Take your Bibles, please, to the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew chapter six. We've been looking at the issue of prayer, and our series is Lord, Teach Us to Pray. We've been working our way through this, the disciples' prayer, the Lord's prayer, however you want to title it, and Jesus gives us this pattern for how we should pray. And I want to read it together, and then we'll look at the last verse there, verse 13. or part of it, and he says, therefore, in verse eight, therefore do not be like them, for your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him. In this manner, therefore, pray, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we give you thanks again this morning that indeed Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord is risen. And Father, we rejoice this morning that we have new life because he is indeed alive. And Father, we thank you for the life we have. Father, we thank you for the relationship that you have brought us into. Father, we give you thanks that we can simply call you our Heavenly Father. We have that intimacy with you. And Father, we thank you that you are a God of prayer and you invite and delight and enjoy when we come to you with prayer. And Father, we pray again this morning that you would meet with us and that you would speak to us through the words of scripture. And Father, we pray that you would work, do a work in our hearts this morning through the power of the Holy Spirit. And Father, we ask you these things, giving thanks again in Jesus' name, amen. God, our Heavenly Father who adopted us, is a God of prayer. God delights in prayer. God desires our prayer. God hears us when we pray. It must be the first priority in everything in the Christian life. In our worship, the highest priority is prayer. In our spiritual growth, it's prayer. In our ministry, it's prayer. In our service, it's prayer. In our evangelism and in our discipleship, it's prayer. That's the highest priority for us as believers in Jesus Christ. Even with all our striving and everything that we effort to do under God's leadership, it's still God who makes the actual change and difference. For example, we pray for spiritual growth, and we feed on the word, and we practice the spiritual disciplines of our Christian faith, but it's God that causes that growth to happen inside. We pray for the salvation of the souls of men, and we preach the word, we tell people about Christ, we point them to Jesus, but you know what? It's God that saves them, and God alone that saves them. We pray for the spiritual maturity of the believers. We preach and we teach and we share the word with each other. We encourage and minister to each other. But it is God and God alone that builds that maturity. God is the one building this church. Not us. He is delighted to, and He's privileged, not privileged, we're privileged. He allows us to work with Him. He invites us to be a part of that work, but He is the one that is building this church, and prayer is the key. To preach without praying is to ignore and deny ourselves the greatest power available to us in ministry. To evangelize without praying is to ignore and deny ourselves the blessings that are ours for their asking. To attempt any ministry or any service or any worship without asking God for His blessing, His strength, and His enabling is in fact the height of presumption. We are presuming that we can, by striving and effort, we can do what only God can do. What did Paul say? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. If God doesn't do the work, they're just having a nice funeral service for seeds, putting them all on the ground, filling it in, and keep on moving. Until God does His work, that's all it is. And we have to remember that we may plant, another man may water, but it's God alone that gives the increase. And this series on prayer is to help us all, and I'll add this, especially me, to see that we need to be men and women who are committed to prayer. Recently, I emailed a friend of mine that I met down in New Zealand. He lives in the mountains of Alabama, and I asked him about what we could do to see revival in this church, and this was his answer. You have to imagine the slightly southern accent. Brother Nelson, the answer to your question is validated by scripture and proven time and time again in church history. You must continue in prayer and proclamation. The weapons of our warfare are prayer, proclamation, and a godly life. The primary task of the minister of Christ is to grow in these three areas. As we do, we will sooner or later have an impact on those around us. If these three things do not produce, then nothing else will. Anything outside of these three things that gives the appearance of fruitfulness are nothing more than a deceptive work of the flesh." I hope this is helpful. And he signs off, Brother Paul Washer, in case you hadn't figured that out by now. That's his point, prayer, proclamation, and a godly life. We're in the Sermon on the Mount. We're specifically at Jesus' feet, and we're gathering in a sense right around with the disciples. If you notice back in Matthew 5, he gathers up on the mountain, and all his disciples come to him, and the people stand at a distance, but he stands there, and he teaches those men. And you and I, as we sit around with the disciples, we're listening to Jesus teach us about how we are to pray. And we looked at the prayer that he teaches, first of all, the things that are uppermost in the Father's heart, the holiness of God's name, the coming of God's kingdom, and the accomplishment of God's will. And then we looked at the three other things behind that in verses 11 and 12. First of all, we are to pray for God to give us our daily bread from heaven, which is to feed on Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be in his word, hungry for his word, and crying out to God to feed us. We're to pray secondly for God to forgive us our sin. And this morning we want to look at verse 13. We are to pray for God to preserve us from any further or future sin. And that verse is verse 13. And we're just going to look at the first two lines. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And what I want to do this morning is just work my way through the text, unpack it, explain what it means, and at the end, we're going to draw a couple simple lessons from it, all right? So first of all, I want you to notice the text itself, the context of it is after he says, forgive us our sins. Having asked and received from our heavenly father the forgiveness of sins that happens as we are as believers living this life, occasionally we fall into sin and we need to be men and women who are humble and go into God and seek forgiveness from him. And after that, we're further commanded by Jesus to pray and ask our father for prevention of further sin. It's an indication, there's an actual repentance that's going on in our life. If we have truly repented of sin, we will have a greater desire to not sin anymore. One of the ways we're knowing we're growing, we know that we're growing in spiritual maturity is, There's a deep desire in our hearts not to sin anymore, not to cause any more offense to the living God. No, the relationship will never be broken. We will still be sons of our heavenly Father, daughters of our heavenly Father, but the relationship will be strained and there'll be a coldness there. There'll be a failure in our hearts to be in the Word. There'll be a failure in our hearts and our minds to pray the way we should because that relationship, even though it can't be broken, it is strained. But we are to also look not to sin any further. There must be in each of us an ever-deepening desire to do the things that please the Lord. You know, Paul said in Colossians 1, he said this, we do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. We've been forgiven for past sin. We don't want to fall into further sin. So right after he says, pray, Father, forgive them, he says, pray this, do not lead us into temptation. Next thing I want you to notice is the position of the person praying. And I don't mean a physical position, like he's not standing, sitting, or kneeling. That's not the issue. His position in relation to the topic of the prayer he's praying. He's praying, and he's asking God before the temptation begins. Notice what he says. He says, Father, do not lead us or bring us into temptation. There's a great amount of significance in that little four-letter preposition, into. It means that the person praying is standing outside of and prior to the action. He's not within temptation, he's outside of it. Jesus with his disciples on the Garden of Gethsemane before he suffered and died, he urged them repeatedly, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Why pray before? We must pray before we enter into temptation because the source of our temptations do not play fair. Isn't that true? Temptation never plays fair. The devil doesn't announce temptation before he whispers, you know, like you're already on the metro train. You know, the next station is lust. Get off here to enjoy da da da da da. No, he doesn't do that. Not at all. The flesh doesn't give us a heads up that this is the enticement that will lead us into sin and spiritual failure and God's judgment. The world doesn't warn us of the horrors of the consequences of breaking God's law. No, the problem with temptation is we don't see it coming and therefore we must be constantly in prayer before it arrives. Let me ask you something. Is this prayer a part of your prayer life? How often do you pray, Lord, please don't lead me into temptation. Lord, deliver me from evil. Pray and plead with the Lord as a part of your life before temptation arises. In this prayer, there's also a very necessary humility, and we're so prone, aren't we, to thinking that we can handle it all by ourselves. It's no big deal, I got it, I gotta cover it, I'll just walk this way, I won't look, you know, And what's pride that builds up and says, I can do it by myself. And what Jesus is showing us is, listen, the necessary course of the Christian life is that we need to be humble before our God and cry out to God and plead, don't lead me to those places where I'll be tempted beyond what I'm able to bear. We're praying on a regular basis, even daily, for the Lord not to lead us into temptation, but to make us realize that we don't have what it takes to handle it. It puts us in a place of constant dependency on the living God, the power of the Spirit, to get through our day. Notice thirdly, We are called to pray on behalf of each other. Look what he says, and do not lead us into temptation. Doesn't say, do not lead me. He says us and our, and through the whole prayer here, he's always speaking in a plural sense. And again, it's a prayer that we're to be praying for one another. We're to pray on behalf of one another. The book of James says this, confess your sins to one another, sorry, confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Listen, the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. He's saying, listen, pray for one another. And this prayer is driving that point home to us. We've got to be a people of prayer who aren't just concerned about the things that are in my life, but I'm concerned about the things in your life, and you're in my life as well, so we can pray for each other. When was the last time you and I prayed, Father, please don't lead my, bring my brothers and my sisters in Christ into the sphere or the realm of temptation, where they'll be tempted beyond what they're able to bear. Can I plead with us all, every single one of us in this room, that on a regular basis, we pray for each other? Can I plead with you also? Find someone in this Christian life. It might be someone from another church or someone within this church or someone that you know well enough to develop prayer partnerships with. I have a few people in my life with whom I can safely share some of those sorts of prayer requests. It's not an attempt to invade each other's privacy. We don't always share the finer details of what's going on, but when we get together like that and we pray, there's a tremendous comfort in knowing that a brother or a sister is praying for you. I'll say this much as well. Brothers and sisters, pray for me. I desperately need it. Pray that I will be steadfast in prayer. Pray that I'll be faithful in the word of God. Pray that I'll grow in godliness. Pray that God will help me and will not lead me into places where I'll be tempted beyond what I'm able to bear. You pray for me and I will pray for you. And we are calling down God's strength for each other to make it through. Brothers and sisters, please know something else. I pray for you by name. The eldership of this church, when we get together to have our meetings, we spend time in prayer together. Some of the richest moments in all our discussion for the whole hours that we're together is when we stop and we go before the throne of grace and we go back and forth praying for one need after another, back and forth. This church leadership prays for you. I want you to notice next the topic of his prayer, and we'll spend most of our time here. What's he praying for? He's praying, do not lead us into temptation. The word temptation is the word perasmos in the Greek, and it's translated as one of two ways in the New Testament. This will surprise you. It's translated as either temptation or testing. And the biblical idea of temptation has a different meaning than the way we use it in our modern speech. The Hebrew idea of testing or temptation means metal refined by fire, okay? So the words masa and bahan in the Hebrew have that idea. Psalm 66 verse 10 says this, for you, O God, have tested us. You have refined us as silver is refined. So that testing, tempting idea isn't always a negative connotation in a biblical sense. Now the problem is that us in our modern vernacular, the way we use our English language, we've sort of divided them up and we've said, well, testing can be a good thing, and temptation is typically a bad thing. And so in order not to confuse anything, that's the way most of our modern translations use the word. If you go back to some of the old translations prior to the 17th century, you'll see they use those two words quite interchangeably. And the older English and the old languages Didn't see that difference, but we can make it clear ourselves how it works we think of testing is what God does in a positive sense and Temptation is what the devil does or our flesh does or the world does in a negative sense, okay? But the idea there is to refine as by fire. The Bible speaks negatively of men testing God. Numbers 14 talks about Israel and how they tested the Lord 10 different times. And in the book of Deuteronomy, it said, we must not put the Lord our God to the test. When Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness, he said to the devil, you must not put the Lord your God to the test. He was quoting that verse from Deuteronomy. The Bible also speaks positively of men testing fellow men. You ever watch some of those old war movies, the old like gladiator kind of movies? They get together in the big courtyard before the fight, and they're going with the swords and shields, and they're whacking away at each other. They're not trying to kill each other. They're just training. They're sparring together. And what they're doing is they're working away at each other to show each other where the weak points are so they can develop and strengthen their abilities in fighting the battle. And what they're doing is they're testing each other. It's a good thing that they do that. The Bible talks about Iron sharpening iron, right? Two believers get together, one's a file and one's a saw blade, and you file away at each other to sharpen each other. That's the idea. It makes us better by beating away at each other. It increases and builds our strength and our abilities and using the word of God and understanding the scriptures by doing that together. Now, pause with me, the Bible talks about God testing men. by putting them into situations where their faith and devotion to him are revealed, so all that can see what's really in their hearts. In Genesis 22, in verse one, we read these words. Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, Abraham, and you know the story. Take not thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and take ye up to the mountain of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I'll show you. That's King James, sort of, I messed a little bit of it up. But putting us into such tests, God is turning up the heat with a very positive purpose. God is testing us to refine and purify our faith and our lives before him. In Proverbs 17 it says this, the refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts. He turns the heat up to test our heart. The Bible says in Zechariah 13, I will bring the third part through the fire, refining them as silver as refined and testing them as gold is tested. He's speaking about the people of God that he's refining and testing. God is also using testing to strengthen our patience. I love patience. I pray that God will give me patience right now. And God always says, in a minute, right? He's making us wait. He's teaching us patience. God says, the Bible says in James 1, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. God takes us through testing times in our lives. They might be sickness, they might be job troubles, they might be relationship struggles, they might be all kinds of things. And what God is doing is He's testing us to develop patience in us. And God also uses testing to mature our Christian character. Listen to this, 1 Peter 5 says this, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. That idea of perfect there means bring to maturity, finish the work. And God uses testing in us to finish the work that He is doing in us to make us more like Christ. God uses testing to lead us to a greater assurance of His love. The book of Romans chapter 5 says this, it's a little bit longer, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, that's the idea of testing, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Same idea as patience. And endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You know why that works? We have the love of God in our hearts. and testing comes along and that testing develops endurance and character and so on and that gives us hope and the hope is there because we know whom we have believed. We know what it is, we will know what it is to be caught up to be in his presence and enjoy his fellowship face to face. We know right now, we can know right now what it is to enjoy the intimate fellowship of man with a living God. God uses testings to lead us to a great assurance of His love. It's when we are faithful, when we persevere, and when we endure those tests that we are approved by God. We're shown to be approved. Another problem is also true, not only does God test men, Satan also tests or tempts us. The key to understanding the difference is this, God brings men into tests with a totally positive intention, to refine and purify us, to strengthen us, and so on. But Satan brings temptation with a totally negative intention. He wants to trip us up and cause us to fall the Bible describes Satan as the tempter uses the same Greek word for temptation He's the insatiable enemy of God and man The Bible says in first Peter 5 your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion Seeking someone to devour you have time Pull up on your Bible and flip open a Job. Read the first two chapters of Job. Read them over and over again. And look at the way that Satan deals with God. He brings Job forward and he puts him under the test and God says, you can touch everything but don't touch the man. He takes away his home, his kids, his flocks, his herds, everything. Job's left with nothing but his physical body. And Satan comes back to God. And God says, you incited me against him, and look at him, he facestands. And Satan doesn't even bat an eyelash at what's gone by. He's immediately on to the next thing. He says, ah, but you touch his body and he'll curse you. And God says, go ahead, but only his life you must preserve. Don't touch his life. Sorry. God's role is to preserve a life. And so Satan is unleashed a little further. He is an insatiable enemy. If you think he'll leave you alone for a little while because you're suffering a little bit, don't kid yourself. He does not give up. Satan's desire is to get us to fall into sin and render us ineffective in our faith and our ministry. Prayer, word ministry, and godliness are the Bible's only requirements for effective ministry. Remember that because Satan's temptations are designed to do three things. Designed to hinder and destroy our prayer life. the design to keep us away from the Word of God, and the design to get us to fall into sinful habits to ruin our godliness and our lifestyle of following the Lord. Those three things are under constant attack. If Satan can stop us from praying, he's halfway home. If Satan can keep us out of God's Word, he's all but put us in the sidelines and said, useless to anything for God. And so Satan's attacks will constantly go after those three things. Satan tempts men by manipulating circumstances. Job 1 and 2 shows that beautifully. Satan tries to get us to fall into sin by crushing us under the weight of hardship and pain. And Satan urges us to do wrongful, to a wrongful fulfillment of natural desires. For example, 1 Corinthians 7. The Bible says this, do not deprive one another, speaking of a man and a woman, married, man and wife, sorry, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Marital love, sexual impotency, is a natural God-given desire that is to be fulfilled only within the bounds of marriage. And Satan tries to trip us up by having us fulfill that natural desire that God put there in a way that's displeasing, that's sinful, and against God's law. Satan tries to make us fall by being complacent and careless. The book of Galatians says this, Notice what he says simultaneously. keeping watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. In other words, don't become so complacent, don't become so careless about your spiritual growth that you see somebody else fall into sin, you're gonna go along and try to help them and you just get dragged into the same sin right alongside them. It's a real encouragement to us to be diligent in our Christian walk, to be pursuing the Lord with all our strength, to be in faithful in prayer and steadfast in the word of God. Satan also tries to make us fall by misrepresenting God's word to us. And this will come through a whole host of voices. I was telling Rick this morning in my theology class I'm doing right now, they've given us a bunch of stuff to read, German liberal theologians. I literally felt sick after I'd read some of the stuff they give us to read. It's so off the wall. The female God and stuff like this. I'm thinking, why are we reading this garbage? Satan tries to make us fall by misrepresenting God to us. Remember the Garden of Eden? What did Satan say? Has God said? And he puts it out there. And then he comes back and says, hey, listen, God knows in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And he mixes up truth and lie and just slides it out there. And he misrepresents entirely what God is saying. Do you notice, by the way, that in the gospels, that Jesus and the Pharisees were the most often banging away at each other? Do you know why? Strangest thing. The Pharisees, theologically, biblically, and Jesus were the closest of the two. The Sadducees, they're the liberals way out in left field. But the Pharisees were so close, and because they missed just some little things, they were miles away. And so Jesus was going after them constantly to correct them, and they kept challenging Jesus. It's misrepresented. It's so close to being true, but it's not exactly true, so it's misrepresented, and that's the subtle danger. And Satan tries to trip us up and make us fall by misrepresenting God to us in the voice of YouTube or whatever else that we listen or read to. So God tests men by desiring only a positive outcome, and Satan tempts men desiring only our fall and our destruction. And the key to understanding how God's testing and Satan's tempting work simultaneously comes in the phrase, into temptation, okay? Scripture teaches that God does not tempt man to sin. The Bible says in James 1, let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. God in his sovereign will occasionally brings us into situations and circumstances that will be for our testing to prove and strengthen and mature our faith. That's a good thing. Now, in those same circumstances, the devil often uses those things to entice us to sin. The best illustration of this is Jesus' own experience. If you look at Mark 1, you'll see there, verses 12 and 13, the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness, and He was in the wilderness 40 days, being tempted by Satan. So the Holy Spirit drives Jesus out of the desert, the Holy Spirit does not tempt Jesus, but Satan comes and tempts Jesus during a time of fasting, and I'm almost convinced it's a time of fasting and prayer, because Jesus is always praying when he's by himself. God, our Heavenly Father, in the same manner, leads us into wilderness times of testing. Sickness and health issues are times of testing. Job loss and financial stress are times of testing. Loneliness and marriage problems are times of testing. Loss of a loved one, ministry difficulties, they're all times where God tests us to refine us. They are not, in themselves, temptation. A job loss is not temptation. Temptation comes up in the middle of job loss sometimes, to tempt us to do something wrong. These situations and circumstances are from God, by His sovereign will, and are to be endured by us. God calls us to endure testing. These very same experiences are when we hear the subtle suggestions of the devil, enticing us to sin, the subtle suggestions of the world and our own desires. But don't forget, temptation doesn't just come from the devil, it comes from Satan, it comes from the world, it comes from the flesh. They're all working together to draw us away from God. Temptation comes from our own desires. The Bible says in James 1, that each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it's conceived, give birth to sin, and sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. Usually, The desire that brings temptation is a desire to rid ourselves of the struggle, the hardship, and the pain that God's testing work involves. Those testing times are not easy, right? God puts you in the furnace for a while. and you struggle, and the heat gets hotter, and the temptation to get out is so overpowering at times. The temptation is to get beyond, move and get away from that difficult time of testing. A marriage problem, and the relationship in your marriage is strained, and the temptation comes up and up again and again and again and again. Get out of here, get rid of the marriage, move on, move away. Testing might be a time of physical sickness, and we go through, and the temptation is to give up our faith, to put aside our trust in God, to give up reading the Bible, and we start blaming God. Well, it's all God's fault that I'm in this situation. And the temptation rears up in our heads to get us to do what? Stop praying, stop reading our Bible, and stop seeking God's blessing, stop striving for godliness. That testing time brings those temptations. And temptation will always have at its root this thing, to draw us away from fellowship and communion with God, to draw us away from obedience to God, to draw us away from continual faith. And temptation will always have at its root a desire to draw us away from prayer. Because prayer is, like I said before, I'll say it again, it's the purest form of our faith. When we cry out to God with two words of prayer, help, Lord. And temptation will get us to try and drop that. So how do we resist? How do we resist Satan's whispering temptations? The Bible says in James four, it says this, Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. We resist temptation from the devil and the flesh and the world by drawing near to God. That's fellowship in prayer. Getting on our face before God when the testing time is hard and we cry out to God in prayer for strength. By submitting to God, that's obedience. We read His Word and we do what it says. By purifying our hearts and cleansing our hands, that's washing with the Word and it's repentance from sin. All those things are what we do to resist temptation, resist the enticing words to leave our faith. Remember, God's desires in testing and refining us are to strengthen our faith, to mature our faith, to increase our faith. Remember, our desire within is always gonna be to end the hardship of testing, and Satan's desires and tempting us are always to hinder our faith, to stop our praying, to end our feeding from the word of God, and to disrupt our fellowship with God and other believers. If I would sum it up like this, I'd just two sentences, here they are. God tests us for positive reasons, so we must endure with prayer. Satan tempts us for negative reasons, and so we must resist with prayer. What's the message for us? How do we sum up what the lesson of the text is for us? Four things. Number one, we must pray for grace and strength to endure the testing. And I guarantee if I went around to every single person in the room this morning and said, what kind of testing are you going through? All of you will have something. Loneliness, financial struggle, heartache, sickness, pain, family issues, work issues, job issues. And that testing time, God is using that to strengthen you and build you up in your holy faith. Pray for each other. Pray for yourself that God will give you the grace and the strength to endure. Secondly, we must pray before temptation arises. We take Jesus' prayer, do not lead us into temptation. Then we take Paul's promise in 1 Corinthians 10 and put them together. Paul's promise in 1 Corinthians 10 is this, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. So we put those two together and we can pray like this. Father, don't lead me to the place of testing that would expose me to temptation beyond what I'm able to bear, but provide a way of escape. Third lesson is this, we must pray for each other. I cannot get over the importance of that particular point. I had a couple people phone me and text me this week when Heather's been away saying we're praying for you. We're here for you if you need anything. Can you believe how encouraging that is to know that somebody else is praying for you? We must, people of God, pray for each other. Father in heaven, please don't lead my brothers and sisters into the places, the circumstances where they will be tempted beyond their ability to cope. And fourthly, we must pray for God's grace and God's strength to resist temptation. Temptation will come. You realize, by the way, that in simply praying, we are already fighting the spiritual battle against the devil. I think the devil is no more afraid when he sees believers gathering together to pray. It's a mark and a sign of his defeat. The strength to resist is all of God and all of His wonderful grace. He will give us the grace and the strength to resist us. Ask Him. I want to finish up just by reading a couple of scriptures to you. Some of you are going through some hard times, some tests. Some of you are enduring temptation and you're struggling and you're striving to resist. I want to give you some hope from the Bible this morning. Then we'll pray. Can we have one more song, man? Just listen to this, this is Romans 8. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, all those things are testings. He writes, as it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long, we are counted as sheep for slaughter, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. No testing and no temptation, let that can separate you from God. Hebrews 2, for since Jesus himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. Listen. Lord Jesus is there to come to your aid, to strengthen you, and the reality, the beautiful reality, is he knows exactly what you're going through. He was tempted in every way, just the same as us, and yet without sin. In 1 John 4, the last one, you are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. What a hope we have, hey? Yeah, we all struggle with testing, and testing's a good thing. It develops that patience, that endurance that God wants for us in our lives. It builds that godliness so that we are effective in our ministry and effective in our lives for God. And the devil just jumps on board and begins to tempt us to draw away. And God says, no, no, no, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Would you stand with me, we're gonna pray, and then Wes will come and lead us in one last song. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, this morning we just give you thanks again for the Lord Jesus. And Father, we think about that scene, those words in the book of Mark, that the Spirit of God drove him into the wilderness. And Father, he was there alone with the wild animals, and Father, the devil came along to tempt him. And Father, we give you thanks for the great comfort of the words of Hebrews that he understands. He was tempted in every way just as we are and yet without sin. And Father, we give you thanks and we rejoice this morning that we have one who longs to come to our aid if we would pray. And Father, we cry out to you again that you would teach us to pray. Teach us, oh God, to pray for each other. Teach us, oh God, to pray that we would not fall into temptation beyond what we are able to bear, but you would deliver all of us from those situations. Father, we thank you that you are putting us all through tests. And Father, I admit, I don't like the tests. They hurt at times. But Father, I know also that I'm to count it all joy. I'm to rejoice in the fact that you are testing me and testing all of us, that you might develop endurance, that you might develop godly maturity in each of us. Father, we give you thanks that you are like the loving parent, that you are raising your children into maturity, into godliness. And Father, we give you thanks again, as Wes was reminding us earlier, that the Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. He has conquered sin and death, and we give thanks, O God. that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ. Father, we ask you for help. We ask you for strength for this church. And we commit our time to you now in Jesus' name. Amen.