Deliver Us From Evil

If you have your Bibles, if you would turn with me to Matthew's Gospel, chapter number six, Matthew six, and we're going to read verse number nine through 13. And so once you find your place, if you would honor the Word of God as we stand and read Matthew six, verse nine, go down to verse number 13.

The Bible tells us, if you would read along as we start in verse nine. The power and the glory forever. Father, we are so thankful that your word is preserved and holy text, and we thank you for the grace of prayer. Thank you that the veil has been torn and we can come to you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose blood has purchased us. God, thank you for the many men and women and families that have come out today. I pray that our hearts will be open to receive. The engrafted Word of God, which is able to both save and sanctify us, be glorified not only in the preaching, but in the receiving of your word and give us ears to hear and hearts to receive. And if anyone doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ, may today be the day of salvation for them. We ask it in Christ's name. And God's people said, then you may be seated this morning. Ask you today.

When is. When in your life did you find yourself elevating prayer to a very preeminent place in your life? In other words, when did you find yourself praying most fervently and most frequently in your life?

And what produced that fervency? What was it that caused you to really seek after God? And when you look back in life, it's usually the pains and strains of life that have hit us in such a level that causes us to seek help and aid from the only one that can help us in such circumstances, especially in physical traumas and in times of financial loss or health loss or job loss or struggles and family unity. We all in the problem is we often make prayer the response of life instead of the request in life. In other words, prayer gets put on the back end of life's trials instead of on the front end. And I believe we must learn that prayer needs to proceed. Prayer needs to be the pre maintenance of our life.

When you have a vehicle, if you pre maintenance the vehicle, you find that it's a lot less expensive than post maintenance, and it's a lot wiser to do. I wonder how much in our life would go so much easier if we would pre maintenance our day, our marriage and our children, our work and our lives with deep meaningful prayer seeking after God. But instead, we so often wait until the engine light turns on in our marriage. We wait until the engine light turns on in our children's lives and things become very rocky and difficult and then we begin to seek God out of the pain of life instead of when things are balanced. Spouses often fail to pray for one another until it's too late or parents fail to pray for their kids until their kids are going down the wrong roads. I would ask you this question friend, what would it take in life for you to have a strong prayer life? What would it take in life for you to say you know what I'm gonna get real serious about prayer? Because I can tell you today if you went home and you found out mom or dad had a stroke or if your son or daughter had some serious thing that they were going through that you wouldn't have to be encouraged to pray you would turn to it. I would ask Do you think God is more worried about your physical health or your spiritual health?

Is he more concerned about your physical growth or your spiritual growth? And the Bible is clear that trials and hardships are often the tool that God uses to shape our lives. It's not always that God creates the problems in our life.

Sometimes he allows them but sometimes he can create them. I think about Jonah who ran from God until he ran into the belly of a whale and in that place in his life he only could turn to God in prayer and Jonah 2 verse 1 says then Jonah prayed unto the Lord or Yahweh his God out of the fish's belly and said I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of hell cried I and thou hurtest my voice. I don't know about you but I don't want to end up in the belly of a whale for me to begin to pray.

Amen. By with me we want to we want to seek God while things are going okay. God says in Hosea 5 verse 15 I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face and listen to what God says. In their affliction they will seek me early.

I want you to hear what I'm about to tell you. You and I will listen to one of two things in seeking after God. Either God's word will have become enough for us to listen and obey him and if we don't listen to the word of God the only other thing that will instruct us then is pain. So if we reject truth the only thing left is then trials and God is so loving and so gracious to us that he will bring prodigals back home through the pains of life. And it's not that God creates those pains often it's just that we have separated ourselves from the shadow of God's goodness.

The prodigal son left the safety of his father he left the provision of his father and it was in the far country that he was starving to death that he realized how good his father was. And after nine sermons on preaching on prayer after over two months of preaching on about five verses if we have not been motivated to pray then I would concede that we have not we are we are tempting God with this thought. God your word is not enough to motivate me to prayer I'm going to need something more.

Now you say I would never say that we don't have to say because our talk or walk speaks a lot louder than our talk right. So we need to step back and say God let your word be enough to my heart today give me ears to hear you know how often Jesus said that. Think about Revelation 2 and 3 all the churches he wrote to he would say he that has ears let him hear with the spirit saved to the churches. And so today let us be those who come and say God I love you I love your word I long to be in your presence.

I don't need trials to cause me to seek after you you're good enough. The Bible tells us in Psalms 50 verse 15 God says call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. This morning we continue in this verse by verse study through Matthew's Gospel as we break down these thoughts of our Lord. And you say why would you take so long to go through these passages because what Jesus says is that big a deal.

It's so weighty that you can't run through these texts you must walk through them and glean all the fruit that is hanging from the branches. We see first of all in this prayer that Jesus gives this model prayer in verse 9 through 13 that we must first come in elevation of God in worship. There are six requests that Jesus tells us to make in verse 9 through 13. The first three have to do with our relationship to God and our worship and elevation of him.

The next three have to do with our own lives. The first request Jesus says we should make is that we should seek to hallow God's name. God when we worship you we are seeking to hallow your name.

That word means to elevate, to exalt, to lift up. It is to come to God in worship. Secondly we would say thy kingdom come and one day Christ is going to set his kingdom up on earth for a thousand years according to Revelation 20 verse 1 through 6. But until that day he's setting his kingdom up in the hearts of men.

The Bible tells us when people get saved and when they get baptized or they live a sanctified life rejecting sin following Christ. Jesus Christ's rule is coming into their life. The third request we have is that we would seek his will to be done. Not only his kingdom to come but his will to be done. That is to understand that prayer is not me molding God and seeking God to be molded into what I want. But rather prayer is me molding into what God wants. Prayer is not seeking my will but it's seeking his will. That's the first set of requests and when you and I understand God correctly when we come correctly to his throne in prayer only then can we understand our needs correctly.

The vertical precedes the horizontal. And so once we get that right then we can begin to look at our own life and Jesus says then you need to pray Lord give us this day our daily bread. You see this is not a lavish request but it's a request that God you would provide for me my physical sustenance.

That you would take care of me physically. This also includes house, clothing, food, cars, all the things that we need to physically be taken care of. And we also are to thank him for these things. Secondly we saw last week in the second portion of prayer request is we ask God for forgiveness. It says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Sin causes us to have a debt to God. Sin creates a debt to him. That's why the Bible says the wages of sin is death.

There is a debt that we owe him. It's the Greek word hamardia we fall in short we sin we violate him. And so the prayer of verse 12 is saying this and we preached on this last Sunday but it's worth repeating. When you pray verse 12 in essence what you and I are saying is God treat the sins of my life in the exact same manner that I've treated the sins of other people.

However other people have offended me and I've treated them I want you to treat me the exact same way that I've treated them. So when you come to verse 12 that's how you are to view that. God forgive me in the same way that I've forgiven others. Should that motivate us to be forgiving?

Be gracious amen. Because you cannot pray otherwise you're indicting your own soul. And then the third request here and the final of these is to ask God for protection and that's what we come to in verse 13. This is such a monumental request because verse 12 is seeking forgiveness for past sins and present sins and verse 13 is seeking protection from the potential of future sins. That I don't want other sins to come into my life and so Christ says this needs to be a vital portion of your prayer. This needs to be a very important area of our lives and our prayer life and so what does this prayer mean?

What does this prayer mean? Well he says lead us not into temptation and so my question is does God lead us to be tempted? And if we don't ask him not to lead us into temptation will he lead us into temptation? Turn with me to James chapter number one and I will give some more insight there. James one if you're curious where James is just go to the book of Revelation and turn left. If you end up in Genesis turn right but it's right after Hebrews okay? James chapter number one.

James one really deals with this I love the book of James many of you have shared your love of this book and it's really on practical Christian living how to live the Christian life. And he writes to the scattered tribes scattered believers and he starts by saying in verse number two my brother encountered all joy when you fall into divers temptations. The word divers means different the word temptations there comes from a Greek word perasmos. Perasmos has two different definitions it can have two different meanings two different connotations. The word temptation in the English only carries a negative connotation.

You think about temptation you think of a solicitation to do evil right? It only carries a negative but in the Greek that's not the case. In the Greek perasmos can mean first of all it can mean a solicitation to evil an enticement to do something wicked or sinful.

But it also can mean to be tested or to be tried or to be proven. And so there's two different ideas to the word perasmos as we will see here. So the difference is this James chapter one speaks about trials and temptations. So you see in James 1 verse 1 through 12 when the word perasmos is used it's used in reference to trials that test our faith. And in verse 13 through 15 it transitions over to perasmos that is a temptation or an allurement to sin an enticement to sin.

Now the difference is this God will send trials and tests into the believers life for the distinct purpose of growing our faith. If you have been in sports or in athletics you always know before you get to the season of having games that there is a season of conditioning. When I played college basketball I remember the first two weeks every year and this was just dreadful. I don't even know that we picked up a basketball we just we ran for two hours. We started off with a three mile run. I remember my freshman year I was like you mean you start with a three mile run? I thought the whole practice would conclude like a three mile run. It was just like the warm up. It didn't warm me up it about killed me right. So we would run for three miles and then we would go back to the gym and we would just kill this.

I hated it I was just angry. But by the first game I was in incredible shape. And so it is in football if you have two days and you hate those seasons of life.

But by the time you get to the game time you're thankful that your lungs are able to take care of the oxygen for your blood to be able to circulate and to have that ability to be sustained. And just as athletes must train their body so Christians must change their spirit. There is an endurance that is built in your faith and it only comes through trials. James chapter one verse two. That's why he says my brother and look at them I or counted it's a it's a it's a term of that accountant would use.

Counted considerate reckon it on a reckoning sheet understand that that when you evaluate this. This is a positive. Put this in the positive column a beneficial column counted all joy. When you fall into diverse temptations that it could be also translated different trials. Verse three knowing this that the trying of your faith work if patients that were patients there is the idea of endurance.

But let patients or endurance have her perfect work that you may be perfect. That is the idea of being entire and complete wanting or lacking nothing. It creates a fullness to your spiritual life. Temptation on the other hand are a solicitation by the enemy to get us to send to bring us down. And so that's that's the negative side of pair osmosis.

Now here's an important truth that you need to know. Trials can turn into temptations when we face a trial on the outside that may even be a test from God to build us up. Satan will at the same time work on us to try to turn that test into a temptation.

He will try to get us to doubt God complain against God question God's love for us to resist God. Give you an example of this happening in the Bible. Deuteronomy chapter 8 which is one of the greatest chapters in the Old Testament often quoted in the new and even by our Lord. Deuteronomy 8 verse 2.

The Bible tells us and thou shalt remember all the way which Yahweh the Lord thy God led these 40 years in the wilderness and why did he do that. It says to humble thee, to prove or to test thee, to know what was in your what in your heart, to know whether you would keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, suffered you to hunger and fed thee with manna that which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. I had to believe every day that God's spoken word would give them manna for them to physically survive. The people of Israel often turned that test that the Lord would bring and instead of trusting God in those physical tests, what did they do?

Well, God brought us out here in the in the wilderness to kill us, right? He's not going to let us eat, not let us have water and all of that continued to be a display of their lack of faith. And instead of them growing up in their faith, they just continue to grow down. Instead of instead of that trial building their faith, that trial continued to make them weaker because instead of having faith in God, they did not believe in him. John MacArthur said, Every difficult thing that comes into my life either strengthens me because I obey God and stay confident in his care and trusting his power. And so I grow or I am tempted to doubt God, deny his word, disobey and do what is expedient. And thus I have fallen into a solicitation to do evil.

And he's right. Let me ask you this. What trial are you right now going through? Because life can get pretty heavy sometimes, can it? Life can get pretty heavy. And today you can either trust God, either you believe him or you can doubt him. Either you can say, God, I trust you, even though I cannot see you, that your word is enough to sustain me. Or you can say, God, I don't believe you, I don't trust you, and you begin to doubt God and you succumb to Satan's deceits.

This is a very important truth that you need to hear as well. Sometimes people have asked me this through the years, and when people asked me this years ago, I didn't know how to really answer it. But now I know because of what the Bible has taught and as I've grown in my understanding of the word of God. But people say, you know, I don't know if God is testing me in this, or I don't know if Satan's trying to tempt me.

I don't know if this is something that God is challenging me with in life, and I don't know if Satan's trying to like destroy my life. And you know what the answer to that is? It's both.

It's both. The trial, the situation, whatever it is, is the coin, if you would. And what you do with that will determine what happens to your faith. So the trial that comes, if you have faith in God, it's two sides of the same coin. If you trust God and believe in him through that trial, your faith will grow. But in that trial, if you doubt God, question God, don't believe God, Satan will grab that as a solicitation to evil and weaken your faith. So just know, every trial in our life can turn, and even from God, a trial from God, can turn into a solicitation to do evil.

And you need to know how you respond to that will determine what happens to your faith. So what is the source of temptation? Well, James deals with an important truth we need to hear, and that's to do with the source of the temptation. Where does James say temptation does not come from, according to verse 13 and 14?

Notice what he says. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of who? Of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. So we find here that man is not tempted by God.

God does not tempt men with evil. Let me ask you, what is man's natural tendency whenever we do something wrong in life or mess up? Do we say, ah, you know, I am fully responsible? When you don't do what you're supposed to do as a husband or wife, or maybe your kids are children that are different than mine, so if they were supposed to do the dishes, and you go in and ask your children, you know, why didn't you do the dishes?

I'm sure your children are not like mine. I'm sure they probably say, oh, you know, I take full responsibility, Mom and Dad. It was all my fault.

I should have got it done. But I know how I am, and I know how my kids are, where we'll say, hey, it's somebody else's fault, right? And it's not only our kids that do that, but we do that. We make excuses. We like to shift the guilt and the pain and the blame for other things. And the question is, why do we blame others? And the reason we blame others is we want to be released from the guilt of that failure in our life. Do you think people ever blame God for the mistakes they make in life? You know, in secular psychology today, they teach that children are born in a state of innocence, which I always wonder if they've ever had children.

So that's why they don't call them the terrific twos, right? You don't have to teach a kid to lie, but you have to teach them to tell the what. You don't have to teach a kid to be selfish.

They kind of figure out the words mine, and they know how to slap. But we have to teach them to be selfless. And so it is in our life, we are born with a sin nature. And because secular psychology has taught that children are born in a state of innocence, any error or any faults in their life are no longer their fault, but it's the fault of society or parents or somebody who's corrupted their purity. That's what it teaches.

And I know that because I've studied it, both in college and personally. So you have to understand, and they call it pseudo-guilt, it's a false guilt, right? But we need to understand that we're guilty because we sinned, and we have this sin nature, and it's in us from the womb to do that, and we want to skirt fault. And where did this come from?

Where did this blame-shifting come from? Well, it came from Genesis chapter 3. The Bible tells us in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned and God came to them, and God says to Adam, Adam, what have you done? And you know what Adam said? Lord, it's my fault.

I know I shouldn't have done this. I take full responsibility. I want to make sure that when Josh Bevin lives thousands of years later, he's going to do the same thing as me. He'll take full responsibility. Is that what he does?

No. Adam said, it's the woman. You know, it's one thing to blame your wife, but it's another thing to blame your wife to God. That's a long season of recovery for Adam, right?

I mean, there's a lot in between the lines. We're going to get to heaven and say, how long did he have to sleep on the couch for that one, right? So he said, it's the woman whom what? Thou gaveth to me. Not only does he blame the woman, but he blames God. He's like, I'm a victim.

I'm a victim of the woman that you created. I had nothing to do with this. So is that not the same thing we do in our society today, and we wonder why the corruption of America has happened. Nobody wants to take blame for anything. It's America's past. It's America's present.

It's America's whatever else. Adults blame other people. You know I've had people come to me and say things like this multiple times through the years. Pastor Josh, if God did not want me to commit this sin, he wouldn't have given me the sin nature and the desire to do this.

I've had people say this. If God didn't want me to leave my spouse for that person, God would never have brought that person into my life. So you're going to blame your adultery on God?

Really? This is the kind of blame shifting that happens. And so that's why James says in verse 13, let no man say that. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. Now I want to point something out because there's the English word of which has only one meaning. It means comparing one thing in its relation to something else. So of only has one meaning in the English. It expresses a relationship between one thing and another.

You say I am a member of Lighthouse and it's your relation to that group. But in the Greek there are two words that can be translated of in the English. There's the Greek word apo, A-P-O, and upo, U-P-O. The word apo means an indirect relationship. You would say something like this, I was not part of the activity, which means I had nothing to do even indirectly with the activity.

There's also the word upo, which means direct relationship. You're actually the one doing it. You could say I was part of the team. I was directly involved in that. Now what James says here is that no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted apo of God.

What that means is this. God is not only not directly related to your temptation, he's not even indirectly involved in tempting you. God's not simply not directly involved, but he has absolutely nothing to do with your temptation and sinfulness. We are solely guilty, and maybe today you have struggled with some binding sin, some certain sin. The first step is to recognize that you are personally responsible for your actions. Perhaps you've blamed your past, blamed your parents, blamed some sibling. The first thing we must do is accept total and full responsibility for what we've done. I know everybody who's gone through recovery ministry understands that before they get clean, they've got to take some responsibility. It's not my parents' fault.

I did it. It's not the society's fault. Now they may do stuff that wronged me and put me down some wrong roads, but I have done what I've done. Whenever you take your vehicle to a mechanic, the first thing they do is run a diagnostic on it, right?

What do they do that for? They want to get to the heart of what is the root problem here, and until you find the root problem, you can never get to the solution. And in our life, until we get down to the very bottom part of why am I doing this, I have to realize, you know what? There is sin not outside of me causing me to do this. There is sin inside of me that is causing me to do this. And look what he says in verse number 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of what? His own lust and enticed.

This is in us, friends. So why can God not tempt us with evil? I feel the need to expound on this. First of all, because God cannot be tempted with evil, He can't tempt us because He can't be tempted. God, the Bible says in 1 John 1.5, is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

So two questions would be birthed off of that. Why does the Bible speak about God being tempted? Why does the Bible say God is tempted? Deuteronomy 6 16 says this, Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God as ye tempted Him at Masa. Luke 4 12, And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, going back, the word tempt in the Bible can mean solicitation to sin.

It could also mean being put to the test. The context of Scripture lets us know which meaning is intended. Notice what James says. God cannot be tempted with what? Evil. He says God cannot be tempted with evil. So he's highlighting here, God cannot be solicited to do evil. Other places in the Bible that speak of God being tempted, the writers are speaking not of God being solicited to evil, but God being put to the test.

And so to understand it would be like this. God said He will judge our sin. When we sin, we are testing God to judge us. And he says, Don't put God to that kind of a test. So don't test him to bring judgment. Don't put God to a foolish test. So also, if Jesus is God and God cannot be tempted to sin, why does the Bible, Pastor Josh, why does the Bible say that Jesus was tempted? Hebrews 4 15 says, For we have not a high priest, which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Why does the Bible say that Jesus was tempted?

There's two keys to understand this. First of all, you must remember that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. This is what theologians call the hypostatic union. Jesus was 100% God and 100% man.

He is the God man, literally the God man. And when Jesus was tempted, He was tempted. You need to understand externally. Whereas when we are tempted, we are tempted internally. Jesus's temptations were all real. But you need to understand, they never internalized themselves inside of His heart.

They were only external solicitations. They were never internalized in His soul. And so people asked me the question through the years about the question of the impeccability of Christ. And the question is, Could Jesus have sinned? They phrased it as could Jesus have sinned or could Jesus not have sinned? It's the idea that was Jesus just able to not sin or did Jesus not able to sin? And the answer to that is Jesus was not able to sin. Jesus could not have sinned any more than God can sin. To say that Jesus could have sinned would be to say that God could sin. And that is, my friends, an impossibility.

It's not possible. And then people say, Well, then Jesus didn't have real temptation. To which I would say to you, Do you sin every time you're tempted? And if you didn't sin when you were tempted, did that mean that that temptation was not legitimate? Just because you don't give into the temptation doesn't mean it wasn't a real temptation.

Does that make sense? So to Jesus, I believe that His temptations were more severe than any of ours and all of ours, quite frankly, put together. The reason for that is because 1 Corinthians 10 13 says, There hath no temptation taken to you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow us to be tempted above that which ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. So God always protects us from Satan's overpowering us. Like He doesn't let Satan have too much ability over our life to tempt us in a way that we would not be able to handle with God's grace.

You need to know, and it's important for you to hear this. If it weren't for God's protective grace around our life, Satan could destroy your life by the end of today. You and I could commit the grossest of sins by the end of today if it weren't for God's grace. It's only by His grace. Anybody thankful for the grace of God today? Praise God for His mercy. And so so we are sustained by His grace.

But God will allow Satan to tempt us only so much. But for Jesus, there was no there was no restraint. Satan had the full force of hell's power to come against Christ and Jesus withstood it all. But you need to see how heavy it was that in Matthew 4 11 at the end of it, it said that the angels came and ministered unto Christ and in the garden Christ had sweat, great drops of blood.

Hermitage roses, his his blood began to pour through his sweat glands began to perspire blood. And none of us have faced temptation to such a level that we would succumb to such a physical exhaustion. And it says in Luke twenty two forty three at the end of that night of prayer, it says that the angels appeared unto him and strengthened him. Some theologians believe that Jesus may not have physically lived if he was not upheld and cared for at that time by those angels, because because of the weight of what he was going through, his physical body was failing.

That's that's the weight none of us have faced that. And so but in the midst of all of that temptation, our Lord remained sinless and spotless and victorious. He knew no sin. The Bible says he did no sin. First John three five in him is no sin. So he is not tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man. So God doesn't tempt us.

So where does the temptation come from? Well, Jesus tells us in Mark seven exactly where it comes from. He says in Mark seven, verse twenty one for from within out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evils come from within that defile the man.

Genesis six five, it says, and God saw the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was what? Only evil continually. Do you think we've come close to that in our country today? You think we're at the place where people's thoughts can only be evil continually? Anybody go to work in the conversation seemed to always be only evil continually. I remember working for a newspaper place when I was in college and in these you work around a bunch of college students and and I was in a Bible college and we had we had the camp out campus out there. The city has.

Like one hundred thousand some college students in it and one campus, SMS, you had like twenty seven thousand. And these kids will be talking about their violence all the time at work and just wear me out. So I just talk about the Lord. I you know, I just say, you know, talk about Jesus. And I'll never forget this girl said, you can't talk about that blankety blank stuff here. I'm like, really?

And you know, you know, I've never known to keep my mouth shut. And I'm like, listen, ma'am, if I have to listen to you talk about your perversion and nastiness all week long, I will talk about Jesus. And if you want to talk to the boss about it, that's fine with me. We'll all have a Jesus conversation. I'm all right with that. You know, I'll be honest with you.

I had I had a guy tell me that at another workplace. And I don't I don't think you should go shove it down people's throat. Throw. Don't be obnoxious about it. Don't be some loud, annoying Christian. You ever known those people? It's like they, you know, just just like, come on, man, you're burning bridges. You're turning people off. That's not the spirit in which at all I would say you need to come in. But you also need to grow what most people have lost, which is called a backbone.

It goes right down your back and it kind of holds your skeletal structure together. But but you you need to be able to say, you know what? I do believe this and you need to do it in grace. But you say, this is where I stand.

This is what I believe. And I will not be silenced on this. I will not be silenced on this. I must stand here.

And so. This prayer that Jesus is giving us here is instructing us to pray. And you need to hear what this this prayer involves. It is it is praying that, God, what I'm asking you is that when the trials of life come, when the when the pressures of life come, when the when the difficulties come, that these trials would be something I would trust you through, that I would believe in you through, that my faith would be found strong in you, that it would grow my faith.

God, do not let that trial turn into a solicitation to sin. Do not let me begin to doubt you, to deny you or not believe in you. Have you ever talked to a Christian and maybe that happened in your own life? And maybe that's even you today where you went through some difficulty in life.

You say, you know what? I used to have a lot more faith in God than I do now, but I feel like God's burnt me a few times. I feel like God's let me down. And they began to speak in such ways.

I can tell you this. That kind of mindset is you've been brought into a solicitation to sin. That is a sinful response.

That is a that is a children of Israel in the wilderness type of response. And you need to come and say, God, forgive me for my doubts. It is not you that is the problem. It is my inward part, the sin in me that is the problem. Marvin Vincent, who produced the great Vincent word studies, gives us an example of how this prayer could look. He writes, We pray, therefore, suffer us not to be drawn away by our own lusts. Keep us out of the power of our own evil hearts.

You know our frame and remember that we are dust. Remember our weakness. Forbid that our evil desire should convert our temptable condition into an actual temptation. Keep us out of situations in which so far as we can judge, it would be beyond our present strength to keep from sinning.

Thou knowest, Father, how weak I am. Let me not be tempted above what I am able. So we first can be tempted from within us. The second place we can be tempted from is from the world. 1 John 2 15 says this, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And you have to ask yourself, is the world getting more sinful? You ever think that America seems to be losing its mind?

Things seem to be digressing in such a way that you just say, Is there any shut off? And the reason that we are in a free fall in this nation is because we've rejected the objective truth of God's word and turned into the subjective truth of man. Now we base truth upon every man's feelings. And so not only do we move away from the objective truth of God's word, but now we're going to the very basis part of man, which is their feelings. And truth is no longer defined by the will of man, the intellect of man, but by the feelings of man.

So what do you feel you are? We have people today that, laws that have been passed in our land that now allow biological men to go into female restrooms, female locker rooms and female settings. And people think that that's okay. That is a problem. That is a problem also. That is also a problem when you have a in a place that I dearly love, but has caused me much grief over these last couple of days.

When the YMCA, which is right next door, has now allowed biological men to go into their locker rooms and change. That is a that is a big problem. And so I would encourage you to pray for that situation. And I'll be talking to some Christian attorneys this week.

And hold on, we don't need to yell out. But what I'm trying to say is that pray for that situation. And we need to seek a godly resolution to that.

And hopefully that will happen. And so so we have a temptation not only from the flesh, not only from the world, but also from the devil. The Bible says Matthew 13, verse eight says, will deliver us from evil. And the word evil there speaks of the evil one. First Peter, five, eight says, Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Genesis to the end of Genesis two.

You have the creation of Adam and Eve and joining them in marriage. And how long does it take till Satan shows up to bring temptation? The next verse, right? And Genesis 31, it says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beach of the field which the Lord God had made. First Chronicles 21, verse one speaks of Satan tempting David into sin. The Book of Job, we see Satan coming after Job. Satan was fighting the Lord all through his life.

Forty days of temptation. He showed up in Matthew 16 seeking to bring a rebuke against Christ through Peter's own lips. In Luke 23, the night Jesus was being betrayed was Satan entered into Judas, the Bible says.

The church was birthed in Acts chapter two by Acts five. Satan gets a hold of two people there, Ananias and Sapphira, who bring lies into the church for which God killed Ananias and Sapphira. The truth is Satan is at work, friends, against you, against your family, against your faith. He wants to pull you into sin, entice you and influence you.

I would encourage you, understand the danger of that reality. And so this prayer is a cry from the heart of the believer. God, keep me from the evil one. Keep me from his snares, from his deceits, from his lies.

And it holds people in bondage. And thirdly and finally, what is an example of using this prayer and putting it into practice? And we find this in Luke 22.

If you have your Bibles, you can flip over to Luke 22 as we kind of wrap up there. Luke 22, verse 31, the Bible says, And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan have desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. Satan hath desired to have you.

Let me ask you a question. How would it affect you if Jesus came to you today and said, hey, I just want you to know Satan has personally desired to sift you. He wants you. Mom, Dad, he wants you.

Son, daughter. How would you respond to that? No wonder Peter writes in 1 Peter 5, 8, Be sober, be vigilant because you're adversary of the devil, like a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. So, so what does Jesus do for Peter? I mean, what does, what's the perfect response? Because whatever Jesus does is the exact right response.

Wouldn't you say? So he says, hey, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, Peter. And so what does Jesus do for Peter?

What's the best thing he could do? Does he say, hey, you need to go run. I need to put you on a boat, send you into this monastery. I need you to go. Is that what he does?

No, no. What he does is he says this in verse number 32. But I have prayed for thee.

Did you hear that? So I'll read that together. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted or restored, strengthen thy brethren. So, Jesus, the son of God, sees is the best possible thing you can do in response to a direct satanic attack is to pray.

There's nothing better. There's no higher ground you can go to. In the garden, Jesus prayed, came back, prayed, came back, prayed again. Now, how does Peter respond to this? Does Peter say, you know, Lord, this is really concerning. What must I do?

How could I respond to this? Look what Peter says in verse 33. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death. And in Matthew's account, Peter said, though all men shall be offended because of thee, I will never be offended. Peter doesn't see the threat outside of him is greater than his ability, does he? He thinks I can handle this.

I got this. And how does Jesus respond to Peter? Does he say, you know what, Peter? I'm so glad you have such self-esteem.

I love your self-assurance. You know, I really was looking for a leader among the disciples who really, really had that confidence in themselves. You know, good for you, Peter. Is that what Jesus does?

No. Jesus is completely unimpressed. He says in verse 34, I tell thee, Peter, the cock or the rooster shall not crow this day before thou has thrice denied that thou knowest me. The unimpressed Lord responds, you will deny me before the sun rises.

You need to know this. Our Lord is not impressed by our vows of loyalty. Lord, I promise I'll never do that again. You might want to keep your words.

Better to keep your knees bent than swearing and promising. He is not impressed by our loyal devotion and statements such as that, but he's rather impressed by our humility, dependency, and our prayer life. You know, that night Peter slept and Peter was sifted.

Sleepers are sifted. Prayer is dependency, friends. What impresses the Lord is when we humble ourselves in prayer.

And then in Luke 22, verse 39 through 46, right after this setting, Christ goes into the garden and he tells them in Luke 22, verse 40, pray that you enter it not into temptation. He goes on to tell them your spirit's willing, but your flesh is weak. You can't handle this. Satan is more than you can handle. You need prayer.

You need God. You don't wrestle flesh and blood, but you wrestle principalities and powers and rulers of darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. According to Ephesians six, verse 10 through 12, therefore put on the whole armor of God that you can stand because you need spiritual strength for spirit, spiritual battles.

You have a spiritual enemy and you need spiritual resources, and that power is from God. And so he tells them, pray, and Jesus goes a little further and falls on his face and prays for an hour. He comes back and what's he find them doing?

They are fast. They're not fasting, but they're fast asleep, right? These guys are down and out. They do what we do, and he goes away and prays again and comes back, finds them sleeping.

This happens three times. Let me ask you what, when Jesus comes back and he finds them sleeping, is he like, you know, these guys have had a very long day. This is very late, very late. You know, they're sleeping. I'll encourage them to pray later. Is that what he does? No, you know, the Bible tells us that he woke them up.

You talk about conviction. You imagine being woken up by Jesus and he says, why are you sleeping? You need to pray more than you need to sleep. I wonder how many of us he would say that to tomorrow morning, that he would wake us up and say, why are you sleeping? You need to get on your knees more than you need to sleep, you say, but you don't realize how long of a day. No, I know how long of a day and how long of a week, and you still need to be awake praying more than you need to sleep.

I wonder how many husbands that he would come to and how many wives he would come to and say, you need to wake up and realize that your marriage is hanging on by a thread. That if you don't spend time truly seeking after God, haven't you slept enough? Don't you realize how much prayer you're married? Don't you know that Satan has sought to sift you as wheat? Don't you know he's coming after your marriage? Rise and rise and pray lest you enter into temptation.

I wonder how many parents he would say, you need to rise and pray more than you need to sleep because your children need the hand of God upon them. Don't wait till their life goes down a wrong road. Pre-maintenance your kids with prayer. Pre-maintenance your marriage with prayer.

Why wait until it falls apart? Don't make God the back end of the result, but bring it to the front end. I wonder how many people he would say who come to church every other Sunday, you say, but I'm so tired on Sunday mornings and I think God would say, wake up. You need to be in church more than you need to sleep. You need to be in church and you need to hear the word of God and assemble with the brethren. You know, the Bible commands us do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. That is not a suggestion. It is not right to continually miss church.

That is not right. I love the people who can watch online, but if you have the physical ability, you need to be in the house of God, amen. They're like, I'll turn you off right now, preacher, or you can turn me off, but you can't turn him off. Like, I didn't turn him off fast enough.

Now I'm convicted. You know? Well, keep me on if you're listening, right?

Let me ask you this though. If you were going to face some spiritual attack this week, what would you do? Just consider it in your own mind and heart right now. If you knew this week there was a test, but you say, I don't know what the test is, but I know there's a heavy situation that was coming. What do you think you would do by tomorrow morning? You think you would say, God, I'm going to get up. I'm not hitting snooze tomorrow. I need, I need, I need prayer more than snoozing. College students.

You hear me? I've, I've, I've mentored quite a few college students that have gone to Christian colleges. I've been to Christian college. I know some of the places you can get most backslidden is inside of Christian college.

You know why? Because you're surrounded by Christian people. You get busy and there's some kids here that love the Lord and faithful and you're, I'm sure your prayer and devotion life's doing great. But I can tell you, chapel doesn't replace your time with the Lord. Chapel doesn't do it. It's getting alone with the Lord.

Well, I, it's hard for me to get up and go to bed early. So the guys that got to leave the room, turn the media off, be an example, turn into a hot Christian. When I was in Bible college, I saw a guy get so on fire for the Lord. He was one of the quietest, shyest kids had like zero influence naturally in his life. And that kid became one of the greatest forces in that male dormitory because he got so serious with God and it was, he didn't speak about it. He didn't preach about it.

He just lived it. And it just was like a fire burning in that room and it just spreads wood to God that would raise up some men and women of God inside of these college institutions and inside of our houses and dads and moms and sons and daughters. Listen, kids, if your parents won't get serious with the Lord, you get serious with the Lord. You let the Spirit of God bring revival in your home through your life. You be the example. You be the one who seeks him first.

And I'm not talking about just like a, an emotional thing you do for two or three days. I'm talking about something you say, God, I have set my face like a flint toward you. Friend, Jesus calls us to pray for protection. Spurgeon said, if God fights in us, who can resist us? There is a stronger lion in us than that is against us and let us come to that lion, right?

Our victory is not based on our ability. It's the Lord's. And as I wrap this up, you need to hear James 4-7 says this, submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee. You know, there's people that I've heard say this, you know, you need to bind Satan. You need to bind Satan.

You don't find that. The Bible tells us we don't bind Satan, we resist the devil. We submit to God, resist the devil and he flees. First Peter 5-8 says, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil like a roaring line walks about seeking whom he may devour.

You know what the next verse says? Whom resist steadfast in the faith. We resist. How do we resist him?

How do we resist him? Well, we go to the scriptures, right? What's it say in Matthew four? Satan tempted Jesus. What did Jesus do? It is written. It is quote Deuteronomy chapter number eight, man will not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. He took him right back to what the Israelites failed in. This is victory, friends.

This is how this works. We must rely on the Lord and so in this close of prayer, Jesus says so fittingly in verse 13 for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. You know how we start prayer is with worship and we end prayer with worship. We start prayer exalting him and we end prayer not being worried about our earthly enemy but being encouraged by our heavenly aid. We need to remind ourselves of God's sovereign rule. Every time we end in prayer, Psalms 103 19 says, the Lord has prepared his throne into heavens.

His kingdom rules over all. We so often make prayer again, the response to life instead of the request in life. We must learn to pray and proceed our days with prayer. I wonder how much in our life would go so much smoother if we pre-maintenanced our day with prayer.

How much better our marriages would do, our children, our families, our lives. Don't wait till things get bad. Nine sermons, nine times probably 15 pages of notes for each sermon, 140 or so pages of preaching in the last two months and if we will not listen to God's word and begin to be serious about prayer, we are provoking God to bring something more severe because if I won't listen to his word, the only thing left is pain and you know what God says in their affliction. They will seek me early in their affliction.

They will. Many of us know what that's like. I've been afflicted before anybody else. I don't want to be afflicted. I'd rather say, God, your words enough.

You've given me years to hear. I'll use them. I'll use them and God's not threatening us this morning.

This is no threat. This is no like if you don't, God's going, no. Just saying God loves us enough to bring us and sometimes allow us to go through a trial to awaken us to what is serious and real because sometimes we play too much on earth with the things of life and we don't get serious enough about the things of God. If you're here today and maybe there's something on your heart you just need to cast before the Lord, maybe it's something you say, I'm going through pastor Josh going through a health situation, a financial situation, a relational situation. Why don't you come and say, God, help me to come through this with faith, with strength. Don't let me fall victim to fear and doubt of you. Let me trust in you with all of my heart, not to lean on my own understanding, but all my ways acknowledge you so that you could direct my path. If you're here today and you don't know Christ as your savior, if you stood before God and he said, why should I let you into heaven? You don't know what you would say. I'll be down front. We have men and women that stand down here and you could talk to one of them and they'll pull you aside in a private room and show you from the Bible how you can know when your life's over, you'll be in heaven.

Nothing greater than that. Today, you could come and find that out today. Let's all stand this morning. Let's all stand this morning with heads bowed, knives closed, the altars open. If you would like to come and spend a moment in prayer, you're welcome to do that. My friend, father, we do thank you for your word.

May it be enough in our hearts. Forgive us as we do not pray as we should so often help us to prioritize time with you. May we make much of God early. And if you find us sleeping and resting at a place where we have just become rested physically but lazy spiritually, God, we invite your Holy Spirit to awaken us in the morning. May the words rise, thou sleeper come into our minds. May the words that you woke Peter up with come into our hearts that haven't we slept long enough rise and pray lest you enter into temptation.

Wake us with such thoughts. Bring us into your throne of grace that we might find help and strength in our needs. We don't know what this week holds for our life, but we know that we need you. And so may we come to you, our heavenly father who gave his son that we might be saved, that we might find our strength and help and need in Christ. I ask you today, will you pray for me? Will you pray for each one here? Father, I pray through Christ, would you pray for us? Christ, as you pray for Peter, would you intercede to the father as you interceded for Peter, that when we face these things, that the solicitation to evil would not overcome us. Give us victory for the glory of your own name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.