In our study of the life of Christ, we have traveled with Him now from the workshop in Nazareth to the banks of the Jordan where He was baptized.  As He came up out of the water, you will remember, there was heard that voice from heaven that is given and spoken for each one of us, “Thou art my beloved Son, thou art my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.”

From the banks of the Jordan, we saw that Jesus was driven, as it says in Mark 1:12, “the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness” there to be tempted by Satan.  The Bible is very plain that Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit—led of course.  How, we do not know, but as the Holy Spirit leads each one of us, hopefully. 

Jesus was receptive to the Holy Spirit’s leading, and it led Him into the wilderness specifically to be tempted by Satan.  That might cause us to wonder, “Are the Holy Spirit and Satan somehow working in unison?  Are they cooperating with each other?  Are they somehow in liaison with each other?”  No, but often two enemy forces meet on the same field to do battle, not to work together.  The Holy Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness to do battle with Satan and to conquer him.  He led Him out to the field of battle to be tempted and to conquer for you and for me. 

You see, Jesus came down not only to die for our sins and to give us forgiveness for sins committed, but He also came down in order to give us victory over sin, to save us from our sins.  Look what it says in Matthew 1:21.  It says that Mary was to bring forth a Son and she was to call His name Jesus, for He would save His people in their sins.  Is that what it says?  No, it says from their sins.

Look what Jesus said, in John 8:34–36: “Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.’ ”  How true that is!  You know that is true when you start trying to overcome sin.  We do not realize we are slaves of sin until we try to overcome.  You know, “I can quit smoking at anytime,” right?  Then you try it.  Maybe a person can make that victory on the outside. 

Sometimes we can change outward behavior, but I will guarantee you there is one battleground, one area of sin, that no man or woman on earth can conquer.  That is the sins of the mind; that is where it is really at—the sins of lust, of envy, of hurt pride, of jealousy, of revenge, those feelings of pride or hatred or whatever they may be.  Oh, we may conquer them for a moment or ten minutes; we may, with all of our might, hold things in check for a whole day, but sooner or later—and it is oftener sooner than later—those thoughts are right back.  Before we know it, we are thinking those same thoughts or feeling those same feelings, aren’t we?  We find that we are indeed slaves of sin.  We cannot conquer.  The strongest person in the world cannot conquer the sins that hold him in slavery, although he may change a few outward things to fool other people.  Jesus said a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.  That is what Jesus came down to do, to make us free indeed. 

Satan claimed the world as his, because all inhabitants of the world had chosen him as their leader at some time or another.  Every inhabitant of the world had at some time been in slavery to sin—to Satan—unless Jesus had freed him or her through a miracle-working power of the Holy Spirit.  Satan had enslaved every man or woman who has ever lived.  Jesus came to free the victims of sin, to free the victims of Satan.  How did Jesus come to free us from Satan?  That is a question we have to ask.  It is an all-important question.  It is what the Gospel is all about. 

Did Jesus come to free us from temptation by a) taking away temptation, or b) giving us victory over temptation?  It is a very essential point.  A lot of people are mixed up on it today.  A lot of Adventists are mixed up on it today, sad to say.  It is amazing.  How did Jesus come to give us victory?  It is a crucial point.  Look with me at Romans 8:2, 3.  It says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh . . . .”  What is the meaning of flesh in the New Testament?  Flesh, in the New Testament, whenever it is used in a spiritual sense, means our sinful, fallen, human nature.  Paul uses it that way over and over again—our carnal mind, our fallen natures, that fallen nature that holds us in captivity, that holds us as slaves of sin.  Look what he says just a few verses previous: “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.”  Romans 7:22.

Oh, yes, it would be nice to be like God.  It would be nice to overcome these sins.  I would like to.  It would be nice to live according to the will of God.  This would be a wonderful thing, Paul says.  But what did he find?  “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”  Verse 23.  It is in my flesh; it is in my members; it is within me, he says.  “O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  Verse 24.  He gives the answer then in Romans 8:2: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” 

In Galatians 5, Paul contrasts the Spirit versus the flesh, starting in verse 16.  It talks about the lusts of the flesh, which hold us in captivity until we follow the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ.  And those laws of the flesh enumerate.  The flesh, he says, is those feelings of anger, of envy, of outbursts of wrath, as well as the worse sins that we all recognize such as murder—at least we think they are worse—sins of murder, adultery, and fornication.  I do not know where these little sins of envy slipped in with all the others, but somehow they are all in there together.  He lists them all together.  We are held captive to these sins of the flesh, Paul says.  They hold us in chains. 

Then in Romans 8:3 Paul says, “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh . . .”—Oh, yes, I see that it would be very fine to follow the law, but I cannot obey the law, because of my sinful, fallen nature.  So the law is very weak.  Oh, it is nice.  It shows me what I should do, but it has no power in my life because of my heredity.  I lose my temper because I am Irish, you see.  I am bullheaded because I am German.  My parents drank, I just grew up with it.  I cannot help myself.  They ate at all times of the day, anything they wanted and whatever they wanted, it was always there.  Just go to the fridge and get it.  I cannot help it.  That is the way I have been trained.  It is what I have inherited.  It is the way I am.—Have you ever heard people excusing sins on these premises?  Well, it is true, you know.  We cannot overcome these sins.  They are too strong.  They are stronger than the law.  The law may be powerful.  It shook Mount Sinai when it was spoken, but it is not as strong as the law of sin in our members. 

But look what it goes on to say in verse 3.  What the law could not do, “God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh . . . .”  Oh, that is interesting!  Jesus came to do battle in our place.  On account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.  In our sinful, fallen nature, Jesus condemned sin.  Not in perfect Adam, not in the angels, not in Lucifer who never needed to have fallen.  Not in somebody who has no temptations.  That is not where Jesus conquered.  Not in some saint sitting someplace.  He conquered sin in fallen nature.  He condemned sin in the flesh. 

Whenever we say “I can’t help it, it’s the way I’m born,” what we are really saying is that somehow God has no power to do what He says He could do.  Satan is more powerful than God.  Who do we really give homage to, Satan or God?  Anytime we say that we cannot overcome something, we are saying that Satan is more powerful than God is.  I will guarantee you that Satan, as well as our flesh, is a whole lot more powerful than any good intentions we may have.  But God came to conquer for us, and He offers us that same power. 

Romans 8:4 continues: “that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh [not according to our fallen nature, not according to our inherited and cultivated tendencies to sin] but according to the Spirit.”  It goes on to say, in verses 12–14, “we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”  Jesus came down to conquer in our behalf, and He gives us victory over sin not by taking away the temptation, but by giving us victory in temptation. 

Hebrews 4:14–16 says, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  He was victor over those sins; He never sinned.  “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help [us] in time of need.”  The same grace and mercy and power is offered to us as Jesus had.  We can have the same victory over sin that He had. 

How was Jesus tempted in all points like as we are?  How could He be tempted in all points like as we are?  In order for Jesus to be tempted in all points like as we are, two things were necessary.  Number one, in order to be tempted like we are, He had to come down like we are.  He had to become like us.  Look at what Paul says very emphatically in Hebrews2:11: “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”  He goes on, in verses 17 and 18, saying, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted . . .”  He suffered being tempted.  He was tempted in reality; in weakness He was tempted.  He was made strong through the Spirit which is offered to us, too, but He Himself was weak.  He had our weaknesses.  He suffered the infirmities of our weaknesses, and He had our sins upon Himself.  He conquered in that He Himself has suffered being tempted.  He is able to give aid to those who are tempted, because He was tempted, you see.  In order to be tempted like as we are, Jesus had to have our natures, and secondly, He had to come and endure our temptations.  He had to go through the fiercest temptations of Satan that could ever be offered to any man.  It was for this reason that Jesus was led into the wilderness, that He might become our Savior, that He might conquer the fiercest temptations of Satan with our sins upon Him and with our nature. 

Friend, have you ever been tempted by some temptation that just seemed overpowering in your life?  Is there some controlling sin in your life?  Is there some sin in your life that you cannot conquer that controls you whenever it wants?  Do you have a sin or temptation in your life that is beyond your power?  Friend, know that Jesus was also tempted like you are in that same point.  He overcame, and He offers you the same power to overcome in your life that He had in His life.  That is the Gospel.  That is what the Gospel is all about.  What are some of the sins of your life that Jesus conquered for you?

Let us look at one of the sins of the world, one of the dominating sins of our lives that Jesus came down to do battle with.  In Philippians 3:18, 19, it says, “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping,” Paul says, “that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly . . . who set their mind on earthly things.”  Things on the table, things that they should not have, things of diet, they live to eat.  You know one of the most successful temptations of Satan throughout the ages has been temptations on the point of diet, on the point of appetite.  In the very beginning, there with Eve in the Garden of Eden with all that she could want, there was just one tree that was forbidden, but somehow the devil lured her into even trying that.  Oh, the Spirit of Prophecy enumerates how the devil told her how beautiful she was, gained her confidence.  But have you noticed that he uses the same tactics today?  Have you ever noticed billboards of cigarettes?  How beautiful you are.  Somehow the sex appeal is all tied in with the diet question.  It is all there together so many times; anything Satan can use to tempt us in this area of diet and appetite. 

We follow mankind’s history on down to the children of Israel there in the wilderness with manna, food from heaven, right from the angels’ table, a perfect diet.  Perfect food, tasty, and could be fixed in many different ways, but not exactly what they had been used to.  Now I am sure that angels probably have many, many varieties of things, but they took one nice item from their table and showered it upon the children of Israel for 40 years, every morning and every night.  The perfect diet to give perfect health.  But it says that they lusted for the fleshpots of Egypt, for the leeks and onions—some things that may not have been bad in themselves,—but it was not what God had provided.  They were lusting for something different than they had.

I think of the story of a woman in Bloomsberg, Pennsylvania, who, through a series of circumstances, was led to take Bible studies from her next door neighbor, who was an Adventist.  She had lost her daughter, and the neighbor started telling her about the state of the dead, and it led one step to another, into Bible studies.  Then, as she studied, this dear Lutheran woman accepted one point after another after another.  She was really interested in what the Bible had to say.  She accepted the Sabbath, no problem.  Next point, accepted.  Finally, however, they came to the area of clean and unclean meats.  She said, “I could never quit eating pork.  I don’t care what the Bible says.”  And she took her stand on that one point.  That was something she could not give up.  At that point she quit studying.

Diet.  “Oh,” someone says, “That’s not so hard.  That is stupid.”  Well, for this woman it was not.  That was a big issue in her life.  For other people, it may not be that, but it may be tobacco.  It may be cigarettes.  Some people think that Satan’s ways are so much happier and more fun.  You know, “sin city” spells fun.  Food that you should not eat is what tastes good, right?  God’s food is so bland and untasty. 

But you know, when you think about it, not all of Satan’s treats are all that good.  Most people have to force themselves to smoke.  They really do.  They cough, they sputter, but they persist until they gain the taste and then all of a sudden they are hooked on that thing that shortens their life.  It gives lung cancer and emphysema and increases the heart rate and the blood pressure.  It does every evil thing you can think of to the body and the mind and the soul, and it does not even taste good, until you force yourself to acquire a taste for it over many, many weeks.  But one day, you are hooked.

Look with me at what the Bible says in I Corinthians 3:16, 17.  “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.  For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”  “Oh,” someone says, “I’m convicted, but Jesus never smoked.  How can He help me?  If He came down to suffer my temptations, I’m sure He never smoked.  I’ve never read about it in the Bible.  I never read of Jesus smoking.  So how could He help me?  He never conquered my sin.”  I would like to ask you a question.  Do you suppose it would be harder to quit smoking or to quit eating, even for the confirmed smoker?  “Oh,” someone says, “I think I could far easier quit eating for a day than to quit smoking for a day.”  What about two; how about three days?  Do you think it would be easier to quit smoking for three days or quit eating for three days?  Well, someone who is really hooked on it says, “I think I’d rather quit eating for three days than quit smoking for three days.”  I guarantee you that by the time a week is up, most people would have switched to eating.  By the time two weeks is up, I doubt there is a single person that would be left smoking.  Most everyone would have switched over to eating, if it came to a choice between the two. 

Do you think Jesus did not go through some withdrawal pangs?  You know, the one thing about smoking is the pangs, that strong urge that lasts for about 60 seconds to maybe 3 minutes.  Then, if you get your mind off it, the urge will eventually go away.  With starvation, that urge does not leave.  It is there 24 hours a day; all the waking time there is that gnawing pain.  Yes, Jesus went through our temptations.

Follow me as we follow Jesus’ story there in the wilderness.  As Mark says, He was out there with the wild beasts.  He not only went through the experiences of the poor, but He went through the experiences of the unemployed, the evicted.  And He had no food stamp program to keep Him going; He had no welfare or social services.  He was out there alone, waiting upon God, but God was not supplying Him much.  All He had was His faith, and He prayed, but God never answered His prayer.  Had God deserted Him?  Where was God when He needed Him?  He was not there.  God led Him out there, and He did not lead Him any farther.  Jesus came down, and He entrusted Himself implicitly to the Father’s care, knowing that the Father would always take care of Him, but He did not, it appeared.  He had put Himself completely in God’s care; He had complete faith, but God did not respond.  There was no manna that came down as in the days of Israel.  There was no raven that came with any food.  He was there for one day, two days, three days without any food.  I wonder, friends, if God led you someplace, and you ended up there without any shelter or any food for three days, if you would begin to wonder if God had really led you there or not—I must be in the wrong place; I must have misinterpreted something. 

As the days began to go by, four days, five days, Jesus prayed and pleaded.  A few days before that He had heard the Father’s voice from heaven saying, “Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  But now, there was no voice.  All He heard in answer to His prayers was the blowing of the wind and the occasional howling of an animal.  At His baptism a few days before, He saw the dove descending from heaven, lighting upon Him.  But now, as He prayed, all He saw was the flying of the buzzards and the occasional sandstorm that blew across the desert wastes.  That is all He saw.  Where was God? 

I wonder how long it would have been before you would have decided to take a little trip back to Nazareth?  There in Nazareth His plate was there; His chair was there that He had occupied for 30 years.  It was empty now.  His sisters and His brother and Mary were waiting there.  It may have been humble food, but at least it was food.  His bed was there, waiting at any moment; He could have gone home.  He could have had food at any moment.  You know, there are those who, when God leads them someplace, find that they are in hard straits and immediately they begin to think about leaving for someplace else.  But Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, and there was nothing provided, no food, no shelter, no nothing.  And He did not leave.  That should say something to us about the importance of being where God wants us to be, shouldn’t it? 

Jesus thought it was important enough to be where God wanted Him to be that He was willing to starve to death rather than leave until God led Him someplace else.  I tell you, friend, God has a mission for you in life.  It is important that you are where God wants you to be, and whether life is easy or hard is no criterion for whether you are where God wants you to be or not.  Where the Holy Spirit led Jesus was not always onto the easiest path, but it was where God wanted Him, and Jesus stayed. 

“Oh,” someone says, “Now I understand that Jesus did experience temptations far worse than I could ever experience—the withdrawal of drugs or alcohol or tobacco.  But I’ll guarantee you, Jesus never had to quit smoking cigarettes and have somebody come and offer them to Him or have someone smoking around Him all the time.”  Well, let’s follow the story and see who did offer what to Jesus as the time went on. 

Ten days came to pass.  You know, it is so easy to say 40 days.  But for Jesus those days went by one at a time.  They did not come in one lump sum.  It was one at a time.  A couple days ago, when we were all enjoying our Thanksgiving meal, Jesus had at that time been fasting for about two or three weeks.  The baptism was sometime in late October or early November.  By Thanksgiving time Jesus was about two to three weeks within His fast.  As I have been studying these things, I had to think about that the whole time I was eating my Thanksgiving meal this week.  As you are eating your Sabbath dinner today, you might just think, while you are eating, that at this very hour, at this very moment, 1900 years ago, Jesus was in about the third week of His fast.  Jesus not only had someone offering Him food, but at any time Jesus could have turned to home and, at a moment’s notice, food would have been there.  It is one thing to not eat something when you are on an island without any food.  There is not a whole lot of merit in that, but I suppose most of us could go without anything to eat if we were someplace where there was not anything to eat.  I imagine almost every one of us could do that.  But imagine going without food when you are surrounded by it.  Days went by, one at a time, and as Jesus prayed day after day, He thought that any day God would answer.  But there was no answer.  There was no messenger, and Jesus grew weaker and weaker until the whole stages of starvation set in. 

Long before the end of His fast, his protein stores were used up, and the body had to start using the protein from His muscles.  He was in dire straits of malnutrition.  And as He grew weaker and weaker and as the starvation began to be acute, He began to face death.  He stared it straight in the face, knowing it was just around the corner.  And then, just in time, as He saw the end in sight, God finally answered His prayer and sent a messenger.  In Matthew 4:3, we read, “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ ”  An interesting account of this is found in The Desire of Ages, page 118.  It says, “There came to the Saviour, as if in answer to His prayers, one in the guise of an angel from heaven.  He claimed to have a commission from God to declare that Christ’s fast was at an end.  As God had sent an angel to stay the hand of Abraham from offering Isaac, so, satisfied with Christ’s willingness to enter the bloodstained path, the Father had sent an angel to deliver Him . . . .”  That is what Satan claimed!  The pictures of Satan coming down to Jesus with a pitchfork are all wrong.  Satan came down in answer to His prayer as an angel, direct from the throne of God.  II Corinthians 11:14 tells us how Satan comes: “And no wonder!  For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.”  That is the way Satan comes down.  Jesus was praying, pleading with His Father but not taking Himself out of the hands of the Father, fully in His Father’s control, knowing that when God was ready to give Him food, He would give it, but starvation was there.  Finally, just as He saw the end in sight, here came a beautiful angel direct from God’s throne saying, “I’ve come to answer your prayers.  God has heard your prayers and He’s answered them.”  I wonder, as I hear people telling about God answering their prayers, if, in every case, it has been God who has answered. 

I think of a woman who was also studying with a church member in the first district that my wife and I had in Pennsylvania.  She was a Pentecostal lady, and as she studied, she covered a number of points in the Bible study and accepted them all, until she came to the Sabbath.  The Sabbath, she could see, was going to be a very great cross and burden, because all of her friends were keeping Sunday.  More than that, she had a job that she would lose if she began to keep the Sabbath.  So she began to pray, “Oh Lord, do you really want me to keep the Sabbath?  Show me what you really want me to do.”  Well, God had already shown her, you see.  Anytime God shows you something and you pray for God to show you—that is gross presumption.  It is sinful to ask God what He wants you to do when He has shown you what to do and you know what to do.  What you ought to pray for then is for strength to do what God has asked you to do.  She had her prayers answered.  It was not long before the Lord came to her and told her, “Dear Sister, I understand your problem.  On you I will not lay any other burden.  You go on as you are, and I will accept you just where you are.“  Beautiful words!—Straight from Satan!  She never studied again, and she never came to church. 

We need to be sure who it is that is answering our prayers.  If we had prayed for 40 days and an angel of white came down in answer to our prayers, would we have detected a deceiver as quickly as Jesus detected him, or would we have been praising the Lord that He had heard our prayers?  Would we be offering praise at the next prayer meeting and the next church and everywhere we went, “God heard my prayer, and He answered it”? 

How did Jesus know who this was that was answering His prayer?  We find it in Matthew 4:3: “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If . . .’ ”  The tempter said if.  Now what did God say?  He said, “You are my beloved Son.”  Satan came down, casting doubt on what God had said.  He did not dispute Him.  All He did was cast doubt, and that is a sure sign of Satan’s work.  Anytime someone comes casting doubt on the plain Word of God, that is not from God, it is from some other source.  Jesus recognized immediately that it was not the answer from His Father’s throne.  It was the answer from the apostate of all faith.  In verse 4 Jesus “answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” ’ ” 

I tell you friends, it is vital that we know who is answering our prayers.  We do not want to be in question.  We want to give God all the glory and have all confidence when He answers.  We do not want to be in doubt, wondering if He answered or if Satan answered.  No, we need to know.  We need to know when God answers and be full of praise and come to prayer meeting and church and say, “God did this for me.”  But we need to recognize immediately when it is a counterfeit, when it is Satan who is answering our prayers and turn our back and say, as Jesus said, that we must live according to God’s Word, not according to some answer that is contrary to God’s Word. 

Of course, we have to know God’s Word in order to tell the difference, don’t we?  That was the secret of Jesus.  He knew God’s word; He lived by God’s Word.  This was a secret of the victory of His life.  It is what gave Him victory over appetite and over every sin and over every temptation.  Look what Paul says in Hebrews 4:12.  Jesus lived and breathed, walked and talked the Word of God.  Every day He spent time studying the Word and praying.  Therein He was led by the Spirit, and He lived according to the Spirit, crucifying the lust of the flesh.  He lived a victorious life, the same as you can and I can. 

That Spirit is offered to us as we spend time with God every day in prayer and Bible study.  “For the word of God is living . . .”  It is not just words; it is not just sentences; it is not just letters that are strewn across the page, but the Word of God is living.  It is alive, and it is powerful and “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”  Hebrews 4:12.  Another beautiful passage is II Peter 1:2–4.  It is where we are told that it is through the manifold promises of God that we are victors over the lust of the world, that we become partakers of the nature of Jesus Christ.  It is through the promises of God that we gain these victories.  Jesus met Satan every time with, “It is written.”  There is power in God’s Word.  We need to have it in our minds and in our souls.  Here is where victory lies.  Victory lies in spending time with God in prayer and Bible study.  It does not come by having temptation taken away.  That is not what God promised.  As we put ourselves into God’s hands to be led by the Holy Spirit, we may find ourselves in hotter places than we have ever found ourselves before.  We may be placed on the field of battle.  God may see something in our souls and in our hearts that we do not even know is there, and we will never know it until we face the enemy face to face.  All of a sudden we find out more about ourselves than we have ever known before, and there we are face to face with the enemy right where Jesus was.  But friend, as we look to Jesus, we see that He conquered for us, and that same power is available to us, and whatever the battle, we can be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ.  We can be victors over sins. 

Jesus says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.  To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame . . . .”  How are we to overcome?  Jesus overcame as we must overcome, and we must overcome as He overcame.  Jesus offers us that victory.  “. . . as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  Revelation 3:20–22. 

Oh friends, you can be conquerors, more than victors, over Satan through the power of Jesus Christ.  When you are victors, then Jesus will grant you to sit on His throne.  But remember this, before the throne comes the wilderness, and in every person’s life comes the wilderness experience.  In your lives there will be a wilderness experience.  By God’s grace may you be the victors in the wilderness of temptation.  May you through Christ’s grace and strength be more than conquerors.