Nobleton Community Church
29084 Sentinel Street PO Box 224
Nobleton, Florida 34661
Rev. Paul V. Lehmann, Pastor
813-389-8683
Nobletoncommunitychurch.org
info@nobletoncommunitychurch.org
OUR VISION IS:
To experience SPIRIT-FILLED WORSHIP AND PRAYER
To be involved in EVANGELISM, DISCIPLINING AND TRAINING PEOPLE
To use our SPIRITUAL GIFTS
To SERVE AND REACH PEOPLE FOR CHRIST, BOTH
“ACROSS THE STREET AND ACROSS THE WORLD”
Nobleton Community Church
Date January 26, 2025
Text: James 1:9-18
Pastor Paul Lehmann
The title of my message this morning is: “The Blame Game. ”This is something that is in human nature. We seemingly have to always find someone to blame when things go wrong. Because of certain circumstances in life, some people don’t blame others, but they continually blame themselves. Both of these positions are wrong. When Eve sinned by disobeying God and she ate of the tree that God had forbidden them to eat of, she gave the fruit to Adam. When God questioned Adam about why he was ashamed, He asked Adam if he had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam blamed his wife. The woman YOU gave me, gave the fruit to me. Then Eve says, the serpent deceived me. Now the scripture says that she took some fruit and ate it, and then gave some to her husband who was WITH HER. Adam stood by and allowed his wife to sin and then joined her. Each of them found someone to blame, and we have been blaming each other or Satan ever since.
A dog food company’s newest product was not selling well. The president called in his management staff. “How’s our advertising?” he asked. “Great,” replied the advertising executive. This Ad campaign will probably win the industry’s top award this year.” All right, the president continued, How about our product design?” The production manage spoke up, “It’s great, our new label and packaging scored high in every marketing test we ran.” Hmmm.–Well, how’s our sales staff? Are they doing their job?? The sales manager was quick to respond. Oh sure. Our people are the best in the business. There was a heavy silence as the president thought about what he’d just heard. “We’ve got great advertising, great packaging, a top-notch sales force, yet this product is coming in dead last in the dog food market. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be?
Everyone looked at each other—Finally, one brave soul spoke up. “It’s those stupid dogs, sir, They just won’t touch the stuff.”
Now that’s getting pretty bad when we blame the dogs for a faulty product.
There are some people that have turned their back on God because they blame him for tragedy in their life. Sometimes it isn’t a particularly awful thing in their life, but it was a time of trial. In the first few verses of this chapter, we see that; Trials of many kinds produce perseverance. They should help us to become more mature and complete in our faith. If it doesn’t produce more faith, it is because we are not believing in God like we should, and we are doubting when things get tough. We become like a boat that is bobbing around on the waves, first one way and then the other, and this makes us unstable in all of our ways. It makes us double-minded, we could say double-souled, which shows the depth of our doubt. It goes deep down to the depths of our very being and character.
We read in verse 12 that; The man who perseveres under trial is blessed. We are counseled in verse 13 that: “WHEN WE ARE TEMPTED—NO ONE SHOULD SAY, ‘GOD IS TEMPTING ME’. FOR GOD CANNOT BE TEMPTED BY EVIL, NOR DOES HE TEMPT ANYONE.”
It is hard to accept that trials are good for us and that God would be teaching us something through them. We are told that we are to consider it pure joy to go through trials. This sounds ridiculous when you are going through hardship or trials, but James insists that when we persevere we are blessed. When we have stood the test we will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
So many times, we see the evil side of the trials. There is a good side (just as he promises—Paul says in Romans 8:28 that; “all things work together for good (or for the good of) those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” It becomes an agency in the education of our spiritual character and the strengthening of all the better elements of our nature.
So once again —the same Greek word is used, but the other meaning for it. First, it is “trials” that we go through, now it is temptations. “When tempted no one should say God is tempting me” While temptation is not directly from God, yet it is overruled by God, and made one of His instrumentalities of blessing to us, “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” Yet, God PERMITS us to be tempted. As I reminded you, at the beginning of the message; God put Adam and Eve in a position where they were tempted and He made it possible for them either to choose or refuse; He gave them a nature subject to temptation, and while it might overcome them, it might also be overcome. God does not tempt any person, yet He does allow this to be “one of the classes in the school of faith and holiness”. He even led Jesus Christ, His own son, into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. So we shouldn’t think that it is strange if we are called to pass through the ordeal of this conflict—evil from within and from without, not merely things that grieve, afflict, and distress us, (like the trials mentioned in the first few verses,) but also the things that tend to make us do wrong and draw us from the path of righteousness, truth and godliness.
In I Corinthians 10:13 Paul tells us that: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Now the key here is that we recognize “the way out.” God may be trying to help us to withstand some temptation, but instead of recognizing the escape route—the exit sign, we just go right ahead fulfilling our lustful nature, or following our own will, instead of God’s will.
So the temptations will come! God wants you to be forewarned and forearmed, and to know it is better that they should come to you, if you take the covering of God and come through in victory. Once again; “we shouldn’t blame God when we are tempted—We shouldn’t even blame Satan and say “the Devil made me do it!). We also shouldn’t blame God when we go through trials.
WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF TEMPTATION?
We should never forget where the source of temptation came from. “Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.” (verse 14). Temptation comes from your own heart. There are innumerable tempters: men, women, and fallen spirits of wickedness. But none have any power unless we have within ourselves—a traitor in the inner recesses of our hearts. The enemy cannot get in unless you let him in.
The phrase “dragged away and enticed”(NIV) or “lured and enticed” (RSV) has the idea of being caught in a trap and carried away by our captor, and the word “enticed” in Greek means “to bait a hook.” Both the hunter and the fisherman use bate to capture their unwary prey. No animal would deliberately step into a trap or snap at a hook if it understood the nature of traps and hooks. Traps promise one thing but give another. James is telling us that the bait that attracts us conceals deadly poison. If only we believed God’s warnings!
When we lived in Michigan, somehow we got a mouse in our house. It showed up once in our family room and once in the laundry room. So we set two mouse traps. We had heard that peanut butter worked good to catch mice, so we put some peanut butter on the trap in the family room, and we put the traditional cheese bate on the trap in the laundry room. Well the mouse somehow was able to lick the peanut butter off the trap in the family room, but the cheese that we had pushed down hard on the trap in the laundry room –got him.
But just as we use a mouse trap to catch mice; Satan does that to us too.
Sometimes we are tempted by the peanut butter so to speak, and we can nibble in the temptation, and we think, that’s not so bad. But another day Satan sets a trap with a “cheese” temptation, and we are caught, snared, hooked, and it can lead to death.
So once again, he can only do this if we let him. Now the only exception to this is when it comes to “generational spirits.” It’s only Westerners who deny that this is possible. Others in the world know that sometimes because of the sins of the parents, who allow curses to be put on their children before they are born or are still in the womb, their children are unknowingly subject to this kind of demonic bondage. Sometimes the parents are unaware that this has happened. When the child grows up there is a foothold of evil that cannot be shaken, even when they have received Christ as Savior.
The root of the bondage or generational curses, deliberately or ignorantly invoked because of parental involvement with the occult. Deuteronomy 18:10-13 tells us: “ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and because of these detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.”
For us today we may have another list, a list of things that may separate us from God. These may be things involving the Occult.
Included in this list, but not limited to it is, playing with the Ouija Board, Numerology or Horoscope readings, automatic writing, astral projection, levitation, Séances (which includes what we read— consulting the dead through mediums, divination, even water witching, (which many of our ancestors used to find water to dig for wells), astrology, or any of the Eastern Religions, parental bondage to drugs, in short, any form of bondage to evil spirits or serious abnegation of responsibility can expose their children to evil spirits.
Even though someone in your family was involved in some or even one of these, it doesn’t automatically mean that you will be affected. I don’t understand how this works, or why some live in bondage because of something in their past, while others achieve victory in their lives by accepting Christ. I just know that sometimes, professing Christians can’t seem to make any spiritual progress and they wonder why. After counseling and finding out about their own past, or their parents or grandparents, or aunts or uncles, it is discovered that either a deliberate curse was put upon them, or at the very least their relatives or ancestors were involved with some form of evil practice that Satan used to get a foothold in their lives.
The good news is that one doesn’t have to stay in this kind of condition. Deliverance is available.
It is so sad to see well-intentioned people (including some pastors), keep prodding someone to pray more, read the Word more, be more disciplined, etc., when they have some besetting problem that binds them. All the while what they need is deliverance from some form of demonization. It is obvious though that originally someone fell to temptation by the evil one. Perhaps as we read in verse 15 of our text; “after desire has conceived (there had to be a desire to see something happen, to experience something, to have help through demons, even though most of the time in our culture we don’t even think about their involvement.)—So next it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
The counsel is given in verse 16: DON’T BE DECEIVED!
That is, don’t be deceived into thinking that somehow God is the author of our temptation. So in spite of the facts I have mentioned about how the force of evil can come onto someone because of past generations of evil, it boils down to the fact that we hold the key to the fortress, so to speak. It is in our own heart that the battle is fought.
Two young boys sat down for lunch at school. One opened his lunchbox and began to gripe.“Baloney again?” This is the fourth day in a row! I’m sick and tired of baloney!”
His friend said, “I’ll bet if you just tell your mom you don’t like baloney, she’ll fix you something else.” —“Mom!?”—replied the first kid. “I fix my own lunches”
Talk about not taking responsibility for our own actions.
We can deny any responsibility for sinful actions too. We can say, when we can’t get the victory, —“The devil made me do it.” Or “ I just can’t help myself!” But this is just a cop-out, when all the while your will is to continue in the bondage, (even if you didn’t have anything to do with the origin.) Sometimes when we do know of a problem, like abuse by someone when we were young, we might hang on to this as an excuse for our lack of self-confidence or our behavior today when we are an adult.
I have seen deliverance sessions, where the demons speak and say, “he or she doesn’t want me to leave—I am (his or her) security” And finally the person has to be willing to be delivered, and receive the comforting power of the Holy Spirit instead of demons.
Now the more common problem is that in our own hearts, we just like sin. It is our own lust, our own desire or coveting, which is the literal translation, the thing in you that wants to do the wrong, your wish for it, even if it is not yet your will. This is the starting place of temptation. It is that blossom of sin. And this is where God Wants to bring His sanctifying grace and take away the very desire. You see this is what God is longing to take away from us—the desire for you to do what you know is wrong—whatever it is that is against His will.
The Lord Jesus passed through the powers of darkness and the allurements of the world and all the evil that was around Him and was proof against it. He could say “The Prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me.”(John 14:30). It is in the heart that temptation has its starting point. Ask God to give you a true and holy desire to please Him, and an instinctive repugnance and recoil from evil and sin, and so long as you have this, you shall not fall into temptation. Don’t go where sin abounds. Don’t go where you can be tempted. Alcoholics have trouble being around alcohol. It is possible that they can be tempted by it. However, I have heard the testimonies of (former) alcoholics, (that’s what I would say, even though AA teaches that you are always an alcoholic) but they may have been sober for many years. I could be around alcohol anywhere including a bar, and never be tempted, because I can’t stand the taste or even the smell of it. That be as it may, addictions are powerful.
The point is we shouldn’t be around people or things that tempt us. Don’t hang out with those who will drag you down, until you are delivered from the desire to participate in the sin of unbelievers. Once you are in victory, then be with them in order to win them. Too often we never make it back, but our unsaved contacts drop off and we don’t know how to reestablish contact.
You see, the Lord wants to give you the gift of salvation and eternal life if you haven’t yet received it. He wants to give you the power and authority of His Holy Spirit so that you can walk in victory and not fall to temptation.
And then to be able to testify, and witness to others about what the Lord has done for you. He wants to help you walk in victory over past sinful habits, and not fall to temptation. When Christ comes into your life you want to tell others what has happened. Don’t keep it a secret. Don’t stay silent about it. Other Christians will rejoice with you, and people who don’t yet know the Lord, will be intrigued, as long as you don’t preach at them, but just share your testimony. They will have nothing to argue with you about.
Verse 17 says; “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadow.”
This is a lot different than sending temptation. God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. The concept of goodness rules out the possibility that God would send an influence as destructive as temptation. God’s gifts are marked by kindness and helpfulness, not destructiveness. They are “perfect” which in this context excludes any possibility of moral evil, such as tempting his people to commit sin. The point of James’ statement is that nothing but good comes from God.
What does it mean; “The Father of the heavenly lights?” Some translations do not have the word heavenly, but it certainly is implied when it says; “from above.” The amplified version says; “It comes down from the Father of all (that gives) light, in (the shining of)…light.
The context seems to indicate that the lights referred to are the sun and moon, or the One who created them—and who has sovereignty over them. Unlike the “shifting shadows” we see in the difference between the sun at noon, and the shadows or seasonal changes we see as the position of the sun changes or even the moon. God does not change. With him there is no variation at all.
He is always the giver of good gifts, never a sadistic being who would entice his creatures to destroy themselves in sin.
However he does allow temptations to come. The battle does you good. The conflict educates us, strengthens us, establishes us, and –It is necessary for us that we may be grounded and settled and finally approved and rewarded. One of the best results of temptation is that it shows us what is in our own hearts. It reveals ourselves. Until temptation comes, we feel strong and self-confident; but: When the keen edge of the adversary’s weapon has pierced our soul, we have more sympathy with others and less confidence in our own self-sufficiency.
We are humiliated and broken at His feet and helpless: and this is the best thing that can happen to us. God wants to disarm us and lay us low, and then He can lift and save us and give us eternal life. The word of truth is the gospel; and by the sending of this “good news,” it is God’s purpose that we should be reborn, into a new life. When the gospel of Jesus Christ enters into our life; that is, when He comes in, He produces NEW LIFE—“we are new creations, the old has gone and the new has come.” The shadows are ended, and the certain Word of TRUTH has come; The truth that never changes, just like God.