Prayer and Protection Pt. 2

Well, good morning and welcome to New Grace Baptist Church and we are so glad that you are here and I hope everyone has had a good week and we are here today Sunday morning. And we're going to continue in our series of the Lord's Prayer and we call that power praying and we are doing a study on the Lord's Prayer. Well, actually we are at the last verse on the Lord's Prayer and today's sermon title is prayer and protection part 2 if you remember last week we talked about at the Lord not to lead us into temptation and we talked about Temptation a lot last week. And then this week we want to take the second part of that and pray that the Lord would Deliver Us from Evil. So let's go ahead and just look at our the entire Lord's Prayer will read it as we normally do. And the Bible says here and we're in Matthew 6 beginning in verse 9 in this manner. Therefore pray Our Father in heaven Hallowed Be Your Name Your Kingdom Come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation. But Deliver Us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Well last week we talked about Temptation and how God can't tempt us and he never tempt anyone but the flesh can the world can and Satan Cannon and we talked about how maybe we could overcome Temptation. Well today, I want us to take the next phrase here and I've got it pulled up here is Matthew 6:13 the second phrase and this is from the King James version and this is what it says lead us not into temptation. That's what we talked about last week this week. But Deliver Us from Evil well and teaching his disciples how to pray Jesus instructed them to ask God to deliver them from Evil. Now if you remember the Lord's Prayer it began with devotion Hallowed be your name, then it moved to a dependents when we pray give us this day our daily bread and now it focuses on danger now, we would not be told to pray to be delivered from Evil if there were not dangers in our world and there's a lot of landmines spread across our lives that we can walk over or around and we must be able to negotiate them. So we ask God first to lead us lead us not into temptation and then we ask him to deliver us. You see we don't want to walk for their dangers. And if we do we want the Lord to be on our side. So Deliver Us from Evil is a prayer for the modern day Christian trying to figure out how to get through life and keep everything together for God and if you just look through scripture, the one thing that you would have to say about our God is that he is a delivering God God is in the delivering business. It was God who delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. It was God who delivered Daniel from the Lion's Den and his three friends from the fiery furnace. It was God who delivered David from Goliath. It was God who delivered locked from Sodom and it was God who delivered Joseph from the pit. It was God who delivered Elijah from Jezebel? It was the same God that delivered Peter from drowning when he walked on water for a brief moment. And it was God who delivered Joe from the spare. One thing you have to say is our God is a deliverer and he loves to hear his children pray for deliverance. In fact, the only one whom God did not deliver was his own son. He did not deliver him from the cross, but he delivered him up to the Cross so that we could be delivered to eternal life through his death. We're only have two point today, but we have a lot of scripture I want to look at and so as we're thinking about this being the lit being delivered from Evil. So the first point is simply this and that is the prayer of Deliverance. You see it shouldn't surprise us that Jesus teaches us to pray Deliver Us from Evil because it Is a plea for protection in the midst of danger now if that plea is a regular part of our prayer lives, then we need to remember that there is constant Danger from the enemy and we are to pray for deliverance on a daily basis. So as I was thinking about this exactly what areas do we need to pray for deliverance? So what I want to do today is I want to give you five areas and I have them here on the screen that we need to pray daily from delivers not what I want to do is I'm I'm just kind of going to go through the Psalms a little bit the life of David and show you how this pertain to him. And then we're also at the end will look at the Apostle Paul a few versus there. So the first delivers that we need to pray for when we say Lord Deliver Us from Evil is we need to be delivered from persecution. You see we would stand in good stead if we could pray for that sort of Deliverance everyday. You see if Temptations are like landmines. It is easy to walk around in our lives through fields of fire that would crawl cause us great destruction and many times in the Psalms David prayed for deliverance. Not remember King David. He was a godly man. He had a heart for the things of the Lord yet. He prayed over and over again that God would deliver him for despite his godliness. And remember he said he he was he was a man after God's Own Heart despite his godliness. He knew that he had failures and throughout the Psalms and we can see prayers read prayers that David has written that speaks of his need for God's protection. So let's just look at some of them today. And the first one would be in Psalm 7 1 through 2. Now. Look what David says here. He says, oh Lord my God and you I put my trust save me from all those Who persecuted me and deliver me less? They tear me like a line Rendon Me In Pieces while there is none to deliver. You see David tradefirst for deliverance from persecution that were those out to get him for his faith and David needed protection more and more these days. You hear stories of faithful people who are serving God in secular environments and they have the they have become targets of persecution. They are undermined. They are being threatened their scorn there riddle ridiculed. Some have even lost jobs and David shows us that we can pray to be delivered from such persecution. You see we live in a Godless Society a Godless culture and it's getting worse everyday if you just look at our woke culture or the count. Culture and what people are trying to do in this nation today and friends is not going to get any better. It's only going to get worse. So if you are a Christian and you're on in your job and you work with a bunch of lost people and all you're probably going to send some of this persecution at one time or another eat. If you have not already you see Jesus says though that we are blessed when we are persecuted. He said in Matthew Chapter 5, but that still doesn't mean that we shouldn't pray about it. You see persecution will come and when it comes will have to face it. Now. Remember what Paul told Timothy about persecution now, this is what Paul says in second Timothy 3:12. He says, yes and all who desire to live Godly in Christ. Jesus will suffer persecution so friend if you want to live Godly in Christ Jesus if you want to live a active Christian Life if you want people to see Your faith I can go ahead and tell you now you're going to be persecuted because of the culture that we live in we don't know what will happen each day. We don't know what someone's going to say, but we can be sure that if we live for the Lord in this life that we will face persecution Christ faced it all his disciples face persecution. And so will we because the world is at war with God. If you are Christian you represent Christ to this world and just as they struck at our Lord just as they struck at his disciples. They will strike at you and we need to pray for God to Deliver Us from persecution. So that's the first thing that we pray that we will be delivered from delivered from persecution. But then there is another one and that is we need to pray that we would be delivered from danger now danger and persecution that is not the same persecution is not the same as danger or trouble to be persecuted means that you are being offended for the sake of the Cross and that, you know intended harm toward you directly because of the working out of your face. That's what persecution is deliverance from trouble or danger means asking God to protect us. From the actions of a lost world just think of what David prayed in Psalm 22 19 through 21, and I look at what David break he says, but you oh Lord do not be far from me. Oh my strength hasten to help me. Then. He says deliver me from The Sword see the danger my precious life from the power of the dog save me from the lion's mouth in from the horns of the wild oxen. You have answered me. You see this time. David is asking God to deliver him from danger the words. He uses in this song refer to what I would call senseless random acts of violence caused by evil people. In other words and I are vernacular. We would pray that the Lord would protect us. Let's say from drive-by shootings. It seems like that. There's a lot of that in our time we would pray Lord. If I happen to cut someone off in traffic by mistake, I pray that they wouldn't drive up beside me and start firing away. We hear about that as well. It's these random acts of violence caused by evil lost people. We just can't even pick up the paper anymore without reading about some strange violence going on that has been perpetrated by someone and David ask God to be delivered from that. It's kind of like he's saying Lord deliver me from the natural results of a lost in evil world that sort of evil is evidence in the things happening to people today. So David prays not only from deliverance from persecution, but also deliverance from danger. I look what David said in Psalm 31 verses 1 through 2. He says in you. Oh Lord. I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed deliver me. In your righteousness bow down your ear to me Deliver Me speedily Be My Rock of Refuge of Fortress of Defense to save me you say David news at the heart of Los mankind is evil and he further knew he needed God's Deliverance to survive in such a world. His words are really it's a it's a beautiful response. If you will from the heart asking for a loving heavenly father to protect him in the midst of Bala. I don't think there's ever been a day really of more treachery than we see in our culture today modern business is seem to thrive on undercutting people trying to go one up step on someone who ever you have to to reach the top the backstabbing. That's so prevalent in our culture and our Even in our politics. And government many Christians have had people try to hurt them sometimes for just no apparent reason whatsoever. And I think it's okay. It's alright to pray to God for deliverance from people like that. And I think every Christian and Leadership position ought to pray for deliverance from danger each and every day. So we said first of all when he says Deliver Us from Evil, we need to be delivered from persecution be we need to be delivered from danger and then see David also prayed in some of his songs that we will be delivered from poverty. And this can be drawn from David's life that we need to be delivered from poverty and other words just kind of goes back to what the way we prayed in verse 11. I think it was give us this day. Our daily bread. Now. Look what David said in Psalm 33 vs 18 to 19. It says behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him on those who hope in his Mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. You see God he loves to protect his people from won't now you might be one of those suffering right now from deprivation of some type into in the thing to do is the pray for God to deliver you, you know, God he loves to answer. Our prayers when it comes to the things that we need and he has given us a wonderful promise in Psalm 37 in verse 25. Look what the Bible says. I have been young. This is David speaking. I have been young and now am old yet. I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his descendants begging bread. So you see here. That's a promise. David said I've never seen one of God's people never begging for bread. God always takes care of his own and you see God is still in the business of delivering his people and sometimes you know, you are if you can meet Christians and they're in the midst of awful trials and they'll say why I just don't know what to do and you know, have you ever you know, sometimes you just have to say what have you ever asked God I mean pointedly and specifically to deliver you from this. Have you Giving God the details of your situation and ask him to help you you'd be surprised at how many people would say? Well, I just got to pray about it in a general way but not really specific and this is you know, what we've been talkin about on Wednesday night, too often. We pray a general prayer rather than praying specifically the friend if you are listen, if you are in the lines, then you don't pray for blessing you pray for God to shut the mouth of the line. If you're in if you're in the fire, you don't pray for God to work know what you do is you pray for him to put out the fire. If you are almost overwhelmed by the ways of distress. You don't pray that God would show you or make you financially Rich know you pray that he won't allow you to drown you see David gives us permission to pray about real human problems like poverty and like physical needs in friends if you have a physical need God wants to hear By prayer and he will never let you down. You will never find one of his children begging bread Psalm 37:25 says so what we have so far we said when we pray to be delivered from Evil, what type of evil were talking about well delivered from persecution delivered from danger thirdly deliver delivered from poverty. And then look at letter D. We need to pray that we would be delivered from Fear now. Look what David said in Psalm 34 and verse for he says I sought the Lord and he heard me. And delivered me from all my fears. So let me ask you this morning. What do you fear? And whatever your fear maybe how do you deal with it? You see fear comes in all shapes and forms, some people fear sickness or some unknown element that you know, they may be facing a serious illness a lot of people fear fear the future they they do not know what the future holds or they may fear a big challenge at work or they may fear going to work and having a face difficult people. You see fear can be a devastating thing to a man of woman of Faith because all of a sudden we feel a spirit of fear creeping into our lives and we don't know where it came from and we don't know what to do about it. And one thing that fear will do it will paralyze you fear will paralyze you to where you don't know what to do and you can't even make a decision to do anything and we find ourselves just just paralyzed in fear and now Being able to make any decision I talk to someone a while back and they had face cancer at one point a few years ago and and they would run into other people. They were telling me the story that would you know, that would tell that him about what you know, they're cancer or maybe someone in their family had cancer and he said it off what he's in the story would always end badly. He said the people would suffer and suffer and finally that they would die and he said all of a sudden hearing these horrible stories about cancer. He said it just filled his heart full of fear. And so he started praying that God would deliver him from it. And then finally he just had to tell people say look if it if your story doesn't have a good n, you know, just stop telling me I don't want to hear it. You see listen to what David said in Psalm 34 vs 17 through 9. And this is it the righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and save such as have a contrite spirit many are the afflictions of the righteous. In other words. We all suffer terribly but the Lord delivers him out of them all what wonderful news. This is fear can come out of nowhere and grabbed us but we have a wonderful delivering God who loves us and when we trust him he works on our behalf. You see Satan he wants to use fear to ruin your relationship with God by taking away your trust in him and the joy of your Christian Life. But David offers us an example hear of someone willing to admit that he has fears and then wanting to talk to God about taking them away so friends, I would just say this today if you're captivated by fear, if you feel like you don't know what to do and you can't turn left or right you go to God, he will deliver you from whatever it is. That is paralyzing you he did in David's life and he will in your life as well. So we look so far we say well deliver what type of evil well delivered from persecution delivered from danger just a random acts of violence. That's so prevalent in our society delivered from poverty or want or need the Lord will Deliver Us from that and then we saw David we need to pray that we will be delivered from Fear. Well, there's one more I want to talk about and that is we need to pray daily that we would be delivered. From sin now. Look what David says in Psalm 39 in verse 8. He says deliver me from all of my transgressions that were transgressions just talked about all different types of sin deliver me from all of my sins do not make me the reproach of the foolish. You see David didn't want to do something. So foolish that it would ruin his reputation. In other words. He didn't want everyone talking about his sin The Cry of his heart was to remain wholly and to maintain his Integrity. I don't know about you but sometimes it's like you can just walk outside and you can just sense the presence of evil in the world around you I mean seeing is everywhere In our culture has embraced in Morality and all sorts of foolishness. But on those days when we are overcome with the amount of sin in the world. We just need to Bow our heads and say Lord Deliver Us From The Power of sin you see God is pleased when we come before him with that sort of request for his will for us is to be holy. Look what David said and Psalm 40 verse 11 through 13. He says do not withhold your Tender Mercies from me. Oh Lord, let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have surrounded me my iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to look up he was just so distraught not only with the evil around him, but The Evil Within his own heart. He says they are more than the hairs of my head there for my heart fails me. Be pleased oh Lord to deliver me. Oh Lord, make haste to heal me. You see the Lord will Deliver Us from the evil around us and the evil within us if we would just ask him. Well when we think about praying about being delivered from Evil, this is what we have seen from the life of David David prayed that he would be delivered from persecution in friends. We need to pray the same thing because this world that we live in is getting more and more anti-christian. He also prayed to be delivered from danger. And so should we we never know when we going to meet a drunk driver on the road? You never know when you may be sitting in a restaurant and then some person comes in and just starts shooting and firing a way. You never know when you may be out on the road and someone or are you maybe at a service station someone you maybe Are Jack or just a senseless random acts of evil? We need to pray that God would Deliver Us from that pray that God will Deliver Us from poverty. Any won't that we may have or any financial difficulty or even food or water many many people are go without that we need to pray about that as well and pray that we will be delivered from any fear of friends. If you just look at our nation and just look at the news at night. It just seems like to me that you can't help but fear certain things when you hear and see all the bad things that are going on, but the Lord will Deliver us from our fear and he will Deliver Us from the sin around us and the sin that is within us. Well, that was .1 And remember a point one was the prayer of Deliverance and now we come to our final point. And that is simply this the promise of Deliverance. You see Jesus set an example for us to follow in his prayer. He showed that we are to pray for deliverance. But you know, there's other examples of others praying the same prayer in the New Testament. So I want us to turn to Paul just in in our last few moments here and look at some of his prayers and how he prayed I want to look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verses 8 through 10, and I'm reading this from the New Living Translation. And this is what Paul said he says, we think you ought to know dear brothers and sisters about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure and we thought we would know Ever live through it. In fact, we were expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learn to rely only on God who raises the dead and then he says in he did rescue us from Mortal danger and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him and he will continue to rescue us. I love this passage here particularly because it reveals all three tenses of the Deliverance of God. Paul said he delivered us in the past. He delivered us in the present and he will yet Deliver us in the future and think about Paul when you think about the the last letter that he wrote which was 2nd. Timothy is kind of his swansong his last will and testament of life if you will. Paul had gone through some very difficult experiences and including being brought to trial for preaching the gospel, but then he said something in his last letter that he had written and I want you to look at it and 2nd Timothy 4:16 and 18 when he was standing before trial. Look at what Paul said, he says that my first defense no one stood with but all forsook me all said I didn't have a friend anywhere. He said when I was standing up being tried for preaching the gospel. He said not a single person stood with me. He says all of them have forsaken me but then he says but may it not be charged against them to watch what he says in verse 17. He says but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me and that all the Gentiles might hear also. I was delivered there's that word again out of the mouth of the line and then inverse 18th and the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his Heavenly Kingdom to him be glory forever and ever. Amen with all the difficulties that he faced Paul still knew that if man did not stand with him that God would stand with him. Everyone else was gone. But the Lord was still delivering him and friend. It is the same way with us. God can Deliver Us from anything we face. This doesn't mean that the pain will go away immediately. But in the midst of our pain we can know that God is with us and will Deliver Us in the midst of it France. There's one thing I think we can say today. It is simply this we live in a world in need of Deliverance in God wants us to come to him with our need so we can pray to him something like this Lord this situation. Whatever it maybe it's beyond me. I don't know how to deal with it. But I know you do Soul or just extend your hand and by your power help me and deliver me when you know, if we will pray something like that what God response will be he will always answer a sincere prayer like that. Just always remember God all wait, he hears your prayers. He sees your tears and he'll, he'll say I'll do it. I hear you. I will deliver you I will give you wisdom and strength because I am always With you free and we can thank God this morning because we serve a delivering god. Well, let's pray father. We do. Thank you and praise you and love you today Lord to someone is listening to this today that I know that needs Deliverance. Whether it's deliverance from persecution or some type of danger. Maybe someone is just captivated and Paralyzed by some fear. Or maybe there's some strong hold that Satan has in their life some sin that they just cannot get rid of. Lord we just want to thank you that you are a delivering God and just as you deliver it all those Saints in the Old and New Testament Lord. We know that your word says that you have not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind Lord help us to come to you in these dark days that we are experiencing in this culture that we live in today. This Godless culture anti-christian culture. Lord help us to come to you with every want and need that we have and help us to have the confidence Lord that you will deliver us and that one day. We know that you're going to make things right and we're going to spend eternity with you in heaven in Christ's name. I do pray. Amen. Well, thank you for being here today, and I hope this helped then again. We will see everyone Wednesday night at our Zoom meeting and Jenny. She will send out the link and then next week. We will probably have a couple of more sermons on the Lord's Prayer and then we'll move on to something else. Well, I hope everyone has a great week and we'll see you right back here next Sunday for our next sermon on the Lord's Prayer. God bless.