Living Hope Fellowship Church

OVERCOMING TEMPTATION

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

OVERCOMING TEMPTATION

Preface

 (thoughts, preachers, devils, translated)

Luke 4:1-2 says, “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing. . . .”

God got Jesus into a place where He was totally reliant on Him.  He wasn’t being dealt with by devil powers, but by Satan himself. 

These three temptations of the devil against Jesus are the backbone and theme of every temptation that anybody will ever face.

What is God dealing with you about?  Why would the devil come at all except you have something precious for him to steal?  Give it to Jesus.  He knows all of your troubles.  He will give you victory over it and move you on to whip the enemy for other folks.  Believe it in Jesus’ name.

OVERCOMING TEMPTATION

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          Luke 4:1-14 says, “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.  And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.  And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.  And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.  If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.  And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:  For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:  And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.  And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.  And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.  And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.”

          Speaking of the same account, Mark 1:12 says, “. . . the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.”  As we study the temptations of Jesus, we can understand our lives as we press in with God ourselves.  Isn’t it something that as soon as Jesus was filled with the Holy Ghost, the first direction the Spirit took Him was to the wilderness where there was no hope, no help, and nobody to work with but God!

God got Jesus into a place where He was totally reliant on God.  He wasn’t being dealt with by devil powers, but by Satan himself.  That was identified on the second mention of temptation.  We should learn something from this.  These three temptations listed are not by any stretch of the imagination the only temptations He endured. 

The Bible says He was tempted forty days of the devil.  He had nothing to divert His attention away from those temptations such as eating, drinking, fellowship with believers or other activities that might divert His carnal thinking or His flesh.  He was in the wilderness and He had nothing else to do but deal with it.  There was no diversion or place to get away. 

These three temptations of the devil against Jesus are the backbone and theme of every temptation that anybody will ever face.  Every single one has to deal with IF - if you are who you say you are, then take your liberty and do thus and so. 

These are not the ONLY confrontations Jesus had with Satan.  At other times Satan appeared to Jesus as Lucifer, the Devil’s seductive form, his religious and self righteous form.  Satan is the Devil’s fallen, down cast, hopeless form.  Satan virtually means “fallen one”.  Lucifer means “light bearer”, but that has been twisted into untold agony for man. 

Every single one of these temptations denotes the very purpose and existence of Christ.  Jesus had to literally deal with, Who am I? What am I? Why am I here?  We have to deal with this also. 

Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Jesus was tempted the same as we are, with the same agony that we are, yet without sin.  Jesus had to encounter lust, covetousness, lust for power, and self indulgence.  These are all listed in these temptations that cover every situation of man’s depravity.  Jesus had to overcome these things before He could be a representative of God in the earth, as the Son of God.

When He came forth in His ministry, he had already defeated the devil he was going to face in other people.  Most Christians have not experienced it on this level yet, but if they go on with God, they will sooner or later experience each of those temptations. 

We will be tried.  When we create a device, we test it and overload it to see if it will withstand unusual pressures, things which it will probably not be subjected to on a regular basis.  However, we must be able to trust it in the event that things come against it we did not foresee.  This is a must in the life of every Christian.

The reason many do not exalt the higher positions in the church in the spiritual realm is that they have not passed the smaller tests.  Therefore God will not put them through the bigger tests.  If you can’t get past the flies, He won’t let you deal with camels. 

Jesus (mind, soul, body and spirit) was racked with the same temptations we face.  He knows what it feels like to be ashamed for having to walk around thinking such thoughts.  There is a difference between conjuring up your own thoughts or setting yourself up for them, OR them coming to you. 

As I speak to you now by whatever means, I have thoughts and I am sending them to you and placing them in your mind through your hearing and understanding if you willingly receive them.  What you DO with them is your responsibility. 

It is the same in the spiritual realm.  The enemy will bring you thoughts and ideas and purposes.  He will cause you to question or to assert yourself.  He is a spirit and can deal with man on various levels.  That is his position.  God does not just tolerate it or allow it; He ordains it. 

If you get saved, get ready; you WILL be tried.  You will be tempted to a great degree.  Where the line is, God knows, Satan claims, and you and I decide!  Satan says, If you go to this line you are finished.  You might as well go ahead and give up.  God says, No, it is much higher than that, and you can make it. 

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”  God makes a way to escape for the Christian.  If you are not saved, you don’t have a way to escape.  Whether you are tempted or not, you are lost anyway.  Unless you are born again, you won’t make it to heaven. 

The more of God you seek after, the more of Him you will receive, and the greater the temptations.  The greater your battles will be, because you are battling not just for yourself.  You are battling for others that you will minister to in the near or distant future.

Gethsemane was one of the most important battlegrounds we read about.  However, it would not have been there if this one was not dealt with first.  God literally set Jesus up for temptation.  As soon as He was filled with the Spirit, the Spirit took Him out of the way of men, and out of the way of religion, so He could not be defiled with false answers and solutions to temptation.  If Jesus would have asked counsel of any of the Pharisees, who later put Him up for crucifixion, He would have easily fallen for the devil’s wiles.  It was between Him, the Father, and the enemy.  The Father was by the Holy Ghost within Him.

We preach translation.  Two out of these three temptations involve translation.  Jesus was not translated by the Holy Ghost in these, but by the devil.  Jesus was moved physically under devil power in two of these three temptations.  Consider the amount of sway that would have on a man’s mind.  Consider the amount of seduction and power that came against him. 

Satan in his Luciferian form came to Jesus and swept Him up in his wicked wings and took Him up to the highest places of the Earth.  He showed Him all the kingdoms of this world.  He showed him the natural kingdoms, the powers of governments, armies, and political assemblies.  He also showed him the powers of hell that ran it.  His eyes were opened to see the spirit realm that controlled and dominated the natural realm. 

I can imagine that every time they passed by the principality that ruled over an empire the principality would nod his head at their presence and bow with due respect.  Satan would smile at Jesus and say, See, he reverenced me and he reverenced you because you are with me.  If you will listen to me and obey me and be moved by me, I will give all of this over to you.  Your father and you know it was handed over to me when Adam fell.  I can

Think about the kind of power in that seduction.  I mean the Son of God owned it all, yet He became a man and lost it all in a sense for a time that He might become one of us.  We lost it all, and He had to know what that felt like.  Satan understood at least some of this, and he passed Him over the kingdoms of the world.  He showed him the peon powers all the way up to the great princes that rule over kingdoms. 

Temptation is specifically designed for you; it is tailor made for you.  The devil can come to me, for example, with cigarettes.  He can’t begin to faze me with that, but he can drive some people crazy.  He would come to me with something else that you would disdain as nothing.  Many times it is what we were in before we got saved.  Sometimes it is a strange and fiery trial, but God makes a way to escape, that we are not destroyed.

Since I have been born again and filled with the Spirit of God, temptations are much greater than what I had in the world.  Those things have no influence against me.  When you press on with God and get the Holy Ghost, you take on God like qualities that threaten the principalities and the rulers of darkness of this world.  They try to stop you, and quickly!

The Son of God entered the world and Satan tried his best to kill him.  It didn’t work, and here He was about 30 years old.   Now He is baptized and is walking in the perfection of the law.  He never got into sin, and now He is filled with the same power that threw Satan out of heaven.  What is next?  Satan thought, I’ve got to stop this man. 

Everything that goes on in our lives, God already knows about.  He ordained temptation before the beginning of the world.  Mathew 3:17 says, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  [He said it again at the mount of transfiguration, but He couldn’t have said it then if He hadn’t first said it here.]  Jesus then went into temptation to prove Him.  Jesus wrestled day and night against temptation and the devil in these times in the wilderness. 

In every temptation and trial Job had, God drew a line and told the devil he could not cross that line.  The debate is where the line is!  We think it is here, and the devil says it is over there somewhere, and God says it is way up yonder.  We say if we go way out yonder we are dead men.  That is what God is after; a dead man can’t be tempted.  The Lord can’t be tempted.  If we get in Christ, we are subject to Him, and we cannot be tempted with evil. 

We have to go through the temptation to defeat the temptation.  Jesus went through the temptation before He could command the storms.  He defeated the devil on a personal level before He could cast devils out.  He had the power, the commission, and the ministry, so what did He lack?  God said now He had to be tried, and God set Him up for it.  God set sets you and me up for it. 

Trials and temptations are close kin.  Sometimes trials people go through are because of sin, and they have fallen in a trap.  It is not always an affliction of the righteous; sometimes it is the way of the transgressor.  Proverbs 13:15 says, “. . . the way of transgressors is hard.”  Don’t confuse the two.

We are talking about temptation.  Sometimes we are tempted to do something about the trial.  We get in a hard place, and we decide how to get out of it.  That is what stuck out in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus’ humanity cried out to get out of it.  He had already gone through the 40 days of temptation plus approximately three and a half years of all the other things He dealt with.  Jesus knew he was going to become sin, that which He hated.  You have to understand what that means.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 

What if you woke up one morning and looked in the mirror and realized you have become that which you hate the worst?  Multiply that a billion times, and that was what Jesus faced when He said in Mark 14:36, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

He did not wake up and become it, He was walking right into it in obedience to the Father.  He had to become sin that we might become righteous through Him. 

He had to go through temptation.  We have to go through temptation.  It is ordained, but how we come out of it is another matter.  We can choose the evil or we can choose the good.  You say you have been given a “situation”.  It was ordained, because nothing happens that God does not know about.  God knows the thoughts of the devil, the thoughts of the wicked, and the thoughts of the righteous.  The devil can’t do anything God does not know about. 

I can imagine the devil saying, If you are going to ascend to high places in God, if you are going to draw all men unto you, well, you are going to starve to death out here.  You are going to die like this.  He gets very personal with us, and if any of our normal human functions or rights are not fully met, we think we are going to die.  People have died trying to compensate for the lack thereof.

Temptation never killed anybody.  It is what we do with the temptation.  When Jesus came out of this, He came out in the power of the Spirit.  There was no humanity as far a personal desire left, because it had all been denied.  So called civilized society is taught to continue to feed personal desires and purposes and dreams.  A certain part of that is ok, but it takes the focus off of God and puts it on you. 

In every temptation there is a chance for the devil to achieve some of his highest goals in your life or to be put under your feet.  It is not a marginal or lukewarm thing.  Either he is going to be on top or he is going to be on the bottom.  He won’t be in the middle long.  You will have to directly deal with the enemy.

 Notice also that there was conversation with the devil.  You can’t overcome temptation without conversation with its source.  Jesus spoke back to the tempter.   He called the temptation what it was.  He quoted scripture back from the Word of God, even when the enemy quoted scripture to him.  He talked to the thing.  I have trouble getting Christians to talk to the thing.  People say they feel silly, but it will be worse if you yield to it.  You lose your walk with God and your witness.

Say, Devil, get thee behind me!  You may have to do it every five minutes.  You are dealing with something that walks about seeking whom he may devour.  You and I are no exception whatsoever.  No matter how high or how low you get, he wants you dead and in the pit.  He can’t get saved, and he hates you and me, because we can. 

When you got filled with the Spirit things get worse, because you are a bigger threat.  You may say, Wouldn’t it be better to just wait till you are almost dead and then get saved and you wouldn’t have to put up with all of this?  What fruit would there be in that?  What love of God would be in that?  All your trophies would be Luciferian trophies, because either you live for Jesus, or you live for the devil.  If you just sit like a slug all of your life, your nothingness would be a trophy for the enemy. 

These temptations are written down for our admonition for us to read and understand.  I believe there were thousands of words said between Jesus and the devil in those forty days and nights.  Most of those nights, I doubt that Jesus slept.  That is why He had to come back in the power of the Spirit.  He was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, mentally ragged out completely.  There wasn’t one drop of humanity left to resist the devil; it was all by the Holy Ghost.  Folks, if you need to get a hold of a reason to be filled with the Spirit of Almighty God, here it is.

When you consider the Holy Ghost as an option as a Christian, you consider the devil a plaything at times.  If Jesus needed the Holy Ghost to defeat the devil and to whip him soundly, how much more do we need the Holy Ghost? 

The devil hoped Jesus had not fully decided, that Jesus didn’t fully have confirmation in His own soul that what God said He was going to do, He was going to do.  It is the same with you and me.  The devil does not tempt you in your strong area. 

We get down on our knees and say, Oh, God, whatever it takes.  We have walls built up in areas that are our strength, but the devil comes through the back door!  He hits us with temptation, and we say that is not fair! However, sometimes God shows the devil where the back door is at.  He did it with Job.  The devil said he couldn’t get to him, but God showed him a spot he missed. 

A devil will come and tempt us, and another devil will come around and quiet our nerves.  Satan has always done this, and we are drop dead stupid to his tactics.  The devil will come in and hammer and hammer.  He backs off and you say, I barely made it.  I am about to fall over.  Here comes another devil to keep you company.  He won’t tempt you, but he seduces you, and you fall.  The first one will come back and hammer again, because the second one walked about, looked him in the eyes and said, I took them with one finger.  Who are you?  The devils compete with one another to see who goes in first, to see who the lead devil will be.  When you cast them out, the first one in is the last one out.  That is helpful information for those who are into casting out devils.

Some of your diversions can turn into perversions, because they are led by the devil.  Some temptations are not sin in themselves.  Eating is an example.  It would have been sin for Jesus to turn those stones into bread because Satan wanted him to.  When Satan wants you to do something and you do it, even if it isn’t sin normally, because he wants you to and you obey him, it is sin.

When Satan legitimizes something, it is a sin.  There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent.  At times, speaking is not sin.  In fact, if you don’t speak, it could be sin, but if God says don’t speak, and the devil says you have to speak and you do, you sin!  If God says speak and the devil says don’t, and you don’t, you sin! 

We get grieved when something does not turn out right.  Perhaps you listened to the devil and not God!  God wants to take us through temptations so we will know the voice of the devil, and we will know the voice of God, and we will know the voice of self. 

Jesus crucified self in these things.  He had to do it again in Gethsemane, but it had a totally different focus.  First it had to do with His ministry completely, but in Gethsemane it had to do with Himself and WHO He was. 

Some people avoid temptations, and in the avoidance there is sin and the devil still gets you.  Many people do not want to deal with their sin where they are coming short of the glory of God.  They have been dealt with, and it was confirmed by the Word of God, and prophecy, and by the general word in preaching. 

If you never go to Gethsemane, you will never see the resurrection.  You will be literally driven into the wilderness by the Spirit of God.  I am talking about people whom God is making sons of God.  If you want to be lukewarm, that is your business.  People whom God is making sons of God must face the devil.  It is ordained of God that you face him.

If you stay in a defensive mode, you cannot defend anyone else.  You have to be in offensive mode and get the victory in your own right; then you can get the victory for others. You cannot pray the prayer of faith for your own children if your own life is not lined up with God.  You can criticize them, but if you haven’t gone into the deeper things yourself, they have no guide, no one interceding for them.  The devil does not have to bend the knee to your prayer.  This is what is wrong with the church. 

In a tense moment we think we have to hurry up and get through it.  We get so focused on our carcass!  Some little thing gets out of whack, and we take a pill.  We have a little ache or pain, and we holler.  Get over it.  We have spiritual matters we must get a hold of.  Sometimes that pain in your back is a devil power that has latched onto you, and there is nothing wrong in your body.  There is something wrong in your soul, and in your spirit.  You have to kick the devil out of the way and make him get out.  He is having a heyday in your life.  Sooner or later he plans to plant infirmity and an infirm spirit will go in and eat you for breakfast.

God wants us delivered from this.  We need to be an adamant church, a vigilant church, a people that are not afraid of the devil or his whiles.  We need to be such, where we cannot be seduced by the way of the world or the devil, because only God is our master.  Only God interests us, and He is the only outcome of our interest.  We have to get our focus right. 

The devil took Jesus up and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple.  The Bible says he physically picked Him up.  This is astounding to me.  I don’t see how the devil was able to do that to Jesus the Son of God, a man filled with the Holy Ghost with the kind of commission that He had from Almighty God.  The devil got a hold of Him and picked Him up and translated Him – mind, body, soul and spirit – and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple.  That is like setting Him on top of a church steeple somewhere. 

He was teetering on the brink of one of those.  The devil was there looking at him, probably grinning.  I can imagine him saying, You know if I let go of you, you are going to fall.  You will spill your guts out all over those rocks down there.  In other words, You are going to have to hold on to me for a while.  It works on your head doesn’t it?

Jesus knew He did not have to hold on to Satan, because one word from His Father, and He would put Satan in the pit right then.  Nevertheless, he had a little season to work yet on the earth.  If Jesus had been afraid for His personal life, He would have been afraid the devil would have given Him a shove.  He didn’t have any fear of what the devil could do to Him. 

We have lost the fear of God and picked up the fear of the enemy.  In direct proportion that we have lost our fear of God, we have picked up our fear of the devil’s ability to give us disease, sickness, affliction, insanity, and loss of life and finances.  We made the shift, and that is precisely what the devil wanted. 

He told Jesus to go ahead and jump off then, but Jesus told him that would be tempting God to catch Him.  It would twist Psalm 91:12 that says, “They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” 

If we are following God, God’s angels will bear us up.  They have to.  Psalm 34:7 says, “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”

However, if we do it at the enemy’s prompt, the very same person would be in the wrong.  People would be asking, Why did he die? Why were they destroyed?  Why did they backslide?  It depends on how we react to God in the face of the devil!

Psalm 23:5 says, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. . . .”  A lot of times we are tempted through intimidation.  We begin to praise and worship the Lord and peripheral vision should be cut off at that time.  Our eyes need to look “right on” as the Bible says, but we glance at what our neighbor is doing, especially if they are giving us that look – Get real.  Calm down.  It’s not that good in here.  Quit that.  It could be your spouse, your children, your folks, or a host of people.  It could be your leader, but consider the fruit in their life.   

The Bible says God will save people eternally through the foolishness of preaching.  What will He do when they just get foolish and praise Him?  He inhabits it.  David danced before the Lord one day.  He peeled his coat right off and started praising the Lord, and Michael his wife looked through the window and mocked him.  Good thing she wasn’t in the service. 

A lot of times people will rejoice with you, and they will be encouraged when they know what you are going through.  Not that you reveal what you are going through so much, but sometimes it can’t be hid.  It is what you do in spite of it, not because of it, because you love God.  You are going on with God.

There are a lot of things we don’t understand, but when you are in Christ, you have to do some things.  This pulpit, this work, is not a job.  If it was a job, I’d go somewhere else.  It is a calling, and you can’t get away from it.  If you haven’t had it, you will not understand it.  When you are called, it doesn’t matter how stupid you look, how crude you look, or tempted, common or degraded or dirty you appear, you are still called.   Romans 11:29 says, “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” 

God doesn’t say you are the wrong person. He does not say He shouldn’t have called you.  God doesn’t make mistakes.  We see these things and we say, God, how could you let Jesus go through this?  He knew you and I were going to have to go through it.

1 Peter 4:12 says, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:”  We DO think it is strange.  It IS to try you, and it is business as usual in the spirit realm. 

1 Peter 4:13 says, “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”  He is not talking about the glory out yonder, because the warfare is going on here, and the glory of the Lord is going to be revealed here. 

Those who have endured temptation and have come out on top have an anointing that other people do not have.  People who have suffered for the cause of Christ, not for their wickedness, not for their carnality, but have suffered because they are God’s, have an anointing that others do not have. 

Check the difference between one man’s faith and another’s.  One man prays for you and you get very little.  Another man prays for you and bang it is done.  It is not that one man is better than the other, but this man has been beaten up more than the other and has come out on top anyway.  He has endured temptation and won.  There is an anointing on dead men (dead to self, flesh, and carnality).  The deader they are, the greater the anointing.  They have no charisma of their own; it is all the Spirit of God. 

So many of us refuse to die!  Temptation destroys us in our walk if we yield to it.  At the same time, it destroys our old nature if we say yes to Jesus and don’t yield to temptation.  Something is dying all the time, either the new man or the old.  We will that the old man would die, but we intercede and complain and cry for him.  We mourn his passing right and left and then we try to resurrect him.  Ahhhhh - I am dying here! 

This is natural.  However, Romans 8:13 says, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”  Colossians 3:5 says, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:”

We are all tempted.  We have all sinned.  Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

The farther along I get, the more I believe for, and the longer this thing goes, it becomes mental hell day and night.  I am not bragging on the devil, because the Lord has got the victory. 

You will be tempted.  You may say, How could I have thought those things?  How could I have allowed THAT?  Where did that come from?  I didn’t know I was capable of thinking such.  You start thinking and making plans how you are going to do it.  Satan brought ideas to Jesus, and he will bring them to you.  Tell him what is written in God’s Word!  Pray through.

  Hebrews 12:11 says, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

Make sure you don’t look so hard at somebody else.  You realize you have the capacity to do the same thing they are doing. 

God ordained temptations; they have a purpose.  It drives us to do what we say we are.  It causes us to be proven so that God will approve of us.  God commends no one until they have overcome the enemy, line upon line and precept upon precept.  God help us to stand upright before Him in all humility and readiness of mind that we would walk just like Jesus.  He went through this for us, and we must go through it for others. 

What is God dealing with you about?  Why would the devil come at all except you have something precious for him to steal?  Give it to Jesus.  He knows all of your troubles.  He will give you victory over it and move you on to whip the enemy for other folks.  Believe it in Jesus’ name.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail 

 livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.