In Death Valley there's a place known as Dante's view that you can stand in.
And as you're standing in that spot, you can look down and you can see
the lowest place in the United States.
It's a spot about 200 feet below sea level known as Badwater.
But standing in that same place in Dante's view
you can also look up in the other direction
and you can see the highest elevation in the United States, Mount Whitney
which is about 14,500 feet above sea level.
And so one direction, if you were to go from that spot one direction takes you
to the lowest lows, to the deepest depths
and one direction, if you were to go in that direction, it takes you to the highest heights.
Which i think is a good illustration of what temptation does.
it can either take you to the highest heights or it can take you to the deepest depths.
And if you're looking for, like,
how do you identify when you have crossed the line of temptation?
Like, how do you identify when appreciation of beauty turns into lust?
Or when righteous anger turns into ungodly hate?
Like, when have you crossed the line?
i think it's valuable simply just to look at, well, what direction do I know I'm going?
And in particular, am i going closer to God?
Is there a passage in the Bible that gives me guidance as to how I can get closer to God
or how I can more closely walk on the path that leads to him?
And just ask yourself in terms of what direction do I believe I'm going?
But just like with going up and down a mountain, one of those is easier to do.
And i bet you know which one.
It's easier to trip and stumble and fall down the mountain
than it is to keep walking and climbing and climbing and climbing and going up the mountain.
That's true of temptation.
And as we look at Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, we see why.
Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. He was tempted for 40 days by Satan himself.
And it's recorded in three places in the Bible, in Matthew and in Mark and in Luke.
And today I'm going to read through the shortest of those accounts, the account of Mark.
But it gives us some great insight as to why temptation is so hard and so challenging.
So it says this in Mark, chapter 1:
And so that's it, just two verses. But some very significant words or phrases in those verses.
Including the first two, "At once".
That "at once" it takes place right after Jesus baptism.
And a baptism is a very significant moment in a person's faith relationship with God, of course.
And that illustrates something that's, that's important to keep in mind.
That if Satan sees you with any kind of faith relationship with God,
He's not going to wait to attack you. He will attack you at once.
Just like he did with Jesus.
Next it says that he was "being tempted" and the verb tense there, "being tempted", it implies an ongoing thing.
You know we're told of three specific temptations that the devil threw in Jesus direction as he was with him for 40 days,
but there may have been more.
And that verb kind of implies that there was more.
That it was an ongoing reality for him just as, just as it is for us.
Satan never takes a break. He never takes a nap.
He's always aware of where we are and he's always looking to get us to stumble.
Uh, the word Satan is very important because the word Satan is really a title.
It's a title that means something. It means enemy.
That Satan is not your friend. The one who's sending temptations your way, he is your enemy.
And he wants you to fall. He wants you to stumble.
He wants you to lose your faith.
There's a very small word in these verses that's also very important.
And that's the word "by". B-Y
And that is a word of very close proximity. Is that satan wasn't keeping his distance from Jesus.
He was breathing down his neck
Just as he is with you. He is in close proximity.
He's never far away and we need to take him seriously.
It says that Jesus was with the wild animals, which is kind of interesting.
But don't don't picture Jesus just sitting down
with with the lions and the tigers and petting them and having a good time with them.
These are the these are the wild, uncontrollable animals out in the desert.
And so Jesus was constantly on edge, looking over his shoulder, wondering what threat was going to come next.
That's also a very good picture of what happens with temptation.
And finally, it says that Jesus was "attended by the angels".
And that Jesus, even though he didn't give in to any of the temptations,
he was still tired and he still needed strength and he still needed encouragement.
And so all of those things together just paint a very, a very vivid picture of how seriously we need to take temptation
and how present we should expect it to be in every area of our lives, all the times.
But it also gives us some insight into how you can immediately escape it.
Do you know how you can immediately stop Satan from attacking your faith?
Don't care about your faith.
Don't care about it.
Don't worship God. Don't honor Jesus. Don't pray to him.
Don't carve out any time for him.
Stop caring about your faith and Satan will leave you alone.
But of course, you do care about your faith.
That's why you're watching this.
And because you care about your faith, there's something very important that you
need to be reminded of when it comes to temptation.
Your victory does not depend on the strength of your faith.
Your victory depends entirely on the strength of the Savior you have faith in.
There's a really awesome passage from the book of Revelation
that gives us some good insight into that.
It's in Revelation 17 and in that section it's talking about
leading up to that it's talking about many different enemies that attack God's family
and that want to rip his children away from him.
And then it says this. It says:
And that verse, it makes me think of what happened on Easter morning
before anybody on earth saw Jesus alive.
The Bible tells us that Jesus descended into hell.
And that wasn't his punishment. He wasn't going down to suffer hell.
He suffered hell as he was on the cross. He went down to hell to knock on Satan's door
to show Satan that he lost. He lost.
Jesus won and Satan lost. He did his worst work against God
and God won.
And the look on Satan's face and the feeling in his gut
is the one that sends him after you
because he wants you to feel that too.
But he won't. He won't.
Because standing in front of him that day is the same Savior in whom you put your faith.
The one who is Lord of every lord. The one who is King of every king.
The one who has already been proven to be more powerful than anything.
And the one who brings someone along with him.
Did you notice that?
With him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.
With him will be you.
Called and chosen by God's grace to be one of God's own children.
Keep your eyes focused on him, on that Savior,
and you will always find the strength to keep going against temptation