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Dependent in the Battle: Praying for Protection (Matthew 6:13) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the deep dive into the sources
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you sent us. Glad to be here.
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Today we're really getting into the weeds on something quite
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special. We're doing a theological
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excavation of the final petition of the prayer our king taught us
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the. Climax of.
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It all exactly Matthew 6.13 and lead us not into temptation, but
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deliver us from evil. A line we say so often, maybe
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without even thinking about what it really means.
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That's just it. This single line, when you
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really dig into the source material, is so much more than a
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simple request. It's like a massive spiritual
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road map. It pulls together some of the
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biggest doctrines we have God's sovereign governance over
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everything, our own, you know, inescapable personal weakness.
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And the cold reality is spiritual conflict.
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And most of us just race right past it.
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We do. That's the key observation here.
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And as we get into this deep dive, our goal is to really show
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you why this one petition defines genuine piety.
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OK? It forces us to face a hard
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truth. The Christian life isn't about
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self improvement or, you know, moral management.
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It's defined as a state of continual utter dependence.
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So the core insight is that real devotion begins with self
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distrust. Self distrust that is wedded
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completely to confidence in God. That's the formula.
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And right off the bat, we have to deal with the immediate
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paradox. This is a theological knot that
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trips up so many people. If we know based on scripture,
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James 1.13 is the big one, that God absolutely tempts no one to
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evil. He doesn't solicit US towards
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sin, then why are we instructed by Jesus himself to ask God not
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to lead us into temptation? It almost sounds like we're
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asking him not to do something he wouldn't do anyway.
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And that tension is absolutely central.
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If you don't get that right, you get the whole prayer wrong.
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So what's the key? It demands a really precise
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theological distinction between two concepts.
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On one hand, you have God's sovereign Providence, so He
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orders the circumstances for our lives, governing every step,
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every pressure, every single trial we face.
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OK, his total control. Total control.
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On the other hand, you have the actual solicitation to sin, and
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that arises exclusively from the hostile forces of the world, our
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own flesh and the devil. So God's in control of the
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situation, but not the author of the evil impulse.
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Perfectly put. So the prayer becomes a plea for
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God to govern our path and mercy to set the limits of the trial.
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It's not a request for him to avoid acting in a way that would
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be against his own holy nature. OK, let's unpack this.
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I think we have to start with the structure.
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Because Jesus didn't just throw these lines together randomly,
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did he? Not at all.
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The very organization of the Lord's Prayer sets the whole
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context for this final, desperate cry.
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So to really feel the urgency of this last request, we have to
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see the whole prayer as a coherent theological road map,
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as the sources put it. It is.
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It's strategically structured to be the absolute opposite of self
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reliant. Religion.
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You mean the kind of showy, performance driven prayer life
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that Jesus was just critiquing a few verses earlier in Matthew 6?
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Exactly that. It starts with what the source
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is called a vertical orientation.
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This is a decisive rejection of self-centered religion.
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You are not allowed to jump straight into your personal
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needs list. Right.
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The first 3 petitions force you to align your heart entirely
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with God's own priorities. It's an act of allegiance before
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petitions. You start with hallowed be your
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name, then your Kingdom come and finally your will be done.
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God's reputation, His reign, and his desires.
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Yes, that structure dictates that every personal request that
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follows has to be filtered through that established
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allegiance. You're acknowledging the general
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before you start requesting logistics for your little part
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of the battle. And only after that, after God's
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priorities are set, does the framework shift to the
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horizontal orientation addressing human needs.
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And that transition is so essential, it shows that even
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our requests for food or pardon are themselves acts of
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submission to His sovereign will.
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We're basically asking for the tools we need to fulfill those
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first 3 petitions. So our needs serve His glory,
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not the other way around. That's it.
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It's a masterpiece of theological framing, and in
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shows that disciples never ever view their personal salvation or
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physical comfort as an end in itself.
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It's always a means to the higher end of God's glory.
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And within that second part, the part focus on our needs.
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The structure has his clear, logical and escalating
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progression. A real escalation in urgency.
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Yeah, it culminates precisely in our petition for delivery.
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The first step is provision. Right.
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Give us this day Our Daily Bread.
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It's acknowledging our physical dependence, A plea for basic
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material sustenance, the strength and resources we need
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just to exist and keep serving him day-to-day.
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It's an anti anxiety prayer really recognizing we need his
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handouts every morning. But then the prayer immediately
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scales up from the physical to the spiritual.
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It moves to pardon. And forgive us our debts, our
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sins. So this is about cleansing the
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record of past moral failures. It addresses our legal and moral
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standing before God. The debt is cleared.
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We can stand accepted. But, and this is the striking
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part, the prayer doesn't stop there.
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It doesn't just stop once the slate is clean and our stomachs
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are full. No, it continues.
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It escalates to the highest necessity of all preservation.
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The final request is for protection from future spiritual
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ruin. It defines spiritual survival as
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the most critical human need, More critical than bread even.
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That structural significance is huge.
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It defines the believer not just as a pardoned Sinner, someone
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whose history has been redeemed, but as a soldier in an ongoing
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spiritual conflict. It recognizes that being
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forgiven for yesterday's sins doesn't give you a free pass on
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today's war. Spiritual security is the
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climax. Think about what that implies
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for our prayer lives today. I mean really think about it.
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If we stop at provision and pardon.
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If we pray hard about our bank account and our past failures,
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but we neglect this plea for preservation.
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We're essentially saying thanks for the meal and the amnesty.
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I can handle the rest myself. Exactly.
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It's a statement of functional self-reliance.
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Wow, that's a great point. It reveals where our real
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priorities are. We tend to focus on things we
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can count, you know, physical need, our moral track record.
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But the prayer puts the focus squarely on the unseen future
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danger of spiritual failure. This is where the analogy of the
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deep sea dive in the source material really helps.
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It captures both the escalation and the urgency perfectly.
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OK, walk us through that. Well, provision, requesting
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enough oxygen and working equipment and pardon, ensuring
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the decompression stops are clear.
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Those are vital preparatory steps.
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They get you ready for the mission.
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Right, you can't go down without them.
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But the mission's ultimate climax, the moment of acute
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danger, is the plea to the surface crew.
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It's you on the radio saying don't let me drift into the
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crushing depths of the deep and pull me out of these shark
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infested waters. The.
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Focus shifts entirely to surviving the hostile
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environment. The deadly environment, yeah,
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and being decisively pulled back to safety.
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So Jesus is teaching us that while it's good and right to ask
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for food and forgiveness, the most essential request for a
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disciple to make is for protection from that
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overwhelming spiritual danger, the danger that threatens to
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destroy the soul after forgiveness has been granted.
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Yes. The structure just refutes the
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idea that justification makes us automatically spiritually safe.
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It confirms we are constantly vulnerable and that
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vulnerability makes this next petition an existential
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necessity. OK, so that brings us to the
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first clause of the climax. And lead us not into temptation.
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And as we mentioned at the top, to get this we have to grapple
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with the specific Greek word used here for temptation.
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We do. The word is perasmos, and it's
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duality is really the entire theological hinge of this
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discussion. You cannot read this word with a
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single modern understanding of temptation as just, you know,
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moral enticement. So it has a range of meanings.
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It does. On one hand, perasmos can mean a
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refining trial or a test. This is the positive or
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disciplinary sense. Like in James 1.2, where
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believers are told to greet trials with joy.
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Exactly. God uses these pressures, these
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hardships, these tests to purify our faith, to expose our hidden
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dependencies, and to solidify a genuine reliance on Him.
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It's testing that's designed to refine, to make us stronger.
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That's one side. Then, on the other hand,
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parasmos means solicitation to sin.
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This is the negative, malicious enticement to commit moral evil.
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And the source material is very clear on this.
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James 1.15 Again, God tempts no one in this sense.
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Is absolutely never the author of sin.
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He never tempts his children toward moral collapse.
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That would violate his very nature.
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OK, so if God only sends refining tests and he never
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sends solicitation to sin, what in the world are we pleading
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with Him to avoid when we say lead us not into parasmos?
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Great question. The nuance in Matthew 6.33
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forces us to understand parasmos here as referring to, and this
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is a key phrase, testing that places us in morally perilous
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situations. OK, say more about that.
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Because the request is addressed to God, who is both sovereign
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and perfectly holy, the term has to refer to the environment of
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the trial, not the internal enticement itself.
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We are pleading for God to govern the circumstances of of
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our lives so that the severity of the test doesn't exceed the
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ability of His grace to sustain us.
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So it's not avoiding the test all together, but asking for
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boundaries on the pressure cooker.
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That's a perfect way to put it. You're asking the one who
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controls the heat to keep it at a level you can withstand
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through his power. And this is where the Reformed
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view of God's sovereignty becomes just central to the
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whole prayer. It is the bedrock.
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The phrase lead us not is a direct acknowledgement that our
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path is never random. It's a confession that God
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actively orders our ways, governing the entirety of our
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circumstances. Everything, including the
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precise nature and the timing of the trials we encounter.
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So to pray lead us not is to confess.
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We're not autonomous. We are entirely in the hand of
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the Father. Yes.
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He's the one who determines the level of stress we endure, the
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specific battlefield we're assigned to, and the boundary
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lines of what we have to confront.
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We're affirming His Providence over the whole course of our
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lives. But then, and we have to keep
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coming back to this, we must immediately hold on to the
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boundary of holiness again. You have to hold him in tension.
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We have to maintain that theological distinction.
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God tempts no one to evil. The petition isn't asking God to
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stop trying to seduce us into sin, which is impossible for
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Him. Right.
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It is a plea for God to govern the severity of the trials and
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mercy. It's an appeal to the Father to
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restrain the test itself. We're asking Him to set
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boundaries so that the degree of peril, the combination of the
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outward pressure and our inward vulnerability doesn't exceed
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what we can endure through His sustaining grace.
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We're saying, Father, you govern the depth of the waters.
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Please don't put me in a situation where my own weakness
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guarantees my failure. The cardiac stress test analogy
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from the sources makes this so clear without confusing God's
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motives. It's a great analogy.
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Look at it this way. The Doctor Who is God,
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deliberately puts the patient, the believer, under immense
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strain. He elevates the heart rate,
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which is the trial. Now the doctor's purpose is
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always benevolent. It's to expose hitting
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weaknesses for healing or strengthen a muscle.
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The purpose is over to cause a system failure, a heart attack.
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That would be the sinful solicitation.
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The patient trusts the father to administer the test, but also
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trusts him to stop the test before the pressure becomes
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fatal. The prayer Lead Us Not is the
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patient's desperate plea for the doctor to manage the test
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according to their known frailty.
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It relies completely on the Doctor's good intention and
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perfect control. So we accept the trial as coming
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from His ordering, but we pray that His mercy would temper it,
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preventing that trial from becoming the occasion for our
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sin. Absolutely.
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The trial itself is under Providence, but the sin comes
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from our internal response to that pressure, often aided and
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abetted by the evil one. We asked the Father who controls
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the environment to mercifully adjust that environment for our
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spiritual survival. But the prayer turns the lens
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inward just as sharply, doesn't it?
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This petition is a massive, ongoing confession about us.
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Oh, absolutely. It's maybe the loudest statement
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on the doctrine of human frailty in the entire Lord's Prayer.
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It is a radical rejection of what the sources identify as
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Pelagian and semi Pelagian optimism about human moral
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ability. It cuts completely against the
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modern belief that spiritual problems are just matters of
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willpower or better habits or the newest self help technique.
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This lines up perfectly with the Reformed understanding of
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sanctification. It insists that apart from God's
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moment by moment sustaining grace, even the most mature, the
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most committed believer would just spiritually collapse under
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extreme pressure. This all hinges on the doctrine
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of remaining corruption. Justification cleanses our legal
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standing before God, but it does not eradicate the root of sin
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inside the believer. We still have it with us.
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We retain indwelling sin. We carry a principle of sin that
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wars against the Spirit, the believer.
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Even the committed St. is described as prone to wander,
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easily entangled and vulnerable to deep deception.
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The conviction is clear. No believer is spiritually
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invincible. And if God were to withdraw his
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sustaining hand. And allow that believer to face
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temptation alone. Failure would be inevitable.
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It's guaranteed. So the prayer is an expression
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of total dependence. We're admitting that our
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spiritual security doesn't rest on our past performance or our
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current willpower. Not at all.
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The prayer confesses, If you lead me into certain kinds of
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tests, I will fall unless you sustain me in the middle of
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them. It completely redefines the
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Christian life away from some achievable self managed moral
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project and into a persistent state of continual dependence on
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sustaining grace. It moves our identity from moral
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champion to desperate recipient. Yes, the structural necessity is
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glaring. A pardon Sinner is still an
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utterly fragile Sinner who needs constant external power to
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survive the next 5 minutes. The scaffold analogy in the
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source material just drives this point home so vividly.
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It really does, contrasting that self-sufficiency with true
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dependence. Explain that right.
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The self-sufficient person, the pologen optimist.
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He imagines himself as a fortress built of sound moral
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materials, standing strong on his own foundation, ready to
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withstand any siege. That's how a lot of people think
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about their spiritual life. It is, but the believer, the
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person praying this petition, sincerely knows himself to be a
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scaffold. He's functionally unstable.
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He is only standing because of the external support, God's
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sustaining grace. So if that support is removed.
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The structure doesn't just struggle, it collapses.
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It's inevitable under the weight of temptation and the evil. 1
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This prayer is the scaffold's daily confession that it cannot
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hold itself up against the winds.
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It reorients our entire understanding of holiness.
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Then holiness isn't something we generate from within.
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It's what we receive and rely upon, moment by moment.
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So lead us not into Temptation is less about fearing God's
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nature, and it's everything about confessing our own nature.
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That's it. We are fundamentally too weak to
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survive certain tests if he doesn't hold the reins of
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Providence very, very tightly. And that deep sense of confessed
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frailty that sets the stage perfectly for the second-half of
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the petition, the plea for a decisive external rescue.
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Exactly the transition with the word, but in the Greek it's
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Allah is a logical pivot. It moves us from the passive
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request. Don't lead me into the worst
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danger to the active, urgent plea.
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And actively rescue me from the danger I'm in right now.
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Yes, it's a balancing and intensifying complement.
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As the source puts it, it moves the focus from passively
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limiting our exposure to actively pleading for God to
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exert His is unique strength to rescue us.
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And we need to look at the specific verb for deliver here,
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because the sources describe it using some very intense
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language. Yes, the Greek verb is rumai,
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and it is absolutely a strong term.
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It denotes a rescue from acute danger.
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So this isn't asking for a helping hand.
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Not at all. It describes the decisive action
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of a powerful rescuer who snatches someone from imminent
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peril. This is a sharp contrast with,
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say, just gentle assistance offered to a basically
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self-sufficient person. Precisely.
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The use of Rumai inherently implies helplessness.
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By using this verb, we are confessing that the currents of
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sin and say, panic, opposition are too powerful to be navigated
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by unaided human will. We've passed the point of being
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able to manage the situation. We require a supernatural
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intervention, A definitive act of snatching.
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Let's go back to that wider analogy.
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This isn't a swimming coach yelling advice from the shore
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while the person practices their stroke.
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No, no, this is a crisis scenario.
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Rumai describes a lifeguard diving into storm tossed waters
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to physically seize A drowning swimmer who has lost all ability
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to save themselves. So the prayer is saying I'm
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drowning, my strength is gone. I acknowledge I'm drowning and
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only your swift powerful action can pull me out now.
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This is a confession of 0 self salvation capability in the
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moment of temptation. And that decisive rescue is
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necessary because the enemy we face is so comprehensive and,
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well, malignant. Yes, the object of our
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deliverance is evil, and the sources are right to show this
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is a comprehensive term. Grammatically, it can often
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refer to the evil one Satan. But it's broader than that.
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It is the prayer is understood to encompass the entire hostile
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triad of forces that are arrayed against the believer soul.
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And this triad helps us recognize that spiritual danger
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comes from three distinct but coordinated directions.
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Right, First you have the flesh, which is internal.
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This is our indwelling sin, the remaining corruption that acts
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like a traitor inside the gates. The lust, the pride, the.
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All rising from one's own desires.
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It's the reason temptation has a hook in us in the 1st place.
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This is the vulnerability we confessed in the 1st.
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Clause. OK, so that's the internal
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enemy. What's second?
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2nd is the world which is external.
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This is the outward evil of a fallen world.
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It's the surrounding corrupt culture that constantly presses
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the believer toward compromise, toward conformity, toward
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distraction. And this isn't just about, you
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know, blatant immorality. Not at all.
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It includes the subtle pressures of materialism, of status
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seeking, the prevailing philosophies that deny Christ's
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lordship over every part of daily life.
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Can you give a modern example of that pressure from the world?
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Oh, easily. Think about our culture's
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obsession with constant busyness, the pressure to
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sacrifice Sabbath rest or time in the Word for the sake of
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professional achievement or financial accumulation.
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That's the world's pressure. It's pressing us to conform to
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its standards of success. That's good.
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Yeah. OK.
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And the final threat in the triad.
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And it's the most acute threat, the devil, who is personal.
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This is the personal malice of Satan himself.
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He's not a vague concept of evil.
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He is an active adversary who steams, who accuses the Saints,
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who deceives, and who actively orchestrates moral evil to bring
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about the destruction of faith. So let's bring back that other
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analogy. The malware 1.
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Yeah, OK. The sources reiterate that
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crucial theological distinction. God, the System Administrator,
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orders the environment of the stress test.
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That's his Providence, right? But the temptation, the virus,
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comes from the hacker, the devil.
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And it's only effective because of the vulnerability which is
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our flesh. So the prayer Deliver us from
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evil is asking for the divine patch, which is grace and total
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protection from the destructive consequences of that whole
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threefold threat. You got it.
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It's recognizing that we are fighting A3 front war every
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single day against our own nature, against our culture, and
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against a personal malevolent intelligence who is superior to
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us in strength and cunning. And when we connect those two
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clauses with that adversative. But.
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You really see the intensification, right?
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It signals that deliverance is the decisive countermeasure.
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We move from asking God to restrain Himself to asking Him
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to exert his strength against the enemy on our behalf.
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This completely redefines the pardoned believer.
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We are immediately a soldier in an ongoing spiritual conflict,
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right? We're not just peaceful citizens
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enjoying the King's pardon. We are combatants in a very real
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war who are pleading for air support to survive the
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engagement. We're acknowledging we're behind
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lines and we cannot survive based on yesterday's forgiveness
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or even today's physical bread alone.
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Our survival depends completely on God's continuous decisive
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rescuing intervention. Which is an expression of His
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grace in the moment of trial. So it's a confession that we
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were entirely dependent on Him for our perseverance, not just
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for our initiation into the faith.
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Every step of the way. OK, so now that we've pulled
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apart the distinct clauses, let's bring these ideas back
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together. This petition is not just a
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request, it's a compact theological confession.
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It binds 3 essential truths together.
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It synthesizes divine Providence, affirming that God
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governs every circumstance, including the testing.
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OK, one human frailty confirming that we are intrinsically weak,
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we retain indwelling sin, and we require sustaining grace to
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prevent collapse and spiritual warfare, admitting we face a
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real, malignant and superior enemy who is actively seeking
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our destruction. And you can't sincerely pray
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this petition if you reject any one of those three points.
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You can't. If you deny Providence, the
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prayer is pointless. If you deny your own frailty
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like the Pelagians, the prayer is hypocritical.
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If you deny warfare, the prayer is just melodramatic.
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And critically, this entire request is anchored in a
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Christological anchor. We appeal to the Father not
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based on our need alone, but based on the finished work of
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Christ. He is the tempted yet sinless
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mediator and the victor. And we appeal based on the
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triumph he has already secured over the Evil One at the Cross.
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That changes the whole dynamic. We're asking for grace and
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protection because Christ purchased that security for us.
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Our petition isn't a desperate shot in the dark.
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It is an appeal based on the guaranteed victory of the King
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over these specific forces, and the most immediate consequence
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of sincerely praying this petition is a dramatic shift in
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our prayer priorities. Absolutely.
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By placing this request preservation from sin, at the
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very climax of our needs, Jesus trains us to regard sin and
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spiritual ruin as a far greater threat than sickness or poverty.
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Which is the opposite of how we naturally think.
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Completely. The average person prays 10
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times more earnestly about their physical health or their
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finances than they do about the state of their soul or their
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proximity to specific sins. So this prayer demands pre
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emptive prayer. It trains the Christian not just
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to confess sins after they happen, but to pray beforehand
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against specific known vulnerabilities.
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So if you know you're prone to resentment against a neighbor.
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Or if lust is a constant internal battle, or if pride
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makes you react defensively to any correction, you should
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explicitly ask God to hedge your path, to limit your exposure,
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and to restrain your flesh in those precise situations.
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And that shift in priority, then, necessitates A fundamental
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commitment to an ethic of vigilance and avoidance.
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If we sincerely ask God for deliverance from a specific
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temptation, our actions have to line up with that request.
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The sources are blunt here. They call it a practical
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contradiction to pray for deliverance while at the same
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time voluntarily walking into environments that feed the
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flesh. You can't ask God to pull you
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out of the Shark Tank while you're actively jumping in for a
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swim. You can't.
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The prayer demands immediate self critical examination of our
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habits, our media consumption, our relationships, our routines,
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everything. This means taking costly steps.
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It does if the sincere prayer is deliver me from the evil of
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sloth. You have to then take the costly
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step of turning off the television and opening a book or
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finding accountability for your time.
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If the prayer is deliver me from lust.
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The costly step involves installing accountability
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software, changing your social media habits, or maybe even
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ending specific relationships that routinely pull your heart
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toward compromise. It's fleeing temptation.
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It's using the way of escape that God provides.
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And actively building hedges around our own path.
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We don't rely on self-confidence or our ability to handle a
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situation. We rely entirely on God's
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protection, which often comes through the wisdom and the
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spiritual discipline He enables us to exercise in fleeing before
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the danger becomes overwhelming. The prayer pushes back hard
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against the arrogance of presumption.
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In a way, the sincerity of the prayer is tested by the
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readiness of our action. If you pray this and then take
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no steps of vigilance, you're effectively lying to the Father
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about your priorities. But despite the gravity and the
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urgency of the prayer, it offers immense pastoral comfort.
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For the believer who is keenly aware of their frailty.
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Yes, who feels battered by the constant treasure of that
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threefold enemy? Where does that comfort come
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from? It comes first from the
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assurance of God's limit. The sources affirm the promise
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from First Corinthians 10.13 that God will not let you be
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tempted beyond your ability. So we're assured that God the
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Sovereign Dr. limits the intensity of the trial.
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He limits it so that that it does not exceed the believers
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capacity to endure. Through His grace, He measures
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the pressure exactly. And the fact that Jesus
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commanded all his disciples to pray this way.
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The mature and the immature, yes.
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It confirms that the presence of temptation doesn't mean you've
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been abandoned or that you're exceptionally weak.
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It means you are a normal disciple, a normal soldier in
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the conflict, who is expected to appeal continually to the
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commander. Your spiritual exhaustion is
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acknowledged and provided for in the King's own instruction.
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And finally, just the consistent repetition of this prayer
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throughout the Christian life, it confirms that preservation is
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God's gift. It is not our achievement, but
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God's gift. Every single time we pray this,
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we are making a hopeful anti anxiety confession.
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We're saying, left to myself, I will fall.
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And simultaneously, my Father through Christ will keep me.
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It transforms the feeling of weakness, the very frailty we
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confess, into the foundation for our hope.
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Our security rests entirely on His faithfulness to hear this
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urgent cry. It's a remarkable synthesis,
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isn't it? Our biggest confession of
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personal inadequacy is wrapped up in our greatest statement of
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theological confidence. So as we wrap up this deep dive
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into Matthew 6.3 Teen, we see that the final petition of the
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Lord's Prayer is well, it's the ultimate statement of
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dependence. It.
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Is it's the climax of human need.
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It moves past forgiveness of the past to active preservation in
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the future. And we've established that true
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piety is really defined by self distrust that's wedded to
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complete confidence in God. Which requires us to align our
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daily vigilance with our desperate request for a decisive
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rescue from that hostile triad, the world, the flesh, and the.
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Christian life, then, according to this prayer, is a state of
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perpetual engagement with the King, asking him to govern our
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circumstances, recognizing our weakness.
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And pleading for the swift, strong action of his rescue.
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It's a life lived on our knees. And the sources point out one
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last thing. This petition has an
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eschatological horizon. It doesn't just concern today's
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temptation. It looks forward to the final
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deliverance, when the evil one will be entirely vanquished and
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the Kingdom will come in full. So there's a now and a not yet
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to it. Exactly which leaves us with
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this If this daily petition is a corporate cry for ongoing
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protection on the spiritual battlefield, what does the
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sincerity of our praying deliver us from evil today reveal about
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how earnestly we await the glorious consummation of the
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Kingdom and the King's final return.
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In other words, how much do our daily battles make us long for
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the end of the war? That's the question.
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It links our small daily moral struggles directly to the whole
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sweep of a dump of history.