SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Pray then like this.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
SPEAKER_00: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: There's a famous painting in the Louvre Museum in France.
SPEAKER_00: It's not no longer there, it's in private.
SPEAKER_00: It was auctioned off and privately owned now, but for the longest time it was there.
SPEAKER_00: It's a painting called Checkmate.
SPEAKER_00: And it pictures a person playing chess with the devil under the watchful eyes of what appears to be an angel.
SPEAKER_00: This painting is meant to communicate that the devil takes his prey one at a time, that people make a bargain with the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, as books on art communicate, this painting is meant to describe that people make a bargain with the devil for their soul, and then they lose to the devil because the devil is better at chess or better strategic thinking than you imagine.
SPEAKER_00: He's a few steps ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: In 1861, General Beauregard, after the battle at Manassas, retreated down to Richmond, where he was shown an art magazine by a Richmond pastor, the Reverend Harrison.
SPEAKER_00: And the two of them studied this painting together.
SPEAKER_00: And General Beauregard thought, you know what, I have my chief of staff actually is a chess master.
SPEAKER_00: I bet he could beat the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And so the pastor said, you know, that's not possible.
SPEAKER_00: And so General Beauregard made a deal with the pastor, Reverend Harrison, that his chief of staff, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Morphe, would play the devil in chess.
SPEAKER_00: Reverend Harrison took the position of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure what I think about a pastor standing in for the devil in a chess game.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a civil war, so all ethics are off, apparently, at this point.
SPEAKER_00: And so the chess match was between this chess master who's in the Confederate Army and the pastor who played in for the devil.
SPEAKER_00: They agreed on how the pieces were set up and played.
SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, the chess master won.
SPEAKER_00: He found a way of escape, at which point the painting was auctioned off.
SPEAKER_00: No, the painting stayed for another hundred years or so, but eventually was auctioned off.
SPEAKER_00: From that, it has often been told the lesson is that you can always escape the devil's clutches.
SPEAKER_00: Our passage this morning concludes the Lord's Prayer with a plea to deliver us from evil, or some translations, deliver us from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: For some people, coming down the mountain is harder than going up the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the case this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is the descent from the top of the mountain of the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's Prayer is kind of the Mount Everest of prayers in the Bible, and we have come to the bottom of it now.
SPEAKER_00: This is our last Sunday looking at it.
SPEAKER_00: It concludes with a prayer that the Lord would deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've taken different lessons from the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I hope it's encouraged you, as we mentioned last week, to pray more simply.
SPEAKER_00: This is a very simple prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It is not complex language, it is very accessible.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go to seminary to have the Lord's ear.
SPEAKER_00: The most baby Christian has the attention of the Lord of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: That's communicated by the simplicity of this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I have heard people say they're frustrated almost by how simple the Lord's prayer is.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly a mature prayer life should be more complex than what is offered to us here.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is the opposite is communicated by this, that the most baby, brand new Christian has the same access to God as the most astute and devoted prayer warrior in church history.
SPEAKER_00: The ears of the Lord of heaven are tuned to the request of his saints, regardless of how complex their language is.
SPEAKER_00: And that's communicated by this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone can pray to the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And certainly that's one of the main takeaways from the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, we've talked about how complex the theology is behind these simple statements.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't have to have the theological nuances between temptation and testing and trials all exegeted in your mind in order to pray, Lord, don't lead me into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a whole ocean of truth that's under that's underneath, that's behind all the theology of this that is really fleshed out through your life.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a simple prayer you can pray, but the more you grow in Christ, the more mature you grow theologically, the more nuance and depth you see to this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And that really speaks to the masterful way our Lord wove this together.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, on the surface, it looks just like a kiddie pool.
SPEAKER_00: But you wave in and there's infinite depth underneath this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's simple enough for the most immature believer to pray, and it is complex enough to keep the most mature saints growing and learning in their prayers the rest of their life.
SPEAKER_00: This prayer is very God-centered.
SPEAKER_00: It is focused on the Lord, not on the self.
SPEAKER_00: It begins by remembering that God is in heaven and asking that he would be sanctified on the earth, that he'd be treated holy on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It gets to personal prayers, like give me daily bread, keep me from temptation.
SPEAKER_00: It is personal in that sense, but even the me parts of this are God-centered.
SPEAKER_00: You're dependent upon God for your basics of food.
SPEAKER_00: You're dependent upon God for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: You're dependent upon God for avoiding temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, it's also plural.
SPEAKER_00: I said me a second ago, but if you look carefully at this, it's we.
SPEAKER_00: This is a corporate prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You're not just praying for yourself, but for your church, for the brothers and sisters around you.
SPEAKER_00: This is a congregational prayer.
SPEAKER_00: People are praying not just for themselves, but in a God-centered way for others.
SPEAKER_00: There's spiritual prayer requests.
SPEAKER_00: It's less the hospital report here and more.
SPEAKER_00: How are people doing spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we need our daily food, but that's just a transition to, Lord, forgive us our sins as we're forgiving people in the body that have sinned against us.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, God, keep us all from temptation and deliver us from evil, from the sin that's in the world.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a confessional prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It has adoration in it.
SPEAKER_00: You're exalting God who's in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It has confession in it.
SPEAKER_00: You're asking for your sins to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Even the end of us, end of the prayer, Lord, deliver me from evil, deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: You're confessing that you're not good enough on your own.
SPEAKER_00: There's confession in here.
SPEAKER_00: There's supplication.
SPEAKER_00: You need food.
SPEAKER_00: There's thanksgiving in here that God has already forgiven you of your debts.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of this is wrapped together.
SPEAKER_00: You see providing grace in here, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I need the grace for food.
SPEAKER_00: Pardoning grace.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I need the grace for my sins to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Protecting grace.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, don't lead me to temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Persevering grace.
SPEAKER_00: God, deliver me from evil.
SPEAKER_00: And I say persevering grace because this is about the perseverance of the saints here.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Christian praying this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, they're learning from the Lord how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: And the end of the prayer is, God, keep me throughout the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Keep me in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Keep me away from evil.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is a trap.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is a mud pit.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is the baited trap.
SPEAKER_00: And you step in it and it snaps you, and evil can detain you, and people get lost.
SPEAKER_00: They get submerged into the pit of evil.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is a prayer that God, you would keep me in the faith the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to lose my faith.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to lose my salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get entangled by the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: If the devil attacks me, I don't want him to win.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this prayer is.
SPEAKER_00: And again, you might say, you can't lose your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you bother praying this?
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of all of this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Lord has already delivered you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Lord will not tempt you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Lord will provide you your food.
SPEAKER_00: That will happen.
SPEAKER_00: He will forgive you your sins through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: All that will happen.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the means by which it's acquired.
SPEAKER_00: It's the means by which it happens.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, pray according to God's will, which means you're praying for things that God is going to bring about.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the means of staying in the faith here is you praying that God would continue to deliver you from evil.
SPEAKER_00: This is wartime language here.
SPEAKER_00: You are leading a spiritual war.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of your life will be fought in a spiritual battle.
SPEAKER_00: This main spiritual battle in your life was not over your conversion.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it started.
SPEAKER_00: There's a war, a global war going on between God and the devil, between sin and righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And you, before becoming a Christian, were a slave of sin.
SPEAKER_00: You were comfortable on the side of sin, but now you've been ransomed through your faith in Jesus Christ, rescued, redeemed, delivered from the clutches of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: You've switched sides in the war.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: So now the devil's angst towards you is increased.
SPEAKER_00: His hostility towards you is doubled because he doesn't just view you as one of his captives.
SPEAKER_00: He views you as a traitor, as a double agent, as somebody who betrayed him.
SPEAKER_00: And so this language, deliver us from evil, deliver is a wartime word.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament makes it clear the life of the believer is a life of spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: We walk in the flesh, but we don't wage war according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The weapons of our warfare are not flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, the weapons of our warfare are divine power to destroy strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: We destroy lofty opinions raised against knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: We take every thought captive to obey Christ, ready to punish every disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice all the wartime language in there?
SPEAKER_00: We attack strongholds.
SPEAKER_00: We take thoughts captive.
SPEAKER_00: We punish the rebels.
SPEAKER_00: We are at war against divine powers in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The devil who's attacked God and rebelled against the Lord, we're at war at that level.
SPEAKER_00: It's fitting the Lord's prayer ends with a petition to deliver us from evil because if after all of the prayer, you're leading out in your life and the devil is lurking, sin is there, sin wants to master you, it wants to own you, and your prayer ultimately is about the spiritual health of you and your congregation.
SPEAKER_00: And so you're praying that God would keep you from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: This is your life.
SPEAKER_00: There's a constant threat.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is real.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is real.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture downplays sin and uses languages like bad choices or hard times or difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture minimalizes sin.
SPEAKER_00: If you attack God, you're of course attacking sin.
SPEAKER_00: If you say there's no God, you eventually run into a place where you can't define unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: You can't define evil.
SPEAKER_00: If you get rid of God and righteousness, you're no longer left with the ability to define evil.
SPEAKER_00: If you can't define evil, you're in moral ambiguity, where whatever the cultural tides are, that is good.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever is, you know, not politically correct, that is evil.
SPEAKER_00: And it becomes evil as defined by the masses.
SPEAKER_00: If you reject God, you end up rejecting a concept of evil.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to reverse engineer this and I want to remind you that God is real and righteousness is true, and there is real evil in the world, which is at war with God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the battlefield for world history, between God and the devil, between righteousness and sin, between holiness and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is real and evil is real.
SPEAKER_00: I still remember going to the uh Genocide Museum in Kigali, Rwanda.
SPEAKER_00: There's an arch there that you see when you leave the museum.
SPEAKER_00: You don't see the writing when you enter it, but you see it when you leave it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a quote from Romeo Dallier, a Canadian diplomat, who was there and helped people get out, people escape during the genocide there.
SPEAKER_00: It's a long quote.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: He writes, I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen him, I've smelled him, I've touched him, I know the devil exists, and therefore I know there is a God.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's one way to read that quote and think it's like a yin-yang kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Like if there's evil, there's got to be good, and I know there's good because I know there's evil kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's even what he means, but that's not what I mean by this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying yin yang, if there is evil, there is good.
SPEAKER_00: I am saying that the devil as a person is the adversary of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's who the devil is.
SPEAKER_00: He is the opponent of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so to believe in the devil is to believe in God, because the devil's identity is that he is the adversary to God.
SPEAKER_00: He is attacking God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, as the Word of God, the eternal Son of God, who created the universe, the universe was made through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says in Luke's gospel that he saw Satan fall like lightning.
SPEAKER_00: Satan was a created angelic being.
SPEAKER_00: Satan was exalted.
SPEAKER_00: Satan was made like one of the sons of God, one of the more exalted angels.
SPEAKER_00: Satan was filled with beauty and power and authority.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan coveted the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Satan was made, of course, on the first day of creation with the rest of the angels.
SPEAKER_00: He saw the earth and the beauty of the earth, and Satan wanted to rule the earth for himself.
SPEAKER_00: He looked at his own beauty and thought he should be treated like God.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan rebelled against God to attack the earth and take control of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: A third of the demons, a third of the angels joined Satan, a third of the angels also revolted against God and joined the devil in his revolt and plunged to the earth and have been attacking the earth ever since.
SPEAKER_00: And so, to say that you believe in the devil is to say that you believe in the one who is attacking the Lord of creation, the one who made Adam, the one who made the universe.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, to say you've seen the devil is to say you believe in God, because the devil's identity is in rebellion against God.
SPEAKER_00: Foundational to the Christian worldview is the idea that light and darkness are distinct, that light and darkness are opposites, that holiness and sin are at war, are enemies, that sin is real.
SPEAKER_00: Now, evil is not a sentient thing.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is, you know, it's not made by God.
SPEAKER_00: Evil in that sense doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: So how can evil be at war?
SPEAKER_00: Well, evil is personified in three ways.
SPEAKER_00: Evil becomes sentient, evil takes on force, it has the power to act and do things in three ways.
SPEAKER_00: So you really have three enemies.
SPEAKER_00: If you think about it this way, who are you at war with?
SPEAKER_00: You're on God's side.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you fighting?
SPEAKER_00: You're fighting three things.
SPEAKER_00: You're at war with three things: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: That's who your enemy is.
SPEAKER_00: First, the flesh, you're at war with your flesh, your own body, the passions that are in your body.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus in Matthew 12, verse 35, says, the evil person does evil, brings forth evil from the evil treasure in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so the evil person has a storehouse of evil in his heart, and he acts on evil based upon that.
SPEAKER_00: So you have the capacity to create evil.
SPEAKER_00: You can do evil.
SPEAKER_00: You're not creating it ex nihilo.
SPEAKER_00: You're not creating it out of nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You have the capacity to create evil based upon the evil that is already stored up in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart is working overtime at making up evil and storing it in the passions of your body.
SPEAKER_00: So when you want to do something evil, you don't have to invent a new evil, you just get what's already on the shelf.
SPEAKER_00: You do evil because the evil that's squirreled away inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you're warring against.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 2, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers, I urge you, abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Your soul has been redeemed by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You have passions in your body, desires in your body, things you want in your body, lusts in your body, and they are warring against your soul.
SPEAKER_00: The war between the devil and God is played out in the battlefield of your soul.
SPEAKER_00: God has ransomed and redeemed your soul, transformed your soul, regenerated your soul from death to life, brought you to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You still have your passions in your body that are fighting your soul at this very moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's the war.
SPEAKER_00: James 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it this?
SPEAKER_00: Your passions are at war inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody makes you sin.
SPEAKER_00: You might think, oh, my spouse made me sin, they said this to me, my neighbor made me sin, my boss made me sin.
SPEAKER_00: My kids made me sin.
SPEAKER_00: My dog made me sin.
SPEAKER_00: You have an excuse.
SPEAKER_00: Something outside of you made you sin.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that sin comes from inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, your spouse might have insulted you, your kids might have been rude to you, your boss might have demoted you or not rewarded you or not given you a raise or fired you or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: The dog might have bit you, there might have been an action outside of you that is what instigated your sinful response, but that's just the means.
SPEAKER_00: The source of the sin is not what's outside of you, but what's inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to ask like a question or two.
SPEAKER_00: You know, your spouse treats you rudely and you get you sin in anger.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, underneath this is this idea that I deserve to be treated better than that.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve to be treated like this by my family.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve to be treated like this by my spouse.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve to be treated like like this by my dog.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve more than I get at work.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes this I deserve more than I have, therefore that justifies my sin.
SPEAKER_00: Who does that sound like?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is straight devil talk, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I deserve more than I have, so I can sin in this way.
SPEAKER_00: That is the words of the devil himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's at play in your own flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You have desires that you don't get, and so you lash out to get them.
SPEAKER_00: James says, that's a war of passions in your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 7, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: I see in my members another law, waging war against the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
SPEAKER_00: So again, you were a slave to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saves you, rescues you, regenerates your soul.
SPEAKER_00: You become a Christian, you're now walking the light, you've been freed from the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The deeds of your sin were nailed to the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is no penalty of sin anymore for those who are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The power of sin has been broken over you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to keep sinning.
SPEAKER_00: The chain was cut.
SPEAKER_00: It no longer has mastery over you.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the presence of sin is still there and it's still hounding you, and you sometimes put the chains back on.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God broke the chain, but you see the chain lying there and you grab it and you tie yourself back up with it again.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Romans 7 is describing.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the battle that goes on your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 7, Paul describes it as a war that takes you captive to the law of sin that's still dwelling in your members.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, you're fighting the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Your body wants things.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be treated a certain way, you think certain comforts in life, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You're after things in this world, you'll sin to get them.
SPEAKER_00: That's the war that's in your flesh.
SPEAKER_00: So you're fighting the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You're fighting the world.
SPEAKER_00: James 4, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
SPEAKER_00: You are at war against the world.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be friends of the world and God because the world is held under the captivity of the evil one, Ephesians 2, verse 2 says.
SPEAKER_00: The world's under the authority of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That means the cultures of the world?
SPEAKER_00: The world views, to use the language of 2 Corinthians 10, the world views of the nations, the cultures of the world are at enmity with God.
SPEAKER_00: They're hostile towards God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why cultures are at war against God?
SPEAKER_00: Because cultures and societies are made up of people like you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hostile to God.
SPEAKER_00: And as the nations conspire against God, this is Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_00: The nations rage, the people plot a vain thing.
SPEAKER_00: They raise their hand against the Holy One.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I'm going to install my Messiah, I'm going to install my son on Mount Zion, and the nations will do his bidding, and the nations seek to throw off his chains.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the nations are at war against God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the cultures of the world are at war against God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you make yourself a friend with the world, you make yourself an enemy with God.
SPEAKER_00: That's because it's a war.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a preference issue.
SPEAKER_00: You can be, you can root for both the Cowboys and the Redskins.
SPEAKER_00: You know this?
SPEAKER_00: You can root for both teams.
SPEAKER_00: You can have friends that root for both teams.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot root for both the world and God.
SPEAKER_00: You can't root for both the devil and God.
SPEAKER_00: You can't serve both God and money.
SPEAKER_00: You will end up serving one and hating the other.
SPEAKER_00: This is the underscored point in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: At some point, you're gonna choose sides.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord and the devil are enemies and are at war.
SPEAKER_00: So there's the flesh, the world, and thirdly, of course, the devil.
SPEAKER_00: He's the prince of this world, meaning all the cultures, all the world systems fall underneath his authority.
SPEAKER_00: He's the instigator of evil.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that brought his attack onto mankind.
SPEAKER_00: He came to war against human beings.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he rebelled against God and brought his battle to the earth, and he tricked Adam and Eve and brought them into sin, and he brought the whole world into sin with them.
SPEAKER_00: The devil hates Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, but the devil hates every human being.
SPEAKER_00: The devil hates anybody in the image of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: The devil hates everybody who is a human being.
SPEAKER_00: This is why you see demonic activity and oppression, not just in Christian societies, but in societies around the world.
SPEAKER_00: But he has a double hatred of Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Because you used to be on his side.
SPEAKER_00: This is Ephesians 2, verse 1 through 5.
SPEAKER_00: You were dead in your sins and trespasses, in which you used to walk according to this world, again, following the prince of the power of the air.
SPEAKER_00: We all lived in the passions of our flesh, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: Notice again, that's the world of flesh and the devil, carrying out the desires of our body, destined for wrath.
SPEAKER_00: But God, being rich in his mercy, saved us.
SPEAKER_00: That's the war.
SPEAKER_00: You're at war against the world, you're at war against the flesh, you're at war against the devil.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is real, he is God's enemy, he is your enemy, even he's the enemy of every human being, but he's particularly your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 5, verse 8 calls Satan the adversary.
SPEAKER_00: He's the adversary of the elect, he's the adversary of Christians, and he's God's adversary.
SPEAKER_00: He's the accuser of the children of God, he's the attacker of the Son of God, the attempter of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: He is your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: And he is at war.
SPEAKER_00: Now Satan can't indwell you, he can't take over your body.
SPEAKER_00: Satan can't make you sin.
SPEAKER_00: You're never going to be able to say the devil made me do it.
SPEAKER_00: As a Christian, he who is in you is stronger than he who is in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You have your new nature.
SPEAKER_00: You have the Holy Spirit who regenerated your heart through faith in Christ, and dwells in you, and brings the word of God to bear against the attacks of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is not going to win in that sense, but the devil can entice you.
SPEAKER_00: The devil can tempt you.
SPEAKER_00: The devil can sift you.
SPEAKER_00: The devil can provoke you.
SPEAKER_00: So don't be confused about what side you're on.
SPEAKER_00: God is the holy one and the devil is the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: All righteousness is holy and all sin is evil.
SPEAKER_00: And God disciplines his children to keep them from sin.
SPEAKER_00: The devil tempts God's children to get them to sin.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these are categorically opposites.
SPEAKER_00: Satan wants you to keep sinning, and God wants to teach you that sin hurts.
SPEAKER_00: So he disciplines his children.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't want you to overestimate the devil.
SPEAKER_00: He's not all-powerful, he's not omniscient, he doesn't know all things.
SPEAKER_00: He can't, he's not omnipresent.
SPEAKER_00: The devil can't be in more than one place at one time.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's a creature.
SPEAKER_00: He can't be all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: But he does have a whole army, a third of the angels that rebelled with him at his disposal.
SPEAKER_00: So he can be tempting and attacking and sifting more than one person at a time.
SPEAKER_00: He can be active all over the world, even though he's only in one place.
SPEAKER_00: But again, he's not all powerful.
SPEAKER_00: He can only do that which God allows him to do.
SPEAKER_00: It should be an encouragement to know that your greatest enemy is under the authority of your greatest friend.
SPEAKER_00: That God is sovereign over the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Yet I don't want you to underestimate the devil either.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's not omnipresent.
SPEAKER_00: He can attack people everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: His army is aggressive, cruel, and powerful.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Peter says, be watchful and sober-minded, because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the prowl now.
SPEAKER_00: And you might say, ah, but the devil wouldn't attack me.
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't attack a little old me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that significant.
SPEAKER_00: I had somebody say once, you know, the devil, if he's going to attack people, would only attack like famous Christian leaders, like pastors or something.
SPEAKER_00: To which I say, mind your own business.
SPEAKER_00: No, he wouldn't attack just a typical Christian.
SPEAKER_00: He would attack an exalted Christian.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't understand his strategy very well then.
SPEAKER_00: If the devil can get the most baby, immature Christian to apostasize, he wins.
SPEAKER_00: If he can steal one person back from the Lord, that's what he's after.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly he could boast more if he stole a strong, mature Christian.
SPEAKER_00: But he still wins if he can entrap the weakest and most immature Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Peter says, be watchful, because he is on the prowl, looking for someone to devour.
SPEAKER_00: So you've seen the reality of the war, the reality of your enemy, the world, the flesh and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the strategy, the reality of the strategy.
SPEAKER_00: This war is spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: It's a spiritual war.
SPEAKER_00: It is not fought in the realm of flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_00: There's, you know, a couple references in the Bible of angels fighting each other, angels detaining each other, an angel against a demon.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how this battle is fought for you.
SPEAKER_00: You're not called to hand-to-hand combat against the devil and his demons.
SPEAKER_00: For us, this is a battle in the realm of truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's a battle over what is true.
SPEAKER_00: God is the Lord of truth.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is the lord of lies.
SPEAKER_00: Then you have to choose sides.
SPEAKER_00: You are on God's side when you believe the truth.
SPEAKER_00: You're on the devil's side when you believe the lie.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that the devil is the father of lies.
SPEAKER_00: He disguises himself as an angel of light.
SPEAKER_00: He's a deceiver.
SPEAKER_00: So he presents as if he's telling the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Behind it is lies.
SPEAKER_00: This was his first attack, telling, you know, Adam, did God really say you can't touch it, which is not what God said.
SPEAKER_00: He inserts little doubts, little deviations from the truth, and that's where the battle is over.
SPEAKER_00: And when people believe a lie, they are taken captive by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the devil advances his cause in the world, getting people to believe lies.
SPEAKER_00: Now you see this on the macro level.
SPEAKER_00: You see this global scale with things like abortion and slavery, the gender wars today that are happening.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, well, what's the big deal about it?
SPEAKER_00: If a boy wants to be a girl or a girl wants to be a boy, you know, isn't there individual autonomy?
SPEAKER_00: And can't people choose this kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00: You recognize that the heart of it is it's truth.
SPEAKER_00: There is a truth that is attacked by the world that says that doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: And when you believe a lie, you're then held captive to that lie.
SPEAKER_00: And think about harmful how harmful the gender ideology is to a person.
SPEAKER_00: They mutilate their body, they they take drugs that change them.
SPEAKER_00: It's an attack against how God made them that is rooted in them believing a lie that ends up harming them for the rest of their life.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this battle is put out.
SPEAKER_00: And that's one person.
SPEAKER_00: When you see cultures imbibed, that it's an attack on truth, saying a truth, truth is flexible.
SPEAKER_00: God is not the creator.
SPEAKER_00: I can redefine truth however I want.
SPEAKER_00: It's an attack on Genesis 5, male and female, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: We go to war against the word of God and say, no, I can create myself.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's one level.
SPEAKER_00: And the next level is that it harms individuals.
SPEAKER_00: They're then harmed because they believed a lie.
SPEAKER_00: And you might say, hey, I'm not the victim here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about you being the victim, it's the person who the devil attacks being victimized by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: They become enslaved by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: You see this with things like slavery, the way slavery was justified.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this human life is not valuable, it doesn't have the same uh, you know, integrity as my human life, my life is worth more than their life, I can't live my life my way unless I have this life serve me kind of logic that justified slavery.
SPEAKER_00: The same kind of lies.
SPEAKER_00: When you believe that lie, it literally enslaves people, bringing off demonic harm into the world.
SPEAKER_00: You see that same exact logic over in the abortion world.
SPEAKER_00: Like this, this isn't a human life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in charge of this, I decide if it's born or I decide if it dies, I'm the one sovereign over it.
SPEAKER_00: That ends up, when you believe that kind of lie, it ends up harming human beings.
SPEAKER_00: That's the devil winning by getting you to believe a lie that then results in actual harm to actual people.
SPEAKER_00: That's the devil's goal is to harm people.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them cutting their arms, he wants them cutting their chest, he wants them killing each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the devil attacks people.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the battle in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus describes that battle taking place in the macro level, but you know it's also taking place on the micro level.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very easy to talk about the gender wars and abortion and slavery because most of you are thinking, oh good, I'm in the clear.
SPEAKER_00: I know what gender I am.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know a slave, I'm not part of the abortion world.
SPEAKER_00: But the same lies we believe enslave us as well.
SPEAKER_00: This lie of materialism, the lie of pride, the lie of comfort, the lie that you deserve more in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all the same kind of lies.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, if I just made this much money, then I could be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Or my comfort in this thing is worth sinning to get.
SPEAKER_00: Finding my fulfillment in material things.
SPEAKER_00: That is also demonic.
SPEAKER_00: That gets you worshiping creation as much as you know slavery does.
SPEAKER_00: When you worship creation, you are held captive to the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, 2 Corinthians 2 says we're not outwitted by the devil because we know his designs.
SPEAKER_00: We know what he's up to.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest weakness of the devil is that his kingdom is built on lies.
SPEAKER_00: If the battle is over truth, and the devil is the captain of the lying team, who do you think is going to ultimately win?
SPEAKER_00: Not him.
SPEAKER_00: His side is lies.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus could have banished the devil from our midst, but instead, John 17, 15, he says, I pray, I don't pray that they be taken out of the world, speaking of his disciples, but I do pray that you would keep them from the evil one.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Lord's prayer in Jesus' own life.
SPEAKER_00: He prays at the last night in this world, he spent praying that we would be delivered from evil.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be delivered from evil.
SPEAKER_00: So God protects us.
SPEAKER_00: He answers Jesus' prayer by delivering us from evil at our salvation and then in our sanctification by causing us to grow in our awareness of truth.
SPEAKER_00: So sin deceives, and the word of God exposes sin.
SPEAKER_00: So how do you get delivered from deception?
SPEAKER_00: By believing the truth.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a global war that is played out in your flesh, in the world, and in war against the devil.
SPEAKER_00: All of it is played out in the world of truth versus lies, and Jesus redeems people from the power of sin by causing them to believe the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Then you grow in your knowledge of truth, which is how you fight against the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, the devil can entice you to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he can.
SPEAKER_00: So part of praying this to deliver us from evil is to say, I want to fight against sin.
SPEAKER_00: I want to fight against it.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a person eating ice cream and praying, Lord, help me lose weight.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a person walking in darkness, praying the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, God deliver me from evil, but I don't want to repent from my sin.
SPEAKER_00: No, he delivers you from evil through your repentance, through turning from your sin and experiencing the grace of the gospel, then the word of Christ dwells in you richly.
SPEAKER_00: As the word of Christ dwells in you richly, it grows in your heart, causing your convictions about things to change.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you're fighting the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a war inside you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so hard to say, oh, what part of my life is the devil tempting me, and what part is the flesh tempting me, and what part is the world tempting me.
SPEAKER_00: Very difficult to parse, because the devil's over all of it.
SPEAKER_00: I think of this when I think of David's census at the end of 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, David was, it says God provoked David to do a census of the Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: And then God was displeased with the census and punished the Israelites, punished David.
SPEAKER_00: Then you get to 1 Chronicles chapter 21 and it says Satan provoked David to do the census.
SPEAKER_00: Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out.
SPEAKER_00: Did God provoke David or did the devil provoke David?
SPEAKER_00: Well, again, was it a trial or a temptation?
SPEAKER_00: When David falls into sin, that's the devil that is doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it was the devil that provoked him.
SPEAKER_00: But then God brings his punishment and David cries out for mercy, and God forgives David and stops the punishment.
SPEAKER_00: That becomes a picture of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That leads, by the way, to David buying the land that would become the temple, which would become the place where Jesus was put on trial and become the house of the Lord in this world.
SPEAKER_00: All that takes place because of this.
SPEAKER_00: So is that the Lord's sovereignty or did the devil end up designing the temple?
SPEAKER_00: Of course, God is sovereign over it.
SPEAKER_00: This is true with every one of the devil's designs.
SPEAKER_00: Think of all the devil's victories.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of them.
SPEAKER_00: The devil won over Adam, right?
SPEAKER_00: But then the devil will be defeated by the second Adam.
SPEAKER_00: The devil won over David and tricked him to do the census.
SPEAKER_00: But then that turned into the place that the Lord would build the temple.
SPEAKER_00: The devil, again, time and time again, he wins over Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He fills Judas, empowers Judas by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Judas betrays Jesus, and Jesus is crucified.
SPEAKER_00: The devil wins, right?
SPEAKER_00: Until you check in three days later.
SPEAKER_00: This is always the case.
SPEAKER_00: Everything the devil does is turned on its head for the victory of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: All of the devil's victories are so short-lived.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be a grandmaster at chess to escape the devil's clutches.
SPEAKER_00: You fall back to Jesus, who himself defeats the devil.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's a prayer for the Lord to deliver you from evil.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that defeats the devil in your place.
SPEAKER_00: You then fight the devil by growing in your love for the truth.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus prayed lines from the Lord's Prayer the rest of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 11, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I thank you, Father, speaking in parables, Lord of heaven and earth, that you understood and you hid the gospel truth from the wise and you revealed them to children.
SPEAKER_00: That's lines from the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you, Father, who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That the children receive the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: In John 12, Jesus prays, Father, glorify your name on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the voice from heaven then shouts, I have glorified my name on earth and I'll do it again.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, that's done for your benefit.
SPEAKER_00: John 17, in the upper room, Jesus begins his prayer, his most profound prayer, by praying to his Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He prays that his will would be underneath the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 22, verse 42.
SPEAKER_00: Father, if you're willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Bread, the last night of Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: He took the Passover bread and gave thanks for how God provided it and broke it.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: You know, significantly, Jesus never prayed for his own forgiveness of sins because he was exactly.
SPEAKER_00: But he did pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Even on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed, Father, forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 22, 34, for they don't know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Every phrase in the Lord's prayer came back out in Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: When you look at this prayer, you see a theologically rich but profoundly simple prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes something for you to appropriate in your own prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: But it does not make sense apart from the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There is a real spiritual war.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is a real person.
SPEAKER_00: People are really held in captivity to his lies.
SPEAKER_00: They're freed through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You, if you've been freed by God, are now having playing out the war in your own affections, in your own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Do you love sin or do you love the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: As you grow in godliness, you believe more and more of the truth, you're going to war more and more against the devil.
SPEAKER_00: So it's fitting for you every time you pray to pray the Lord would give you the wisdom to stand against temptation, to give you the spiritual strength to fight against the devil and his lies, to believe the truth, to truth, and to grow more like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we look around the world that is so dark with so many sins, materialism and wars and abortion and slavery and attack on your creation.
SPEAKER_00: We see it everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to grow in despair.
SPEAKER_00: If we were left to stand on our own, we would fall.
SPEAKER_00: Like Peter fell when he tried to stand on his own.
SPEAKER_00: If we were left to stand on our own, we would be lost.
SPEAKER_00: But you did not leave us to stand on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you've given us your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You've given us your son, you've given us yourself.
SPEAKER_00: We think of how often David stood surrounded by enemies, some of them internal, being hunted by Saul, some of them external.
SPEAKER_00: How many times did he say he cast his eyes to the hills to look for help?
SPEAKER_00: We do the same thing, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We are in an evil world, and yet we know you.
SPEAKER_00: We cast our eyes to heaven to look for our help.
SPEAKER_00: We know that you will redeem your children.
SPEAKER_00: You purchase us on the cross, you seal us with your spirit, you will redeem us.
SPEAKER_00: We look to you as our helper.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your name we pray.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.