Behold The Man 7: Overcoming The Flesh by Apostle Arome Osayi: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

What We Have Established So Far

We have been on a sustained study of the life of Jesus Christ. Because if Jesus is the pattern man, then every aspect of his life is God's blueprint for what every believer is supposed to be.

We are now at the stage of studying his temptation. Before reading the passage, here are the things established in previous sessions.

1. Jesus Went Seeking Satan — Not the Other Way Around

   Matthew 4:1: "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." It was Jesus who went seeking out Satan. It was not Satan who came seeking Jesus.

2. Jesus Arrived at the Testing Grounds Before Satan Showed Up

   The Bible says that if you fall in the day of adversity, it is because your strength is small. Your estimation of yourself might be high, but that estimation is not the accurate valuation of your capacity — your capacity is tested in adversity. You must build yourself consistently, even in good seasons, because temptation is not an if but a when.

3. Jesus Used Fasting and Prayer as His Waiting Strategy

   A regiment of prayer and a regiment of fasting — a schedule that you do not have the authority to adjust. As the scope of your spiritual responsibility grows, your spiritual regiment must be upgraded to match it. The moment a wife gives birth and you have a child, you are in the arena of spiritual responsibility and must develop a regiment to carry it.

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   Fasting starves the flesh. Prayer stuffs the spirit. Fasting is your insulator — it stabs all the open appetites so that Satan cannot exploit them as entry points. Prayer is your influencing appendage — it gives you the capacity to change situations. You need the insulator and then the influencing capacity.

   The yoke is destroyed because of fatness. Not just anointing in a service — but consistent growth. If an ox grows fat enough, the yoke that once bound its neck can no longer fit. Keep growing in capacity and yokes fall off without you even noticing. Once there was a woman sent as a witch to bring the ministry down — she fell under the anointing and confessed it. Nothing had been done specially that day. There was just fatness.

4. There Are Two Reasons God Allows Temptation

   • First: to reveal that the flesh is weak. The flesh is the operating system that enhances Satan's activity. You cannot use your intellect, your experience, or your natural resources to combat a spirit being. Satan created the flesh — he knows all its dynamics. Bring the flesh as your defense and Satan will teach you a brutal lesson.
   • Second: to reveal how strong the grace of God is that has been deposited in you. Temptation first reveals the weakness of the flesh, then reveals the sufficiency of God's grace.

5. All Temptation Is Flesh-Based

   Romans 7:18: "For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." The Greek word for flesh here is sarx — the body. Sin dwells in the human body. The nature of sin in the body operates through what Romans 7 calls the motions of sin — when sin takes advantage of your appetites.

   Every appetite has legitimacy. The body needs rest. The body needs food. But if those appetites are open and unbridled, sin flows into them and makes them entry points. Every temptation is appetite-based. If there is any loose appetite available, that appetite becomes the entry point when the spirit comes to test you.

   Satan will test your desire for wealth, for flamboyance, for the approval of people. The spiritual man must put all appetites under check at every time so that Satan has no entry point.

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   Apostle Arome Osayi

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The First Temptation: The Principle of Living

Now read Matthew 4:1-4: "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward 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."

Three things to note before showing what is really happening.

The Accreditation at the Baptism

At Jesus's baptism, the Holy Ghost descended upon him in bodily shape like a dove and the voice of God came from heaven: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." That accreditation was so elaborate that the kingdom of darkness got wind of it. The purpose was to attract Satan.

The adventure of the first Adam was stalled by Satan. Now God has the last Adam. The scenario of the temptation had to be revisited. The Holy Ghost led Jesus into the wilderness as the arena — not to be ambushed, but to face Satan in a rematch that the first Adam lost.

When Satan showed up, he was not concerned about many things. He was concerned about Jesus's identity. Son of God — my kingdom does not recognize that title. But if you say you are the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread.

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What Satan Was Actually Doing

Satan's strategy in the first temptation was not really about bread. He was attacking the principle of Jesus's living.

The principle of living means: what informs your direction, your strategy, your actions? Is it human wisdom and the demands of the flesh, or is it the proceeding word of God?

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." A proceeding word is a current utterance from God. The way man was designed to operate was by the proceeding word — not by bread, not by what your senses demand, not by what the natural situation requires.

If you have a diary recording the things you have heard from God and the moments those words came to pass, you build confidence in God's speaking. You arrive at the conclusion that God is not a man that he should lie. His word is law. He does not review it. He does not recall it.

• When God says something and it seems impossible, the response of a person living by the proceeding word is quietness — not giving up, but waiting and watching.
• Before you know it, what seemed impossible begins to show itself. Because you saw that the previous word worked out, you know this one will too.
• God is training you into a person of faith who has confidence in his speaking. A prophet must know above all else that when God speaks, he means what he says and says what he means.

The reason why Jesus could live in Rochester, Minnesota, in minus-35-degree temperatures, coming from a climate of 40 degrees Celsius, is because God said so. A free four-bedroom house in Greenwich was on the table. Immigration into the UK was fully arranged. All of that was set aside — not because of human preference but because the voice of the Lord did not sanction it. Man shall not live by bread alone.

The Flesh Cannot Win This Battle

If you bring the flesh as your defense against a spiritual entity, Satan will teach you a brutal lesson. The flesh is the operating system that enhances Satan's activity. He created it. He knows all its dynamics.

Fasting is an insulator. It depletes the flesh so that there is no loose appetite available for Satan to exploit. Prayer gives you the capacity to change circumstances. John 6:63: "It is the spirit that quickeneth — the flesh profits nothing." That is a judgment. God already tested the flesh in his laboratory. The result is final: the flesh profits nothing. Do not use your life to test what God already tested.

Living by the Proceeding Word

Isaiah 55:8 onwards. Every response Jesus gave to Satan in all three temptations came from the book of Deuteronomy. That will be addressed fully in a coming session — why Deuteronomy was the book of answers.

What you are doing and why you are doing it should be a product of the proceeding word of God — not time and chance, not feasibility studies, not the economic situation. You are going into this business because on this day God spoke to you. You are going into this relationship because the voice of the Lord sanctioned it.

If there is any aspect of your life you are carrying without God's express word and you cannot change it, remember: his grace is sufficient. Grace is God's spiritual energy. If you receive enough of it, you can overcome even what is naturally impossible. Many terrible situations — when they do not stop you from praying and fasting — are a call to advance into deeper depth in the grace of God. The pressure that others put on you can become the catalyst that pushes you deeper into God.

Satan's goal in the first temptation: to make you live by the flesh — responding to the demands of natural circumstances. God's design: that you live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.