Lead Us Not Into Temptation
(This sermon is a shorter sermon due to being delivered via Facebook/Live during the Covid-19 shutdown)
Today Pastor Karenlee will be reading from Psalm 23.
But, before she reads today’s Scripture let’s take a brief review of what we have seen so far in the “Lord’s Prayer” found in Matthew 6.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed is Your name!”
- We pray to God alone …
- We come to Him in reverence and awe …
“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
- God’s will is to be the highest priority in our lives just as it is in heaven
“Give us this day our daily bread …”
- God is the source of all we need; we should trust Him
- God provides our daily physical sustenance
- God also provides our daily spiritual sustenance through the Word of God and prayer
“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us …”
- God has forgiven much and we are to be like Christ
- God is serious about forgiveness
- Forgiveness goes against sinful human nature so it is hard to do
- God will help us do what we cannot do on our own
So, today we will be looking at Matthew 6:13 which says,
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
But, before we start into that, please read along in your Bibles as Pastor Karenlee reads Psalm 23.
(Prayer for help)
Why did we read Psalm 23? Well, in Psalm 23 we see that the Lord does lead us “beside the still waters” and that He does “lead us in the paths of righteousness for His names’ sake”.
Why is that important???
Many people get hung up on the first part of this verse; “And lead us not into temptation …”
Would Our Father in heaven actually LEAD us into temptation?
James 1:13 says,
“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone ….”
So if God cannot be tempted by evil and if He does not tempt anyone why would He instruct us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation?”
Now before we get into that discussion let’s state a few things we know for absolute certainty about the God we serve and worship.
- God is holy and sinless
- God knows that all of the hurt, death and destruction, both physical and relational, is due to sin
- God does not want us to sin
- God has made a way for us to have victory over sin; not just forgiveness of sin but victory over sin and the power of sin in our lives
Also, before we start let’s set up a couple of propositions:
1) the evil one temps us to sin in order to destroy our relationship with God and with others
2) the Lord allows us to be tested in order to prove our faithfulness to Him and to strengthen our faith in Him
When I was doing research for this message the main text I was using was the NIV translation but I also checked many other translations. Some of the translations had notes indicating that the Greek word used for “temptation” could also be translated as “testing”.
Let’s look at a couple of examples from the Bible and see if the person(s) involved were being tempted or tested.
Job 1:1 - 2:10
- Job “was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” - Job 1:1b
- Job was “the greatest man among all the people of the East” -Job 1:3b
o “7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 donkeys, and had a large number of servants” Job 1:3a
- Job “had seven sons and three daughters” Job 1:2
- The devil wanted to “temp” Job to curse God
- The Lord allowed the devil to “test” Job
- Job’s sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, servants and children all died on the same day - Job 1:13-19
- The only ones left were Job, his wife and the four servants who survived to bring him news of the tragedies
- Finally, “Job (was afflicted ) with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.) Job 2:7-8
- Job’s “wife said to him, ‘Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!’” Job 2:9
- Job had two responses:
o “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. (Yahweh) the LORD gave and (Yahweh) the LORD has taken away; may the name of (Yahweh) the LORD be praised.” Job 1:21
o And …
o “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. Job 2:10b
Here are the propositions we set up earlier:
1) the evil one temps us to sin in order to destroy our relationship with God and with others
2) the Lord allows us to be tested in order to prove our faithfulness to Him and to strengthen our faith in Him
Can you see where the devil’s purpose was to destroy Job’s relationship with God by TEMPTING Job to turn away from God?
Can you see where the Lord allowed Job to be TESTED to prove Job’s faithfulness to Him?
What about Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 4:37 - 5:11)
- Barnabas sold a field and brought the money from the sale to the “church” as a donation Acts 4:37
- Ananias and Sapphira also sold a piece of property and colluded with each other to bring part of the sale price to the “church” and present it as if it were the total sale price. Acts 5:1-2
- Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” Acts 5:3-4
o Ananias’ and Sapphira’s hearts were filled with satan
o The evil one TEMPTED them to lie to the church
o Did the Lord allow this as a TEST to show that Ananias and Sapphira were not truly disciples of Christ???
Here are the propositions we set up earlier:
1) the evil one temps us to sin in order to destroy our relationship with God and with others
2) the Lord allows us to be tested in order to prove our faithfulness to Him and to strengthen our faith in Him
Ananias and Sapphira’s hearts were filled with the evil one …
The evil one tempted them and they were seduced by the temptation
Was the Lord testing them?
Luke 4:1-2 and Luke 4:13 say:
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil … When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left (Jesus) until an opportune time.”
Hebrews 4:15 says this about Jesus …
“For 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.”
OK. So, let’s try to circle this all back around to the initial verse we are looking at, Matthew 6:13a
“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.”
Does God tempt us? No, He doesn’t.
Does God sometimes allow temptation to come upon us in order to test our faithfulness to Him?
Yes, it seems that sometimes He does.
When temptation comes do we HAVE to sin? No, we don’t.
That is why we always pray the second half of that verse asking the Lord to deliver us from the evil one!
There is a part of a verse that I have often heard quoted that says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
That is a half truth that will end up with you falling into sin over and over and over. If you forget the first half of the verse you are destined to fail.
So, what is the entire verse?
James 4:7
“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Submit yourselves … to God!
That is the only way to successfully resist temptation.
That is the ONLY way to pass the test.
I have seen Christians post pictures that say, “Be The Kind Of Man That When Your Feet Hit The Floor Each Morning The Devil Says, ‘Oh NO! He’s Up!'”
The devil’s NOT afraid of you! There is only One can and has crushed the head of satan and that is Jesus our Lord!
We can be certain that the Lord will never lead us into temptation.
We can be certain that without the Lord we will always be defeated by temptation and sin.
We can be certain that with the Lord we can have victory over sin.
This is a wonderful gift that comes with true salvation and being filled with the Holy Spirit. This gift of victory over slavery to sin is only for those who belong to Jesus.
Final thoughts and prayer …
