Presumption and God's Promises

Praise God, I want you to turn to Matthew chapter four here tonight, Matthew chapter four and we're in part six, I think, no it's part five, it is, of this series on the promises of God. We're going to finish on Sunday, part six, just a very short series, very important series and then you all know that I won't be here for several weeks, those online won't know that but I'll put a video up and explain all the issues involved with that. But this is a very important series, timely, I believe concerning the promises of God, that we understand the character of the promises of God, the purpose of them, that they are regarded in your life, that you begin to realize you are a carrier of the very promises, the words of God and that God wants to bless you with promises, he puts his thoughts, his heart, his desire written in his word to convey to you his desire towards you, he wants to bless you by his promises, his promises carry his very heart for you, that's an extraordinary thing when you begin to realize it.

But here in part five, there's my message and it was going to be point three of last Wednesday but I realized I was out of time, I didn't want to lose this. So I'm coming back, if you remember last Wednesday night, we dealt with obtaining the promises of God from Hebrews chapter 11, 33, where it says, who through faith obtained promises. So we saw that very clearly last week, it was through faith, all the men and women of the ages have through faith obtained the promises of God, that's how we do that.

But point three of it I didn't deal with and it does need an entire message because I believe this point that is now a message here tonight is a warning, as we deal with the promises, I want to give you a very clear warning tonight, attach to the promises and then when our Sunday will finish off again, I want to emphasize just the beauty of these promises but I'm giving you a warning, just to protect, I'm not going through and giving you all the examples, it's a principle that you apply where you find the promises. My message tonight, presumption and God's promises, reading from Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil and when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward a hungered and when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down for it is written, I want you to notice this tonight as we deal with presumption and the promises of God. Look what the devil's doing here. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. I'm going to finish there. This is the story of the temptation of Christ.

We've only read two of the temptations, there's three, but I don't want to cover it all. I want to be very focused what I'm going to deal with tonight because tonight I'm going to deal with presumption and God's promises. Let's pray.

Father, we pray tonight in the name of Jesus that as we have looked at the promises of God and will on Sunday, Lord God, as we meditate on them, as we revel in them, as we enjoy them, Father, as we learn to embrace them, O God, and Lord God, to soak our mind in them, Lord God, we don't want to fall into the ploy of the devil, Lord God, who would so try to blacken the promises of God that we wouldn't even enjoy them. But also, O God, we don't want to go the other way and fall into the sin of presumption, nor, God, where we neglect your wisdom held in this book. Tonight, Father, I pray that you would teach us how to handle the promises of God and not to be presumptuous, not to sin when we handle, when we pray, when we quote, when we claim the promises of God.

In Jesus' mighty name, that your name might be glorified. Amen. It says in Psalm 19 and verse 13 concerning the Lord, and this is a prayer.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright and shall be innocent from the great transgression.

This scripture in Psalm 19, a prayer in a song. Keep thy servant back from presumptuous sin. To even pray that prayer shows you're not being presumptuous.

Lord, I'm your servant. I love you, but I don't want to be presumptuous. I am a servant.

I am walking with you, but I'm aware I could be tempted to be presumptuous. I don't want to commit a presumptuous sin as a believer. The Psalmist isn't saying, I can't commit the sin of presumption.

God won't allow me to commit. He never says that. This is a part of his walk with God that he's praying to God and he's asking, please, Lord.

He's beseeching the Lord. Please keep me back. Hold me back.

Restrain me from committing the sin of presumption. And you know what? You can commit a sin of presumption against God. And the Psalmist here, and you'd be wise to pray this, to pray and say, Lord, keep me back.

Hold me back. Grant your grace in such a way. Grant a conviction, a fear of God, a trembling at the word of God that I am going to be held back from being presumptuous.

The word presumptuous here, it means to be proud or to be arrogant. That means to have a false confidence in the things of God. And so you see here, he's praying, don't let me have a false confidence.

Don't let me be presumptuous in the things of God. I believe the Psalmist is talking about the word of God and the will of God and the plan of God and his relationship with God. And he's saying, don't let me be presumptuous.

Keep me back. Hold me back. I know I can have a proneness to this.

I know that we can be tempted to it. I know that we all within our fallen nature have something that can be presumptuous, arrogant, willful, selfish, confident, when we ought not to be confident. And so presumption can be and is sinful.

Presumption over the things of God is a sin against God. And notice what it calls it, a great transgression. If you hold me back Lord, let them not have dominion over me.

Presumptuous sins control. Do you realize certain sins can dominate? They can mark you. They can drive you.

They have a power. They hold a sway over you. And so the Psalmist says, please keep me back from presumptuous sins because I know if I fall into them, there's a power with them.

There's a dominion with them. This arrogance, this I'm okay. I'm fine.

I'm all right. I don't need you. I don't need a worry.

I don't need the fear of God. That attitude is so dangerous. It dominates you.

It has a power over you. And so the Psalmist doesn't want it in his life because he realized it's a driving force. He says, then shall I be upright? How? If God withholds me from presumptuous sin.

If God withholds me from presumptuous sin, then I will be upright. I will be straight. And I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Since you don't want to fall into presumptuous sins. What is presumption? The word in our English dictionary, it means to wrongly overstep set boundaries. That's presumption.

I'm bringing it into scripture here tonight. It means to ignore all conditions. It is the act of turning faith into sin.

And that's what can happen. What you call faith could actually be presumptuous and the sin of presumption. And yet someone in the church could say, I'm acting in faith.

I'm being moved by faith. I'm believing the promises of God. I'm standing on the promises.

I'm claiming a particular promise. And actually what you think is faith, you could be presumptuous and you could be sinful. Not willfully, not willingly, not desiring to be that.

But because of lack of care, you can actually be that. And so you move from faith and from a knowledge of the written scripture to an idea of your own mind. It's a false trust, a false faith.

It is presumption. Presumption comes disguised as faith. That's what it appears like.

Presumption actually reveals itself saying, I am trusting God or I am obeying God. So you think you're obeying God, trusting God, having faith in God, but you're presumptuous. You're in sin.

And actually you don't have the blessing of God or the backing of God. So you need to take real care over this. I'm not telling you to get all funny over the promises.

I'm exhorting you in this series to enter into belief. I don't want you to so emphasize obedience that you neglect the promises. You need the promises.

You live by the promises of God. But what you need to do is through presumption, you begin to try and force God to do things, to bless you when his word doesn't say he'll bless you, or to own what his word says has to be rejected. Real faith lives within the boundaries of the Bible and real faith believes the commands of God and the warnings just as much as the promises.

I'm bringing you a warning tonight. And the same faith that believes all the promises is the same faith that takes heed to the warnings that protect the promises. And so I want to deal with presumption and God's promises.

So I believe there's so many beautiful promises, so many blessings, so many thousands of things that God says he wants to give you, to grant you, to bless you with, that there's always the danger of presumption coming in, spoiling the promises of God. So in order for you to enjoy the blessings and to walk in them and possess them, I'm actually giving a warning. But this isn't a negative warning.

This is a helpful warning to stop you being presumptuous. I want you to have faith in the promises, not presumption. Presumption will get you nowhere ultimately.

Faith will bring you right into possession and enjoyment of the blessings and the promises of God. And that's what I want for you tonight. So let's go to our text, Matthew chapter 4, and this second temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It had been 40 days he was in the wilderness. You only see one day, the last day, 40 days of temptation. You only see one day of temptation and three specific temptations.

But that wasn't all the temptations and that wasn't all the trial. You're only seeing the very last day, maybe the climax of this, the very last day. And so we go here to Matthew chapter 4 and verse 5. Then the devil taketh him, that is Jesus, up into the holy city and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple.

That means right at the corner of the temple. The open court is below him. Multitudes of people gather there daily.

And the devil literally has the power to take Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. Temptations are real, very, very real. They're not imaginary.

Here the devil taketh him to the holy city. Notice the devil takes Jesus to the holiest city on earth, the holy city, the place that has a history of revival, of men of God, of prophets of God, of kings of God, the entire history of God's people Israel. So the devil takes him to a holy city, a sanctified city, God's city, God's ordained city.

And he setteth him on a pinnacle of a temple. You know nowhere is like the temple. What did Jesus call it? My father's house.

So here's Jesus by the devil. He's already had one temptation and he defeated it by the word of God. It is written.

He defeated Satan, stopped the temptation, brought it to conclusion. But here's a second temptation, another one where Satan, the devil, literally carries him to the holy city, to the pinnacle of the temple. Notice in the previous temptation, it was a wilderness.

So here's a change of situation. The devil can first tempt you in a wilderness, then he takes you right into a city. You may be victorious in a wilderness.

You may be prepared for a wilderness, but you may not be prepared for the holy city of God. It might catch you off guard. You may see the devil coming in the wilderness, but you may not see him as he takes you to the holy city and he takes you to the holiest place on the earth and he sets you on the pinnacle.

It's a change of temptation. The devil doesn't tempt you the same way all the time. He'll tempt you with drugs and drink and sex and blasphemy.

He'll tempt you with the world. He'll tempt you with your past. He'll tempt you with vile sins.

He'll tempt you through the internet or through a friend, all like that. You can see that coming. I mean, I see that.

But when he takes you to the holy city and the pinnacle of the temple, you better be very careful. See, when the devil brings you to church, brings you to a holy realm, a Christian realm, now you've got to be on your guard because you may not have been presumptuous in the wilderness because you know how dangerous it is, but now you're in the house of God. Now you're on sanctified ground.

You could very easily move from faith to presumption in this temptation and it's the devil behind it. You see, look who brings him here. It is the devil.

Look what it says in verse six. And saith unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down for it is written. The devil's got a Bible in his hand, the word of God in his lips, arguments in his interaction with you.

Oh, this isn't a temptation to go get drunk or take drugs or go off with a girl or a guy. There's a whole different environment. Now Satan comes to him saying, if thou be the son of God, the devil asks questions, you know, he'll put question marks over things in your mind concerning the will of God for your life and who you are as a Christian.

He knows how to do this. If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down for it is written. The devil is quoting the Bible.

He is saying it is written. It is written. It is written.

You know why? Because Jesus defeated them on that basis. Remember in the temptation before the devil is tempting them. Turn these rocks into bread.

Jesus said, it is written. He defeated them by the word of God. Now the devil comes in, it is written.

You better be very careful when the devil begins to quote the Bible to you. You're in a whole different realm, temptation for it is written. He shall not give his angels charge concerning me.

He's quoting promises. Do you see where I'm going here? The devil comes with the Bible in his hand, quoting the word of God, giving you promises, urging you with the promises of God, wanting you to embrace and act on this promise. Can you believe this tonight? This is a real temptation, and I believe many Christians miss this, that the devil can use the word of God.

He can quote promises from the word of God, and in their hands they shall bear the up, lest at any time thou shall dash thy foot against a stone. The devil challenges, if thou be the son of God. Every temptation is always an attack of our relationship with God the father through Jesus the son.

If he wasn't scared to challenge the sonship of Jesus, he will challenge your sonship. This is one of the strategies of hell. He challenges salvation, assurance of salvation, your relationship with God, your desire for God, your walk with God.

Haven't we all been challenged by the devil at some point? Challenging, are you a Christian? Are you real? Are you sincere? Are you born again? Is it real what you have? You know what he says to the son of God? If thou are the son of God. Very cunning. He doesn't say you're not the son of God.

He says, if you are. Listen to me. If you are a child of God, if you are a Christian, then here's a promise in the Bible for you.

Very cunning, because you know a real Christian is going to say, I am a Christian. I know I am. I know I love God.

I am a real believer. So he's immediately hooking you. If you are, here's a promise for you.

He is quoting the written word of God very, very clearly. You see, the devil begins to say, prove your sonship, prove your messiahship. He done it with Jesus.

He'll do it with you. Prove that you're a Christian. He can actually drive you to certain scripture and say, if you act on this promise, then you'll prove that you're a Christian.

This dangerous ground we're on. I believe many preachers have fallen for this. Many mega ministries in our world have fallen for it.

Many Christians have fallen for it. And I want to give you a warning because every promise will be attacked by the devil, the evil one. If it's worth having and you walking in it, if it's going to bless you, if it's going to be a blessing to the body of Christ, the devil will come to try and twist things.

He's going to say, the truth of this promise depends on your action. If you don't act on this promise, it actually challenges your sonship. Being a Christian, you've got to act on it.

You've got to act on it now. Notice the devil sets the scenario. He sets the conditions.

He prompts the thoughts. Be careful where you're led, that it's not the devil instead of the Holy Spirit. And yet within all of these temptations, who was it led him, drove him into the wilderness? Was it the devil? The Holy Spirit.

He was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. He was driven there by the Holy Spirit, but the temptations were of the devil. Don't put yourself in temptations, but when the temptations come, be ready for them with the word of God.

Don't go looking for them. That'd be presumption. I challenge the devil.

That would be presumption. You don't want to do that. You don't need to challenge him.

He'll come looking. And here he is, not in the wilderness anymore, but on the pinnacle of the temple, right on the pinnacle. That's where he's being challenged.

That's where the word of God's being challenged. Prove that you're the son of God right now, right here in this environment. What does he challenge? Cast thyself down.

Show the truth of God's word. Prove that it's real. Prove that you're a child of God.

Prove that God is with you by acting on the word of God and casting yourself down, throwing yourself down. Notice here the devil doesn't cast Jesus down. He had the power to lift him up to the pinnacle.

Why did he not cast him down? If you were the devil, would you not cast the son of God down? But he didn't want to do that. Why did he tell him to do it and he not do it himself? First of all, he couldn't. God wouldn't let him.

But more than that, it wouldn't have fulfilled anything. You see, the devil knows it would accomplish nothing, him killing him. He wanted him to act.

He wanted him to do the deed. There would be no sin unless he does it himself. The devil's not trying to merely kill him, but make him act apart from the will of the father, without the leading of the father, and the plan of the father, and the word and promise of the father.

So he surrounds him with the word of God. It is written, it is written. The Bible says, the Bible says, the promises are there.

Why don't you act to prove that you're a son of God? Do you see how dangerous a promise can be? Remember last week I told you about that one promise for mourning and grief. And the devil for a year and a half comes and said, you're not being comforted. One and a half years, until I realize the right interpretation.

Here again, you see the danger attached to promises. You're going to spend your entire Christian life interacting with the promises and the commands. And you know what? If the devil can't hold you back, and keep you in the world, and keep you in the wilderness, and make you apathetic, and compromised, and lethargic, and disobedient, you know what he's going to do? He'll push you overboard.

My granddad always said that. The devil can't keep you back, he'll push you overboard. He can't make you a compromiser, he'll make you an extremist.

And I love radicalism, if it's biblical. But I hate radicalism when it's not biblical. It's dangerous.

Cast yourself down. Listen to the scenario here that is set. Just think, this is the beginning of his ministry.

Remember, after the 40 days' temptation, he steps out into public ministry. After all of this, remember he was baptized in water, the Holy Ghost comes on him, and then you step out into ministry. No, you go into the wilderness to be tempted.

Some people can be anointed with the Holy Ghost, but they can't be tempted by the devil. Not ready for ministry. I've got the power.

Do you know how to defeat the devil? Some people shouldn't go into ministry until they're ready. Because I'm telling you what, you become a target of the evil one. And you can't even imagine what this is like in ministry, when you really encounter the devil.

You don't want to do this out of the will of God. You would not want to be in ministry. And so many people are covetous in ministry.

You don't want to do it. Listen, as he stands on the pinnacle, he is setting the scenario here. A display, a public display, a religious display, a miraculous display, a religious display in the house of God at the beginning of his ministry.

His introduction as Messiah. I mean, imagine angels swooping down to catch you, to stop your foot hitting the ground of the temple floor. Imagine God's miraculous intervention.

What a revealing of the Messiah, embarking on his ministry. Can you imagine the testimony that would be throughout the city? A public display. There's only one problem.

The devil behind it, promoting us, suggesting us. It was the best place, the best audience, the best opportunity. A quick and easy suggestion from the devil saying, look, do this.

Do you know what? Sometimes the devil pushes you in the direction that God's going to take you in ultimately. But he preempts it all and it's the wrong way to do it. So what you know is God's will for your life.

If the devil can't stop you going the will of God, the way of God, he'll actually go, I'll help you get there. And he has promises to help you do it right now. Do you see how cunning this is? That the promises of God in carnal hands can become very destructive.

And the devil coming in and using promises can make you run down a path of the promises of God that are totally out of the will of God and the way of God. The Jews were seeking a dramatic coming of the Messiah. The Jews seek after signs, wonders, miracles, don't they? Give the crowd what they want.

Man, what an entrance. But what does the Bible say? How would the Messiah first appear and reveal himself in Jerusalem? Is there a scripture that protects you at such a time? Yes, it's in Zechariah 9 and 9. Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation, lonely and riding upon an ass, upon the cult of the foal of an ass.

Rather different, isn't it? Riding humbly on a donkey into Jerusalem. That's how the Messiah is going to come. The devil is saying, it is written, giving you promises, suggesting ideas for you to make a messianic revelation of yourself and begin your ministry in Jerusalem.

Wow. Saints of God, the promises of God when the devil begins to quote them are volatile and dangerous. Look what he says.

The devil says, for it is written. The devil is saying, I'm quoting the written scripture, the written Bible, not just here in a prophecy. I am quoting the Bible too.

It says here, this is true. Who would dare to say that what the devil said wasn't true? He spoke what was true. He quoted from the written scripture.

Everything he said was accurate. But again, something can be true without being the truth. The devil is preaching here.

He is teaching. He is guiding. He is showing.

He is maneuvering. He knows scripture better than you. No one in this room, all of us together, do not know the written scriptures like the devil does.

You're not his equal. But do you know why the Word of God is twisted? By the devil, because of his heart. You cannot handle the Word of God correctly if your heart isn't pure.

You cannot. I've watched this all through the years. When there's issues in the heart, you always twist, always change, always add, always take away, always in addition, always covering something.

And that's what happens with the devil. Remember, it says in 2 Corinthians 11, 13, and Paul warning about certain men who've come into the church who had gifted apostolic ministries. He says, for such are false apostles.

They're not apostles of Christ. They're not messengers sent from Jesus. They're not apostles of the Lamb.

Listen, deceitful workers. They transform themselves into the apostles of Christ. Imagine a deceitful worker changing his appearance to seem to be an apostle of Christ.

Then he says, and no marvel or no surprise, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Satan only comes as an angel of light. He comes glowing, glorious.

He comes with the Bible, preaching, speaking. He'll even do wonders. Therefore, it is no great thing if his messengers also be transformed into the ministers of righteousness whose end should be according to their works.

How does Jesus respond to this? It is written. The Bible says, here's a promise. Why don't you act now in your situation on the promise of God? Listen, he said in the previous verse, before this temptation, how did he defeat the previous temptation? It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Then the devil taketh him. You can say, I'm only a word man. I'm a Christ man.

I'm a Bible man. I believe in the authority of Scripture, the inspiration. I want to live by every word of the Bible.

I will not leave the Bible. I will not depart from the Bible. I'm not going out into the world.

I'm not following temptation. I'm sticking with the word of God. The devil says, okay then.

Let's see how you handle a temptation from the word of God. I won't take you out there to the wilderness. We'll go to church.

I'll attempt to teach you and educate you and lead you and give you guidance and take promises, actual promises and hold them out and prompt you and try to lead you into acting on certain promises. You need to be careful, saints. Presumption is a sin and it can look like faith and obedience.

Let me go into this and I want to give you four things the devil actually done to the promise of God. Four things he done to the promise. Some promises in the hands of Satan have changed.

Let's go into this and look at it for a second. First of all, mark this because you can apply this all the way through the word of God. It was a misquote of a promise and you must never do that.

Do not misquote a promise. It was actually half a quote, not a full quote. What the devil quoted of a promise from it is written.

It's in the Bible. It was actually taken out of Psalm 91 verse 11 and verse 12. Let me read the full promise and see if you notice.

Is there any changes to this? For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. He misquoted.

There's one thing that's not there to keep thee in all thy ways. Do you know the promise had a condition attached to it? A condition, a timing. You can't just take a promise and there's lots of promises.

Hundreds and thousands have no condition and they're just for everyone. But this promise had a timing, had a condition, it had a boundary and often you'll find with promises there's a protection. What is a boundary or what is a condition? It is a protection on that promise.

No more than that. It is a protection on you. You can't just take something, quote it and step out on it without being careful.

Because how do you know whether it's God leading you, yourself leading you or the devil leading you? Oh the devil would never lead me into the word of God. Yes he would. Here's an example.

He'll prompt you to act on the word of God. If you're not prayerful and careful you may find yourself in a situation you never imagined. To keep thee in all thy ways.

The word ways there means your daily walk, your normal course of life. What had the devil done? He just created a scenario. Now he prompts you to act on the word of God.

But hold on, what does the promise say? The promise says this promise is for you in your normal day-to-day life, in your daily walk. As you walk through your job, your family, walking down the street, this verse is for that. Not for jumping off buildings.

Actually Jesus if he would have acted on the promise he would have been out of the way. He wasn't in the way, he was out of the way. The father does not lead us when we step outside the word of God.

You can't act on the promises of God. You can't claim the promises of God while acting outside of the will of God and the way of the father for your life and being normal and practical. So notice the devil misquotes the word of God.

He always misquotes. That's why you always check everything. I wish every one of you every Sunday, every Wednesday night went back, went over all your notes, checked every scripture, every statement.

I've done that all through the years and I'll tell you what all the Christians I hung around with done all of that and there were never preachers. The churches I grew up in and I overseen the past, everyone studied the notes from sermons because of this very thing. Misquotes.

He also speaks of victory. So the devil talks about victory in connection with the promise. But hidden under this is actually disobedience.

Imagine the devil telling you this is the pathway to victory. In fact, he knows it's the pathway to disobedience and disaster. It's not the way to God's will.

What you have today in the church is modern triumphalism. We are going to take the nation. We are going to take the nations.

We are going to take the political system. We are going to rule. We are going to claim.

We're going to take over everything. They take some promises and they go a million miles with it. Actually, it's the devil lying to them.

They have no message of deception or an apostasy at the end or a coming antichrist. They change the word of God in an extraordinary way. We expect the end without the means.

If you listen to the devil, you get all of the end goal. At least he offers it to you. But there's no consideration of how you get there.

It doesn't matter how you get there. As long as you get there, it just says, this is what you want, isn't it? Here's the word of God. You can have this and you take no heed to the journey.

This is misquoting the scripture. Since you do not want to misquote the scripture, when you find a promise, look at the context. Read the situation.

Read who it's for. Read how it applies to your life. Read for when it should be applied to your life.

That's the first great thing here, is misquoting scripture. Do you know an interesting one about this whole scripture here in Matthew chapter four? All the modern scholars, I mean great men, this is what they say about this verse. They actually say, oh, this statement isn't in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament.

It's not in the L10.10.70. LXX, that's it. So all the scholars are saying, well, we've studied the old manuscripts, the old Greek manuscript. Do you see what they're doing? They're actually falling into the same thing.

They don't even see that it's in here. Don't rely on the Septuagint. Don't think you're getting greater wisdom.

We go back and we've got the Greek Old Testament. It's been messed with. You don't want to go there.

And all the great scholars do it. Do you know what they're doing? They're misquoting. They'll use the Septuagint uninspired to now start interpreting the New Testament and say, we actually don't even think it was really there in the Old Testament.

How dangerous. Second of all, subtraction. Not only misquoting the whole context of a promise, of not looking at the context, but subtraction.

See, there's the mark of the devil, to misquote, then to subtract, to take things out. What do you have taken out? The condition. He removes it from the promise.

You know what he does? He ignores it. He hides it. He silences it.

And we have it all across the city. See these young guys we've had to deal with. They go, I'm going to heaven.

I have eternal life. You're living sinfully. No, no, no.

No one can persuade me I'm not saved. I'm telling you, you're a sinner. No, no, I don't listen to you.

Do you know what that is? Subtraction. They've got all the promises without any conditions, any commands, any teaching, any instruction, any consequence. And they say, I've got all the promises.

All the promises are mine in Christ. And to hell with the conditions. You're in trouble.

This is the work of the devil, and I recognize it. When it happens, when I encounter it, I recognize it. A Scripture taken out of context.

You haven't even labored over that Scripture, and now you mold yourself after it. You don't even have it in context. You don't even take note of everything around it.

But the work of the devil is subtraction, a deliberate neglect. The devil didn't accidentally miss a sentence. He deliberately done it.

Here's the promise. Here's the promise. When I meet Christians who are only the promises and not the commands, you need to worry.

So I don't want you going the other way. All the commands and none of the promises. I've been dealing with that.

But I've always been against those, and this has been all across the church. It's all the promises of God. No commands, no holiness, no righteousness.

That's very dangerous. That's the fingerprints of the devil. It says in Romans chapter 1 verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

Do you see, it says in Romans 1, God's wrath is revealed against men who hold the truth. They have the truth. They possess the truth.

It's actually talking about false teachers and preachers. They hold the truth of God, but God's wrath is revealed against them. Do you know what that word hold means in the Greek? It doesn't mean just hold like this.

It means who suppress the truth. They hide the truth. They obscure the truth.

It's not holding like this. It's holding down. There's men who have the word of God, have the truth of God, and they're suppressing it.

That's what the devil done. He suppressed important teaching around the promise. The devil doesn't mind giving you a promise by itself.

Here's a promise. Here's a promise. There's a promise.

You've got eternal life. You've got heaven. You don't need to worry about anything.

Don't think about anything else. See, the devil subtracts. It's like little promise boxes.

As long as you read your Bible, they're no problem. But see Christians, there's these little promise box and you go there first thing in the morning. You don't read your Bible.

You're not spending time in the word of God. You go there and you pluck it out. Some daily readings are like that.

You've got your little promise for the day. Dot, dot, dot. I'm the Lord that hails thee.

Dot, dot, dot. What's missing? If you keep my commandments. And there's a thousand other promises like that.

Dot, dot, dot. What's the dot mean? It means something's not there. That's fine if you're a faithful reader of the Bible.

Go to your little promise box. But that could become very dangerous. And there's lots of promise box Christians in the church.

They come to church, they listen, they take what they want, they leave what they don't like. You know the statement, eat the meats, spit out the bones. What a stupid statement.

You want to listen to preachers and go, don't like that, but I'll accept that. You better look pretty a lot better than that for a preacher. The third thing, additions.

He added his own suggestion. He added his own timing. Not God's timing.

No, it's his timing. You've got to do it now. Never let the devil or people pressurize you in the church.

You've got to make a decision now. No, I do not. No, I don't.

You know, as soon as I feel abnormal pressure, I don't care if it's one of you or any one of my travels. As soon as I feel this obliged to do something, I go, hold on a sec. Why am I feeling obliged when I feel uncomfortable about this? Just slow down a bit.

The devil is here saying, the time is now. The time is right. The place is right.

The promise is for you. Surely the promise of God is here. What does he do in adding? So he misses out on a vital bit of information, which is about your daily life.

And he inserts this, cast thyself down. See, when you add your thinking or other people's suggestions or ideas, I think you should do this. I think you should do this.

Christians have gotten real trouble acting on the opinions rather than the word of God. Men's interpretation of the word of God. See why I'm calling this presumption and the promises of God.

You're going to presumption in around the promises of God, and I'll lead you to shipwreck. So the devil adds his own suggestion. It is natural thinking added to the word of God, a manufactured way of living before God.

You create the situation, then you force God to perform his promise. I'm going to do this, and God is obliged to act. God has to act.

I'm going to do this. I'm stepping out. I'm going into this situation.

I'm going to do this, and God has to. God doesn't have to do anything. God can let you walk through the fire.

You need to be very careful of adding your thoughts. Well, God told me, I've met hundreds of people over the years, and young people who were zealous for God, and said, God failed me. God didn't bring me a partner.

I had all these prophecies, and they never came to pass. That's man. That wasn't God.

Don't blame God for that. And they say, I'm angry with God. God failed me.

God failed no one. Do you know what? You are playing around with promises and prophecies. You are actually adding the ideas of men, prophecies, saying, God's going to do this.

God's going to bless me. I've heard these prophecies in America. Someone prophesied saying, you can eat what you want, and you're going to lose all this weight.

They put all that weight on. It wasn't God who lied. God didn't make that promise.

That was a preacher, a lying prophet. You need to be so, so careful when the devil is wanting you to create a situation that is unreal, not providential, not circumstantial, but he is creating. He is prompting you.

You need to do it now. Here's the situation. Forcing a situation, then demanding that God does certain things to prove he is God, or to back you up to prove you're a Christian.

The fourth and last one, misapplied. So, you've got the promise, but you misapply it, or you take it out of its context. Applying God's promise in areas, certain areas in your life.

Trying to make God's word fit in your life, rather than your life fit in God's word. Believe me, that's radically different. You're trying to make the promises.

You're trying to go, this needs to fit in, this needs to fit in, this needs. No, you've got it back to front. You ought to be going, I want to walk in my daily normal life.

I'm walking in the light of his word. Then the promises come down upon me. Then when I find myself in trouble, I can claim the promise of God, and have faith in the promise of God, and believe for the promise of God.

No deadly thing will hurt you. You can take up scorpions, any deadly thing. You know, in America, in the southern states, when I was a young boy, we used to see these films of the snake handlers.

Holy Ghost, Pentecostal, tongue speaking, meetings. They would dance, shout, sing all the songs. There was power in the blood.

They actually brought serpents, snakes, into the meetings in cages. They'd begin to handle them and dance around the altar, all these old cowboys, because they're claiming the promise of God. And Christian after Christian got bit by those serpents, rushed to hospital.

And they believe, if you have enough faith, if you claim the promises, as long as your heart's all right, you won't get bitten. Rubbish. You're tempting the situation.

You're forcing the promises. You're not living out your normal Christian life. This is beginning to pervert it.

It's misapplied. It's playing games with these things. And notice what else the devil says here.

And he adds this little token, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Do you notice the devil leaves that in? He doesn't leave that promise out. He makes sure to add this promise because it's a biblical promise in the context, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Doesn't the devil care about you? I so care about your foot. I want you to jump through yourself of the pinnacle of the temple, but I so care about your foot. You need a see-through deception.

There's people who come, Christians, and they will come into this church in the days ahead. And you will encounter them in your life in the days ahead. And they're saying, you can have this, and you can have this, and I care about your foot, and I don't want you.

Why don't you do this? Why don't you step out and do some great thing for God? And that's fine. If God's calling you to that, you do that. But the devil's very good at showing compassion and interest when he doesn't care about you.

How did Jesus respond to this? The promises of God misquoted with things left out, other things added, and then misapplied. How did he respond? Verse 7, Matthew 4, 7. Jesus said unto him, it is written again. Do you know in the temptation, he quotes scripture three times from Deuteronomy.

Who here in this room would go to the Deuteronomy to defeat Satan as a tempter? You wouldn't think of going to Deuteronomy. But Jesus must have been reading Deuteronomy that morning or meditating on it from memory. And he reaches all the way back into the Old Testament, the written scripture, not a rhyme, a word, not a prophecy, not a vision.

He reaches back into the old written scripture, and he pulls out a scripture, and he says, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. He destroyed this whole corruption with one scripture. He applied like dynamite one scripture to the entire temptation, and he destroyed it.

You know why? Because the devil was tempting God. Do you know what it means to tempt God? It means to draw him to act outside of his character. It's challenging God.

You can't get the promises of God. Take them out of context. Just possess them.

Try and force God to make them work. Do you know when you start forcing God, forcing him to do what his word says he won't do, do you know what you're doing? You're tempting God. You want him to act outside of his character, outside of his word.

You take a promise and say, God, you've got to. God, why did you fail me? God, you need to do this. God, you need to do this now.

Do you know what you're in danger of? Tempting God. You're now trying to tempt God. It's not the devil tempting Jesus now.

It is now you tempting God. God, you need to act. God, you need to do it now.

God, you better send your angels before I hit the ground. You've got about one and a half seconds here. Do you know what that is? Tempting God.

And you know what? Jesus pulled the cover off it and revealed it for what it is. He exposed him and he said, you are tempting me. Then what did Jesus do? I think he walked down by the steps.

Saints of God, what you have here is Jesus Christ handling the devil, misusing the promises of God. The devil came to Jesus trying to entice him, move him, trying to make him act on promises out of context with his own thoughts, own additions, and his own timing. But Jesus knew, Jesus exposed that would be tempting God to use the promises of God for your own means.

It's actually to destroy the Word of God. It's a very, very dangerous thing and you don't want to be doing that. Ananas and Sapphira agreed together and they tempted the Holy Spirit.

Remember what Peter said to them? Why have you agreed to tempt the Holy Ghost? You know why the Holy Ghost is moving there? And they make an agreement. We are going to lie in the church to Peter publicly. They thought they're lying to a man.

You're lying to the Holy Ghost. And Peter exposed it and said, do you know by this action what you were doing in God's house? You shouldn't have done that in God's house. In God's house, you're tempting God because you think you can lie and act like that in a time where the Holy Spirit's moving and you think God isn't going to deal with that.

You think God doesn't say that? You think God is going to accept that? You think God's just going to ignore this lying and deception and carry on? God didn't. God slew this couple who had lied to the Holy Ghost, who had tempted the Holy Ghost. They were challenging.

Deal with us if you can. You know what God said? Okay. I'll deal with your sin.

I'll expose your sin. I'll bring real gifts to the Holy Ghost that bring it right into the open. I'll reveal it.

And you know what, saints? We're going to have a move of God again in the church. We're going to have an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And you dare not tempt the Spirit of God.

You must not take the Word of God out of condition. And saints, in the middle of this series on the promises of God, I'm just giving you this simple warning. But this isn't a negative.

This is a positive. This protects the Word of God. This guards the Word of God.

This enhances the promises. This preserves the promises. This actually, what I've just preached to you, makes the promises of God work in your life in a real way.

Not you tempting God, demanding and nothing happens. If Jesus had done that, no way would God the Father have sent angels. No way.

The blessings don't work like that. The promises don't work. But I believe Jesus would have committed suicide.

And God the Father could not have acted. But of course, that's impossible because Jesus would never, never have treated the promises of God like that. But when you get Christians who do it and say, challenge us if you can.

I believe God says, I will. You won't play with the promises like that because they're too precious. Too powerful.

Too priceless. Too important. And saints of God, they're for you.

The promises of God are for you. But I'm protecting them in this church. These promises are so amazing, so necessary that we want to have good biblical protection.

Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we love you tonight. Father, I thank you for every promise that's in Christ Jesus.

Thank you that this warning, Lord God, it's a protection. We realize, oh God, that the devil does come saying it is written. He comes quoting promises.

Lord God, he drops even thoughts, suggestions, ideas, timings, pressure, even into the greatest minds of saints. Lord God, we realize that we have a wily adversary who even in Genesis chapter three said, has God said, did God say, and then challenges it and denies the word of God. Father, I pray, will you protect us? Will you guard us? Lord God, will you teach us, oh God, how to enjoy the blessings of God? How to enter into every single promise in this book? And Father, we're so hungry.

We're so glad that you give protection, Lord God, not only to the scripture, to the promise, but to us as well, to guard us and to make us normal and natural believers in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.