“13 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
My guess is that you prefer peace to conflict. My guess is that you would be dismayed to learn that you had an enemy. My guess is that you would want to make peace with this person.
The fact of the matter is that you do have an enemy. This enemy hates you, specifically you. You have an enemy who has your worst interest at heart. It gets worse. You have not one but three such enemies.
Imagine if you knew that three people in Inwood despised you. Would you walk around town a bit differently? You do have three enemies who are working diligently towards your destruction: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
If you are relieved that I’m not talking about humans who hate you, don’t be. Your flesh is a far worse enemy than any neighbor could ever be. The devil can ruin your life in ways the most sadistic woman alive could hardly imagine. Having one family in Inwood hate you pales in comparison with having the world hate you. If you are a Christian, you are in a pitched battle against these three and each of them is gunning for you.
Now you prefer peace to conflict. You want peace with everyone, but these enemies will only make peace if you surrender to them. You will only have peace with the devil if you surrender to his plans. You will only have peace with the world if you surrender to its way of doing things. You will only have peace with your flesh if you give in to it.
You have a choice. Are you going to surrender or are you going to fight these enemies? There is no other option. You will either surrender your soul to these enemies or you will fight.
You need help to fight. These enemies tempt you towards destruction at every turn. Divine deliverance from these temptations is our focus for the next three studies. This week we are going to focus on the world.
The real Christian faces real opposition from the world and must pray for real deliverance. That’s the claim of this sermon: the real Christian faces real opposition from the world and must pray for real deliverance.
We are going to study this in two points. First: the temptations of the world. Second: deliverance from the world.
First: the temptations of the world. If you are a Christian, the world is your enemy. The world will not love you. The world will hate you. Jesus told you that. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”
This world’s values and ways of doing things resulted in the crucifixion of Christ. If you want to know what happens when the way of the world and the way of Jesus meet, look at the cross. If the world rejected Jesus, the world will reject his people.
The world hates you because you don’t belong to it. “If you belonged to the world,” said Jesus, “it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
This hatred brings temptations. We don’t like being hated. We don’t like having enemies. We will be tempted to give in and go with the flow of this world. Jesus knows the world’s temptations are dangerous. That’s why he tells his church to pray, “lead us not into temptation.”
The world tempts you to surrender to its ways. The world tempts you to surrender by mocking you into submission.
Imagine that you are a student at the University of Iowa and your sociology class is discussing what it means to be male and female. A fellow student argues that the idea of male and female is just a social construct. Some so-called men are really more feminine than masculine, and some so-called women are more masculine than feminine. Another student stands up and self-identifies as transsexual. Your hand was raised to speak, and the professor calls on you. You talk about the inescapable biological differences between men and women. You argue that denying basic created realities will cause chaos. As you finish speaking, the student behind you pretends to cough as she says, ‘bigot’. A number of students chuckle.
The world is trying to mock you into submission. The world is trying to mock you into calling evil ‘good’ and good ‘evil.’ The world has always done this. We saw that in our study of Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the way of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.” This arrogant world mocks to bring us into line.
Jesus told us to expect such mocking. He told us that people will insult us, persecute us and falsely say all kinds of evil against us because of him. This mocking brings temptations. It will tempt you to hate your mocker. It will tempt you to stop letting your light shine before men. It will tempt you to fear men more than you fear God. The world will mock you and this mocking will tempt you to surrender. You need deliverance.
The world will also tempt you to surrender by shaming you into submission. The word ‘shaming’ is all over popular culture right now—body shaming, job shaming, age shaming. That’s not shame. Genuine shame has to do with morality. The world shames us by telling us that we are morally wanting.
Take the issue of gay marriage for example. This is how the shaming goes, ‘I thought you Christians were supposed to love people. I thought you weren’t supposed to judge people. You are just acting just like the Pharisees if the Bible here. What about your so-called grace?’
Shaming claims the moral high ground. ‘I am for grace, love, and acceptance. You are acting like a judgmental Pharisee.’
Shaming brings its own temptations. Shame tempts you to find your justification in what other people think rather than finding it in Christ. It tempts you to be good on your own rather than by the cross. It tempts you to be ashamed of the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation. It will tempt you to think that you are disobeying God’s commands when you are really obeying God’s commands. Shame wants you to think that you are a Pharisee when you hold others to the same standard God has for you. Shame is insidious, and it is the way of the world. The world is your enemy. It will tempt you to surrender by shaming you into submission. You need deliverance.
The world will also tempt you to surrender by impressing you into submission. The world will try to awe you into submission. The world wants you to see it as great and yourself as insignificant.
You see this in the life of Martin Luther. The world at work in the Roman Catholic church opposed Luther. Great men of towering intellect called him a heretic. Men who had ministered far longer than him told Luther he was wrong and that his errors would lead to damnation. The church he grew up revering told him that he was leading souls astray. It was hard for him not to be impressed with these impressive men and to wonder if perhaps he was mistaken.
The world works that way. The world wants you to be in awe of it. The world wants you to be impressed with it so you agree with it. The world wants you to hear Stephen Hawking say, “No one created our universe, and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; there is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either,” and think, ‘well, who am I to disagree with Stephen Hawking?’
The world project has never been much different from what we see in Genesis 11. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” The world wants you to be impressed with its glory. The world wants you to be so impressed that you don’t dare to disagree with it because who are you to disagree with the best that humanity has to offer? The world tempts you by impressing you.
The world also tempts you by promising satisfaction. Bruce Springsteen wrote about this in his 1984 song Pink Cadillac, “Well now way back in the Bible, temptations always come along, there’s always somebody tempting somebody into doing something they know is wrong. Well they tempt you, man, with silver, and they tempt you, sir, with gold, and they tempt you with the pleasures that the flesh does surely hold.”
The world tempts you by promising satisfaction if only you will follow its ways. ‘You will be rich. You will be beautiful. You will be powerful. You will be loved.’ The world’s temptations have never been all that different from what Eve faced in the Garden. ‘Take it. It should be yours.’
We all want satisfaction. The world’s so-called satisfaction will hollow you out. Proverbs pictures the way of the world as a strikingly beautiful woman and says, “the lips of the [this] woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.”
The way of the world leads to death, but it seems so satisfying. It tempts you to want what you don’t have rather than what God has given. It tempts you to want what will destroy you. The world tempts you into surrender. You need deliverance.
My hope for you is that you know how desperately you need deliverance. The Son of God thinks you desperately need deliverance and so he teaches you to pray.
Do you think you need to pray for deliverance? If you don’t think you need to pray to face the world’s temptations, my guess is that you have already surrendered to the world. My fear is that we might have some souls here this morning who have made peace with the world and also think they can belong to Jesus. You can’t belong to both. Jesus said, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” John said, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.”
It is difficult to have enemies but if the world is not your enemy, you don’t belong to Jesus. Winston Churchill was right. “You have enemies?” he asked. “Good, that means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Is the world your enemy? In other words, do you belong to Jesus? If so, you will need to be delivered from the world. That’s our second point: deliverance from the world.
When you pray, “lead me not into temptation,” you are asking the Father to keep you from temptations beyond your ability to bear. We see this in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”
Daniel was able to move in the powerful circles of Babylon without being seduced by the world’s power. It is possible that you are not able to do so. The Father delivers you from those temptations by keeping you from such circumstances.
Perhaps God placed you in this nation because you would surrender to the hostility believers face in a place like Saudi Arabia. Perhaps God kept you from being accepted to a particular university because He knows that your apparent need for intellectual respect would lead you to surrender in that world. Perhaps God kept you from being chosen as an elder this year because He knows that there was a test that you would have been too difficult for you given other trials that were coming into your life. The Father sometimes delivers you from temptation by keeping you from the circumstances that would tempt you.
The Father also delivers you from temptation by providing what you need to withstand the temptation. That is the rest of 1 Corinthians 10:13, “when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
The Father is able to provide what you need to withstand temptation.
The Father can provide what you need to withstand the temptations of mocking. He gives you what you need by blessing you as you are mocked. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” God’s blessing far outweighs this world’s cursing.
The Father gives you joy even as you are mocked just. He did it for the Thessalonians; “you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.” This joy has been and continues to be the experience of persecuted Christians.
The Father rewards you as you are mocked. “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.” Unless you remember that God rewards those who are loyal to Jesus, you will wonder if loyalty to Jesus is worth it.
When you pray, “lead us not into temptation,” you are asking the Father to give you what you need to stand up to the world’s mocking. You are also asking the Father to give you what you need to stand up to the world’s shaming.
You are accepted by the Father and the world’s approval or disapproval means nothing. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
The truth of the gospel is power beyond what the world can comprehend or replicate. It is no reason for shame. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”
God will not shame you. He will shame the world who shames you. “Dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” One day the world will stand before the Christ and the people who walk in the ways of the world will be cast off in eternal shame. If you are part of the world, I beg you to repent. You don’t want an eternity of shame.
When you pray, “lead us not into temptation,” you are asking the Father to give you what you need to stand up to the world’s mocking and shaming. You are also asking the Father to give you what you need to stand up to the world’s attempts to impress you.
You needn’t be impressed by the world. You will overcome the world. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world… everyone born of God overcomes the world.”
Are you born of God? If so, you will overcome the world. You will overcome the world like Gideon and the 300 who overcame the Midianite army. You will overcome the world like Elijah overcame the 950 prophets of Baal and Asherah. You will overcome the world just like Israel overcame the Egyptians at the battle of the Red Sea.
Do not be impressed by this world. It will pass away. “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” Bowing down before the world in awe today is like bowing down in awe before communism moments before the Berlin Wall fell. It might seem powerful today, but its days are numbered. You will watch it fall.
When you pray, “lead us not into temptation,” you are asking the Father to give you what you need to stand up to the world’s attempts to impress you. You are also asking the Father to give you what you need to be satisfied in Him.
The world holds out false satisfaction. The world tells you that if you follow its ways you will be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. If you are going to withstand that, you need superior satisfaction. The Father offers you far more satisfaction than the world can repilicate.
Have you experienced that? If not, you are a sitting duck for the temptations of the world. God satisfies us to keep us from temptation. CS Lewis is right, “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
People who fall for the temptations of the world don’t want too much. They want too little. People who love money don’t want too much out of life. They want too little out of life. People who love power don’t want too much. They want too little. They settle for what ultimately meaningless when what is meaningful is theirs for the taking.
God tells us that sin is wanting too little. ‘“Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”’
The world cannot satisfy. God can. If the world could satisfy, then why did Marilyn Monroe die from an overdose? If the world could satisfy, then why is the world so sad?
The world cannot satisfy. God can. When you pray, “lead me not into temptation,” you are asking for Him to so satisfy you that you won’t be tempted by this world. You are asking Him to so awe you that you won’t be awed by this world. You are asking Him to so encourage you that you won’t be tempted when this world shames you. You are asking Him to so bless you that you won’t be tempted when this world mocks you.
The world is gunning for you and the world is dangerous. Do you know that you need deliverance? Do you ask for deliverance? Jesus’ first disciples needed deliverance and so he trained them to pray, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” You need deliverance as badly as they did.
Either the world will overcome you or you will overcome the world. Only one of you will be left standing. Jesus came that you might overcome the world. Amen.