Welcome to South! We're glad you joined us today! Below you will find some sermon notes and Bible passages, to help you follow along with Pastor Scott's message. We hope you will be encouraged by what is taught today.

Who or what are we fighting?

When we wrestle or battle against a temptation, our fight is against a whole realm of spiritual forces that are led by the god of this world, Satan himself. Satan's name literally means “adversary,” which should give you a pretty good idea as to what he and his spiritual forces are up to, not just in the world, but more specifically in our lives.He and his forces want to oppose the good work of God in our lives, but Peter tells us that their opposition in our lives has an end goal and that end goal is DESTRUCTION.Like a lion that devours its prey in the wild after attacking it, Satan and his spiritual forces attack us through temptations in order that they might ultimately feast on and devour our TESTIMONIES, our RELATIONSHIPS with others, our MARRIAGES, our BIBLICAL STANDARDS for living, our THOUGHT LIFE, our CHURCHES.

How temptation goes...

1) We dismiss God's personal nature.

God wanted to reveal himself as being the all powerful creator God who is also a very personal God that wants to use his power and might in the lives of that which he created in order to carry out his purposes and will. When Satan posed the question in the first verse of chapter 3, he conveniently left out the name for God that highlights his personal nature and just uses the name that highlights his power and might.

How temptation goes...

2) Satan raises doubts about God's Word. “Did God actually say…” those four very powerful words. Up to this point, Adam and Eve had absolutely no reason to not completely and totally trust and obey God’s commands. Now for the very first time, all of that changed as Satan deliberately and blatantly misquotes God’s original command to them.

“Did God actually say…” are still four very powerful words that Satan uses in our lives to get the ball rolling in causing us to question God’s Word. And as he did with Eve, one of the ways he has effectively led many to question God’s Word is through extra-biblical teaching, or rules.

How Temptation Goes...

3) Downplay God's goodness. Satan lied to them by telling them that God had no intention carrying out such a punishment. Leading them to conclude that God was just cruelly using this threat as a means to scare them into doing what he wanted them to do. He loves to lead us into questioning whether or not God is good in what he says in his Word.