Urgent Prayers for Your Protection in Trials & Rescue from Evil
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Dear Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
As Jesus has taught us how to pray covered so much of life in broken world and how He’s bring grace into it. Importance of God’s law and prayer once saved, as tools by which God’s re-making us into His iamge, in the imag eof Chreist, how the SPirit lives in us! And in this model prayer itself - we see prayerful devotion -prelude, but also in the first three Thee Requests. Thy Name, Thy Kingdom, THy Will; We saw how prayer isn’t just about about devotion but also dependence - hope you see the palce of praying for your stuff, receiveing from God for His purposes - without his gifts becomse curses, but dedicated in prayer, great expectation to providing all we need - and asking boldly expectantly in his kingdom in His name. I hope you see not only physical stuff, but that you must be praying bout forgiveness - own daily cleansing, and your willingness to forgive to reconcile with other. But to stop here in our prayer especially our We and Us requests would be tragic. It would be to fail in recognizing who we really are, in what God is up to in the struggles of our life, and to the ongoing unflodling of Christ’s kingdom in this world and the part we are to play in it!
Imagine if after D-Day, allied soliders said we’ve won, and they had won the decieve turning point battle - or after VE Day - just left the South Pacific in arfare and oppression. Jesus going to the Cross was going to win the decivive battle against Satan and evil and suffering in this world - uniquely having to do it himself - only one who actually praying opposite - Lead me into this trial, and and don’t deliver me from evil - because he was going to win the battle against evil, truimph says Col3 - But just because Christ won, because there is pardon for sins, because rule allthings and provide us - doesn’t mean we are done the struggle . I really hope you are praying idfferently because you pray these reques Jesus said to include, and perhaps the greatest change will come in the last request - you starting to really pray for spiritual rescue. This too is a fitting conclusion to our catechsim - poitin u not just to find comdort in Jesus winning pardon and forgiveness from sin. But there is another part of sin consequnece that you are to expereince comfort in Christ with. Onoing deliverance increadingl devlieereance and rescue from the powre , tryanny of sin in our lives, church our world. Remember how the catechism put it:
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil! Heidelberg QA1
Do you feel our need fro that kind of devlierance, are you experiencing it? Do you pray for it?
Key Truth: Christ-followers depend on God in prayer for growing liberation from evil and the Evil One!
You need to hear that even though Christ was going to the Cross here really is his last command before doing so:
and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
It was the last part of his model prayer, and his last instruction to us in light of the Cross! Do you pray about your own temptations, your family, your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you call out for deliverance from evil? This was God’s first instruction to aa sinner caught in the throws orf temptation - to Cain: in
If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
This last petition positions us in this still fallen world that Jesus is redeeming - to be close to the struggle and other strugglers, to be where the pain and failure and the suffering are - and to do what Jesus modeled for us before the Cross and in his whole life of heroic resistance to temptaion - RESIST! That is the calling from Hebrews Jesus was tested in every way like, heard for his loud cries, he prayed in temptation, he resisted to the point of shedding blood do we? It is the point of Peter who after failing to resist temptation to fall awy to betray, was uphoeld by Christ’s prayers, and he restored, - and he warns us and calls us:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
Do you understand your calling is to resist the Devil and evil and in your testings and temptations instead of falling to destructive traps Satan has set even for believers, you must find the sustaining, strengthening grace growing character building plan of God. Do understand even though you may be saved, your fitness for service in Christ’ skigdom, your fruitfulness as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven - it requires your confronitng temptation and evil with fresh prayer for God’s rescuing action! Understand that is the thrust of Jesus request, the coutnerpoint, the introduction point is that - we will face temtpation and we aren’t just to accept that and say par tof life, but we are to bring that to the Father who has ordained the testing for our good, or else in our strength w will fall and and be damaaged and hurt, and rendered ineffetive - even as Christ would have without praying and being strengthened in his human nature by divine rescue! See the point is the secon half, you will fae this tmeptation and trial but YOu must invoke the RESCUER of your soul, not just from the punishment of hell, but from the powe so sin and evil right now - so the evil , trial the tesmptation would not achieve the Evil’ Ones’ design!
A) Understand Satan’s & God’s Design in our Trials!
You need a realistic view of the spiritual landscape of your life until Jeuss reutrns! There are three realities that you must understand if you are to pray this prayer effectively. First is that trials/tempations will itter our way and are not sin in themeselves. It is not wrong to be tempted, but it very dangerous! Even for Christ real temptation possiblity in human nature could have - so much more for us - who not only face temptations but have a propensity to to nurse those tempttation with our evil desires!
Jesus indeed says Temptation are bound to come - 21x used in the NT - 20x with the idea of tests, suffering and trial of the validity of our faith! That is the way Luke uses the word including persecutions and Jesus prayer is for God’s sustaining hand in the middle of them! But the NT’s other sense which is here too, in James is more about the nature of tempation as an enticment to sin - that’s the goal Satan has for those tests that God permit - not just that you be tested and tried, but that you - Let go of God, forget him, follow the enticing hook and bait of Satan who stands behind every trail in someay - distorting God’s intent for you whispering lies; and Satan wants to turn a trial that God permits, into a temptation that Satan not only presents, which agian is not yet sin; but which you will enter into! See that’s the power of sin that we still need ongoing deliverance from - Satan wants you to enter into the temtptiaon in the middle of the trial to get you to his goal over here - which is the sin and the misery that will result from sin!
This is why we can never say that God is tempting us, maybe trying us But Listen to
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
We must be precise here, there are times when God does permit Satan to tempt us and even for us to enter into a time of temptation - that was true of even Christ in the desert - the Sprit led him there, to be tempted, , true of what he said to Peter, Satan desire to sift you test you… but that isn’t God setting you up to fail. It is God setting you up to rely on him more, to turn away from your own strength to the One who went into the heart of darkness and temptation, and wasn’t delivered from the evil, in order to defeat and triumph over - turn to him in prayer - rely on his prayers for you to STAND up …
Isn’t that the story of and ?
And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”
Isn’t this also exactly what the apostle Paul says in
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
When the trial comes, the tempting will either separate you from God and attach you to your sin, or it will separate you from your sin and attach you to God. And Jesus is humbling us to acknowledge that temptation is necessary for our spiritual growth - and that there is no other way to face it but prayer
So before we go any further, can we acknowledge that tonight - the trials of our lives and the temptations permitted to test us in them?
ie. Disability - Staan having his way - no God in beauty rely on him in our weakness - yes Satan tempting , but God’s trials meant for good as we depend on him. That’s why we also must deal with the problem in the second point - what do we want deliverance from? EVIL or EVIL ONe (neuter or masaculin) ULtiatemly same thing but Evil One makes most sense what driving towards.
What is the evil in your life you are to pray for RESCUE from? Here tehre is great overlap in the probelm of trial/tempation and the tyoe fo evil we are to pray against. Two types of evil meant by this word: one is circumstantial level - plagues, diasters, all sorts of suffering beyond our controol that must be passively expereienced in this world. And it is pretty clear we are not praying for God to end all that evil in this world before Jesus comes - But the rfcus of this evil - is the corruption that is in us and in you and me and in human kind all togtehr . Evil taht we particiapte in it and it destroys us! These are evils that we particpate in - not just in bad times, but when Prosperity and Success comes - you know the evils of unthankfulness, pride, security, forgetfulness to self, to God , to others, unlvoing attitude, forgetfullness to death - Bradford; and in adversity you know the evils of impatience , murmurring, grudges, despair, flattering men and condemning God, of stealing, lying.
Another way to think about this is that we all have a temperment, with strengths and weakness, what we do with it becomes our character, The sanguine (warm, jolly, outgoing, relaxed, optimistic); The phlegmatic (cool, low-key, detached, unemotional, apathetic); The choleric (quick active, bustling, impatient, with a relatively short fuse); The melancholic (somber, pessimistic, inward-looking, inclined to cynicism and depression). It then acknowledges the reality of mixed types,
The phlegmatic (cool, low-key, detached, unemotional, apathetic);
The choleric (quick active, bustling, impatient, with a relatively short fuse);
I am not to become (or remain) a victim of my tempearment. Each temperament has its own strengths and also its weaknesses. Sanguine people tend to live thoughtlessly and at random. Phlegmatic people tend to be remote and unfeeling, sluggish and unsympathetic. Choleric people tend to be quarrelsome, bad tempered, and poor team players. Melancholic people tend to see everything as bad and wrong and to deny that anything is ever really good and right. Yielding to my temperamental weaknesses is, of course, the most natural thing for me to do, and is therefore the hardest sort of sin for me to deal with and detect. But holy humanity, as I see it in Jesus Christ, combines in itself the strengths of all four temperaments without any of the weaknesses. Therefore, I must try to be like Him in this, and not indulge the particular behavioural flaws to which my temperament tempts me.
The melancholic (somber, pessimistic, inward-looking, inclined to cynicism and depression).
EVERNOTE
It then acknowledges the reality of mixed types,
This is the first point then, to have a realitic view of yourself and yoru spiritual landscape udnerstand the trial, the temtation and the evils - and that really is Christ’s first call to watchfulness! = idea of solider on night patrol, awkae aware - ready for first sign of - sleeping earten up - know the enemy his tactics, the wiles of the enemey !
This is the first point then, to have a realitic view of yourself and yoru spiritual landscape udnerstand the trial, the temtation and the evils - and that really is Christ’s first call to watchfulness! = idea of solider on night patrol, awkae aware - ready for first sign of - sleeping earten up - know the enemy his tactics, the wiles of the enemey !
But to watch is not enoguh, nor do we find the grace and comfort and spiritual growth, simpoly in our effort to watch, no virtue of your own will save iyou in temptations trying hour!
B) Pray for Leading & Pray for Rescue Daily
Do you know what one of the most common excuses we make for being led into temptation and taking the hand of Satan instead of the hand of God in our trials is? I am only _________ human! Here you need some good theology. Actually to Err is not human! THough to forgive is didinve. It may be fallen human, but it doesn’t belong with your true humanity, nor your restored humanity in Christ. Throw that excuse out tonight. TO err is sinful not human. Christ is really making you more human,. So too evil - isn’t a thing God created or a thing he plans out - Evil isn’t a thinkg , its a complete derpive of what God intends and mande. Now he allowed t even ordained it and will use it sinflessly to serve His good purposes! But both evil and tempation are of the Devil. As teh German pastor and theoglican preaching tue gospel against Nazism put it - Behind every temptation stands teh tempter. Behind all lies, stand teh liar. Behind all the death and bloodshed stand he “who was a murder from teh beginnning” It is true three sworn enemies to your faith - World, the Fleshs, the Devil, but it is the deveil using the ideas and atittude os f the world, and the corruption of your desires - Staan the advestary a real person - Diabolus teh accuser of God’s people - real comsimic intellegence and stealth - but a Person who doens’t have horns and sluphur breathe, but spiritual enemey
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
That's all of us he had and has some influence over. And he commands a host of demons like angels sent to serve those receiving slavation, so too demons sent to frustrate us -
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
But now listen to what you must pray - though we may fall to his schemes and temptation, and facing them is a test desgined to exercise our faith and character, we don’t have to fall. IN God’s providence though he permits us to be led at times into temptation, he neither thrusts into thos sins nor leaves us defenseless - but tells us - you are hear to cry out for recuse and to behold the mighty work s of the LORD in here now! That was the end of
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Satan and his temptations are limited and ruled by God, encouragement in t tnring to Christ in them, and a escape in calling for trotectio and rescue!
If you remind yourself only of th dangers might be discouraged, but remind yourself in facing and maing temptations of God’s kingdess - he will free if we call out in prayer! He wil elad in these dark placess. That’s why we pray with confidence not to be spared from all trials or evil.s, but with perfect trust taht God like you said to Peter, that pernicious evil that is in Satan’s intent in testing me, as I stand with Christ - that temptation will have no power over me!
It is ipossible we live a sinless life until Christ rerutnrs, but so many of us say, well thaen I’m stuckiing sinning until he come why do anything else. Chrsti commands you watch and pray - - You can live a victorious life if you will depend on HIm - get rid of all rpresumption and laziness and depend on Christ in prayer. Don’t let Satan intent win - but your willl for facing this trial now!
It is an important question not just to ask those in intense persecution but the average Christian here tnoight - are you overcomiong - are you conquering in Jesus’ name!
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
Reve 12:10-11 Deliver = rare word in gospels, 3x, in NT - but in OT, in Qumran - = But it goes further in tracing man’s sinfulness not only to man himself but to the power of evil which reigns in this aeon, which in relation to the imminent final struggle seeks to drag man down to eternal perdition, and which man himself has no power to resist. This is the point of the question in R. 7:24: τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου, to which gives the answer that it is God ὃς ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους καὶ μετέστησεν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, and God by Ἰησοῦν τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης
And this is where I must procliam that practical teaching Christ modeled for us in this type of prayer. That Spirit of boldness and not of timidity that was upon Christ and we now share intoo - that SPirit of God is never separated from the Word of God. How did Jesus overcome by not just his blood but the word of his testimony. See him there tempted by STUFF and FOOD< tempted by what other things kof him - sensulaity and power without pain of Crosss, see him tempted treasure of the world - And every single time - his prayer is pbased on what - he is quoting Deuteronmy back at the devil before the LORD.
I have little doubt that feeling the guilt of sin you pray for pardon, but do you understand that the desire for pardon of sin- but do you also undertand when you see Christ dying for our sins on the Cross when you take that to yourself - with Paul we are also crying out sin shall not have dominoin over me! - Not my master any more - Desire not just for the mercy of God, but for his grace to hold and guide us
Are you stronger than Cain, Ahithophel, Saul Judas, A or Eve, Lot, Tamar, Moses Aaaron, Samposon Gideon, Eli, David, Solomon, Hezekiah Josiah, Peter or Thomas? Cn you recnoize it is human to be tempted, and God in gracious care over you equips you in this kind of prayer - not to drown in your sin, but to have vicotry in Jesus over them!
NT Wright correctly notes that in Jesus day Saducees mnimized sin, head in the sand. The Essenes - wallowe din it - so dmoen behind everytihng, The Phaisees - tried to deal with in self-reightoeusness - But Jesus Came to deal with it on the Crosss - so miminzeing your sin, wallwoing init, and trustin gyour own virtue is not how we deal with temptation adn sin our lives! But only Christ’s vicotyry and taht shared through praye in my life -
Like the kid with thumb in dike then whole arm, hold out for another hour against all the power fo evil and sin sufferin gin this world - By reliaince on Lord enagled us to passs teting safely. You know it the pressure of the trials are to great for you - shrink from it - run from hours of trial , You know it if do it by your own virtue, focus on one tempation and sin, Satan exploit the weakness - so Paul says be careful if you think you stand…
No, there is only one way and that is to pray like Jesus did - and thik of how his prayer drewe down the strengthening of angels upon his Spirit - didn’t make tempation go away but in vicotry of Christ walk into the darkness and shien the light!
Conclusion: Jewish prayer of Jesus day - do you see it’s not get rid of all these tempations and evil - but its to stand and beheld and shine light - Time of the Essense - idea of the time of tribulation - painful child birth type of time - and in them iddle of that the kingdom of the Messiah would be born Well Jesus even says that as he goes to the Cross doesn’t he:
“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom,
When Christ went to the Cross - even critics saw that he was being thrown into grinding wheel of history and evil and sin - but as Albert Shweizer exposed lie of liberalism - Christ stopped that wheel - he alone could - and he made turn in the oppostiate direction. I am not tellingyou to watch and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I am telling you to watch and pray to Christ daily - inhal e his once for all vicotry - though in his human nature he cowered before the cross, in prayer he didn’t shrink from the tiral And in prayer we don’t need to etierrh .
You have the doevtion you have the dependence for forgivenes sand stuff f- But learn this 3 dimension of a disciples prayer - DANGER and truly cry for the deliverance Christ has pormised! LIsten to how Paul experienced it again an agian
He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
That is the activel life of depenence in the daily details - that will result in us passing the test, proving that God’s grace is gorwing in u we are maturing . So that we can say with the Psalmist going through the day of troble:
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.
Jeremy Camp: The same power that raised Jesus from our dead, moves moutnatins, calms raging sea lives in us. We will not be overtaklen, we will not be overcome. Face the fear and the dark road!
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Robert A. Lee Question 7, incredible pianist - only question they left out, What kind of am na do you want to be. “ Peter Gottried “What have been the predominat influences on my social development? say nothing? Want truth, Want their turth… “Peter you want to be a musician, a teacher, an artist… but if you trade your soul for a career - and I don’t care how well you play, or how famous you become - then nothing is what you will be be. And what is worst of all, you will know it. … Make a choice between evasively telling a life and boldly confessing the truth” What was his choice. By Grace he answered my father… The great moment arrived to play in a concert to represent his school - dfect to We Germany.
What are your choices - Do you recongiize behind the trials and temptatios a foe who is bent on nothing less than the ruin of his victims. Do you recongnize in Jesus instruction the power of God to meet the enemey and all his influence in your life and mine daily!
Deliver = rare word in gospels, 3x, in NT - but in OT, in Qumran - = But it goes further in tracing man’s sinfulness not only to man himself but to the power of evil which reigns in this aeon, which in relation to the imminent final struggle seeks to drag man down to eternal perdition, and which man himself has no power to resist. This is the point of the question in R. 7:24: τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου, to which gives the answer that it is God ὃς ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους καὶ μετέστησεν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, and God by Ἰησοῦν τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης
Deliver = rare word in gospels, 3x, in NT - but in OT, in Qumran - = But it goes further in tracing man’s sinfulness not only to man himself but to the power of evil which reigns in this aeon, which in relation to the imminent final struggle seeks to drag man down to eternal perdition, and which man himself has no power to resist. This is the point of the question in R. 7:24: τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου, to which gives the answer that it is God ὃς ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους καὶ μετέστησεν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, and God by Ἰησοῦν τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης
Deliver = rare word in gospels, 3x, in NT - but in OT, in Qumran - = But it goes further in tracing man’s sinfulness not only to man himself but to the power of evil which reigns in this aeon, which in relation to the imminent final struggle seeks to drag man down to eternal perdition, and which man himself has no power to resist. This is the point of the question in R. 7:24: τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου, to which gives the answer that it is God ὃς ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους καὶ μετέστησεν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, and God by Ἰησοῦν τὸν ῥυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης
Overcoming evil one with GOOD - through Christ = the most important of all the verses in which ῥύομαι occurs, namely, : ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. No matter whether ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ (→ 560, 14 ff.) be taken as a masculine or a neuter, the point of this petition in the Lord’s Prayer is that prayer is made to God for final deliverance from the power of evil which in the last conflict will plunge man into eternal perdition and against which he cannot protect himself. In this petition however—and this concludes the development of ῥύομαι—God is acknowledged to be not merely the Creator, Sustainer and Saviour of the natural historical life of His people and all men but also the eternal Lord who impresses even evil into His service. But this means that in the very prayer for deliverance evil is overcome by the acknowledgment of God’s majesty and the divinely conferred affirmation of His will.
Wilhelm Michaelis, “Ῥομφαία,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 1003.
Wilhelm Michaelis, “Ῥομφαία,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 1003.
Your Only Comfort: The Heidelberg Catechism for Mankind Today 52.10 Eschatological Perspective
52.10 ESCHATOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Because we as believers share in the victory of Christ, we now already are more than conquerors (Ro 8:37). Nonetheless, we do not experience this victory completely, because we are still struggling every moment against the enemy who has already been defeated. We shall experience this complete victory when Christ comes again (1Th 3:13; 5:23).
Conclusion: Because we as believers share in the victory of Christ, we now already are more than conquerors (). Nonetheless, we do not experience this victory completely, because we are still struggling every moment against the enemy who has already been defeated. We shall experience this complete victory when Christ comes again (; ).
52.10 ESCHATOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Because we as believers share in the victory of Christ, we now already are more than conquerors (). Nonetheless, we do not experience this victory completely, because we are still struggling every moment against the enemy who has already been defeated. We shall experience this complete victory when Christ comes again (; ).
P. J. de Bruyn, Your Only Comfort: The Heidelberg Catechism for Mankind Today (Potchefstroom: PU vir CHO, 1997).