Holiness, Godliness, Usefulness
02/22/2015, by John Kincaid
Lesson 520: Long-term Consequences
Temptation only works if you can’t see the future available to you by walking for God.
If you can grasp even a glimpse of where God wants to take you, nothing else compares.
The serpent offered Eve a future different from God’s: “You will not surely die”. Gen.3:4
Also temptation will fail unless that sin’s long-term consequences are concealed. Esau gave up his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew.
Gen.25:32 But Esau threw away the blessing for all of his descendants. His brief craving brought a curse on a thousand generations, which Esau realized too late.
Heb.12:16-17 Esau sold his birthright for a single meal… afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
If Jesus had yielded to any temptation, even a bite of bread, He would have been a sinner.
Sinning would have shown that Jesus feared Satan more than He feared God the Father.
Like Esau’s sin, the consequences for the children of God would have been devastating.
Jesus would have lost His birthright as the firstborn son of God, and we would be doomed.
About This Series
The goal of this series is to become more useful in serving the Lord Jesus Christ, as an instrument in the Redeemer's hand. The theme verses for the series are Ephesians 4:22-24, Philemon 11, 2 Timothy 2:21
- to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
- and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
- Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.
- Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
