Sermon, October 31, 2010

Pilgrim Reformed Church

Rev. John H. Bigelow, Pastor

Sermon, October 31, 2010

The Lord’s Prayer… “but deliver us from Evil.”

Sermon text: Matthew 6:9-13

⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

”‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

¹⁰ your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.

¹² Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

¹³ And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

But deliver us from evil is the way we usually say this phrase, yet it is equally suitable to pray “But deliver us from the evil one” or “save us from the evil one.”

Last Sunday we discovered that a Christian’s temptation is essentially a contest with Satan. It is not a matter of coping with sin or self but rather more a matter of being tempted by Satan through our “self” and our natural inclination to sin. There is a tendency for us to think of sin, self, and Satan as being separated from each other. In fact, just the opposite is true. They cannot be readily divorced from each other.

What it really amounts to is Satan, appealing to our “self” as a means to get us to sin. And sin occurs when our self-will over-rides God’s will. Because of this Jesus taught us to pray emphatically, “Deliver us from evil.”

Here’s the good news! This petition can be answered positively and it should inspire our spirits to know that we can, indeed, be delivered from evil and the evil one. It stimulates our souls and strengthens our resolve to be completely God’s children. To know this is to step out of despair into a delightful walk with our Father.

God is not one to indulge in double-talk. He would not teach us to ask for deliverance from evil if no deliverance was available. He would not instruct us to pray to be delivered from evil situations if our Father was unable to do so. HE IS!

God never wants to see us succumb to temptation. He does not want to see us fall. He does not want to see us down with despair, struggling with self, and stained by sin. He wants us to grow up in strength so we can walk serenely with him in the beauty of a strong, unsullied, and intimate companionship.

Sometimes it helps us to understand temptation better if we look at it from our Father’s viewpoint rather than ours. You see, God has precisely the same attitude to us, his children, as concerned human parents have towards their children.

The human parent knows that a child does not grow up in one day. Before we walk, we crawl, before we run, we walk. We run before we leap or jump. We learn by degrees. Each stage is a testing, trying, and often tumbling time. Every step is not always a forward step. And so it is in our spiritual growth with God.

We have seen our children struggle to stand on their own feet. A few wobbles, a tentative release of the chair, sofa, or table, a fall on the floor. What does the loving parent do? Holds the child’s hand, steadies his shaky steps, leads him gently encouraging him to try it again and again. That’s just what our heavenly Father does with us.

But often the child falls flat on his face, bumps his nose or bruises his head. Does the parent beat or berate him for failure? NO! He or she picks the child up, holds him in living arms, kisses away the tears, and hugs him close. This is a picture of God, the father.

As the years roll by we watch the child going from one stage to another. He or she walks, runs, leaps and jumps to say nothing of tackles hard bikes and climbs mountains. All with a parents encouragement and guidance and they are loved all the way. The child is given every assistance to keep on trying and to keep improving, to keep on until there is success. And in every triumph, the parent shares with joyous enthusiasm.

This is how it is in our walk with our heavenly Father. To see ourselves in this way, endeavoring to mature spiritually, is to see ourselves in a new light. In all our failures, God is there to pick us up, to give us a spiritual hug and to encourage us onward.

Are we surprised, then to have our Lord include this petition in his prayer? “Father, deliver us from evil” We need to remind ourselves that no matter how often or hard we fall, he is there waiting to pick us up and restore us simply because we are his children.

Our struggles with sin and self and Satan, as seen this way, are not the terrible trials we generally think them to be. Instead, they are challenging, testing encounters that can strengthen our determination to go on with God. There are three ways our heavenly Father delivers us from evil.

1. We have already touched on the first. It is simply this: He is always there. He is always available. If we are his children his Spirit resides with us. When we come into temptation we need only to remind ourselves that he is there and turn to him. It often helps to address him out loud. Say something like, “Oh Father, this is beyond me. I really stuck my feet in it this time I can’t cope with it alone…can I have your hand?”

2. The second is really a very homespun, happy method. He endows us with spiritual common sense, through the Holy Spirit, which he expects us to use in avoiding temptation. Paul tried to help young timothy this way in writing to him in his first letter by saying, “Flee these things.”

All of us know the areas of our lives where we are most likely to succumb to temptation. We know those places and situations where we can be caught in Satan’s traps. We know the people that would most readily influence us to stray or say things we shouldn’t. If we really want to be good and strong people for God it is utter folly and sheer stupidity to go to such places or associate with such people. And if we don’t have enough spiritual strength to stay away from situations where we know we will sin, then ask God to literally invade us with his Spirit. The moment we do so in complete sincerity, we will find that he does, in fact, work in us.

3. The third method of coping that our Father has given us is the ability to battle it ourselves. There are bound to be times in all our lives when we suddenly find ourselves struggling with Satan almost without warning. What then?

Sometimes in these situations we may not be immediately aware of the Father’s presence. It may seem as if we are suddenly alone, cut off from help. Even when we call upon him we don’t hear him answer, --- or so we imagine.

Is there a strategy for defeating Satan in this situation? YES! There is. In James 4:7 we are told, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” There is a sense in which God expects his children to be brave. He expects us to counterattack Satan. Far to often we give ground to the enemy without any resistance. We simply slide off into sinning without a struggle.

When we know full well what is right and in accord with God’s wishes, we need to be courageous enough to stand for it. And we can do this through the Holy Spirit and the strength of our Savior.

We should take notice that whenever Christ was tempted, he immediately reacted by addressing himself directly to the evil. Generally the encounter was over in a matter of a few brief moments after which Christ was triumphant.

If we wish to be armed against the devil, we must equip ourselves with God’s Word. Through reading it daily, thinking about it’s meaning in our lives, and even committing it to memory, we become fit to fight, just as our Lord did.

We live in an age when it is commonplace for many Christians to attribute many of their troubles to the devil. “The devil made me do it.” Although he may be ruler in hell, he has no claim upon God’s children, nor does he have the power to tempt them except by express permission of God.

It is extremely important to know and understand this. It puts us into an enormously powerful stance. We see ourselves surrounded by the loving, eternal, constant protection of God himself.

We find we are within the great fraternity of God’s family and no one can touch us unless for our own benefit. The classic example of this truth is the life of Job. It was only by direct permission from God that Satan was allowed to tempt Job as he did. After that ordeal was over, the end result for Job was enormous benefit and blessing.

When we counterattack evil we need not feel apprehensive. To the person walking with God his Father, there comes again and again the quiet reassurance that all can be well. Our confidence lies, not in ourselves, nor in our ability to counteract evil, but rather, in the character and strength of our Father who delivers us. He honors his own commitment to us as his children and delivers us from evil.

I’ll end with this doxology from Jude verses 24-25, To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— ²⁵ to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Amen.