Judges chapter 14, let's read the chapter together. Here's the Word of the Lord. Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. Then he came up and told his father and mother, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah, now get her for me as my wife. But his father and mother said to him, Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all of our people that you must go take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes. As his father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time, the Philistines ruled over Israel. Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him, roaring. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, He tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then he went down and talked with the woman. She was right in Samson's eyes. After some days he returned to take her and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. Behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion and honey. He scraped it out into his hands and went on eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that they had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion. His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. And Samson said to them, Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. But if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me 30 linen garments and 30 changes of clothes. And they said to him, put your riddle that we may hear it. And he said to them, out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet. In three days, they could not solve the riddle. On the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?' And Samson's wife wept over him and said, You only hate me. You do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, and you have not told me what it is. And he said to her, Behold, I have not told my father or mother. Shall I tell you?' She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle. And the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, struck down 30 men of the town, took their spoil, and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger, he went back to his father's house, and Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man. Let's pray together. Father, we ask for your help as we read your word Lord, we ask that you would give us insight and wisdom and understanding. We pray, Father, that we would know more of your ways. We might trust you more in our lives. And Lord, that we might walk in the ways that you've laid out for us in advance. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. The citizens of Fellkirk, Austria, Didn't know what to do. Napoleon's massive army had gathered to attack them later that day. The soldiers had already been spotted on the heights of the town and they were ready to pounce. And so a number of the citizens had gathered together in the church in order to discuss what they ought to do in order to defend themselves or else should they wave the white flag of surrender. It happened to be Easter Sunday, the day of the potential attack. And the people had gathered together in the local church to debate, what should we do? And after about an hour of disagreement, the pastor gets up in the church and he says, friends, we have been counting on our own strength. And apparently that has failed again and again. And this is the day of the Lord's resurrection. Let us just ring the church bells, gather the people of the church to worship the Lord, our God, and leave the matter in his hands. And so after a few moments, they decided to do just that because the pastor said, we only know our weakness and not the power of God to defend us. And so they all gathered For the church, the bells rang out. Everyone came in to worship the Lord their God. The French enemy, hearing the sudden peals of the bells, concluded that the Austrian army must have come in the middle of the night. And so immediately they broke camp and left. The Lord their God had defended them in a very unusual way. You know, God often surprises us in that way. And the way he works out his will to defend us, to help us in our time of need, we're often surprised at how many different ways he can do that in his wisdom because it's so deep and the means at his disposal are so vast. He has a thousand ways creatively to help us when we think that we are hopeless. And yet the Lord is still working in our midst. We in our text this morning, that's exactly what's happening in the nation of Israel. It seems to be a dark day. It seems to be a dark time. And yet the Lord is still working out his will. in the midst of Israel. And he does it in very surprising ways. And I want to share three of those ways with you today that not only as a pattern he's doing this in the life of Israel, the life of Samson, but he also does something very similar in our lives as well. Not exactly the same, but some very similar ways. Here are the three ways. First, God sometimes designates the most bitter of circumstances. to carry out his will in our lives. Some of the most bitter times that you can imagine that you've experienced thus far and will perhaps experience in the future. Those are the moments oftentimes when God is carrying out something very special in our lives. Second, he sometimes purposely instigates conflict in our lives in order to keep us sanctified, in order to keep us holy as his people. And then third, Sometimes he initiates duplicate trials in order to make sure that we're paying attention to what he's doing. And so we'll cover that in a minute. But let's start with number one. Sometimes God designates even the most bitter of circumstances in our lives in order to carry out his goodwill. One of the hardest things that we have is in a relationship with God is understanding how he works. We often assume that he thinks just like us, that he ought to do things the way we would like for him to do, but that's not the case. And part of the reason for that is because God is not bound by space or time like we are. God is not looking up in wonder at the glory of the heavens like we are. He's looking down on this small little planet. And our problems as a result don't quite seem so big to him. as they do to us. In the same way, because he's not bound by time, again, we see time only linearly. We can only see what happens as it goes along, but God sees the end from the beginning. And so again, our anxieties that happen on a daily basis and sometimes on an hourly or even a minute basis, again, in God's perspective, don't seem quite so difficult. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't still sympathize with us in our weaknesses. We're assured of that in scripture, that he does indeed sympathize with us in our weakness and that he cares for our cares. Nevertheless, he's not as worked up about these things as we are. And oftentimes what we see as something really bad, sometimes in disguise, it's actually something that God had in good in mind all along. And we have to understand that from the beginning. A case in point, when we last left Manoah and his wife in the previous chapter we were told that their son would be the next savior of Israel. And it seems that both parents had very high hopes for this little one that God had promised to them to deliver Israel from their oppressors. But now it's 20 years later, 20 years have passed since chapter 13 to chapter 14. Samson has all grown up now and his parents are highly anticipating all the good things that their son would accomplish. on behalf of Israel. But in our text today, we see all those expectations fall far short of their reality. We read in verse one that Samson went down into the plain, into the territory of the Philistines, to the town of Timnath. Now, he's not going down there to conquer them. That would be our assumption. Why would he go to a Philistine town unless it's to conquer them and relieve Israel from their oppression? He's not going there for that purpose. Rather, he's going there to do business. He's going there to build relationships. He's going there as if he's almost one with the Philistines. He came and went freely. between the Philistine town. That should tell you the type of arrangement that was made between the Israelites and the Philistines at this time. This was not your average ordinary oppression in the book of Judges. The Israelites were not kicked out of their homes. They were not in some refugee camp looking for their next piece of bread. They were living in their own homes. They were engaging in regular business with the Philistines, intermingling with them and even intermarrying with them. They had made peace. with the Philistines and had almost become one with them. And we see in our text this morning that on his trips down to the valley, Samson's eye catches sight of one pretty young Philistine gal. And he goes up to his parents and he says to them, I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timna. Now get her for me as my wife. I like the way it reads better in the Hebrew if you translate it literally into English. Here's sort of the way he says it. Woman I saw, a Philistine, get her for me as my wife. He sounds more like a caveman than he does a savior of Israel. But again, the very fact that the very first word we see in the Hebrew is translated as a woman. His mind is on the woman. His mind is not on conquering the oppressors. Of course his parents are not at all pleased by this, by his desire nor by his request. And they say, is there not a woman among all of our people that you have to take a wife from one of these uncircumcised Philistines? Surely his parents were greatly disappointed. They couldn't have been more disappointed. And they're shocked just as we are to read that the same man whom God has set aside to be the deliverer of Israel is instead wanting to marry one of their oppressors. Doesn't make any sense at all. But no matter what they say, Samson is determined to have her for his wife, saying again to his father, get her for me. She is right in my eyes. Now that statement should ring a bell. It should sound familiar to you because that's the exact statements that the Israelites are making. They're constantly doing what is right in their own eyes. And so Samson is sort of representing all of Israel in a bad way here. is a reflection of their own actions and desires. They're all doing what is right in their own eyes, making foolish decisions, breaking God's covenants and disrespecting, even in this case, Samson, even disrespecting his parents, regardless of whether he has their Blessing, he wants to marry this woman. Again, if we go back and compare Samson, so Samson is the last of the judges in the book of Judges. The last few chapters, it gets worse. They don't even have a judge. But if you compare Samson, the last of the judges, to the first judge, who is the ideal judge, Othniel, the judge of Judah, we see that Othniel completely conquers his enemies, doesn't try to make any type of covenant with them whatsoever. After he conquers them, he then marries Caleb's daughter. who basically he marries within the best of the best within Israel. And as a result, he makes his own inheritance even larger, helps us out his tribe. In every way, there's blessing upon it. He gets the blessing of the father-in-law, all the above. And now you compare that to Samson. Samson is not conquering his enemies. He's barely even taking a little shots at them here and there. And at the end, he has no children to bear his name. And he loses everything that he has. Again, this is meant to show you the digression that has occurred again and again through these cyclical degradations of Israel. Of course, his parents are not at all pleased. And as a result, we see that there is conflict here. And again, if we go back and see from the comparison, it's even worse than we can imagine. But I can only imagine, though, that the pain that some Christian parents endure when they watch their grown children turn away from the Lord and pursue an unequally yoked marriage to an unbelieving spouse after having raised them up to seek the Lord, to know the Lord. Clearly here, Samson is moved by his senses alone and not by the Spirit of God. And you can only imagine, again, how much his parents suffered as a result of this. Nevertheless, The Lord was working through the bitter circumstances of this horrible decision of Samson. We're told in verse four that his father and mother did not know that even this was from the Lord, for the Lord was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. That he, that the author is referring to in this passage, not Samson. It's not that Samson was looking for an opportunity to overcome the Philistines. It's that God was looking for an opportunity to create hostility between the Israelites. and the Philistines, and that should give us great comfort to know that God can still work through even the darkest days, the most disappointing days, the most bitter days that we've ever experienced. God still can work through that. Of course, that doesn't mean that parents should not step in and object to their children wanting to marry an unbeliever. Certainly, that doesn't mean that the child is not responsible for the decisions that they make, but to know that God is not finished yet, that there's still hope, that there's still something that the Lord is doing through this. And that should continue to encourage us, even though we don't see the big picture. That's the first thing. God's doing a very unusual work here. Secondly, God sometimes purposely instigates conflict in our lives in order to sanctify us as his people. In verse four, again, we're told that the Lord was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. It's a very interesting choice of language that the author uses there because Luke in his gospel uses the exact same language in reference to the devil after He had been tempted but after Jesus had been tempted by the devil in the wilderness three times if you remember Jesus You know averts his attacks and then afterwards it says Luke tells us that the devil departed from Jesus until an opportune time would arise again so that he could attack him. Thus as Satan is seeking an opportunity to attack Jesus, so God is seeking an opportunity to attack the Philistines. And Samson's marriage to this Philistine woman was just such an opportunity. The Lord was looking for an opportunity like this in order to create a hostility between the two nations. We see in verses 12 and following Samson's riddle ultimately leads to this fight between Samson and the Philistines and it's this ongoing fight we'll see in the next few chapters that's similar to the Hatfields and McCoys. God is purposely creating this hostility in order to preserve his people's holiness. Nevertheless We see that Samson's riddle really wasn't quite fair. He's basically giving this example of a bee's nest forming in the carcass of a lion. That's something no one would ever really guess on their own. It's sort of like if you remember The Hobbit in the end when Bilbo couldn't defeat Gollum, his last riddle supposedly was, what's in my pocket? Of course, Gollum would have no idea what's in his pocket. The same way, there's no way they would have figured out this riddle. But nevertheless, the reaction to their inability to solve his riddle shows that the peace between the Philistines and the Israelites is just a facade. The very fact that they threatened to burn the poor girl and her entire household because they couldn't find out the answer to his riddle should tell you that there was an uneasy peace between these two nations. And if they're willing to do that to their own, can you only imagine what they were willing to do to the Israelites once the Israelites had stood up against them? And that's the very reason that God is looking for an opportunity to instigate conflict between these two peoples, to separate them. to keep God's people holy. They had made a tentative peace, constantly intermingling with the Philistines, constantly intermarrying with them, and the Israelites were losing their identity. Now can you imagine what would happen if the judge himself, the Savior of Israel, becomes a Philistine? That's what was happening. And the Lord purposely causes a fight to stop that from happening. It reminds me of the movie Bravehearts. Not often I mention a movie, but this one, I think it nails it. After years of the Scottish noblemen making peace with the English crown, just they continue to accumulate more titles and lands for them, if you remember. William Wallace marches onto the battlefield in order to meet with the King's envoys. But the Scottish noblemen are already meeting with the King's envoys. And so when he starts to make his way up to where they're meeting, one of his own men says to him, where are you going? And William Wallace says to him, I'm going to pick a fight. I'm purposely going to pick a fight because they constantly were seeking peace with one another when all he desired was freedom. And so the man respond that was one of his best men. He said, well, we didn't get dressed up for nothing. In other words, let's go fight. We didn't get dressed up just to give more land to our Scottish noblemans. They meant to go out and fight, but their Scottish noblemen constantly were trying to make them have peace. And that's the same thing. The Lord purposely, when we're trying to make peace with the world, God is purposely going up to pick a fight, to cause us to have hostility again with the world, because if we don't, we will become one with the world. Do you see that? God purposely does that. He's purposely picking a fight with the Philistines in order to preserve His holy people who have already gotten into bed, literally, with the Philistines. He wants them to be at odds. Notice although Samson's intentions were to basically make a covenant with the Philistines, God's not going to allow it to happen and he breaks it up. When he found out that men had cheated him and in his own words had plowed with his heifer, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. with such anger that he goes down 23 miles west and south of Timna to the town on the coast of Ashkelon, one of the main cities of the Philistines. And he goes there and he attacks and kills 30 men, 30 Philistine men, so that he can take their clothing and give it to the men that he owes from the bat. Again, this is just a small part of it, but notice it's the Spirit of the Lord that's coming upon him to do this. It's not just his own rage and anger the Spirit of the Lord is causing this anger so that there would be animosity between the two groups. This is often the reason that God allows the unbeliever to rage against the church. Notice even that is part of God's plan so that we won't become one with the world. Just as the Lord promised back in the Garden of Eden. What's the very first promise in scripture? He actually makes it to Satan, to the serpent. What does he says? He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and I will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman throughout all generations so that the woman and the serpent are not acting as one. He purposely causes a fight between the two. And we see this in the New Testament. Jesus tells his disciples, Matthew chapter 10, verse 22, he says, you will be hated by all for my name's sake. Of course, God could change that, right? God could make peace with us, with the world, but he purposely doesn't want us to have peace. John 15, verse 18. Again, he says, if the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. God's purposely causing that so that we don't become one with the world. Those of you who went out last Sunday to stand for the right to life, you felt just a tiny bit of that hatred. At one point, I started to laugh because I was standing near Pastor Mark, and I think it was like the ninth or tenth time someone was either cursing us or flipping the bird at us. And of course, they were doing it to all the other people, too, not just us. But I just thought it was interesting that you have two pastors here who are representing the very Word of God, and you have people going around cursing us, hating us, merely because we're standing up for life, right? It reminded me of the two witnesses in the book of Revelation. All they're trying to do is tell people, warn them of the danger to come, and yet the world hates them because of it. I can only imagine that one of the cars was sporting one of those coexist bumper stickers, which sounds really good on paper, but as you can tell, their idea of coexistence is not as great as they have proposed that it would be. At least not for those who disagree with them. Sadly though, sometimes that happens even within our own families, right? There's hostility even between the families because one of the family members is a believer. Jesus again said in Matthew chapter 10 verses 34 and following. He says, do not think that I've come to bring peace to the earth. I've not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I've come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother. A person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. In Luke 14, he adds, and he who does not hate his own wife and children is not worthy of me. In other words, if they're family members who do not believe in the Lord Jesus, sometimes the Lord even causes hostility between us and our family members. Why? Because he wants to preserve us as his holy people. And if we give our hearts completely to our loved ones and give our hearts to them first above and beyond God, he knows what will happen. We will lose our identity as his holy people. And so sometimes even conflict breaks out in our own family because that, why? Because Christianity can't be just a hobby. It's not just something we add to our lives. It's an all-consuming faith that affects everything that we do, everything that we think, all the ways that we act. If we're not pursuing that sanctification in every part of our lives because of the relationships that we're involved in, the Lord will seek to break up that relationship in order to preserve our faith and to preserve our holiness. In fact, I'd venture to say that if there's never a conflict that you have in a relationship with an unbeliever, in other words, if you're always at peace with the unbeliever, it's likely because you've made peace with the world and have grown ashamed of the gospel of Christ because you don't want to talk about Him anymore, because you want to keep peace with those that you love. Again, I'm not saying you need to constantly go around and just be a bully or constantly go around and just trying to pick a fight, but in all your ways, acknowledge Him. If you get to a point in your relationships where you don't want to acknowledge Christ because you're afraid it's going to cause a fight, I tell you, it's because you've loved the peace of the world more than you've loved the peace of Christ. And what happens in that case? Well, if the world is not angry by your actions, then who do you think will be? It's then God who is angry because we have loved the world more than we love God. Sometimes, as strange as it seems, God purposely initiates a fight between us and the world. And then third, Sometimes God initiates duplicate trials in our lives to make sure that we're paying attention. On the way down to Temna to discuss the marriage proposal in verse five, Samson had gotten separated from his parents somehow. And as he's nearing the vineyards of Temna, we see that this lion wants to pounce upon him. And at that moment, again, the spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson, and he's able to tear the lion apart with his bare hands. Now why are we told this story other than the fact that it's just really cool? In part because it leads to Samson's riddle which causes that fight, in part because it also begins to affect his own purity later on in his Nazirite vow because he is now touching a dead carcass afterwards. But originally God sent the lion Samson's way in order that Samson himself might see the strength of God's deliverance through him, through the power the Spirit. Later on when the Philistines are attacking him, Samson needs to remember what happened with the lion. Because that same Spirit of God is going to defend him from the Philistines that also defended him from the lion. And we see that exactly in 1st Samuel chapter 17. If you remember David when he goes to fight Goliath, his confidence lays in the fact that the Spirit of God already worked through him to defend himself against the lion and the bear. If you remember both times when the lion and the bear went to go attack one of his sheep, he went after the sheep and immediately the lion and the bear attacked him. And here's what David says to King Saul when he's about to go face Goliath. He says, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine as well. You see, so God purposely had initiated this small trial, what none of us would say a line attack is a small trial, but this original trial to prepare him for the next set of trials. In the same way, it works the other way. Sometimes the Lord sends those small trials not to show us the strength of God, but simply to show us our own weakness and to warn us not to rely upon our own strength and our own wisdom. After the Philistines had threatened Samson's Fiancee demanding the answer to the riddle we see instead of trusting herself to Samson she ingratiates herself to the Philistines and As a result she begins to to cry and do all sorts of things in order to manipulate him and as you know I think most women know that it's easier to manipulate a man through crying than any other way And so she uses that she begins seven days of wailing and complaining and accusing him. You don't love me You don't love me Finally, it just wears him down. He tells her the explanation of the riddle, and as a result, that's what causes the fight between him and the Philistines. Obviously, though, this wasn't the only time that a woman sought to manipulate Samson through crying, was it? Again, this was the first trial that was to prepare him for the next ones. The first one should have warned him not to trust himself, to ask God for help, to call upon God. When Jezebel uses the exact same tactics, he gives in in the exact same way, which leads ultimately to his downfall and to his death because he wasn't paying attention to the first trial and his weakness. He lost again in the second trial. Now, obviously, these aren't exactly duplicate. I mean, it wasn't like a Samson was experiencing deja vu when it happened the second time around. But they were so similar that Samson would have to be a fool not to recognize what's going on. It's the same type of trial, the same ilk, the same pattern. And they would bear the same consequences if he didn't call upon God for help. How many times have we played the fool? Because we didn't recognize the first trial. We didn't call upon God for the second trial. We see that in every time, the temptations that are given to us, they don't just come upon us randomly. It's not that Satan has any power to attack us on his own. Remember, we learned from the book of Job, he has to ask God's permission, right? To attack Job. Every attack that ever comes upon us, every trial or temptation we ever face, only happens because it's part of the Lord's plan. And if it's part of the Lord's plan, then he knows what he's doing, he's preparing us for something. if we would only pay attention. I mean, if you think of it this way, why do we pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation, unless it's the Lord himself who is the one who leads us into temptation. The Lord himself doesn't tempt us. It's ourselves who want to be tempted, but he leads us into the time of trial, into the time of temptation, because he is sovereign over our trials. Why is it that the spirit of God is the one who leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan? It's because it's the Lord's plan that he would come under trial. if He would pay attention. The Lord Himself doesn't tempt us, but He does lead us into that time of trial in order to show us our own weakness, in order to show us the depravity of our own hearts, the corruption, the deceitfulness of our own hearts. And He continues to bring that trial until we stop looking to ourselves to overcome it and our strength and our wisdom, which is nothing but that we might trust the Lord. And I think, you know, oftentimes one trial and sometimes two trials don't do it. We don't learn. But the Lord wants for us to learn. So he continues to bring the trial. As difficult as that is for us, He wants to strengthen our faith. He wants to sustain us in the faith to make us more watchful for the next time. And so he continues to bring us through those things. Now that seems to be the reason that the Lord purposely puts the apostle Peter. Again, this was God's will that Peter would be tried in the same way three times on the same night. They would question his loyalty. Are you one of his followers? Why did God allow that to happen? Three times that same night earlier on, he said, if all the rest of the disciples leave you, I will never forsake you. I will follow you to the end. I'll even die with you. What pride. Arrogance to think that in his own strength, he's going to be able to follow Jesus in that way. And so when he gets back on the shore, we see Jesus purposely questioning Peter again three times. Did you catch that? On the shore of Galilee, when Christ has been resurrected, he meets with Peter, and he says he meets with the disciples and Peter, as if, you know, Peter's sort of along with them, but not really one of them at this point, because he's walked away. And Jesus asks him three times. The first question he says, do you love me more than these? This is after he has shown that he didn't. And it's often pointed out in the Greek, And I think it's purposeful in this regard. There are a number of different words in the Greek for love. Jesus will ask him twice, do you love me? And use that term agape. Do you love me in the sense of willing to give me your sacrifice of your own life to prove that you love me? And each time in the Greek, Peter says, I phileo you. He said, I don't agape you. In other words, I've proven that I can't sacrifice my life for you. I haven't been willing to do that yet. But I still love you as a brother. And then finally, the third time, Jesus says, what do you fill out with me? And at that point, Peter says, and he's grieved in his heart. The scripture tells us, he says, you know, I fill out with you. And it's only after that, after he humbles himself. and admits that he can't do this apart from God's strength. That's when the Lord reinstates him as his disciple and his apostle. It makes him one of the top apostles because of it. Oftentimes it takes more than one trial for us to see that although God is love, we are anything but. That although God is full of wisdom, we are naturally fools. That although God is almighty, we are so weak. And so God continues to bring that trial to prove to us that we have to rely upon him. We can't trust ourselves. We have to trust him. Indeed, God sometimes puts us through the same trial again and again and again in order to learn to trust the Lord, no matter what he brings our way. That's hard. That's hard for us to accept, but he's a loving father. who wants the best for us, and his best is much better than what we think is good. It's certainly not what we expect, though. But the Lord has a thousand ways of saving us, helping us, keeping us, and loving us, as we're about to sing in the final hymn, Jesus, Friend of Sinners. He says, saving, helping, keeping, loving. What a Savior, to the end. Let's pray to the Lord that we would trust him in that way. Let's go together prayer. Our father, we we know that there's still much for us to learn. We know that there's still so much we don't grasp and that our faith is is weak. Oh Lord, we do pray that you would lead us not into temptation, but that when you do bring us into that point, you would deliver us out of it. We cannot deliver ourselves. We are foolish. We are weak. We so easily want to go the way of the world and make peace with the world. But Lord, we know that you purposely cause these things in our lives to preserve what is most important for all eternity. Oh Lord, help us to see it the way you see it, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together. Sing Jesus, what a friend for sinners.