How Does God ‘Deliver Us from Evil’?

00:00:00.000 | A question has come in from a listener who asks this, "Pastor John, Jesus tells us

00:00:10.320 | to pray this line in the Lord's Prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver

00:00:15.440 | us from evil.' So how are we delivered from evil, and how does He save us from

00:00:20.920 | temptation?" The primary strategy of the devil—and I think when it says "delivers

00:00:27.800 | from evil," it probably does mean the evil one, but it works either way because he's

00:00:32.480 | behind every temptation. The primary strategy of the devil is to deceive us.

00:00:40.680 | That's his—he's primarily a deceiver. Revelation 12:9, "The great dragon was

00:00:48.120 | thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver

00:00:54.320 | of the whole world." That's Revelation 12:9. And John 8:44, "When he lies, he speaks

00:01:01.360 | out of his own nature." So the strategy of the devil in bringing about

00:01:09.360 | temptation and evil is to deceive us. Put thoughts in your mind or feelings in

00:01:19.480 | your soul that are false. He lies to us about where happiness is best to be

00:01:26.560 | found. So how does Jesus ask the Father to deliver us? And we have another prayer,

00:01:34.200 | interestingly enough, besides the Lord's Prayer, and Jesus prays the same thing,

00:01:39.600 | only he expands it and answers the question. Compare John 17 to the Lord's

00:01:48.320 | Prayer, and here's what John 17 Jesus prays, "I do not ask that you take them

00:01:54.680 | out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." And then verse 17,

00:02:02.240 | "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." Now that should not be a surprise

00:02:09.520 | to us that he says to the Father, "Father, there's an evil one out there. His primary

00:02:16.280 | strategy is deceit. Please guard them from that evil one, and here's the way I

00:02:21.520 | think you should do it." Like the son could tell the father how to do it.

00:02:25.920 | Namely, in the truth. Make them holy in the truth. Your word is truth. So,

00:02:34.280 | sanctify means help them be holy and conquer temptation by being holy. How? In

00:02:42.280 | your truth, by truth. More specifically, your word. Not just vague truth, any old

00:02:47.600 | truth, but your word is truth. Those promises that God has made to us and

00:02:51.760 | those facts about life and about his way and his being. So, by your word, what is

00:02:59.440 | that? Well, the antidote to every falsehood are the truths of Scripture.

00:03:06.240 | In fact, I would say there is no remedy, none for falsehood, other than truth.

00:03:13.280 | None. So, if falsehood is the modus operandi of the evil one by which he

00:03:20.240 | tempts and destroys us, there is only one remedy, and that is the opposite of

00:03:25.600 | falsehood, and that is truth. So, when the word is proclaimed, Matthew 13, 19 says,

00:03:35.680 | "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the

00:03:40.640 | evil one comes and snatches away the word." Well, what else would he do, right? So, we

00:03:47.000 | have to be so vigilant. I'm not going to let Satan have the word in my heart. I'm

00:03:52.960 | gonna believe it, gonna hold on to it, gonna say it over and over again. I'm

00:03:56.880 | gonna nullify his deceit in my life. So, how does God deliver us from evil and

00:04:04.880 | from temptation? I'll just give you three verses from the Bible that show how he

00:04:09.240 | does it. Number one, Hebrews 3, 13, "Exhort one another every day as long as it is

00:04:14.600 | called today that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." So, the

00:04:18.960 | answer of how we are delivered, we're delivered by the church. "Exhort one

00:04:25.000 | another every day lest you be deceived." Number two, "Put off your old self." This

00:04:31.360 | is Ephesians 4, 22. "Put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of

00:04:36.560 | life which is corrupt through deceitful desires." So, desires lie to you. You've got

00:04:43.960 | to tell the truth about your desires. And so, "Put on the new man." And what is he?

00:04:48.640 | "Renewed in the spirit of your mind." Mind's filled with what? Verse 24, "Put on

00:04:55.440 | the new self, created after the likeness of God in righteousness and holiness in

00:04:59.400 | the truth." We conquer the old self with its deceitful desires by filling our

00:05:07.160 | minds with the truth, the precious, infinitely valuable, Christ-exalting

00:05:12.320 | truth of Scripture. And the last one is 1 Peter 1, 14, "As obedient children, do not

00:05:18.880 | be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance." Where did your old

00:05:24.560 | passions come from? You were stupid. You didn't have any eyes to see Christ as

00:05:28.840 | beautiful and superior over all the temptations. So, kill that ignorance with

00:05:34.040 | what? You can only kill ignorance with one thing—knowledge and truth. So, when

00:05:39.680 | Jesus prayed, "Lead them not into temptation, deliver us from evil," He

00:05:44.840 | clarified in John 17, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." God

00:05:49.400 | delivers me and you from evil by saturating us with the Word, and we

00:05:55.960 | ought to join Him in it. Beautiful. Thank you, Pastor John. And this question maps

00:06:01.360 | on to the question that we have for tomorrow. If Jesus did not have a sin

00:06:05.440 | nature, if there wasn't a sinful flesh in Him, something inside of Him that made

00:06:09.680 | temptations even more alluring, like we have, can He really be said to sympathize

00:06:14.680 | with us when it comes to understanding the power of our temptations? In other

00:06:18.560 | words, are the temptations we face more powerful than those faced by Christ on

00:06:23.360 | earth? Hmm. That's tomorrow. I'm your host Tony

00:06:27.000 | Rehnke. We'll see you then.

00:06:30.600 | you

00:06:32.660 | you

00:06:34.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Does God ‘Deliver Us from Evil’?

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