The Model Prayer – 8c

To draw, drag along the ground. To draw or snatch from danger, rescue, deliver. This is more with the meaning of drawing to oneself than merely rescuing from someone or something.

To rescue from danger, with the implication that the danger in question is severe and acute.

to draw towards oneself; to draw or snatch from danger.

to rescue, and to rescue is to attract to God.

Colossians 1:13-14 (NIV84)

13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:13 (AMP)

13[The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

Rescued = ῥύομαι rhyomai = to free from harm or evil, and in some cases from imprisonment. Same root word and meaning as deliver in Matthew 6:13.

The rescue of captives from an evil power, the power of darkness, the spiritual power by which mankind is held prisoner.

This refers to a decisive once-for-all redemption and the forgiveness of sins, by which God has caused them to be worthy or qualified for this inheritance.

Rescued is from ruomai, which means “to draw to oneself,” or “to rescue.”

God drew us out of Satan’s kingdom to Himself.

This occurred at the new birth.

We are not gradually, progressively delivered from Satan’s power. When we placed our faith in Christ, we were instantly delivered.

Transferred = μεθίστημι methistēmi = to transfer (move); to move (something) from one place or sphere to another.

remove, transplant.

God, the Father, dragged us out of the dominion of darkness to Himself in the kingdom of His Son, in the kingdom of light.

We are no longer under the rule and reign of sin and Satan. We live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Therefore, sin is no longer our master. We have a new King, whose name is Jesus.

Believers have been uprooted from the kingdom of darkness and transplanted into the kingdom of light.

We have been delivered from evil and the evil one, when we were born again.

Why does sin and evil seem to affect us after we’ve been born again?

John 8:34 (NIV84)

34Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins (practices sin, esv) is a slave to sin.

Sins (commits) = ποιέω poieō = to do, to perform, to practice, to make.’

who commits sin (ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν); i.e., who is constantly doing sin; who lives in sin.

The man who is constantly missing the mark of God’s glory and delights in this is definitely a transgressor of God’s law (1 John 3:4).

Romans 6:13, 16 (NIV84)

13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Although we’ve been delivered from the dominion of sin and the evil one, we can still choose to come under their dominion.

The master we obey shows whose slaves we are.

Romans 6:16 (NLT)

16Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

When we are born-again, God does not take away our ability to choose. We can still choose to do wrong and suffer the consequences.

Sin is not simply something that we can’t help doing but something we choose to do in direct violation of the will of God.

James 1:13–15 (NIV84)

13When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;

14but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

15Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Sin has a tendency to enslave the sinner.

The first time he lies, be may be horrified;

the second time, only somewhat shaken;

the third time lying seems far more natural and easy.

At last the sin of telling untruths has him in its grasp.

For other sins the story is similar.

At last this person is living in sin, has become enslaved by it.

The result of this process, when continued to the end, is death.

1 Peter 2:16 (NIV84)

16Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants (slaves, doulos) of God.

Christians are free yet they are slaves.

They can live as free people but must use their freedom to glorify God.

Christian freedom does not mean that anything goes; believers are not free to do whatever they want or to use their freedom as a cover-up for evil.

Believers must not hide behind their freedom in Christ in order to sin.

We cannot use freedom and forgiveness as a cover-up for self-indulgence, adultery, or poor spending habits.

2 Peter 2:17–18 (NIV84)

17These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.

18For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.

Empty relates to the content of the words that are uttered.

They are futile, void of any meaning, without purpose.

Boastful refers to the form and the sound of these words.

These are puffed-up, haughty, and exaggerated utterances.

They are meaningless because they lack every semblance of truth and integrity.

False teachers use the words for their own purpose (compare Jude 1:16).

Jude 1:16 (NIV84)

16 These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

They lure new Christians away from the gospel truth by promising them freedom: freedom to live as they please.

The false teachers appeal to the sinful and lustful desires of people to entice them away from the truth.

The false teachers do not go after just anybody.

They dangle their lure in front of “people who are just escaping from those who live in error.”

They target new believers, who can be gullible to believe every wind of doctrine.

Ephesians 4:11-14 (NIV84)

11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,

12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up

13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

God raised up men to teach sound doctrine so that no one would be tossed back and forth and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and be deceived by false teachers.

The goal of sound teaching is so that the people of God reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God.

Faith does not here refer to the act of belief or of obedience but to the body of Christian truth, to Christian doctrine. The faith is the content of the gospel in its most complete form.

These false teachers appeal to the lustful desires of one’s sinful nature.

The Prosperity Gospel or the Health and Wealth Gospel is an example of this type of teaching.

Who wouldn’t want to healthy and wealthy?

The false teachers of the Prosperity Gospel promise their disciples that they will bring them out of financial difficulty if they will simply give God a certain amount of money, which, in due time, God will multiply in great measure.

When following many of the false teachers of today, how many of you “made it to the top”?

How many followers really live the life that these false teachers claim they can live?

How much money have you given to these teachers who tell you that the seed you sow to them will come back to you a hundred-fold?

How’s that hundred-fold working for you?

The false teachers’ messages ended only in disappointment. Like a dried-up spring or clouds blown away, their messages were promising much but delivering nothing.

Today, false teachers abound around the world; they exhibit similar characteristics to those of the past.

Their teaching is not based on the revealed word, but rather, on “new revelations” such as dreams and visions.

Sometimes there is an overemphasis on the work of the Spirit, to the point of eclipsing the work of Christ.

Since no one wants to be accused of quenching or offending the Holy Spirit, many who do not know the Bible well enough, will tend to accept these teachings, even when they are different from what we find in Scripture.

The Holy Spirit came to glorify the Son, and so no words that truly come from the Holy Spirit could contradict the word that has already been revealed.

2 Peter 2:19 (NIV84)

19They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

Depravity = φθορά phthora = moral corruption; moral perversion understood especially as the (continual) impairment and worsening of virtue and moral principles.

Epistle of Barnabas 19.5

You must not waver with regard to your decisions. “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not abort a child nor, again, commit infanticide. You must not withhold your hand from your son or your daughter, but from their youth you shall teach them the fear of God.

φθορά phthora = destruction of a fetus, abortion.

Moral corruption and abortion are related.

Matthew 7:15-20 (NIV84)

15"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Peter’s clear warning is extremely appropriate for us today because in the last days more and more will teach from their own imaginations, following their own agendas.

And if you think Peter’s warning doesn’t apply to you, perhaps you are in the gravest danger because you will eventually buy into some new idea or practice that, although it’s not seen in the life of Christ, throughout the Book of Acts, or taught in the Epistles, will seem so spiritual, so logical.

Oh, it may not be the current fad of “holy barking” or “holy laughter.”

It may be something much more intellectual, much more subtle, but no less dangerous.

Romans 6:16 (NLT)

16Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

Submitting to false teaching is also a sin under which one can become the slave to.

It starts with whatever or whomever you choose to obey.

Romans 7:14–23 (NIV84)

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.

15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.

17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;

23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

Paul describes himself not as a so-called carnal Christian, but as one who loves the Law of God and longs to please God, but is trying to do so in his own strength.

A so-called carnal Christian does not have such a goal.

Thomas á Kempis: I desire to enjoy Thee inwardly, but I cannot take Thee. I desire to cleave to heavenly things, but fleshly things and unmortified passions depress me. I will in my mind to be above all things, but in spite of myself I am constrained to be beneath, so I, unhappy man, fight with myself and am made grievous to myself while the spirit seeketh what is beneath. O what I suffer within while as I think on heavenly things in my mind; the company of fleshly things cometh against me when I pray.

Paul, as a mature Christian, is struggling with sin.

He wants to do right but oftentimes fails.

As we look at these verses, how many of us can relate?

All of us.

J.I. Packer: Alive in Christ, his heart delights in the law, and he wants to do what is good and right and thus keep it perfectly.… But he finds that he cannot achieve the total compliance at which he aims. Whenever he measures what he has done, he finds that he has fallen short (v. 23). From this he perceives that the anti-God urge called sin, though dethroned in his heart, still dwells in his own flawed nature.… Thus the Christian’s moral experience (for Paul would not be telling his own experience to make theological points, did he not think it typical) is that his reach persistently exceeds his grasp and that his desire for perfection is frustrated by the discomposing and distracting energies of indwelling sin.

A believer who tries to please God in his or her own strength will always come to disheartening, aching frustration—always! Moreover, this will happen to “good Christians”—even super-Christians.

Romans 7:24 (NIV84)

24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Wretched = ταλαίπωρος talaipōros 2x (Rev. 3:17) = miserable, distressed condition.

Paul had come to the end of himself. This failure made him ready for God’s grace.

Ray Stedman: This is a description of what every believer will go through many times in his experience because sin has the power to deceive us and to cause us to trust in ourselves, even when we are not aware we are doing so. The law is what will expose that evil force and drive us to this place of wretchedness that we might then, in devotion of spirit, cry out, Lord Jesus, it is your problem; you take it.

Matthew 5:3 (NIV84)

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are the bankrupt; Blessed are the wretched.”

When the believer realizes his helplessness he will receive God’s help. As long as we think we can do it ourselves, we remain wretched.

This describes every man or woman who truly seeks to follow Christ.

Romans 7:25 (NIV84)

25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Romans 7:24-25 (Moffatt)

24 Miserable wretch that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? God will!

25 Thanks be to him through Jesus Christ our Lord!

“Now that I have come to the end, I know where to look—to Christ and his indwelling Spirit.”

We constantly struggle between the choice to submit to the sin that so easily entangles us or to obey God and his word.

After realizing that we do not have the ability within ourselves to free ourselves from the temptations of evil and attacks of the evil one, we see that only God will rescue me from this body of death.

How does he do it?

Although, we acknowledge that God will rescue us, how do we walk in that freedom?

How is it accomplished?

We’ll learn that next week, the Lord willing!!

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