Lord Teach us to Pray 5

I. Introduction

A. Finishing series on Lord teach us to pray. How has your prayer life changed over the past month? What has been the result?

Churches can run without prayer. Whole denominations can run without prayer. The question is: Is what they’re doing worth doing if they can do it without prayer?

Ben Patterson

Deepening Your Conversation with God (1991)

B. If we can do it without prayer, let’s stop doing it.

Lay no weight on the quantity of your prayers; that is to say, how long or how many they are. These things avail nothing with God, by whom prayers are not measured, but weighed.

Thomas Boston (Scottish Theologian)

C. So not measuring but weighing, do you feel like your prayers weigh more? Not frequency but depth of communication. Getting real, honest, with faith.

II. Deliverance from Evil

A. “Lead us not into temptation” - Keep us from a context of evil.

James 1:13–14 (NIV) “13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.”

God does not tempt. This instead is knowing our weakness and praying that certain temptations be kept from us. Could be translated “introduce us not.” Don’t let me be around it.

I Corinthians 10:13 (NIV) “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. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

There are temptations you can bear and other’s you can’t. This is what you are specifically praying about here.

Matthew 26:41 (NIV) 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Jesus gave Peter the key, watch and pray. Watch is your part, your avoidance. Prayer is God’s avoidance for you. (How many times has God protected you from temptation?)

Yet what happens when we find ourselves in the context of evil’s grasp? That is when we need deliverance!

B. “Deliver us from the evil one” - Deliver us from a context of evil.

This evil is either the devil or all forms of evil. The truth is the devil probably doesn’t know you but some form of evil does. What is evil? Anything that kills, steals, and destroys life. (John 10:10) - The enemy is your sinful nature and evil spirits.

Do we need deliverance from evil? Is it just our sinful nature we are fighting or is there something else as well?

All through the New Testament we see followers of Jesus delivering folks from evil spirits.

All through church history we have reports of evil being cast out. None of this was discounted until the Reformation in the 1500’s when Calvin sought to dismiss these accounts more so to discount the Catholic Church.

The Age of the Enlightenment in the 1700’s sealed the idea and was suspect of anything supernatural good or evil.

You have to decide, is there an evil unseen realm that is in cohorts with the sinful nature of humanity. Only then can we attack the issue of evil two dimensionally, naturally and supernaturally, instead of just one dimensionally.

Unseen evil has had centuries of experience in trapping and enslaving humanity. We need help not being entrapped but then saving when we do.

Internal Deliverance - Deliverance just you and God

James 4:7 (NIV) “7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Submit the Lordship of Christ and his authority first. Without the authority of Christ there is no long lasting deliverance. Only when you submit to authority do you have access to it.

Then, resist the arrest of the enemy to entrap you again. Use the authority of Christ in you, through submission, to make the devil flee. You are standing firm, the enemy is fleeing.

External Deliverance - Deliverance with someone else

In some cases the enslavement is such that someone else must come and cast out the evil so you can see, hear and work on internal deliverance . You are deceived so you will need someone else.

Matthew 10:7–8 (NIV) 7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”

In some cases for the kingdom to come, to be seen and chosen, one must first be delivered from oppression and deception.

Share Stories of praying and deliverance.

III. Conclusion

A. Do you need prayers to avoid evil or be delivered?

B. Matthew 6:9–13 (NIV) “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation,  but deliver us from the evil one.’”