We as Americans have a new enemy to fear. I’m talking of course about Osama bin Ladin, the prime suspect in the September 11 terrorist attacks. The son of a Saudi billionaire, bin Ladin has been on the FBI’s most wanted list since 1999. Bin Ladin has been targeting his terrorist actions against our nation since the early 1990s because of American support of Israel and because of our role in the Gulf War against Iraq. Osama bin Ladin is also the prime suspect in masterminding the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen last year and also the bombing of two American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. When we see the face of Osama bin Ladin, we as Americans see the face of evil.
So now this Saudi born millionaire joins a list of enemies in whom we’ve encountered incredible evil. He joins a list of names like Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, and Adolf Hitler. We tend to see these faces as the very incarnation of evil itself. You see, we in our nation aren’t used to having enemies. For most of our lives, the closest we get to an enemy is someone who treats us badly. Perhaps a boss who’s unfair or a former friend who betrays our trust. In extreme cases, perhaps someone who violates us with violence or who steals something precious from us. We really don’t know how to handle enemies like the one we’ve met this month. We’re tempted to completely and totally demonize our new enemy, as if this person were the very incarnation of evil itself. We’re tempted to miss seeing that we live in an evil world, with enemies of good all around us.
Today I want to talk about two enemies we often overlook. These two enemies threaten our security far more than Osama bin Ladin, because they’re enemies we often don’t think about. These are two enemies that move about undetected, secretly working their power of destruction.
We’ve been in a sermon series through the Lord’s Prayer, that prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray. Today we finish our series, as we get ready to launch our new Saturday night service on Saturday and start a new series called "Deepening Your Life With God." In our first week through the Lord’s Prayer, we learned that prayer begins with adoration. When Jesus told us to pray, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name" he was inviting us to a relationship of adoration. He was inviting us to approach God as sons and daughters who’ve been received into God’s family through our faith in Jesus Christ. We found that this prayer also ends with adoration, in the doxology, "For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever."
But then we moved from adoration to affirmation, as we learned to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done." Here we learned to affirm God’s kingdom will in prayers, as we learn to express our trust in God’s will. We affirm our commitment to God’s kingdom above all other governments, our commitment to God’s will above all other wills, even our own.
Then we talked about praying for our needs in the phrase, "Give us today our daily bread." We looked at the kinds of needs we can bring to our Father in prayer, the big needs and the small ones. We found that we can bring these needs to our Father and he will respond out of love and compassion.
Then last week we talked about our forgiveness in prayer when we talked about the phrase, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone who sins against us." We talked about how we receive forgiveness from God in prayer, and that we’re also expected to extend forgiveness to all those around us who hurt us. We talked about what forgiveness is and is not, and about the connection between our experience of God’s forgiveness and our willingness to forgive those around us.
Today we finish our series by talking about our security in prayer. We come to the phrase, "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one" (Matthew 6:13). In this last part of this model prayer Jesus gave us as a kind of prayer template. In this final petition we find two enemies that threaten our security and how in prayer we can respond to these enemies.
1. Security Against Our First Enemy
The first enemy is the enemy that exists within each of our own hearts. It’s like that old saying, "We have met the enemy and he is us." We find the first enemy implied in the phrase, "Lead us not into temptation." Maybe you’ve seen that bumper sticker, "Lead me not into temptation, I can find it for myself." There’s a real truth in that bumper sticker, because all of us have an inner propensity to seek out temptation in our lives.
Now by using this phrase, Jesus is not suggesting that God is the author of our temptations. It’s not as if we’re like dogs on a leash, with God walking us into a situation he knows we’re going to be tempted by. What this first phrase means is that we’re asking for protection against temptation. We’re asking God, "Lord, please protect me from the temptations I encounter in my life so I don’t blow it."
Whenever we pray this prayer we’re admitting that there’s something inside our hearts that doesn’t want to please God. We’re admitting that there’s a part of each of us deep down in our hearts that doesn’t want to be faithful to our spouse, that wants to take things that don’t belong to us, that wants to hurt people. And when we pray this prayer we’re admitting that we can’t handle that part of ourselves all on our own.
So the first enemy we encounter is ourselves, and here’s what we find about how prayer helps us in this area. In prayer we find strength to resist our urges to disobey God.
People have a tendency to think they can handle the urge to disobey God all by themselves. We figure our heart is different, that the seeds of evil and violence can’t be present in our hears, after all we’re just good, decent, church going Americans. Sure we face with a temptation here or there, but we can handle those things on our own. When we do that, we grossly underestimate this first enemy of our security. We become like one of Jesus’ friends named Peter who underestimated his own power to withstand temptation. Peter told Jesus, "Even if everyone else abandons you Jesus, I never will. You can count on me. I’m with you even if it means suffering and death." Peter assumed that he’d never be tempted to abandon Jesus, or if he was tempted in that way, he’d be able to withstand that temptation effortlessly. Peter is a lot like us in that he grossly underestimated the power of this first enemy. And Jesus warned him, "Peter, you will deny me three times before the rooster crows." And that’s exactly what happened.
Have you ever said, "I’d never be tempted to _____?" I’ve said those words, and inevitably I find myself struggling with the very sin I thought I was immune to. I’m trying to learn to avoid Peter’s kind of attitude, even though it sounds so good and spiritual to claim to be above temptation. These days, I’m not sure what I’m capable of because my own worst enemy is within my own heart.
You see, we lack the strength to face temptation alone. We’re like an electrical appliance without a power source. Can you imagine trying to cut a two-by-four with a circular saw that’s not plugged in? Manually it would be just about impossible. We need to be plugged in to the power of God for us to have the strength to resist the temptations that we encounter.
Now the question is how does prayer plug us in to God’s power source to receive this kind of strength? The first way prayer helps us is when we pray, God gives us self-control.
Listen to the words of the Bible in Galatians:
"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want…But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law"(Galatians 5:16-17, 22-23 NIV)Paul says that there’s a war that goes on within each Christian’s heart. It’s a war between what God’s Spirit is prompting us to do to obey God and what our "sinful nature" or "flesh" wants to do in disobedience to God. The Jewish people back in New Testament times believed that every human heart had an "evil impulse" in it that prompts us to rebel against God and his ways. This is what Paul refers to as the "sinful nature" or "the flesh." It’s that inclination to want to do things our own way regardless of how it hurts people, that tendency to resist the ways of God.
There is no truce or cease fire possible in this inner battle. No matter what we decide, a part of us will regret our decision. When we give in to our inclination to disobey God, the Spirit of God within us resists that decision causing regret. When we submit our lives to the direction of God’s Spirit in a decision, our sinful nature resists that decision causing regret. Either way there is a kind of regret, though of course the regret of sin carries with it far more destructive consequences than the regret of obedience.
But we are promised that the Holy Spirit gives us a number of fruit-or results of God’s Spirit-and the last result of God’s Spirit Paul lists is "self-control." This Greek word refers to "mastery over one’s desires" (Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains 88.83). It’s the same word used as a verb to describe the training that an Olympic athlete goes through in 1 Corinthians 9:25. Self-control doesn’t refer to the elimination of our desires and passions, but an ability to restrain them within the bounds of God’s principles.
Notice this strength to resist temptation isn’t totally active or totally passive. Paul’s not telling us to just try harder, to bear down, grit our teeth, and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The whole point of this prayer is that we can’t face temptation alone, that we need God’s strength because our own strength is insufficient to resist. But he’s also not saying, "Just let go and let God." He’s call us to a life where were receive strength from the Holy Spirit that we don’t have on our own, but where we make the choice to use that Spirit given strength to resist our inclination to sin. When we do that there’s a battle, but it’s a winnable battle because the self-control we use is a gift of God’s Spirit and not simply a human resource we draw from our own strength.
The other way prayer helps us is by showing us the way of escape in the face of temptation.
Listen to Paul’s words in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 10:13,
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (NIV).
Paul pictures temptation as grabbing us, seizing us like a rabid pit bull. That’s what it feels like sometimes, doesn’t it? We’re going through life doing what we need to do, and suddenly an urge to disobey God seems to broadside us, grab us by the neck, and thrust us down the road to disobedience. Paul reassures us that all human beings share this kind of experience. Even people who appear to be immune from these kind of immoral urges experience them, because they are common to the human condition. Bartenders and pastors, car salesmen and teachers, housewives and soldiers, everyone has experienced being seized by the temptation to disobey God. In fact, even Jesus himself, the perfect Son of God, experienced temptation. He stands with us as one who was tempted in all things like we are, as someone who knows what it feels like to be grabbed by the throat with an urge that seems to overpower our will. Yet Jesus stood fast and resisted the temptation, and he stands beside us in our time of temptation as well.
Although God is not the author of our temptations, God does limit our temptations. He makes sure there’s a way of escape, an exit we can take at any time. This verse is where people get the idea, "God doesn’t give us more than we can handle." Although temptation seems to seize us, God will make sure that it can’t totally overwhelm us, he will ensure that there is always an emergency exit.
Finding this way of escape comes as a result of prayer. If we think we can handle our urges and temptations on our own, we’ll fail to see the way of escape when temptation seizes us. But when we cry out to God in the midst of the temptation, God will show us the way of escape. It might be running from the scene of the temptation, or calling a friend and admitting our struggle, or changing the direction of our conversation. There is always a way of escape, but we’ll only find it when we pray in the midst of the temptation. The first enemy of our security is our own selves, that part of our hearts that resists and rebels against God.
Prayer gives us the strength to resist this urge.
2. Security Against a Second Enemy
But there’s a second enemy to our security that we need help with. We find this enemy in the latter half of Matthew 6:13, where we’re told to pray, "Deliver us from the evil one." Now some older Bible translations render the original Greek, "Deliver us from evil." But the Greek word "evil" here refers to a person, not merely to a force, so it’s more accurately translated "the evil one."
The Bible consistently teaches that there’s such a thing as Satan or the Devil. From the serpent in the Garden in the first book of the Bible to the Devil who’s throne in the lake of fire in the last book of the Bible, the 66 books of the Bible present us with a unified testimony that there is a powerful, personal force of evil in the world who hates God and is the enemy of every human being. It’s become unpopular to believe in a real Devil in recent years, with three out of five American adults believing that Satan is simply a symbol for evil In fact, half of all people who consider themselves Christians think the Devil is simply a symbol for evil.
But in the face of the kind of horrible evil we all encountered on September 11 people are changing their story. I happened to be watching the FOX news channel a few days later, and a group of journalists were agreeing that this work of terrorism had its ultimate origin in Satan. Here were a group of seasoned journalists agreeing that Satan was real.
So what we find in this last part of our prayer for security is security against a second kind of enemy. In prayer we find victory over the forces of evil in our world.
Prayer becomes for us the place where we experience deliverance and victory from the powers of evil. These powers of evil aren’t just abstract concepts of evil, but they go back to a real Devil, who is at work with numerous fallen angels in our world. The Devil and his angels are experts at exploiting human behavior to further their agenda of evil in our world. So we pray, "Deliver us from the evil one."
Now how does prayer help us against this second enemy to our security? First, prayer helps us by exposing spiritual attack.
In 2 Corinthians 2:11, the apostle Paul writes, "I did this so that Satan would not win anything from us, because we know very well what Satan’s plans are" (NCV). The context of this statement is Paul’s explanation of his decision to forgive a member of the Corinthian church who had sinned against him. Paul knows that if he refuses to forgive this person Satan will exploit the situation, by filling Paul’s heart with bitterness and perhaps by driving the person who’s failed out of the Christian community. So Paul makes the choice to forgive the person, even though it’s hard because he knows Satan would like nothing more than to exploit unforgiveness for his own evil purposes.
Paul claims to know what Satan’s plans are in this situation, and I suspect that he knows this because of his prayer life. When we’re before God in prayer, seeking deliverance from the powers of evil in our world, God helps us see the situations in our lives from his perspective. God helps us discern spiritual attack where we couldn’t see it before. Suddenly we realize that the conflict we’re having at work is an attempt of the evil one to hurt our credibility as a Christian at work. Or we realize the struggles were having at church is an attempt of the evil one to hinder the church from fulfilling its mission.
Prayer exposes spiritual attack so we can recognize it for what it truly is.
Prayer also gives us the power to resist evil. James 4:7 tells us, "So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you" (NCV).
As human beings, we’re no match for the powers of evil in our world. Hollywood likes to show us movies where people outwit demonic powers. We like seeing our heroes show the ingenuity and creativity to outwit spiritual forces of evil. But the reality is that we’re no match for the power of evil on our own.
This is why we’re told to give ourselves completely to God-to submit our lives entirely to God-and only then can we take a stand against the Devil. If we try to battle the works of darkness with our own resources, we’ll find ourselves consistently loosing.
You see, in some ways Satan is like a car thief. As a car thief goes from car to car, looking for a car to break into. If he finds a car that’s locked and has a good security system, he’s likely to move on because he knows there are plenty of cars that aren’t locked and that don’t have an alarm. When Satan finds a person who’s submitted to God and empowered by God to resist him, he’s likely to move on to another person, because there are plenty of other people who aren’t submitted to God. Prayer is the way we give ourselves completely to God. It’s in prayer that we lay our lives down before our Father, that we offer ourselves up to God as a living sacrifice. It’s in prayer that we express our surrender to our Father, to give all that we are to him.
Finally, prayer gives us victory by equipping us with resources to combat evil.
Ephesians 6:11-13 says,
"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand" (NIV).
Here we learn that the unseen realm of evil has an authority structure, a hierarchy like an army. So we’re told to put on the full armor of God, because our own "flesh and blood" resources are no match against the powers of darkness. So God himself provides us with resources to combat evil, and these resources are described as "the full armor of God." Later in the text we find that this armor consists of things like our faith, the Bible, our integrity before God, and so forth. These are the things that truly combat the power of evil in our world.
Now this section of the Bible is addressed to people who are already followers of Jesus Christ. This implies to me that "doing everything we can do to stand firm" by "putting on the full armor" is not automatic in the Christian life. This implies that its possible to be a Christian yet to not have this armor on, and without this armor, we use the resources of "flesh and blood" to combat evil in our world. And that of course is a loosing battle. You see, we’re constantly tempted to combat evil with evil, to meet violence with violence, hatred with more hatred, betrayal with more betrayal.
The key to putting on this armor so we have the resources to combat evil is prayer. In prayer we by faith put this armor on, trusting in God’s resources to combat evil. Only as we seek God’s victory in prayer are we equipped with the resources we need to truly combat the power of evil in our world.
Conclusion
So the final part of this wonderful prayer Jesus taught us to pray deals with our security. He started with adoration by teaching us to pray, "Our Father, hallowed be your name." Then he taught us to affirm God’s will in prayer, by teaching us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done." He taught us to bring all our needs to him, the big and the small with the phrase, "Give us today our daily bread." He showed us of the necessity of receiving forgiveness and extending forgiveness with the phrase, "Forgive us as we forgive." And finally we find our security in prayer with the phrase, "Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one." As we pray this, prayer gives us the strength to resist the enemy that lives in our own hearts and it gives us victory over the spiritual forces of evil in our world. Both enemies are neutralized in prayer.
Jesus gave us this prayer as a kind of prayer template. He didn’t merely expect us to repeat it again and again, the way we recite our ABCs. But as we learn to use this as a pattern of prayer, we begin to learn about the life of prayer from the master, our Savior and our King.
