Lead us not into temptation

[0:00] For the benefit of anyone who's not been part of what we're doing, we're looking through! the Lord's Prayer, and this is session six of six. We've been looking at each one. It's! in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. If you don't know anything about that, it is Jesus talking to his disciples about the whole new kingdom that he is bringing in and how counter-cultural is perhaps the key word I think you'd find about the Sermon on the Mount. But this is slap bang in the middle of it, the famous Lord's Prayer. Last week we were looking at the forgiveness of our sins and us being encouraged to forgive others. Before that it was give us this day our daily bread. Those two and this one are about ourselves. But the first three bits of the Lord's Prayer are much more Godward.

[1:02] So, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one is what is before us tonight. And that's where I'm going. There is a little bit of study to do in what the text of this verse means. It's not entirely straightforward in English. So we'll just spend a little time there and I want to look at some other scriptures to see what the purpose of temptation is because this is a very difficult area for us because we all know what it's like to be tempted and we fail and then we think, well, is it all my fault? Why is anyone allowing this to happen? So what is the purpose of it? And I think you'll see from one of those passages we read that I want to look at how Jesus handled it.

[1:45] That might teach us something. And then finish with how we should learn something and handle temptation ourselves. Okay? So I kick off with a comment that anyone who reads the papers might have noticed. It might not have been on the front page of the news but the Pope back in December, he looked at this text and he thought, I don't like that very much. It doesn't seem to ring true. So he thought he could change it a bit. Now, if you don't know anything about this church, we stand on the word of God.

[2:24] We believe it to be the truth. And when you find things that are awkward, you don't twist and change it. But if you didn't know this was happening, apparently this is the Roman Catholic Church in France.

[2:37] They've adapted it because they think that the whole idea that it implies that God induces temptation. And that's Satan's department. So the Catholic Church in France is now using, do not let us fall into temptation instead. All right?

[2:52] Now, I quickly add that when you look at the text, you can't do that to this. If you look at the prayer, it's addressed, the first line of the prayer is addressed to our Father.

[3:04] Father. And it goes on to talk about, well, there are verbs in the imperative like, your kingdom come, give us this day. Now, it is granted that this is a bit different in this form.

[3:19] It's in the you form of the subjunctive. But really, this is coming up towards what the NIV is saying. And you can't make it say what the Pope thinks he wants it to say. And you just have to be careful with the Word of God.

[3:33] But it does, I'll just go back, it does raise a couple of questions. When you think about, when you find a thing that's a little bit tricky to understand, and it is a tricky phrase, you start to think, hang on a minute, are there some other bits of the Bible that will help me understand what's going on here?

[3:50] So, I'm probably making this easy for you because most of the verses are here, but you should be thumbing away, well, no, you don't, read it if you can see it here. I'm saving you some work. But there is a well-known verse in James 1, and it's in verses 13 and 14.

[4:06] When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and nor does he tempt anyone. So, here's our first of two questions.

[4:18] So, if it is not possible for God to tempt us, why are we asking God not to lead us into temptation? Some look at the original Greek word, which is piasmos.

[4:33] I'm probably not very good on the pronunciation. You can translate that as test, trial, or temptation. They think, well, if you put trial in here, that will make sense of it. But, of course, it doesn't really when you see it in relation to the end bit of the phrase, but deliver us from evil.

[4:48] So, it is by far a better explanation to see, lead us not in the light of its counterpart, which is, but deliver us. And if you translate evil, which is literally the evil, most likely referring to Satan as the evil one, and the NAV does that.

[5:05] So, really, the devil is the one who's in view here. And he's the one who does the tempting of God's people to sin, and from whom we need the rescue.

[5:15] Now, does that make a little bit of sense? And then to go to the second question that I think is raised. If some of you will know this verse in James, and we're going to look at it a little bit more shortly.

[5:29] Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds. Trials, similar words, same word, translated a bit differently here.

[5:40] But consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters. So, if the Bible says that trials and temptations are good for us, why, again, can we be asking God not to lead us into it?

[5:55] And the probable answer is that the prayer is more about overcoming temptation, not avoiding it. So, I'm paraphrasing here, but having read around it a little bit, this is really saying, please don't lead us into a place where we are tempted, because we know we might fail.

[6:17] We know our weakness. But if you do, deliver us from the evil one. Now, that's the sense of it. That's not a careful translation, but it is the sense of it.

[6:28] We are really crying humbly to our Father. We know that this area of being tempted, we frequently fall. Please don't take me there. But if you do, because you do know best, deliver us from the evil one.

[6:43] Humble recognition of weakness and a need of God's help is in this prayer. But I thought this was a helpful thing. I found this in a Strong's book.

[6:55] The difference between a test and a temptation is found in the testers' motivations and expectations. The devil tempts that the believer might fail God's standards of faith and so sin, but God tests that he might determine and sharpen true character with no focus on making the believer fail.

[7:20] So I think you're beginning to pick up here that although on the face of it, this is a very confusing thing, why do we get tempted? The devil has one idea. He just wants to slip us up.

[7:30] He's our enemy. But God is doing something else here. And if we hold on to various promises, we'll touch on a few of them as we go through here, we'll find that God is allowing temptation to happen, but his purposes are that he might sharpen our character and help us as we move on.

[7:53] So let's come back. We started to quote this verse earlier. I just want to look at it a little bit more. There are three or four verses here that will help us to understand the purpose of temptations and trials.

[8:04] But just look towards, this is such an important thing. We said, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds. And some of you pause there and you think, what on earth can he be meaning?

[8:15] But he's not really enjoying the pain of the trial, but he's looking ahead, thinking because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

[8:34] So here is a hint, a very clear hint, on what God is doing through trials. He's teaching us to persevere and through that we become mature.

[8:46] And we wish we could jump from being a young Christian to being very mature in the faith overnight with a zap. But really this is God's way that he has taught us his truth.

[8:58] We believe very much he's come to live in us. But of course it is through the process of going through day to day that we find things that will test our faith.

[9:11] And those who give up at the early stage are really just showing that they hadn't really got this at all. But there is a test here for that we should persevere and aspire to be mature.

[9:23] Do you actually think about, do you long to be mature or would you rather stay childish and not have all that pain? You might be thinking that. I don't know. Another verse.

[9:33] Anyway, maturity is in view there. All right? The purpose of this so that we become mature. Another verse. This one's in 1 Peter. Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, these have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

[10:06] So what are the two things going on here? You can shout them out to me. Anyone? Proving the genuineness of our faith.

[10:19] All right? And, because it's of great worth, and what will it result in? Praise and glory and honor. So there's just a different angle here.

[10:32] Purpose of this, it's proving that our faith is genuine. You might say as a young Christian, oh, you know, it is. I don't want all this testing. But actually you do need this to show that your trust in God when everything else is against you is real.

[10:47] And in the end, if you can stick with it, and some of us have been going through stories with Naomi in the morning. Naomi had a lot of bereavement, a lot of hardship early in her life.

[11:01] But she didn't waver from the fact that God was in control. She didn't say, you know, I'm giving up on this God, which would have shown her faith to be very weak.

[11:12] She showed the genuineness of her faith. And it results in the end, not always in an area that we see in praise, glory, and honor to Jesus, certainly when he is revealed.

[11:27] So faith is proved genuine and it brings glory to God. So then we move on. How did Jesus handle temptation? And we read this passage in Matthew 4.

[11:38] You might want to look that one up because we're going to look at a little bit of this. Matthew 4, verses 1 to 11. And notice in verse 1 there, that it is Jesus who is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

[12:01] And this is really confirming what we have said before. We are right not to be changing this text to say what we want. You know, I think sounds a bit easier. Jesus does lead us into places where we are tempted.

[12:15] But who does the tempting? It's the devil. So the devil does the tempting. God set up an appointment. And we need to see the temptations from two points of view, the devils and gods.

[12:28] So what was the devil doing here? And I'll remind you that how important we all know it was that Jesus heading towards the cross at the end of his life was to stay sinless so that when he died, he was not dying for his own sin like everyone else would.

[12:49] So the devil, if he could make him sin, if he could make him disobey his father, that would be game over. There would be no salvation. What was God doing here?

[13:02] Why did God let this happen? And the answer really is that he is trying to strengthen and prepare. This is just before Jesus launches out on his ministry of three years or so.

[13:13] And God is strengthening and preparing him. We'll come probably touch on this again. But although we know he was fully God, as he didn't, he was born of a virgin.

[13:26] God put Jesus in Mary's womb. Fully God all the way through. But nevertheless, the man part of him, fully man, but the man part of him is developing from a small baby and growing and seeing all these things in life and responding.

[13:42] Unlike we have, all of us have failed to carry on with this without sinning. But Jesus has grown as yet without sin. And he stayed that way until he went to the cross.

[13:54] So let me just, actually, you might want to turn to 1 John 2. No, you don't need to because it's here. But three familiar areas. If we're trying to get to know our enemy, we believe very much that the devil and God, there is an unseen world where there are spiritual battles.

[14:11] And here are three very common areas that the devil uses to attack. We'll come to them later when we're thinking about ourselves. But just notice, for everything in the world, this is from 1 John 2, for everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world.

[14:33] And let's just look at what is going on in Matthew 4. So Ben read this for us. The lust of the flesh, if you are the Son of God, turn these stones to bread.

[14:47] Now on the surface of it, you could say, I'll just go back, what's wrong with that? Jesus, to give you some context, he'd been led in the wilderness. He'd had 40 days without food.

[15:01] That was what was going on. He'd been fasting. So he was hungry. I don't think, some of us may have occasionally fasted but 40 days, I doubt if we got near to that. He was hungry and the devil says to him, if you are the Son of God, and it's also an event after Jesus' baptism where the Spirit has come on him and said, you are my Son in whom, that I'm well pleased with you and the Spirit has come upon Jesus.

[15:29] He's full of the Spirit. But if you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. how much Jesus might have liked to have done that, to eat something, what was his response?

[15:44] He says, man, it is written, so he's looking at Deuteronomy here, man shall not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And you think, humanly speaking, you're thinking, is this for real?

[15:58] You know, if I've had 40 days hungry, wouldn't I have just gone for this? Now Jesus is saying, I trust my Heavenly Father so much that although I'm hungry, I will obey him and I will wait for the time when he wants to give me what I need.

[16:13] I will not take something into my own hands. I will not do this. And he's also saying that although you're focusing me on my hunger, which is, you know, what the body wants, I'm saying that there's so much else that God is doing.

[16:30] And we must be living on every word that comes from the mouth of God, not just thinking about food, bread. Okay? Second one is the pride of life.

[16:44] And if you imagine, well, he says, you're at the highest, he says the devil takes him to the highest point of the temple. And I think this is something of the order of 15 stories up, 150 feet.

[16:56] And he says to Jesus, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, and he quotes Psalm 91, he will command angels concerning you and they will lift you up and stop you falling on the stones.

[17:11] Notice, just as an aside here, this is the devil using scriptures. Because they're very well trained to remember when you're getting attacked by the devil to quote scripture back at him.

[17:24] A little bit unnerving, when you see the devil using it, you think, hang on a minute. But actually, if you do look at Psalm 91 and the verses that come after it, it's quite interesting, just after that little part, it talks about Jesus, it talks about the ones trampling on the head of the great lion and the serpent.

[17:43] The devil didn't put that in there because that would have been like suicide for the devil. So, selective, out of context, just, you know, if you do this, someone will save you.

[17:54] What's the motive here? Think for a moment before I tell you. I mean, what's the motive here? If Jesus had done this and the angels had come and rescued him, he would have been famous, wouldn't he?

[18:07] He would have been the talk of the town. Instantly, he would have had a fantastically high reputation. He would have been well thought of. So, you see the strong temptation.

[18:21] He was little known. He was at the age of 30. But the response that Jesus gives is, it is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.

[18:34] He's quoting Deuteronomy 6, but actually, when you look at that verse, it goes back to Exodus 17, which I think is the time when they were complaining in the after Egypt about not having enough water, complaining and arguing, and in the end, they are given it.

[18:52] But there is a sort of, you know, you're not trusting me. It's hard. God is not giving them exactly when they want it, but he's saying, trust me, I will give it to you, but they're grumbling. So, do not put the Lord your God to the test is how he responds to that one.

[19:07] And then the last one is the lust of the eyes. And this is the idea of putting something before you that isn't quite in your reach, but you might covet or want it. I will give you all the kingdoms of the world, of course, temporarily.

[19:21] That's, you know, this is the domain of the devil, that he has got the kingdoms down here. This is his area where he can cause havoc for a limited time.

[19:33] He says, I will give you all this if you bow down and worship me. And how did Jesus respond to this one? He said, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

[19:47] And it says, the devil left him and angels came and attended him. And I think all of us wondering if we would ever have our salvation, if we were just looking at some of this, we think, whew, you know, this was a severe test, a very severe test, but Jesus was not having any of it.

[20:05] Now, reasonable though that he should eat and have a good reputation and rule over the kingdom, he was God, but the subtle form of this is, was he going to take things into his own hands or was he going to wait for his father's timing?

[20:24] So that was from the devil's point of view. What about from God's point of view? We've more or less said the one about the attitude to resources bread, either trust God or take it into your hands yourself, but look about this responsibility to kingdoms.

[20:40] Is he going to say, yes, you know, I am a king, so why don't I take these kingdoms? He's waiting to see if God wants to do that for him. And you do later find in Matthew 28, you know these verses very well.

[20:53] Later on, Jesus is saying, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. But it's not at the time when he's being tempted. So God is testing, you know, Jesus' attitude to responsibility and his reputation.

[21:11] What about his attitude to his reputation? Because he wasn't interested in becoming the talk of the town and the famous one for his skills in doing something magical and supernatural.

[21:24] And many of you will know in Philippines too, lovely words about the humility of Jesus. He says that he wants to make him, you know, he made himself nothing. Although he was in very nature God, he made himself nothing, taking the nature of a servant.

[21:40] That was ingrained in him. So when he saw this attraction to becoming famous, he just wasn't interested. But what a test that was. And how important, when you think of what would happen over the next three years, and how his reputation would be torn to shreds as he was led bit by bit towards the cross.

[22:03] But he wasn't concerned about what other people thought about him. He just wanted to please his father. And if only, like John 17, to say, I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you have given me to do.

[22:20] Notice also, though you won't get it from Matthew, there are different accounts of this in Luke and some of the temptations are in a different order. But if you look at, in Luke, at chapter 4 and verse 14, you find after this episode, we've been through the fact that before it he'd had the baptism, he was baptized in the Spirit, full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit into this.

[22:42] But interestingly, after all this, it says in Luke that he returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. So, God has tested that he is ready to receive power for his ministry.

[22:59] And of course, you know, without me spelling it all out, the many marvelous things he did, healing the sick, raising the dead, all sorts of things that he was given power to do.

[23:13] Now, I touch on this one because Hebrews 2, verse 10, we can't escape this thought that in, the idea that Jesus was made perfect through what he suffered says here, in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God should make the pioneer of their salvation, Jesus, perfect through what he suffered.

[23:36] Now, one, you might, at a simple level, think, hang on a minute, you know, he's always been perfect, what does this mean? And the original Greek word has the idea of completeness, or it's something to do with maturing as well.

[23:50] As a young boy, fully God, fully without sin, later in life, near the cross, fully God, fully without sin, but nevertheless, this process of going through pain and suffering in some way prepared him and made him more complete.

[24:09] It's in the Bible. You can think about how difficult that is to get your head round, but there is this process that Jesus went through to become more complete through his suffering.

[24:24] So then, the last part of what we're doing is to think how we should handle temptation, and there are a few other scriptures that will help us, because it is a very forbidding thought, and I suppose Hebrews 4 and verse 14 to 15, it says, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet not without sin.

[24:59] So this Jesus who lived was empowered in this way and died. The other part of the story is, you know, after three days he was risen, raised from the dead, then shortly after that he ascended to heaven where he now lives, and by his spirit he can come and empower the church.

[25:20] But this Jesus who is now in heaven, looking out for us, loving us, caring for us, he has been a man, he has faced all of the trials that we face, all of these pulls, and yet without sin.

[25:36] So we can actually turn to him and say, well, you know, he can empathize, he's been there. Then there's this verse in 1 Corinthians 10.

[25:49] This is an encouragement. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind, and God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

[26:01] But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. So the question here is, do you believe it? Do you believe it?

[26:12] Do you put that into practice when you know that you're thinking about something and you think, I'm going to slip here, you know, whatever it could be.

[26:23] Do you actually put this into practice that there is a way out? Let me give you an example, slightly humorous, this one, but it just reminds you to bring some of this back into reality of what a temptation might be.

[26:36] Slightly funny, but gives the point of what a temptation might be. A story here, a minister once became very annoyed with his wife for always coming back with a new dress each time she went out shopping.

[26:51] He told her she must be more concerned about the finances and resist any more purchases. She said it was very difficult as the devil was always tempting her.

[27:06] Her husband replied, you must say to the devil next time, get thee behind me, Satan. So the next week she came back from shopping with yet another new dress and her husband was furious.

[27:21] Didn't you tell the devil to get behind you? As I said, his wife replied, I did, but when he went behind me he whispered in my ear, it looked just as good from the back as it did from the front.

[27:37] Now, there's another one about a small child, but I mean, think of anything you can, yeah, I mean, I don't know, think of someone in a shop, no money, but the cakes look rather interesting and he's tempted to steal the cake.

[27:52] But it's worth just thinking about the simple process, isn't it? You caught your eye on something, there's the bait, then you're thinking about this, hmm, I really want it and there's a struggle going on and then there's a point where you make a decision and you're either going to resist or you're going to yield to, and certainly in the case if you haven't got any money to pay for it, it's definitely a sin to be going in there and taking.

[28:19] So we are frequently confronted with these challenges and this lady clearly wasn't doing very well with taking very seriously to resist buying the dress but that's the point that we are, that all kinds of things are coming at us tempting us to, you know, yes, it's only a little thing.

[28:41] So we're saying there is a way out. If you're thinking through this process, God will provide a way out if you are looking for it, if you are keeping your eyes on him, God provides a way out.

[28:55] And then here's another encouragement in 1 John 5, we know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin, the one who has been born of God keeps them safe and the evil one cannot harm them.

[29:11] Now there's a clear idea, born of God, this is, this is I've come to Jesus, I've said, yes, I know I'm sinful, you died on the cross, that's where I can find my salvation, you've come to live in me because that's what you've promised to do by your spirit.

[29:28] He said, that's what it means to be born of God. He says, you do not continue to sin. Now it doesn't, being careful what this means, this doesn't mean you never sin again, but it does mean you don't continue in things.

[29:40] So if you had some really, you know, habits that were absolutely dominating your life, that when Christ is living in you, yes, you will slip up from time to time, but you do not blatantly continue in it because you are now changed into a different direction.

[29:56] Anyone born of God does not continue in sin. The one who is born of God keeps them safe and the evil one cannot harm them. We cannot be harmed. These encouragements to you, Jesus is able to sympathize with us, empathize with us, he will provide a way out in our temptations.

[30:15] We cannot be harmed and you know this well, we're not going to delve into it in a lot of detail, but not that long ago, I think Chris was helping us look at some of this, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes and if you go to that passage, there's talking about a breastplate of righteousness, helmet of salvation, shield of faith, sword of the spirit, sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, isn't it?

[30:42] So there is a picture that whether we like it or not, in this unseen world, there is armor that we need to wear if we are going to resist the devil.

[30:55] So there's armor. So there's some other scriptures that give us some good advice on how to step forward with this. Now I'm not going to give you too many words on that one, but I just wanted to notice that this prayer is not about lead me, might think it's hard enough when I just think about my own pulls to stumble or sin that I'm trying to sort myself out, but this is a prayer lead us, not into temptation.

[31:28] So it does suggest not only am I aware of where I might be weak and stumbling, but I've got a bit of a lookout for other people.

[31:39] Now it does suggest that I know other people in the church enough to know where they might be weak, enough to know where I might be able to help. It also suggests that I'm allowing myself to be known.

[31:50] So there is an aspect of that that I just didn't want to miss there, lead us, not into temptation. So we come back to, this is just the last bit really, on how we apply this to ourselves.

[32:08] Can I just ask you straight off, you know, although we live our comfortable lives, are you aware that you live on a battlefield? We don't like that fact, do we?

[32:19] We don't like the fact that in this unseen world where the spirit of God and the devil are having battles and we're caught up in it.

[32:29] We don't always see the results of that. There are stories in the Bible like Job where you get glimpses because he had a lot of suffering, but you do find early on that you knew that in the unseen worlds the God and the devil were having a tremendous battle there and when Job went through all that suffering and didn't give in, there was an enormous victory for God in those heavenly realms.

[32:52] But are you aware we live on a battlefield? And some of you will know, have you seen the film Private Ryan, Saving of Private Ryan? I'll just give you that one picture that came to me about there's a guy who goes onto the battlefield and he's about to go behind enemy lines and he's got a typewriter.

[33:09] Do you know this story? He's got a typewriter in his sack. So he's going up to the commander and his typewriter falls out and he says what are you thinking? We are moving quickly through the trying not to get shot and you're carrying a typewriter because you want to do some writing and Tom Hanks in the film he says that's what you're taking a pen.

[33:34] But just a picture of someone in a battle so unaware. I think the commander also says have you got a gun? Have you ever shot your weapon? And he says oh maybe once.

[33:47] But let us not be naive that we are on a battlefield and we are easily taken out if we are not focused on taking the advice.

[34:00] So we've touched on whether we're aware and thinking about our brothers and sisters. Interesting to note that Eve when we compare the temptation of Jesus with what happened to Adam and Eve Eve was tempted to give in to a weakness.

[34:14] Jesus was tempted to give in to his strength. And both have dangers for us. Now we don't have anything like the strength that Jesus has.

[34:24] I've never been tempted to turn stones into bread or anything of that kind. But nevertheless if we are prone to give in to our weakness consequences of that we feel useless and it can make us very ineffective for God.

[34:42] But if we are actually naturally quite able at certain things and God and the devil can undermine that. He can make you feel, you know, I can do this without God.

[34:56] And then you're proud and then God can't use you either. So weakness and strength are a problem. Poverty and wealth, both are temptations.

[35:11] If you just imagine for a moment that you really haven't got enough money to pay the bills, you're going to be more tempted to steal, aren't you?

[35:23] Or go into some other trade that is not reputable because there's easy money or something. If you are wealthy, you're tempted to think, oh, you know, I've never known what it is to be in need.

[35:36] You know, whether I go to church or not, I've got plenty, I can keep going. Both have temptations. And there's a lovely prayer, I think it's Agar, in Proverbs 30, and some of you will know this.

[35:50] Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread, otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say who is the Lord, or I may become poor and steal and so dishonor the name of my God.

[36:05] God. So we should expect to be tested in these same areas that Jesus was. And they might seem quaint old words, lust of the flesh, but we're talking about food has its right place, being greedy and a glutton, it's not good, lust of the flesh, sex has its place, but taken to the wrong extreme, in the wrong context, outside of marriage, this is a lust of the fresh.

[36:37] Pride of life, this is, and you see it in the work environment so much, you see people with big egos, people who are doing things, and all they're doing is puffing themselves up, so that these are very real areas that people are vulnerable, they want to be important.

[36:53] And the lust of the eyes, the idea of looking to things that are a little bit out of your reach, but really coveting and wanting them. But if there's an encouragement through all the things that get thrown at you, just remember that the devil seeks to trip us up, that God is refining and strengthening us and allowing us to bring glory to God.

[37:13] We're nearly there, one more slide after this one. But have you thought when you do yield to temptation, what are the consequences? Some of it you'll get from looking at the story with Adam and Eve.

[37:25] There is shame, that where before we sinned we were close to God, now we want to hide from him. There is guilt.

[37:36] There's a story, isn't there, of the woman caught in adultery and Jesus' response to them. He who is without sin to throw the first stone, and of course no one did because they were all knowing they were guilty.

[37:47] Bondage, now that's an old-fashioned word, but what do I mean? Slaves to sin. Now some are much more insipid than others, and I think you'd all agree, when you see people who have got sucked into drugs or heavy alcohol drinking, there is a grip here that is very difficult to break free from, that can wreck lives.

[38:09] So you get sucked in thinking you can just do it once, and that's what's coming up in the next bit there. Once won't hurt, but then the more you suddenly realize this has got a grip on me, and I can't get rid of this, and you're separate from God, and you're subject to spiritual and physical death.

[38:27] So the two things that Satan wants us to believe just once won't hurt, or the other one, now that you're ruined and going on that weak idea that now you've slipped up, you're not useful to God, so you might as well just carry on sinning.

[38:38] These are the kind of messages he wants to give. Just look up, though, I do want to turn to Psalm 51. Just one example of a man, a great man of God, David, but certainly at one point, most of you will know the story, but he committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then arranged to have her husband killed in a battle, and this is a horrendous, having done so many good things, he was a horrendous trip up for him, and in the story, not in Psalm 51, but Nathan the prophet comes to him and tells him the story about the sheep, the man who takes the sheep from the poor man, and he says, who is that man?

[39:35] Now, you know this story well, and Nathan the prophet says, David, you are that man, because you took the wife from that poor man, and you did all this thing.

[39:46] Now, so there's a man who's been caught and exposed in a sin. Now, what could he have done? He could have said, well, I really am a failure, I give up now. I'll just go and take a quiet corner and sit in the back there.

[40:01] But no, he actually went through a lot of anguish, and in the start of Psalm 51, it talks about, doesn't it, against you, you only have I sinned. He explores deeply that pain.

[40:14] But I just wanted to think, it's only a few words there in verse 10, but there's a deep crying, and this is a real protection against sin. If you know that you're prone to stumble, simple prayer.

[40:28] Phil was reminding us of some simple prayers this morning, yeah, and talking to the children. Create in me a pure heart. That was his longing. Create in me a pure heart.

[40:40] And then the last thing, I thought you must be interested, we've been looking at Martin Luther. Martin Luther was asked how he overcame the devil, when he was, he replied, well, when he comes knocking at the door in my heart and asks who lives there, here, the dear Lord Jesus goes to the door and says, Martin Luther used to live here, but he has moved out.

[41:05] Now I live here. And the point is simple, when Christ fills our lives, Satan has not got an entrance. So I'm going to stop there, but I'm sure I've left other things that could be said, unsaid.

[41:23] But I hope that's a blessing. Thank you. Thank you.