Turning Point - David Jeremiah

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Would a loving God lead his children into temptation? If not,
why does the Lord's Prayer specifically ask him not to?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Today?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
On turning point, Doctor David Jeremiah sheds light on this
important and potentially confusing portion of the Lord's Prayer. If
you wonder how you can tell when you're heading towards temptation,
listen as David introduces his important message Prayer and Protection
Part one.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
We have been talking about forgiveness, and today we're going
to talk about temptation and how temptation is something that
should be in our per list every day. Lead us
not at a temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
That's the prayer and Part one is just around the corner.
But first, let me tell you about the book that
we're featuring during the month of August. I talk about

(00:56):
the way these books look often because I love books
and love the feel of them. I love to hold
them in my hands. I'm not an electronic reader. I'm
a reader of real books. I like to mark in
the margins and I like holding them in my hands.
And this book is like that. It's called Everything to
God in prayer, and I promise you when you get
this book, you want to hold on to it for

(01:16):
a while. It's beautiful. On the inside are many, many
prayers that we have put together for the specific situations
you face. When I feel despair, when I have a
big decision to make, when I need a heart for others,
when I want an exuberant faith, when I feel worthless.
All these are things for which there is a specific

(01:37):
scripture and a specific prayer in this wonderful prayer book
called Everything to God in Prayer, it's yours for a
gift of any size during the month of August, when
you ask for it, send your gift and say, please
send me the Book on Prayer, and we'll do it,
and we'll do it with joy because we know it's
going to add value to your walk with the Lord.
Here is part one of prayer and protection.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
In many respects. What we're learning is sort of like
walking down a street, and if I could illustrate it
this way, it's sort of like you're walking down the
street and their signposts along the way. The street that
we're on is the street called prayer. And when we
come to the first intersection, there's a sign there that
says praise, and we learn our Father who art in Heaven,

(02:27):
Hallowed be thy name. We learn how to praise God.
That's the first intersection on the street called prayer, and
then we keep walking and we get to the next one.
Up on that sign at that intersection is the sign Priorities,
and we pray Thy Kingdom Come. Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. And we ask
God to take charge of our priorities in very specific ways,

(02:51):
that his will will be done in our lives as
it is done in heaven. And then we walk across
the curb and on our way down the street called prayer,
to the next intersection, and up on the sign is
the word provision, and we now realize that it's time
for us to ask God for what we need, and
we pray give us this day our daily bread, and
we tell the Lord everything that our needs in our lives,

(03:14):
and we petition him for the things that we need.
And we keep walking and we get to the intersection
where it says personal relationships, and there we read that
we're to forgive our debtors as we are being forgiven.
And then we come to today's intersection, which says lead
us not into temptation and really, there's another part to

(03:37):
that that we'll get to, but we're just going to
focus right here on this phrase, lead us not into temptation,
and the signpost at that intersection is the word protection.
We're going to ask God to protect us in our prayers.
And I'm reminding you of all of this because the
worst thing that could happen as we finish our discussion
of the Lord's Prayer is that we could all walk

(03:59):
away from this series saying, why isn't it really true
the Lord's Prayer is a beautiful prayer. No, The Lord's
Prayer was given to us by the Lord as an
outline to teach us how to have system in our
praying so that we have a well rounded prayer life
and we don't leave things out because we're prone to
pray our whims, We're prone to pray our interests, and

(04:20):
God says, here's a pattern. If you pray this in general,
you will touch on the important issues that are to
be a part of your praying. We've learned that there
are two sections in the prayer. The first section is
the Lord's section in a sense, it's thy name, thy Kingdom,
thy will. And the second section has to do with
us our daily bread, our debt, and us into temptation.

(04:44):
And so we come to Matthew six thirteen in the
first part of the verse, which I must confess to
you is one of the most perplexing prayers that we've
been asked to model, because it says, lead us not
into temptation. And immediately we reason, if we have been
studying at all, that it is the nature of God

(05:05):
to feed us, and it is the nature of God
to forgive us. But it is certainly not the nature
of God to lead us into temptation. Do we have
to ask God? Do we have to ask a holy, righteous, pure, undefiled, blameless, unblemished,
virtuous God not to lead us into temptation? This has
been a challenging text for as long as people have

(05:28):
studied the Bible. In fact, back in AD one ninety two,
an African theologian by the name of Tertullian bristled at
the notion of this prayer, and he said, far be
the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt as
if he were either ignorant of the limits of someone's
faith or else eager to overthrow that faith. In other words,

(05:52):
why would God ask us to pray that prayer well.
In order to understand all that's involved in this phrase,
we need to turn in our bibles to James chapter one.
We don't really have to have our bibles open to
Matthew six because we can memorize that little phrase lead
us not into temptation. But James Chapter one is sort

(06:13):
of a commentary that will help us to solve the
riddle of this prayer. The first thing we need to
understand is right off the bat, God does not tempt
people to do evil. And I don't have to say
that on the basis of my guest work, because I
can read to you write from the scriptures a very
clear and plain passage James chapter one, verse twelve. Blessed

(06:37):
is the man who endures temptation, for when he has
been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which
the Lord has promised to those who love him. But
let no one say when he is tempted, I am
tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil,
nor does he himself tempt anyone. Now, just put a

(06:59):
period atter after that. God does not tempt people directly
to do evil. That would deny the Holy nature of God,
that would implicate him in the evil itself, and God
is not capable of that. But to understand what's going
on in this prayer in Matthew six, we have to
comprehend that the word temptation. And I'm not going to

(07:20):
get Greek on you today, but the word temptation is
the word prasmus, and it is found many times in
the Scriptures. It is often translated by the word trial
or test or prove, and sometimes by the word temptation.
Here in the Book of James, both uses of this

(07:41):
word are found within one context. Now, remember the word
that is translated can either mean trial or test or
it can mean temptation. When we hear the word temptation today,
we always think about that as some inducement to do evil.
But the word temptation often meant other than that when
the Biblical writers were writing. Now look in your bibles

(08:04):
in James Chapter one, and notice verse two. My brethren
counted all joy when you fall into various There is
the word parasmus various trials. Count it all joy when
you fall into various testings or trials. Now I've drawn
a line from verse two down to verse twelve blessed

(08:25):
is the man who endures temptation or trials, for when
he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life. Then,
when you get to verse thirteen, you find the other
use of the word. In verses two and twelve, the
word prasmus means trial or testing. In verse thirteen, the
word prasmus means to be tempted to do evil. God

(08:48):
does try us? Can I get a witness? Does he not? Doesn't?
God sometimes put us in the furnace. Sometimes he puts
us through trials. God directly does that, we know that
for a fact. But God does not ever directly tempt
us to do evil. Now, the interesting thing about these
two words that I never realized this before, is that

(09:11):
they really do have a very serious connection. For how
many of you can give testimony to the fact that
often when you are under trial, that's when you are
most susceptible to temptation, because in the midst of the
trial there is this option not to do right. And
so the words are truly related. But as we go

(09:31):
back to the thought of Matthew six, Jesus is not
teaching us to pray. God don't tempt me to sin.
That's not the prayer because God is not capable of
doing that. He is not talking about direct temptation to sin.
He doesn't say lead me not to sin. It says,
lead me not into the way of temptation. And so

(09:53):
here's the whole gist of the prayer God's role in temptation.
With James's words in mind, we assume that God is
not saying in the Lord's prayer that he would ever
entice us to sin. But what Jesus is talking about
is that we should pray because we know of our weakness,
that we wouldn't even be placed in the way of trial,

(10:16):
which could in essence lead us to temptation. Now, let
me just back up and say, sometimes God is involved
in allowing the circumstances where temptation takes place. I know
that because in Matthew chapter four, where you have the
story of Jesus being taken to the wilderness to be tempted.

(10:36):
Did you ever read that carefully Matthew four one. Listen
to it, Listen carefully to what it says. In Matthew
four one, it says, then Jesus was led by the
spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Wow.
We always assume that the devil led him out there,
But no, the spirit let him out there. The scripture says,

(10:57):
the Spirit of God led Jesus out into the wilderness
so that he could be tempted by the devil. The
spirit of God didn't tempt him, but the Spirit of
God put him in a place where temptation took place. Now,
why would that ever happen. One of the reasons we
struggle with this passage is because whenever we hear the
word temptation, we always assume that it is an evil word.

(11:19):
And the word temptation is not always evil. The word
temptation has in it some properties that often are positive.
And I went through the scripture and reminded myself that
there are some positive things that come out of temptation.
Not yielding to temptation, but temptation. Let me just give
you four of them. What happens when we are tempted

(11:42):
that could in any sense of the word be called good.
And some of you who may be struggling with temptations
that I haven't found any of them yet, But listen carefully.
The first thing that happens is God can use temptation
to reveal what is in our hearts. And I use
as my illustration for that, the man Abraham and his
sacrificing of his son Isaac on Mount Mariah. Do you

(12:04):
remember that story, and you know the story, and I
don't have to recreate it. But what happened was this
Abraham's caught on the horns of the dilemma God's promises
in Isaac, and God says, take him up and sacrifice him.
And Abraham doesn't know what to do, so in obedience,
he goes to the mountain and there he offers Isaac
to the Lord. And you know that God intervened and
he didn't have to actually go through with it, but

(12:26):
in his heart he went through with it. And on
the way back down the mountain, this little conversation goes
on in Abraham's heart. He always knew that he loved
God in theory, but now he knew that he loved
God in fact, for he had taken that which was
most precious to him, and he had offered it to
God in that testing, in that trial, in that temptation,

(12:49):
what was the temptation for Abraham. I'll tell you what
My temptation would have been grabbed my son and run.
Wouldn't you have wouldn't that have been your temptation? But
Abraham stood true to the temptation in the midst of it,
and on the way out it revealed to him the
great love. Did you know that temptation reveals a lot
about what's in your heart when it's all over. Let
me tell you it does. Some of you guys who

(13:10):
travel and you face temptation, and some of you may
have faced it this week. You're someplace where nobody knows you,
nobody knows anything about what's going on in your life.
And you go through that temptation and you're faithful to God,
and you walk away from that, and you know what happens.
What it reveals to you is it reveals to you
how much you love God. It reveals to you how
much you love your wife. It reveals to you how
much you love your children, how much you want your

(13:32):
influence to count for eternity. When you walk away from that,
you may have had a really tough time, but you
walk out of that and you know in your heart
from that temptation what you really believe. Do you understand
what I'm saying. Temptation reveals what's in your heart. Secondly,
sometimes through temptation, God can use temptation to replace significant

(13:53):
issues in our lives. And I use for my illustration
there the temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness to which
we've already. Do you remember what Satan tried to get
him to do. He tried to get Jesus to bow
out and worship him. And what did he offer him
in exchange? He said, if you'll do this, I'll give
you the kingdoms of the world. And some people struggle
with that, they say that wasn't Satan's to give, But

(14:13):
at this particular moment in time, it was, because he's
the prince of the power of the air and the
king of the earth until Jesus sets up his kingdom.
What was Satan trying to get Jesus to do. He
was trying to get Jesus to jump ahead in the
program of redemption, to abort the cross, not to go
to the cross and die, just give him the kingdom
without any sacrifice. And Jesus said no. In every issue

(14:38):
where he was tempted by Satan, he said no. And
when you walk away from that temptation, you know what
you find out. You find out all the issues that
were clarified through that whole temptation that tell us who
Jesus was and what his redemptive plan was about. Through
the temptation, those issues come to the top. Thirdly, God
can use temptation to reinforce our our own will. Paul

(15:02):
writing to Timothy, said that we're to exercise ourselves to godliness.
Let me tell you what I know about temptation. I
know this that whenever you face temptation and you are
victorious over it, it is like digging a groove deeper
into your spirit that gives you strength the next time
it comes. Likewise, every time you yield, it tears away

(15:24):
the fabric of that groove so that it becomes easier.
Let me tell you this, one victory is not just
one victory. One victory is a step toward many victories.
And so every time you resist temptation, it builds the
strength of your spiritual muscles. So when temptation comes again,
you have the wherewithal to deal with that so that
you're not going to succumb. And temptation has a way

(15:47):
of strengthening us through the process to be holy and
righteous people. And finally, God can use temptation to remind
others of his grace and his goodness. How many of
you are thankful for Job. We're all thankful for Job
because for most of us we haven't gotten that bad yet. Right.
We look at Job as the ultimate case and we say, well,

(16:07):
thank God, I'm not like Job. Some of you may
think you're getting close, and I understand that. But Job
lost everything, didn't he? And yet through that whole process,
Job was faithful to God. And now when we talk
about Job in our culture today, what do we call him?
What do we talk about? We say the what of Job?
The what? The patience of Job? What does that mean?
The endurance of Job? He endured temptation. Even his wife

(16:31):
told him to curse God and die, and he said,
while I live and have breath, I will not do that.
In one place, when one of the counselors was on
his case about it, Job came up with this. He said,
why shouldn't a godly man receive the evil and the
good of the world and still acknowledge God's presence in
his life? Job was a final testimony to the ultimate

(16:55):
that Satan can do to test a person. And yet
he still was strong. And I want to tell you something.
Every time we face temptation and we're strong, we are
a testimony to others, aren't we, Mom and Dad? Those
kids that are growing up in your home or watching,
how you face the temptations that come to all of
us and how you deal with them, how you handle

(17:16):
those temptations is building strength and character in the lives
of those kids. So temptation does have some positive qualities
which I'm sure many of you have never thought of before.
That temptation can do some things in our lives, not
yielding to it, but the very process itself. So when

(17:38):
we pray lead us not into temptation, what we're praying
is our own human weakness, aren't we. How many of
you know that if you didn't have exams, you wouldn't
learn as much. How many of you know that you
learn more the night before it exam than you've learned
the whole semester. How many of you know that, all right?

(18:00):
And you know that ultimately in the whole process of things,
that exams are important and they're good because they promote
and they motivate you to learn. Right, But how many
of you get up in the morning and say, oh, God,
lead me into an exam today. How many of you
pray that. I don't know anybody that prays that. I

(18:22):
used to walk in the class praying no, not today, God,
oh not today. You all know that, don't you. Let
me just ask you this question. If exams are good
and they promote learning, why wouldn't you pray for them?
Just ask me that you know why? Because whenever you
take an exam, there's two possibilities. You can either pass

(18:42):
or you can fail. And the reason you don't pray
for exams is because you know the potential that you
studied all the wrong stuff, or you know the potential
to walk into that exam and not do well, so
you're not excited. You know that ultimately it helps you
to be motivated to learn, and it helps you to
grow in your knowledge, but you don't pray for it
because you don't pray for it on the basis of

(19:02):
the weakness you sense in your own heart to not
necessarily always. Do you understand the analogy, why does God
say to us, you know, lead us not into temptation,
very simply because we're to pray that knowing that in
the midst of the trial we could be tempted, and
we just want to confess by that prayer. Lord, I'm

(19:22):
weak and I don't want to be put even in
the place where I could be tempted. That's a good
and positive prayer. It's an essence, the replaying of the
verse of Scripture that says, let him that thinketh he stand,
take heed lest he fall. Don't get cocky about your
spiritual life. Don't do as I've heard some TV preachers do,

(19:43):
stand up and challenge the devil and say, just bring
on whatever you want to bring on. Not me, friend,
not me. I'm praying every day, lead me not into temptation.
I've told some of you that God can never greatly
use a man until he's greatly crushed a man. And
I used to pray daily that I could be the
exception I used to be. But you know what, I

(20:04):
don't think there are any exceptions. And so what Jesus
is teaching us here is this, when we find ourselves
in prayer, we need to pray, Lord, I'm a weak
human being and I'm not strong, but in You I
can be strong. But Lord, just today, it's okay with
me if you don't put me in a way of temptation.

(20:25):
It's all right with me. Now. If you don't like
that prayer, you pray the opposite. Okay, if you think
this is a hard prayer, you can pray the opposite
if you want to, but I don't advise it. Now.
Having said all of this, how do you know if
in the midst of that you're being tempted? I read
a statement that was in Leadership magazine and it says this,

(20:48):
The devil's easy to identify. He always shows up when
you're terribly tired and makes a very reasonable request, which
you know you shouldn't grant. That's a pretty good dossier
on the devil, especially the tired part. How many of
you know that when you're tired, when you're worn down,
you're really susceptible to the things that he wants to
throw into your Pathway, I went back through and I

(21:09):
want to do kind of a post mortem on temptation,
if I might. I want to give you six things
to watch out for in the midst of a trial.
In the midst of a temptation, how do you know
that this is a temptation to take you away from
God instead of to test the reality of who you are?
First of all, the first step of temptation is always

(21:31):
a deceit. The first step is often the least obvious
because of the very nature of what it is. We're
always given this false impression by the tempter that whatever
wrong we do really isn't all that serious. I have
played that over and over again with people of God
who've gotten in trouble. Well, I never thought there was
all that much to it, pastor not that much to it.

(21:53):
Satan comes along and he massages your thinking process, and
he candy coats the whole situation, and he deceives you
to thinking that something, in a clear, bright moment, you
would know is wrong. But somehow he deceives you into
believing that it's well, maybe close to the line and
not all that bad. You know, deceit. Well, once you

(22:15):
get through the process of deceit, the next thing that
happens is you find yourself caught up in delight, and
Satan makes you think that this is pretty good. He
gives you a sense of fascination with it. You become
delighted with the whole prospect of whatever the temptation might be.
He puts a sense of excitement in your heart about it.

(22:39):
Then when you've gone from deceit to delight. The third
step is the step of desire, and this kind of
gets a hold of your passion. It produces a powerful
response within you, a deep and compelling desire. There's an
arousal in the desire part of you. It appears very pleasant,
very reasonable, very much to your advantage to pursue this thing.

(22:59):
You've talk to yourself into it. You've got this hunger
for it, a desire for it. You see what's happening.
It starts with deceit, and then it goes to delight,
and then it goes to desire. And then there's always
this little place right in the middle of the process
called deliberation, where you sort of take it out of
the package and you play with it. You sort of
put it in the screen of your mind, and you

(23:20):
think about it. You allow it to appeal to you,
You listen, and then in the process of deliberation, you
reach out and you take it. And after deliberation, let
me tell you what's next. Defeat. Defeat, you proceed to
act on the temptation. Let me tell you up through
the fourth step, there is no sin that is overt

(23:42):
Perhaps sin in the minds and in the heart, but
there's no overt sin. But after step four you have
now acted upon the temptation and you are defeated. Well,
there's no one who lives outside of the realm of temptation.
The Bible tells us that we are all tempted, that
we have a commonality and temptation. But here are some

(24:04):
practical things we're learning based on the Lord's prayer. As
we understand how temptation works and how we deal with it.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
We'll have more about that tomorrow here on Turning Point.
Actually there are four parts to this whole section, and
tomorrow is part two. But we want you to keep
listening because you need all of this information in the
construct of it, how it's put together, and it'll work
for you, I'm sure in your own life. Hey, don't forget.

(24:32):
Turning Point has a magazine that we'd like you to have.
It comes to your house every month. It's beautiful, it's helpful,
it's geared to encourage you every day, and you can
have your copy if you ask for it. Do it
today before we forget to do it, and we'll see
it right here tomorrow for the next edition of Turning Point.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series Prayer the Great Adventure,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points
magazine and our daily email devotional Sign up today at
Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio. That's Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio,
or call us at eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen

(25:18):
ninety three. Ask for your copy of David's new book,
Everything to God and Prayer, Guided Prayers for your deepest
needs and biggest dreams. It's yours for a gift of
any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible
in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions,
complete with notes and articles from doctor Jeremiah's decades of study.

(25:40):
Get all the details when you visit our website. Davidjeremiah
dot org slash Radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join
us tomorrow as we continue the series Prayer the Great
Adventure on Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah.