How Will the Church Be Lighted?
Several centuries ago in a mountain village in Europe, a wealthy nobleman wondered what legacy he should leave to his townspeople. He made a good decision. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the church until it was finished. At its grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece. But then someone said, “Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is really quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?” The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls, and then he gave each family a lamp, which they were to bring with them each time they came to worship. “Each time you are here” the nobleman said, “the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God’s house will be dark” That’s a poignant story, isn’t it? And it makes a very significant point about the importance of our commitment and loyalty to the church. The poet Edward Everett Hale put it like this: I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do. What if every member of your church supported the church just as you do? What kind of church would you have? What if every single member served the church, attended the church, loved the church, shared the church, and gave to the church exactly as you do? What kind of church would you be?
Deadly appeal
Luke 4:5-7
The devil never loses his nature. It is like the story of the man who was a world famous animal trainer. He could do tricks with many animals. He had raised a Boa Constrictor since it was a few days old. He taught the snake to coli itself around him, start to squeeze him and then to the amazement of the crowd the snake would release him. He did this for 25 years but then one day as he was performing this act before a large crowd the snake took back its nature and the man lost his life, as the snake did not stop squeezing until the man’s life was gone. He cried out for help but it was too late. I want to let you know that it is the nature Satan to squeeze or crush the life out of you. He wants to offer you great things as he did here to Christ. His force to run us comes through temptations. We have talked about the first temptation in the last two messages and now we want to speak on the second one. The first on had to do with the lust of the flesh or to let our self be controlled by the physical needs over our spiritual needs. We might think we can escape from the Devil coming after us repeatedly with temptations but if we let him get a foothold, he will not relate you like being caught in a bear trap. He comes to us as the animal trainer thought he snake was but found out he was deadly. “The devil made me do it,” is not an excuse we can make up for we make the choice to say yes or no to temptation. How does temptation come? JAM 1:14-15 “Temptation comes from the enticement of our own evil desires? These evil desires lead to evil actions, and evil actions lead to death.” So there are three steps to sin, 1. We let out evil desires mange our thought life, 2. Those thoughts become actions and 3. Those actions lead us to spiritual death. This is what the Bible tells us in James.
We are never to think the devil that we can resist the devil once and that will be the end of the times he will tempt us. It says after the temptation that the devil left him until a more convenient time. We have in the gospels that Jesus defeated the devil in this time of temptation but the devil did not try again. So we need to be on our guard all the time. The first temptation which we have talked about had to do with the doing part of our lives. The second deals with the having part of our lives. The devil offered to Christ all the kingdoms of the world. There are three things to notice here.
I. “I’ll do it my way and do not need God’s help in my life.”
Jesus could have grabbed the entire world with its positions of authority, control and influence. Satan took Jesus to a mountaintop to show him what he could offer him. All the world was right there if he would just bow and worship Satan. He took Jesus away from the arid desert to a beautiful scene from a mountaintop. He said all you see that I show you can be yours right now. Do you see how he was being tempted to love this world more than God? JAM 4:4 “Don’t you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God.” Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
You have many things as you find when you go out shopping for food. Do you have consult God as to what you want? Have you ever had to put something back because you lacked the money or have you ever experienced shelves that did not have much on them? Not every door we see is not from God. A good example I want to give you as we leave point one is this. A man was berated by his boss and his working conditions are not very great. He works hard but finds that he is sometimes passed over for a promotion and the career seems to not be going like we wants. One day he is offered a job with another job like this one with another company. The job would involve moving to a smaller city where there is not church to meet his family’s’ spiritual needs. He will have to travel more and be away from this family. The school his children will have to attend will have not a good influence on them. There will be much more stress on his wife with this job and his time involved. So he being to think about it more and more as he goes to work each day. He decides that it must be of God or there would have never been such a door opened to him. If he takes the job, he is being lured away from being spiritual leader, a faithful husband, a present father and placing his children at risk with bad influences. He needs to spend time alone with God and talk with his family about this move and how they could work together to help him where he is presently employed. Satan’s way is to buy high and sell low. My wife has worked many low paying jobs to help with our expenses and she has a college degree where she could have sought a job with higher wages but she put family and husband first. This first point has to do with can I trust God in the place He wants me to be whether it is pleasant or not?
II. “I can have it all now.”
There are many who say, “I want it now and do not want to wait.” This plays on our impatience saying we do not have to wait for what we want. The devil said I will give you. I can hand all this to you now. You do not have to on with the life God has planned for you with its toil and suffering. You have the right to rule and control the world right now. Jesus had not begun his ministry; he had no disciples, performed no miracles, not given any teachings, nor had to put up with man’s unbelief and ridicule. Satan says why go through suffering, sacrifice and struggling when you can have it all now. It is true that God wants His Son to rule over all the world. Satan had the power to do this. Adam forfeited his right to rule when he disobeyed God and the authority was given t o Satan to rule over this world. Jesus said he was the prince of this world. The Bible says he is the ruler of this world, the god of this world, he rules over the spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places and the whole world lies in the power of the veil one. He has power to give it to the highest bidder as he pleases. That is why in many ways evil people seem to have so much power. Satan has this power and we know that one day he will make this offer to the antichrist and he will rule for a brief time known as the great tribulation. Satan comes to us with this temptation but we need to wait upon God for the best He has for us. I will illustrate this as we see a young couple right after they are married and hardly have any thing to their name. He has a low paying job and his wife works part time. They are able to make it and the bills are being paid. One day they come to a mall and enter a furniture store. They find a bedroom set marked down. It is dream to them. So the salesman says this is an opportunity of a lifetime. It will last you the rest of your life. It is a smart investment. It is the last one in stock. I will knock off a few hundred dollars just for them. This will not be here long. The go off to talk about it. This is a chance of a lifetime. It is what they have been looking for. It seems so good to come at this time of need. Wait we cannot buy this with our other expenses. But it will not be here much longer. The salesman comes over to say do not worry about finances for I can check your credit and we can set up a payment plan. Let me check and we can deliver it this afternoon. I need to go to lunch and need for you to decide now. They decide it to be OK and are given a burden that will be around their necks for many years. All because they want it now. This temptation had probably happened to all of us and though we do not see the devil’s signatures on it comes from his office. It was God’s will for Christ to receive the kingdom of this world. Satan has said, “Since you have not wanted to do it my way by turning the stone into bread, let me help you get what God wants you to have.” You can reign now over what you will reign over but this way is much easier. God has all to give us but it comes in His way not ours. Jesus suffered and died but with it, He is able to save us from all our sins. He is coming back some day to rule over all the earth. It is in God’s time and not Satan’s. The best God has for us will come because He has the best for us.
III. “It doesn’t matter who I worship.”
The devil invited Christ to worship him and he could have it all. He could make a quick bend of the knee, no one would see, no one would know for we are alone on this mountain. Our true character is tested when we are alone or think no one is watching. Every sacrifice that is offered to a false god is given to Satan. Every Hindu candle lit. Every prayer time for Muslims that is five times a day is to Satan. Every New age incantation that is repeated is to him. No “Hail Mary” offer to a statue is to God in heaven. All the acts of Jew in the synagogue is not to God. John 8:44 “For you are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Rev. 2:9 “I know the slander of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they really aren’t because theirs is a synagogue of Satan.”
Satan’s main ambition is to get us to worship him in any way he can. He wants to replace God as the object of our praise. False worship to put anything ahead of God. It is anything that we would place between God and us. Is there any thing you need to repent of that has come between you and your worship of God? Is there any thing or any one that you have placed in your way of worship that you need to surrender? Jesus said to one person who came to him, “You only lack one thing.” I ask you that this morning is there one thing that keeps you from God. One has said if you want to check who you worship you need to look at your checkbook or check your daytimer. What is the excitement of your heart right now?
There was little girl in Sunday School and she was asked, “How do you deal with temptation?” It did not take her long to say, “When Satan comes knocking at the door of my heart, I send Jesus to answer. When Satan sees Jesus, he says, ‘Oops, I’m sorry, I must have the wrong house.”
Te outline is mine but I borrowed some thought from the book "Faith Under Fire" by Steven Lawson.
