Well, hello everyone and welcome back. This is our daily devotional for Thursday, October the 9th, 2025. And I hope that it finds all of you doing very well. And I realized this, I'm recording this actually on Wednesday afternoon because I've had my hands rather full, but y'all. The wind is blowing and for the first day, you can look up on the Blue Ridge and you can see the leaves that have turned and that means that sometime, probably Friday, it's gonna be time to make my annual drive with the girls up to Monterey and to Bluegrass Valley and to see all of the beautiful things of fall. It's one of my absolutely favorite times of the year, one of my absolutely favorite things to do. And it's exciting to do so, especially because the invisible fence is hooked up and the puppy can stay outside now. Of all the wonderful inventions in the world, I know that there are lots of important things like, you know. clean drinking water and electricity and that kind of stuff, but the invisible fence is right up there with them. So nevertheless, and no, they did not pay me to say anything about that or to endorse them, but it is a beautiful thing that provides freedom for puppy owners if they are trained enough. So we'll see if Russer is trained enough, but nevertheless, it's a beautiful, beautiful, by the time this airs, I'm trying to remember what I saw, The high would be tomorrow. I think that yeah, let's see the high is gonna be by the time this airs I think 60 and then there's a frost warning and then the high on Friday is 60 again and I'm not seeing anything with seven and in the front of it again. So maybe just maybe today I think it's around 72 degrees Some would call that cold, I guess, sick people. But maybe this is the last warm day that we're going to have, and then fall is going to set in. And I've already got the Charlie Brown, it's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown soundtrack downloaded. So Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but I plan on having an even better one. But nevertheless, it's good to be back with y'all this morning. Now, seeing as how this is going to come out on Thursday morning, y'all, I do not know what the food is going to be like in just a little bit. Realize I'm recording this for Thursday on Wednesday, but we're just a little bit away from our Wednesday night service. I can tell you, if smell is any indication, what's wafting down here is the smell of garlic bread. And it's not store-bought bread. It's all homemade, home-baked bread, baked right here. delicious, delicious sauce is going. It is Italian night, so I can only surmise that the food is going to be amazing yet again. And so hopefully by the time this airs, I will have been proven correct. That means that you got a whole week to plan to be with us next week. I do not know what the menu is, but I do know what we're going to be focusing on. And that is, we're going to be focusing on the difference between conservative and liberal Churches, not politics. We're looking at the hallmarks of the conservative church and the liberal church. What do I tell you all the time? Get yourself in a Bible-believing church, a conservative Bible-believing church. And no, that is not a political statement, okay? When I use the term conservative, I'm not talking about Republican versus Democrat, Libertarian. I'm not talking about any of those things. What I'm talking about is the kind of church that you go to. Find yourself a Bible-believing church, and probably that's going to be the first hallmark of the conservative church, but we'll see what happens next week. But go ahead and start planning. And also, it's Thursday. Be thinking about the Lord's Day, Sunday morning. Now, where are we picking up? We're in Matthew chapter 6 as we continue to make our way through the Sermon on the Mount. And y'all, we're coming to the last petition of the Lord's Prayer. Remember what we did yesterday, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. We talked about how debt is a far better translation of the Greek term there than trespass and trespasses, that sort of thing, because really that's what sin is. It is a debt that is incurred to God. That's why the words to the hymn, Jesus paid it all, are so beautiful. All to him I own. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed me white as snow." Y'all, it's this beautiful picture of, in a word, atonement, where Jesus atoned, paid for, satisfied the debt of our sin. We know from Romans 6, 23 that the wages of sin are death. Jesus took those wages. But, as we saw also yesterday, this isn't just about forgiveness of our debts, it's also a prayer of judgment. Because what we do when we pray, forgive us our debts, is we also have forgiven our debts. We're saying to God, hey God, listen, I want you to forgive me like I forgive other people. I don't know about you, but that's hard. That's hard because it's our tendency to want to be judge, jury, and executioner people. And I wish I could find a way. I'm not smart enough to do it. I'd probably get flagged anyway if I tried to do it. Somebody, and I don't remember who it was, might have been a man that sent me this wonderful, wonderful reel. You know what a reel is? R-E-E-L. It's like a little thing, a little video, short video that comes over social media. And it was an Asian pastor, got no idea who he is, and he told this story. right, about how a schoolmaster, schoolteacher, told all of his students, tomorrow, it was the harvest season, he said, tomorrow, I want you to bring a tomato to class for everybody that's ever hurt you, right? In other words, however many people have hurt you, I want you to bring that number of tomatoes to class, okay? And so the next day, the children brought the tomatoes to class, shouldn't call them children, they're teenagers, they brought their tomatoes to class and said, I want you to write the name of the person that hurt you on that tomato. And some teenagers had one tomato, some teenagers had 10 tomatoes, some had 30 tomatoes because they've been hurt quite a bit. They said, all right, what I want you to do is I want you to carry those tomatoes with you everywhere you go for the next two weeks. And at first, it was fun. They said, oh, OK, yeah, sure, we'll do that. We'll carry the tomatoes around. But several days in, they started noticing something. Those tomatoes that they were carrying around, boy, they were getting heavy. And not only were they getting heavy, they started to stink and rot, and they got bruised up, and it was messy, and it affected everything, because they had to carry them with them everywhere they went. And so they eventually, after one week, came back to the professor and said, listen, this is unreasonable. And their teacher said, this is unreasonable. We can't carry these things around. It's horrible carrying these things around. And he said, that's the point. When you walk around with unforgiveness in your heart, it's like carrying around these rotten tomatoes. It gets heavy, it gets messy, it affects you. What I've told you before is that unforgiveness, y'all, that's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. But that illustration of the tomato rotting and stinking, when you have unforgiveness in your heart and you carry that around, that's what it does to you. And so, as we focused on yesterday in the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. It's a request, it's recognizing that we have a debt that has been satisfied by Jesus and we need forgiveness, but it also calls down judgment on us. when we refuse to forgive others. And now we come to the final petition of the Lord's Prayer, and it's in Matthew 6, 13. But before we read it, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our God and our Father, as we come to this, the final petition, we pray that you would be with us, that you would guide us, guard us, direct us, help us to see the truth of your word and how it applies to us. Let us be captive to your word, recognizing all of these implications, and in being captive to your word, Let us be faithful to you. Please guide us by your Holy Spirit now as we seek to understand, and we pray it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so Matthew chapter six, verse 13. You know how the Lord's prayer ends. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now y'all, this is a tricky one. This is a tricky one right here because this is something that not too terribly long ago actually caught some pretty good press. And I don't remember the exact wording and I looked it up and they've done a pretty good job bearing it. In fact, I'm gonna do this little exercise with you right now. Pope says to remove, lead us not into temptation. All right, now let's see what AI. All right, now what it says is, and this is actually pretty accurate, Pope Francis, that was the last pope, suggested changing the Lord's Prayer phrase, lead us not into temptation, into something like, do not let us fall into temptation, to avoid implying that God tempts his people. Now y'all, that's fair on the one level in that God never tempts anybody. He doesn't have to. What this is really getting at when we pray, lead us not into temptation, it is a recognition of two things. Number one, it is a recognition, two major things are what I'm gonna focus on. The first recognition in lead us not into temptation is us recognizing the very nature that we have inherited from our first father, Adam. And that is that we are prone to temptation. that y'all, apart from God delivering us out of temptation, in and of ourselves, apart from the power of Jesus Christ given to us through the Holy Spirit, we will never stand up to temptation. That's the first part of this, this idea of temptation. It is a reality that every single one of us faces. And y'all, part of living in Christ, part of growing in Christianity, part of the big word is sanctification process, wherein we die to ourselves and live under Christ, is that we gain strength, but we are never past the point of being tempted. And one of the biggest danger zones is when people conclude that they are. I remember when I was in college, we had someone come And I don't remember, he was Methodist. He was one of the bishops and he was from the AME church, African Methodist Episcopal. And he talked about the last time that he had been tempted in sin. And it was like years before that. I'm going to tell you the last time, and I said, well, you know, start new if you're clocking the time, because you just lied to us. Remember, sin is not only what you do, it's what you leave undone. And it's also the inclination of your heart as to why. Even saying to someone, hey, look at this grand victory that I have done. That in itself is boastful. Not only is it a lie, it's also prideful. But my point is this, in and of ourselves, apart from Christ and apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, we are toast! We're toast, I'm not gonna go through it, but read Ephesians 6 and read about the armor of God. We've only got the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, but it's the sword of the Spirit. And every other piece of armor revolves around that work of God, not our work in ourselves, but that work of God in us. And it's only because of God working in us by the power of his Holy Spirit that we can take our stand. And don't forget how the armor of God passage ends, and pray, pray, pray. But y'all, this all involves faith. Ephesians chapter two, this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God so that what? So that no one may boast. It's Ephesians 2, nine. So y'all, that's what we're first recognizing. When we pray, lead us not into temptation, we are recognizing to God that apart from him, we're done for. and along the same lines, but deliver us from the evil one. It is requesting that God help us to stand up under temptation, number one, and number two, that when we face temptation and when we fall, and we will fall. This is also a prayer for when we have fallen, that the Lord would help us to stand. The reality is, is that spiritual warfare is constantly raging. The war is over. I mentioned this this past Sunday. The war is over. Jesus wins and his people win with him. But that doesn't mean that we aren't still actively in spiritual warfare, actively battling against the flesh, against the old one that dwells within us. And sometimes the Lord gives us victory and sometimes we fall. But y'all, that's what leads to the second major application of this. Pope Francis was right. He's still the man of sin. This may be a hot take on a Wednesday night at some point, but the whole idea of the Pope being a follower of Christ, anybody that says, I'm the substitute of Christ, and I'm the one that dispenses the grace of God. I don't see how that individual can be a follower of Christ. It's like I've said about Roman Catholicism. You can be a Roman Catholic and you can be a believer very clearly, but what you can't do is be an extremely faithful Roman Catholic and be a believer. Or if you are, it's very, very difficult because of all the things that are added to it, like papal infallibility, all that kind of stuff that Anyway, this is not on that, but y'all, it is October. October 31st is around the corner, Reformation Day. But all of that being said, y'all, he's right in that God doesn't tempt us, but what God does do is through his restraining hand of mercy and grace, he prevents us from temptation, and the truth is this. realize that the devil actively seeks to destroy. He actively seeks with his demons to tempt the followers of Christ to hamper their work. And we know this. We know it from various examples in God's Word. Take, for instance, Job chapter 1 and 2, where you have this heavenly scene unplaying, where God points to Job as a faithful servant, and Satan says, yeah, he's faithful, you gave him everything he wants. Remove your hedge of protection around him. Let me do what I want to him. Chapter one, he says, very well, you can take out all of his stuff. Chapter two, he tells the devil, fine, you can attack him personally. Don't kill him, but you can attack his health. And so Satan does that, but the point is Satan has to get permission. And if you don't like Job, if you don't think that's regulative, well, what do you do with Luke? Right, Luke, where we find this example, it's in Luke chapter 22. Do you remember Luke chapter 22? Matthew will have his telling of it. It's not exactly included the same way. Luke includes this, Matthew doesn't include it the same way, or all of the events of the upper room discourse, right before Jesus is arrested and subsequently crucified and rises from the dead. But y'all, we find this episode where Jesus is talking about those that are going to be trained, and the disciples are so concerned with that, they're arguing over who's going to be first when Jesus comes into his kingdom. They're not interested in this whole suffer and die and crucified thing. And when it does come down to them, and when Jesus talks about how one of them is gonna betray him, Simon says to him, and I should say Peter, because he's called Peter the Rock, Peter says to him, no, Lord, even if I have to die, I will never betray you. Do you remember what Jesus said to Peter? He didn't call him Peter, he called him Simon, called him by his name. Luke 22, 31, he said, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. This points to the reality that we face, that the devil always wants to attack the followers of Christ in order to ruin testimony, in order to cause discord, in order to hamper you from doing those good works that God prepared in advance for you to do, as if he could do that, but he still wants to try. and yet the Lord restrains him. That's what we're asking God to do when we pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Matthew 6, verse 13. And in fact, that is exactly what God does. Because do you remember how Jesus followed that up? After saying, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. By the way, you ever seen wheat sifted? It's not delicate. It gets torn apart in the air. One piece goes one way, one piece goes the other way into the fire. He said, but I prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. It's a fascinating study. I always talk about it at Easter. I call it a tale of two traitors where Judas and Simon, Judas and Peter, are guilty of very, very similar things. Judas sells Jesus. Obviously, that's betrayal. Peter denies him three times to a servant girl when he needed him the most in an illegal trial at night. Which one's worse? The answer's yes. What's the difference between Judas and Peter? Why does Judas go off and hang himself and go to hell as the son of perdition, as opposed to Peter, who ends up being strengthened in the closing chapter of the gospel according to John, he's reinstated. Then he goes on to be one of the major leaders of the early church. What's the difference? Well, there's only one. And that is that Jesus prayed for Peter. Remember what he said to Judas? He said, go and do what you must. Do it quickly. but woe be upon he who betrays the Son of Man. Peter betrayed him too, and he did suffer for it, except Jesus prayed for Peter. In essence, you find Jesus in Luke chapter 22 living out what he says in Matthew 6 we ought to be praying for. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Well, Jesus was the one by the power of God that delivered Peter from his failure, that delivered Peter from the evil one when the evil one wanted to sift him like wheat. Again, we don't serve a because I told you so God, we serve a God who says what he means and means what he says and lives out his promises. So what's your devotional thought for today? What's your so what moment? I don't know what you're going through, I know that all of us face temptation. And I know that we all need the Lord to help us to stand up under it. Temptation takes various forms. Sometimes that temptation is to do things that we shouldn't do. Sometimes that temptation is to conclude that we don't need to do anything at all. Sometimes that temptation is to use what God has given us improperly. And sometimes that temptation is to not do anything with what God has given to us. We get parables along the entire spectrum, don't we? Don't forget to pray this final petition of the Lord's Prayer, asking God to lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from the evil one who would surely have you were it not for the power of Jesus Christ given through the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Our God and our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Please give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we've forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation. Father, as we pray today, deliver us from the evil one, because we want to do what you want us to do. But apart from your power, we're done, we're toast. We need you, Father. So please guide us, and we pray it all in Christ's name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., and then maybe we'll talk, I haven't decided yet, I'm working on it, still working on things, maybe we'll talk about that little thing that we have added on at the end and where it came from, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen. Indeed, these things are true, but that's not in Matthew 6 for me, where do we get it? Well, we'll talk about that tomorrow. Until then, have a great Thursday or whatever day it happens to be. And if you got questions about where to go in Highland County, I'm telling y'all, I've driven through all 50 states. It's one of the most beautiful drives around, and even getting there from here is great. Go through Swope, you know, back roads, it's the best. All right, Lord willing, we'll see you soon. Take care.