to be your God.

That's what he wants.

That was the objective whenever he was trying to get you get us to get Eve to be to be her own God.

Ultimately, he knew she could not bear the weight of that, which means she has to turn somewhere else, and he would be there making the promises that he could not fulfill.

He wants to be the one.

He wants to be the object of worship.

And so he comes to Jesus and says, he takes him to a high place, up to a high mountain.

We know this, by the way, is not a terrestrial mountain.

This is not a physical place.

This is a celestial mountain, somewhere, a reference to some otherworldly space where he's able to see the kingdoms of this world.

And the end of verse number eight tells us, and their glory, all of their splendor.

Jesus, take a look at all of this.

And then he says to him, All of these I will give you.

Now let me just pause and ask, are the kingdoms his?

I mean, in a very real sense, they are not his.

They belong to the Lord.

It's the Lord who points, who puts rulers into place and he moves kingdoms around and kings around.

He's the one who's in control.

The kingdoms are his, but what the enemy is essentially saying here is most theologians will tell you, he's recognizing for this moment that he's a usurper, that he's the one who's trying to lay claim on something that belongs to God.

And he's saying to Jesus at this point, if you will just let me feel what it's like to be God just for a moment, if you will fall down and worship me, I will give you all of these kingdoms.

What's he saying here?

It's been well attested throughout church history that what essentially the enemy is saying here is look, you're not going to want to go through the cross.

You know you're not going to want to go through the cross.

It's not going to be great to bear the sins of the world.

I'll just fine.

You know what?

Let's let's let's come to an armistice.

Let's have an agreement here.

I will let go of everything that I've laid hands on.

I will leave it, and you can have it back without the cross.

You can imagine what kind of temptation that would have been.

But of course, achieving something that looks like God's plan in a way that isn't God's plan is just another form of sin.

If Jesus had taken the enemy up on this, yeah, he might have been ruler of the world if such a thing were possible.

He might have been ruler of the world in the messianic type way that the Jews were expecting him to be, but you and I would still be lost in our sin.

This is far more important.

Jesus knows this and he knows what the enemy's after.

Now watch this.

For the very first time in this conversation, Jesus doesn't quote from Scripture.

What does he say?

Look at verse number 10.

What does he say there?

Begone.

Get out.

Begone, Satan.

And then he's quote quotes scripture.

Now that's going to become very important here in just a second.

He says, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

This is a reference back to again to Deuteronomy chapter 6, which is the Shema Israel, where Jesus, where the Father has told Israel, I don't want you worshiping any other gods but me.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

I know you were tempted by those gods in Egypt.

You're going to be tempted by these gods that you're about to see in Cana.

None of them are for you for you.

I'm it.

You and I have this monogamous relationship.

You're going to worship me and worship me alone.

And here's how Deuteronomy chapter 6, 13 says, It is the Lord your God, you shall fear.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Him shall you serve, and by his name you shall swear.

He alone is it.

Jesus takes him back to Scripture and says, This is what the Word of God says.

And again, he pulls out the sword, the word, right, the word of God, the sword of the Spirit, and he slices and says, This is really all about what who you're going to worship.

And the word of God tells us we are to worship God and give no place to any other God.

And that really is the essence of all sin.

It's just what's going to master you.

Because you know you've dealt with sin enough to know that you can't just have one.

That the moment you you take one, the moment you do it once, the moment you experience it once, it calls back to you, it pulls you back in, it drafts you, the ground opens up beneath your feet and drops you into deeper levels of sin.

Why is that?

It's because sin masters you.

This is what Jesus tells us.

Sin masters you.

And those things that give you orders, those things that rule over you, those things that you're subject to, those things that you turn to in your times of need, those things that you turn to whenever you're bored, those things that you're turned to whenever you're uncertain, and you can't stop doing it, to the one that serves those things, that's his master, is what Jesus says.

This is our, this is our master.

And it's a competing, it's a competing dominance, it's a competing, competing ruler in our life when we have something that demands of us our time, that demands of us our allegiance allegiance, that demands of us our affirmation and our hope to be placed in it.

And Jesus says, that's that's that's there's only one place that that can go to, and that has to go to God.

And so Jesus quotes Scripture, and then but before he does that, he he he speaks the phrase, be gone, which isn't like you go back to Deuteronomy chapter six, and that's not in there.

But Jesus says it, and look at verse number 11, what happens?

Then the devil does what?

Why did he leave him?

Because Jesus said, You're done here.

Be gone.

And the devil left him, and behold, angels come and were ministering to him, and immediately he was surrounded by this ensemble of heaven's bodyguards and servants ministering to him.

Now, what is happening here?

What is actually going on?

What's actually going on here is Jesus has just done battle with the enemy using nothing but the word of God.

Now, if we were to go to Jesus, like if this were to happen today, if if Jesus were to read read uh the article in The Atlantic, I think his response would be would be pretty clear based on what we see here in another passage of Scripture.

I think Jesus would say that the eighth deadly sin has a first-century cure, a first-century solution.

The eighth deadly sin, if what our technology does for us and how we interact with our technology, if it is indeed a new form of sin, then it still has the same old solution.

I personally think that the reality is that the way we interact with our technology, the way that we depend on it, simply makes sinning more efficient.

I can sin faster, better, more quickly because I've got in my pocket a gateway to all of the seven deadly sins, all of the three forms of what John said comprise all of temptations.

It's right there.

And yet, even though the technology may be brand new, the truth is the solution is well, it's as old as time itself.

Now the solution is not what you think it may be.

Um, James Parker suggested the solution in his article.

Of course, you know, I'm not sure what his faith is.

I think I know, but I know, I know he doesn't get the answer right in the article.

He's discussing how are we going to manage technology?

What are we going to do about this new form of temptation?

And near the end of the article, he says, once we know what we're dealing with, um you can summon its opposite.

That seems to be the way we address sin, isn't it?

That the solution to dealing with the darkness in our heart is to do the opposite thing.

So I cuss, I need to stop cussing.

Um I'm angry, I need to be more happy.

Um, you know, I'm I'm envious, and so I just need to need to be satisfied with things that I have.

You fill in the blank.

And all of those are decent approaches as far as they go, but they are not solutions.

He suggested, he says, if pride, then gentle uh if pride is getting the better of you, then engage in humility.

If gluttony, then moderation, if envy, then compassion, and so on and so on.

How many of you know that that doesn't work out very well?

It's a great coping mechanism.

I'm not suggesting that you we give in to every temptation that's out there just because no need in doing the opposite.

It's not going to help us in the end.

That's not true at all.

God would not have us live that kind of life.

But the reality is it may be a coping mechanism.

It may be something that is that demonstrates self-discipline and obedience, but it's not the cure.

Jesus did not have to rely on himself.

He could have, though, right?

I mean, Jesus could have relied only on himself in his own effort during his temptations.

He could have spoken his own words, but he didn't speak his own words.

What words did he speak?

He spoke the words of Scripture.

Can I suggest to you that perhaps an appropriate way for us to address the sin, the temptations in our life, including this, the eighth deadliest sin, is to meditate and live in God's word?

That listen, and I'm I know I'm a preacher and this is what I'm supposed to say, but the reality is there is power in the word of God.

It is still sharper than any two-edged sword and can divide us in ways that we could never have imagined, but we so desperately need.

The word of God is powerful.

Man, if you're not meditating in God's word, like if this isn't part of your diet, and I'm not saying you need to sit down and read three chapters of scripture per day.

If that's you, hey, that's great.

You do that thing.

But I'm saying to you, whatever the Spirit empowers you to do, you take all the discipline that you have and you get into God's word, start with one verse.

You'd be surprised how that whenever you open up one verse and you read and you meditate on it, how that suddenly you will find that verse applies to whatever you're facing on Thursday morning.

Jesus used the word of God to confront temptation in his, in his, that was that was in front of him.

And if he it like if he did it, if it was good enough for Jesus, can I get a witness?

It's good enough for me.

Good enough for me.

See, the eighth century or the eighth deadly sin has a first century solution, and that's reliance on the word of God.

But there's a connection to that.

There's a second um tactic that we should pursue when attempting to address sin in our life.

And Parker kind of grazes up against it.

Let me give you the last sentence in his article.

He says, to free ourselves from this one, because he's recognizing how pervasive technology is in our life and how that it's like it's almost impossible to get away from it.

Like it is very difficult, right?

I was thinking the other day, I remember some of you like you've you've you've seen these in television, but like I have actually handled a quarter, put it into a machine and dialed a number on a little silver machine.

Remember that?

I remember going on vacation and nobody could get you.

If you wanted to know what was going on back home, you had to pick up the phone and call the number that you knew to call back in and nobody, nobody could reach you.

Bless the Lord.

Those were some good days, right?

The technology, you know, it has its benefits, but it also is reckless in the way that in the in the way that we apply it here.

And so the new technology allows right it allows us to do some incredible things, but it it's also so pervasive.

And the truth is, is like it's difficult to get away from.

And so he recognizes this that what are we going to do about this?

I can't just stop looking at my computer.

It's kind of funny, like he's he can't do the opposite, which is the thing he just suggested to do, just stop doing one thing and start doing the opposite.

He's just recognizing we can't do that.

So, what's the solution?

To free ourselves from this one, to even have the beginning of a program of to free ourselves, I think we're going to have to do the truly and terrifyingly medieval thing.

We are going to have to get on our knees and to pray.

We do not stand against the enemy alone.

There is a God who is much more concerned about your holiness and your righteousness and your flourishing than you could ever be.

There is a God who is much more concerned about the survival and the health and the flourishing of your kids and your grandkids than you will ever be.

Yeah, we use the word just as Jesus did, but at the end of the day, nobody can wield the sword of the Spirit the way that Jesus does.

And so we can turn to Him in our time of need and pray and seek His strength because as we've talked about before, what God is really after isn't you and I overcoming our own weaknesses by our own power.

If that were the case, then Paul never would have needed to become a Christian.

He could have stayed a Pharisee.

Know what Jesus really wants for us is our greater dependence on him.

And I can think of no greater dependence on him in our time of need than using his word and then turning and praying for his power.

Why don't we just do that right now?