Mm. Would a loving God lead his children into temptation? If not, why does the Lord's Prayer specifically ask him not to? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah sheds light on this important and potentially confusing portion of the Lord's Prayer.
If you wonder how you can tell when you're heading towards temptation, listen as David introduces his important message. Prayer and Protection, Part 1. We have been talking about forgiveness, and today we're going to talk about temptation and how. Temptation is something that should be in our prayer list every day. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
That's the prayer. And part one is just around the corner. But first, let me tell you about the book that we're featuring during the month of August. You know, I talk about the way these books look often because I love books and love the feel of them. I love to hold them in my hands.
I'm not an electronic reader, I'm a reader of real books. I like to mark in the in the margins, and I like holding them in my hands. And this book is like that. It's called Everything to God in Prayer, and I promise you, when you get this book, you'll want to hold on to it for a while. It's beautiful.
On the inside are many, many prayers that we have put together for the specific situations you face. when I feel despair When I have a big decision to make, when I need a heart for others, when I want an exuberant faith, when I feel worthless, all these are things for which there is a specific Scripture and a specific prayer. In this wonderful prayer book called Everything to God in Prayer. It's yours for a gift of any size during the month of August when you ask for it. Send your gift and say, Please send me the book on prayer, and we'll do it.
And we'll do it with joy because we know it's going to add value to your walk with the Lord. Here is part one of Prayer and Protection. Mm-hmm. In many respects, what we're learning is sort of like walking down a street. And if I could illustrate it this way, it's sort of like you're walking down a street and there are signposts along the way.
The straight They were on is the street called Prayer. And when we come to the first intersection, There's a sign there that says praise, and we learn. Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. We learn how to praise God. That's the first intersection on the street called prayer.
And then we keep walking and we get to the next one. Up on that sign at that intersection is the sign priorities. And we pray. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and we ask God. To take charge of our priorities in very specific ways, that His will will be done in our lives as it is done in heaven.
And then We walk across the curb and on our way down the street called prayer to the next intersection, and up on the sign is the word provision. And we now realize that it's time for us to ask God for what we need. And we pray, give us this day our daily bread. And we tell the Lord everything that our needs in our lives. And we petition him for the things that we need.
And we keep walking. And we get to the intersection where it says, Personal relationships, and there we read that we're to forgive our debtors. as we have been forgiven. And then we come to today's intersection, which says, lead us not into temptation. And really there's another part to that that we'll get to, but we're just going to focus right here on this phrase, lead us not into temptation.
And the signpost at that intersection is the word protection. We're going to ask God. To protect us in our prayers. And I'm reminding you of all of this because the worst thing that could happen as we finish our discussion of the Lord's Prayer is that we could all walk away from this series saying, My, isn't it really true the Lord's Prayer is a beautiful prayer? No, the Lord's Prayer was given to us by the Lord as an outline to teach us how to have system in our praying so that we have a well-rounded prayer life and we don't leave things out because we're prone to pray our whims.
We're prone to pray our interests. And God says, here's a pattern. If you pray this, in general, you will touch on the important issues that are to be a part of your praying. We've learned that there are two sections in the prayer. The first section is the Lord's section, in a sense.
It's Thy name, Thy kingdom, Thy will. And the second section has to do with us, our daily bread, our debt, and us into temptation. And so we come to Matthew 6:13 and the first part of the verse, which I must confess to you is one of the most perplexing prayers that we've been asked to model. Because it says, lead us not into temptation. And immediately we reason if we have been studying at all That it is the nature of God to feed us, and it is the nature of God to forgive us, but it is certainly not the nature of God to lead us into temptation.
Do we have to ask God? Do we have to ask a holy, righteous, pure, undefiled, blameless, unblemished, virtuous God not to lead us into temptation? This has been a challenging text. For as long as people have studied the Bible. In fact, back in AD 192, an African theologian by the name of Tertullian.
Bristled at the notion of this prayer, and he said, Far be the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt. as if he were either ignorant of the limits of someone's faith, Or else eager to overthrow that faith. In other words, why would God ask us to pray that prayer?
Well, in order to understand All that's involved in this little phrase, we need to turn in our Bibles to James chapter 1. We don't really have to have our Bibles open to Matthew 6 because we can memorize that little phrase, lead us not into temptation. But James chapter 1 is sort of a commentary that will help us to solve the riddle of this prayer. The first thing we need to understand is Right off the bat. God does not tempt people to do evil.
And I don't have to say that on the basis of my guesswork because I can read to you right from the scriptures a very clear and plain passage, James chapter 1, verse 12. Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. But let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt.
tempt anyone.
Now, just put a period after that. God does not tempt people. Directly to do evil. That would deny the holy nature of God. That would implicate Him in the evil itself, and God is not capable of that.
But to understand what's going on in this prayer in Matthew 6, we have to comprehend that the word temptation. And I'm not going to get Greek on you today, but the word temptation is the word. Christmas. And it is found Many times in the scriptures, it is often translated by the word trial or test or prove and sometimes by the word temptation. Here in the book of James, Both uses of this word are found within one context.
Now remember, The word that is translated can either mean trial or test. Or it can mean temptation. When we hear the word temptation today, we always think about that as some inducement to do evil. But the word temptation often meant other than that when the biblical writers were writing.
Now, look in your Bibles in James chapter 1 and notice verse 2. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various There is the word. Parasmus, various trials. Count it all joy when you fall into various testings or trials.
Now I've drawn a line from verse 2 down to verse 12. Blessed is the man who endures temptation or trials, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life. Then, when you get to verse 13, you find the other use of the word. In verses 2 and 12, the word Prasmus means trial or testing. In verse 13, the word parasmus means to be tempted to do evil.
God does try us. Can I get a witness? Does he not? Doesn't God sometimes put us in the furnace?
Sometimes He puts us through trials. God directly does that. We know that for a fact. But God does not ever directly tempt us to do evil.
Now, the interesting thing about these two words, and I never realized this before, is that they really do have a very serious connection. For how many of you can give testimony to the fact that often when you are under trial, that's when you are most susceptible to temptation? Because in the midst of the trial, there is this option not to do right. And so the words are truly related, but as we go back to the thought of Matthew 6. Jesus is not teaching us to pray, God, don't tempt me to sin.
That's not the prayer, because God is not capable of doing that. He is not talking about direct temptation to sin. He doesn't say, lead me not to sin. It says, lead me not into the way of temptation. And so here's the whole gist of the prayer.
God's role in temptation, with James' words in mind, we assume that God is not saying in the Lord's Prayer that He would ever entice us to sin. But what Jesus is talking about is That we should pray because we know of our weakness, that we wouldn't even be placed in the way of trial, which could, in essence, lead us to temptation.
Now, let me just back up and say.
Sometimes God is involved. In allowing the circumstances where temptation takes place. I know that because in Matthew chapter 4, where you have the story of Jesus being taken to the wilderness to be tempted, did you ever read that carefully? Matthew 4:1? Listen to it.
Listen carefully to what it says. In Matthew 4:1, it says, Then Jesus. Was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted. By the devil. Wow.
We always assume that the devil led him out there, but no, the Spirit led him out there. The Scripture says the Spirit of God led Jesus out into the wilderness so that he could be tempted by the devil. The Spirit of God didn't tempt him, but the Spirit of God put him in a place where temptation took place.
Now, why would that ever happen? One of the reasons we struggle with this passage is because whenever we hear the word temptation, we always assume. that it is an evil word. And the word temptation is not always evil. The word temptation has In it, some properties that often are positive.
And I went through the scripture and reminded myself that there are some positive things that come out of temptation, not yielding to temptation, but temptation. And let me just give you four of them. What happens when we are tempted that could, in any sense of the word, be called good? And some of you who may be struggling with temptation say, I haven't found any of them yet. But listen carefully.
The first thing that happens is God can use temptation to reveal what is in our hearts. And I use as my illustration for that the man Abraham and his sacrificing of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. Do you remember that story? And you know the story, and I don't have to recreate it, but what happened was this: Abraham's caught on the horns of the dilemma. God's promise is in Isaac, and God says, take him up and sacrifice him.
And Abraham doesn't know what to do.
So, in obedience, he goes to the mountain. And there he offers Isaac to the Lord. And you know that God intervened and He didn't have to actually go through with it, but in His heart He went through with it. And on the way back down the mountain, this little conversation goes on in Abraham's heart. He always knew that he loved God in.
Theory. But now He knew that he loved God in fact. For he had taken that which was most precious to him. And he had offered it to God in that testing, in that trial, in that temptation. What was the temptation for Abraham?
I'll tell you what my temptation would have been: grab my son and run. Wouldn't you have? Wouldn't that have been your temptation? But Abraham stood true to the temptation in the midst of it, and on the way out, It revealed to him the great love. Did you know that temptation reveals a lot about what's in your heart when it's all over?
Let me tell you, it does.
Some of you guys who travel and you face temptation, and some of you may have faced it this week, you're someplace where nobody knows you, nobody knows anything about what's going on in your life, and you go through that temptation and you're faithful to God, and you walk away from that, and you know what happens? What it reveals to you is it reveals to you how much you love God, it reveals to you how much you love your wife, it reveals to you how much you love your children, how much you want your influence to count for eternity. When you walk away from that, you may have had a really tough time, but you walk out of that and you know in your heart from that temptation what you really believe. Do you understand what I'm saying? Temptation reveals what's in your heart.
Secondly, sometimes through temptation. God can use temptation to replace significant issues in our lives. And I use for my illustration there the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness to which we've already referred. Do you remember what Satan tried to get him to do? He tried to get Jesus to bow down and worship him.
And what did he offer him in exchange? He said, If you'll do this, I'll give you the kingdoms of the world. And some people struggle with that. They say that wasn't Satan's to give, but at this particular moment in time it was, because he's the prince of the power of the air and the king of the earth until Jesus sets up his kingdom. What was Satan trying to get Jesus to do?
He was trying to get Jesus to jump ahead in the program of redemption, to abort the cross, not to go to the cross and die, just give him the kingdom without any sacrifice. And Jesus said, No. In every issue where he was tempted by Satan, he said no. And when you walk away from that temptation, you know what you find out? You find out all the issues that were clarified through that whole temptation that tell us who Jesus was and what his redemptive plan was about.
Through the temptation, those issues come to the top. Thirdly, God can use temptation to reinforce our own will. Paul, writing to Timothy, said that we're to exercise ourselves to godliness. Let me tell you what I know about temptation. I know this: that whenever you face temptation and you are victorious over it, It is like Digging a groove deeper into your spirit that gives you strength the next time it comes.
Likewise, every time you yield, it tears away the fabric of that groove so that it becomes easier. Let me tell you this: one victory is not just one victory, one victory is a step toward many victories. And so every time you resist temptation, it builds the strength of your spiritual muscles.
So when temptation comes again, you have the wherewithal to deal with that.
So that you're not going to succumb. And temptation has a way of strengthening us through the process to be holy and righteous people. And finally, God can use temptation to remind others of His grace and His goodness. How many of you are thankful for Job? We're all thankful for Job because for most of us, we haven't gotten that bad yet, right?
We look at Job as the ultimate case and we say, well, thank God I'm not like Job.
Some of you may think you're getting close, and I understand that. But Job lost everything, didn't he? And yet, through that whole process, Job was faithful to God. And now, when we talk about Job in our culture today, what do we call him? What do we talk about?
We say the what of Job? The what? The patience of Job. What does that mean? The endurance of Job.
He endured temptation. Even his wife told him to curse God and die. And he said, While I live and have breath, I will not do that. In one place, when one of the counselors was on his case about it, Job came up with this. He said, Why shouldn't a godly man receive the evil and the good of the world and still?
Acknowledge God's presence in His life. Job was a final testimony to the ultimate that Satan can do to test a person, and yet he still. Was strong. And I want to tell you something: every time we face temptation and we're strong, We are a testimony to others, aren't we? Mom and Dad?
Those kids that are growing up in your home are watching how you face the temptations that come to all of us. and how you deal with them, how you handle those temptations. is building strength and character in the lives of those kids.
So temptation does have Some positive qualities, which I'm sure many of you have never thought of before, that temptation. can do some things in our lives. not yielding to it, but the very process itself.
So when we pray, lead us not into temptation. What we're praying our own human weakness, aren't we? How many of you know that if you didn't have exams, you wouldn't learn as much. How many of you know that you learn more the night before an exam than you've learned the whole semester? How many of you know that?
All right? And you know that ultimately, in the whole process of things, that exams are important and they're good because they promote and they motivate you to learn, right? But how many of you get up in the morning and say, Oh God. Lead me into an exam today. How many of you pray that?
I don't know anybody that prays that. I used to walk into class praying, no, not today, God. Oh, not today. You all know that, don't you? Let me just ask you this question.
If exams are good and they promote learning, why wouldn't you pray for them? Just ask me that. You know why? Because whenever you take an exam, there's two possibilities, aren't there? You can either pass or you can fail.
And the reason you don't pray for exams is because you know the potential. that you studied all the wrong stuff. Or you know the potential to walk into that exam and not do well.
So you're not excited. You know that ultimately it helps you to be motivated to learn and it helps you to grow in your knowledge, but you don't pray for it because you don't pray for it on the basis of the weakness you sense in your own heart. to not necessarily always be do you understand the analogy? Why does God say to us? You know, lead us not into temptation, very simply, because We're to pray that knowing that in the midst of the trial We could be tempted, and we just want to confess by that prayer: Lord, I'm weak.
And I don't want to be put even in the place where I could be tempted. That's a good and positive prayer. It's in essence the replaying of the verse of Scripture that says, Let him that thinketh he stand. Take heed lest he fall. Don't get cocky about your spiritual life.
Don't do, as I've heard some TV preachers do, stand up and challenge the devil and say, just bring on whatever you want to bring on. Not me, friend. Not me. I'm praying every day. Lead me not into temptation.
I've told some of you that God can never greatly use a man until He's greatly crushed a man. And I used to pray daily that I could be the exception. I used to be. But you know what? I don't think there are any exceptions.
And so What Jesus is teaching us here is this. When we find ourselves in prayer. We need to pray, Lord, I'm a weak human being. And I'm not strong. But in you I can be strong.
But Lord, just today, It's okay with me if you don't put me in the way of temptation. It's alright with me.
Now, if you don't like that prayer, you pray the opposite.
Okay? If you think this is a hard prayer, you can pray the opposite if you want to, but I don't advise it.
Now Having said all of this, How do you know? If in the midst of that you're being tempted. I read a statement that was in Leadership Magazine. And it says this, the devil is easy to identify. He always shows up when you're terribly tired.
And makes a very reasonable request which you know you shouldn't grant. That's a pretty good dossier on the devil, isn't it? And especially the tired part. How many of you know that when you're tired, when you're worn down, you're really susceptible to the things he wants to throw into your pathway? I went back through, and I want to do kind of a post-mortem on temptation, if I might.
I want to give you six things to watch out for. In the midst of a trial, in the midst of a temptation, how do you know? That this is a temptation to take you away from God instead of to test the reality of who you are. First of all, the first step of temptation is always deceit. The first step is often the least obvious because of the very nature of what it is.
We're always given this false impression by the tempter that whatever wrong we do really isn't all that serious. I have played that over and over again with people of God who've gotten in trouble.
Well, I never thought there was all that much to it. Pastor, not that much to it. Satan comes along and he massages your thinking process and he candy coats the whole situation and he deceives you into thinking that something in a clear, bright moment you would know is wrong. But somehow he deceives you into believing that it's Well, maybe close to the line, but not all that bad. You know?
Deceit.
Well, once you get through the process of deceit, the next thing that happens is. you find yourself caught up in delight. Satan makes You think that this is pretty good. He gives you a sense of fascination with it. You become delighted with the whole prospect of whatever the temptation might be.
He puts a a sense of Excitement in your heart about it. Then, when you've gone from deceit to delight, the third step is the step of desire. And this kind of gets a hold of your passion. It produces a powerful response within you, a deep and compelling desire. There's an arousal in the desire part of you.
It appears very pleasant, very reasonable, very much to your advantage to pursue this thing. You've talked yourself into it, you've got this hunger for it, a desire for it. Do you see what's happening? It starts with deceit. And then it goes to delight.
And then it goes to desire, and then there's always this little place right in the middle of the process called deliberation. Where you sort of take it out of the package and you play with it, you sort of put it in the screen of your mind and you think about it, you allow it to appeal to you, you listen, and then in the process of deliberation, you reach out and you take it. And after deliberation, let me tell you what's next. Defeat. Defeat.
You proceed to act on the temptation. Let me tell you, up through the fourth step, there is no sin. That is overt. Perhaps sin in the mind, sin in the heart, but there's no overt sin. But after step four, you have now acted upon the temptation and you are defeated.
Well, there's no one who lives outside of the realm of temptation. The Bible tells us that we are all tempted, that we have a commonality in temptation. But here are some practical things we're learning based on the Lord's Prayer as we. understand how temptation works and how we deal with it. We'll have more about that tomorrow here on Turning Point.
Actually, there are four parts to this whole section, and uh tomorrow is part two. But we want you to keep listening because you need all of this information and the construct of it, how it's put together, and it'll work for you, I'm sure, in your own life. Hey, don't forget Turning Point has a magazine that we'd like you to have. It comes to your house every month. It's beautiful.
It's helpful. It's geared to encourage you every day, and you can have your copy if you ask for it. Do it today before you forget to do it. And we'll see you right here tomorrow for the next edition of Turning Point. For more information on Dr.
Jeremiah's series, Prayer the Great Adventure, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, Everything to God in Prayer, guided prayers for your deepest needs and biggest dreams. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Prayer the Great Adventure on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
