Mm. If there's anything certain about life, It's that life is uncertain. If that makes you fearful, take comfort in this certainty. God is a God of deliverance. Today, on Turning Point, Dr.
David Jeremiah looks at fear through the eyes of King David, who prayed that God would deliver him from it. A plea that's part of the Lord's prayer. With the conclusion of his message, Prayer and Protection, Part 2, here's David. And thank you for joining us for this Friday edition of Turning Point. We're glad to have you along for our discussion of prayer.
We're learning about it from all of the Bible. We started out with the Lord's Prayer, but we've taken a little detour to examine prayer and temptation in the life of David. And we'll get to that in just a moment. Hey, don't forget to get your copy of the book, Everything to God in Prayer. It's the resource for the month of August.
It's one of the most beautiful books we've ever produced, and I think you will want to have this in your library. You know, our Bible tells us that there's one sacred place to experience deeper love, and that's through prayer.
So, when you pray, that's how you grow in your love for the Lord. And it's also how you deal with stress and how you get answers to the questions that you have, and how you deal with the problems you're facing. We all need to learn how to pray better, and this book will help you to do that. It will encourage you, it will give you examples of prayers for the different areas of your life, and it will lead you to scriptures that will really be motivational and encouraging. This is a beautiful, beautiful book that will add value to your life, and it's yours for the asking when you send your gift to Turning Point this month.
I hope you will do that. We're excited to send this book to you in return.
Well, this is. the opportunity we have to finish up this discussion on temptation, and we're going to do that right now as we turn again in our Bibles to the Old Testament and the life of David. And here is Prayer and Protection, Part Two.
Okay. God is a God who delivers. Isn't that good news? He's a God who sees us in our predicament and delights to deliver us. In fact, Of all of the things that I can imagine and study in the Bible, the one thing that stands out is the only one he did not deliver was his own son.
Oh, the Bible says it this way, he delivered him up. That he might be crucified so that we could be delivered from the biggest problem we all have, and that is the problem of sin.
So I began with this affirmation that we have a God who delivers, and therefore it is very, very proper for us to pray to that God. Deliver us. from evil. And I want to tell you that when you want to discover how to pray for deliverance, there is ample evidence there for you to know. And one of the things that's been so intriguing to me as I've meditated on this little phrase in the Lord's Prayer has been the opportunity to go back and discover.
How many times in David's prayers he asked God to deliver him? David was the man after God's own heart, and yet constantly prayed for deliverance.
Well, when we read that he was a man after God's own heart, part of the meaning of that is that he was a man who had a heart for God that drew them together in close proximity and fellowship. And yet, in spite of his closeness to God, If you read his prayer journal, which is the book of Psalms, Over and over and over again, you hear David pray, God deliver me. God deliver me.
So I went through all those scriptures. It's like reading the whole book of Psalms. Because it's everywhere, almost on every other page. And I began to write down some of the things that David prayed for. When he prayed for deliverance.
And I haven't time to share all of them with you, but I think some of them are instructive to us and they give us a little pattern for praying for deliverance. And I would be surprised if. Before we're finished here, one of these doesn't resonate with your life, and you're saying, oh, yeah. I could pray that one all right. Begin with me, if you will, in the book of Psalms.
As we look At Psalm 7. And we will move kind of chronologically. We'll move across the Psalms without going backwards and forwards too much so that you can follow and just look right in your own Bible. In Psalm 7, in the first two verses of this prayer, hear the word of the Lord. O Lord my God.
In you I put my trust. Save me from all those who persecute me and deliver me. Lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces while there is none. to deliver. David said, Lord, God.
Deliver me from my persecutors.
Now, please understand: persecution is not all the bad things that happened to you because you didn't do what you should have done in the first place. Persecution is that which happens to you by virtue of the fact that you represent God in a godless world. Persecution is that kind of trouble you face. Because you are a believer amidst unbelievers, and they resent it, and you are a source of condemnation to them. And so many of you know this from personal experience in their own little subtle ways.
They play mind games and cruelty games to try to injure you or hurt you. and persecute you. And some of you know what it's like to feel so very alone. Even though you're surrounded by people, because they have shut you out, they have turned you off, they have moved you away, they have determined that because your lifestyle causes them discomfort, they will remove you or persecute you in such a way as to make you uncomfortable. And David said, Oh God.
Deliver me. from my persecutors. Or just Lift me up from the midst of it. and surround me with your love and protection. And some of you need to pray that prayer when you pray every day.
Please, God. Please deliver me. from their evil intentions. Keep reading in the book of Psalms and Turn with me now to the 22nd Psalm. In Psalm 22, We have another illustration of how we can pray for deliverance.
This is a great prayer, beginning at verse 19 in Psalm 22. But you, O Lord, Do not be far from me. O my strength, hasten to help me Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen. And now, of course, there is a messianic context to this prayer.
But it still is an illustration of the kind of praying for deliverance that we can do. When we pray, here are the kinds of random things that happen. This prayer is a prayer to be saved from the sword and from the power of the dog and from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen. Prayed in this simple way. It is a prayer to remind us that there are all kinds of hurt.
that can touch us. That there is random senseless things out there that can get their tentacles into our life. And David, in this messianic psalm, this psalm concerning David and the Messiah. He prays this very wonderful prayer for deliverance. From the sword, from the dog, from the lion's mouth, and from the wild oxen.
Now that's set in his generation, in his time. Those represented the kinds of things that could hurt him. But you could translate that into any of the kinds of random things that could hurt you. And so we're encouraged to pray, God, deliver me from the perils of life. Every week, we read in the newspaper something that we.
Put the paper down and say that doesn't make any sense. Why would that happen? How did that happen? Why them? Why in that situation?
We live in a world of many kinds of evil, and the Bible gives us permission to pray every day: God, deliver me from evil. Keep reading in the Psalms. And go with me now to Psalm 25, just a few pages over. And look at Psalm 25 verses 19 and following. Here David prays For deliverance from his enemies.
Consider my enemies, for they are many. and they hate me with cruel hatred. Keep my soul and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in my life. In you.
Turn over to Psalm 31, and there's a similar prayer there that kind of goes along with this one in the first two verses and in verse 15. In you, O Lord, I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in your righteousness. Bow down your ear to me.
Deliver me speedily. Be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me. Verse 15: My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. And the gist here is.
David is praying from those who are not necessarily persecuting him for his faith, but who are just his enemies, his adversaries. He's praying for protection. against personal adversaries. Do we all know how much hurt and danger there is even in the relationships that we hold. How easily we can be injured.
And I know that what I'm talking about here is a very, very common danger that God's people face. And so the Bible says when you pray. Pray, Lord, deliver me from that. Deliver me from that. Let me give you a couple more.
Let me just ask you to turn in your Bibles, if you will, to Psalm 34. And while this is more of a statement about praying, it is certainly. A reminder to us of the kinds of things for which we can pray deliverance. Psalm 34 and verse 4. I sought the Lord.
And he heard me. and delivered me from all my fears. Turn over in the same Psalm to verse 17. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears. And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him. out of them all. Back in the fourth verse, the psalmist says, The Lord delivers us from all of our fears. Anybody here have any fears?
Hmm. We live in a fearful world, don't we? Roger Bennett, who plays the piano for the cathedrals, gave an eloquent testimony of his experience with leukemia. He said something with which I had complete agreement. He said it wasn't the chemicals, and it wasn't the treatment, and it wasn't all of that that was so difficult to deal with it.
He said it was the fear. He said, My biggest battle in the whole thing was the fear. Fear paralyzes. Fear comes from nowhere. to take over your life.
Oh, the overwhelming power of fear. It may surprise you to know. That I Have Fear days. I put them in my journal like that. This has been a fear day.
And it comes on me in the strangest ways out of nowhere. And I don't like to have to deal with that. I don't like to admit the fact that it touches me, but I have days when fear grips me. And some well-meaning children of God. Help me with that problem.
They move fear right into my life. I think I may have told you that During the time when I was first coming back from some of the things I experienced, people would come and they'd tell me their story. Oh, Pastor, I heard about what happened to you. Let me tell you this. And they start to tell me the story about their loved one or their friend who had exactly the same thing I have.
And they're not here anymore. And believe it or not, that didn't encourage me. I didn't walk away from that experience feeling, oh, I'm so glad you came to share with me and minister to my heart.
So I finally developed this little technique, and some of you know this. When the story starts, I stop you and say, does this have a happy ending? Because if it doesn't, I don't want to hear it. Fear.
Sometimes it's a book someone will send you and you open it up and it falls open to the page with all of the statistics for all the various kinds of disease, including the one you have. And fear just overwhelms you. I know a little bit about that that I never knew before. And David said, The Lord delivers me. out of all my fears.
You know what I have to do some days? Walk away from everything that's going on in my life. I have a little place where I go. I was up there not long ago. I didn't have time to go home.
change. I only had the lunch hour and it was kind of one of those days and So I went up there and parked my car. I'm walking up there by the camp in the The little guard house there, the lady comes out and she said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm just walking. I walk up here all the time.
She said, we don't get too many people in a suit up here, I want you to know. She said, but if you want to walk, you go ahead. And she said, why are you doing this? I said, well, I'm walking away my stress. I come up here and pray sometimes.
And she said, okay. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Sometimes you have to go deal with your fear before God. But he delivers you, and he will do that. if you ask him. Deliver me from my fear. Let me show you one other.
Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 39. I'm just going through the first, maybe fourth of the book, and you can go through the rest of the book and write all of them down, and you'll find lists and lists of things to pray about when you pray for deliverance. But here's one in Psalm 39:8, and then it spills over into Psalm 40 with another illustration of the same thing. Psalm 39 and verse 8. Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Do not make me the reproach of the foolish. And then look at Psalm 40, beginning in verse 11. Do not withhold your tender mercies from me, O Lord. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me, for innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up.
They are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me and make haste to help me. You know, you have fear days. I don't know how to say this any other way.
Some days you have sin days. Iniquity days, evil days, some days. I don't know how to explain this except to say some days the presence of evil is so real you feel like you could reach out and touch it. And you don't even know for sure why it's there or how it got there or what put you in the midst of it. But the psalmist says: some days it's like my transgressions and my iniquities and all of this is just overwhelming me.
The potential for evil in the world, and you just get overwhelmed with it. And the psalmist says, oh God, just deliver me from this. Deliver me from this so that I don't embarrass you. He talks here about being a reproach to the people. He says, God, don't let me do something foolish.
I'm surrounded by all this evil. Don't let me do something foolish that will embarrass you. Deliver me from this. That's a good prayer to pray. And sometimes you find yourself in a situation where the potential to do wrong is very present with you.
You need to pray God. I'm not sure I'm sufficient for this. Lord, I'm not sure I can deal with this on my own. God, you need to deliver me from this in any way, however you choose to do it. God, deliver me from the presence of this evil in my life.
And he will do it. He has promised. I hope you don't think this is all the truth because this isn't even a, I don't even scratch the surface. If you want to, you take your Bible and you go through the book of Psalms, and every time you see the word deliver, you underline it and you make a list of all the things that the psalmist asked God to deliver him from, you'll be surprised. Isn't it interesting?
Here's the man we look at as the man after God's own heart, praying all the time for deliverance. Because he had a full appreciation of the danger of the world in which he lived out his. Experience.
Now, those are the prayers for deliverance. I want you to turn to the New Testament. Let me just give you a couple of verses that are promises of deliverance. And one of them I'd never really seen quite in this context before, but it's in Second Corinthians. 2 Corinthians, and it's in the first chapter.
2 Corinthians chapter 1. And here is Paul's testimony. The testimony of the great apostle. In verse 8 of chapter 1, listen to his testimony. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia.
That we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.
Now, watch this. Who delivered us from so great a death. who does deliver us. in whom we trust. That he will still.
Deliver us. He delivered us past He does deliver us present. He will deliver us in the future. That's true all across the board with God's deliverance, whether it has to do with our spiritual problem or with our regular. God is a deliverer in the past, in the present, and in the future.
You can count on Him. He is the delivering God. And he's not going to change. He is the God who delivered the Israelites, but he's the same God who will deliver you if you'll just ask him. That's the promise of the Word of God.
Turn to another testimony from Paul in Second Timothy chapter four. And we've looked at a number of verses today, but I just want you to see these in your own Bible. 2 Timothy chapter 4. And the reason this is so special is because it's the last word that Paul wrote. For 2 Timothy was his last epistle that we have in the New Testament.
It's his swan song, if you will. It's his last words. And Paul's under indictment, under great pressure, as he writes this, and he's been through some terrible things.
Now he writes his testimony in verse 16 of the fourth chapter. He says, At my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. Verse 17. But the LORD stood with me and strengthened me.
So that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Paul said, Everybody left me, nobody was there for me.
I stood there by myself, but let me tell you something, the Lord was with me, and he delivered me. and he will deliver you. And then my favorite little phrase about deliverance. is in 2 Peter. Chapter 2, and I want you just to look at that, and you might want to underline this.
2 Peter chapter 2, and we don't even have to know the whole verse here, we just have to know the first part of the verse. 2 Peter chapter 2. Verse 9. Are you ready for this? Watch this.
Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation. The word temptation is the word trial or temptation. The Lord knows how to do that. Isn't that Colloquial.
Well, why should I pray to God for deliverance? Because the Lord knows how to do it. He's the one who can deliver you. Pray to him and he will do it. How do you know?
Because the Bible says he knows how to do it. And he will do it. He will deliver you. You know, a lot of folks that I know who are Overwhelmed by evil. As strange as it may seem, have just never asked God to deliver them.
Oh, you know, they're general in God protect me today and watch over me. But let me tell you something. When you're in the lion's den, you need to pray about the lion. Are you with me? When you're in the fire, you need to pray about the flame.
When you are needing deliverance, you need to find the particular kind of deliverance that you need and ask God specifically, deliver me from this. And he will do it. He's promised. And he encourages us to pray. Deliver me from evil.
I like God's deliverance. I've felt it. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to preach on this prayer because I want to tell you something. Listen to me. We have not.
because we ask not. I want you to say this with me. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of trouble. Say it. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of trouble.
He knows how to do that.
Now, all you got to do is figure out. How to put the combination in there and get a hold of him, and it's really simple. Let's try it out loud together. Our Father. Who art in heaven?
Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power. and the glory forever.
Amen. You know, that concludes the study on temptation from this prayer. But as we prayed the prayer together at the end of the broadcast, I was reminded of the fact that whenever we study a portion of God's Word and we come back to it, we come back to the word with greater understanding, and it's such a blessing. Oh, yeah, I remember we studied that, and that's what that means, and it opens the word up to us. That's why you can never run out of teaching material if your focus is on the scripture.
And I'm glad you've been listening to this teaching on the Lord's Prayer because.
Some of it will stick to your soul, and you will never forget it, and that will be so good. Hey, we're going to take a break for the weekend, and I always like to give you my little speech about going to church. I hope you do that. We need you in our churches. We need you to go to church this week, and I hope you will make that a purpose and a goal and do it.
With us with a wonderful happy heart, and we'll see you back here next Monday as we open the Bible again together here on Daily Turning Point. I'm David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening. The message you just heard came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah.
Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book for strengthening your prayer life. Everything to God in prayer.
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. If God's moving in your life through this ministry, let us know at Turning Point, P.O.
Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue the series, Prayer: the Great Adventure, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
