Overcoming Temptation: Obedience & God’s Promises
The On Target Institute presents a teaching from the Men On Target small group curriculum. Now with today's session, On Target founder, Vince Dacchioli. Man, how you doing? Welcome back to On Target Institute session number 16 and really the second in a powerful two-part series we're doing on obedience, the key to a life of power. Now in our last session you may recall that we unpacked this whole idea about the importance of obeying God and we talk about what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes and we showed you an example of what Jesus did by resisting the devil in the areas of hunger, pride and greed and we suggested to you a powerful relationship between obedience and power.
Another reminder, go to otm.co to download the resources and the notes for these sessions, it's very important that you do that. Now in this session we want to pick up where we left off with a question. What happens if I don't obey God? What happens if I don't resist temptations? Let's go into some warnings from Scripture.
Ecclesiastes 8-8 says this, no man has the power over the wind to contain it. So no one has power over the day of his death. As no one is discharged in time of war, listen guys, wickedness will not release those who practice it. Pretty straightforward verse. First Thessalonians 4-3-6, it is God's will that you should be sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.
It goes on to say, the Lord will punish men for all such sins as we have already told you and warned you. Luke 11-34, your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is full of light. But when they are bad, your body is also full of darkness. Now what happens if I don't resist?
Let's talk about that for a minute. And what I want to suggest to you is, I use an example, Pharaoh in Egypt. I call it like choice and consequences. Pharaoh in Egypt was not real smart. He kept getting warnings that if you don't do this, these consequences are going to happen and he just kept making bad choices.
Look what the Bible says about choice and consequences. In Job 8-4 it says, when your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin. There was a natural law at work here that God put into place, a spiritual law I should say, that if you're going to sin, there's going to be a penalty. When you will suffer the penalty, it says in Ezekiel 23-49, for your lewdness and bear the consequences of your sins of idolatry. Then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord.
Romans 1-27, in the same way men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received them themselves. Listen, the do penalty, it means it was coming to you, it was owed you. I know that may sound harsh, but God is saying to us, he's warning us that there's going to be penalties to pay for our behavior. So anyway, problem 6-27, can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?
I don't think so. Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? No. And the Bible says 1 Corinthians 5, 1533 says, Bad company corrupts good character. You hang out with that crowd, listen guys, you're going to become just like them.
It's a spiritual law and it is at work in every one of our lives. I like to use this filter to kind of illustrate this point. This happens to be a pre-filter for a water filtration system. The Bible, I love to use a water filter by the way, the Bible says that out of us should flow what? Rivers of living water.
Listen, imagine this is your choice chamber, that this is the place in our life where we make choices. The world does not see the flow that's going into our life, but it certainly does see the result in what's coming out the other end. And in our choice chamber, there are four forces that are going through every day. There's the world and what the world says you should do and how you should think and how you should be. There's your own flesh with its own desires and what it wants.
And then there's the devil. He certainly doesn't want you making wide choices. The world, the flesh, the devil, but there's also the Lord. And listen guys, depending upon the choices we make in our choice chamber ultimately determines the flow that comes out the other side. That's what the world sees.
So choice and consequences, we really have to remember how powerful this is. So how do I resist? How do I overcome? Two things. The first thing we need to understand is the importance of focusing on Jesus.
It's where we get the spiritual power. Look, I can try in my flesh sometimes to resist all day long, but how many of you know sometimes that's difficult. The good news is when you've got Jesus in your life, you now have a spiritual power available to you that when combined with your own ability to say no, there's nothing, man. There's nothing that we cannot overcome. But the second area is that we also have to get mentally tough.
Let's look at some examples. In Daniel 1-8, it says this, but Daniel resolved, in the New King James the words are, he purposed in his heart. He had moral courage. He resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in this way. In 1 Corinthians 9, 24-27, Paul says, do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize?
Run in such a way, he says, is to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, he says, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. No, I do not fight like a man beating the air.
What does he say? I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. In Psalm 101-4, it says, men of perverse heart shall be far from we. I will have nothing to do with evil. That has to be our attitude, men.
In Romans 13, 12-14, it says, the night is nearly over. The day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Put on Jesus. Okay?
And let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy, rather, it says, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus. And do not think, in other words, put out of your mind about how to gratify the desires of the sinful natures. Focus on him. Get mentally tough. Getting mentally tough.
I remember the story of old George Hallis, a Chicago Bear football coach. He was a legend in his own time. And George used to have a custom where he would go and watch the players scrimmage on the scrimmage field, the new rookies that would be out there. He'd watch them. And then after the scrimmage, they'd come up in the office area or in the locker room.
Even before they took a shower, they'd be waiting for George to come in and address them. And George would come and he'd do this every year. And he'd say to the guys, he says, you know, I've been watching you guys up here from my office. And I got to tell you something. In all my years of coaching, I have never seen a bunch of lily-lippered, whining, pathetic crop of rookies that have crept into the camp this year.
And I can imagine the rookies were thinking, boy, I hope he wasn't looking at me, you know. And he would challenge them. He'd say, I saw one of you guys. You went across the line, some big linebacker hit you, knocked you down, and you went whining off the field. You sprained your wrist and you went whining off the field.
He says, you think that's the kind of guy I want on this football team? And they would say, no. And he says, I can't hear you. And he'd get him yelling, no. What about the guy who gets knocked down and he gets back up and he gets knocked down again and he gets back up and he gets a little blood coming out of his nose.
He whines and goes off this field. Is that the kind of guy we want? And they'd say, no. What about the guy who gets down and he's up again? He gets knocked down.
It doesn't matter what happens to him. Bloody nose. He can break his finger. Nomadic pull of muscle. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. No matter how many times he's knocked down, he's back up. He's knocked down. He's back up. He's hit.
He's up. He's hit. He's up. Is that the kind of guy we want? And everybody said, yes.
He said, no. I want the guy who's hitting these guys. Yeah. Listen, some of you guys are getting hit and you're getting knocked down. It's time to get back up on your feet and start hitting back.
Quit being a victim. Now, let me close this out with talking about some of God's promises. These are very, very powerful promises. In Matthew 5, 8, it says, blessed are the pure in heart, the men who get the crud out of their life. Why?
For they will see God. You want to see God? Get your heart pure, guys. 1 Peter 3, 11 and 12, turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord, listen, are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer. James 4-7, submit yourself then to God. Focus on Jesus and then resist the devil. Get mentally tough and he will flee from you. In the Philippines, there's a particular monkey that is a delicacy.
And I don't know if you know this story, but you probably heard it. The hunters have devised an ingenious way to capture this monkey. They go out and they get a bunch of coconuts, drill a hole in it, just the right size hole, and inside that hole, they pour two ounces of cooked brown rice. They've discovered that this particular monkey craves cooked brown rice. They attach the coconut to a chain and stake it to the ground so it can't be removed.
The monkeys come from all over the forest and they stick their hand in that little tiny hole. And the anatomy of their wrist is such a way that when they make a fist and grab the brown rice, they can no longer get their hand back out of the coconut. And what they've discovered is that no matter what, no matter what, that monkey will never let go of that brown rice. In fact, what happens is they come gathering up, screeching, screaming. They take them and throw them in cages on trucks.
They literally have to break the coconuts off their hand later on and they ultimately bring them to their death. Here's my question for you men. What's your two ounces of brown rice? What are the things that you're hanging on to while they might not bring you to your physical death, although that is entirely possible, but worse, spiritual death, spiritual stagnation. Now, in keeping with our promise, let's look at life implication and life application.
What is the implication of all of this? If I am not focused on, if I am focused on my past, I will never discover God's unique plan for my life. If I am going to just live with all the garbage and all the sin that's in my life, I will never see his unique plan for my life. Life application, here are the discussion questions. What are the negative things that are getting through my filter?
What are the things that you've got the world of flesh and the devil coming through that we're supposed to be resisting? What are those negative things that are coming through your filter? Number two, what impact are they having on my life right now? And number three, am I ready to make a commitment right now to stop giving in to my temptation? Here's the deal, guys.
Go back to that first one. What are the negative things that are getting through? What are your two ounces of brown rice? And men, remember, until next time, I'm going to pray God richly blesses you today, but until next time, don't forget about it. And also, let's all become the man God intended.