“13 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
‘I worried about everything: I worried about whether I was too thin; because I thought I was losing my hair; because I feared I would never make enough money to get married; because I felt I would never make a good father; because I feared losing the girl I wanted to marry; because I felt I was not living a good life. I worried about the impression I was making on other people… I could no longer work. I gave up my job… I had no control over my thoughts… I was tempted to jump into the river and end it all. I decided instead to take a trip to Florida, hoping that a change of scene would help me. As I stepped on to the train, my father handed me a letter and told me not to open it until I reached Florida. Since I couldn’t get a hotel, I rented a sleeping room in a garage. I tried to get a job on a… freighter out of Miami, but had no luck. So I spent my time at the beach. I was more wretched in Florida than I had been at home, so I opened the envelope to see what Dad had written. His note said, “Son, you are 1,500 miles from home, and you don’t feel any better do you? I knew that you wouldn’t, because you took with you the one thing that is the cause of all your trouble, that is, yourself.”’
I found that story in a book on anxiety. People who fight anxiety soon learn that their own worst enemy lies within. It isn’t the circumstances around them. The enemy is inside. That is true for a thousand different battles that you and I face. A vicious enemy is inside.
The flesh is the enemy within. It is a dangerous enemy. It deceives you into weaponizing yourself and against yourself. It seduces you into weaponizing yourself against others. It blinds you in dozens of ways that are so subtle that you would be tempted to applaud the flesh’s skill if it weren’t using that skill to ruin you. Charles Spurgeon was right, “Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.”
You will have to fight your flesh until the day you die. The other alternative is to surrender. Once you surrender to it, it will demand more. Left unopposed, your flesh will destroy you. You need deliverance.
Jesus knows that you need deliverance. He taught you to pray for deliverance. The flesh is dangerous. Pray for deliverance. That’s the claim of this sermon: the flesh is dangerous. Pray for deliverance.
We will study this in two points. First: the temptations of the flesh. Second: deliverance from the flesh.
First: the temptations of the flesh. The apostle Paul described the flesh this way, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Hear that again, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
If you have been born of the Spirit, you know that conflict. You know what it is like to be divided within yourself. You know the profound truth of the cliché that you are your own worst enemy.
Maybe you are here this morning and you are not a Christian. You might agree that you are your own worst enemy. You don’t know the half of it. You don’t know how nasty the flesh can be because you are not yet fighting it. The flesh doesn’t fight nasty until you fight back and you cannot fight back under your own power. If you are trying to fight sin under your own power, you are making no progress. Your flesh is tricking you. You need help from outside yourself to fight yourself. You need the Holy Spirit. That’s Romans 8:13, “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
You need to fight your flesh by the Spirit. If you don’t, you will die. John Owen is right, “be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”
I don’t want sin to kill you. That’s why I’m telling you this rather than doing a thousand other things with my life. If you are trying to fight your sin yourself, you need to recognize that your state is far sorrier than you realize. There is no hope within you. You need hope from outside you. You need the Holy Spirit. You need Him if you are not yet born again. You need His power if you are born again.
Once you have the Holy Spirit, you can fight your flesh. To fight your flesh, you must know your enemy. How does the flesh tempt you? The flesh is a tricky thing. It tempts us all, but it tempts us differently. I might be tempted to worry while you might be tempted to intoxication. The flesh then tempts you to think you are better than me because you don’t live in fear and the flesh tempts me to think I’m better than you because I’m not drinking myself drunk. The flesh kicks you when you are up, and it kicks you when you are down.
I’ve chosen four fleshly temptations that I hope will give us just the beginnings of an overview of the flesh. These four are sensual lust, sloth, loneliness, and pride.
First, sensual lust. Not all lust is sensual. Lust is just out of control desire. You can lust after anything, but when we use the word ‘lust’ we tend to think about sensual lust. I’m going to use it that way as a euphemism. Those who know, know and those who aren’t old enough, don’t.
When the apostles listed sins, they regularly started with the fruit of lust. They started with such sins for a good reason. Paul explained it to the Corinthians, “Flee sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against his own body.”
Lust has a peculiar ability to strike at the very core of you. Giving into it leads to shame. Being a victim of someone else’s lust leads to great shame. It is incredibly powerful for dozens of reasons, but one is the pleasure that God designed intimacy to give.
Lust is far more successful than we would like to believe. Studies show that seventy-eight percent of evangelical Christian men use pornography and twenty percent of women would go so far as to say they themselves are addicted to it.
I would imagine that some of us in this sanctuary right now are among that number. I am saying it because it already shames us, and I want us to deal with it. If you are giving into this temptation, you are not the only one. Sin is crafty. It tells you that you are the only one. It tells you that your pastor would be surprised and appalled that you gave into temptation. If we had the courage, the confidentiality, and the maturity we could all stand and talk about how we have succumbed to lust temptations in one form or another that the stories would quickly sound familiar and we wouldn’t feel so alone. If you are tempted by lust, you need deliverance. God can give it.
Sloth is another temptation common to man. Some of us are tempted to do nothing of value. The world is happy to feed the flesh everything it needs to be distracted and entertained so it accomplishes nothing of lasting value. Sloth tempts us to do nothing.
Sloth also tempts us to be busy doing nothing of value. Some of us are running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but how is our family or community or ourselves any better as a result?
Sloth tempts us to avoid obedience because it is costly. Sloth is quick to tempt men and women with a call to missions to stay here because it is comfortable. Sloth is quick to tempt men and women to do little or nothing for God’s glory because it would require time and energy.
Sloth is ultimately a failure to devote yourself fully to God. The man who is lazy at work is slothful. God has told him, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.” The man with a great work ethic can also be slothful if he is working long hours because he feels competent at work and incompetent with the kids. He can also be slothful if he is working hard because that’s where he gets his identity. Sloth tempts you to justify yourself by something other than Christ and what he has done for you. Sloth isn’t willing to do the hard work of learning how to rest in God.
There might be more sloth in Northwest Iowa than we dare to admit. Does sloth have your number? If so, you need deliverance.
The flesh tempts us with loneliness. Loneliness isn’t a sin, but the flesh loves to use it. Your flesh wants you isolated from others. Your flesh wants to keep you from close relationships in which you can be loved and give love. Your flesh recoils at the thought of being known. Your flesh uses shame to keep you from risking real relationships. Your flesh lies in wait so it can strike when such relationships are taken from you. Your flesh then tells you that you could never be loved again and that you are so bad at loving others that no one will want your love.
The flesh also tempts us to pride. In some ways, pride lies at the root of every sin because sin always puts me first. My flesh tempts me to think I’m a little more gifted than some random pastor in Muncie, Indiana. Your flesh might now tempt you to think you’re a little better than me because I’m tempted to think I’m a little better than some random pastor in Muncie, Indiana. Pride is exceedingly subtle.
Pride makes us slow to listen because what could others have to say that would be worth our time? Pride makes us slow to listen because we fear that we couldn’t bear what they have to say. Pride makes us quick to speak because we, of course, know the whole picture. Pride makes us quick to anger because whatever difficulty I face is obviously an affront against me because life is about me. Pride puts the self at the center. Trouble flows out of that center. James is right, “where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”
If you know yourself, you know that you need help. You need it desperately. I need it desperately. You are living with an enemy within you. Cry out with Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Jesus delivers us from the flesh. We see that in our second point: deliverance from the flesh. Jesus can deliver you from the flesh. He died in the flesh so that you could put your flesh to death. Paul explained it this way, “we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”
You, my friend, live in one of two categories: you are either live by the flesh or by the Spirit. Remember you need the Spirit to fight the flesh. That’s how God delivers you. “If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Which is it for you? Are you going to put the flesh to death or are you going to be killed by the flesh?
You don’t put the flesh to death under your own power. That is the road to both self-righteousness and to failure. You can’t put it to death on your own. You must put it to death by the Spirit. “If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
You need the Spirit. You need the Spirit badly whether you have been a Christian for seventy years or for seven minutes. You don’t mature out of this need. The Spirit is how God delivers you from the flesh. Listen to Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “I am tempted to think that I am now an established Christian - that I have overcome this or that lust so long… [that I have no reason to] fear [and] I may venture very near… temptation - nearer than other men… One might as well speak of gunpowder [developing the] habit of resisting fire, so as not to catch spark. As long as powder is wet, it resists the spark; but when it becomes dry, it is ready to explode at the first touch. As long as the Spirit dwells in my heart, He deadens me to sin… but when the Spirit leaves me, I am like dry gunpowder. Oh for a sense of this!” If you are not walking with the Spirit, you are dry gunpowder waiting for the spark of temptation.
Let’s see how the Holy Spirit delivers us from the temptation of the flesh using those four fleshly temptations—lust, sloth, loneliness, and pride.
First, lust. Without the Spirit’s help, you cannot kill this lust. If lust is your master, it will be your master whether you are single or married. Your efforts and plans cannot go deep enough to reach the roots of lust. At best you will chop of its rotten fruit only to find it popping up in a different form. The Spirit can go to the roots. “If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
The Spirit gets to the root of lust by first showing you lust for what it is. It is grievous. All sin is grievous. In his masterpiece on putting sin to death, John Owen tells you that the Spirit helps you, “get a clear and abiding sense upon your mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of the sin with which you are troubled.” Owen tells you to consider its dangers: being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, coming under a great chastisement, the loss of peace and strength, and the danger of eternal destruction. He tells you to consider its present evils: it grieves the Holy Spirit, it puts your Savior to open shame, and it is takes away your usefulness in your generation.
When the Holy Spirit delivers a man from any sin, He shows him the heinousness of that sin. Are you willing to put yourself before God so that you might see lust the way He sees it? Are you willing to look at the cross and confess, “it was this lust that held him there until it was accomplished”?
If you confess your sin for what it is, the Spirit will speak peace to you. As you confess, He will remind you that you, “have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” The Spirit will take you to the cross. The Spirit will show you the cost of your lust at the cross and it will show you mercy at the cross. Only the cross can keep you from trying to justify yourself.
The shame of sexual sin is so great that we feel as if we must deal with it alone. The Spirit most often uses a Christian brother or sister to heal this shame. “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” The shame of sexual sin isolates. The Spirit uses the community of believers to prove the reality of acceptance.
The Spirit also works to transform our deep desires. You cannot change your desires by your own power. You can’t dig that deep into yourself. The Spirit can. Ask Him to do what you cannot. Ask Him to give you His desires—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” Pray that you would desire what the Spirit desires rather than desiring what the lustful flesh desires. Pray that for all your temptations.
Human effort and wisdom cannot do what the Spirit can do. If we humans could give ourselves godly desires, Jesus would not have needed to come. People without the Holy Spirit cannot put their sinful flesh to death. What we are talking about right now is the only hope for humanity. The church is far more necessary than you might think. The Spirit lives among us to free us from the sensual lusts of the flesh and to restore to us God’s gift of intimacy.
The Spirit also gets to the roots of sloth. Perhaps you are an old-fashioned sluggard, someone who is just too lazy to do anything meaningful. Or perhaps you are keeping yourself busy that you won’t have time to do what you know really matters. Perhaps you are finding your identity in work or football or success at work because you are afraid to find your identity in Christ. You want your life to be about you.
The Spirit can change this desire. The Spirit can turn your heart to what matters so you put less priority on what doesn’t really matter. The Spirit can slow you down, so you learn to rest in Christ’s acceptance rather than prove your own worthiness.
Ask Him to do it. Perhaps He will bring a Christian brother or sister into your life to inspire you to want more. He has done that for me. The Spirit put the lives of saints like Hudson Taylor, Corrie TenBoom, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones into my hands, so I wouldn’t grow weary in doing good. He has brought me accountability partners to meet with to keep me moving forward. The Spirit knows how to put sloth to death in your life. Ask Him to do it. Do what He directs.
The Spirit also goes to the roots of loneliness. He is the very presence of God within you. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” There is an old Waterdeep song that goes, “Though I feel alone. I am never alone. You are with me.” In your loneliness, there is One who stays closer than a brother. Seek Him.
The Spirit also works against your loneliness by bringing other believers into your life and by calling you to open your heart and your home to believers. The greatest gift of the Spirit is love and you simply cannot love without relationships. If you are unwilling to risk a relationship, you are resisting what the Spirit is working to do in and through you.
The Spirit also goes to the roots of pride. He kills pride by bringing its adversary—humility. Paul made that clear when he told the prideful in Philippi that if they shared in the Spirit, they should have attitude in them that was in Christ, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant… being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Christ was humble to the point of death. Any man who can look at that cross with unadulterated fleshly pride doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ.
The Spirit puts pride to death by putting more of your focus on Christ and less on yourself. M’Cheyne was right, “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.”
The Holy Spirit puts sin to death, but don’t expect your flesh to surrender in this life. Some Christians believe that we can mature in this life to the point that we walk in perfect holiness. I think that is grievously mistaken. The Catechism is wiser when it says, “In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience.”
Are you in the fight? Are you praying for deliverance from your flesh? Do you recognize that each day of this life will be a battle, but to stop fighting is to surrender your very soul?
I want you to look around this congregation. Every one of these people has the same fight before them. Their specific temptations might be different from yours, but it is the same power of the flesh. They need deliverance. You need deliverance. I doubt we know how badly we need the Spirit.
Jesus knows the power of the flesh. He know the temptations of the flesh. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Jesus knows how subtle and vicious the flesh is. He took on the flesh so you could put it to death. He gave you His Spirit so you could put it to death. “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” Amen.