The Prayer for Protection

This morning, we're continuing our outlook at the Lord's Prayer. We are going to go to the last official petition in the prayer before the closing. And we're going to take it apart and look at it and reflect on it in a meaningful way. So we have already prepared our hearts to hear God's word. So let's open to Matthew 6, and we're gonna read from verse 9.

Jesus says to the church and His disciples, "Pray then like this: 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 also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

So far, our reading. So far in our series on the Lord's Prayer, we've seen how this prayer is roughly divided in two. We saw in the first half of the series how it's a prayer that directs focus and attention to God, rightly putting Him as our focus in prayer first, and praying for His name, His character, who He is, His being to be glorified, to be made holy and hallowed. We've sought His kingdom to come, His rule to be established. We've sought His will to be done in our lives as well as in the lives of our neighbours.

Then we've come to the second half, which is a prayer concerning us. We've prayed for our daily bread. We have prayed for our own pardon, our own forgiveness as we've reflected on doing a heart check about our relationships with others to forgive those who have hurt us, to forgive those who have sinned against us. And then this morning, we come to the third and the final petition in the Lord's Prayer. And that is our need to be safeguarded against an assault of evil that will and can severely influence Christians.

Now this last half of the prayer very nicely divides into three P's. Pastors are always looking for alliteration if they can. Three P's: Provision, our daily bread. Pardon, our forgiveness.

And Protection: deliver us from evil. It is quite reassuring in a sense that in a world which so often is very complicated, there are only three things really that I ultimately need in order to live for God's glory: Provision from Him, His pardon, and His protection. And so today, we look at this final part of the petitioning. I wanna ask us this morning, I don't know if you have thought about this or if it popped up in your head as we read, but why do we ask God to not lead us into temptation?

Is it God that causes temptation or is it Satan? When we get to the word temptation in modern English, the word is almost universally used in a negative sense. We use it to mean that there is a solicitation, soliciting someone to do evil. We reflect and we think of this very big verse in James 1:13 where we read, "Let no one who is tempted ever say I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil and He Himself tempts no one."

God tempts no one. And so we read this and we wonder then, the first thing I think of is, well, God shouldn't then be prayed to or asked for to protect us from temptation. He doesn't lead us into temptation. But then we find a really interesting passage and there's a few of them I think throughout the whole Bible. But one in particular in Matthew 4:1, where we read that at the start of His ministry, Jesus is led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit, and it says there to be tempted by the devil.

Jesus is led out by the Holy Spirit in order to be tempted. So we find this interesting dynamic at play. And again, the original language gives us actually a double-sided usage of this same word in the Greek to tempt. Sometimes the meaning of the word is definitely the idea of soliciting someone to do evil. But at other times, it can be more closely translated to "test", to "try", trial.

We see this even in the letter of James, just the next verse from that famous one I've just read before. It says, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial." The same word. We translate that as trial there. And definitely, when we read that, we see it in a more positive light, don't we? This is a refining process.

This is what God is doing to sand us down. So then how do we understand how God is involved in the temptation or the trials of a Christian's life? Well, the scholar J. I. Packer puts it in this way.

And it's a fairly sizable quote, but let me read that for you. "Temptations," he says, "are Satan's work. Temptations are Satan's work, but Satan is God's tool as well as His foe." And he quotes, obviously, Job, the story of Job there, where Satan and God had this interaction. And he continues, "It is ultimately God Himself who leads His servants, therefore, into temptation.

Matthew 4:1 is quoted there, permitting Satan to try to seduce them for beneficent purposes, helpful purposes, His own purpose rather. However, though temptations do not overtake men apart from God's will, the actual prompting to do wrong is not of God, nor does it express His command. The desire which impels to sin is not God's but one's own.

And James 1:14 says, it is faithful to those, fatal to those who yield to it. So in other words, God allows Satan to tempt. God uses that in part for His purposes. And again, there's a difference here between temptations for the Christian and for the sinner. For the sinner, a temptation will always be to sin.

They are depraved, totally depraved. They cannot pull themselves up from the mud by themselves. But for the Christian, they have the choice. And God works to refine and mature the Christian through that process. A helpful way of distinguishing whether what we're going through is either genuine temptation or an attack by Satan, or whether a refining trial or test by God, so which one is it?

Is to think of it in this way. There may be situations that we face where the exit door is clearly seen. There's an exit right there along the sides there, exit signs. We know where it is.

We know how to get there. The door has been left unlocked. When we know and we can see where the exits are, that is a test. Whenever God leads us into these kinds of situations, He clearly labels the exit route. Another famous verse that talks about this is 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.

And God is faithful. This is for the Christian. 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 may stand up under it." So this is the reality for the Christian.

The way out is marked. God provides a way for us. And so the opposite is when we don't see the exit, when we cannot comprehend, then that's a little bit more difficult. Then it may really be that Satan is trying an angle here to attack us. So temptation is not necessarily then a sin in itself.

To be tempted is not a sin. To yield to it is. To be tempted is not a sin. Jesus Christ Himself, for example, was tempted. We see in Matthew 4:1.

He was tempted by the devil. And Hebrews 4:15 makes it clear that while He was tempted, He remained sinless. So temptation and sin cannot be the same thing. Christ remained sinless even though He was tempted. So firstly, we need to understand that we can and we should pray to God for His protection over the issue of temptation because God is rightly the one who directs even our hardest moments in life.

The Puritan writes this: "God has such control over us and the tempter, Satan, as to save us from both if we call upon Him." God has such control over us and the tempter as to save us from both if we call upon Him. So does God cause temptation or is it Satan? Yes. The answer is both.

This leads to the second question this morning, or the second point rather. There is definitely a thing called spiritual warfare. Sometimes in the Reformed faith tradition, we lack good teaching on this particular area. And it's not to say that everything that our charismatic brothers or sisters teach about spiritual warfare is 100 per cent right all the time either. But I think the concept is not talked about enough.

There is an enemy and he does and will pursue God's people, His children. And his name is Satan. And therefore, when we come to this part of the Lord's Prayer, we actually have to see that this is participating in spiritual warfare. This is a prayer that is very radical in that sense. We appeal to the power of God, the Holy Spirit to protect us and to hinder Satan.

To protect us and to hinder Satan. And if the Reformed church hasn't taught much in this area, it's very ironic because Martin Luther, the great father of the Reformation, was all about spiritual warfare. Martin Luther was hugely concerned about this area in the Christian's life. He, in fact, saw Satan as his personal enemy. On certain occasions, he wrote more about Satan and demons than he wrote about the gospel or salvation by faith through grace.

In his own writings on the Lord's Prayer, his own reflections on it, Luther strongly argues that Satan is strongly resisted in the Lord's Prayer, strongly pushed back against. He says, since the devil wants his own kingdom, since the devil wants to advance his own will to be done, believers must pray without ceasing that God's kingdom would come. That God's kingdom would come, that His will would be done, not Satan's. Luther says the other petitions in the Lord's Prayer are all directed against our chief enemy, he calls him the devil.

So when Christians pray for their daily bread, we are praying against the devil who is working to take away everything that we need, not only for godliness, but for life in general. He says not only does Satan want to hurt the church and thereby undermine the spiritual order of things, but he also prevents and impedes the establishment of any kind of government, whatever is honourable, whatever peaceful relations exist on earth, he writes. Satan is determined not just to rob faith, but also to take food, to take health, to take home. Luther then prefers to translate the second half of the petition as "deliver us from the evil one."

He prefers to see it as a translation not from a general evil, but to a personal. The Greek literally writes it in this way and that's why we have the two options to translate. The Greek says, "but deliver us from the evil." The evil. And so there's translators that disagree in what way it should be translated.

That's why our more modern versions just refer to the general existence of evil as a force. But the older English, when we pray the Arts and Likes and so on, translates it as the evil one. D. A. Carson, a very notable New Testament scholar, points out Matthew's first mention of the temptation. We've referred to that as well, from Matthew 4:1 onwards. Matthew's mention of the temptation is unambiguously connected with the devil.

And so very quickly on the heels of Matthew 4, we get Matthew 6, which talks in very similar language about temptations from what is evil or the evil one. Then he also says, secondly, grammatically, the preposition which is used "deliver us from," the preposition apo, from, usually refers to persons, not to things or objects, this impersonal force. So grammatically and theologically and biblically, it makes more sense to translate evil as evil one.

Now you can make up your own mind about that, but I think there's some truth in that. And so Luther says, "The petition here seems to be speaking of the devil as the sum of all evil in order that the entire substance of our prayer may be directed against our arch enemy." What does this mean for us? Well, it means we should pray the Lord's Prayer very, very regularly. We think about praying for our daily needs and we pray for our daily bread.

But this part of the prayer is just as important to pray regularly. We must never think we are strong enough or mature enough to withstand the devil's strategic opposition. Luther writes, "For such is life that one stands today and falls tomorrow. Even at present," he says, "I am chaste, I am patient, kind, and firm in the faith. But the devil is likely at this very hour to send such an arrow into my heart that I can scarcely endure.

For he is an enemy who never lets up or becomes weary. When one attack ceases, new ones always arise. Therefore, there is nothing for us to do on earth but to pray without ceasing against this arch enemy. For if God did not support us, we would not be saved from Satan for a single hour." So we pray and it is radical, this prayer.

I just wanna also add this: it is a prayer for deliverance of not simply me, but for us. All of these petitions, remember, are plural, first person plural, us. So it is very important to be praying for your church as well.

It is very important that the church is praying for itself. It is very important that we meet regularly like this to pray for one another, to have an elder intercede for us. Because it's not him praying here on a Sunday morning. It is us. We all say amen.

This is true at the end of it together. So it is so important to meet regularly with other Christians, to pray for one another, to ask one another for to be prayed for. We cannot, we cannot do this Christian thing without one another. We must pray. We must seek protection and deliverance from this great arch enemy together.

So the Lord's Prayer is more radical than you first may have thought. We are actually engaging in spiritual warfare when we pray these words, asking God to help us in resisting and pushing back against the power of the dark one and His forces. And now our third and our final point this morning: this prayer helps us to reassess our weakness and to trust in Christ. We've said that temptation, in the sense of being tried and being tested, is not only inevitable, it is beneficial.

God will send trials and temptations and tests to His children in order to grow and mature them. Time and time again, the Bible talks about how God refines, like a fiery furnace, His people, refines and purifies things that are impure and imperfect in our hearts and minds, so that we will come to a greater self knowledge of who we are.

So that we will have greater humility. So that we will love more. So that we will have more faith in Him. However, to fall into temptation, as mentioned here, is to entertain and consider the prospect of giving in to sin. And this is very, this is a very real threat to us. It is so real and it is so true of our hearts.

Not only will we be tempted to sin, but we will cave in. And friend, we do, don't we? We do, again and again and again. And it wouldn't be a good Reformed sermon if I didn't pull out John Calvin too.

And please indulge me because this is the last quote for the morning. Calvin lists these really helpful categories, two categories of temptations. But if you are a note taker, write these down. He says, two spheres. So you can maybe draw yourself in the middle and two spheres on the left and on the right to the person.

He says, from the right comes temptations of riches, power, and honour, which tempt us into sinning into the sin of thinking that we don't need God. Temptations of power and riches and honour. Friend, is this us? Is this you? Have you identified this as a weakness?

Temptations from the right cause us so the right, your right, causes us to overwork. It causes us to be obsessed with our bank account balances, of our gadgets, of our jewellery, of our beauty. We are concerned about what others think about us. We want to be popular, and we are willing to compromise everything in order to get there. A very, very poignant example of this is the temptation to have sex outside of marriage.

God's intention is because sex often goes with popularity, the need to be desired, the need to be accepted. Can you see yourself tempted in these ways?

Have you fallen in these ways? From the left comes temptation of poverty. Calvin writes, "Poverty, disgrace, and contempt, which also tempt us to despair now, to lose hope, to become angrily estranged from God." This left side is often more subtle than the right, equally damaging, but more subtle because poverty or disgrace can often be mistaken as humility.

Whereas the right side, we are tempted to think we don't need God, we are ultimately on this side tempted to hate God. Don't need God, hate God. When poverty or hardship happens then, we are tempted to become angry, to become bitter. We may not be tempted to misuse our wealth because we don't have any wealth, but we are bitter and we are angry just the same because we don't have it and we blame God for it. This side is more subtle because it often revolves around our own thought life and our emotions rather than a very visible and practical thing like wealth or power.

Instead of desiring wealth personally, are you tempted to gossip about those who do? Are you tempted to look down on people self righteously? Do you resentfully think of yourself as a very moral person because you don't do a, b, c? And you click your tongue and you shake your head at those who do. That is what the Bible calls spiritual pride, self righteousness.

And it is also a sin. And it is also something we can be tempted to fall into. And so we have to ask ourselves on this side, do you find yourself unloving? When someone is in need, do you find yourself easily ignoring the person because, well, you've got needs yourself. And so we see this thing of both prosperity on the one hand or adversity on the other and each one brings its own set of enticements or temptations that move us away from God.

Can you see the idolatry in both creeping in and enticing us to put ourselves at the centre of the story. This part of the Lord's Prayer that we read this morning gives us this opportunity though, if we do well, if we reflect carefully, to think about those things that are in our life that are tempting us too much. And we may need to get rid of them. In fact, I would say we need to get rid of them. Praying for God not to lead us into temptation, but to deliver us from the evil one.

It's understanding that God may test us and refine us and being aware at the same time that there is an enemy that will seek to crush us. But we rest in the fact that we have a saviour who was tempted in every way and yet was without sin. We have the trust and the reassurance when we come to this part of the prayer that Jesus Christ resisted on our behalf as well. Yes, we are going to be tempted, and yes, we are going to fall again and again.

The only reason we can keep returning to God in the first place, and like we've said all along, keep praying "our Father in heaven, my Father," the only reason we can do that is because of our saviour who resisted the afflictions and the temptations of the evil one Himself. When He was led by the Spirit, sovereignly by God the Father, into the wilderness, He perfectly passed those temptations, those trials. A saviour tempted by Satan personally and yet never giving in. Jesus was the perfect person that we could never be.

And yet He wasn't simply perfect for Himself. He was perfect on our behalf, standing in our place, resisting Satan for our cause. Friend, we will fail and we might fail often, often, but He is not and He will not. We have the strength to resist the attacks of Satan because when we look at Him, we see strength.

When we consider His victory over sin and Satan on that cross, we see victory and power over our own sin and we find strength to resist. The Spirit working in us, hallelujah, is the same Spirit that led Christ and gave Him strength. The same Spirit is alive in us. Yes, you can have victory over that sin.

Yes, you can. Even the most ingrained sin, even the sin that you've fallen into a thousand times, because you, Christian, you can pray, "Father, lead me not into this temptation, but deliver me from my arch enemy." Let's pray.

Fragile and scared and exposed to the elements are we, O God. Like sheep huddled together in the midst of a storm, much afflicted, sorely tested and tried. O God, Your church is in such need of Your deliverance. But we thank You, God, that You have shown Your power before. You have shown Your power in the past.

O God, we've seen glimpses of it in our lives. And so, Lord, we know and we trust that You can and that You will deliver us from the evil one. Lord Jesus, heavenly Father, please don't lead us into temptation. Help us this morning to see the strength, to see the power, to see the vitality that You offer us because of this wonderful news, this wonderful truth that we have been set free and that we are free indeed. For those things in our lives that need to be sorted out, God, give us the discipline and the strength.

Give us the prompting of Your Spirit to deal with it once and for all, God. For the areas that we don't even know about yet, give us the grace to realise it and give us the love and the compassion and above all, a deep affection for You, a devotion to You and Your glory that will seek us overcoming and resisting the attacks of the evil one. We thank You for our church. We thank You, Lord, that we can pray for one another in this way. We thank You, Lord, that there are elders and pastors.

There are wonderful friends and fellow believers that are praying and interceding for us without even our knowledge, without even us knowing that they know about our lives. Thank You, Lord, that You are at work in this church. We need one another like these we're we're doing. And overcome. And Father, so lead us as our good shepherd into the paths of righteousness. Amen.