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[music] [Music] I am on the battlefield for my Lord. I am on the battlefield for my Lord.

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And I promised him that I would turn until I died. I am on the battlefield for my Lord. I am on the battlefield for my Lord. I am on the battlefield for my Lord.

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♪ And I promised him that I ♪ ♪ Would serve him till I died ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪

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♪ I was a lonely idol ♪ ♪ I was a sinner too ♪ ♪ But I heard a voice from heaven ♪ ♪ Say there is work to do ♪

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♪ I took my master's hand ♪ ♪ And I joined the Christian band ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪

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♪ Yes, I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield for my Lord ♪ ♪ You know ♪

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♪ And I promised him that I ♪ ♪ Would serve him 'til I die ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield for my Lord ♪ ♪ I left my friends and kindreds ♪

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♪ I'm bound for the promised land ♪ ♪ The grace of God upon me ♪ ♪ My Bible in my hand ♪ ♪ Through distant lands I try ♪

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♪ Sinners come to God ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield for my Lord ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield for my Lord ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield for my Lord ♪

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♪ I promise him that I will serve him 'til I die ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield for my Lord ♪ [music] ♪ Listen, now when I met the Savior ♪

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♪ I met Him with a smile ♪ ♪ He healed my wounded spirit ♪ ♪ And He owned me as His child ♪ ♪ Around the throne of grace ♪

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I know. ♪ He'll point me a place ♪ ♪ And I am home at the battlefield ♪ ♪ For who, my Lord ♪

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♪ Yes, I am ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I am ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪

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♪ Yes, I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪ ♪ I promised him ♪ ♪ Oh, Lord ♪

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♪ A long time ago, right ♪ ♪ That I promised him ♪ ♪ Yes, I did ♪ ♪ That I ♪

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♪ Would serve him ♪ ♪ I would serve him 'til I died ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪

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- Just sing it like you mean it, now. ♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪ - Yes!

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♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ For my Lord ♪ - Yes, yes! You know.

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♪ And I promised him that I ♪ - Yes, I did. ♪ And I promised him that I ♪ ♪ Oh, I promised him ♪

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♪ And I promised him that I ♪ ♪ Long, long time ago ♪ ♪ And I promised him that I ♪ ♪ Down in Marsha, Texas ♪

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♪ And I promised him ♪ ♪ Oh, I promised him ♪ ♪ And I promised him that I ♪ ♪ I said if you save my soul ♪

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♪ Oh, serve him 'til the die ♪ ♪ Oh, yes I will ♪ ♪ I am on the battlefield ♪ ♪ Oh my Lord ♪

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- Amen. - Amen. (audience applauding) - His brethren are ready today.

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- Yes. - Yes. - Yes. God bless you.

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They make a unique and significant contribution to our worship service. - Amen. - Amen.

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- Amen. grateful. I want to call your attention to the scripture. I think there was a misprint. So the scriptural basis for the message is found in

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the general epistle of James the first chapter and the 12th verse. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried,

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he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." Goes on to say, "Let no man say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted of God.'

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For God cannot be tempted with evil. Neither tempeth He any man, but every man is tempted." when he is drawn away from of his own lust and entice. And when lust has conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.

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Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. temptation. Blessed is he. Now we've been considering a series of messages based on the epistle of James, entitled Mark's of Maturity.

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We've talked about what it means to have joy in the midst of afflictions. And then the last time we talked about a surrendered will, how one needs to surrender his or her will to God, be guided not by our will but by God's will. Now we come today to consider marks of maturity and the message is focus on resisting temptation. Resisting temptation.

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Some years ago I saw a Broadway production entitled "Fiddler on the Roof." which had to do with the struggles of the Jewish family in Russia. And the fiddler on the roof would be playing his tune that went on from time to time. The attention would be focused on him.

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And he was carrying on somewhat of a dialogue with God. He didn't understand why many of the things happened, why they happened, and why he was exposed to them in the manner that he was. And this is a rather practical book, the book of James.

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It is practical Christianity. It's right there where the rubber hits the road. When it comes to our lives, this book deals with those situations. Every one of us is tempted.

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And we're not up in heaven somewhere. We're right here on this earth where we are tempted. And we are tempted in many ways. For temptation has to do with trial. All of us have tried.

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It has to do with enticement. It has to do with that which appeals to your appetite. appetite. Trial, enticement, conflict, appetite, all of those are related to temptation. And the pastor here, James, says that blessed is the person who is tempted.

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Blessed is that person who is tempted. The temptation comes to us on our level. It's that which really appeals to us. And something in us tells us we'd like to have that.

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that because I was a high school teenager and I was walking down the streets of Dallas. My mother had given me about three dollars to make an installment payment on the furniture and she told me to keep up with it, wrap it "Tighten in this little handkerchief and be sure and pay it.

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"We were already behind with the bill. "Be sure and pay it." And I met a man who says, "Hey there, don't I know you?" I said, "No, I don't think so."

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(audience laughing) He said, "Oh yes, I know you." He said, "What's your name?" I said, "Marvin Griffin."

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"Marvin Griffin, that's it." (audience laughing) "Yeah, I know you." He said, "Would you like to have a job?"

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I said, "Yes, I would." He said, "Well, I have a job, but the man wants..." I said, "Well, I go to school, "and I don't get off until noon."

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Thing is, at that time, it was afternoon, and I told him the time I got, he said, "Oh, that's all right," and Lorraine Dowers, the picture.

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And he said, "But you'll have to have a uniform to do the cleaning up, you know, you have to have a uniform. And the uniform costs twenty-five dollars." I said, "I don't have twenty-five dollars for a uniform." "Why can't he let me work and pay for the uniform?" "No, you can't do that. You have to pay me now." [Laughter]

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I said to myself, you know, that's a chance for me to get a job. It looked like I was something wanted to put my hand in the pocket and come out with, with at least a down payment on the $25. But then something else said to me, said, "No, if he's not willing to trust you, why can't,

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why must you trust him?" Something isn't right about this. And there has to be something in us to resist. Because it's there. It appeals to you where you are.

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Where you are. And it meets you. You don't have to go looking for it. It's already there. Another time, and I never forget these experiences, I was walking along Central Track, and that was considered the bad section, and I was, I always walked to school most of the time to save that little three cents that it cost to ride.

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Each way. And I saw this lady, and she was an older lady, she said to me, "Do you want to have some fun?" She said, "It only costs 25 cents." Well, that's something, you know, that a young man that want to explore,

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but there was something else that spoke to me. [laughter] And it's, it's, it's, it's sad. Temptation.

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[audience member] Amen. [Roy] One of the members of my finance committee was downtown, and of course a man found some money and told him that he could get a portion of that money, you know,

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if he would give him so much money. So he goes and draws out of the banks some of his money money to try to get this pot of money or whatever it is that this man has. Confidences. And these, the people who fall for this are not usually young people.

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It's not that they're dumb. Not at all. They've got degrees. But it tempts them. It reaches them in such a way that they are inclined to move in that direction. It entices them.

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And you see, this is not of God. This is not...God does not do that. He doesn't tempt us in that manner. Now the gods of the Greeks and the Romans, when you read those myths about the Greeks and the Romans, the gods of the Greeks and Romans play tricks on the people. They have some moral standards that are not consistent with righteousness.

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And so you don't know what they may do, the gods of the Greeks and the Romans, but the God of the Christian faith is a God who does right. Will not the great judge of all the earth do right? And James tells us that when we attempt it, don't put it on God.

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Why the Lord let this happen all? That is not the Lord. You know, when we attempt it. If we take our paycheck,

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Somebody takes a paycheck and can't pass the liquor store, like I had an uncle in the family who couldn't pass the liquor store when his paycheck came. He couldn't pass the liquor store

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without going in there and spending a great portion of it on that. And he usually got home broke. He couldn't resist that temptation.

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But there has to be that within us, the God within us, the spirit of righteousness to resist that temptation. To resist it.

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And James says, if you grow spiritually, if you grow in the Christian faith, that that growth comes in our ability to resist temptation. The more temptation you resist, the greater you grow,

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the more powerful you become, the more strength you possess. And that's a challenge to every one of us. Challenge, because every one of us is challenged. I had a friend who was smoking.

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And he said, "I'm trying to stop smoking, you know, I'm trying to stop smoking." And I said, "Well, it's your will. You must decide that you're not going to do this." And I saw him a little later. He had cut down on it, but he still couldn't stop. You didn't have will to stop.

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Well, we know from what we read about the addiction and all of that, the tobacco companies are confessing the fact that, that this is an addiction. They contend for you not to be able to resist it. And so you've got to have a will,

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a great determination, surrendering yourself to a particular idea, a particular way of life. So we've got to be able to resist because God does not go out as the gods of the Greeks and the Romans and select some particular trial for us,

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he does not create a conflict for us. He does not create a test just for us to make things difficult for us. When we are tempted, we are tempted of the devil

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So that this passage is that temptation is not of God. Temptation is from God. That, in other words, this is something that comes that is designed to lead us away from God.

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We're walking with God, we have our hands in his hands, And along comes temptation to lead us from God, that we may walk in our own way. That's what temptation seeks to do.

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So say not, don't put the blame, James says, on God. If ever you're tempted to fret and to be afraid, And complain, don't put the blame on God. So, to be tempted is to yield to that which we ought not to yield to in many instances.

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And what he's suggesting that we do is to have the power to resist temptation. In fact, Jesus teaches us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." And this is not suggesting that Jesus would lead us in the temptation. What it is saying, don't allow us, it's a sense of it, don't allow us to yield to the temptation that we face.

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We face it, you face it when you go to the store. the store in fact you may not have a budget that can afford it but you're tempted to disregard your budget and buy what you see in that window. Lead us not into temptation. You know we'd all like to avoid having a hard time. We'd all like to

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have it easy. We would like to take away the risks and dwell in smug complacency and undisturbed security. But there is the attitude in which we may tell God to step aside. I'll take this matter over for myself. This is the action of one who really does not want to be safe,

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but who chooses to court disaster. Yield not to temptation. Lead us not into temptation. Don't allow us to be torn away, because Lord, we are bound.

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We're united to you with a covenant relationship and we wish to remain that way. Lead us not into temptation. So we need to pray this particular petition. We need to be in touch with God at all times.

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And the power of evil is stronger than we know. God knows our weakest points. If it's a bad temper, he knows. If it's our appetite, he knows.

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If it's strong drink, he knows. If it's being obsessed by sex, he knows, and Jesus teaches us, yield not to temptation.

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He says to his disciples as they are in the garden of Gethsemane, he says to them, pray that ye enter not into temptation. But when you face temptation and you overcome it,

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that every time you overcome it, you're just a little stronger, just a little bit stronger. I think I've mentioned a friend who was an alcoholic and by the grace of God, he was able to win the battle

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and he was no longer an alcoholic. But it is said that an alcoholic has certain inclinations toward alcohol. It's in his bloodstream that if he takes one drink, that he's off on the binge. So you have to just stop drinking altogether.

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Some people can drink through a social drink. Doesn't seem to bother them, but not with an alcoholic. But as an Alcoholic he overcame it. He was strong enough to resist it Not only was he strong enough to see people drinking it and not drink

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But he was strong enough to serve it to others and still not drink That's overcoming temptation Because it's around us. It's there Beckoning us and come this way come this way come that way

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Every day we face temptation and every day we overcome it. We become just a little stronger because we have a God who is present with us. We have a God that leads us over the hills of life.

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We have a God that walks with us through the dark valleys. We have a God that enables us to overcome temptation. That's why we can sing, "Yield not to temptation, "for yielding is sin."

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Each victory will help you some other to win. Fight manfully onward. Bad language this day. Look over to Jesus.

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He will carry you. The door of the church is open. We invite you to come. To be hooked up with a God that enables us to be strong even in the midst of weaknesses.

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We invite you to come. [Music] ♪ Fear not your temptation ♪ ♪ For the early day is here ♪

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♪ Each victory will help you ♪ ♪ Some others to win ♪ ♪ Find that glory onward ♪ ♪ For passions of doom ♪

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♪ The Lord devil to thee does ♪ ♪ He will carry you through ♪ ♪ Shun evil compassion ♪ ♪ Bad language disdain ♪

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♪ Lord's name hold in reference ♪ ♪ Nor take it in vain ♪ ♪ Be thoughtful and earnest ♪ ♪ Kindhearted and true ♪

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♪ Look ever to Jesus ♪ He will carry you through. To Him that o'er cometh, God giveth a crown. Through faith we will conquer, though often cast down.

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He who is our Savior, all strength will renew. ♪ Oh, look ever to Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh, He will carry you through ♪ ♪ Ask the Savior to help you ♪

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♪ He will offer strength and keep you ♪ ♪ Oh, He is willing to help you ♪ He will carry you through. All you have to do is ask the Savior to help.

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And He will be strong, but stronger than he can keep you. He is willing to aid you. He will carry you through. [BLANK_AUDIO]