We do consider question and answer 127 of Lord's Day 52. Let's turn first of all to Psalm 20. Psalm 20 as we give our attention to the reading of the Word of God. As David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes, May the Lord answer you when you are in distress. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. May He remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed. He answers him from his holy heaven with the saving power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm. O Lord, save the King. Answer us when we call. And then turning to page 63 in the back of the Psalter, him no lord's day 52 so we consider today just question and answer 127 again again dealing with the sixth petition lord's day 52 question and answer 127 as we confess together what we believe the question asks what does the sixth request mean and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil means. By ourselves, we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. And our sworn enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh, never stop attacking us. And so, Lord, uphold us and make us strong with the strength of Your Holy Spirit so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you know that something is truly dangerous, when you understand the danger of something, then you want to or you should want to resist it or stay away from it. At least that's true with most people. For example, boys and girls, you know that when you see the burner on the stove in the kitchen turned on with it bright red or with the flame burning, you know that it's dangerous. You know that it could hurt you badly, so you stay away from it. And the same is true with those bottles that might be under your mom's kitchen sink, cleaning bottles and so forth that have that skull and the crossbones on it or something of that nature. It's dangerous. There may be poison involved. You stay away from it. You don't touch it. And there are many things in this life which are dangerous for all of us, and sometimes we even remind each other of that danger using that fire illustration as I did with the church in Thyatira last week. When you play with fire, you're going to get burned. Congregations' sin and evil are deadly fire. Sin and its dangers are constantly knocking at the door of our hearts. And we know, of course, that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is victorious. over sin, over Satan, over death, over the grave, and that those who believe on Him and live in Him are no longer slaves to sin. The dominion of sin is gone. It has been broken. But as we continue on in this life, we must confess that not its power. Its power will also be taken away one day. But not yet completely. Satan had to release his prey, we know, But that doesn't mean that He doesn't fight to get them back. The battle still rages. Christians belong to Jesus Christ and He will never allow the feet of His people to be moved. As David confesses, we rise up and stand firm. But Satan and his evil hosts don't understand this and they're working overtime because Satan knows that his time is running out. But in the meantime, by the grace of God, The forgiven person knows the power and danger of sin. That person knows what sin can do. That person knows its awful power and terrible penalty, and therefore he prays earnestly to be delivered from the power and from all the evil destructive force of sin. The forgiven person thinks of the blood of Jesus Christ that he shed for his sins. You see, sin is a debt that must be forgiven. But it is also a power that must be fought. Born-again Christians are being sanctified. But we are not yet fully sanctified. In the garden, we know that Adam made friends with the devil. But God promised to break that bond of friendship and replace it with enmity. And the one who sincerely prays this petition confesses his attitude over against sin. He confesses that indeed he understands and feels that enmity. He confesses that his soul feels the hot breath of the enemy on his neck and he sees the enemy's terrible claws stretched out toward him. People of God, in the fifth petition as we considered it last week, the believer asks for forgiveness for the sins of today. And now with the prayer, and lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. This is a request to be kept from the sins of tomorrow. The petition is the prayer to stand firm in the day of trouble. And as we consider this Word of God together this morning, we notice that first of all, it is a confession of weakness. Secondly, it is a confession of dependence. And finally, it is a confession of faith. Now David's prayer in Psalm 20 for God's people was that God would give them the strength to stand firm in the day of trouble. And it's clear in this psalm that David is talking about the day of physical battle as he says in verse 7, some trust in chariots and some in horses. However, this physical battle between God's people and their enemies is a reflection of that spiritual battle that is raging of which Paul says, put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Satan is the author and master of deception and temptation. He demonstrated that in the beginning with Eve. You don't have anything to worry about, Eve. In fact, the fruit of that tree will be good for you. You'll be like God. What more could you want? There's nothing better than to be like God. What is temptation? I read this definition somewhere that temptation is the enticement or luring of natural God-given desires to go beyond God-given bounds. Allow me to say that again. It is the enticement or luring of natural God-given desires to go beyond God-given bounds. In other words, temptation is the enticement to sin because anything not within God-given bounds is to miss the mark. It is to sin against God. So then what is so dangerous about the temptation of the evil one? Well, the goal or the end of temptation is to spiritually alienate us from God and make us instead slaves to evil. Now, boys and girls and young people, we must understand that. That it is Satan's goal to completely and forever separate you and me from God, from His favor, from His heaven. And instead, that it is His goal to eternally make us His slaves. Now, notice as well that Jesus did not teach us to pray that God will not tempt us. That's not what the petition says. but that He bring us not into temptation. And I hope the difference becomes clear. James makes it clear that God is not the tempter when he says, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. We know, many of us can testify to the fact that God does test us. He allows pain. He allows affliction and hardship to come our way. And Satan then takes God's situation of testing and turns it into a situation of temptation. It is accurate to say that God tests, but Satan tempts. Yet the purposes again are completely opposite. Satan's purpose is sin. To get you and me to fall into sin. And God's purpose is the building up of your faith. James says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The goal of temptation is to destroy. The goal of testing is to save. Temptation tries to make us worse. Testing, by the grace of God, serves to make us better. Yielding to temptation glorifies Satan. But enduring God's testing points to the strength and glory of God. In congregation, we need to understand that Satan's ability to tempt is also under the sovereign control of God. Satan does only what God allows him to do. And to our comfort, he can only go as far as God will allow him to go. We understand that when we read Job, don't we? And also consider the temptation of Jesus by Satan. The text of Scripture says Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And therefore, whatever temptation comes to us can only be by God's divine appointment. But the sin that may follow is not by divine approval. We need to understand that. The sin that may follow is not by divine approval. And beloved, Scripture is clear that God's people, Christ's followers, can expect the same treatment as Christ. If they hated Christ, they will hate you. If Christ was tempted, you will be tempted. If Christ was persecuted, so will you. And therefore, as I said a moment ago, this is not a prayer that we never be tempted. That's a given. according to Scripture. Instead, this petition is a prayer that if it would be God's will, He would deliver us from evil that we would not give in to, but instead stand strong against temptation. This is a prayer that God would keep us from falling into and participating in that temptation. Why must we rely on God for this? Because as the Catechism rightly begins, The answer, by ourselves, we are too weak to hold our own even for a moment. This petition is a confession of weakness. Our sworn enemies, which have so much more power and strength than me left to myself, or as the catechism says, the devil, the world, and my own sinful flesh, apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John 15, verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for without Me, you can do nothing. And by the grace of God, Christians are transformed, changed, made new, and become conscious of our own weakness. And we desire to enjoy the protection of God that we may stand firm in the day of trouble against all the assaults of Satan. And beloved, this is ours through Jesus Christ who has stood firm against temptation in our place. Again, when we pray, forgive us our debts in the fifth petition. Then we confess that no man can be considered a Christian if he does not acknowledge that he is a miserable sinner. And now when we pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We confess that because we are miserable sinners, We have no strength for living the holy life unless we receive it from God alone. A congregation, we must not. We may not underestimate the strength and destructible power of Satan. He is dangerous. And if you willingly flirt with temptation, you will lose. If you live with the excuse, the devil made me do it, Or I can't help myself, that's just the way I am. We hear that one quite often today. You see, that is to play right into Satan's hand. Those who confess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord are called to hate sin more and more and flee from it and not to give excuses for sin. We can only do this in the strength and protection of the Lord. This petition is a prayer that God would deliver and rescue and save us from the power of the evil one and the evil that constantly assaults us and make us able to resist temptation when it comes our way. Our prayer is, O Lord, spare us in the day of trouble. Send us Your help. Answer us when we call. And even when we fail to call, please answer us, O Lord. O Lord, be our eyes that we might recognize temptation no matter how appealing. be our hands and our feet that we may act and go in the way that leads to eternal life and be delivered from the sin which displeases you and ruins us beloved those who overrate themselves and rely on their own strength to resist the devil will hear the rooster crow three times as Peter did before they even know it and the instant you try to survive on your own strength you are defeated Jesus said apart from me you can do nothing but then what does Paul say he confesses I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength and therefore this request to stand firm in the day of trouble is also a confession of dependence the catechism says and our sworn enemies the devil, the world and our own flesh never stop attacking us and so Lord uphold us and make us strong with the strength of Your Holy Spirit. Therefore, this is a prayer to be preserved. David was fully aware of his dependent status. That's why he prays for the Lord's answer. That's why he prays that the Lord will fulfill all your petitions. That's why he can confess that the Lord saves His anointed with the saving strength of His right hand. And congregation, this may be hard for us to understand, but the Catechism is absolutely correct when it says that we as Christians have sworn enemies. These enemies have taken their stand against the Lord and against His Anointed as we read about in Psalm 2. They have sworn to oppose God and all that is right. They have sworn that whatever God commands of us, they will seek to tempt us to do the opposite. They have sworn that since God's plan for His people is fellowship with Him and life, that they will work to separate us from God and they seek to cause us to die in the Spirit. They have sworn to destroy the church which Jesus Christ purchased with His own precious blood. And first of all, there is the devil himself, Satan. He is the supreme enemy of God and of our souls. And congregation, we need to hear this. He is the enemy of our souls. Young people, I believe at the stage of life you are in. You especially need to hear this. It's for all of us. But especially young people, the devil hates you. He is the enemy of your soul. He tries to make you, and I think that he likes us, that he has our best interest in mind as he did with Eve. But he doesn't. He wants our eternal death. He hates you. He is the tempter and the deceiver. He is the evil mind and the personality behind all the forces that would draw us away from God and away from eternal life. And of course, we know how Peter describes Satan. He says, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. But we need to understand that he doesn't always look like or act like a lion. He tries to soften us in order to get us to drop our guard. He may disguise His fierceness and evil with what appears to be good. Paul tells us that in 2 Corinthians 11. For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. In congregation, Satan doesn't care how he gets you, what means he uses, but just that he gets you. And therefore, he is to be feared. And he is the Prince. And the ruler of another one of our sworn enemies, the world. And this is not talking about the world that we read of in John 3.16 that God so loved. The enemy world is life organized apart from God. The world of unbelievers and wickedness which knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, worships and serves the devil. It is that life that seeks satisfaction and contentment in itself and in material things. It is that world which exalts man and treats God as death. And congregation, this world is a tool in the hand of Satan. And therefore, this world is at enmity with God. And therefore, when you think that the world is your friend, when you think that the world loves you, then remember the words of Jesus in John 15, If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Yet the warning is there, if you love the world, if the world loves you, beware. In congregation, that's why the church cannot feel at home in the world. Christians are pilgrims in a foreign land. We're just passing through. And this pilgrimage is not necessarily to be a pleasure trip where you and I can expect more pleasure than pain and grief. And our goal is not to be to try to enjoy as much of the pleasure of the world as we can, but instead to find our joy and pleasure only in our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. You see, we are called to hate what God hates, and that includes the principles of the world. But when we cannot hate the principles of the world, that is evidence of a lack of love for God. And Paul knew so well that we do not always consider the world as deadly and dangerous. And that's why he says, do not be conformed to the world. That's the most serious temptation of the world. To conform. That means to be molded after, to be shaped after, to become like. The world's temptation is in our homes, through TV, through magazines, through the newspaper. It's in our businesses. It's in our recreation. The world's influence infiltrates our conversations and our meetings and even the grocery store. We live in the world congregation, but we are called to not be of the world, to not be worldly. To be conformed to the world means to think like the world thinks. To act like the world acts. To talk like the world talks. To do like the world does. And this conformity begins on the inside and it yields its fruit on the outside. But instead, Christians are to be transformed, completely changed by the power of the Holy Spirit so that inside and outside we are totally different than the world. And that can be difficult because of that third sworn enemy, our own flesh. That self-seeking, self-satisfying, self-indulging sinful flesh. That sinful flesh that rules you and me by tempting. If it feels good, do it. If it seems right for you, then it must be right for you, so go ahead. And our own flesh can be the most dangerous enemy because it is the traitor inside the fortress. Our own flesh opens the door to grant entrance to those enemies from without. Our sinful, corrupted nature, which still clings to us against our will, is inclined to yield to evil. Beloved, our enemies, our sworn enemies, are mortal enemies. They desire our spiritual death at any cost. But we are called to heed the warning of Jesus when He says, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. And these sworn enemies never stop attacking us. I would trust that each one of us can also testify to that. Their attack is every moment of every day. Satan continues to shoot his flaming arrows at you and me, one after the other after the other. We cannot stand firm on our own, not even for a second. This prayer is that God would uphold us and make us strong with the strength of His Holy Spirit. So that when it comes to the devil, we pray that indeed we will be clothed with the armor of God. When it comes to the world, that we would pray, as John says in 1 John 2, that we would not love it or the things of it. when it comes to our own flesh, that our prayer would be that by the grace of God, He would cause us to crucify it, as Paul says in Galatians 5. There can be no peace with our sworn enemies, but one who is at counterfeit peace or who has false security with the devil, the world, or his own flesh, that one does not have true and lasting peace with God. This is an uneven conflict. That is, when we try to stand alone against our sworn enemies. It's uneven. It's lopsided. Way lopsided. Yet this prayer again is a confession of dependence. We are so weak that it's three against one. In our own strength we cannot, we will not stand. But when God is for us, who can be against us? We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. You see, when God is for us, it's still lopsided, isn't it? But the other way. Because Satan cannot stand against God. And therefore, beloved, this prayer to stand firm in the day of trouble is finally a confession of faith. The Catechism says, so that we may not go down to defeat in this spiritual struggle, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory. You see, this is a confession that we will stand firm in the strength of the Holy Spirit. We mentioned that victory just a moment ago. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. And this is a prayer for victory in this life leading to the next life. Earlier in the Lord's Prayer, we pray for our daily breath. And just as we depend upon God for our physical sustenance, we also depend upon Him. We must sense our dependence upon Him for moral triumph and for spiritual victory. And as Christians grow in holy living, we are to sense our own inherent weakness and rejoice that whatever virtue we possess flourishes by the grace of God as the fruit of the Spirit. Beloved, do you long for that complete victory? Do you urgently and earnestly desire that complete victory? It's a mark of true repentance to desire that victory, to hate evil, and to love what is righteous and good. And through faith we know that God provides that victory through Jesus Christ. It is sure. It is guaranteed. Yet we also need to understand that God's people are not mere puppets on a string. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we must be on guard against temptation and the evil one. Jesus says, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. And we must be on guard at the very beginning of sin as it tries to take root in our hearts through our thoughts that we might not desire to sin. And we are not to take unnecessary risks with our lives, playing with the fire of temptation. We must know our weaknesses because that's where Satan strikes first. And we are called to positively resist evil, to speak up against it, to turn away from it, to do the opposite of it. And unfortunately, congregation, so often we passively surrender to evil. We give up the struggle sometimes just to keep the peace, whether it be in our families or in the church. And that's called compromise. But think for a moment about your Christian life and how your ideas and actions have changed throughout the years because of compromise. Think back for a moment to 20, 25, 30 years ago. Things that used to shock you. Language that was spoken on the television. Or things that could be seen in public. How that would shock you and send a shiver up and down your spine, but now it doesn't even seem to affect us. Jesus said in Matthew 10, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. And then, of course, this confession of faith looks for the eternal victory. It expects the eternal victory. The catechism answer rightly says, until we finally win the complete victory. And once again, I must point out that I believe the older version says it more accurately better. The older version says, until we finally obtain the complete victory. In and of ourselves, we don't win that victory. Of course, in Jesus Christ we do. But I think it's more accurate to say that in Jesus Christ, we obtain that complete victory. But it says, until. Until is such a very precious word. It doesn't say, in order that we obtain or win. You see, that's only a yet uncertain wish. There's no certainty there. But until expresses certainty, the victory is secure. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And congregation, the victory is not only possible, but it is actual in Jesus Christ. John says, You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, that is the world, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Beloved, the devil cannot have contact with that which is holy. And therefore, when we live by the Word of God and by prayer, enjoying fellowship and communion with our Heavenly Father, then Satan cannot continue long in our vicinity. But the opposite is also true. He is very much at home in one who has not truly repented of their sins and does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. if you play with the fire of the devil, you will burn eternally. But those who seek the Lord while He may be found, those who call upon Him while He is near, those who cast all their care and burden upon the Lord all by the gracious power of the Holy Spirit, they will see victory. And beloved, this is the guarantee for those who repent and believe. It's your guarantee. It's my guarantee. And this is the guarantee that each one of us can give to those we come in contact with, that for those who repent and believe, the victory is theirs. This is the message that we are not to cease to take to our neighbors, to those we work with, to those to the ends of the world. If your request is to stand firm in the day of trouble, recognizing your weakness and dependence by grace through faith, then this promise is yours as James says, Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, once again, we have rightly been reminded of our weakness and our dependence upon You. We are reminded that salvation is all of Your hand, all from Your hand, because nothing in our hands can we bring but simply to Your cross, the cross of Jesus, can we claim. We confess that we still struggle. We need Your strength every passing moment. And we thank You that You are faithful and just and You will give us that strength. You will hold us up, lift us up in time of weakness. That You will keep us on that narrow way that leads to eternal life. Father, we know that as we go forward in this day and as we enter this week of work once again, we will be faced with temptation. Because the devil, the world, and our flesh constantly assault us. We pray that You would deliver us from evil, that we would stand firm in the face of temptation, that we might not take our eyes off of Jesus, but to stand in Your grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.