Repentance isn't about willpower. I'm excited about this presentation. I've been working on it for a while. Of course, that doesn't mean it's perfect. It's far from. But I hope the spirit speaks to you and you get enough out of this to find keys to unlock whatever you're struggling with. At the moment
when Jesus opened his ministry, he read this passage from Isaiah. This is recorded from Luke four, but he was quoting Isaiah. He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord when it comes down to the gospel. Uh some of the most exciting parts are the parts that break the chains of false tradition and uh the chains that make us feel compelled to
do things we don't want to do or to be people we don't want to be. And this presentation is going to explain a little about sin and temptation and some tools to break through those things. So I was watching a sermon by some preacher and I've heard this several times, something like this where they said
, oh, the gospel of obedience. It, it only has two outcomes. One, it makes people prideful because they feel like they're, they've already made it and that they're, they're, uh, they're done. They don't have any, anything to improve on. And the other outcome is despair because they feel like improvement
is beyond their reach. And I don't understand why there aren't more people telling the truth, which is that there's a third option which consists of submission to God through trust in him and love of him. And we'll be talking about that today. So some background. And secondly, by 2624 it explains that
the Lord uh doth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world. That's a very pregnant but brief phrase. And uh if you haven't before I invite you to ponder it, everything that Jesus does is for the benefit of the world, which means it's calculated not only for the benefit of an individual, but
for everyone and that's everything He does. And that's the only thing he does. This phrase means both things. And so if we want to be like him, we have to operate this way as well. And um when it comes to sin and temptation, we might think of like a laundry list of commandments and how we might be deviating
from that in some way. But it's better to think of our awareness of what's good and what's evil. Which as I explain in the book, the glory of God is intelligence will change over time as the Lord teaches us more about reality. But whatever our present awareness is, that's what we're responsible for.
And when we reconcile ourselves to it, then we are reconciling ourselves to our best understanding of what God's will is. So jumping down here, second Nephi 1024 says, wherefore my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God and not to the will of the devil in the flesh. And remember after
you are reconciled unto God, that is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. So the gospel is about teaching us what God's will is and giving us the tools so that we can reconcile ourselves to it. And what that means is to bring our thoughts, actions, desires everything in line with whatever
our understanding of God's will is this isn't a narrow definition. It's not about a laundry list of, you know, the 10 commandments or something like it. Some, some little list that whatever church you go to gives you. It's about bringing your whole heart and your whole soul in line with your most sincere
understanding of what God is like in all things in all things. From when you wake up to when you go to sleep at night your whole life in line with your understanding of God. And James says in 417, James chapter four verse 17, he says to Him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to Him. It is sin.
So according to James, sin is deviating in any way from our understanding of, of, of good of God, right? And that's in all things. It's not just do these three things and you'll be saved. Don't do these five things because we'll, we'll castigate you or ostracize you. It's everything, right? So, uh temptation
is desiring to do something that deviates from your understanding of what is best or beneficial or from what improves. And that, of course, depends on the awareness that God's given you that you've obtained from Him through your um effort and obedience. And then sin would be actually doing those things
that deviate from your understanding of what is best or beneficial or from what improves. And that's our basis for this. And it matters because when we define sin and temptation in this way, which I believe is the correct way, but it's also a um an effective way because it targets what the actual cause
is. It doesn't matter what you're tempted about the root cause is exactly the same. It doesn't matter if what you're doing is yelling at people in a way that you don't feel you should or smoking and you don't want to smoke or you're an alcoholic or you know, you beat your wife or, or you shout at your
husband or you make fun of people or whatever it is. I mean, you could go on listing these things for the rest of your life. But the point is that the, the nugget of what causes this, the root cause is all the same and it has nothing to do with what the specific things you might want or not want. It
has everything to do with your relationship with God. That is the root cause of sin and temptation. So let's talk about resisting the devil for a minute. So temptations can come from the devil, they can come from you, your flesh, they can come from your traditions. You might feel compelled to do something
that you don't agree with because it comes out of what your parents taught you was right or what your social group expects from you or your, your spouse or your kids or whatever. Anyway, um James 47 says submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Uh That's two sentences
, but this explains the whole problem and the whole solution, resist the devil and he will flee from you and you do that by submitting yourselves to God. Now, what does this mean? Resist the devil? Well, Jesus gave us some great examples and this is from Matthew four when Satan is tempting the Lord and
uh there are three interactions. The first Satan says, if thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread. Jesus replies to this by saying it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Now Jesus has just completed a 40 day fast
, 40 days and 40 nights of eating nothing. And so he's clearly very hungry, right? But he doesn't respond to Satan by saying, hey, I'm Jesus, I'm strong enough. I don't need food. It's not a willpower question. He says, he, he basically, he submits to the father. He says, I understand that the Father
doesn't want me to do that. So I'm not going to do it in the second exchange. Satan says, if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down 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. So
Jesus doesn't reply here by saying, oh, I don't need to do that because I'm a very humble person and I would never need to test God like that. Instead, he says, it is written again, thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God. In other words, he's submitting to the Father because he says, I understand that
the Father doesn't want me to do that. And I trust Him. Therefore, I'm not going to do what you're inviting me to do. In the third exchange. Satan says, and he takes him up to the top um high mountain and he shows them all the glory of the world and he says, all these things will I give thee if thou
wilt fall down and worship me? Jesus doesn't reply by saying, oh no, I'm good. I don't need that. I, I already have enough glory within myself. I'm strong enough that I don't need to listen to you. He says, get thee hence Satan for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt
thou serve. In other words again, he says, my understanding of the father's will for me deviates from what you're inviting me to do and I trust the father. Therefore, I'm not going to listen to you in Genesis 39 9. This is during the story of Joseph of Egypt who is faithful to his master uh while he's
in servitude and the master puts everything um under his control. Um And the master's wife comes to him and tries to solicit him and he turns her down and she gets really mad. But the way he turns her down, he doesn't say oh no, I, I um I don't need this. I don't want this or I'm strong enough to resist
you or you're not that good looking or whatever he says, how then can I do this? Great wickedness and sin against God. And that's very interesting because again, he says, my understanding of the will of the Father deviates from what you're inviting me to do. Therefore, I will not do it. The key to resisting
the devil is submitting ourselves to God. And this is, this is a matter of trust. OK? So obedience doesn't come through willpower. It's not about how great you are. It's actually about the Lord's greatness and the only knob you have to control this is your submission to him. And that is the question
. And it's not a question of willpower. It's a question of faith and trust. It's a question of how you actually feel about God. In John 1633 Jesus said these things I have spoken unto you that in me, ye might have peace in the world. You shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the
world. If you truly believe this and you truly believe Jesus, then you have a great uh Boone, a great tool here. You have the power to submit to him. And in so doing you inherit the fact that He overcame the world. If you do the things that He says to do, and if you trust Him enough to let you, let him
teach you everything he has to teach you, then you will have a path to uh avoid or flee from any temptation and to be completely obedient to your understanding of what God is and how God is in all things, in all of your life. Um The problem isn't that you don't have enough willpower. It doesn't matter
how much willpower you have because even the person with the greatest amount of willpower in the world is completely worthless compared to what the Lord can do. The question is, how submissive are you to God? How much do you believe him? And how much do you trust him? And I'll make you a promise. God
will show all those who think they are wise that they're fools and he'll show those that think they're fools, that they're wise. The secret is to submit to God and to understand that without Him, you're nothing. It's a loving God and it's trusting God. And anytime you find yourself deviating from your
understanding of God in your life, in your thoughts, in your words, in your actions, in your desires, all of it every single time. It's a manifestation of how you don't trust God. And that's specific to each person. But every time you sin, every time you're tempted, it's a sign that you don't love God
in this way. You don't trust God on this thing. It, it means you think you know better than He does, which is absolutely foolish. You'll fail if you try to be perfect out of yourself, out of your willpower. In Romans 323 it says all of sinned and come short of the glory of God. In, in John 15, the Lord
said I am the vine. Ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me, you can do nothing without him, you can do nothing. And if you try to do it yourself, you will fail. You might fool yourself and once or twice you'll do the right thing. But sure
enough, with enough time you'll fall on your face, you'll do the wrong thing. You won't be true to what you know is right. And when you violate your conscience like that, you move away from God, you willfully sin and you inherit hell to get up above that, to overcome that. What you have to learn is to
submit to God in all things and really trust in what you say you believe. And I'm a 2612. Uh it says, yeah, I know that I am nothing as to my strength. I am weak. Therefore, I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God for in his strength. I can do all things. And this is the attitude of victory
. And if you have this attitude, you will break the chains of any temptation, any addiction, any sin that might be in your life, you can conquer it through this because in the strength of Christ, you can do all things, but it requires you to actually develop the trust in Him, to submit to him in all
things, to trust that he has your best interest and heart even more than you ever could. That he loves you more than you love yourself. And that he knows better than you do. What's right for you and what's going to lead to the greatest happiness? And that's the challenge. That's really what it comes
down to. The question is, do you believe that through obeying God? You will be happier than if you do your own thing? If the answer is no, then you don't really believe the Gospel, which is fine. It's up to you. But don't go around saying you do when you don't. And that's really the coal face. That's
the front of the battle. But when we pretend it's willpower instead of trusting God will fail every time because we're not actually dealing with the problem at hand. So how does he do this in Ether 1227? We read, if men come unto me, this is the Lord speaking. If men come unto me, I will show unto them
their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me. For if they humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them? Now, excuse me, I can't spend a lot of time talking
about grace right now, but it's mentioned here. So we'll mention it. For whatever reason, all these people interpret grace as magic. So if you say you believe in God, he'll wave his magic wand and all of a sudden you won't want to sin anymore. That's not the way it works. God's not magic. He operates
by principles that might be hidden from you right now, but it's not magic. Everything he does is based on information. So how does he make weak things strong? Well, he gives you the information that you lack. Remember? So if you think back to Eden, how did the devil tempt eve? Uh God said, if you eat
the fruit, you'll surely die. Satan said, you won't surely die and look at all these great things that will happen and you just totally forgot about the, you'll surely die part and trusted Satan ate the fruit and we know what happened. But this is the way all of temptation and sin works. It's through
the, the perversion of cause and effect the illusion is that these, these things are warped so that it, it makes it seem like these are good ideas when they're not, whether that be breaking something God said, uh not to do or um not doing something he said to do. So, uh if you trust God, he will make
weak things become strong to you by showing you why he's going to explain these things. Now, a lot of times that explanation doesn't come until after you've been faithful and there's a host of reasons for that. Um And it makes total sense if you think about it, a lot of times you don't have the capacity
to understand yet. But when you're faithful, all of a sudden, you have this framework and he can come and teach you and fill in the blanks and say, OK, you did this just because you trust me. But now I'm going to show you exactly why you should do it even if I'm not part of the picture. And then it makes
sense. So that's how weak things become strong is through information, it's not through magic. Um So the why it includes why you should keep his commandments, why you should avoid sin? And he'll also show you how the things that you desire that are contrary to his will actually will not bring you the
happiness that you think or how they will prevent you from obtaining even greater happiness. That's the point of everything. It's in the end. He just wants to maximize your joy. But here's the dirty little secret that people don't want to talk about. It hurts a lot and it doesn't hurt for any arbitrary
reason except that we have set our hearts on things that are not for our greatest good. And so when he roots these things out, as we allow him to through our faith and trust in him, through our love of him, when he roots these things out, it's our attachment to these illusions or these vain things, these
things that are non effectual, ineffectual, it's like ripping out a tree out of the ground and the roots are deep. And so you hear every one of those little roots snapping as it gets pulled out. The only way to reduce the pain is to increase the trust and realize so with humans loss is a huge psychological
factor, it hurts when we feel like we lose something. But the trick is to, to realize you can't lose something that you never had in the first place. And if what you're in love with is an illusion, then losing that illusion shouldn't hurt you at all because you never had it. It's just an illusion, but
it does hurt and it takes an awful lot of hurting before we realize that we don't trust God and we increase in our trust in God so that it hurts less. And then we go from having this devastating, maybe like two year long, deep depression about something that God revealed to you to something that's maybe
a couple of minutes or an hour or a day and you get over it because you, you recognize these feelings in your flesh as a lack of trust in God. And you say, do I really trust him? Do I really believe the things that I think I believe or the things that I would like to believe and you make the choice and
it is just a choice to trust him. So in Proverbs three, we read trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes, feel the road and depart from evil. It's nonnegotiable. There
is no other way you actually have to trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Now, inasmuch as you lack trust, he will show you how you lack trust. And the way He will do this is he will give you experiences in your life to show, to reveal that lack of trust. So you might not know, you might think,
oh, I do trust God. I trust God completely. Well, he'll show you that you don't. And these experiences are gifts, even though you might see them as trials or afflictions. He's gonna give you the gift. He's gonna love you enough to let you go through some pain, to see where your trust ends. And then you'll
have a choice. You can either turn into him and build even more trust or turn away from him. And the goal with this is to get to the point where there is absolutely nothing that could happen in this life that could shake your trust that you have in God. Now, in as much as you don't have trust, you'll
deal with things like depression, anxiety, fear, hopelessness and apathy. None of these things can coexist with unconditional trust in God. If you suffer from any of these things, the cure is to increase your trust in God. And as you do that, he will give you knowledge and the combination of these two
things will make this stuff go away. So we leave with this promise. Uh in first John 44, John wrote you have God little Children and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you than he, that is in the world. And my promise to you is as you develop trust in God and you increase in your submission
to Him. And you get to the point where it's unconditional and automatic, you don't have to think about it. You've already made the choice. Then you will find that He that is in you. Jesus Christ has already overcome the world and that you've inherited all the peace, the um contentment and the joy that
comes through that and that you, you will be free from sin because it will no longer have any power over you because your trust in God will be greater than any pull towards sin and any pull away from God.