Morning. Glad everyone showed up today. This is week four of five weeks in October that we are examining thoughts on Christian ethics in the scripture. And it's been a great pleasure to do that. It's helped me refine some of my own ideas that God has given me over the years and at least get them into some form that maybe can be passed on to the next guy who is also grass just like me. Who also will perish and fade just like you and just like me. The Word of God stands and is forever. Some weeks you go through Different times in your Christian existence where you just walk along and things are always the same, week after week after week, and then circumstances line up to such that you are forced into certain areas of scripture, certain thinking. and certain meditations, and this week was one of those weeks for me. There was a one small phrase from the scripture that came to me early in the week, and I pretty much camped out on it all week. This has nothing to do with this lesson, by the way, so this is all free and extra. But it was in John 6, verse 30, where it said, He must increase, but I must decrease. And the whole problem, I've figured out that there is no way for me to increase God. This infinity is as big as it is, as big as we can imagine it, and even bigger than that, because it covers all things at all times and in all ways. It's infinite. It's a word that we don't completely wrap around and understand. But the other part we can, the part that we must decrease, And I find that that is the whole struggle of my life, the whole struggle of probably most people who walk by faith, is this idea of decreasing. When we want this and want that, we have this ambition, we have this goal or that thing that we will accomplish. But John, John Baptist, he said, I must decrease. When he had a ministry all built up, people were flocking to him to be baptized. His work was finished. He acknowledged. Here's the one I was telling you about. He must increase, but I must decrease. That crystallized home to me this week. That my decreasing is the very increasing of God. So let us all decrease in our own size. This week is week four, Thoughts on Christian Ethics from the Scripture. And I've entitled it, The Prayers of the Saints and the Deliverance from Evil. They are connected. As my text, and there are lots of texts in this lesson, and some of them are long, and I may have a distinct advantage over you, is that I added them to the paper so I don't have to turn to them, but I can read them. So let's turn, if you will, to Luke as the first text. Luke chapter 22 and verse 25. Luke chapter 2, verse 25, and we'll read through 46. This is Jesus. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. And they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so. But he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger. And he that is chief, as he does serve. For whether his greater, he that sitteth at me, or he that serveth, is not he that sitteth at meat, but I am among you as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And then he said unto them, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cops shall not crow this day before thou shalt deny me thou thrice. I'm sorry I lost my place. And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse and script and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said nothing. Then he said unto them, But now he that hath purse, let him take it, and likewise his script. And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. For I say unto you that this that is written must be accomplished in me. And he was reckoned among the transgressors, for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, it is enough. Now we're getting to the point. And he came out, and as he was walked to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him, and when he was at a place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about stones cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow and said unto them, Why sleep ye? Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. So from the scripture, we see that ethics involves actions. It involves things that we do. It is the outworking of all that is inside of. It is our religion coming out, is our ethic. And it's our inner beliefs and responses to our circumstances of life. And we see from this passage that Jesus was in a circumstance, His disciples were in a circumstance, and there's a theme running through that entire passage, and that is, pray that ye fall not into temptation. Pray that you fall not into temptation. During our study of ethics over the last three weeks, this being the fourth, we reviewed some of the basic concepts of God's sovereign order, the fall of man, and we also looked at redemption. We examined the next week after that, the fear of God versus the fear of man. The fear of God acknowledging that the fear of man brings a snare, and snares always lead us into unethical responses or ungodly responses to circumstances of life. So it is fear that is the opposite of faith, and the fear of man is the very opposite of the fear of man, I mean of the fear of God, and the fear of man always leads us into a trap. if you will, it brings us into bondage and a snare for our souls. It leads us into a defiled conscience in that when we fail God in these things, we have this sense of alienation with God. And we saw from Redemption that God provides remedy for that. And then last week we reviewed the idea of just weights and measures. Like in a society, the idea of things being fair and just and honest and weighed out honestly and standardized makes everyone at some level able to get along. And that without those things, people have many unethical responses, and that they've been trying to recoup their losses that they feel cheated from, from the last guy. Next thing you know, you have an entire system that is corrupt. And it's almost a viral thing that moves through society as a disease. And men begin to pass on their losses to the next guy, and things unravel, and things become more random. And we saw that God is a God of order. He's given us order. We see it. You know, the heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows forth his handiwork. We see that order in everything that God does. And we can thank him for that. But today we're going to move a little bit more into that idea of forming an ethic. And it has to do with what does the role of prayer have to do with forming the Christian ethic? The written Word of God and prayer are the two things that mesh together. The written Word of God we can hold in our hands, but it's kind of hard to hold prayer in our hands. It's kind of hard to quantify prayer. So we'll examine the relationship between those two. Prayer is the speaking out of our inner life. It's our soul's lifeline to the Father. It is our inner groanings and our utterances that become, as we mature in Christ, more constant and more continual. And I think anyone in here that's walked with the Lord any length of time knows that that's so. That as you walk and you cross and become mature and cross closer to that day when you'll meet your final breath, that you find that your communion with the Father is more continual, it's more almost impromptu, that in every situation your soul is constantly crying out to God to intervene in the affairs of our life and to our circumstances. God have mercy upon me, Lord help us. Give us this day our daily bread. We find that day after day after day. And this is the work of the Spirit of God in us. This is the breathing, the groanings which cannot be uttered as we become closer to the Lord. These heartfelt, Spirit-filled prayers of the saints. They are the very outworking of the mind of God. How do we know that? We know that from scriptures. We know that from Romans 8, 26 and 27, which says, likewise, the Spirit also help up our infirmities. And in case that's a hard word for some of our younger ones, infirmities are weaknesses. or things that you cannot necessarily help. If I had only one arm and it was born that way, that might be an infirmity, because it's not something I can change. So God helps our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered And he that searches the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So these breathings, these utterings of the prayers of the saints are indeed the mind of God, the true mind of God in the life of the Christian, in the life of the believer. So may God help us today as we consider the role of prayer, in deliverance from evil and in the development of a Christian ethic, a Christian understanding of what to do in this world. I'm going to take three points. The three points are one, the prevention of evil. Two, the deliverance from evil. And three, the remedy for evil. I think we will all understand that we have a weak frame I am more and more aware of that every day. And thankful to God for it, because I find it breaking my hands away from the tightness on which I will try to hold this world and its things. But I realize, and I'm coining a new word I think, dustliness. My dustliness. The wind blows and the dust goes away. That's even below chaff, you know. We're prone to think in turns and respond to different circumstances in fear rather than faith. That is dustliness. We respond in fear rather than faith. So we see these as opposites, fear and faith. The fear of man brings a snare, as we said earlier, it's a trap, a false solution, an idea that is contrary to a life of faith. So we're going to now look at a narrative from the scripture that has always intrigued me. And as I read it, I might add some interlinear comments. I don't usually do that with scripture, but I will add in this one for the sake of time and the sake of understanding. I love this passage of scripture, so we can see in this passage very clearly and very concisely the hand of God in the prevention of evil, our first topic, the prevention of evil. In that, you can turn to 2 Kings. And this would be a great reading in the afternoon to look at this whole time. I've always said, when I want to know God, the God of the Bible, in His workings among the politics and upon the circumstances of life in kingdoms and powers and glories. I go to the Kings and the Chronicles in those sessions. This is a God, brethren, that we should know. In 2 Kings chapter 6, verses 18 through 17, we put ourselves immediately into the context of another of the many, many, many, many battles and wars found in these books. So we have the king of Syria at it, the king of Israel. Then the king of Syria warred against Israel and took counsel with his servants. These were his war advisers saying in such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not by such a place, for there the Syrians are come down. Here we have a man of God warning the king of Israel that don't go over there because that's where your enemy is. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of and saved himself there, not once or twice. This just didn't happen one time. This was an ongoing regular occurrence in this particular time of history. Therefore, the heart of the king of Syria, if you remember, the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord. Therefore, the heart of the king of Syria, the enemy, was sore troubled for this thing, and he called his servants and said unto them, Would you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? There's a traitor around here. Which of you guys is telling these guys, these Israel people, where are you? Who's telling them where we're hiding? How do they know to avoid us and escape and to get away? And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king, but Elisha. The prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. I've always been amazed at that. Here we have the very God of heaven eavesdropping and telling his saints what the enemy has planned for them. Reminds me that we are not ignorant of his devices. And he said, Go and spy where he is that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is at Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses and chariots and a great horse, a great host. And they came by night and compassed the city about." Well, they know who the spy is now. It's not one of their own. It's this prophet. It's this prophet, and they're going to go get him, right? They're going to go take him down, because he is the one that is keeping them from defeating their enemy. And when the servants of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold and host, Syrians, come past the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servants said unto him, Alas, my master, what shall we do? It seems like a response of fear after God had been whispering all along what the plans of the enemy were. And He answered, Fear not. Fear not. How many times do we see that in Scripture? For they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see, and the Lord, opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. What an amazing passage of prevention of evil that prevented God's people from responding in fear as opposed to faith. Responding in an unethical and wrong way. So what can we glean from these? I only have a couple of thoughts from them as we move on. God has revealed the plans and the snares of the enemy, thwarting his efforts. Will he not, and has he not promised us that he will deliver us from temptation, from fear, and from the occasions of fear in his word when we seek him? He's promised those things. Even if we are surrounded by evil, which we are, we have the sure promises that there are more with us than there are with them. We know that. We have a great cloud of witnesses, the Hebrews tell us. Many are the witnesses of God's people. There are more with us, not just the souls and presence of the saints, with the very angels of heaven that encampeth round about them that believe. So God is with us in the prevention of evil. The deliverance from evil. Last week we were talking to someone, I'm not sure who it was, after the meeting, after we talked about Weights and measures and fear of man came up and the society that we're in today comes up. It's very pagan. It's very foreign. It is not the world that we have often been led to believe that it is through history. About what are we to do? And I reminded this person that God has often placed the godly deeply entrenched in the middle of very pagan and ungodly cultures and nations, always testing their epic as salt and light. So it's not so hard from Scripture when we think of the lives of Joseph, when we think of Daniel, when we think of Samuel, when we think of David, men who were exalted in some way. So when men are put into these positions, there's often the ire and the envy of the wicked that follows along. All of those men were pushed around and persecuted and tempted with evil. We're going to look at one of them very close though, in Daniel. The wicked are trying to bring them low and to persecute. So we look now at deliverance from evil, a prayer that led to the deliverance from evil in Daniel chapter 6 verses 1 through 10. Imagine this Daniel taken from his native land, made into a eunuch. has now, because of certain movements of God in history, has become exalted to be the president of presidents over probably one of the most brutal, wicked, pagan, unholy, ungodly empires that there ever were. These guys were brutal. These guys warred all the time. They stomped out the nations that they conquered. They subjugated and enslaved people. Daniel is the president of this thing. The president of presidents. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 princes. which should be over the whole kingdom, and over these three presidents of whom Daniel was first." He's the big man. "...that the princes might give account unto them, and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was found in him." And the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom. But they could find none occasion or fault for as much as he was faithful. A key word. Neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, we shall not find any occasion against this Daniel. except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. They found what they thought to be his Achilles tendon. They thought they had found his weak and soft underbelly when they would attack him in his beliefs. Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king and said thus unto him, King Darius live forever, all the presidents of the kingdom, The governors and the princes, the counselors and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make firm decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for 30 days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into a den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree. and sign the writing that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not. Wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree. And then the first ten stands out. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, it would be hard to be The number one president of presidents did not know this was coming into effect. And it was certainly a lie when in verse 7, they came to him and said, all the presidents of the kingdom agreed on this. Daniel was not in that number. Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem. He kneeled down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime. That last phrase, as he did aforetime. This is a deep well for us, brethren. We can draw out very cool and refreshing water from it. So I'll offer five short thoughts for our meditation on this passage of deliverance from evil. That Daniel's excellent spirit that we read of, now there aren't many men in the Bible that God says have excellent spirits. There's a few that we think of of Noah, you know, Job, David. Daniel, Joseph, those men, we see those. But Daniel's excellent spirit was an outgrowth of his life and seeking and finding God. In this we mainly see he found God in prayer. Daniel was very much a man of much prayer. As we see in that last verse that he did it three times a day as he did it four times. Daniel prayed often. Scripture teaches in Luke 18, 1 that men ought to pray and not faint. It's what we ought to do is to pray and to seek God. The third thing is Daniel's life of prayer was habitual. It was continual and it was unchanged by these circumstances. He could have closed his windows. where they couldn't see him or didn't know he was doing it. But he did what he'd always done because he knew that God would deliver him the way he had always had. And if he didn't, it would be to his praise and to his glory. Fourth, Daniel kneeled, the president of presidents. This high office bowed before a higher one. The final authority, the sovereign God. Brethren, let's not forget that we have access by Jesus Christ to the final authority. The final authority that rules in the kingdoms of men. And fifth, Daniel was president in a corrupt culture, wholly hostile and contrary to a life of faith. His praying was essential to his survival. Our praying is essential to our survival, now and in the ages to come. So we see that Daniel prayed, and prayer is associated in the scripture with deliverance from evil. And it is evil to respond in fear, especially in fear of man. It creates in us wrong responses and wrong ethics when we respond in fear as opposed to faith. And finally we move to the remedy for evil. The remedy for evil. And this is a blessed passage that we'll get to. We studied in our first lessons about the fall of man, that man had fallen from his innocent position with God, that God created him with the capacity to do that, which he did. He did it very soon, and it has affected the ethics, the faithlessness, and the fear of men from that time forward. It taints us today, young men and women, it taints us today. And as you move in the faith, you will discover more and more the depths of that tainting of your thoughts and of your responses in this life. And man is incapable of forming a complete and whole system of ethical behavior. This is because the inner part is corrupt. The heart is corrupt. It's perverted. Man may try as much as he will to place philosophies and laws to regulate the outgrowth of this faithlessness, to keep it from affecting society too much, but trouble, conflict, war are always the results of these systems. They compete and fight for dominance over each other. We see that in our day. We've seen it in history. We know that it's there. All this is vanity, says the Lord. It is vanity, and the Word of God stands forever. God calls them into holiness, internal and external holiness. But God has taken upon himself the remedy of this evil. Let's turn to 1 Peter 1, and we see verses 15 through 25. But as He which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. For as much as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. as a lamb without clemency, without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest for you in these last times. who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfamed love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Here we see the blood of Christ being born again of incorruptible seed. This is an inner birth. This is a new birth. This is a new beginning, a new life. from which will come forth, and does come forth, an ever-growing, flowering true ethic from our hearts, and not from our work, or the works of some other man, only one man, the work of Jesus Christ. So we end with a prayer, and that prayer is, found in Matthew 6, 9-13, one passage, deliver us from evil. We need the prayers of the saints to deliver us from evil. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we're thankful for Your Word, which lives and abides forever. God, cause Your Word to take root in us, flower in us to cause us to decrease. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen.