Slaying the Giant of Temptation | Dr. David Jeremiah | 1 Corinthians 10:12-14
Slaying the Giant of Temptation | Dr. David Jeremiah
Message Description:
Do you ever feel alone and powerless when you’re facing temptation? It’s comforting to know that the Bible gives many examples of people who faced temptation. No one is exempt from encountering this snare. David Jeremiah reminds us that God is not absent but present as we face temptations. In his message, “Slaying the Giant of Temptation,” David teaches how to gain victory in our weak moments.
“Refuse to Live by Lies We must also remain true to the truth. Proverbs 29:12 says, “If a ruler pays attention to lies, all his servants become wicked.”
― Dr. David Jeremiah, Where Do We Go from Here?: How Tomorrow’s Prophecies Foreshadow Today’s Problems
There are several good protections against temptation.
But the surest is cowardice, be a coward when it comes to temptation. Run.
First of all, we’re to retreat from idolatry.
It says in first Corinthians 10 14, therefore, my beloved flee from idolatry. That’s right here in this passage.
We’re studying. What does that mean? We don’t usually bow down to idols.
We don’t have idol shelves in our house. But an idol is anything that gets between you and God.
And the Bible says that when you begin to realize that something is taking the place of God in your life, you need to flee from that, get away from it as far as you can.
Don’t let anything become an idol in your life.
Secondly, it says we’re to flee immorality twice in the New Testament.
We’re told that in first Corinthians 6 18, it says, flee sexual immorality.
In Second Timothy 2 22 it says, flee youthful lusts. There’s something very uniquely special about sexual temptation.
Nothing is as profound as the word of God.
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Go forth to face foes, greater mightier than ourselves.
Giants, great giants, cruel.
But let us not run from the battle. Run to victory for our God.
Goes before us as a consuming fire that we may fight the giant of fear.
Destroy the giant of discouragement.
Be liberated from loneliness, win over worry, guard ourselves from guilt tame the giant of temptation attack, anger, disarm doubt when we feel overtaken and find freedom in defeating failure.
Our God will slay the giants in the land and bring them down before us through his power.
We shall drive them out and destroy them quickly as the Lord has promised us, do not be afraid our God will be with us.
He will empower us. We can defeat our giants.
We can win the battle, we can live victorious through the bible.
God has promised to provide the tools we need to overcome every fear, every failure, every temptation, every giant remind yourself of God’s promises with turning points.
Giant Slayer scripture cards. Each card features specifically selected verses to help you overcome the giants in your life, full color and bookmark sized.
These powerful reminders can be tucked into your Bible or displayed on your desk as you gear up for battle each day.
Request yours today. In a Frank and earnest cartoon, the two characters are standing before a priest and Frank says, how come opportunity only knocks once but temptation knocks on my door every day.
Yeah, I guess it was Oscar Wilde, the Irish wit who one time was quoted as saying, I can resist everything but temptation.
Some of us have felt that same powerlessness in our own lives from time to time.
The fact is that every one of us are going to face temptations of one sort or another.
No one is immune from the devices of Satan.
And no matter how old or how young we may be, how new we may be in the faith or how old we may be in the faith.
We all need to hear what God has to say to us on this important issue.
For temptation is a giant that is winning the war in many people’s lives.
Some of you here today feel a great sense of defeat in your own life because temptation has taken control of your very existence.
I want you to open your bibles if you will today to the book of First Corinthians and the 10th chapter and verses 12 through 14, where we have a word from God through the personal writing of the Apostle Paul concerning this important subject.
And I especially hope that our young people will listen carefully because if we can learn how to deal with temptation, young in life, we will not stumble at it all the rest of our existence.
Unfortunately, a lot of young people learn the wrong lessons early in life and then they spend the rest of their life trying to figure out how to overcome it.
Listen to the word of God from first Corinthians 10 verse 12.
Therefore, let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man.
But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
Therefore, my beloved flee from idolatry.
I do not know how it was that Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians.
But in my imagination, at least I consider it to be something like this as you well know, Corinth was one of the most wicked of all the cities in New Testament times, the Corinthian people, while they were Christians came out of a culture that was decadent far more than we can imagine.
And I just assume in my mind that perhaps one day Paul got a letter from a young man in Corinth who said, you know, Paul, I gave my heart to Christ and I’m a Christian.
And yet I did not understand that when I became a Christian, all of these temptations would continue and my passions are just as they were before I got saved.
And I’m facing some of the same challenges before.
And Paul, I didn’t expect that and I don’t know what to do with it.
And perhaps Paul sat down and wrote this section of his letter to help a young man like that, to help him understand what he needed to do with temptation in his life.
The first thing that he does to help him and to help us is to make sure that he knows and that we know that temptation is a common experience of every single person.
Notice what he says at the beginning of the 13th verse, he says, no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man.
One of the things that happens to us when we’re undergoing temptation is that we think this is something uniquely designed for us that no one else has ever faced, the kind of temptation that we’re facing.
And yet here is God’s word telling us that temptation is common, that it is a very human experience that we will all face it.
And it is so subtle and perverse that there is no hope for us except in God.
But we need to mark it down in our notebooks that we are not singled out for special treatment by the enemy or allowed to have special treatment by the enemy on behalf of God.
But everybody faces temptation. In fact, if you look through the Old Testament. You will find many examples of temptation.
There was Abraham and his lying about his wife. Do you remember that?
And there was Noah and his drunkenness and David and his sexual sin and his murder of Uriah and Jonas rebellious spirit against God.
And then you go to the New Testament and you find out that in the New Testament, humans were experiencing the same kinds of problems because there was Peter’s denial of the Lord and and John marks defection and the in the exchange between Paul and Barnabas.
And as you read through the New Testament, you see that many of the same temptations that we face today, we’re faced by people in New Testament times because Paul says temptation is a very common experience.
It is very human. In fact, this will surprise some of you.
Even the blessed Lord Jesus Christ was tempted four.
It says in Hebrews 4 15 that we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but was in all points tempted as we are yet apart from sin, Jesus Christ, the holy blessed Son of God, the perfect son of God was tempted in every area just as we are tempted.
Yet he never sinned whatever else we may take away from this passage in Hebrews.
We must remember this one truth we have to keep in mind is that temptation in itself is not sin.
Sometimes people come to me and talk to me about their temptations.
And I don’t want to know about their temptations so much is whether or not they yielded to them.
Temptation is not sin. It’s when we yield to temptation that we sin was Martin Luther who said you can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can surely keep them from making a nest in your hair.
That’s the difference between temptation and sin.
Another writer by the name of J Wilbur Chapman once said that temptation is the tempter looking through the keyhole into the room where you are living, but sin is drawing back the bolt and making it possible for him to enter the room.
And J Allen Peterson once said, you can’t stop the devil from dropping off his offspring on your doorstep and knocking incessantly on your door, but you sure don’t have to take them in, warm them, clothe them and feed them.
You see temptation is the exposure to the possibility of doing the wrong thing that is everywhere present and everybody is going to face temptation and the Bible gives us no hope whatsoever that there is anything we can ever do to make all temptation go away.
How many of you have thought Lord just make it go away.
Just make temptation be gone as long as we live in this world with all of its influences and with all of its problems were always going to be exposed to temptation and I happen to believe that as we become more mature in the Lord, as we grow in the Lord, as we walk with the Lord over a period of time that the temptations become more subtle and sometimes more intense as we walk closest to the king.
Satan reserves his fiercest temptations for us.
I remember reading something that was written by the founder of the seminary that I attended Dallas Theological Seminary.
Dr Lewis Sperry Chafer once wrote these words.
He said it is well been said that spiritual believers are honored with warfare in the frontline trenches.
The fiercest pressure of the enemy is felt at the front of the battle.
But those who are at the front of the battle also have the privilege of watching the enemy’s crushing defeat.
And it’s almost worth it to be at the front of the battle for the fierce temptations to be able to see what God is doing in his victory over the enemy.
Temptation will always be a part of our lives. And I hope that doesn’t discourage you.
I I wish I had better news than that, but it’s true.
As long as we are on this earth, we will have temptation. It’s our common lot.
So there’s no suggesting here at all that God is picking on us.
Temptation is a common experience for all believers.
So remember the common experience of temptation, my friend, you’re not alone, every one of us in this room.
We’re all in the same category, we’re all the same group. We have all faced temptation and we always will.
But now I want you to notice in the next phrase of first Corinthians 1013, the controlled environment of temptation.
Notice what Paul says next. He says, but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.
Now, when God allows testing or temptation to come into your life or to mine, he promises that He will limit both the test and the intensity of it.
He knows what our limitations are. Somebody said, you know what the Lord just put too much on me.
Remember, temptation is not based upon what we think we can do, but it’s based upon what God knows we’re capable of.
He will not ever over test us over allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to stand in there in the power of the Holy Spirit and be victorious.
In second Corinthians chapter one in verses eight through 10.
Paul talks about some of his challenges and he says, for we do not want you to be ignorant brethren of our trouble which came to us in Asia that we were burdened beyond measure above strength so that we despaired even of life.
Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves.
But in God who raises the dead now watch this last verse In God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us in whom we trust that he will still deliver us.
Paul says we’ve been tested way beyond our own measure of strength.
But the one thing we know is this God is delivering us.
God has delivered us and God will deliver us all three tenses of the word are used in the 10th verse.
So in the midst of the testing, just remember that God is conscious of what you’re experiencing.
He never takes his eyes off of you.
And when you are exposed to temptation, you cannot use the excuse that this is just impossible that there’s no way I can have victory because God says you can have victory in temptation.
In other words, no matter what situation I face God is there with me and He knows my limitations.
Some of you think we’d be a lot better off if there were no temptations.
And there are many days when we’d like to all vote on that.
But you know what if that were true, let me tell you what would happen.
You would never be able to demonstrate your great love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
You would be kept from the ability to show your loyalty to Almighty God and His Holy principles.
As opposed to the things of the world.
If we were simply automatons who were programmed to know God and to love God, there would be no go glory that could come to the face of God in all of that.
But because we are creatures of free will and we do face temptations.
When through the power of the Holy Spirit, we have victory over those temptations. Much glory goes to God.
And so we are growing in our ability to be strong and to give God the glory.
Now notice the third thing here in this very important verse and that is the certain escape from temptation.
Listen to what the word of God says.
But with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Listen now carefully, whenever we are tempted, God has the end of the temptation in sight at the beginning of the temptation, the moment that the test begins, God already knows the way out.
He doesn’t wait to see how we are doing.
He provides the means of escape from that temptation at the very outset of the process.
The way out of temptation is always there in the midst of the temptation that Satan is allowed to bring to our lives.
God provides a way of escape. Listen to what Hebrews says about the nature of our Lord.
For in that He himself has suffered, watch this being tempted. He is able to aid those who are tempted.
Surely part of the way of escape is the knowledge that the Lord God himself who is in the midst of every situation.
With us has already been there and done that he’s been exposed to every kind of temptation we will ever face and having been tempted, he is now able to help us in the midst of it.
So the first thing we need to do is look into the face of Almighty God and ask for the help of Jesus Christ, who is our savior to give us strength and help all other things we trust in will prove useless.
He is the only ladder out of temptation.
Mark Rutherford, an old English writer, put it in these words that are more beautifully put together than I would ever be capable of.
But listen carefully to what he said. I am not talking theology or philosophy.
He wrote, I know what I am saying and I can point out the times and places when I would certainly have fallen if I had not been able to rely for guidance on something better than a commandment or a deduction.
But the pure heroic image of Jesus Christ confronted me and I succeeded.
I had no doubt as to what he would have done and through him, I did not doubt what I should do and I did it in his power and I was victorious over temptation.
One of the things I’ve been learning as I get older is that temptation is not so much a matter of what we don’t do.
It is really a matter of who we do. Love.
And when we come to know the Lord Jesus, and we cultivate within our hearts, a relationship with him, of intimacy and desire and, and worship and adoration.
And he is the straw, strong heroic image in our heart that in itself will keep us from many faults and many sins.
When Jesus Christ is not just a word in our vocabulary, but he is the person who lives within us and we meet with him every day and we have an intimate relationship with him, my friend, it’s hard to walk out of a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in his word in the morning and go out and yield immediately to temptation.
It’s hard to give into temptation in the evening hours.
When you know that the first thing you’re gonna do in the morning is open the book and get into the word and, and to fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
Yes. The heroic person of Jesus Christ is part of the way of escape.
He is there for us to aid us and to help us.
But I must say another word about this way of escape.
I think one of the things Paul is talking about here is the fact that in every temptation we ever face, there is always a point somewhere in the process where we know we can get out somewhere in the process where the voice in our heart or in our in our head says this is wrong.
Don’t do this. And at that moment, we have a brief opportunity to walk through the door of escape and be rescued from the temptation.
But often if we walk past that opportunity, it is too late for us to get out at a different time.
The word escape here in the book of First Corinthians is an interesting word.
It is a Greek word that was sometimes used of the very narrow passage people would use to get out of a canyon.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in some of the canyons even out here in California.
But sometimes there’s narrow files that take you in a different passageways and the way of escape was looked at is a little way out of the canyon.
That’s the picture that Paul is painting in this text.
He’s saying sometimes when you’re walking through the valley of Temptation for just a moment, you see the way out and if you take that way, you can be victorious.
And some of you have testified to that you’re in a situation, you know, you ought not to be in, maybe it’s a relationship with a member of the other sex and maybe, you know, that relationship is wrong.
Perhaps it’s because you’re already married and perhaps they are too.
And maybe the friendship is gone a little bit further than it should.
And all of a sudden one day something happens in your heart and you know, right then this is wrong and it’s going in the wrong direction, my friend, that’s the way of escape and you better get out right then because the way of escape may not come again.
It may not be there for you again.
If you don’t take the way of escape when the Lord provides it.
But I am confident that in every temptation that I’ve ever faced that you have ever faced, there’s always been a moment of time when there was an opportunity to walk away.
But if you don’t walk away, then temptation can gain control.
Well, these are the things that the word of God says in this wonderful passage that most of us memorized in high school, there’s 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 you’re able.
But will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
So how do we deal with temptation?
Let me just give you some practical thoughts from the rest of the New Testament to go along with this central passage.
Just some six or seven things real quickly for you to write down.
Number one, recognize the possibility of temptation in your own life. Recognize it.
You see one of the things that happens to us.
One of the reasons we get tempted and we fall prey to temptation is we don’t think it can happen to us.
One of the things I hear constantly from people who get into trouble is they’ll say something like, you know, I just cannot believe this happened to me.
Why not? Why not you listen to what Paul says just before verse 13, in verse 12, he says, therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
One of the most tragic things that can happen to you is to get a cockiness about you.
A pride about you, an arrogance about you that says this can’t happen to me, my friend.
The worst thing that can ever happen to anyone can happen to anyone if we don’t watch out for the enemy.
I remember hearing a story about a young priest who was serving in the confessional booth for the first time and he was being watched over by an older priest.
At the end of the day, the older priest took the young man aside and he said to him, son, he said when a person finishes confession, you have got to say something other than wow.
Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Isn’t it interesting?
We’re not usually surprised when other people fall into sin or temptation, but it surprises us when we do.
And here is one of the most important lessons my friend.
And you need to ask some of your friends ask your wife, your husband when you began to get arrogant and proud.
You set yourself up as a major candidate for failure in temptation.
My good friend Howard Hendricks, who was my professor at Dallas Seminary.
I used to carry a little notebook around in his pocket and uh he’s told me about this several times and I’ve heard him talk about it in front of crowds and on that, in that little notebook with the names of ministers and students that he had had at the seminary who had been in the ministry and had fallen into sexual temptation and had failed and were no longer the ministry.
He said he had at one time, he had over 100 names on that list.
And he said one day as he was looking through the list, the thought crossed his mind.
Is there anything all these people have in common?
What is the one common thing about all the people on the list?
And he said, he thought back through the listing to all these people.
And he said, with the exception of 22 people on the list, the one thing they all had in common was a spirit of pride and arrogance in their life.
What is it? The word of God says, it says pride before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
One of the first things you can do when you’re trying to figure out if you’re a prime candidate for temptation is just ask yourself, ask your wife, honey, do I have a haughty spirit?
And if she’ll tell you the truth, she’ll be a great help to you.
Notice number to request help in advance of temptation. This is very interesting thought.
Most of the time, we don’t get much help in the midst of temptation, we have to get it in advance of temptation.
There are two passages in the New Testament that tell us to pray about temptation.
The first ones in the Lord’s prayer where the Lord taught his disciples to pray and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil.
And the second one is in Matthew chapter 26 verse 41 where we’re told to watch and pray lest we enter into temptation.
What that means is that we ought to begin our day.
Lord God make me sensitive to the potential pitfalls on my walk with you today.
Give me an awareness and a sensitivity so that as I walk through this day, when temptation begins to approach, I will be sensitive to it and I will know what to do.
If you don’t do that, you’ll get in the midst of it and you will be without recourse.
But if you begin to pray ahead of time, Lord God protect me, don’t lead me on a path where temptation can get me.
That’s another good point to help you to be a victor in facing the giant of temptation.
Then number three, the Bible says we’re to resist the devil and he will flee from us.
There are lots of ways we can resist the devil.
And the Bible says, when we submit ourselves to God and we resist the devil, the devil will flee from us.
If you remember the Lord’s encounter with Satan in the wilderness, he gave old Satan the word of God.
And I always laugh at this because all he gave him was Deuteronomy.
The only passages he gave him were Deuteronomy passages. And so the Lord Jesus gave Satan Deuteronomy.
And at the end of the passage, it says, and he departed from him, resist the devil and he will flee from you, submit to God and resist the devil and he won’t have power over you in temptation.
And then number four, and I want to take just a moment to talk about this.
You need to learn how to retreat from certain kinds of temptation.
Now, it’s one thing to stand up against temptation, but it’s another thing to retreat from temptation.
And there are three kinds of sin in the New Testament, they were told to run away from, I used to think there were just too, but I found a third one, three kinds of sin were to run away from the cynical mark Twain once said there are several good protections against temptation.
But the surest is cowardice, be a coward when it comes to temptation, run.
First of all, we’re to retreat from idolatry. It says in first Corinthians 10 14.
Therefore, my beloved flee from idolatry. That’s right here in this passage, we’re studying. What does that mean?
We don’t usually bow down to idols.
We don’t have idol shelves in our house, but an idol is anything that gets between you and God.
And the Bible says that when you begin to realize that something is taking the place of God in your life, you need to flee from that.
Get away from it as far as you can. Don’t let anything become an idol in your life.
Secondly, it says we’re to flee immorality twice in the New Testament.
We’re told that in First Corinthians 6 18, it says, flee sexual immorality.
In Second Timothy 2 22 it says flee youthful lusts.
There’s something very uniquely special about sexual temptation That if you think you can stay in the midst of that situation and be victorious, you’re just fooling yourself.
Nobody can. What God is telling us through the word of God.
And what Paul is instructing us through his letters is this that when you find yourself in a situation where the temptation to be immoral is present, you need to get out of that situation as fast as you can.
And the illustration that is often used is from the 39th chapter of Genesis in the Old Testament where Joseph found himself under the pressure of petitioner’s wife.
And the scripture tells us in Genesis 39 that one day she had everyone dismissed from the house and Joseph was left alone in the house and she came in and took hold of his coat and said, lie with me.
She propositioned him and the Bible says that Joseph turned and he ran out of the house, leaving his coat in her hands.
It was the only way he could get free from the temptation.
Someone said the best equipment for running away from sexual temptation is the best pair of Adidas that money can buy.
And I think there’s some real value in us just talking for a moment about this, especially young people.
When you live in an environment, when you put yourself in a situation where that temptation is always there, you are ultimately going to fail.
So you need to flee from it. The last thing that we’re to flee from, which is kind of interesting.
And I had noticed this before I studied this passage Is were to flee from any kind of greed.
Notice what it says in first Timothy 6, 10 and 11 for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
But you o man of God flee.
These things were not to allow our lives to be taken up with the pursuit of material things that itself can become a kind of an idolatry.
And then number five, I want you to notice that if we’re gonna be victorious over temptation.
We have to remove any means of sin far from us.
I remember reading the story of an overweight man who finally got the courage to go on the long dreaded diet.
He even went so far as to change the way he drove to work every day so that he would not have to pass his favorite bakery.
And he was doing well for about a week.
And then he showed up at work one day with a dozen donuts and a cheesecake.
And his fellow employees could not comprehend what had happened because he had been doing so well.
When they asked him what had happened, he said, well, I drove my former route to work today and I decided that if God wanted me to stop at the bakery, he would give me a parking space right in front of the main entrance.
And you know, he said he did just that on the 8th trip around the block.
Thanks. Now, here’s the guy who’s not real serious about staying on his diet or being victorious over temptation.
You know, the Bible says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.
Romans 13, 14, Proverbs 4, 14 and 15 says, do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil.
Avoid it, do not travel on it, turn away from it and pass on. That’s really strong, isn’t it?
Instead of setting ourselves up for failure. In other words, let’s set ourselves up for victory.
Let’s don’t put ourselves in a position where we’re automatically going to feel the full force of the pressure of the temptation.
Remove the means of sin far from you, then replace bad influences with good ones.
Proverbs 1320 says he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.
And I don’t want to tell you who your friends should be.
That’s none of my business, but I want to just warn you this way.
It’s wonderful to have friends in the world that we’re trying to win to Christ.
But every once in a while, we need to take a little check and say, are they pulling me more in their direction or am I bringing them toward God?
Sometimes you can get in a situation where friends have a kind of a power over you.
And if you’re not careful, you look up and they’ve had a strong influence in your life away from the things of the Lord before you know it.
They’re starting to encourage you to skip church and go to the desert with them and all this kind of stuff.
And you know that this isn’t what God wants.
And let me just say to you, if that starts to happen and you become aware of it, you are just falling into the path pattern where the enemy can get to you.
You need to ask God to give you strong influences in your life.
You ought to try to be around as many people as you can.
But when you leave their presence, they make you want to do better for Almighty God, you feel in your heart, it was good to be with them.
And they’ve set an example and they’ve raised the standard and I’m encouraged by my relationship with them.
You need to replace bad influences with good ones.
And then number seven, and this is the end of the list, you need to resolve to live on the high road.
That’s really important. That’s really important.
I believe that every Christian has made a choice whether knowingly or not as to where they’re going to live out their Christian life.
A lot of you who come to church are really, you know, the Lord, you know, you’re saved, you know, you’re on your way to heaven.
But when it comes to really being sold out for God and really living for the Lord, you just decided you don’t really want to live up there.
You’re, you’re okay down here and let me tell you something, the pitfalls on the low road are far more, far more treacherous.
I’ve already told you that when you walk close to the Lord, you will be tempted.
But if you determine just to live a convenient sort of Christian life, just to be kind of inside the door, you’ve got to pass in your pocket that keeps you out of hell.
And that’s just about all you care about my friend.
You are setting yourselves up for all kinds of trouble. Why not rather decide by the grace of God.
I’m gonna live on the high road. I’m gonna cultivate every influence in my life that lifts me up.
I’m gonna watch the things that I read in the places where I go and the kinds of things that I allow into my system.
And I’m gonna bring those things close to me that will help me to walk on the high road with Almighty God and begin to strategize your life like that.
Begin to understand that there are people and places and resources and books and tapes and television ministries and radio ministries and all kinds of things that can fill your life with truth and good.
And if you will cultivate your life on the high road, you will have the strength to face temptation when it comes in his book, Unhappy Secrets of the Christian Life.
Tim Stafford tells how the nuclear submarine thresher went too deep in the water and collapsed under the weight of the water and it was crushed into such tiny bits in the ensuing implosion that they could hardly recognize it as they investigated later.
You see to dive deep. A sub needs thick steel bulkheads to withstand the squeeze of the water.
But such precautions are limited because the pressures of the deep are so intense that they crush even the steel.
And that’s what happened to the thresher.
But the interesting thing that they discovered when they were investigating, what happened was that in those same deep waters where that steel, that steel ship had been crushed, there were actually fish swimming around at the same depth and you’d think that to survive down there, these fish would have to be monstrosities built like an M one tank or something, but they were not in fact, only micro meters of skin cover the finny creatures.
And the question is, how can they live at such a depth when a giant steel ship is crushed by the pressure?
And Tim Stafford says they have a secret, they have an equal and opposite pressure inside of them to withstand the pressure that is around them.
The pressure encountered in deep sea navigation can be like pressure that we feel in temptation.
The way to deal with temptation is not to retreat from the world, not to load on bulkheads of steel and hide in the dark, terrified pressures that are outside.
We have to have an equal and opposite pressure inside of us to withstand the pressure that is outside of us.
That’s why the word of God says, even though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day, what is the best thing you can do to be victorious over temptation, build the inward man, build the man who lives within you, who is Christ, Jesus, the hope in your heart, cultivate the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Read the word of God be strong as a Christian so that the pressure within you can withstand the pressure that is outside of you.
Because if you walk into the world and you have not built any inward pressure through your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, you run the terrible risk of being crushed and destroyed through temptation.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our inner pressure, isn’t he?
He’s the one that enables us to go through the pressures of the world with all the temptations and still be victorious in his name, which giant is intimidating.
You perhaps fear has your number, maybe loneliness as you locked out.
The reality is that you never walk alone and never have to live defeated.
You can overcome, debilitating sin and temptation slaying the giants in your life is designed to help you stand against the giants that seek to destroy.
You remind yourself of God’s promises with turning points. Giant slayer scripture car.
Each card features specifically selected verses to help you overcome the giants in your life.
Learn to recognize and banish giants from the promised land of your life and walk in victory.
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