SA Ep74 - Becoming a Prayer Warrior (Part 8)

Lead Us Not Into Temptation (The Protection of the Believer)

In this episode we examine the phrase “Lead us not into temptation,” where Jesus teaches believers to pray for protection before the battle begins. Rather than only seeking forgiveness after failure, this prayer focuses on prevention and spiritual awareness.

This episode clarifies that God does not tempt people to sin, but believers are called to ask for His guidance in avoiding situations where temptation is strong. It highlights the reality of human weakness and the danger of overconfidence, reminding listeners that spiritual victory begins with humility and dependence on God.

Drawing from passages like 1 Corinthians 10:13, the episode emphasizes that God always provides a way of escape, but believers must be attentive and willing to follow His leading. It also connects temptation to spiritual warfare, showing how the enemy seeks to exploit areas of weakness.

Ultimately, this episode calls believers to live with awareness, to recognize their vulnerabilities, and to seek God’s guidance daily. Victory over temptation is not found in human strength but in reliance on God’s direction and power.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Gilead Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. Have you ever been sorry for doing something, but you were only sorry because you got caught? You really did mean to speed, right? But when the officer pulled you over, oh I didn't mean to speed, officer, I'm so sorry. You only didn't mean to speed because the officer caught you. If he hadn't caught you, then you full well meant to speed. There's a lot of people like that in their daily life as well. They really don't intend to get caught doing what they're doing, but when they do, now I need help. Most people pray after they have some fall into sin or temptation. They'll fall out or they'll pray after a mistake or a failure or some regret they've got in their life. But Jesus teaches that we shouldn't do that, that we should pray before the fall, that we should have intent in our prayer life to lead us away from those mistakes, failures, regrets, things that will bring those moments in our life when we say, Man, I'm sorry I got caught. And this is the next portion of becoming a prayer warrior, is that we we ask God to lead us away from temptation. He says, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. After addressing the relationship, the authority, the worship, the surrender, the provision, and the forgiveness, Jesus now turns us to protection. We should ask the Lord to protect us by leading us not into temptation. Now, this portion can be misunderstood and has been by many people because they they will uh they have a misconception of who God is. People have been doing that for years. They they misaligned God. They did that when Christ was walking the earth. The Pharisees misaligned Christ and who he was and what he was doing. People today will still misalign God. They'll say things like, you know, who is God that he would send these babies that die in utero to hell, or that he would kill these babies, or you know, whatever it is they say. They blame God for killing these babies, or who is who is God that he would bring uh a disease like uh dementia or Alzheimer's that has no cure right now? Who is he to bring cancer upon people or send a lost man to hell? God's not sending people, he's not uh uh torturing people with disease. That was brought on by us, by mankind, by our sin. We live in a sin-stricken world. So it's not God that's just you know deciding arbitrarily who's gonna be sick and who's not. So people misalign God all the time, and this is another place where they will misalign God. Well let's say, well, well, God has led me into this place in my life, and I'm just gonna have to suffer through it. That's not what God says. James 113, the James, the book of uh uh, I guess, uh Christian maturity, very hard book. Says, Let no man stay when he is tempted. I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. So God's not going to tempt us with evil to see if we're gonna slip and fall. He's not gonna make that uh the men, let me talk to you, he's not gonna make that pretty woman walk by in the tight dress or uh uh you know barely covered skin and and cause you to you know to see to test you to see if you're gonna you know really serve him or not. It's not the way God operates. Ladies, God's not gonna tempt you. I don't know what tempts a lady, so I can't even begin to pretend to know what tempts a lady. Don't care what people in the world say today, I can't be a woman and I can't think like a woman, and I never will be a woman, don't want to be a woman. Not just anything wrong with being a woman, I just have no desire to be a woman. So I can't think like you. So I don't know what would tempt a woman, but whatever it is out there that tempts you, God is not the one doing that. So when this prayer, when Jesus is saying lead us not to temptation, that's not saying that, you know, well, if you don't pray that God's going to lead you there. No, he is asking for God's guidance. Lead me out of it, God. That's what he's saying. When he says lead me not, it's like lead me out of this God, lead me away from this God. It's a request that he would direct our steps away from situations where temptation would be strong. It's an acknowledgement, really, of our of what our weakness is. Now, that's a that's a it's a key point in this prayer. That's kind of one of those unspoken things. When you start studying the Bible, sometimes you look at things that aren't said. And this one is saying, lead us not into temptation. Well, what is temptation? I don't know what it is for you. I know I can speak in generality for most men what it would be, but you're you may have temptation in your life that I don't have, and and vice versa. For example, I have no temptation when it comes to alcohol. Not one. You can put every array of alcoholic drink in front of me. I could I could sit in a bathtub or a pool of alcohol and not ingest one drop on purpose. I mean, I guess if I was in a pool of it, I'd, you know, who hasn't, you know, gotten pool water and you know. But anyway, I I I wouldn't ingest it on purpose. I'm not tempted in one bit with alcohol. Other people can't even walk down the alcohol aisle at the grocery store. They can't, if they see the beer, they're going to be tempted. So I don't know what your weakness is. I don't know. There's there's men out there who, I mean, you better avoid being around another woman at all costs. Don't be alone with them at work, don't don't have a contact uh in your cell phone for another woman or anything else, because that is where your temptation lies. Mine is not there. Uh I was just having a conversation the other day with someone that I get so sick and tired of having everybody else's weaknesses and problems and temptations broadcast and projected onto me or to us, you know, to other people who don't deal with those things. You see, I don't deal with, I don't have an urge to find any other woman. That's not a temptation in my life. Alcohol is not a temptation in my life. I am I am very happy with the wife that God gave me. I think she is beautiful. I think she is the exact perfect woman for me because of my personality. I think God put us together, and it was, um if I could say it in cliche, a match made in heaven. I think that all the time. I've got a very difficult personality to deal with. And she is just the she is the perfect one to deal with me. And so not only does she can she, you know, does she know how to to deal with me and and uh you know sometimes my very um harsh uh personality in the in the way I say things, I'm very direct in the way I say things a lot of times. And she's just she's so m mild mannered and and laid back. She doesn't she's she is the Ephesians 5 wife. Why would I look for anything else? I have no desire. But I was just telling somebody today, I'm I'm happy in my my marriage. I love my child. I have n I have no I mean, I you know, who doesn't have a teenager? You know, you wish they all were a little more respectful and and uh grateful for things, but I think that's just part of you know teenagers, she'll grow out of it, hopefully. But I have no problem with my child. I love my church. I don't think there's a better church in in that I know of. I don't think there's a better church out there, and it ain't because of the pastor, I can tell you that right now. I know him, know him very well. It ain't because of him. I'm the pastor, by the way, in case you're just tuning into this. But we got some great people. We got a we got a great group of of elders, leaders. We've got a wonderful group of young adults, and they're just they're growing right now, not not just numerically, but they're growing spiritually, they're they're getting involved. And now we've got all these little babies popping up everywhere, just had another set of twins born to church. I mean, we got babies everywhere, they're crying. I love it. I love hearing the babies cry during service. I I wish they were crying all the time. Well, you know, just I wish they were there all the time, you know what I'm saying? I wish there were more of them. But I I'm happy with where I'm at and what I'm doing. But so many people are unhappy. Let me get back to what I was talking about. So many people are unhappy that if they're unhappy in their marriage, they want you to be unhappy in your marriage. If they're unhappy with their child and they want to be unhappy, I I I can't I hear this everyday work world and you know, where I'm I work every day and like everybody else does, and you're people, you know, bad mouthing their spouse, badmouthing their children, you know, telling everybody all their their their gossip and stuff on their own family. Why would people do that? But then they expect you to be the same way. And so if you if you're somewhere and and you speak you know kindly to someone, they think, oh, well, they're just they're flirting, they have to be flirting. No, I'm not tempted that way. I'm just trying to be nice. I'm I'm just happy where I'm at in life, and I just want to be nice to somebody else. I don't have that temptation, but because other people are tempted in that way, my my wife and I were just having a conversation. We know we know a couple that have recently got a divorce, and I I never thought they'd get a divorce, but they recently got a divorce, and it that it was because the the wife said she wanted to keep her options open for other men. I mean it w I mean I never thought that would. Some people are tempted that way, but I'm not. So I don't know what your weakness is. Your weakness may be something else. But when we pray this to lead us not to temptation, we're saying in in effect, God take me away from the weakness that's in my life. Avert my eyes, avert my my ears, avert my my walk, my my daily living. And heaven help. If if the the thing that is tempting you the most is a mainstay in your life, whether it's a job or something else, God move me away from that. I was talking with a gentleman the other day, um actually it was just this past week, uh alcoholic or former alcoholic, uh, is a saved man now. He's a deacon uh of a church, good man, good family, and uh very loving man. But he was a very harsh man for many years. And um he um he was telling me that uh I was talking with him, I'm uh dealing with someone who has uh some uh drinking issues, and I'm trying was trying to help them uh here a while back, and I was talking about it, and he said, Um, he said, Brother, I can tell you, he said from my own experience, he said, the Lord is about the only one who can help in a situation like that. And he said, whenever whenever I was uh go you know started going to church and got saved, he said, I still had that draw to alcohol. He said, I had it was it was deep inside me. And he said, I prayed and I said, Lord, you're gonna have to remove everything, every person around me that that will draw me back into that world. And he said he had four real close friends. They they drank together all the time. And he said, those four people, he said, like within just it said it felt like days, but within just a few months, he said, all four of those people moved. And not like moved, you know, two or three blocks away, like moved to another state. He said it was it was the as one kept moving and the next one kept moving, he just kept praying and said, Lord, that's one more, that's one more. And he said eventually they were all gone. It was just him and his wife left. And he said, they replaced their drinking time with Bible reading, and uh they were they replaced their bar time with prayer time. He said it was just it was the greatest thing. He said, but it took God to remove those things. That's that's praying, lead me not into temptation, take these things away from me, even if it's something that I love dearly, and then I'm at all the time. God lead me away from those things. We are tempted with sin. Jesus was tempted. Hebrews tells us that. He was uh maybe think he was in all points tempted, uh like as we are, yet without sin. There's not a there's not a temptation or an issue out there that we're gonna face that he has not already faced. But we are tempted every single day. And our uh temptation sometimes can feel overwhelming, but there is a great verse in 1 Corinthians that Paul writes. He says, There hath no temptation taken you but such as common unto man. So you're not facing anything that other man isn't is not facing. But God is faithful. He goes on to say, Who will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may able to bear it? So when people say that God won't put allow more on us than we can bear, no, he will. He don't give it to us, he don't tempt us with it, but he allows temptation. And he'll allow temptation in so much that we can't bear it. But he will allow us a way of escape that we can bear it. We can live in the midst of it. Listen to that what he's saying. God is not going to eradicate this world. Let's just go back to some of the big ones, you know, alcohol and lust. I mean, some of those are some of the big ones when people think of temptation. There's all kinds of temptations out there. But let's just use the big one of alcohol. God's not going to rid the world of alcohol. You're not going to wake up one day and all the alcohol is just magically gone because, you know, we had so many people praying, God, take the alcohol away, you know, remove it from this world. I don't want to see it. And he's just okay. And, you know, all of a sudden it's gone one day. You know, the shelves are empty. That's not going to happen. You're still going to have to live in the midst of this world where you're going to see package stores on every corner. You're going to have, I mean, even Cracklebarrow now is serving alcohol. It's going to be everywhere you go. But in the midst of that, he's going to make a way for you to be able to bear that temptation. As hard as it may be, as difficult as it is, you're going to be able to bear that, but you got to pray to God about it. Lead me not into this temptation. Deliver me from this evil. God, I don't want to look at the half-dressed women of the world. They're not all of a sudden going to show up, I mean, you know, you know, fully clothed from head to ankle with their face covered. That's just not going to happen. So what do we do? We pray, God, lead me not there. Avert my eyes, take my mind off of it. Allow me to look at my wife differently. Allow me to look at my husband differently. Allow me to see my fiance or my girlfriend in a different way that I see her more than just an object of desire, but I see her as the perfection of what God wanted me to have. And when you start seeing your spouse in the perfection of God's eyes, of how wonderful and beautiful they really are, you won't need the temptation of the other people. Are they still going to be out there? Absolutely. Am I foolish enough to sit here and say that there's not other beautiful women out there in the world? Why, I'd be, I'd be a fool of a man to say that. I think, I mean, to be personal with you, or to be to be honest with you, I think one of the one of the most beautiful things that God created was women. Here's why I say that. I've got a Bible for that. God created everything. Go back in the book of Genesis, and God created all things. You know, He created the heaven, He created earth, uh the fish and the birds and the sun, the moon, the stars, the dry ground, uh, we created uh plant life and all those things. And and then He created man. He created Adam. And that was that was good. And Adam was there and he named all the animals. And uh matter of fact, it says in chapter number two, and Largo said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a help meet for him. And out of the ground, he formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them whatsoever. Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof, and Adam gave names to all the cattle and the fowl of air and every beast. But for Adam there was not found a help meet for him, not one of those things. There was no ox, no mule, no uh no horse, nothing that that could do the work that that uh Adam needed to have a help meet. So God created what? Created woman because that was the perfection of what man needed, and after all those things that God had created, finally it was good, and I think that is why the woman is perfection in God's eyes. Because it was exactly what mankind needed to become complete. So I think there's a there's a a beautiful place for women. And I think uh after all the mountains and uh some of these exotic uh animals and things that that God had created, it still wasn't good enough, and so he created the woman. I think it's it's a beautiful thing. So I'd be crazy not to say that there's that that there's not but we can pray. God avert my eyes, show me the perfection in my spouse. Lead me not into that temptation. Allow me to fall head over heels in love with my spouse, with my wife, with my husband. This is what this uh this prayer does. It connects us directly to spiritual warfare because Satan is as a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour. He's tempting us with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, the big three. And every temptation, every sin that we have in our life can all be rendered down to one of those three areas. Every last one of them. You take any sin, you name it, you know what sin that you have in your life, the big sins that you've got in your life. I mean, we've we all sin every day, but you take some of those big sins you got in your life, whether it's you know you've you've been a cheater, a beater, an alcoholic, a uh a drug addict, uh whatever it is, lusting after other people. You take you take that sin, and it will render down to either the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the pride of life. And those three are of Satan. And we need to pray, God, lead me not into that temptation, but deliver me from that evil. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.