The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: When we turn to the Lord Jesus and let him do the fighting for us, he will bring Goliath down and we'll win every time.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word. On today's program, Pastor Morris is continuing to look at the Lord's Prayer, and today's message: "Fighting a Winning Battle." We'll take on the subject of temptation and how we can overcome it through the power of God's word. Let's join Pastor Morris now for an introduction to today's message.

Pastor Jack Morris: Today we're going to look at winning over temptation, fighting a winning battle. Jesus taught us to pray and lead us not into temptation. Now, friend, if you're a believer, you need to listen very carefully because everyone, without exception, Christians, non-Christians, are being tempted. There is an evil one, but God is greater and his power is within you to bless you and help you to overcome every obstacle that the enemy would put in your way. You do have an enemy, but you do have a friend in Jesus who is almighty to bless you and to help you.

Now this prayer is only 57 words in the Greek language. It's one of the shortest prayers in the Bible, it's one of the shortest prayers that anybody would ever pray, and yet this prayer covers all of life. 57 Greek words, and it covers everything. You know, Jesus knows how to do it. Jesus knows how to pray. And because he knows how to pray, he is now our teacher, teaching us how to pray. I'm still learning. I'm a little farther along than I was before I started this series, I believe that, and I hope you are too.

But we're going to continue to learn. Now, this prayer is divided into two parts. The first part is all about God. The second part is all about us. The first part that is all about God has to do with the worship and service of God. Now notice, the prayer begins as every prayer yours and mine should begin with recognizing God and giving glory to God before we give him that laundry list of what we want him to do for us and our kids and our finances and our health, etc. Notice it begins this way: "Our Father, hallowed be thy name." And then it moves on down. This prayer continues to move. It moves on down to a service of God, "Thy will be done" in the service of God.

Now, the second part has to do with us. It has to do with material blessings and spiritual conflict, inner spiritual conflict. When I say it has to do with material blessings, "Give us this day our daily bread," that's life. And then it moves down to the inner spiritual conflict: being forgiven, forgiving others, and "lead us not into temptation." That's where we are today. Lead us not into temptation. Would you look at the screen and read that phrase with me? "And lead us not into temptation."

Now, why does Jesus want us to pray about temptation and not being led into temptation? Do you know why he wants us to pray that? Because everybody is tempted. That's why he wants us to pray it. And he knows that we cannot win over temptation without a constant contact with him in communion and in prayer. And lead us not. We're talking to God. Temptation has come. Now, God has a beautiful plan for every life. God has, listen to me, dear friend. When you were born, God wrote a poem about your life. Your life is a beautiful poem, or it is supposed to be.

The scripture says in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God's workmanship." The word workmanship comes from the Greek word "poiēma," which we take the word into English and call it poem. We are God's poem. God had a plan for you, friend, and now the enemy has come and he has tried to smudge that poem of your life and contradict what God is trying to do, and he comes with temptation. Now, temptation isn't sin. Jesus was tempted many times. The first temptation was when he was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil after he had fasted 40 days. Jesus was tempted. Temptation is not sin. It's a sin when we yield to temptation.

And when temptation comes, listen to me, we have a choice. We say yes or we say no. If we say yes, we yield to it, we've sinned. If we say no, we resist it and in the power of the Lord we overcome, and the beautiful poem goes on. That doesn't mean we're not going to have troubles and conflict and challenges in life. Not at all. This is not heaven, this is life here on terra firma. But God has a plan, a beautiful plan for each life. This past week, last week, my neighbor came over to see me, really a nice guy, not a churchgoing man, and sometimes he watches the sermon on television, and he may watch this one.

I was out jogging one day and I jogged by another neighbor and a neighbor said to me, "You talked about me on your television program last week." I stopped, I quit, I had to, I really did. He said, "But that's okay, that's all right." So I talk about everybody. So my neighbor came over, lives right next door to me, we've lived close together for about 30-some years now, and he sat down in the living room, we talked for about 15 minutes, and his children grew up, we knew his children when they were small. The daughter grew up and went to the University of Pittsburgh and received her Doctor of Medicine degree, we're just so all of us are so proud of her. And when he mentioned Pittsburgh, well, that's my neck of the woods. You know that, don't you? Yours too, Don.

Pittsburgh. My dad worked on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, and I was going to follow my dad as a railroader. I applied to the Pittsburgh Lake Erie Railroad, it's part of the New York Central System, and I passed all the exams, I even passed the physical, and I was telling my neighbor all about that and I said, "But for the life of me, I don't know why I didn't get that job. They offered it or I turned it down or what happened? I just don't know why to this very day, I don't know." And do you know what my neighbor said, who is a non-churchgoing man? He looked at me with a little smile and he said, "God had other plans." He's talking to the preacher.

And I said, "Yes, God had other plans." Friend, I don't know where you are today, but God has plans and he's written a poem about you and your life, and if you follow God, your life will be more wonderful than you could have ever made it on your own and with the Lord. I want you to look at the screen and read verse 13. Do we have it all together there? Well, at least there it is. Come on, let's read the whole thing together in unison: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." A prayer of constant movement. Now, the prayer of constant movement, that's the words I put in.

But we're praying that God will not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil because we cannot deliver ourselves. But today, if you hear the word of God and it enters your heart, you will know how to win the battle over temptation. Where does temptation come from? Let's turn now to James chapter 1, verse 13 and 14. Let's read this together in unison and now you'll know where temptation comes from. Come on, let's read it: "When tempted, no one should say 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed."

Now notice that the scripture plainly says God does not tempt anyone. Now, God will put a test upon us, he will try us like he tried Abraham and his son Isaac, but a test is to develop and strengthen our faith. Temptation comes from the enemy to cause us to sin, and Jesus doesn't tempt people to do wrong or to sin. He does not do that, but he will give us a test, but he will never tempt us. All right, now let's look at the last part, start with the word "but each." Come on: "But each one is tempted when by his own evil desire." In other words, temptation comes out of your heart. It comes out of your desires.

The enemy comes and incites those desires that are there. Now every one of us have strong points and we have weak places in our lives, and the enemy knows exactly where your weak place is. And that's where he's going to go. He's going to tempt you in the weak area of your life. And that weak area, most of the time, is a desire that we have. The enemy will incite that desire and that desire comes right out of you. So today, friend, get your heart fixed. Get your heart healed. Get that weak area strengthened and fight every temptation in Jesus' name and overcome.

Now something, here's how temptation works. Something seemingly very innocent, harmless, will present itself. It's enticing. There is a magnetism in desire. There is a power in desire. The scripture says in Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd." Not my desires, not the things I want, not my ambitions. These are other things that will lead me, but my shepherd is the Lord. And he's going to lead me in a straight path, a good path, a place where there's rest and peace, lying down beside still waters, a table in the presence of my enemies. You see, everything God gives is good, and the enemy was trying to take that away from you.

Now I want you to think where your temptation is coming from. Think about it. Temptation comes from us all. Jesus said so. Temptation comes to us all. Paul the Apostle said, "The God whose I am and whom I serve." When temptation comes, perhaps we ought to memorize that: "The God whose I am and whom I serve." In other words, remember who you are. Remember what Jesus has done for you and begin to praise the Lord. Our Father, hallowed be thy name. You begin to praise God and the snake will turn and wither out of the garden.

But sometimes we'll stop like Eve and we'll say, "Hey, tell me a little more. It's sounding good. It's making me feel good. I think I do want to do that. I'm not harming anybody by reading that particular novel or book or watching that particular scene or hanging with those particular people or whatever, whatever it is. You know, you're intelligent. You know where you're being led astray, who's doing it, what's doing it. Turn to the Lord and begin to praise God and you'll find a strength that will listen to me, friends.

From the word of God, there comes a strength, a power, a divine inner energy that will flow into you, that will empower you to overcome every temptation that comes your way. Now, we pray this prayer every Sunday morning. Crandall and I pray it every morning we have a devotion. When we finish our prayers, we look to the Lord and say, "Our Father, our Father, our." We're part of the family of God. I'm thinking of you, this congregation. Father, we're all his children, making us brothers and sisters. When I get into that, even the beginning of that prayer, my heart begins to rejoice.

I feel a strength that I can go out and face the day because I know that I have God with me, a God that I love, who first loved me, a God that I praise, and a God that had wrote a beautiful poem about my life. He has plans for me, and he has plans for each one of us. Now notice it: temptation, verse 13. "And lead us not into temptation, lead us not, lead us away from all inclinations and desires for evil." Notice the last part: "but deliver us." Notice it begins "lead us," now it says "deliver us" from the evil one.

Now, we pray that prayer in the King James Version, "and deliver us from evil," and that's how we're going to continue because I like it, that's how I learned it. But in the reality of the original, it says "the evil one." Why does it say "the evil one"? Because behind the temptation, there is an individual called the devil or Satan. Your temptation isn't just coming out of the air, an impersonal force. There is design. There is evil intelligence behind it. The enemy has been scheming. You see, you and I once belonged to him, but now we've been bought with the blood of Jesus and we belong to Jesus.

He bought us with a price. And so here comes the enemy. You see, the enemy, Satan or the devil, is a created being, meaning this: he is no match for God. There is not God and the devil dueling. No, not at all. As the song "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," "one word will fell him." God is all-powerful. You don't have to fear the devil if you don't listen to him. Amen. Come on, everybody, come on. I'm giving you today, or God is giving you today, something that will help us, and it's right where we live. It's right where we are, every one of us.

Jesus is talking to disciples. He's not talking to sinners or Pharisees or Sadducees. Notice "lead us." The disciple asked him, "Teach us to pray." The 12 of us. Teach us to pray. And Jesus says to them, "You need to pray, all 12 of you disciples, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, right on down the line, you need to pray, 'lead us not into temptation,' because you disciples are going to be tempted with evil." Peter walked into the garden, Jesus was on trial, somebody said, "Hey, you're one of them, aren't you?" "Oh no, I'm not one of them. I'm not one of them."

He didn't know how quickly temptation was going to come. The enemy wants you to deny who you are. You're a child of God. Just tell him right out: "I'm a child of God. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. He has a poem about me. Maybe when we get to heaven, he'll read it to us, but in the meantime, we can live it down here and it will become a reality." Evil is rampant. Evil is all around us. In Genesis chapter 4, verse 7, when Eve and Adam sinned, God spoke to them and said, "Evil or sin is crouching at your door." What animal crouches? The lion. Crouching at your door.

Friend, you don't even have to go out of your house to sin. Crouching at your door. Temptation will find you, you can't run from it. It'll find you, it'll find me. It comes where we are. I want you to read Jude 24. Let's read it in unison: "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy." To him, to him, to him. Say it: to him. To him who's able to keep you from falling. Friend, you and I are not strong enough to resist the devil and to overcome him.

But to him who is able. There's one who is able. Look to him. Praise him. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," and watch and feel and experience a divine force coming into you. Who is able to keep you from falling. Yes, from falling. How many of God's people have fallen? You know many of them. You're some of them who once served and loved and worshiped and sang those beautiful hymns and may have fallen. You don't see them in church anymore; they have fallen. But there's one who will keep us and present us faultless and with great joy.

The Lord will do this. But you're loved with a love that never ends. It's an undying love, a great love. A little child died, heaven's gates were open wide and God let that little child in. But God wants you to have a piece of heaven today. He wants you to come into his love, into his joy, into his heart. We're going to bow before him now, and he's going to bless and strengthen us, and we're going to live an overcoming life. We're fighting a winning battle. We're not going to lose, not with Jesus.

Guest (Male): Temptation is something we all struggle with, but it's so reassuring to know that we have a Savior who understands our struggles and has the power to deliver us from temptation. Jesus loves you, and I encourage you to go to him now with praise and thanksgiving in your heart and let him know the struggles you might be wrestling with right now. We'd like to invite you to join Pastor Jack Morris and The Healing Word family in both prayer and support of this ministry. Your prayers strengthen us and your gifts, large or small, help us extend the reach of God's word to more people who need his hope. Every gift is deeply appreciated. To stand with us today, simply visit thehealingword.com and click on the donate tab. Together we can share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.