Alright, we've come to the last of the six petitions in the Lord's Prayer. There's the prologue, or the preface if you will, that addresses our prayers to God as our Heavenly Father. There's the first set of petitions directed towards the glory of God, the reverence of His name. And now we come to the set of petitions that deal with us. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our debts. And then this one, lead us not into temptation or do not lead us into temptation. However, you learned it accordingly. First question that we have to ask. Does God lead men into temptation? And if not, why are we praying, do not lead us into temptation? And if we're talking about temptation to sin, and we're praying for God not to lead us into temptation, does that mean we can pray the prayer and never be tempted? And how often does that work for you? This is the one petition of the Lord's Prayer that we say, and what we mean by it is, deliver me from sin. Help me not to yield to temptation. But the petition does not say, Lord, help me not to yield to temptation. It says, don't even lead me there. But the leading is ascribed to God. Now, how are we going to put this all together? Well, before we start getting some answers, let's talk about Some Scripture verses. So, does God lead men into temptation? No. James 1, verse 13. First one there, read it. The first one who gets there who wants to read it, read it. Alright? Let no one who is tempted say, I am being tempted by God. God is not tempted with evil, nor does He tempt anybody else with evil. So, does God lead men into temptation? Well, according to James, no, He doesn't. Well, then why are we praying for God not to do something that we know He doesn't do? I'm going to get you like a squirrel in a cage for a few minutes and then we'll unwind this whole thing. To ask God not to leave us in temptation seems to me a problem with ourselves. We, in our flesh, and how sin is so desirable in many ways to us, we're asking God to please don't We can't trust ourselves with it, basically. First and foremost, in this petition, there is a distrust of ourself that if we are even tempted, we know how liable we are to sin. If you will read John Owens on temptation and the mortification of sin. They're actually two separate works. But most often you will find them put together in one book nowadays. And if you've got a tablet or a e-reader of some sort, you can find it free online several places. Google Books, CCEL, by the way, I highly recommend that spot. If you're looking for any book, ccel.org, Christian Classics Ethereal Library is what it stands for, and they've got All kinds of stuff. And if you really get into the major downloads, for a small fee, I think they give you like one week to download everything you can possibly download. So you can get everything that you have to go to a library to find from the old works, it's there. OK. I'm sorry? No, it's alright. Yes it is. You can make a distinction between what God allows or ordains, if you will, versus what he actively does by intervening in the affairs of men. And both can be attributed to God's providence. So perhaps I'm being a little bit too passive in my theology of God, but it's the idea. Is there a distinction between what God leads us to versus what God Himself does? And we'll get to that right now. Matthew 4, verse 1. Let's get some volunteers because I've got several verses here. Matthew 4, verse 1. Volunteer, Jim. And then Genesis 22, verse 1. Gene. And then 2 Samuel 24, verse 1. Matthew 4, verse 1, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The word led is even stronger. I think it's in Mark's version. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Alright, Genesis 22. Some time later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham, here I am. Alright? He has the benefit of one of our more modern versions because the word is translated as tested. But if you have an older version, it's translated as tempted. That's one of the keys of what we're going to talk about this morning. Okay? Now, let's do some comparisons. 2 Samuel 24, 1. "...and he got in the anger of the Lord and kindled against Israel. And he moved David against him and said, Go and number Israel." Alright, so Israel is in a sinful state. God's anger is moved against them. And so he's going to bring punishment on Israel. How does he do it? He moves David to commit a sin that will result in Israel being punished. Now, the parallel passage, First Chronicles 21. Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. So, in 2 Samuel 24, God does it. And in 1 Chronicles 21.1, it's Satan who does it. Does God lead men into temptation? Well, He doesn't tempt them with sin. And yet, how are we going to put all this together? Could it not be the same thing as with Pharaoh? God, at that moment, being all-knowing, wise, good, God. I know it seems too perfect to fit there. I mean, God can give any of us up to our heart at any time. Right. It's not an instance where God may have given David up to his heart's desire and used it like God always has throughout time as a benefit for his glory. Well, there's definitely the aspect here of God ordaining through the free choices of men. That definitely is at stake here. James 1.13 rules out the idea that we can ever blame God for our sin. I am responsible for it. Clearly. If I give in to temptation, that's my decision. I choose it and I will answer for it accordingly. Either in hell if I'm unsaved or through the chastisement of my father. as a believer. So I'm responsible one way or the other. And James 1.13 makes that very plain. On the other hand, these verses also make plain that there's nothing that happens that God in one way or another does not ordain or choose to have happen. In that very basic level, if nothing else, God could, through His almighty power, stop it. if nothing else. If I'm driving down the road and somebody has put up an advertisement on a billboard of a lady who's skimpily dressed, and I'm tempted to think improper thoughts about that picture. Could God have sent a tornado the night before and torn the billboard out so I didn't see it? Well, yeah. Could he have bankrupted the company? Could he have caused teenage vandals to go up there and spray paint mustaches on the woman, you know, or something? Yeah. Could have made you blind too. Could have at that moment and he could have let me drop my cell phone and I'm looking for the cell phone while driving and I don't even see the billboard. Okay. 10,000 things, ways that got, you know, He could strike the billboard with lightning. And that would teach the advertisers not to do that again. OK, Irma, you had your hand up and then I've got. I may be getting ahead of ourselves, but do we need to see this part in light of the statement that comes? Do not please take temptation, but deliver us from evil. So when I am tempted, deliver me, I will work. OK. There's a debate about how that phrase should be translated. And the reason is because the word evil is both a noun and an adjective depending on how you use it in Greek. So it could be translated as an adjective which means deliver us from the evil one. And you probably have some versions of the Bible to translate the Lord's Prayer that way. I think that the second edition of the New King James translates it, delivers from the evil one. And I know New American Standard does. I don't know about the ESV. It wouldn't surprise me. Okay. ESV just has evil. Okay. So some of them have just delivers from evil because it takes it as a noun, a generic category of evil things or evil events. I incline myself towards the latter for a reason, but I can't give you that reason just yet. Pat and then Dorothy and then we've got to chuckle along. Yes. OK, but the spirit led him. I understand. I understand. But he led him to be tempted. And what we're praying is don't lead me to be tempted. How do we put these together? Well, one, yes, absolutely. There is a qualitative chasm between us and the Son of God, is there not? That's true. If what this prayer means is God, isolate me so that I'm never ever tempted. One, it doesn't happen. We all know that because we're always tempted. Two, If you were to grant that request, what would that do to us in terms of our spiritual growth? And sometimes you're tempted, but then it's delivered from the temptation. You can pray that like you have anger and then and then and that's not right. So that's right. But I don't know. Well, yeah, but you're related to Bob, so it's excusable. I agree, but understand that this says don't even lead me into temptation. Not, when I'm tempted, deliver me. Or, if I give in to temptation, forgive me. Or, if I give in to temptation once, don't let it happen. The prayer is, don't even lead me into temptation. Alright? Now, I'm going to give you an idea from Thomas Watson, but I don't think he's right. I'll just tell you up front. He says that the verse means that we are asking God to keep us from being overcome by temptation. In other words, God keep us from sinning. The problem is that's not what the verse says. The verse doesn't say. Don't keep me from being overcome by temptation or keep me from sinning. It says, don't lead me into it. And yet we have verses like Matthew 4.1 that plainly show that God does, in fact, lead men into temptation. And Wayne, it's your turn. Yeah, I'm thinking of James, Aaron. He says, and lead us not into temptation. So how do you understand the verse and how do you reconcile it with Matthew 4.1? The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. Yes, as well as. OK. Let's kind of work this along here. One of the things that we need to point out is when Gene read Genesis 22, for example, that there's a distinction between being tempted to sin and being tempted or tested in a way that your faith is tested. Here's the problem. The Greek word is perazo in the New Testament, not in Old Testament Hebrew, but in the New Testament, perazo. And perazo means to either test or to tempt. Either one. In other words, it can mean to put you at a fork in the road where you have to choose and make the right decision, testing you. Or it can mean to actively solicit or to seduce you along the wrong path, which is temptation. And the word can mean either one. So, do not lead us into a situation where our faith is seriously tested by evil. In other words, when we say, lead us not into temptation, I don't think we are asking God, preserve me from Satan's temptations, solicitations of evil. Rather, I think what this petition is saying is this, like Abraham was tested, like Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tested, we are actually praying that God would not do that to us, not because He doesn't do it, but because the recognition that if I'm placed in that situation, I'm a frail human being and I'm liable to lose my faith, I'm liable to be tempted, tested to give up on my faith in God. Yes. And I think that's the idea behind it. The evil then is not the evil one, Satan, but it's the evil of the world. Basically, this petition, I think, is something along these lines. And this is very loose. God, you know what you did to Job? Don't do that to me. Well, I'm not going to call it a bet. But is that in any way asking God to not help in sanctification? Well, no. And I think you were the one that mentioned it earlier. It's a confession to God that I am a frail human being. When God does things like that to Abraham, go take your son, your only son Isaac, and go offer Him up as a burnt offering. Or Job. I'm going to kill your children. I'm going to take your health. I'm going to take everything you own. Your wife is going to turn against you. And your closest friends are going to accuse you of sin that you haven't done. Well, but it's both. Because Satan doesn't do a thing unless God says, ok, go do it. God didn't, I mean, the way I, the way he just said it, when I heard that and I didn't know, I would, I would say, well, you just said God told that to Job and, you know. I understand. He basically stood by and let Satan do whatever he wanted. Yes, but this, could God have stopped it? Yes. Okay. So whose ultimate decision was it? God's. Okay. Bingo. When God does stuff like that, when God takes Joseph and throws him into prison, right? In Egypt, despite being a faithful man, he gets thrown into prison for doing what's right. When He takes the Son of God, puts Him in the desert without bread or food for 40 days, and then allows the evil one to come along and say, Why don't you just turn these stones into bread? Or why are you going through all of this? Just go to the temple, throw yourself off, and when the angels bear you up, everybody will see that you're the Son of God and they'll believe on you. Right? Each of those circumstances is a circumstance in the life of what I will call an extraordinarily strong faith believer. And what we're saying in this prayer is, I'm not an Abraham, and I'm not a Joseph, and I'm not a Job, and I'm most certainly not the Son of God. And I confess to you that my faith is not as strong as theirs. Satan would love to do nothing more than, remember what Jesus warns Peter about? Take you and sift you like wheat. Jesus says, I have prayed for you that your faith doesn't fail. The difference between Judas and Peter. One of the differences. Christ said, I will pray for you. Brother. That's correct. So I'm sorry about that. That's a bad habit. Yes, I didn't mean to be distracting. If God does lead you into temptation, it will never be a temptation that will overwhelm you in the sense that you would not be able to come through it. Job came through it. Abraham came through it. What I'm saying is In this petition is a recognition that I am a frail human being and Satan would love nothing more than to throw me into some trial where I look up at heaven and I say, okay God, where are you? And then I get mad and I get bitter at God and maybe eventually come to the point where I say, okay, well I guess there is no God because look at what's happening to me. And Satan would love to do that. And this is a prayer to be preserved from the evil of the world that Satan can throw at you to overwhelm you. Let me give you some Scripture verses here. Again, some volunteers. Matthew 26-41. Jim? And then Mark 13-33. Okay, Pat? They're basically the same verse, but I want you to notice the context and what Christ is saying. Matthew 26, verse 41. Matthew 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. He has taken Peter, James, and John apart from the rest of the disciples. and asked him to pray with him. And then he goes a little space farther. He has this great agonizing prayer. He comes back and what are Peter, James, and John doing? They're conked out. They're sleeping. So, he says to them, watch and pray. What? That you enter not into temptation. The Spirit is willing. The flesh is weak. The particular temptation that Jesus is talking about here to these men is that the guards with Judas Iscariot are about to arrive. What are they going to do when they see their master arrested? Simon Peter pulls out the sword, which was intended for self-defense, not for the defense of Christ. He tries to kill the guy. The guy ducks, takes off for his ear. And Christ says, go get them, Peter. Put your sword back up. I can call 12,000 angels if I need them right now. One angel. He killed 186,000 men of Sennacherib's army in one night. What would 12,000 do? Two angels destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. He says, I can get 12,000 of them here right now. And what do the disciples do? They flee. And Simon Peter says, I don't even know who you're talking about. You know, later on, Jesus... Who? I'm not His disciple. Watch and pray so that you don't enter into temptation. There are circumstances that will come into your life that will be so testing that you will be tempted, because the two go hand in hand, to look up at God and say, I'm not sure I even believe in You anymore. But that's because we've never been tied to a stake to be burned or been threatened with our family being tied to a stake to be burned. That very well could be. Yeah, if our nation is fast becoming like ancient Rome, then don't be surprised if the treatment of Christians is the same. I highly recommend touch of a rabbit trail, but real quick, if you have not read the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, read it. And don't find just a little excerpt of what happens to Polycarp. Find the prelude to it. The prelude, if I remember correctly, is a younger Christian, a younger man, who is talking about the evils of his brothers and sisters who are being martyred for Christ. And so as an act of of faith and at the same time protest, he convinces several Christians that they should go and publicly proclaim themselves as Christians. Well, of course, they're what? Arrested? And eventually they're put into the Colosseum to be fed to the lions. The young man who starts it all, when he sees the lions, recants. I'm not a Christian. He gives up and he's allowed to leave. Yes, it would include persecution on a broad scale or of a church level or movement wide. It would also be prayer for preservation from personal trial. What happens if you go to the doctor tomorrow and find out you've got cancer or you've got a terminal disease and you're going to die in three months? Yes. Yes. In China, the underground church. Has basically they have said, you Americans, the reason your church is in such a pathetic state is because you're not being persecuted. What you need is a good dose of persecution. Because it'll weed out the fly-by-nights and the wolves in sheep clothing real fast. I was talking to somebody last week, and we were talking about the exact same thing. And when the time comes, you're going to see a lot of these churches say, well, we're really not Christian. We're just here to have our pet's life now. But, bottom line is, what this petition is saying is, I know how weak and frail I am as a human being. And every one of us in here thinks that if the guns were pointed at our head and we were told, recant your faith in Christ or die, we all think we would say, pull the trigger. But we're not there. Okay. Brother, I've got to move along or I'm not going to get done. Real quick, Mark 13, 33, and then I'll come back to you because I want to get this verse in first. Okay. In this one, Jesus is talking about the two events. He starts off talking about the event of the destruction of Jerusalem that's going to come upon the Jews in AD 70, but he's also talking about the second coming. and the trials and the tribulations that are going to precede both events. And what He is telling His disciples and He's telling us is when these things begin to happen, you need to watch and you need to pray. Because they're going to come upon you as they come upon the rest of the world, because you're in the world. This kind of dovetails with what I wanted to say. It's also worth noting that although we thank God for all the men of the Bible, Abraham and Job, but they got through what God laid before them by the power of God. I guess it's We shouldn't, you know, look at Abraham and Job, you know, as on their power, did they get through what they went through. So when we pray this prayer, our Should we also think at that moment in time when we're praying, this particular part of the Lord's Prayer, that I'm not saying that any of us are like Job or Abraham, but we don't know what God has in store for us. So if there is a type of persecution, it may come to us. We've got the guns pointed at us, or the sword before our neck. Are we to, you know, even in that instance, pray this prayer that God would, you know, even have Job and Abraham in mind. That God, you know, a time, an hour has come before me that I am being tempted beyond what I can muster, or, you know, lack of better words. So give me that faith that you gave Abraham and Job. Is that also the way we're coming to look at this? Well, yes. The passage in First Corinthians 10 about not being tempted above we're able doesn't mean that you're not tempted above what you personally in and of yourself are capable of doing. It's you're not being tempted above what God is able to do through you. In other words, it's not relying on your own strength. On the other hand, Don't rule out the idea that God prepared these men for this situation. In other words, great faith like Job and Abraham and Joseph. These aren't guys who are just casual believers, you know, who aren't meditating on the Word, who aren't praying, And they're just kind of walking along. And all of a sudden the temptation hits and suddenly God gives them what I call the magic angel dust. And poof! Suddenly they're super Christian. God prepared these men in advance. David isn't a great man of faith without running from Saul and hiding in caves for years. There's a certain preparation. The first time I went through a heart procedure. Right? I'm scared. I don't mind telling you that. You're going to do what? You're going to stick a wire up inside my heart? Yeah, I'm scared. And I was talking with one of the deacons at our church who had five of them done. Five heart casts. And beforehand I said, I'm not brave like you. He says, well, I wasn't brave like me either before the first one. God kind of prepares you as you go along. So it isn't. On one hand, avoid the extreme of thinking that these are just guys who they're not watching, they're not praying, they're not doing what they're supposed to do, meditating on God's promises, and God all of a sudden just infuses them with something miraculous. On the other hand, it's not their reason, their strength of character, you know, whatever that gets them through. It is the grace of God working in them But it's God using what He had prepared all along to bring them to that point. If you'd asked Abraham, hey Abraham, do you want to be tested about sacrificing your own son this morning? I'm sure he would have said, no, I'm not up to this. And God says, well, you are up to it by the power of the Spirit and what I have prepared you to do. Same with Joseph, David, on down the line. And Stephen, a man of great faith, Right? And for that matter, all the martyrs of the early church and of the present church. So. Yes. We're not undermining in any way God's sovereignty. God does with us as He pleases. But it is the recognition here, like Jesus says, watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation. The praying is, don't lead me into temptation, because I know who I am as a human being. And I know what I'm capable of doing. Let me, real quick, what's the difference in between tempted and tested? Same Greek word. So the concepts are connected. And remember, we're not just talking about persecution. We're talking about personal situations. We're talking about troubles that arise in your, maybe your children grow up and they don't profess faith or health issues or financial issues or whatever. where you come to a point where you say, OK, God, where are you? The circumstances of temptation, that is direct temptation, deal with sin. But the circumstances of testing are in themselves neither simple nor unsimple. Temptation, per se, is when the world, the flesh or the devil, comes to you and says, look at this sin. Isn't it beautiful? Don't you want to do that? Wouldn't this be fun? And it entices and it draws. James says what? We are tempted when we are enticed of our own desires. Right? From our own flesh. So we've got this fleshly desire and Satan, the world or the flesh, looks at that and starts coaxing you. That's temptation. Testing, per se, is being put in a situation where you must choose to believe in God and trust Him, or in some respect, to trust yourself. Of necessity, trusting yourself will also always involve sin. You can't help it. You're an employee. Your company is downsizing. You're on the bubble. You might get fired. You may not. You don't know. And now you're at this fork in the road where you begin to think, what can I do to get me off the bubble and preserve my job? I know I'll be a little less vocal about my Christianity or my views on homosexuality. I'll fit in a little better. I'm making this up. But you get the idea. I'm sorry. I'll compromise in some way. Or I'll manipulate things. I'll go Back slap, glad handle, you know, make chums with the supervisor and the manager or the vice president. I'll be their friend. I'll wash their car. You know, I'll take their kids to the park. Whatever. I'll get on their good side. I'll manipulate things to get what I want. I'll work three times as hard and completely ignore my family, but I'll have my job. Somewhere along the line, if you give in to the temptation that says, I'm going to handle this on my own, you will also somewhere along the line wind up in sin. Or you can say, yes, I'm going to be a responsible employee. I'm not going to be some fanatical Christian, but I'm going to be a Christian. I'm just going to do what I've been doing all along and I'm going to trust God. Okay, maybe my analogy breaks down at certain points, but I hope you get the idea. Okay? Why submit yourselves to your husbands? Okay, yeah, but he, God, sometimes he just doesn't listen, he doesn't think, and he makes bad decisions. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to submit myself to my husband as long as he makes right decisions and listens to me. And the husband's the head, but I'm the neck, and I'm going to turn him. So, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Well, we can either trust and obey, which is an old song that I almost picked for this morning, we can say, I'm going to trust myself. And when that fork in the road comes, if we choose trusting myself, we will of necessity choose sin. Christians do the same thing in all kinds of situations. OK. Temptation may come under a variety of circumstances. Testing comes under difficult circumstances. In particular, temptation can be, I'm driving down the highway, right? Testing specifically refers to a difficult circumstance that is putting my faith in God to the test. Finally, temptation is directly aimed at a particular sin now. You're hungry, you're standing in the checkout line at Walmart, the cashier isn't watching and there's a Snickers bar right there and you know you can grab that thing and eat it before she sees it and you won't even have to pay for it. You know, maybe husbands, your wife sent you to Walmart to buy five things, you forgot your credit cards, your wallet, you've got just enough cash to buy the five things and you don't have enough money for the Snickers bar. But you're real hungry. I'm really making this one up. Okay. Temptation is aimed at now. Right now. Lust. Lie. Fear. Whatever. Right now at the moment. Testing is aimed at your overall faith and trust in God. It's not just now. It's the course of your life that's at stake. It does involve a temptation, but that's the direction it goes. So why pray? If we pray, does that mean it won't happen? Well, no. It does happen. But we're praying because we understand how fragile our faith is. If God doesn't uphold us in our faith, we would all deny the faith. Prayer is a means that God uses to bestow the very thing He has ordained to give. So, He promises to preserve us. There's no temptation taking you, but such is His common demand. But, how does He preserve us? Through prayers. Christ, in John 17. He prays for us to be kept from the world. Keep them. Right? Why does Christ have to pray keep them if that's just an automatic thing? God uses prayer to accomplish the very thing that He has ordained to do. Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. So what do we do? When we find ourselves being tested, well, to some degree or another, all of us are probably going to face some kind of a test of our faith. It may be our dying hour. John Knox said that when he realized he was dying, he was tempted with two separate things over and over again. One, to doubt the mercy of God. And two, to plead with God, look at all the great things I've done. Surely this has earned me heaven. And this is John Knox. And he's dying out because God used him for revival in Scotland and to stand up to a queen. And he went through terrible persecutions and trials. All of us somewhere along the line are probably going to have our faith tested. Do not be presumptuous about danger. Have you asked God to preserve your faith? Don't assume that you're going to skate through it. No problem. I got this, God. You put me back there where Abraham was, I'd do the same thing. I got it. Job. Yeah, I can do what Job did. No problem. Bring it on. Presumptuous sins. So, don't assume, yeah, I've got my faith. I've got this. I can handle this. That's presumptuous. If God has promised to preserve us through testing, then this test must be conquerable. That is, It allows us to actually rejoice in it. And James, who says God doesn't personally tempt you, does also say what? When you're led into various temptations, what are you supposed to do? Rejoice. When your faith is being tried, and James is writing to people who lost their homes, whose family members, some may have been tortured to death, executed for their faith. They've had to leave Jerusalem, Israel, and they're living on the outskirts of the Roman Empire where things are really rough, barbaric, bare subsistence. And he's telling them, rejoice in having your faith tested. So, if God has promised to preserve us, then yes, when the test does come, it is not above what we are able. We can even rejoice in it. You can find out tomorrow that you've got three months to live and you can look up to heaven and say, may God be praised. You can do that. by a miracle of grace. But don't presume that your faith is going to hold through temptations. Watch and pray. Does that mean a Christian loses their salvation? No. I think it means that there are people who think they have faith and they go through the testing and find out they don't really have it. Let's close in a word of prayer this morning then. Father in Heaven, we confess to You that our faith now is padded and comforted. We meet this morning in a carpeted, air-conditioned building, free to us and free without the worry of persecution. Father, we are enjoying our health, our life, We have great luxuries at home. Father, we have conveniences that most of the kings of the earth in history have never had. And we enjoy them freely as a normal part of our life. We are at ease and we confess we are too much at ease in many ways. So, Father, we are not tested and battle hardened Christians. We pray, Father, that You would have mercy upon us. Satan desires to sift us as wheat, to destroy us. Father, we pray that our faith would be genuine and preserved by Your mercy and compassion through the presence of Your Spirit and through the prayers of Your own Son, Jesus Christ, on our behalf. Bless us to this end, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.