I Want It So Bad I Can Taste It

All right, well good morning and welcome to each one. It's good to be here. I appreciated the discussion this morning around, you know, the whole story of John the Baptist and, you know, what vehicles God uses.

And Bob, you brought up the idea of what if some three-star general would go around preaching the gospel and, you know, through that vehicle many people would come to salvation, come to some sort of a faith in Jesus. And, you know, what would we do with that? We say, well it's not exactly our way of, you know, believing about the Christian life. And yet, is it something God can use? Even if we're right about whether he should be a general or not, can God still use whatever truth that he is sharing to change lives? And it brought to mind, you know, something I suppose most of you here have been at least somewhat following the news of two and a half weeks ago when Charlie Kirk was shot.

But just in case there's anybody that missed that whole story, I'll just share it for that one person here who may not have heard that. So Charlie Kirk was a guy who'd go around the campuses and he would debate with the students and it was, you know, definitely a conservative political movement. That's what he was endeavoring to promote.

And part of that was his own faith in Jesus. But people didn't like his message. He ended up, you know, there's a guy got up on a roof at a college campus and while he's there debating, shot him to death.

So now they're having a funeral ten days later. That was a week ago today. And at this funeral, his widow got up.

She has two little children, but she got up and among a bunch of other people, whole lineup of people, the president, vice president, a bunch of people got up, but during her speech, she gave three words that I think shocked everybody. She talked about that young man that shot my husband and she said, I forgive him. I forgive him.

And you know, of all the things that could have been shared there before an audience of a hundred thousand people there at that event, but probably people have estimated a hundred million people that were watching around the world or have watched in the days intervening. I forgive him. That young man took her life and totally turned it upside down.

A happily married couple, the, you know, two little children that don't have their daddy now, so many things that are different and will never be the same for her. But she said those words, I forgive him. And you know, the world saw a picture of the gospel of Jesus in a way that I don't know of any other vehicle that it could have gotten that message to so many in so little amount of time as that event.

And I don't know how many people know who Tim Allen is. I think I had seen the name before, but he went on Fox News a few days later. He said, that changed me watching Erica Kirk say those words, I forgive him.

He said, for 60 years I've been carrying something, a memory of unforgiveness. He says, when I was 11 years old, a drunk driver killed my dad. He says, I've been carrying that.

I haven't been forgiving for the last 60 years. I've been holding that grudge. But he said, after watching her get up there and forgive her husband's killer, he said, I made a decision to forgive.

And he says, I'm going to publicly say it right now. I forgive that drunk driver who killed my dad at age, when I was 11 years old. 70, 60 years ago.

So he must be 71 now. Now that's just one man who saw that word, that statement, I forgive him. Of the hundred million that saw, I wonder how many more were inspired to forgive someone that has wronged them.

And I wonder if there's anybody here, you know, if there's anybody here that has some forgiveness that we need to do. That, you know, there's maybe there's a hurt, maybe whatever it is. I forgive him.

Can we do that? And what a powerful testimony it would be. What a powerful movement it would be. If suddenly this forgiveness by this one lady toward her husband's killer could be, you know, a fire like this.

These little matches here. A fire, not for bad, but for good. That sweeps around the globe and changes lives.

So that's the power of the tongue. We saw, you know, the power of the tongue for evil, gossip. But there's the power of the for good as well.

And what changes can happen. So let's think about that. Why don't we pray one more time before we go on.

Lord, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We are here to worship you, to glorify you. That's the reason that we're here.

And I pray that you would help us. Lord, I feel weak this morning. I need your touch.

I need you to guide and direct us through the rest of this service. I pray, Lord, for forgiveness among us. I thank you for the power of forgiveness.

I thank you for the opportunity, Lord, that you took through the evil deed of this one killer to spread to this world, Lord. So many millions of people who heard the words, who saw the testimony, who heard the words of Jesus on the cross, and heard the words of this lady forgiving someone who had hurt her so deeply. And I pray that it would be a fire that would go.

I pray that you would continue to fan the flames of that forgiveness. And Lord, I also pray that you would just help us to receive the message you have for us this morning. I pray that you would guide us and direct us through this next hour or 45 minutes, whatever we have together.

Just pray that you would guide our time. In Jesus' name, amen. I got a call from a person on the billboard calls here a couple of weeks ago, and he had seen one of our signs.

I think it was maybe the one about lust, but either way he saw one of our gospel signs, and he called. He says, you don't know me. He gave me a fictitious name.

I think maybe he said his name was Jim. Just, you know, just call me Jim. Some kind of a random name like that.

But he says, you don't know me. But he says, I have a Ravi Zacharias problem. I have a Ravi Zacharias problem.

Now, how many of you think you might know what he meant when he said a Ravi Zacharias problem? Raise your hand if you think you might know what he was referring to. Okay, quite a few hands went up. Now, for the hands that didn't go up, tell you the story of Ravi Zacharias.

I used to listen to sermons by Ravi Zacharias. He was a brilliant man from India who had grown up on the streets. I think Hindu, maybe atheist.

I'm not sure what his background was, but he had tried committing suicide, but God saved him in the hospital room at 17 years old, and from then on he was preaching the gospel. Brilliant man. Go into campuses and, you know, high intellectual settings, and he would debate these people, and brilliant.

But he got cancer about, I don't know, I think he was in his 60s, maybe early 70s. Wasn't that old. Got cancer.

A couple months later, he died. After he died, it came out that he had been living a double life. On his phone, where a lot, he had two phones, his main phone, but then another phone.

And he had women that he was messing around with on the side, and he had, and these people, they came forward and said this, you know, this man, we thought he was, everybody thought he was a godly man, but we knew different, because he wasn't a godly man. At least he, at least that part of his life was clearly a life of ungodliness. And so now I could ask the question again, now how many think you know what this caller meant when he said, I have a Ravi Zacharias problem? I think probably every hand would go up.

And that was right. This caller was saying, I have this hidden sin in my life. I've got a good reputation of people around me, but I'm not living a godly life in this area.

I've got hidden sin, hidden sexual sin, and people don't know it. And he says, I really, I want to get over this problem, but I don't want people to know that I have the problem. I'd like to keep it secret at least as much as possible.

And so he talked about some options, you know, maybe he could tell, and I encourage him to tell people that know him. Don't just tell me, you know, an anonymous guy on a phone line that I don't know you, you don't know me. You need to tell more people than just me.

And, but he was reluctant to do that. He wanted to keep his reputation. Now, we'll go, we'll come back to him a little bit later, but we're gonna talk this morning about this thing of purity and lust, especially, and desires, especially sexual desires.

And I, I'm conscious of something here that we're in a mixed group here. We got men and we got women. And I debated about saying, well, let's save this message till maybe sometime we have a man-only group.

And, but I decided, I've been thinking about this, this, this message for a few months. I decided I'm gonna go ahead and share it on a Sunday morning. I will say that I intend to be discreet as I share.

And maybe that discretion will cause questions in some minds. You say, I wonder what he was really talking about. And if that's, if that's the case, I want you to feel free to go ask your parents or ask someone in private what was meant by that.

But let's talk about this. I wonder if you ever heard the term, I want it so bad I can taste it. Have you ever heard somebody say that? I want something so bad that I can just taste it.

I remember hearing a story about a dog trainer, had a German Shepherd dog. And this dog was, you know, at one point was a puppy and needed to be trained. And, and this man was an expert dog trainer.

I remember hearing this when I was back in my teens, I think. But this dog would be trained to sit and stay. And he told the dog, the trainer would tell the dog, stay there, sit.

And the dog would sit there. And then he'd pull out a nice juicy piece of steak and he'd hold it, you know, back about five feet from the dog. And the dog would just, he'd been told to sit, so he didn't move.

But wow, he wanted to. He just, he would just be, you know, slobber running down his mouth. He wanted that steak so bad.

And you could just tell that dog wanted it. And he could, he could, he thought about it so much, his eyes were just glued to that thing. Until finally the owner said, okay, you can get out of that dog, didn't waste one moment of time getting to that steak.

And he gobbled it up. But that's how good the dog was trained. But dogs have desires.

And that dog had a desire for steak. Eve had desires. In the garden, she looked at that tree and, you know, she wanted it so bad she could taste it.

Esau and Jacob. Jacob was there with this bowl of soup and Esau came in from the, from the, from, from hunting. And, you know, he was so hungry he could smell that soup.

He wanted it so bad he could taste it. Achan, after Jericho's battle, he went through there and he looked at these things that they weren't supposed to touch. The gold, the silver, the Babylonish garment.

And he wanted it. You could say he wanted it so bad he could taste it. Ahab wanted something.

He wanted a vineyard that wasn't his, Naboth's vineyard. But Ahab wanted it. I mean, it was so nice.

It was right beside his piece of land. And he wanted it. He desired it.

But he couldn't have it because it wasn't his. But he wanted it so bad he could taste it. Some of the stories I'm going to tell you from the Bible, we're not going to take the time to turn to them, but I'm going to give you the reference in case you want to turn to them.

And I would encourage you to do that. Take a look. And so if you want to turn right now to 2 Samuel 13, I'm going to tell you a story from the Bible.

You can turn to it. You can follow along. You can see some of the details.

I'm not going to take the time to read it. I'm going to just tell it. But this is the story of Amnon and Tamar.

Amnon was the oldest son of King David. And Amnon had a sister, actually a half-sister, named Tamar. And Tamar, it says, was beautiful.

And Amnon wanted a relationship with his sister. And Amnon, in fact, he dwelt on that. And he wanted this relationship with her.

But he stood on this side of a line that he felt like he couldn't cross. And his desires were getting stronger as he dwelt on this. And you could say he wanted it so bad he could taste it.

But you know, he didn't know this, but on the other side of that line was absolute destruction. On the other side of that line, if he was going to cross that line, it was... and which he ended up doing then. He ended up using deceit with some help with a friend.

And he indulged his lust. And after that happened, he had turned into hatred. And then he had a guilty conscience.

And he had this guilty conscience for two years. And eventually then he was killed by Absalom, another brother, taking revenge on him. And you know, Amnon didn't know that.

But people weren't even hardly going to mourn his passing. They knew he was a bad guy. But when he was still on this side of that line, he didn't think of all that thing.

All he could think about was what he wanted. And so often that's all people can look at. People only look at what they desire.

They don't think about what's going to be just on the other side of that, the destruction. Now it does say his father mourned for him. So maybe his father was the only one, I don't know, that mourned Amnon's passing.

But it's almost like God's curse was on Amnon for his wickedness. And so if there's anything I want to encourage you to do this morning, it's this. When you want something so bad you can taste it, beware.

Be awfully, awfully careful when you want something at that level. Beware. I don't care if it's a relationship.

I don't care if it's watching a video. Maybe it's a certain experience you want. Maybe it's a purchase you want to make.

Whatever it is, beware when you want something so bad you can taste it. Because here's the deal. Your desires are deceptive.

Your desires will fool you. Your desires will not tell you what's just on the other side of that line. They won't tell you about the destruction.

They won't tell you about the shame. They won't tell you about the revenge that someone might take. Your desires will lie to you in those areas.

So that's the story of Amnon. A horrible story, a sad story, a tragic story of a person who had desires that were so strong that he could taste it and he gave in to those desires. But you know what? There's three more characters in the Bible that I want to talk about.

As far as I know, Amnon didn't die a saved person. He died a wicked man. He died far from God.

But these three people that we're going to talk about all died right with God. And we're going to talk about these three people. You know their stories, but I'll tell them anyway, just in case there's any details that are foggy.

But you can also look them up. So I'm going to give you the reference. So Amnon was in 2 Samuel 13.

The next one is Daniel. Daniel chapter, you know, 1 to 6. That whole story of how Daniel was taken into captivity as a young man into Babylon. And there he was supposed to serve the king with his three friends.

And he was a, he was a, you know, I think it says a goodly young man. So probably very healthy, probably very fit, and probably had as a young man desires that everyone else had. He probably wanted to grow up and get married back there in Judea, have a wife, have a family.

Maybe he wanted, probably even wanted it so bad he could taste it. But you know that never happened to Daniel. He never did get a wife.

He was taken into captivity and for I don't know how many years, but it must have been a lot of years, he served God faithfully in Babylon. And he never did get married. He had influence over, I think, three or four different kings.

He would talk to them. They said, hey, this man has the Spirit of God in him. Let's ask him for advice.

You know, got a dream that needs interpreted. You better call Daniel. He's the guy.

And that was the reputation he had. They knew he loved God. They saw his prayer life.

Faithfully year after year after year, Daniel served God. But he never got married. He never had a wife.

He never was with a woman in any way as far as we know. So the question is, what were Daniel's struggles like when he was there in Babylon year after year? Did he struggle? Did he battle with his emotions? Did he battle with his feelings, with his desires, like so many people do today? And we can say, well, certainly he did. And yet, maybe he didn't.

You think about that? There is a distinct possibility, according to some historians, that he didn't have those struggles that you and I have. Jesus has these words in Matthew 19, verse 12. He gives three categories of people, and they think maybe Daniel was in one of these categories.

Maybe Daniel was in the middle category that I'm going to read here. Matthew chapter 19, verse 12. Jesus said, for there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men.

And there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. And then Jesus said, he that is able to receive it, let him receive it. There are actually many historians, Bible scholars, who believe Daniel may have been in that middle category of those that were made eunuchs of men.

In other words, surgery to take away those desires, so he could be more useful in the kingdom's, in the king's, king's service there. And I don't know if that's true or not. That's a mystery.

I don't know. I don't, I don't know if that's actually true or not. But the fact is, it's possible that's the category that Daniel was in, and his three friends.

There's some things in the Bible that would definitely point to that being a very real possibility. And so, maybe some people are saying, well, then if that's the case, well, then that's, that changes the whole thing. I mean, yeah, Daniel stayed faithful, and he didn't sin in that way.

But, but, but, you know, he's got an excuse that I don't have. And, you know, why did Jesus give this, this particular thing? I don't know. I don't know why Jesus gave this, this particular statement.

You know, Jesus taught, some translations say that, that some people have renounced marriage for the kingdom of God. So, exactly what the meaning there is, I don't know. But I do know this.

Jesus says, do whatever it takes to stay out of hell. He says, whatever it takes, don't give in to this thing of lust. He says in, he says, in Mark chapter 9, and if thy hand offend thee, cut it off.

It's better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands and go into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It's better for thee to enter into, halt into life than having two feet, and to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. It's better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Jesus is saying, do whatever it takes to get victory over your desires, to put those desires in their, in their place.

And, you know, people have given suggestions, you know, throw away the, get rid of the cell phone, switch to a dumb phone, do this, get a blocker, get accountability, get help, do whatever it takes. And that's what Jesus is saying. But lest you think that Daniel and his life of purity is something that, well, Daniel, if what you're saying, Roger, is true, if what historians and Bible scholars are saying is true, then it's no wonder Daniel could live a life of purity.

And the thing is, I don't know for sure if it is true, but here's another character we're gonna look at. His name was Joseph. And this man also lived a life of purity.

You can look it up in Genesis 39-41. He was also taken to a foreign land, like Daniel was. He was kidnapped against his will, taken to a foreign land.

And whatever happened to Daniel, one thing I know about Joseph, he did have normal desires. Joseph was tempted. We know he later did get married and had children, but during his years from age 17 to, I don't know, 25, 30, how many years it was, Joseph had to battle with saying no to temptation.

And he was tempted by Potiphar's wife. And, you know, we read that story and we read Joseph's response to that evil woman, but we don't know that, what, you know, what kind of things were going on ahead of time. We don't know what Daniel, you know, it could have been she had all the appearance of a good woman.

Maybe they were friends. Maybe, you know, maybe there were tempted. We don't know.

All we know is when the time finally came and she, you know, basically tempted him, it's very possible that he was in that category. He wanted it so bad he could taste it, but he learned to say no. He learned to say no.

And this is God's will for us today, to say no to temptation, even when we want it so bad we can taste it. It's God's will for all of us. 2nd Timothy 2 verse 22 says, flee, and the King James says, flee youthful lusts.

Another translation says this, run, run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts.

That's NLT, if you want to look it up. And I think they take some liberties, but I think those are actually some good liberties that they take, you know, with their translation. Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts.

Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts. So God's calling us to be a Joseph.

God is calling us to say, learn to say, to say no to these temptations that we have, especially when we want them so bad we can taste it. We have one more person we want to talk about. We've talked about two people that ended up right with God.

We've talked about Daniel. We talked about Joseph. We also talked about one who, as far as we know, did not end up right with God, and that was Amnon.

But here's one more that did end up right with God. His name is David. 2 Samuel 11 and 12, he faced a temptation with Bathsheba.

Up there on the roof, he faced a temptation, and he wanted it so bad he could taste it. He should have known, beware, watch out, David. These desires will fool you.

But David gave in to the temptation, and then he tried to cover it up, and then he committed murder, and on and on it went. And one morning, he woke up and looked back at his life and said, I'm guilty. And of course, you say, well, he didn't just wake up.

Nathan came to him and told him, you're guilty. But it's almost as though he was in a stupor up until that point. You know, the godliness that had guided David's life for so many years seemed to have been put on hold, and now it was just his lusts, and then his desire to cover up and protect his reputation.

And that was what was governing him until Nathan came to him, and then he realized, uh-oh, I have blown it. I've blown it big, and here I am. I'm looking back, and I blew it big time.

Now, here's the thing that I want you to get. Even if that's where you wake up and find yourself, I've blown it big time. There is still a right thing to do.

See, Amnon didn't do the right thing. He had a two-year period from his sin until he died. He did not do the right thing, but David did.

That's the key here. If you're still in the situation of Daniel or Joseph, and you still have the right to say no, that's what God wants you to do. That's what God wants us to do.

But if you've gone beyond that, and you've already said yes to a temptation, and you've given in to this desire, David is an example of someone who did the right thing. He repented. He humbled himself completely.

He confessed. Psalm 51 is a beautiful prayer of someone who did the right thing even after a horrible failure. He accepted the consequences of his sin, and some of these consequences were severe.

The death of his own son, there was trouble in his family, and David accepted it. He didn't rebel against God. He didn't accuse God.

He didn't say, God, this isn't fair. He accepted the pain that came his way. And, you know, in his confession, well, let's put it this way.

It was almost like David had gone through test after test, and every test made him stronger for the next test. He was out watching the sheep, and along comes a bear. And somehow, he finds the strength through God to kill that bear.

Next comes a lion. And somehow, with God's strength, he finds the strength, he finds the power and the courage to kill that lion. Then comes Goliath.

Well, this is bigger than a lion or a bear. This is a great big old guy with a sword and a spear and a shield. But David, with God's help, finds a way to kill Goliath.

But then there's a dragon that comes into David's life, the lust dragon. This one turned out to be too big. Not because God wasn't big enough, but because David somehow didn't tap into the strength that God had for him.

And this dragon almost ruined David permanently, forever. The dragon of lust had done a number on David, but now he's trying to hunt that dragon down. And see, you and I, we have to hunt that dragon down too and kill it.

Now, what are we going to do? Here's the question. When we're walking through the streets of our town, kind of keeping our eye over our shoulder, watching out for this dragon, and all of a sudden, we see a tail sticking out from a little alleyway. And I know that's a dead-end street, and I peek around the corner, and sure enough, the dragon is down that alleyway.

And I don't have any weapons to do anything with this dragon, so I look around, I say, quit, we got this thing trapped, we got to kill it. What are we going to do? How are you going to kill this thing? Well, here it comes. You call for help, try to be quiet so the dragon doesn't get spooked.

But about that time, an army truck drives up. Pickup truck, in the back of that pickup truck are a whole bunch of weapons. And the army guy jumps out and says, help yourself, use whatever one you want, I'm leaving.

You look at that pickup truck, you look at the dragon, and you got all these weapons to choose from. And you say, well, there's a water gun there. Wonder what the dragon would do if I'd shoot it with a water gun.

He probably wouldn't even notice. What about that BB gun in the back of the pickup? I could pull out the BB gun, I could start clinging at that dragon. That would just make him mad, if he felt it at all.

There's a .22, you know, .22 long rifle, maybe that would do. Well, these dragons, you know, they got three heads and you shoot one brain, it's going to survive, even if you shoot it quite a few times. So, well, there's a .30-06 there, bold action .30-06, maybe that's the weapon I should use on this thing.

And, you know, eventually, if you keep getting bigger, well, there's an AK-47 there, maybe a fully automatic gun, I'm going to pull out that thing. Well, you also notice mounted in the back of this pickup is an anti-aircraft machine gun. Now, which are you going to choose? You know this dragon has been terrorizing you, it's been terrorizing, you know, the entire town, and you have your choice of weapons to use, which one are you going to pull out to use to do away with this dragon? You know, David, he had to choose a weapon to put this thing to death.

And this man who called me on the phone and says, I have a Ravi Zacharias problem, he wanted to use the BB gun, if he could get by with it. If the BB gun would do it, that's all he wanted. Just tell maybe one other person, not...maybe the .22, maybe he'll pull out the .22 if that's what it takes, and tell a few more people.

But I would like to encourage us, let's pull out the big artillery, let's pull out the biggest weapon, let's...you know, and how this all translates into real life, I'm not sure I know, but let's do the right thing. I've heard stories of people who have had problems, maybe they got caught in some sin, and they confess, well, maybe they confess part of their sin, or they confess to just a few people, but they try to keep the reputation. And the dragon just doesn't die, the dragon just stays alive, you know, and it's still struggling, and if you leave it go, it's going to waken back up.

But then, you know, maybe they decided, maybe through whatever, maybe through other people, they said, I'm going to confess not to just...I'm going to blast... I'm going to tell the entire church what's going on in my life. I'm going to tell...I'm going to take out and add the newspaper and let people know what I've done. I'm going to do whatever it takes.

I'm going to...this is going to be as painful as possible, and embarrassing as possible, and I'm not going to take any shortcuts. And I'm going to confess it to God, confess it to someone else, confess to the whole group. I'm not going to hide it anymore.

Eventually, the dragon dies, whatever the pain, whatever the consequences are. You know, people have...people have gotten AIDS from, you know, wrong behavior, people have done prison time for wrong behavior, people...and when people accept the...these consequences, when they say, God, thank you, thank you for the pain, thank you for what you're doing, they don't resist it, they don't run from it. It's like pulling out the biggest gun that you could possibly bring to end the life of that dragon once and for all.

So that's the story of David. And David humbled himself completely, and David went forward in life, and he kept on writing psalms, he kept on serving the Lord, and he died a saved man. He died right with God.

And it's a beautiful story of repentance. It's hope for people who find themselves looking back and say, I've already failed, which all of us have in some way at some point, in some kind of sin. We all can look back and say, we've already failed.

Let's be thorough about it. But how much better to be like Joseph? If we're still on this side of the line, and here's this line, this tantalizing line, and it says, I want it so bad I can taste it. How much better to be like Joseph and say, no, I can't do this.

How can I do this great sin against God? And do I walk away with a clear conscience? Not a defiled conscience like Amnon, but a clear conscience. If there's anything I would like to encourage you to do, to be, it's to be like Joseph. When you're facing that strong desire, I want it so bad I can taste it, beware.

And don't think that it's an unbearable thing. You know, I looked up that phrase in the dictionary, because it's a common phrase. I said, I wonder if there's a definition in the dictionary.

I want it so bad I can taste it. Sure enough, there was. And it says it's a desire almost unbearable.

That's how strong this desire is. That's what it's talking about. And it could be for anything.

It could be for food, could be for possessions, could be for whatever desires you have. That's what this phrase is used for. But when we use that word unbearable, we have a promise in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 10, 13, that God has promised there's always a way of escape.

It's not actually unbearable. It might seem like it, but there's always a way of escape. That's what God says.

And so when I look back in my life and say, I failed in this area, I allowed this to happen and I shouldn't have. It's not because it was unbearable. It was because I didn't take the way of escape that God had for me.

And so keep that in mind. That's a promise that we have. There is always a way of escape.

I'd like to finish with a verse. And I'd like you to turn to this unless you've memorized it. Romans 12 verse 1. And I'd like to just quote this verse together.

Romans 12 verse 1. Bob read it this morning, but let's either quote it or say it together. It starts out, I beseech you therefore, brethren. All right.

All together. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Let's pray.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And we thank you, Lord, for your word. And we thank you for your encouragement.

And we thank you for all that you've done for us. Thank you for the blessings that you've poured out on us. Thank you for the victory that's in Jesus.

Thank you. This victory is available to those who are facing temptation and not yet sinned. Thank you.

This victory is also available for those who have already sinned. And we have a defiled conscience and we need to get clean. Thank you for the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin.

Thank you that there's hope no matter where we are in this journey. We just thank you for the examples of Daniel and Joseph and David and how they avail themselves of your grace that you have poured out on us as sinners. We just commit ourselves to you.

And I pray God that you would protect us from here, that you'd put your angels around us. You'd protect us from the onslaught of that great dragon. And Lord, help us also to deal with the dragon of our own desires when those get perverted.

Just help us, Lord. We commit ourselves to you in Jesus' name. Amen.