I want to begin this morning
concerning prayer, and I want to go as far as we can without
wearing you out, and then we'll come back this afternoon and
finish this. Luke chapter 11, and let's begin reading in verse
1 and read down through verse 13. All of this is concerning
prayer. And it came to pass, that as
he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples
said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his
disciples. And the Lord said unto them,
When you pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven,
so in earth. Give us day by day our daily
bread, and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. My margin says the evil one.
And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and
shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend
me three loaves. For a friend of mine in his journey
is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from
within shall answer and say, Trouble me not. The door is now
shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and
give thee." I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him
because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, his
persistence, he continued to knock. He will rise and give
him as many as he needed. And I say unto you, Ask, and
it shall be given you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock,
and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall
be opened. If a man shall ask bread of any
of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? If he ask
a fish, will he give him a serpent? Or if he ask an egg, will he
offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask
Him? And I want to thank this morning
maybe upon this subject, Lord, teach us to pray. What a wonderful
request. What a wise request. And really,
what an essential request. Someone had surely felt his weakness
in prayer, and he asked the Lord, teach me to pray. I don't know
of a better request to ask than maybe, what must I do to be saved? Our Lord save us, we perish.
But this is an excellent request. And he says here, his disciples
ask him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. John the Baptist taught his disciples
to pray. Here the Lord Jesus is teaching
his disciples to pray. I wonder if a ministry is worth
very much, brothers and sisters, if it doesn't teach us to pray. I'm okay with people coming up
to me and saying, I appreciate your messages. The messages have
been so good. That's encouraging to me. But
if someone should tell me that and then go off and never pray,
I wonder really how good my messages are. John taught his disciples
to pray. And here the Son of God is. He's
going to teach His disciples to pray. When the Lord sends
a man to preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,
I think that preaching would encourage men to pray. The Lord
teach us to pray. And I could go, I think, as far
as this to say that one evidence that God has called a man to
preach is that his preaching encourages people to pray. Those who truly hear The true
preaching of the gospel become praying people. Someone said
this, the evidence of a true ministry is not large crowds. Neither is it a broad ministry. But the evidence of a true preacher
is this, the few that hear him are praying people. The Lord
teach us to pray. And this verse here strongly
implies that John's disciples were a praying people. And we
know, we've got record, that the Lord's people, His disciples,
were a praying people. Let me give you two or three
examples. You remember in Acts chapter
1 when there was 120 of the Lord's disciples gathered there in that
upper room? and the Lord had just blessed
them and ascended up to heaven, here is what was said of them. These all continued with one
accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother
of Jesus and His brethren. All of them continued to pray.
And then we go on to Acts chapter 2, and when Peter had preached
the gospel, where the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and 3,000
souls were saved, listen to what was said about those disciples.
They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship
and breaking of bread and of prayer. As the Lord taught them
to pray, they in turn taught their disciples to pray. And
as the gospel began to spread and persecutions began to spread,
the praying people began to spread too. When the Lord sent Saul
of Tarsus into Macedonia to the street that was called Straight,
and He sent Ananias to speak with Saul, here is what Ananias
said about prayer. and concerning those disciples
of the Lord there in the city of Damascus. He said, Lord, He
has come here to arrest, to persecute those who call on Your name. As the gospel spread and the
persecution spread, praying people spread with it. One of the ways
the church is addressed and identified is by them being a praying people. Listen to how Paul addressed
the church at Corinth. To them who are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, call to be saints, with all that in every place
call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, both theirs and ours. So what is a successful ministry? What is it to be a disciple of
the Lord? What is it to be a true church?
Is it not in that we pray? And take a person who never prays. Can they hope to be a disciple?
A church that doesn't have an attitude of prayer, can it call
itself a true church? The Lord teaches us to pray,
and He does, doesn't He? He does teach us to pray. And
how does He do it? Let's begin. Two simple points
this morning, and I will finish tonight with two simple points. And my first two is this this
morning. He teaches by example as He was
praying. And then we'll look quickly at
He teaches us by a form. He gives us a pattern of prayer
in verses 2 through verse 4. And tonight we'll look at He
teaches us by His providence. Boy, sometimes He brings such
a providence upon us that He brings us knocking at His door.
And we'll see that in this little parable. And then last of all,
He teaches us by His Spirit. Now freely He gives the Spirit
to those who ask Him. So let's look first of all then
in verse 1, as He was praying in a certain place. Boy, the
Lord Himself was a praying man, was He not? And Brother Baker
said something the other day about what a mystery this is.
Here you have God in the flesh, the man Christ Jesus. And what
do you find Him doing? Praying. He was praying here
in a certain place. And you know, we find Him praying
everywhere. He prayed in the wilderness.
He prayed in the temple. He prayed in the synagogue. He
prayed in homes. He prayed in houses. He prayed
while He was laying. He prayed while He was standing.
He prayed while He was hanging upon the cross. He prayed everywhere
the Son of God was a praying man. What an example that He
is. Now listen to this. At His baptism
we are told that He prayed. And why would He do that except
to be an example to us that when you and I come to the ordinance
of God, whether it be baptism or the Lord's Supper, it always
should be sanctified and entered into by prayer. He prayed. Before He chose His twelve apostles,
we're told that He continued all night in prayer to God. Before He chose them and sent
them out, He spent time in prayer. And what's that to teach us,
brothers and sisters? Before we make any choice, before
we go into the service of the Lord, we should always seek Him
in prayer for His blessings upon our choices and upon our services. We must not rely on our own wisdom
and strength in these matters. Pray ye the Lord of harvest that
He send forth labors unto His vineyard. And even when He was
transfigured on the mount, He prayed. When His garments became
glistening and His skin became white as snow, and a voice spoke
to Him from heaven and said, This is my beloved Son, He prayed. And what's that to teach us?
But that when heaven has favored us, We ought to pray. We ought to pray to be kept from
the pride and to be kept from exalting ourselves. And when
He ate food, we never hear Him eating and we never see Him eating
food except He prayed and give thanks. And what does that teach
us? That our food is sanctified,
it's set apart for the Word of God by the Word of God and prayer. And remember in the garden? His
great affliction, His hour of greatest affliction up unto then.
My soul is exceeding sorrow even unto death. And there He prayed. And what does He teach us by
that? That in our deep sorrows is the perfect time to go to
our Father in prayer. When my heart is broken up with
a bitter woeful cup, then is the time to go to Christ all
along. Who tells us that? Our Lord tells
us that, doesn't He? By an example, He prayed under
His sorrow. He prayed for His enemies, even
while they persecuted Him. Listen to what He says upon the
cross, and I'll remind you of this. Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do. And what's this to teach us,
but to pray for our enemies? Pray for those who persecute
you and despitefully use you. Love your enemies and pray for
them. When he had finished his course
and was ready to give up the ghost, he prayed, Father, into
thy hand I commit my spirit. And to teach us to do the same.
When we're ready to finish our course, we pray, Father, unto
your hands I commit my spirit. And that's what Stephen said,
wasn't it? When they had stoned him to death, Lord Jesus, unto
your hands I commit my spirit. I tell you, I love to see a saint
that lives with the assurance that when he dies, he's going
to be with the Lord. I love to see saints like that
on their deathbed, that they are not overwhelmed with fear
and anxiety, that the river of death is easy for them to cross. But you know it is not a matter
of presumption, is it? It is not a matter of a vain
hope and confidence in themselves. It is a matter of God's will.
and God's faithfulness and God's grace in Christ that receives
us into heaven. And we acknowledge that just
as the Lord Jesus did. Father, I commit it unto You.
I commit my flesh, my soul unto You for the sake of keeping.
So is He not our example? Did He not teach us in everything
as our example in prayer? Lord, teach us to pray. And boy, He does. He teaches
us by an example. Ain't that the best way to teach
people? Sometimes we have difficulty teaching our children because
they hear us teaching them one thing and they see us teaching
them something else. We should teach one another as
the Lord taught us by example. Do you pray? Do you pray? Does your wife, does your children,
does your neighbors ever catch you praying? I've had neighbors
to come to my office. And I certainly wouldn't do this
on purpose. It's sort of embarrassing. But I'm there praying. And sometimes
they'll turn and walk off. And I'll never know they've been
there. And other times they'll stand there until I'm finished
praying. We're praying people, aren't we? Our children see us
pray. Our neighbors see us pray. Example. Secondly, here in verses 2 through
verse 4, the Lord teaches us to pray by giving us a pattern
of prayer. When you pray, say. Say. Prayer is made up sometimes of
just groanings. We do a lot of that. But you
know, prayer is made up of words, intelligent words that we frame
with our lips, that we form with our mouth. After this manner,
therefore, pray you, he tells Matthew. And he begins, notice
how he begins. He begins his prayer. Pray like
this. And he addresses our relationship
to God. Begin like this. Our Father. Our Father. Wayne prayed this
morning and Clarence prayed just now. And they both begin the
same way. Our Father. our Father. And what does this tell us? This
is the prayer of the children, is it not? This is the children's
prayer. Everybody, no matter how wicked
they are and how unbelieving they are, are the offspring of
God. God made us all. Therefore, every
man is His offspring. But everybody is not His children.
To be a child of God, we have to be born of God. We have to
be born again. of His own will begot He us with
the Word of Truth. I tell you, the new birth is
just as real as the physical birth. And having my earthly
Father to be my Father and to call Him my Father is real. But it's no more real than calling
God my Father. Because just as I was born of
my earthly Father, I was born of my heavenly Father. And now
I can call Him my Father because He is. He's your Father if He's
begotten you unto a lively hope. If a lost person prayed this
prayer, he'd probably better hope that God doesn't hear it.
Because when He says, Thy Kingdom come, if it does, what's it going
to do? It's going to crush that man,
isn't it? Thy Kingdom come. Only the children pray such a
prayer. The first prayer of a lost man
must be, Be merciful to me, a sinner. But when he's obtained mercy,
here's the way he should begin his prayer. My Father, our Father,
which art in heaven. And secondly, look what he goes
on to acknowledge God's position. This is wonderful. Which art
in heaven. Our Father which art in heaven. What does this tell us? It tells
us that we acknowledge in prayer His greatness. Where is He? He's over us, isn't He? He's
above us. We dare not bring Him down on
our level. He's a sovereign God. He resides
in heaven. He overrules as He pleases. And He always rules. He's a sovereign
Lord. And how could we pray, brothers
and sisters, if we don't acknowledge God's sovereignty? To bring Him
down on our level and make Him like us? That's not to pray. That's to worship oneself, isn't
it? Our Father who art in heaven. Heaven is His throne and the
earth is His footstool. He reigns. He's reigning. He's in heaven. But those who
might say that God rules in tyranny and has some evil despot are
that He makes us only to condemn us and damn us, which is what
the devil persuaded Luther that he had done. The Lord Jesus tells
us to address the Father in His character, in His true nature. Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed, holy, just, right, and reverent is Thy Name. When Moses taught us to recognize
God in prayer, he taught us to recognize His greatness and then
to recognize His nature. Listen to how he says it. because
I will publish the name of the Lord, ascribe you greatness to
our God." Address Him that way. Our Father, You're in heaven.
You're over all. You're above all. And then Moses
said, address Him like this, He is the rock. His work is perfect
and all His ways are judgment, a God of truth without iniquity,
Just and right is He. That's the way we address Him.
Has He ever did any of you wrong? Do you know anybody in the Bible
or outside the Bible that He ever did wrong? If He kills,
which He does, is He not just and right? If He quickens and
makes alive, is He not just and right in that? If He gives us
mercy and saves us, is He not just in doing that? If He imputes
our sin to us and damns us, has He given us something we don't
deserve? God has never done wrong, has He? And you know something?
He's never done wrong because He can't. He can't. Somebody said God don't
open up the Bible or any other book to determine what He should
or should not do. That's not what makes it right.
It's right because He does it. And He cannot do what's wrong.
Just and right is He. And when we turn our hearts towards
heaven, oh, He's not like us, isn't He? He's just not like
us. Everything we do is tainted with
sin. And there's no telling what we
love ought to do. But not Him. All His motives,
all His thoughts, All His words, all His deeds is right. Just and holy and good is His
very name. And that's the way we address
Him. And then He goes on, and look
at this. Pray this way, the Lord Jesus said, Thy kingdom come. You know, it said a lot. The
Bible says a lot about His kingdom. In another place, He says His
kingdom is within us. The kingdom of God comes not
with observation. That is, you can't look at you
and see it. But the kingdom of God is within you. Couldn't we
pray like this then? Oh, Your kingdom come to our
hearts. Come and set up Your rule in
our hearts, Your kingdom of holiness and grace. We can pray that way. That's my prayer this morning.
If you're here and you're lost, this is my prayer for you. Oh,
Father, Your kingdom come to that heart. In another place,
it's called the kingdom of God's dear Son. And it's said that
He delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us
into the kingdom of His dear Son. And could we not pray like
this? Oh, Father, translate. Many. Deliver many from the power
of darkness and Satan's rage and put them into the kingdom
of your dear Son. And you know another place it
talks about His kingdom coming. It's coming. It's going to be
revealed in the last day when Christ comes. Now He's reigning. And the Bible says He must reign
until He's delivered up the kingdom to the Father and then comes
the end. then that kingdom will be revealed. And all that's in it, and all
in whom this kingdom is, they're going to be revealed. And the
Son of God is going to say this, Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom. Inherit the kingdom. Old John
said, Lord, come quickly. Why did he pray that? He's longing
for the kingdom, wasn't he? The revelation of the kingdom.
Come, Lord Jesus. Is there anything this morning
Dear child of God, in your life or in your heart, that you long
for more than the coming of His Kingdom? There is, and we don't
have our priorities straight, do we? Something's wrong, ain't
there? Every child of God should be so weary of this world and
weary of the burden of this flesh that his prayer is, Thy Kingdom
come. Thy Kingdom come. Put down the
rule of the wicked. Put down the rule of sin and
reign. Manifest your rule and your reign. Thy kingdom come. And something
else, he says here in our text, the Lord Jesus said, pray like
this. They said, Lord, teach us to pray. And now He is. And He said, this is the form.
And say this when you pray, thy will be done. Now, have you noticed this? We
have gone through now for several minutes, haven't we? And quite a ways into this prayer.
And we haven't found the first thing yet about ourselves, haven't
we? We haven't said a thing yet about
my problems and my troubles. It's all about Him. About addressing
the Father and ascribing glory to Him. and submission to Him
and His Kingdom. It's not that our problems aren't
important. And it's not that God isn't concerned
about our problems. He tells us that He cares for
us, so cast your cares upon Him. But you know, brothers and sisters,
there's something more important than our problems. There's something
more than the trouble I find myself in. There's something
more important than me and you. And what is it? The worship of
God. Acknowledging Him, who He is,
and His character, who He is, and what He is, and where He
is, and what He's doing. The worship of God in prayer
is more important than anything else, is it not? And I found
myself, when I go to the Lord in prayer to worship Him, if
I worship like this, I tell you, my problems aren't nearly as
big as I thought they were. I want to show you a passage
of Scripture, a very familiar passage. Look over in Acts chapter
4. Hold Luke just for a minute. And look in Acts chapter 4. Here we have a perfect example
of what I'm talking about. Look in Acts chapter 4. If you want to read the context
of this, that's what makes this verse of Scripture I'm going
to read to you so wonderful. Look here in verse 1. Look at
the context. This is the apostles. Acts chapter
4 and verse 1. As they spake unto the people,
the priest and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees
came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people and
preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid
hands on them, put them in hold, in custody, until the next day,
for it was now even time. Howbeit many of them which heard
the word believed, and the number of men were about five thousand,
and it came to pass on the morrow, look at this, that the ruler
and elders and scribes And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas,
and John, and Alexander, very mean and powerful men, and as
many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered
together at Jerusalem, and notice this, and when they had set them
in the mist, Here are two little apostles of the Lord, and they
were ignorant and unlearned men. And here were all of these rulers
and men of authority gathered together, and they sat these
two little men down right in the midst of this group of people. And they asked them this question,
By what power of what name have you did this? And then Peter
answers the question very boldly. And then look down in verse And beholding the man which was
healed, standing with them, they could say nothing. But when they
had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred
among themselves, saying, What shall we do to these men? For
that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest
to all them that dwell in Jerusalem, and we can't deny it, but that
it spread no further among the people. Let us severely threaten
them that they speak not henceforth to no man in this name. And they
call them and command them not to speak at all nor teach in
the name of Jesus." Now that's the situation they found themselves
in. What would you and I have done?
I fear that we'd be tempted to lock the doors and go home and
hide ourselves. You know what they did? They
went back to the church. They got the church together.
And they said, we've got a problem here, and we don't want to get
a committee together to address it. We want to tell you exactly
what's going on. So they come back in verse 23,
and being let go, they went to their own company and reported
all that the chief priest and elders said unto them. And look
in verse 24. And when they heard that, They
lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord,
Thou art God. What a way to begin a prayer
in the face of their enemies that threatened them. Lord, Thou
art God. And I can almost imagine that
that big mountain that stood in their way was cut in half. Don't you? And everybody breathed
a sigh of relief. Why? Because God is God. Isn't that a way to start our
prayer? God is God. And all that that entails. He's
God in the heavens. That fills the heavens. He's
over us, above us. And He can overrule us. What
is the threat of wicked men compared to God? Lord, Thou art God. See why we don't start with our
problems? We start with God. And when we
start with God, then we know how to address our problems.
Look how they go on. Lord, Thou art God, which hath
made heaven and the earth and the sea. And all that in them
is a God of such wisdom and power? What is puny man? And what is
the threat of man? Or any situation the church finds
itself in compared to the church's God? It goes on in verse 25, before should be done. And now,
Lord, behold, they are threatened and granted to Thy servants that
with all boldness they may speak Thy Word, by stretching forth
Thy hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the
name of Thy holy child Jesus." And when they had prayed, the
place was shaken where they were assembled together. Oh, if we
could pray like that, maybe this place would be shaken. Clarence
prayed this morning, Lord, speak to this city. Awaken this city. Oh, if the church could pray
like that, God may shake this city. But we have to begin with
this, not our little flimsy problem. No matter how they may seem in
our own sight. But we must begin with God who
is in heaven. He's able to shake, isn't He?
Somebody made the statement, one of the silly commentators
made the statement, said, it was them probably shaking. No,
it was the place. God is a shaking God, isn't He? He's a God who shakes. And when
His people pray, He can shake. Look back over again in our text. Luke chapter 11 and look in verse
3. He finally comes to us. He finally
gets to us. And notice how He addresses us.
He addresses us in our utter dependence upon our Father. Even for the things that you
and I seldom even think about. Give us day by day our daily
bread. We don't think much about that,
do we? We don't think much about that. We just take for granted
that we'll get our daily bread. And the world's not thankful
for that. They're not asking for that.
But we're not of the world, brothers and sisters. We know where our
daily bread comes from. We know the means that we get
it is the gift of God, is it not? If He removed this, you
wouldn't even have the means to get your daily bread. You
couldn't even work to get it. We may think about our clothes,
but there's something more important to that than that. That's our
food. We may think about our jobs or our vehicles or a bank
account, but you know there's something more important and
essential than that, and that's our daily bread. The ability
to get it, the desire to take it into our minds, the ability
to digest it and derive strength from it, all of this is a gift
of God. And every day He gives it to
us. My dad was the most, as far as
a man's will is concerned, he had the most powerful will of
anybody I ever seen. He was sick for a number of years
before he died, and sometimes he would eat and vomit it right
back up. But he says, I've got to eat to live. He would eat,
vomit it up, and eat again, knowing he was going to get sick. And
he did that month after month after month until finally he
said, I can't do this anymore. And he died. Having a hunger, a need for food
is the gift of God. And we think little of that,
don't we? The Lord Jesus says, acknowledge this. Give us every
day, not just this one time, but every day, that which we
think so little about. We're so utterly dependent upon
Him, brothers and sisters, that our essential thing, our food,
He must give us. And it's a gift of God. Let Him
withhold it. Let Him withhold it. We've often
said, just let God withhold rain from this country just a few
months. They'll be killing each other
over a can of green beans. God gives us our food, does he
not? And we, as his children, recognize
that. And then he goes on to tell something
else that we're utterly indebted to him for. And he says here,
forgive us our sins as we forgive those who are indebted to us. Boy, here's a debt we can't pay. We're indebted to God and we
can't pay. And I tell you what, if he sends
out a notice, I'm requiring it at your hand, he's going to put
every one of us in debtor's prison. Is he not? We have no means to
pay this debt. Forgive us our debts. We've run up a great debt and
it has to be forgiven. And who else can forgive it?
Did we go down here to St. Ann's on Broad Street? Is that
the name of that church down there, St. Ann's? Did we go in
there to their little confessional booth and find a priest? and ask Him to absolve us? Will that do it? I've got a little
toilet outside my garage. We call them toilets, they call
them outhouses. We had a pool at one time and I built a toilet
mainly for the kids out there. But sometimes when I'm walking
outside in the yard, I'll go check the place out. It reminds
me of when I was a kid and we had an outside outhouse. I might
as well go into my toilet and confess my sins to the wall with
a hope of being absolved from them as to go down here to St. Anne's toilet and to confess
my sins. I get this way sometimes. I can't
help it. But it's the truth, ain't it? It's the truth. My
toilet has just as much merit as their toilet. So if I'm going
to confess, I'm going to my own, thank you. But who can forgive
sins? The one that we've sinned against.
Who can pardon the debt? He's the only one that's made
an atonement for those sins. If we confess our sins, He's
faithful. No matter how many there are,
no matter how great they are in our own eyes, the blood of
Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. We don't come
up here in front of you, us men, dogs, and start confessing sins. You don't want to hear that,
do you? Get on with it, you'd say. Go
in private and confess that. But every one of us know when
we go in private to the Lord, we never get a pass doing this.
Forgive us our debts. And boy, sometimes with our Father,
we go into detail, don't we? Because we know that He knows.
And we confess Him with the hope and the assurance that He does
indeed forgive debts. Let's finish with this. Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, how in the
world do we understand this? We can't understand this in a
positive way. We can't say, Father, please
don't lead me into evil. Please don't lead me into temptation.
He never does that, does He? God cannot be tempted of evil.
Neither tempts He any man. We're tempted, James said, when
we're drawn away of our own lust and enticed. But we're tempted
by the evil one, the devil, who walks about seeking whom he may
devour. But God doesn't tempt men. What
does he mean then in a negative way? He means it in a negative
way. Don't leave us to ourselves.
If you leave us to ourselves in our own wisdom, in our own
strength, in our own devices, what will we do? I tell you,
God have mercy upon us, brothers and sisters, when we reach the
point that we can trust ourselves. This is why we pray. Don't leave
me to the devil. And His rage, He seeks to devour
me. Don't let Him lead me. You lead
me away from this evil and temptation. I was watching a documentary
or something, I can't remember, it's been some time ago, on Adolf
Eichmann. He was Adolf Hitler's right-hand
man. He was the one that was responsible for arresting the
Jews and incinerating them. He was responsible. He wasn't
responsible for just arresting them and putting them in the
labor camps. He was the one that killed them. He was over the
death camps. And he survived the war. And
a few years after the war, the Jews found him. Maybe it was
in Austria or somewhere. And they arrested him, brought
him back, and put him in prison, in jail. And they sentenced him
to death. They were going to hang him.
And this woman, a young woman, Adolph Eichmann had personally
killed her entire family. And she come and requested the
authorities that she interview him. She wanted to sit and talk
with him and find out why he would do what he did. And she
sat down and talked with him. And they said when that woman
came out of that interview, she was visibly shaken. And this
is what she said, What bothers me so greatly I sat and talked
to a perfectly normal man. And she said, I knew what he
did. I knew the people that he killed.
And now he's suddenly normal. And she said, that scares me
to death. Does your potential scare you
to death? What do you have the potential
to do? The length of immorality and ungodliness that you can
fall into if God leaves you to yourself. Doesn't that scare
you? Our Lord told His disciples,
pray lest you enter into temptation. And He says that to us, doesn't
He? If you're afraid of yourself, if you're afraid of your evil,
somebody says, surely, The Lord does not degrade us by calling
us evil. He does in verse 13 just that,
doesn't He? If you being evil, oh brothers
and sisters, we are utterly dependent upon Him for our food. We are
utterly indebted to Him to forgive us. And now we need His power
and His wisdom to shepherd us through this world. God help us to pray. Lead us
not into temptation. The Lord helping us will continue
there this afternoon. John, would you dismiss us?