In the sermon 'Praying to be Delivered from the Evil,' Peter Allison explores the Lord's Prayer from Luke 11, emphasizing the need for divine guidance to avoid temptation and evil. He discusses the ongoing spiritual battle believers face against Satan, who seeks to corrupt and destroy God's creation. The sermon highlights Satan's historical efforts to thwart God's plans, including his deception in the Garden of Eden and attempts to undermine the lineage of Christ. Allison identifies three primary enemies—our flesh, the world, and Satan—that work in concert to tempt believers. He underscores the importance of recognizing our own weaknesses and relying on the Holy Spirit for strength. The sermon also addresses why God allows temptation: to reveal our hearts, teach gratitude for His grace, and prepare us for spiritual warfare. Believers are encouraged to use the Word of God as a powerful tool against these temptations, reinforcing the need for study and meditation on Scripture. Ultimately, the sermon calls for reliance on God's providence and grace to overcome spiritual challenges.

Our scripture reading this morning is Luke chapter 11 as we continue our study on prayer. Now it came to pass as he was teaching praying in a certain place when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples and so he said to them when you pray say Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And he said to them, Which of you shall have a friend?

And go to him at midnight, and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within, and say, Do not trouble me, the door is now shut, and my children are in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened if a son asks for bread from any father among you will he give him a stone or if he asked for a fish will he give him a serpent instead of a fish or if he asked for an egg will he offer him a scorpion if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of God, and on his law he meditates day and night. Father in heaven, we ask that your word that we have heard might be mixed with faith within us, that it might bring life, it might bring correction, instruction in righteousness, that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work. And I ask that you would sanctify also my sinful lips to proclaim the riches of your grace and the beauty of your salvation in Christ.

Amen. We are in a war, I suppose you already knew that, that if you are a believer, you are in a war against very real and very powerful enemies. Enemies that want to see nothing more than to see you fail. Enemies that want to see you become discouraged, to see your marriage fall apart, to see Your children led astray and turned against you, to see your faith destroyed, doubts created in your mind, to see your hope dashed upon the rocks. Yes, this is a war, brothers and sisters, that you and I are in.

And like the gladiator that fought in the Roman Coliseum so many hundreds, thousands of years ago, it is a war to the death. It is a war to the death. Because either we overcome and put to death the enemy, put to death the sin that dwells in us, or we are put to death. Satan began this war against Almighty God, His Creator. It's a cosmic, a global spiritual war carried out in the heavens.

The Bible tells us about these heavenly wars between His hosts and the angels of heaven. But it is also fought here on earth As Satan is a part of his attack Against God seeks to ruin God's creation Satan has gone off to make war against everything that is good, against everything that God created that was good. It's Satan's effort, it's been his goal ever since the beginning, to destroy and corrupt and mar. And He's a powerful spiritual being. And He uses that power to steal, to destroy, to kill.

To in every way that he can ruin the beauty that God has created. Especially those whom God has made in His own image. Those who God created good. Satan began his attack in the Garden of Eden. The very first recorded earthly battle of this cosmic war is in Genesis 3 when Satan came to Adam and Eve in this feudal plan of his to ruin everything that is good and to become God Himself.

That's his goal. He wants to replace God and be God Himself. That's what he's seeking to do. It's a feudal scheme, of course, but the wicked have never been very rational. They are cunning, they are devious, but there could be nothing more futile than to wage a war against God Almighty.

He's a deceiver. He's a imposter. He is a he is a imitator he seeks to in every way he seeks to imitate God and To mock it or to overturn it He seeks to imitate because that's one of his more effective means of corruption. Imitate, but it's different. He stole what God created for Himself.

And He has set Himself up as a ruler of this world. It's not His. That power doesn't belong to him, but he has stolen it. When Satan came to Adam and Eve, he came lying, deceiving, He came seeking to get them to know evil. And by that we mean to experience it, not just to know about it, but to know the experience of it.

And he succeeded in that. He created doubt in Eve's mind. The Bible says that she was deceived by his words and that she took this fruit that looked good to her. And that was the sin even before she ate. But looking at it and desiring to eat what God had said you shall not eat was the sin.

And then from that sin came the sin of taking that fruit and eating it, contrary to God's command to Adam and Eve. And God at that day declared war on Satan in Genesis 3, where God told the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all the cattle, and on your belly you shall go. You are cursed more than the cattle and every beast of the field, and on your belly you shall go. You shall eat dust all the days of your life." And God said, and I, that's God, I will put enmity between you and the woman. God created, God declared this war against Satan.

I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise his heel." And that is what we have seen throughout the 6, 000 years since then in the history of the world. That Satan has sought to destroy, either through murder or through mixture, through murder or through mixture, sought to destroy the seed of the woman. Because it was Satan that was moving Pharaoh to kill all the baby boys that were born to Israel in the land of Egypt. It was Satan that moved in the pre-flood world, so that their imagination of those people was only evil continually.

It was Satan that was moving in the world at that time that led God to destroy the entire world and everyone in it except for eight souls. Noah and his three sons and their wives. It was Satan that moved Herod to seek to destroy all the children born in Bethlehem. It was Satan that moved Athaliah to destroy every male descendant of David. She didn't succeed any more than Herod succeeded, or than Pharaoh succeeded, or anybody else who has sought to destroy the godly line in this earth.

It's Satan that moves these 20th century and 21st century tyrants to destroy life, to put Christians in jail, to persecute and torture them in an effort, a feudal effort, to destroy what God has made good. And so we're in a war and we face a really a three enemies. Three enemies that like a pack of dogs or a pack of hyenas are coordinated in their attack. They work together against us. That first enemy is our own flesh.

Yes, when we pray and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one, the very first enemy that we are praying against is our own flesh. The war within where our flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these things, The Bible says, are contrary to one another so that we do not do the things that we wish. That's a war. That's the war within. Our flesh is continually enticing us and pulling us in all the wrong directions.

You know, we're prone to sleep too long. We're prone to linger too long at our amusements. We are prone to laziness. We're prone to wasting time in idleness. We're prone to carelessness in loving one another.

Carelessness in paying our spiritual vows. Carelessness in offering the sacrifice of praise. Our desire for food can lead to theft. Our desire for wealth can lead to all kinds of evil. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

Our desire for sex leads to defiling our own body, becoming one flesh with harlots. Our desire for the pleasure of alcohol leads to drunkenness. Wars erupt when we don't get the things that our flesh desires. Where do wars come and fights come from among you? James is talking to the saints, to the church.

He's not talking outside the church. He's talking to the church. Where do wars and fights come from among you, brothers and sisters? Do they not come, He says, from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust, which is just a desire.

You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You desire and you can't get it. You fight and you war. All these things, whether it's food, wine, sexual relationships, wealth, All these things were created by God.

They are good. They are created by God for us to enjoy. But in our fallen estate, our flesh desires these things instead of God. And they become enticements to sin. But see that enticement to sin comes from within us.

The sin isn't in the thing out there. The Sin is not in the food or the alcohol or the marriage bed, the sin is within us, what we desire. The enticement comes from within us. And so we then, the Bible says that we are tempted when we are enticed by our own desires and drawn away. Now the Bible uses temptation in really two different ways.

It uses it to talk about a circumstance that we find ourselves in. It could be a circumstance that is arranged under the providence of God, that has come to our life, and we are placed in a situation. We are placed in the middle of a trial. And that can be, we can speak of that as a temptation, a test. So Abraham was given a test like that.

Remember God came to him. He had waited for years, decades for the Son of promise to be born. Remember there were many false starts After 10 years and Sarah was getting very old, they began to doubt that God could give them an heir. And Sarah gave Hagar her maid to Abraham as his wife and Ishmael was born from that marriage. And Abraham asked the Lord, Oh, can't Ishmael be the heir?

And God said, no, that's not the heir. Somebody from Sarah's own body will be an heir. I'm sure we know that Sarah had stopped thinking that that would happen, because when God came to announce that in a year she would give birth to a son, remember she laughed. She laughed within herself. How can that be?

She was 89 years old, far past the years of bearing children. So Abraham had waited a long time, but God did send them a son, born from Sarah, when she was 90 years of age. Abraham had waited for years and years for that son. And then God came to Abraham a few years later When that son was growing to a young lad, a young man, and God said that he needed to offer that son on the altar. This is Abraham who had doubted that God would be able to care for him.

And so he had that agreement with his wife that she would say that she's his sister instead of his wife. And We have two examples in the Bible where they did that, once with the Bimalak and once with Pharaoh because Abraham doubted that God would be able to protect them in these foreign lands. So God gave Abraham a test. Would he believe what God said? Would he do what God asked of him?

And Abraham, by This time in his life, he's probably 117 or so, 120, somewhere in there. He did believe. And he set off immediately to do what God commanded him to do. And God tested him, God tempted him, God put this circumstance in his life to see what he would do. And God tested him right up into the point where he had his son tied on the altar and he was ready to plunge the knife into his own son's heart.

And then God said, stop. Stop. Now I know. Now I know what is in your heart. Peter was tested with a set of circumstances in a similar way.

When Jesus was arrested and he followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest. And you remember the story how he's recognized. And people are saying, well, aren't you one of his disciples? And three times Peter denies it. The last time even with an oath saying, I don't know this Jesus.

See that was a set of circumstances. A servant girl had asked him, aren't you one of his disciples? That's not a sinful question. That wasn't a sin, but it was a circumstance where Peter was Tempted tried The circumstances aren't wrong It's it's there it's their desire. It's our desire in those circumstances where we're afraid or we have some other sinful desire contrary to the word of God that leads us into sin.

But temptation can also be used as an inducement to sin. We can say that somebody is tempted when somebody is actively or someone is actively seeking to induce them to sin. You see, somebody might say, I am tempted to eat this piece of cake. Maybe they are on a diet. Maybe for some reason they've decided they don't want to eat that particular food.

And so they'll say, well, I'm tempted to eat that. Now, what do they mean? Well, they could mean two different things in that circumstance. One they could mean that food is there in front of them and they are able to eat it and so in that sense it is a temptation but they could also mean and they probably mean well I have a desire to eat that food. That's something different.

I have a desire to eat that food. And I am resisting that desire. I'm not following that desire. See, that's also... We also use the word temp that way.

Where we have a desire, or where somebody is actively trying to induce us to do something that is wrong like Satan did of Eve or Satan did with Christ in the wilderness. He came and tried to persuade Christ to do something that was wrong. It's what Judah did when he tried to persuade his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery. It's what Potiphar did when she took hold of Joseph's coat and tried to get him to lay with her, it's an act of inducement to do something wrong. But you see, all of the gold in Babylon, or maybe with the Federal Reserve.

I don't know who has who had more gold. Maybe the Federal Reserve did all the gold in the Federal Reserve is no inducement to sin apart from our sinful desires. All the enticement in the world appealing to us is no inducement to sin apart from our sinful desires. See, it wasn't the fruit that God put on the tree, but that drew Eve into sin. It was her sinful desire that drew her into sin.

It wasn't the presence of Joseph that induced his brothers to sin. And it was their desires within them. And it wasn't Potiphar's body that enticed Joseph. It was his fleeing that situation, where he had no desire to take what was being offered to him. You see those, in each of those cases, those were external persuasions.

People that were, or Satan, that were seeking to persuade people to do something that was wrong. But each one was tempted or not tempted when they were drawn away by their own desire in those situations. And so while God may in His providence put us in certain circumstances To test us, God is not the author of our sinful passions that entice us. God is, as the sovereign in His providence, puts us in situations. But He is not the author of the internal desire within us to sin.

And neither does He seek to persuade us to sin, of course, by appealing to our sinful passions. You see, Job was tempted to sin by his wife. His wife sought to persuade him to curse God and die. Moses was tempted to sin when the lack of water caused the people of Israel to complain. And David was tempted to sin by Nabal's lack of generosity toward his servants.

They see these cases, they were either enticed or not enticed, not by the external thing, but by their own desires. Now the other two enemies, the world and the devil, Satan, use that flesh. They use that flesh to attack us. John said, do not love the world, or the things in the world, for if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world the desire of the flesh the desire of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So this world, John is saying, can be a source of enticement to us, to sin.

And the cares of this world what we are going to eat what we will drink what we will wear what kind of wheels will have to get around in the deceitfulness of riches. They hold an allure for us. They hold out the promise of being able to make us content, of being able to make us happy, of being able to make us satisfied. Who doesn't want to have food? Who doesn't want to have clothes and a vehicle to get around or wealth?

But these things, they hold an allure for us, a deceitful allure that they can make us content. And the Bible says that the cares of the world entering in choke out The word and it becomes unfruitful And so in this sense you see we we battle the world The world is as I said earlier these three enemies are like a pack of hyenas. They are coordinated in their attack. And the world attacks us through these desires within us. But our greatest enemy is the devil.

In fact, Paul actually told the Ephesians, we don't battle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Now he's not saying that our flesh is not an enemy that we battle, But he's saying that flesh is like the private in the war. And Satan and his hosts and his general demons are the generals. And they marshal the world. And they attack us through our sinful human nature.

He organizes the world and brings it against us. He knows what our desires are and He appeals to them. He tempts people by putting obstacles in our path. He uses our own natural desires to entice us, or the events of the world around us, to seek us, to get us to do what God has forbidden. And We call that enticement.

We call that temptation. Satan seeks to lead us to the knowledge of sin, to the experience of it. Because if he can get us to experience sin, to experience evil, then he has succeeded in corrupting us. And so he defiles our conscience to rob us of peace, to get us to doubt God's love for us. If he can seek to get us to Experience sin then he can defile our relationship with God See then we begin to doubt that God loves us.

We begin to doubt that we are God's children. We begin to doubt that God can forgive us of our sin. And the farther we fall, the more doubts that we have that whether God can forgive us Satan is a very powerful enemy He's far more powerful than we can handle Even Michael the archangel dare not bring a reviling accusation against him but he said the Lord rebuke you. And so then in so this these are our enemies, our own flesh, the world, and Satan and his hosts. And so in this petition then, when we pray, what the Lord is teaching us to pray, do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.

We are acknowledging some things and we're asking for some things. So we're acknowledging that the most wise and righteous and gracious and good God for whatever purpose, for whatever just end he has, may so order in His good providence, in His good and wise and holy providence, may order things so that we are assaulted, so that we are foiled, and maybe even for a time we are led captive by our temptations. We are acknowledging God in His providence may do that. I mean, Hezekiah was tested in that way by God. After his sickness and Hezekiah prayed and God extended his life 15 years.

And then God sent, then these ambassadors of Babylon came to inquire about this wonder that was done in the land. And it says that God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him that he might know what was in his heart. God allowed Hezekiah to become proud and to tell in his pride to tell the Babylonians everything in his house. The Bible says God withdrew in order to test him to see what was in him And so we are acknowledging when we're asking the Lord to not lead us into temptation That is an acknowledgement that God in his righteous and good and wise providence sometimes places us in those situations. We are acknowledging that, secondly, that even after our sins have been forgiven, that God has justified us, His righteousness has been imputed to us, he has forgiven our sins and cleansed us.

We are acknowledging that by reason of our own corrupt sinful nature, that by reason of our own lack of watchfulness, We are not only able to be tempted, but we are even inclined to expose ourselves to temptations instead of running from them. So we're acknowledging that as well. And we are acknowledging that Satan and the world and our flesh are ready and powerfully drawing us aside to and seeking to ensnare us. And we're also acknowledging that we are unable in our own strength to deal with these temptations. We are in our own strength unable to overcome the world, and in our own strength we are unable to overcome Satan, and in our own strength we are unable to overcome even our own flesh.

That we need the power of the Holy Spirit to successfully battle each of these enemies. And without the Lord's power, we are utterly helpless against them. And we are also acknowledging that we are worthy to be left under the power of these enemies. And so then what we are asking in this prayer, what we are being taught to ask, is that God would so overrule the world and everything that's in it and everything that happens in it because remember God in his providence orders and governs everything that comes to pass, even the hairs that fall from our head, God knows. And so we're asking God to so overrule the world and everything in it and subdue our flesh and restrain Satan and order all things to bestow and bless the means of grace and to make us alive and able to watch and to use those means of grace.

And so that we by God's providence may be kept from being tempted to sin. From being tempted to sin. And the Bible gives us that assurance that if we that when we give heed to make our call and election sure. That if we do, if we give diligence to make our call and election sure that we will never stumble. That if we add to our faith virtue and to our virtue knowledge and to our knowledge perseverance and the perseverance godliness and the godliness and brotherly kindness and the brotherly kindness love.

That if we do these things and they are abounding in them, then we will never stumble. Then we will never stumble. So we are praying then that by God's Holy Spirit, we may be powerfully supported and enabled to stand when we are either placed in circumstances that are difficult or when somebody or something or the evil one is actually enticing us into sin. Into sin. We are also asking in this that if we have fallen, that we would be raised and recovered and have a, and that occasion would be a sanctifying influence on us.

That the Lord would use that in our life to make us more watchful and more vigilant. So, why does God use his good Providence to ordain temptation and testing. John Flavel said, Providence carries our lives, our liberties, and concerns in its hand every moment. Every moment. In God's sovereignty, as He controls all the affairs of the world, He controls even the circumstances that lead to our temptation.

Well I think one reason that he does is to make us wise, to show us our own weakness, to show us the deceitfulness of our own hearts, to show us the need of His grace. He tests us to know what's in our heart, like He did Hezekiah. He tests, He may test us to make us thankful. Thankful as we experience his almighty power and his grace to deliver us from temptation to enable us to overcome that temptation. Even when we fall to experience the richness of his grace and forgiveness.

These things make us thankful. He also may do it to make us wary. Soldiers don't put on their armor unless they're being shot at. There's a reason to make us, so God may do this, to make us wary so that we do put on the armor of God, all the armor of God, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the girdle of truth, feet shod with the gospel of peace, The shield of faith with which we quench the fiery darts of the evil one and the sword of the spirit He may do it so that we see the wickedness of Satan He may also do it to give us the experience of the glory of victory by His power. As we overcome sin, we experience His victory.

That's what He promises us, that as we resist Satan, he will flee. So he is a mighty foe that we cannot, in our own strength, overcome. But God has given to us all the tools, all the weapons, all the armor, and the power that we need to overcome by His name. And so we are taught then to rebuke the evil one and he will flee. And we see Christ doing that, giving us that example.

As he rebuked Satan who was Seeking to tempt Christ through Peter Turned around to Peter and said get behind me sainted We are then not asking God to entire, If we are tempted, we are not asking or put in a trial, we aren't asking God to simply take us out of that trial, but we are asking him in the midst of that trial to strengthen us, to enable us to bear under it, to give His grace, to bear under that trial, to endure and persevere in it, as Joseph did, as Job did in his affliction. And we're also asking him to order the affairs of the earth to deliver us from it. I mean that is really an amazing request, an astounding petition. We are asking God to move heaven and earth to accommodate our weakness. And He does.

He does. We're asking him not only to arrange the events in the physical world, but also in the spiritual world in order to keep us from sin. And he does. He does. To enjoy such a prerogative that the sovereign in heaven and earth would rearrange and reorder the affairs of the world to keep us from sin is a certain evidence that we are truly the apple of God's eye.

And that's what it means to be the covenant children of God. Is that the Lord does regard us as the apple of his eye, as his chosen people, as his dearly beloved children. Moses describes this love of God of his people and how God separated his people from the rest of the sons of Adam and how he tended To them and how he cared for them In went in hits in that song of Moses That he gave shortly before he exited the earth said for the Lord's portion is his people Jacob Jacob is the seed the holy seed the chosen people of God that's We are said to partake and be heirs of the promises of Abraham when we are in Christ. And so in the Bible, Old Testament talks about Jacob like it does here It's speaking of us as people Jacob is the place of his inheritance He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland a howling wilderness. He encircled him He instructed him he kept him as the apple of his eye, as an eagle stirs up his nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings.

So the Lord alone led Jacob, And there was no foreign God with him He made him ride in the heights of the earth that he might eat the produce of the fields He made him draw honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock curds from the cattle and milk of the flock With the fat of rams when the rams of the of Bation and goats with the choicest wheat, you drank wine, the blood of grapes." This is what God did in the wilderness for the people that were his the apple of his eye, the center of his eye. And so we need to remember that this is our God. This is the sovereign who rules over Satan, who rules over all the affairs of this world, and yes, who is even by his grace enabled us to be victorious over our own flesh. And he gives to us the sword of the Spirit. The Bible equates the Scriptures and the work of the Holy Spirit as one and the same.

The Holy Spirit uses His scriptures to accomplish this work, this victory in us. For example Romans 15 4 says, Let me start with the 13th verse, Romans 15-13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So he's saying that we might have hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit working in us, giving us hope, filling us with joy and peace. But he also says then in verse 4, for whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and the comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

You see, The Bible attributes to the Holy Spirit and to the scriptures this hope. It is the Holy Spirit using His word. God has spent 4, 000 years preparing His word to bring to us. That word of God that you have, God prepared over thousands of years and gave it to us. And it is a powerful word.

It is living, it's active, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. Able to divide between soul and spirit into joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. This is the power of the Word of God. This is what Christ used when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. And this is the weapon that we need to have in our temptation.

One other place. The scripture says that Jesus said in John 16, and when he has come referring to the Holy Spirit, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment. The Spirit would convict the world of sin. And yet that same thing is, that same work is attributed to the Scriptures as well. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that we may be thoroughly equipped to every good work. You see the Holy Spirit works through His Word And it is his word brothers and sisters that we need to have at the ready. That is why it is so important that we Meditate upon that word that we memorize that word that we read that word that we study that word so that it is ready in our hearts and that we are able to wield that sword against the evil one and against the world and our own flesh. This then is what we are praying. When we ask the Lord not to lead us into temptation, but to deliver us from the evil one.

Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but are mighty in you for pulling down strongholds in everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Indeed you have given to us your word. May we prize it. May we meditate on it day and night, memorizing it, reading it, studying it. May it be indeed sweeter to us than the honey.

Oh Lord we ask your forgiveness where we have so neglected it or where we have read it casually without profit as it were merely going through the motions. Father, may Your Word be more valuable to us than all the gold in the world, more precious and sweeter to us than the sweetest food that we know. We ask these things through Jesus Christ. Amen.