Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
New Testament scholar D .A. Carson asked the question, what are your excuses for not praying? In other words, what do we say when we don't pray like we ought to and as often as we ought to? He came up with several different excuses people have.
Number one, people say they're too busy. They're too busy, tyranny the urgent, too many things going on, and so they don't pray like they should and they neglect their duty of prayer. And might I add privilege of prayer.
He gives another excuse. Some people say they feel too dry to pray. They just feel like they're too dry and somehow their approach to God is based on their vitality and their desire to pray. Others say they don't feel any need to pray.
Somehow talking about self-dependency and self-sufficiency, I have no reason to pray, I don't really need to. Others say I'm too bitter to pray. I've suffered a lot and I've got lots of things going on in my life, too many trials, and I get the short end of the stick, I'm too bitter.
D .A. Carson said some people think that they're too ashamed to pray. They've sinned too much, there's too much shame in their life. He says shame squirrels behind a masking foliage of pleasantries while refusing to be honest.
That somehow we can't approach God as Father and he knows we're sinners. And the last excuse he gives is people are content with being mediocre. They don't want to dive deeply into the Word and to study and to seriously worship God.
They don't want the inconvenience, they just want Christianity lite. Those are some pretty bad reasons, aren't they? Not to pray. Well, I added one more and here's one reason why people don't pray. This is my added reason.
Some people don't pray because they don't really know how to pray. They're not really sure if this is the right kind of prayer, what to say, do I have to use King James English? I don't really know how to pray.
If only someone would teach us how to pray. Teach me to pray. Well, let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6 and we'll see that Jesus is doing that very thing in this wonderful set of chapters, Matthew 5, 6 and 7, known as the Sermon on the Mount.
And he teaches the disciples how to pray. What a wonderful Savior we have. How great is Christ Jesus that he would teach us to pray. We don't have to guess, we don't have to have God say you're getting warmer.
Oh, that's pretty good, do a little bit better next time. If you only say more words, if you only have more theological words, I'll hear you. No, Jesus teaches us exactly the template and the formula and the skeleton to pray.
I'm so glad that he has done this for us. As you know, macro picture of Matthew is Jesus is the King. The book ends are both talking about Jesus as King. Early on in chapter 1 we see the genealogy that David's son is Jesus.
David the King's son is Jesus the King. And then at the end we see this King being crucified. Here's your King, Jesus, King of the Jews. And then in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus begins to tell these dear disciples and everyone who would listen what entrance requirements there are to get into this kingdom of his.
And if you want to summarize all those red chapters, 5, 6, and 7, the words of Jesus, you could summarize it with this one verse found in chapter 5, verse 20. Chapter 5, verse 20, what's the summary of the Sermon on the Mount?
Jesus said, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, unless you're more religious than the most religious people you know, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
No eternal life. And so Jesus says this is what eternal life is. This is how you get into eternal life. And if you already are saved, this is how you live. It is a masterpiece, the Sermon on the Mount.
And he starts off, remember in chapter 5, verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Not just happy, but blessed. God's condescending grace and approval is on those who are poor in spirit.
The world says push to the top, be powerful, be all you can be. And God says in my kingdom, in the kingdom of eternal life, in the kingdom of heaven, the approved people are those who realize they're poor.
Theirs and theirs alone is the kingdom of heaven. God says I approve this kind of person. What's the opposite of blessed? Well, blessed is not really the word happy. The opposite word for blessed is woe.
And as woe isn't a word of happiness or feeling, so too blessedness is not either. It is a statement of God's approval on a person. Woe is a statement of disapproval. He said my kind of people are poor in spirit.
When you look at them, you can see their ribs because they're emaciated spiritually. They know they have no good thing in them. They are spiritual Sahara deserts and they know it. Otherwise, why would they be looking to anybody else's kingdom?
They'd want to stay where they are. The kind of people that God blesses and He approves are those that say, I have chapter 11 spirituality, chapter 13, I am bankrupt spiritually. And those kind of people know they need a doctor.
They know they're sick, to use other words from Jesus. Those that are full and rich and wealthy and self-sufficient in their own spiritual soul, they don't need to grovel before this king to say, I need you and your righteousness.
My righteousness can't exceed anyone's, let alone the most religious people. I need assistance. I am unworthy, God. And Jesus is telling this in a society where everyone's showing their pomp and circumstance on the outside.
See how religious I am? Look at me. Look what I do, look what I say. It's all puff, it's all show. I call this, I made it up this week. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't, but this is exactly what it is.
Jesus is not impressed with red light district righteousness. Look, show, outside, He's after the inside, He's after the internal righteousness. And only God can give that because we're fallen. We need a savior, we need a risen savior.
Jesus begins to focus, not necessarily only on the people, but to His own words. Chapter 5, verse 21, we know the series of His teaching. You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. And Jesus with clarity, with crispness, with easy understandability, if that's a word.
People go, oh, the Bible's too hard to understand. You read Matthew 5, 6, and 7 and you go, a child could get this. It may be difficult to live, it's impossible to live without the grace of God. But I know what He says by what He says.
Luther said, let therefore wretched men cease to impute with blasphemous perverseness the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all clear scriptures of God. The problem isn't what we understand about the text, it's that we do understand about the text.
How could anyone get into this kind of kingdom? And here the king comes and tells us. He says, see all these other people, the Pharisees and the scribes and the hypocrites and all the external show people, all the peacock righteousness people.
Don't do what they do because they want to be seen by other people. It's got to come from the inside. Don't listen to them and don't do what they do. You say, well, what do they do? Chapter 6, they give alms in front of people, they pray in front of people, and they fast in front of people, but the king sees on the inside.
So he says, when these kind of people go around and say, look at me, show and tell, bring and brag, look what I do. You watch out. Chapter 6, verse 1. First word is the most important word in chapter 6.
Beware. Beware. People that want to get applause from others, they don't have real righteousness, they've got a prostituted righteousness is what they've got. And Jesus says, you watch out. Watch out for the Pharisees.
Watch out when you do it yourself. Watch out. Remind me of a guy I used to play basketball with in college. Not that I was a college player, but just pickup games and all that. And if you're dribbling the ball going down to the basket and somebody comes up behind you, you can't see behind you, so it's your teammate's responsibility for the person behind you.
When you're dribbling, the person behind you has to say, there's somebody behind you, watch out, behind you. I remember this guy, he didn't speak English very well, but I understood what he meant when he said this.
Dribbling down the court to go for layup, a guy's running right behind me, and my teammate would always shout this out. I didn't correct him on his grammar, I just, watch. And this word here for Jesus in Matthew chapter 6, verse 1, is not only beware, but be concerned about and pay attention to.
Be careful. Devotedly so. So much so a cognate, a different kind of word in the same word group, means to be addicted to. You've got to make sure you're having your eyes peeled for false righteousness, because you'll see this false righteousness, and if you're not careful, you'll think it's real righteousness.
And you'll want to do this stuff on the outside. And Jesus says, you've got to be careful. You've got to watch out. You've got to pay attention. Those that give alms, those that fast, those that pray, it's hard to see real righteousness.
And so Jesus says, if you'd like to pray the real way, don't pray like the Gentiles. Chapter 6, verse 9, is what we call the Lord's Prayer, the disciples' prayer. Pray then in this way. Lord, teach me to pray the real way, not in a pompous way, not with only King James, only English, not so everybody else knows, but help me to pray the real way, that I should pray before a child would talk to a father.
And the King teaches that in chapter 6, verse 9 and following. Pray then in this way. Our Father, who art in heaven. Drawing near to God with all His goodness that a father would have, all His kindness, all His sovereign knowledge and wisdom, and bountiful grace that He can give through Christ Jesus, this God who is sovereign, this God who is majestic, this God who is gracious, pray to this God who is a father.
And then He gives six petitions. This is the template, this is the skeleton for praying to God as Father. So we have real righteousness, not fake righteousness. It's on the inside. We don't need incense.
We don't need some kind of bells. We need internal righteousness. And the whole Sermon on the Mount drives us to say, we need Your help, Lord, because we can't do this. And He says, number one, hallowed be Your name.
Left to ourselves, we begin to pray for ourselves first, and our family first, and our friends first, and our church first, but it's about God and God's name alone to be hallowed at the top of the list.
This sets the climate, the tone, the attitude of the whole prayer. He has another prayer. Request, Your kingdom come, God. Number three, Your will be done. It's all about God. You can think of the first three petitions about the glory of God and the next three petitions about our good.
It's okay for a child to ask, Dad, could I have something to eat? And certainly it's fine to pray to God for food, shelter, and all temporal needs. Look at the fourth petition. Give us this day our daily bread.
It's a fine prayer. It's a good prayer. We're to pray that. Petition five, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. He elaborates a little bit farther on in verse 15. You see the postscript, for if you forgive others for their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. In other words, forgiven people forgive. People who don't forgive may betray their lack of forgiveness. And now we come to the sixth petition.
Petition number six. In this template prayer from Jesus Christ, Lord, teach me how to pray. Number six, do not lead us into temptation. Verse 13. Verse 13, and do not lead us into temptation. Now, right from the get-go, people have problems with this verse.
They start reading all kinds of things into it. Does God really entice me to evil? What about all the other systematic theology that I have in my brain? What is going on here? Is it evil, or is it the evil one?
Do I include the doxology, or do I not? Is it in the best manuscripts? And I think we somehow forget what this petition really is. So what I want to do this morning is I want to kind of unravel it. How many people here have ever taken a golf ball and unraveled the whole thing?
Some have. Take that hard, dimpled shell off the top, and there's all kinds of rubber bands on the inside, and you just keep pulling it off and pulling it off, and you think, you know what? It may explode.
There's some kind of poisonous gas in the middle. That was just an urban legend, although there was a little truth to it back in the early 1900s. B .F. Goodrich made the first golf ball, and there was compressed air on the inside, and so when people would hit the ball sometimes, it would explode, but there's no poison gas on the inside.
Kids, go get your dad's best golf ball as an illustration. Reminder today, after church, take the sledgehammer and begin to go to work, and we'll see if discipline is an urban legend in your family afterwards.
But as we would peel these strips off the golf ball, we want to kind of unpeel the truth that's found in this petition, because we ought to pray this. When's the last time you prayed this? Ought we to pray this regularly?
Well, we'll find out. Before I get too deep into the text, let's start off talking about this doxology, because I just want to get it out of the way, because frankly, it's in the way. It's not in the best manuscripts.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. It's not in the best manuscripts, not in the most reliable manuscripts, not in the oldest manuscripts, but it's in our heart that's the problem.
We love the song. My grandma used to love to sing it, and we just don't want to give it up, because it just gives us good memories. You probably even notice in your own Bible, there's probably a little footnote there.
There's probably some mark, and it'll say it's not found in the best MS manuscripts. It's theologically wonderful. It's biblical. It sounds good. Is thine is the kingdom a biblical phrase? Would that be a good thing to pray?
Oh God, it's about your kingdom. It's about your reign. Yes, but it's not in the text. Thine is the power. Is that biblical? Yes, only you can do all these things. You have the strength, the power, the dominion, the arm that will not be hindered.
That's of course biblical. Thine is the glory. God, only you get the honor and glory and praise. Is that biblical? Yes, but it's not textual. God, you're the first and the last, the best, the top, the supreme.
Certainly biblical, but not in the text. Is amen biblical? Well, of course it is. It's just not here. It's biblical concepts, but somebody just wrote them in. Just like when you write notes in your Bible, and throughout the centuries then they just got added in the manuscript.
So the first thing we want to do is get rid of that. I'll never forget the first time I went to a Roman Catholic church. I didn't know what was going on. I was a Lutheran. In those days, I didn't know how similar Lutherans and Catholics were.
But I thought I can stand up when they stand up. I can sit down when they sit down. I can do different things. Peace be to you and also with you. This is the word of the Lord and all these things. I go, I can do all that.
I kind of felt like I was in. It's good. I feel comfortable. I know what I'm doing. Who wants to walk into a church and not know what you're doing? So then I thought, they're saying the Lord's Prayer.
I can get it. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And I start becoming more bold as the prayer goes on because I know it. And then at the very end, I get to, Thine is the... And then you just kind of go like that.
It's not in the best manuscripts. They knew it. Sadly, the Lutherans didn't know it. So what is the proper understanding? Why would Jesus have us pray, lead us not to temptation? I think we can get help if you look at the first word in the verse.
Verse 13. And, hey, this is following up. This is following up the forgiveness section. Forgive us our debts and lead us not to temptation. You think of a coin, heads and tails, and now I want you to think of negative and positive.
Jesus says when we sin, we ought to go to God the Father and say, God, I've sinned. Forgive me. I confess that I've fallen short of your standard and your law and your requirements. And when it comes to past sin, the Father says, certainly, based on Calvary, based on Christ's death and resurrection, substitution and atonement, dying in your place, you are forgiven.
And then the heart of the child of God says, I don't want to just ask you, God, to take care of my past sins. I, what? Don't ever want to sin again in the future. God, I don't want to go in a place where I'm going to sin again.
And so as the one is negative, forgive us, this one's positive. I don't want to go do that. As this one is dealing with what's happened in the past, this petition, petition number six, I don't want to sin in the future.
I want to be preserved from future sin. Protect me from future sin. Frankly, I don't pray that that often, do you? God, I have a new heart, I have a new king, I have a new desire, I have a new love for the word, and I don't want to go back to what I used to do.
That old sin that used to ruin my life did ruin my life, that gross, ugly sin. I want to run from it. This is the heart cry of the Christian. I've been forgiven of my sin, and in the future, oh, God, don't let me sin again.
Do you notice this is the template? Pray then in this way. It's the idea of a child who says to the father, I don't want to sin anymore. We try to say too many things like, this is some systematic theology.
Pray then in this way. Dear father, we know that you're the ultimate sovereign, yet you work through secondary agents, thereby eliminating anyone trying to blame you. We do therefore acknowledge that you do not entice to sin in any way, shape, or form, but you and your plan, your decree for our good and your glory, have decided to place in our paths trials like you did Israel.
We acknowledge that you're eternal son, through the hypostatic union, believe in the doctrine of compatibilism. Is that how a kid talks to their father? How about, I sinned against you, King, and Father, and Savior.
I don't want to sin anymore. Help me. That's what he's saying. Let me just push the envelope a little bit. If you never say, God, don't lead me into temptation, I think you're still praying biblical, because it's the template.
Pray then in this way. He does not say, pray this exact thing. Pray in this way. As you hated your old sin, hate the new sin that you might possibly do. One man said, he is not going to teach them some kind of prayer conundrum.
The disciples need help, not a prayer to, this is my own word, to unscrew the inscrutable. By the way, the word temptation is the same word for trial. It's used about 21 times in the New Testament, and 20 of those times, besides this passage, is translated trial.
Turn with me, if you would, to James. The word, in other words, temptation can be translated either trial or temptation. One thing we want to make sure is that we don't think that somehow we're supposed to pray that God should never entice us to do some kind of sin.
God would never do that. So what is he saying? I think we can learn a little bit from James chapter 1. James chapter 1 shows us this same word translated by our English translations in chapter 6 of Matthew, temptation, translated in James chapter 1 and most other places, trial.
It's a morally neutral word based on context, meanings based on context. So, if you take a look at these trials, James chapter 1, verse 2 and 3. Very important. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various same word trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
Verse 12 of James 1, the same word is there. Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial, or temptation, same morally neutral word, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
And then verses 13 and 14 of the same chapter. Same root word. Let no one say when he is tempted, same word there, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
So chapter 1, verses 2 and 12 talk about these trials that are in our lives to bring out the best in us. Chapter 1, verses 13 and 14 talks about these temptations that would bring out the worst in us.
Does God the Father want to bring out the worst in you or the best in you? That's the idea. Do not lead me into temptation. It's not saying, God, I know you're holy, but if there's any way you could be unholy and entice me to sin, please don't do that.
It's just stupid. So you say, God, I would like you to protect me from these trials and these temptations because I don't want to sin. Let me give you the implications. If you're taking notes, let me give you several implications for this doctrine, for this truth, so we might understand it a little bit better and make it as practical as we can.
Several implications. For those that are dying to know, I have eight. Now we're going to make it. Several implications. This is what we're taught by Jesus, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
What should happen then in our life? If the doctrine of this prayer is that, then what's the practical methodology? Number one, you ought to remember to pray for protection daily. As prayer for daily bread should be daily, you ought to pray every day, God, protect me and my family from sinning.
Would that be a good prayer request? It would be an excellent prayer request. God, You're sovereign. You order everything perfectly. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't want to sin anymore. I've been freed from that and I don't feel like being a dog returning to its own vomit.
I don't want to sin anymore. I want to honor You, so please protect me. That's the nature of that prayer. It is possible for everyone in this room, me first, to fall theologically, morally, ethically, doctrinally.
It is possible for all of us to fall. Better people than we are have fallen, haven't they? Absolutely. God, protect us. You order the heavens. You order the earth. You're our great Father. Please protect our souls.
We don't want to injure Your name or our reputation. No one, I repeat, is above falling. Not one person. Steve, Dave, Pradeep, you, John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, you just fill in the list. We need this daily, daily protection.
Dad, help me. Number two, the second implication. First one was pray for protection every day. Number two is the inverse or the converse. Rely on the Lord for spiritual victories through prayer and not your own strength.
You must rely on the Lord for spiritual victories through prayer and not on your own strength. Who wants to be weak? I don't like to be weak. I don't like to think I can't do something. But we need to realize the power and the deception that can be there when we think we're strong because when we're strong, we're going to show our weakness.
We have a tendency to trip and to fall as children of God. Forgiven, yes. Declared righteous by Christ's work, yes. But we are weak. That's why God the Son tells us to go to God the Father and ask Him for help because we can't do it on our own.
Peter knew that only God could provide that strength. 2 Peter 2, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. The Lord knows, so let's go to the Lord and ask Him. Self-trust is not good. Self-reliance is not good.
Self-sufficiency is not good. History records two people who were condemned to die under Queen Mary, Bloody Mary. They were in jail together and the one man said, you know, I will never deny Christ. I know doctrine.
I've been tested. I've been tried by trials. And I can't wait till tomorrow when I go and get my head chopped off for the Lord because then I get to meet my Master. Tomorrow will be a great day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow like a bride does her wedding day.
Now his companion in prison was also a Christian and he was very afraid. He didn't want to deny his Master but he'd seen other people roast in the fire and he didn't want to cause his Savior any harm but he said, I'd like you to pray for me because I am weak and I need the strength of God.
The other man said, you're weak, you're a fool and he rebuked him for his weakness. What weak faith you have. Well, it wasn't beheading, it was burnt at the stake and the biographer records, quote, when they both came to the stake, he who had been so bold recanted at the side of the fire and went back to live an apostate's life while the poor trembling man whose prayer had been lead me not in temptation stood firm as a rock praising and magnifying God as he died the cruel death.
That's the prayer. Several years ago I thought I'd try to swim from San Francisco to Alcatraz. So I got in the boat really early, had my wetsuit on, there's 500 people in the boat and I sat down on this little table.
I didn't know anybody there and there's a bunch of people and I just sat down and there's a bunch of ladies sitting there and they're all so afraid. It's super early in the morning, it's foggy and people die and there's sharks and all these kind of things and you can drown easy and all these.
And I said, you know, it's going to be fine, do you girls train? Oh yeah, we train. It's going to be fine, no problem and I just was, it's going to be easy. No big deal, just it's a swim in the ocean, no big deal.
I just remember telling them, it's going to be okay. I just remember sitting there going, I got it going on, I know what I'm doing. I should have listened probably to my wife who said, have you been training in the open ocean?
Open ocean? I don't need that. I'm Mike Abendroth, man. I couldn't believe when I jumped into the water I wanted to suck the proverbial thumb instead of swim. I thought, I got to get rescued. There's those guys in the boat, you do this, that means it's time to get rescued.
And then I got to the shore, I finally swam there and the girls were like, man, that was a great swim, we can't wait to do it next year. Maybe this time, instead of swimming out to the rock, we'll swim from the shore, around the rock and back next year and all that.
And I just thought, this is a total illustration of what this passage is. When you think you're really strong, you're weak. We are weak and we are liable to fall. Bravado and Christianity don't go together.
We are dependent to live on God's grace through prayer. I could say it this way, you can't handle your life on your own. Your shoulders are not that big and they never were intended to be that big. They were never designed to be that big.
Turn with me to Mark chapter 14, let me show you a biblical example of this. No one can live apart from God's sustaining, enabling grace. If they try, they end up like Adam, Cain, Judas or in this particular case, Peter.
Look at Mark chapter 14, verse 37 as we demonstrate how important it is to ask God for help so that we don't think we don't need His help somehow. Mark chapter 14, verse 37. You're familiar with the passage but I think the context is important in light of our passage today in Matthew 6.
And He came and found them sleeping. Jesus came and found them sleeping and He said to Simon, said to Peter, Simon are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Now certainly it was a busy time, a hectic time, Passover having some alcohol with the wine and becoming sleepy.
But Jesus says, verse 38, keep watching and praying. Why? You've got to be on the alert, you've got to be a Gregory, you've got to keep your eyes peeled as it were spiritually and you've got to pray. Why?
That you may not come in temptation. The Spirit is willing but the flesh is, say it, weak. And this isn't sinful flesh like Romans 6 would talk about. This is frail humanity flesh. We're weak. The Spirit's willing but the flesh is weak.
One of the best things we can do is just say, here's my self-assessment. Self, you're weak. Self, you can't do it. Self, you have dependence upon the Lord. We're vulnerable. We've got to keep alert. One man said, the man who says his prayers in the evening is a captain posting his centuries.
After that, he could sleep. Verse 39, look at the text. And again he went away and prayed saying the same words. He kept on praying. It was a protracted prayer session. And again, verse 40, he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were very heavy and they did not know what to answer him.
And for the first time, surprisingly for Peter, he had nothing to say. His face said it all, I'm sure, with embarrassment and guilt. Verse 41, and he came the third time and said to them, are you still sleeping and taking your rest?
It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand. Peter should have been watching.
Peter should have been praying. Because the flesh is weak even though the Spirit is willing. And what did Peter go and do? What did strong Peter do right after this? Well, he didn't pray and then he's in the court of the high priest.
Satan, as one man said, took him and wrung his courage out like a dish rag and hung him up limp to dry in the presence of a little girl. Proverbs 16 says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling.
Jesus said in John 15, 5, apart from me you can do nothing. Now different basketball teams have mottos. Sports teams have mottos. Probably police academies have mottos. Armies probably have mottos. The great Anglican bishop of a century ago, J .C. Ryle said, Christian, you want a motto?
Here's your motto. The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. That's the motto. He said it should be the Christian's daily motto from the time of his conversion to the hour of his death. I can't do it except for the grace of God.
You can be a seminary student. You can be a pastor's wife. You can have the whole New Testament memorized. You can be holy yesterday. But you should not trust yourself. Every time you turn on the TV and watch an evangelical fall to sin, you should say to yourself lots of things.
Number one, God made that never happen to me. That's the prayer's cry of Matthew 6, lead me not into temptation. And number two, you should say, that man trusted himself too much, our woman. Number three, implication number three.
Lead us not into temptation. We learn the prayer. What are the implications? Pray for protection daily. Yes. Number two, rely on the Lord, knowing that you're weak. Yes. Number three, work hard at not yielding to temptation.
You're responsible to work hard at not yielding to temptation. It just doesn't stop with, well, I prayed about it. We've got to have a resolve that says, I never want to go back there again to that sin.
I never want to think that way again. There's a guy in my Bible study back in Los Angeles, and he had different homosexual sins, and he wanted to be freed from them, and he'd ask God for forgiveness, and then he would drive home, and every time he drove home past this gay bar, he would stop and go in.
And I would say to this guy, you've got to go the other way. You've got to drive over this way. You can't drive by that way. You just can't say, God, forgive me of these sins, protect me from these sins.
You need to what? 1 Corinthians 6, verse 18. Flee immorality. You just don't lay back and let God, oh, I prayed about it. Run. What did Joseph do? She's tearing off his clothes, and he's like, dear Lord.
He might have been saying, dear Lord, on the inside, but he was running. Running. Fleeing. The word flee means fugitive. That's the Greek word. 1 Corinthians 10 says the same thing. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
2 Timothy chapter 2. Flee from youthful lust. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 10. For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some, by longing for it, have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many a pang.
But flee from these things. Not flee from money, but flee from loving it. Your job is to avoid sinful situations that you're going to fall into. It might somehow inflame or fan the flame of your heart to sin.
Mark Twain was no great theologian. He was a theologian, all right. Everyone is, but he did have a few things right. He said this. There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
That's exactly right. John Dryden said, better shun the bait than struggle in the snare. It's like when people date. Well, how close can we get before it's actually some kind of sexual sin? How close?
That's not the right question. The right question is what? How far can I keep away? I remember my father took us for a family vacation into Colorado and we drove up to the top of Pikes Peak. How many people have been to Pikes Peak?
And you know what my dad did being the good, safe dad that he was? He said, watch this kids. I'm going to see how far I can go on the outside of this curb that has no railing to show you what a great driver I am.
Watch me. He put his foot up on the thing. He's driving with his foot. Nah, nah. Of course he didn't do that. He did hold me up one time by my ankles and dropped me on my head. I thought mom would kill him.
Maybe that explains everything. Back to the text. I broke my arm in two places, doctor. Well then stay out of those places. That's the exact kind of attitude here. The positive side to the negative flee, the Bible always talks about don't do this, do this instead.
So you flee from immorality and then you pursue morality. You flee from these things when you're, frankly, sometimes we're just too unbusy. We have too much time on our hands and then we need to get busy.
As Ephesians 5 says, redeem the time. Be careful how you walk. Not as unwise men, but as wise. Making the most of your time. Spurgeon says, some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.
Implication number four. Implication number four. Number one, pray for protection. Number two, rely on the Lord knowing that you're weak. Number three, work hard at not yielding. Number four, when you're in the middle of a temptation, ask God to get you out of it.
When you're in the middle of a trial or temptation, you are to ask God the Father to get you out of it. Back to Matthew chapter six, please. This is the second part of this. Some make it petition seven, but I think it's part of the same petition.
Do not lead us into temptation, but here's the part, deliver us from the evil one. Deliver us. Now, it could mean spare us from entering in, but it also can mean once you're in, get me out. Westminster Shorter Catechism says, support and deliver us when we are tempted, question 106.
God, I need out. This is a child's cry to the Father. I've got to get out of here. Say, I don't know what to pray. I'm in the middle of a temptation. I'm about ready to sin. What do I do? Well, run and then say, God, get me out of here.
Help me. Deliver me. The root word in this word, deliver in Greek, is to drag on the ground. It then became the idea of to snatch out of the enemy's hand or to snatch out of danger. You see some soldier over there on Omaha Beach and you think, you know, if he stays out there in the open, he's going to get killed.
He's got his leg blown off, but I need to go help my buddy and I need to run over there, pick up the guy on my shoulder. I'm in harm's way, but I pick him up and I run back over here behind some beam and that whole act there is deliverance.
That's the Bible word. Deliver me. King David could fall, did fall, we could fall. Peter fell, we could fall. Deliver me, God. And then the last one for today, number five, don't forget your adversary is Satan.
Number five, don't forget your adversary is Satan and he is strong. If you look at verse 13 of Matthew chapter 6, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from, you need to translate it one of two ways, evil, this generic evil, or it could be translated, and I think best translated, the evil one.
God, deliver me from the evil one. Who's the evil one? Well, we know it's Satan, Satanus, the evil one, the adversary, the roaring lion, the one that disguises himself like an angel of what? Light. He is the one who leads the rulers and the princes and powers of the air and the forces of darkness.
He is the one that takes advantage of us if we're not careful and has schemes to get us to sin. He is the one that would like to sift us like wheat. He is the one we're not to be ignorant of his schemes.
He is real, he's not some kind of force. His minions are real and before Satan, we are helpless. We are helpless and we need God's protection. Friends, these people and I, maybe they have great intentions.
As long as you say God loves somebody ahead of time, then you can pretty much trash them after that. God loves some of these people, but with no intention to trash. People that go around thinking Satan, A, listens to them and B, will obey them, have no idea the power and the ferocity and the intenseness of the enemy.
Jesus doesn't say, engage the evil one, talk to, rebuke, send them to Montana, walk around some prayer walk and send them over to Argentina. You're not to talk to Satan, you're not to rebuke Satan. That is the sole prerogative of Jesus Christ.
I'll tell you, when you see someone rebuke Satan and demons, the first thing you should say to yourself is this, they might not be a false teacher, but that's a sign of a false teacher. That's a sign of a false teacher.
2 Peter 2, especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority, daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
Jude 9 -10, but Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce against him a reeling judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. These men revile things which they do not understand, and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these they are also destroyed.
Jesus didn't say, bind Satan. There's no binding of Satan until the millennial kingdom when he's bound. God in His wisdom, His holy wisdom, has allowed Satan to run free, to do all his work. He didn't say, when you're in a trial, pray the blood.
What is that, by the way? I've been a Christian for, I guess, 20 years now, probably been in postgraduate studies for over 10. I still don't know what pray the blood is. Pray the blood. I don't know what it means, pray the blood.
You're to pray to the Father to say, deliver me, get me out of here. You don't talk to Satan, you don't bind him. This is kind of a cheap way to do it, but I'll do it anyway for effect. I did it in Germany, so I'll do it to you.
When you talk to God, you call that what? Prayer. When you talk to Satan, you call that what? Oh, I never thought about it that way. Just don't talk to Satan. You don't have to figure out what you call it.
Just because the apostles did something, and Jesus did something, and Michael did something, that does not mean you were to do the same thing. That's the error of hermeneutics. It says, what is described in the Bible, I must do.
It is prescribed. No, when there's satanic elements involved, your job is to run straight to the throne of grace to find mercy and help in time of need. We are to resist him, 1 Peter 5 says, firm in your faith.
Our Father's there to help us. We don't have to be afraid of Satan. I rarely ever think to myself, you know, I don't think my Father can take Satan. Satan's over here. He's kind of yin-yang. He's got as much power as God does over here in this kind of eternal fight.
I just go, you know what, if I'm in trouble, I don't know if it's Satan, it's my own flesh, the world, an adversary. I just know my Father can help me. God, deliver me. I was in a basketball tournament once.
I was 5 foot, and it was a 5 foot and under league. And I think if I just barely bent my knees a little bit, I could get underneath that yardstick. If I wore baggy kind of sweatsuits, I could just make it under 5 foot to be in that league.
And so I was exactly 5 foot, 5 foot and under league, and I was the center, because I was just under 5 foot. Well, we went to a bad part of Omaha, a rough part of town. My father came down to watch the game.
My father was about 6 '4", 240, and could change the oil with his bare hands in 20 to below wind chill. I mean, he just was this ogre of a guy. I don't know if I should call him ogre, but he had ogre-like strength.
I would never tell him that. To this dying day, I don't think I could ever take him. You know, sometimes kids get a little bigger than their dad and they can take him. I couldn't take my dad. So we drive down to this bad part of town.
I'm the center, and we're playing this other team, and we go for jump ball, and before you have jump ball, you shake the guy's hand, good game, you know, play a good game, way to go, nice to meet you, hope we win, you know.
I don't know what to say. And the guy looked at me and he said this, if you win the jump ball after the game, I'm going to kill you. I thought, why did I lie and pretend I was 5 foot, under 5 foot? I just thought I'd never heard that in my life.
You're going to get killed in the game? I didn't know what to do. What would you do? Coach? No. I just looked over. You'd cry thinking about it. I just looked over. They're set. Lee. I thought, I'm going to try as hard as I can for that jump ball, and nobody's going to touch me because my dad will...
It's not supposed to be funny. I'm not ready to cry here. Don't laugh. I tried as hard as I could to get the jump ball. He out-jumped me by a foot, so it didn't even matter, but I tried. Quit all the showy kind of rebuking Satan, talking to Satan, passing him behind your back, throwing him in a ball and sending him to your neighbor's house.
That's not very loving to your neighbor. He is real, but we are ill-equipped. We have nothing to fight Satan. Father takes care of him. The Lord takes care of him. And when we're in a temptation, and we think there's some kind of spiritual warfare going on, our job is to say, God the Father, what?
Deliver me! Help me! That's why 1 Peter 5 says, Be sober of spirit. On the alert, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. You've got about as much chance of rebuking a real lioness running at you in Zambia as you do trying to point a finger at Satan and say, be gone.
By the way, on a side note, you'd never want to do that if you could, because God is going to use Satan as a hard-working person, a hard-working servant. I won't call him a person, but a hard-working being, because he only can do what God the Father has decreed.
Can you imagine Job? What's Job going to do? Satan, I bind you. Ixnay on the Satanay. It's a backup plan. God used Satan's work, didn't He? Listen, God allowed Satan to do those very things, to try Job, and to try him and find him what?
A faithful servant of God. You ought not want to get rid of Satan, because what if God is using him, just like He's using some other try on your life? Your responsibility as a child, taught by Jesus, the Son of God, is to say, I'm in over my head.
Father, you were good enough to grant me Jesus as a love offering for my sin, and you raised Him from the dead. You certainly will be good enough to protect me from everything else. Please deliver me.
We'll find out more next week. Let's pray.