Preventative Circles

Scripture Introduction

The Delayed Gratification Experiment: There is more at stake than you realize.

Researchers and psychologist wanted to test and see if a child who could not delay gratification as a child would have the same problems as an adult and vice verse. It was called the Marshmallow test and it has been conducted for a ver long time. Here is a sample of what it looks like.

The Video link for the video is here: https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&hsimp=yhs-SF01&hspart=Lkry&p=the+delayed+gratification+experiment#id=1&vid=9d3c5f70d94b21b864033a6ba5970c54&action=click

Research did find that children who could not delay gratification also struggled as adults to delay gratification and children who could delay gratification also became adults who could do the same. What these researches confirmed is that there is always more at stake when it comes to temptation.

Interestingly, researchers will tell you that children who had the greatest chance at resisting the temptation to eat, had highest ability to delay gratification were those children who had the most confidence in the person who promised them that they would get two marshmallows instead of one when they came back. There was a direct correlation between their ability to withstand temptation and their confidence.

When it comes to temptation there is more at stake than what any of us think and when it comes to temptation your ability to withstand temptation has everything to do with your confidence in God’s Word.

These two things fly off our radar when it comes to temptation: what is at stake and confidence in God’s Word.

We must realize there is more at stake in the temptation we are facing whatever that thing is: finances, food, sexual purity. There is more at stake than what is right in front of you.

We must realize there is a direct correlation between that temptation and our confidence in God’s Word.

I know some of you may not buy it that there is a correlation between “my food thing” and my confidence in God’s Word or my internet thing and my confidence in God’s word.

I think often times it is because we don’t factor this in that we don’t really get victory in a certain area of our lives, we leave a wide open door for Satan to lead us into temptation. And we can’t seem to get set free.

I am going to say over the next two weeks that the best way to understand what is really at risk in temptation and the best way to build up your confidence in the word of God is by being in a circle not a row. Participating in a chavurah (small group). I am not saying it is the only solution but is should be part of the solution.

You need other people to help you avoid the risks because they have already taken the risk and failed and they care deeply about it not happening to you. There are other people who have not taken the risk but faced it and overcame and they equally care about you not risking and loosing on temptation. You also need to be around people who have gotten further down the road than you, maybe some aren’t further but more zealous than you and they can help you build up your confidence in God’s Word in the midst of temptation and give you a strategy to overcome temptation.

For some of you, you are thinking to yourself, “I don’t really want to share my struggles and temptations with people I really know well much less people I barely know at all.” I understand it is not easy to let your guard down, to let people into your life but I can tell you on the testimony of countless people from our chavurot that when you do, when you get into an environment where you are know others and are known by others it is easier than you can possibly imaging to recruit people in to help you when you need it the most.

Over the next two weeks I am going to say it several different times that not only is there a direct correlation between every temptation and your confidence in God’s Word but also there is a correlation between your confidence in God’s word and the community of people you surround yourself with.

If you want to overcome temptation, participating in a chavurah should be part of the solution.

For some of you, this is going to be a big breakthrough moment for you because you are always looking around wondering why certain people are so “good” at overcoming temptation and they just don’t seemed to get pulled down by temptations.

Let me tell you these people aren’t “good” what makes the difference is that they have learned there is a direct correlation between the temptation in front of them and their confidence in God’s word.

In ever temptation you face, there is always a direct correlation between your temptation and your confidence in God’Word.

Ha-Foke-Ba

Genesis 2:16–17 TLV

Then Adonai Elohim commanded the man saying, “From all the trees of the garden you are most welcome to eat. But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat. For when you eat from it, you most assuredly will die!

Genesis 2:16–18 TLV

Then Adonai Elohim commanded the man saying, “From all the trees of the garden you are most welcome to eat. But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat. For when you eat from it, you most assuredly will die! Then Adonai Elohim said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. Let Me make a well-matched helper for him.”

Genesis 3:1–8 TLV

But the serpent was shrewder than any animal of the field that Adonai Elohim made. So it said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from all the trees of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees, we may eat. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat of it and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” The serpent said to the woman, “You most assuredly won’t die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Now the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a thing of lust for the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for imparting wisdom. So she took of its fruit and she ate. She also gave to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loin-coverings. And they heard the sound of Adonai Elohim going to and fro in the garden in the wind of the day. So the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Adonai Elohim in the midst of the Tree of the garden.

Who will Test Your Confidence in God’s Word?

Genesis 3:1 TLV

But the serpent was shrewder than any animal of the field that Adonai Elohim made. So it said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from all the trees of the garden’?”

There is this great Jewish commentary on the Torah, written in Ladino in the 1700s, called Yalkut Me’am Lo’ez and in this Jewish commentary it says of this passage,

In our day that we live in it is unfortunate that Bereshit is treated as nothing more than a fable, a myth and relegated to the literary level of a Disney movie and all of the cast and characters treated as fictional entities with little to no real existence. Just props in a play. The Scriptures say other wise and even Jewish tradition. The Great commentary on the Torah called Malkut Le’Am Lo’ez written in 1730, in Ladino by Rabby Yaakov Culli says this about , “Satan examined every creature, trying to decide how to disguise himself to seduce the woman. When could not find any creature more intelligent than the serpent…he used its form as a disguise.” - Malkut Le’Am Lo’ez, p. 259 (Bereshith 8). The majority of all jewish commentators and sages believed this was real history and a real fallen angelic being named “ha-satan” the accuser. Before our sages said this the Scriptures already told us a great many facts about this Serpent. I want us to just looks at some of these facts in a very cursory, overview way because I don’t want there to be any doubt in your mind about the reality of this event and the entity we are discussing.

“This angel [i.e., Satan] examined every creature, trying to disguise himself to seduce the women. When could not find any creature more intelligent than the serpent…he used its form as a disguise.” - Yalkut Me’am Lo’ez translated by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, p. 259.

I know a lot of times people think that Judaism has not idea of Satan in the Garden but that is very untrue. It really was not until after the enlightenment that some branches of Judaism began to follow Christianity in interpreting Genesis as a myth, a story, a fable, a fiction but not a true account of history. Bereshit is not fable nor fancy nor fiction. It is not Disney, it is real history, with real characters talking about real events.

The Facts on Satan’s Presence in the Garden.

The Lord identifies Satan’s creation and presence in the Garden ().

Ezekiel 28:11–19 TLV

The word of Adonai came to me saying: “Son of man, lift up a lament for the king of Tyre. Say to him, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering —ruby, topaz and diamond, beryl, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and emerald—your settings and your sockets a workmanship of gold —in the day you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cheruv. I placed you on the holy mountain of God. You walked among stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade they filled you within with violence. So you have sinned. So I threw you out as a profane thing from the mountain of God. I made you vanish, guardian cheruv, from among the stones of fire. Your heart was exalted because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. I threw you down to the earth. Before kings I set you up as a spectacle. “ ‘By the multitude of your iniquities, in the injustice of your trade, you profaned your sanctuaries. So I brought fire out from within you, and it has consumed you. I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the eyes of all who saw you. All who know you among the people will be appalled at you. You have become a horror and will be nothing forever.’ ”

The Lord identifies Satan’s fall from heaven to the Garden (; ) .

Satan’s fall is confirmed by Yeshua as a real historical event ().

Luke 10:18 TLV

And Yeshua said to them, “I was watching satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Satan is specifically identified as the Serpent in the Garden by Yeshua and the Apostles (; , ).

Satan’s self-designated mandate is to make you doubt and disobey God’s word ().

Illustration:

No more than fifteen years ago, you could talk about Satan in a congregation and most people would agree there was an evil being called Satan that was the epitome and source of much evil. Today, the Barna group reports that almost 70% of self-professing followers of Yeshua do not believe that Satan really exists.

Why is that? Religion in general has followed secular psychiatry and said human evil is just the by-product of either bad social systems or psychological conditions. So, if you are a serial killer it is because you are the product of bad parenting or poverty or something else like this.

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Columbia professor Andrew Delbanco, in his book, The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil he quotes from Thomas Harris’s novel The Silence of the Lambs, where the monstrous killer Hannibal Lecter is talking to Officer Starling. He’s describing the bad things he’s done, and she looks at him and says,

“What happened to you that you could do this? Who did something to you that you could be so bad?”

And he looks at her and says:

“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil?”

Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions Chapter Six: The Great Enemy

In Delbanco’s book The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil he quotes from Thomas Harris’s novel The Silence of the Lambs, where the monstrous killer Hannibal Lecter is talking to Officer Starling. He’s describing the bad things he’s done, and she looks at him and says, “What happened to you that you could do this? Who did something to you that you could be so bad?” And he looks at her and says:

“Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil?”

Delbanco goes on to say that these words are the epitome of modern horror—our generation’s growing awareness that we cannot answer the monster’s question. He says, if you get rid of the idea of sin, Satan, and cosmic evil, then every bad deed has solely psychological or sociological roots. And that trivializes the suffering of the victims and the magnitude of what’s happened. Hannibal Lecter knows Officer Starling is the result of modern secular thinking, and so he knows he’s got her. He asks a question her worldview doesn’t have the resources to answer. He says in effect:

“You have to tell all the families of those poor people that I beheaded and ate that my mother didn’t love me. You can’t hold me responsible. You can’t even hold her responsible.”

He has the modern world right where he wants it. Satan has the modern world right where he wants it. Do you think he is upset that you don’t believe in him? He laughs because your denial of him is a denial of God word and that leaves us stripped of confidence in God’s word and full of confidence in man’s scientific, sociological and psychological thinking. At that point, Satan has the upper hand.

If it’s true that there are demonic forces out there, then the evil in the world cannot be reduced simply to human choices. Don’t get me wrong—human beings all by themselves are capable of great sin, and of course those sinful human choices are a significant component of the matrix of evil in the world.

But when I stepped foot in Aushwitz in the Summer of 2006 leading a tour through this death camp. This was not caused by sociological and psychological ills.

You may find it interesting that Christianity gives you neither dualism nor monism. Instead, it gives you something you may see as slightly more plausible than you did before: an actual devil. If it’s true that there are demonic forces out there, then the evil in the world cannot be reduced simply to human choices. Don’t get me wrong—human beings all by themselves are capable of great sin, and of course those sinful human choices are a significant component of the matrix of evil in the world. But when I moved to a small town in the South in the 1970s, I could see the tail end of the society and the institutions that had kept African Americans excluded from any economic or political power. If you talked to the individuals in those institutions, while many of them were definitely bigots, and even more were merely clueless, you realized that most of the individuals were not especially evil in themselves. Yet the systems they comprised were certainly evil. Remember that Hannah Arendt saw this when she covered the trial of the Nazi death camp leader Adolf Eichmann for The New Yorker, and spoke there of the “banality of evil.” The system was far more evil and destructive than the thousands of fairly ordinary individuals who made it up. There’s some kind of force out there that magnifies, complicates, and perpetuates the bad things that are happening in the social and psychological systems of the world. Christianity says there’s more evil than you can account for in the world just from the cumulative effect of wrong individual choices. And you can attribute some of that evil to actual demonic forces.

There’s a powerful being named Satan that magnifies, complicates, and perpetuates the sin and evil that are happening in the social and psychological systems of the world. The scriptures tell us there’s more evil than you can account for in the world just from the cumulative effect of wrong individual choices. And you can attribute some of that evil to actual demonic forces.

But on the other hand Satan is no the equal of God. The devil is a fallen angel leading fallen angels, and God is infinitely more powerful. And in the very end, not only can God overcome them all, but he certainly will.

Maybe you think that the idea of the devil is a primitive idea, a belief for simple people. I have been arguing—and I would respectfully suggest—that if you are trying to explain the world without the existence of the devil, it is you who are being spiritually and intellectually naive.

The electrifying promise and hope that blows through all the pages of the Bible is this, if you have confidence in God’s word you can overcome Satan.

Now, let’s get more practical. If we know who the enemy is, the second question to consider is, Where is the front?

Where will your confidence in God’s Word get tested?

Genesis 3:2–5 TLV

The woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees, we may eat. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat of it and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” The serpent said to the woman, “You most assuredly won’t die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Insert Slide Showing Comparison

You will get tested where you loosely know God’s Word.

Eve loosely knew God’s Word.

Eve only quotes one Word correctly from the original command in .

Whose fault? Both, because neither cared enough to create a community where God’s exact word was governing their lives.

You will get tested where you loosely believe God’s Word.

Satan has not fed Eve a misquote of the Bible, Eve misquotes the Bible all by herself.

That should be a warning to all of us, even before Sin entered the world people were careless about the Word of God. It did not take sin to create apathy and carelessness towards God’s word. They had but one command and it seems they were holding to or believed in it loosely.

Not only did Eve loosely know God’s word, she loosely believes God’s word (the particle Pen).

Genesis 3:3–5 TLV

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat of it and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” The serpent said to the woman, “You most assuredly won’t die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Notice Satan focuses on the one area that Eve loosely believes.

Give Examples

God did not really say you have to be married before you have sex.

God did not really say you must believe in Yeshua to have eternal life.

God not really say you must give a tithe of your income?

You will get tested where you think the stakes of disobedience are not that high.

You will get tested where you think the stakes of disobedience are not that high.

Genesis 3:6–8 TLV

Now the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a thing of lust for the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for imparting wisdom. So she took of its fruit and she ate. She also gave to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loin-coverings. And they heard the sound of Adonai Elohim going to and fro in the garden in the wind of the day. So the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Adonai Elohim in the midst of the Tree of the garden.

Gen 3:

Eve’s story is all of our stories.

In the background of all the temptations you face in your life is your confidence in God’s word.

In the background of all the temptations you face in your life is your confidence in God’s word.

Just like Eve, in the background of all the temptations you face in your life is your confidence in God’s word. Whether Satan is tempting you directly, through a demon, or indirectly through how he has influenced the culture around and world around us it all comes back to your confidence in God’s word and the kind of people you surround yourself with. If they also loosely know God’s word and loosely believe God’s word and don’t think there is much at stake when being tempted, your friends will be your lid, your cap.

There is always more at stake than what we think when it comes to temptation. In the midst of temptation, the tendency is to think that all that is going on is right here in front of me. Should I eat this desert or should I not? Should I use my credit card to buy what I can’t afford or should I not? Should I tithe or should I not? Should I or should I not. Should I invite her over or not invite? Should I disclose or not disclose?

It is always about that thing right in front of us. Usually, if you give into that temptation most of the time you wake up and it seems like life is just like it has always been. Nothing has really changed, you were not struck down with the plague. Everything is basically the same. So we interpret that to mean, cool, God forgives me and I avoided the consequences. And, then you just kind of go on with your life and given enough time you are start to feel less and less guilty about it.

Romans 5:12 TLV

So then, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, in the same way death spread to all men because all sinned.

But, what we have to realize time and time again is that there is a lot more at stake in your temptation then what is right in front of you. Let’s go back and think about our passage. Do you realize what is stake in this temptation? The entire course of human history. The way God and human beings will not be able to relate to each other. The way people will not be able to relate to each other. Everything was at stake it was not just “should I eat or not eat?” It was not just, “should i be wise or not be wise?”

It is always about that thing right in front of us.

Do you realize what hung in the balance? I hung in the balance. You hung in the balance. In the midst of the temptation, it was not just will I eat the fruit or not eat the fruit? Or, will I be wiser and less confused? No there was so much more than that.

Do you know what is really at stake every time you are tempted? You can push back on this but I think you will agree with me for the most part. These three things are at stake every single time you are tempted:

Your Future

The Future of Someone You Love

Your Faith

Your Faith

Your Future

This is hard to see. It is so much easier to see it in other people. That is why we over-react as parents.

We get this, that it is easier to see in other people. You remember this in the movie version of Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King. It is at the very end of the movie when Sam and Bilbo have made it to Mt. Doom and Bilbo is holding the One Ring of Power and he is about to accomplish his mission and throw the ring in to the fiery lava when all of the sudden he decides to keep the ring. He has been seduced by its power. Your watching it and going “no!!” Because you know if this happens, it changes everything. If the ring is not destroyed, the enemy will win, the King will fall with his armies, the world will get thrust into darkness.

The Future of Someone You Love

We can see it in others but it is hard to see it in ourselves. It is so hard to see it in ourselves but listen your future and the future of someone you love is stake every time you are tempted.

If your husband, your wife could suffer. If your wife, your husband could suffer. If you are a father, your children. If you are an employer, your employees could suffer. I will never forget the disturbing images of people crying and weeping after the collapse of Enron because people lost everything: pensions, jobs, homes. It was catastrophic. When the Bernie Madoff scandal came unraveled do you remember all the families that lost everything, the organization that had to shut their doors. All because men and women who had more money then they could spend did not care about the temptation they were in and caved to.

Every temptation you face no matter how great or small impacts someone you love. The people who love you and are looking to you are at stake every single time you are tempted. Isn’t that true.

Those of you in this room that came from broken homes you know this is true. Mom just never felt really secure so she didn’t resist that affair with that other man who she thought would be her sugar daddy. Dad was alcoholic and would not put down the booze. At some point, they thought “this is mine, and I want it.” Not only were there lives impacted but yours was also.

Your Faith

It is not just you and someone you love it is also your faith. Every time you sin you damage your relationship to God, accountability to God and confidence in God’s Word. I can tell you the reason why you left your last congregation in 30 seconds. It was not theological. It is never theological. You violated your conscience and fell into sin not just once but twice and thrice and over and over again and you kept asking for forgiveness and eventually you started to say “it does not even really matter” and so you “behaved your way out confidence in God’ Word.” You started to put distance between you and God’s word because you started to think it does not even really matter and the consequences are not so grave. And then you put distance between yourself and people who would hold you accountable to God’s Word.

Then one day you woke up and you were like I am done with this whole guilt/sin thing but you were not going to be honest so you said, “they are all hypocrites over there.” The Rabbi blah, blah, The services are blah, blah, The commitment is blah, blah. Come on, really, they didn’t do this to you, you behaved your way away from God and you cut yourself off from people because you just don’t care any more.

You did not get better theology nor did people or rabbis change so much that you had to leave. Nope, you just fell into temptation so much you behaved your way away from God and from relationship with other believers that would have really helped you.

At the heart of every temptation is this one question: Can God’s word be trusted. Every time you or I cave to temptation we are saying, “God’s Word cannot be trusted.”

Conclusion

There is always more at stake than any of us in this room can realize when it comes to temptation and there is always a direct correlation between the temptation you are facing and your confidence in God’s Word. Directly or indirectly, Satan is constantly trying to find a way to destroy your confidence in God’s Word, to snatch it out of your heart because he knows that by doing this he is murdering not just your faith but also he knows it will also negatively impact someone you love and also your future.

That is why one of the many ways you can grow in confidence in God’s Word is by being in a circle and not just a row. A regular fellowship group where believers who are committed to God’s Word are holding each other accountable and truly getting to know one another because we are stronger together and able together to withstand the temptations of the enemy. I am not saying that being in a chavurah is the only answer but it is definitely part of the answer.

Satan, you will not steal my future, steal my family nor steal my faith.

Genesis 2:16–17 TLV

Then Adonai Elohim commanded the man saying, “From all the trees of the garden you are most welcome to eat. But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat. For when you eat from it, you most assuredly will die!