Get Prayed Up!
Intro: We are in a battle. Expect hardships, the necessity of discipline, self-denial and determination. ****Am I a soldier of the Cross?****
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Mat 26:41)
I. Willing Spirits
a. Evidenced by following Christ (forsaking the world)
i. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Mat 6:24)
ii. Jesus repeatedly warned people away from following Him
1. To the scribe: “the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head”
2. One wanted to bury his father
3. One wanted to bid farewell to his family
4. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. (Luk 14:33)
b. Empty reasons to go contrary to His will
i. Pleasure for a season
ii. “Personal gain” at the expense of others
iii. Peace with those around me
c. Every reason to be eager to do God’s will
i. Perfectly knowing
ii. Perfectly wise
iii. Perfectly loving
II. Weak Flesh
a. Evidenced by Paul’s statement:
i. But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1Co 9:27)
b. Evidenced by failures of godly men and women
i. Biblical examples…
1. Moses struck the rock
2. David – I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments. (Psa 119:176)
3. Judas
a. Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. (Psa 41:9)
4. Peter
ii. Modern examples…
1. TV preachers
2. National Association of Evangelicals head
c. Evidenced by our lack or prayer, Bible reading and Christian service
d. Evidenced by our willful sin subsequent to salvation
III. Watching and Prayer Needful
a. Be discriminating
i. Beware of little sins. A germ can kill you as well as an elephant – and it is harder to dodge.
ii. whether I sell my Saviour for thirty pence with Judas, or for half I am worth with Ananias; whether I go to hell for one sin, or for many.(Bishop Henshaw.)
b. Know your strengths and weaknesses
i. Make no provision for the flesh
1. Joseph refused to lie by her
a. And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. (Gen 39:10)
2. Don’t smell the fruit!
3. The Bible teaches that sin is a display of a lack of love for God
4. Fear God and expect consequences for sin
a. Blessings taken away, curses given, keeps a person out of Heaven and is the source of sorrow, shame, disease and death.
b. Moses was kept out of the promised land
ii. Learn from the failures of others
1. Uriah did right – he had just come from battle
a. Overcoming the obstacles to prayer makes us stronger
2. David sinned – he had been relaxing
a. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. (Eze 16:49)
c. Pray
i. Watching is not enough by itself
1. Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
ii. Spend time in communication with God
iii. God is holy
iv. Prayer makes us holy
1. Temptation loses its power when you are in love with Jesus
d. When the temptation comes its too late to pray
i. Temptations and trials should be expected
ii. Peter’s failure
e. God is faithful
i. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1Co 10:13)
ii. Peter was restored
1. Lovest thou me? (Joh 21:15)
Christian caution: — Who sleeps by a magazine of gunpowder needs to
take care even of sparks. Who walks on ice, let him not go star-gazing, but look to his feet, and take care of falling. “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation,” is a warning which no good man should disregard. (Sunday Teacher’s Treasury.)
