I want to talk to you tonight about the blood of Christ. There is nothing more precious to the Christian than the blood of Christ. It brings us so many benefits and blessings. No wonder the devil hates it! No wonder he wants to take the blood of Christ out of our hymn books. No wonder he wants to take it out of our Bibles. The devil wants us to have a humanistic, bloodless religion; but thank God for the precious blood of Jesus!

What are some of the benefits of the blood of Christ? What are some of the blessings that can only come to us because of the shed blood of Jesus? One of the first things is ATONEMENT—covering for our sin. Others are RECONCILIATION, FORGIVENESS, JUSTIFICATION, REMISSION, REDEMPTION, SANCTIFICATION, ACCESS TO GOD, and VICTORY.

Tonight I want to look for a few moments at just one of these blood-bought benefits: Atonement.

The word atonement means “to cover.” In Genesis 6:14 God told Noah to build an ark of gopher wood and to cover it with pitch or tar. What does a covering do? It hides from sight. The pitch that Noah put on the ark would hide the gopher wood from sight so that no one would see it. And that is exactly what the blood of Christ does to our sins—it hides them from God’s sight. It covers them. You’ve heard and used the saying many times, “Out of sight, out of mind,” and this is never more true than when the blood of Jesus Christ covers our sins. Someone has called it THE GREATEST COVER UP IN HISTORY! The covering of our sins.

There’s a similar word used in the Bible which means to smear over and erase a record. In Psalm 109:13 it says, “Let their name be blotted out.” In the same way, the blood of Christ smears and covers over the record of our sins and blots them out—just as the record of a name can be smeared over and blotted out of a book.

In Isaiah 44:22 it says, “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud, thy sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.” A thick cloud hides the earth from the view of the one on the mountaintop or in an airplane. In the same way, the blood of Christ hides our sins from the view of the God of heaven.

Here’s an Old Testament picture that helps us to understand this concept a little more clearly. You remember that the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle. This Ark was a closed box that hid from sight the tables of the law which man had broken and which cried against him for vengeance. The covering or lid for this ark was called the mercy seat. The word mercy seat can also be translated “propitiatory” or propitiation. The New Testament teaches us that Christ is the true propitiatory or covering that hides from view the broken law of God. The verse I read to you earlier from Romans contains this thought: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.”

But there’s a further thought I want to mention. The mercy seat or covering for the ark was made of gold, and while this gold covering sufficiently hid from sight the tables of the law, this did not by itself deliver sinful people from God’s righteous judgment. Something more than gold was required. Yes, you guessed it! That something more was blood. Every year that golden lid had to be sprinkled with the blood of an innocent victim in order for the record of sins to be blotted out from God’s sight.

Our Lord’s divinity was not enough by itself to save us. His divine nature was like the golden lid of the mercy seat. It wasn’t just a divine, holy, spotless life that was required to atone for our sins; it took blood. The blood of God’s Son must be shed. There was a penalty to be paid that could only be paid in blood, and thank God, Jesus Christ paid it when He shed His precious blood on the cross of Calvary.

Hebrews 10:15-17 says, “Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”

He will remember our sins no more. Remember what I said a few moments ago, “Out of sight out of mind.”

Psalm 32:1 says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”

Only the blood of Christ can hide anything from an Omniscient, all-seeing, all-knowing God. Only the blood of Christ can cause the Infinite Mind of God to forget.

Thank God tonight for the precious atoning blood of Christ that covers our sins, that blots them out, and causes God to forget them.

You know, there are many ways that we can cover our sins tonight. For instance, we can cover them by concealing them—by hiding them. You remember the story of our first parents, Adam and Eve—how they sinned in the garden of Eden by eating of the forbidden fruit. You remember that they tried to atone for their sin, or cover their sin, with fig leaves. “They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” And then they hid themselves. But what happened? God discovered their hiding place, and He saw right through their covering. Their fig leaves didn’t avail to hide their sin from God. Only the blood of Christ can hide our sins from the eyes of God.

There are other ways that we try to cover our sins. We try to cover them by good works. We think that if we do some good in the world that this will somehow cause God to overlook our sins and not see them. We think that our good deeds will somehow create a buffer between us and God’s holy wrath against sin. But how wrong we are. Only the blood of Christ can cover our sins!

How thankful we should be that God Himself provided a way for our sins to be covered. If you’re a Christian tonight, rejoice that your sins are covered by the blood of Christ. The penalty has been paid. Your sins have been blotted out forever. Your record is as clean as if you had never committed any sins. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from ALL sin.” Praise God!

On the other hand, if you’re here tonight and you haven’t yet placed your faith and trust in the atoning blood of Christ and received Him as your Saviour and Lord, may I encourage you to do that tonight. Confess to Him that you’re a sinner. Acknowledge that all your efforts to cover your sin have been unavailing. Ask Him to forgive you for Christ’s sake. Put your trust in the blood of Christ alone. Receive His blood as the perfect covering for your sins.

The passage I just read is found at the very end of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, which is the longest recorded discourse of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the greatest and most important sermon of all time. You remember that this great sermon begins with what we call the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are they that mourn…blessed are the meek…blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness,” and so on. Then He goes on to talk about other matters, such as adultery and divorce, making oaths, loving our neighbors, prayer and fasting, earthly riches, worry, hypocrisy, and so on and so on.

As our Lord comes to the end of this wonderful sermon, He begins to issue various warnings. Have you ever noticed how much of the New Testament is occupied with warnings? Why is that? It’s because living on this earth is such a serious matter. Our lives are so short, compared to the eternity to which we are all destined. What we do here, the choices we make, are going to have consequences that reach out far into the ages upon ages ahead. At the same time, there are so many things down here competing for our attention. Even as Christians, it is so easy to get distracted, to get our eyes off eternal matters and to only think of the here and now. And so the New Testament is full of warnings, proddings, wake-up calls. And this little illustration at the end of this great sermon is one of those warnings.

What is our Lord warning about in this little story of the two builders? Well, we’ll have to look at the context for a moment. He has just been talking about false prophets—wolves in sheep’s clothing. “Beware of them,” He says. There will be people, religious people, ministers, pastors, preachers, who will appear to be sheep because of their outward deportment, but inwardly they are wolves. “Don’t be deceived,” our Lord is saying. “Don’t trust them; don’t follow them. Beware of them.”

So He’s dealing with this matter of deception. But then in verse 22 He makes this very dramatic statement. He says, “MANY will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and IN THY NAME done many wonderful works?” “And yet,” He says, “I will say unto them, I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

And so He has switched the emphasis. At first He says, “Don’t be deceived by others—the wolves in sheep’s clothing.” But now He is saying, in effect: “DON’T DECEIVE YOURSELF.” He’s saying that on the great judgment day there are going to be MANY who say to Him, “Lord, Lord, look at all these things that we’ve done in your name! Surely we deserve a place in your kingdom.” What is the problem? They are SELF-DECEIVED. They arrive at the judgment seat of Christ thinking that everything is OK. They’ve been to church, they’ve been baptized, they’ve said their prayers—they’ve even cast out devils and done wonderful works. But Jesus says, “I never knew you.”

And so our Lord is desperately trying to show us that it’s perfectly possible to deceive ourselves. It’s perfectly possible for us to go through life thinking that we are on the right track, doing the right thing, even up to the end of our lives thinking that we are Christians, that we are Christ’s followers, calling Him Lord, Lord—and then when we exit this life and appear before His judgment throne, to hear Him say these fateful words, “I never knew you. Depart from me for ever. You’re a worker of iniquity.”

That is the context in which our Lord speaks this parable—or illustration—of the two builders. He’s been talking about the terrible danger of self-deception, and then He gives this story.

Two men engage in the great work of building a house. One is wise and the other is foolish. The difference between the two is that one builds on a rock and the other builds on sand. Actually the houses probably look very similar. They both have nice windows and doors; both have good, strong roofs to provide shelter from the rain; both are well furnished inside and out. In fact, if you walked past these two houses, you wouldn’t see any difference between them at all. That’s a fact. There’s no visible difference between these two houses. The difference is something which lies out of sight. The difference is the FOUNDATION—what the house rests on.

The foolish builder is in a hurry. All he cares about is getting his house built. He wants results, and he wants them quick. He wants a roof over his head. Never mind about digging down and finding something solid to build the house on—let’s get building. The foolish man doesn’t look into the future. He doesn’t care about durability, because he is just interested in the here and now.

The wise builder, on the other hand, is NOT in a hurry. He sits down and counts the cost. He thinks everything through very carefully. He wants his house to last. He knows that down in the future a few years there might come a hurricane, a blistering storm that will test the house to its very foundations, and he wants to be sure that he and his family are safe when that happens. So he plans ahead. He takes the necessary time to dig a proper foundation. In Luke’s account of this same story, in Luke 6:48, our Lord says that this wise man “DIGGED DEEP, and laid the foundation on a rock.” He put effort and time into making sure there was something solid to build on—something that would help this house stand the tests and the trials and the storms. He dug all the way down until he hit rock, and then he laid the foundation and started building.

So how does this story apply to us tonight? Listen again to verse 24: “Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and DOETH them, I will liken him unto a wise man.” Whosoever HEARETH and DOETH. Hearing and doing these sayings of Christ—that is wisdom. That is how we can be wise. That is how we can build upon the rock instead of the sand—by not only hearing but also DOING what Christ commands. The self-deceived who build their lives on the sand are those who hear Christ’s words but don’t put them into practice.

In James 1:22-24 it says: “But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, DECEIVING YOUR OWN SELVES. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.” If we hear Christ’s commands and don’t do them, it’s like someone who looks in the mirror and then walks away and immediately forgets what he saw. The mirror allowed him to get a true look at himself, what he really looks like, but he walks away and forgets. That’s the foolish man. That’s the man who builds his house upon the sand.

It’s possible to appear to everyone around as though you are a good Christian, on your way to heaven. On the surface, your house looks just like the house of a real Christian. But what’s your foundation like? Are you building on sand or rock? Have you inwardly submitted and surrendered yourself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and determined to obey His commandments from the heart; or is your Christian life a mere profession, mere words, all show and no substance?

When the storms of life come, will your house stand? When the final storm comes—the storm of the judgment seat, will your house stand? Will your Christian character stand firm on the rock of obedience to Christ’s commands or will your hollow profession melt away before the burning rays of the Sun of Righteousness?

May the Lord help each of us to examine our lives and make sure that we’re building on the rock—that we are not just hearers but doers of Christ’s commands.  Amen.

I’m going to be reading from the book of Ephesians. I know that all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable, but it does seem to me that the book of Ephesians is one of the mountain peaks of the Bible—full of wonderful truth regarding Jesus Christ and His great atoning work on the cross for us sinners and of the whole scope of redemption from before the beginning of time until that great consummation in the ages to come. It’s also full of practical application of gospel truth to our daily lives.

I want to read just a short passage from Ephesians 5:15-20.

The first verse in the passage I read is a kind of key verse for the whole section beginning there and ending at chapter 6:9. This passage concentrates on the believer’s  walk, and especially with regard to relationships. After making some general statements about relationships, Paul will talk specifically about relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and servants.

Two key concepts are the words “walk” and “wise.” “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.” Circumspectly means diligently or accurately. Our Christian life is not to be aimless and erratic, but diligent, orderly, watchful, careful.

One of the greatest tests of wisdom is how we use our time. In verse 16 Paul says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Again, his emphasis is that we should not be aimless and careless in the use of our time, but to be diligent and careful, buying up every opportunity for doing good.

In verse 17 he says “be not unwise.” Don’t be unthinking and careless. You see his emphasis here: over and over again he is emphasizing the fact that our Christian lives need to be orderly and controlled and careful.

Now let’s move on to verse 18 which is really my text for this talk tonight. This is probably the most important verse in the whole passage. It reveals that the source of the wisdom, carefulness, diligence, etc. that Paul has been talking about is the Holy Spirit.

But why does Paul introduce drunkenness here? Perhaps he remembers the story of the mockers in Acts 2:13-16. You remember that on the day of Pentecost the believers who were filled with the Holy Spirit were accused of being drunk. And there are definitely some similarities: exuberance, boldness, joyfulness.

But Paul’s main thrust is the not the similarities, but the CONTRAST between the two. The drunk is characterised by LACK OF CONTROL (or being controlled by a wrong influence, depending on the way you look at it). The Spirit-filled Christian is characterised by a controlled, disciplined, ordered life.

For example, the drunk throws away (wastes) his time, energy, and money. The Spirit-filled Christian, however, REDEEMS the time, and uses his energy and money for profitable purposes.

Drunkenness exhausts, whereas the Holy Spirit energises.

Drunkenness gives false stimulation and happiness; alcohol APPEARS to be a stimulant, but pharmacologically it is listed as a DEPRESSANT.

“Alcohol as a drug affecting the central nervous system belongs in a class with the barbiturates, minor tranquillizers, and general anesthetics and is commonly classified as a depressant.”– Enc. Britt.

It knocks out the highest functions of the brain: “The most important immediate actions of alcohol are on the highest functions of the brain–those of thinking, learning, remembering, and making judgments.”

Because it knocks out the highest functions, the lower parts of the brain begin to take control, and the man becomes more animal like. Because restraint is gone, men think they have been stimulated. But the long term effect is one of depression rather than stimulation.

The Spirit, on the other hand, brings REAL JOY. His influence is not deceitful, it is the only TRUE stimulant available, the only real source of lasting joy. The joy of the Spirit is the only joy that continues even in times of adversity.

So let’s  conclude by looking at this very important phrase, “be filled with the Spirit.”

I want to look at it by asking two questions:

1. What exactly does Paul mean by being “filled with the Spirit”? and

2. How does it come about?

1. What exactly does Paul mean by being “filled with the Spirit”?

Well, first of all, the tense used here is what we call the present continuous, so it should really read “be being filled” or “be continually filled.” Once again the Amplified version helps us out: “but ever be filled and stimulated with the Holy Spirit.” Perhaps it indicates a state rather than an experience (i.e. Acts 2:4 “were filled” indicates an action completed, whereas this is a continuous process), though it seems the difference is very subtle.

The being filled, being constantly “topped up” with the Spirit, is what gives us the power to WALK WISELY and to SUBMIT ourselves. Because of the context (i.e. comparison with drunkenness) to be filled with the Spirit in this sense means that He controls all our thoughts, feelings, words, actions, as alcohol controls the drunkard.

A drunk is “under the influence” of drink. Be “under the influence” of the Spirit is what Paul is saying. Allow Him to control your mind and heart and will. Sometimes we say a person is “full” of a subject or a person or a thing (such as a book, perhaps); we mean that he seems to talk or think about nothing else. “He has a one-track mind” we say. Paul is saying that’s how we need to be—have a one track mind for the things of God.

2. How does it come about?

Because it is a command, i.e. “be filled”, this means that it is largely up to us as to whether we are filled or not. But how are we filled?

The following are suggestions of how we might “be filled.”

1. Desire it.

2. Pray for it.

3. Obey all the Spirit’s promptings (the more we obey Him the more we will be controlled by Him and “filled” with Him).

Walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-17) and He will subdue the flesh in us.

4. Spend time in His presence and with His holy Word.

I end with a quote from E. F. Stroter on being filled with the Spirit:

“It is undoubtedly the privilege and within the reach of any and every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, to be constantly filled with the Spirit. For it is written: ‘Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own’ (1 Cor. 6:19). And this wonderful gift of God, the Holy Spirit in the believer, waits with infinite patience that He may be allowed full and unhindered admission into every recess of our mind, soul, and heart, and that He may have absolute control of our bodily life and all its members, so that He may fill these temples of the living God with the very glory of God.”

May God help each of us to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit.

Once again tonight we are going to be looking at this model prayer that the Lord gave to His disciples and to the church. You remember that we’ve already talked about the invocation: “Our Father, which art in Heaven” and how it reminds us of our intimacy with God and that we are part of a large worldwide family of those who are God’s children by new birth. It also reminds us that because God is our Father, nothing is too small for us to bring to Him in prayer because as a Father He cares intensely about us; and because He is our Heavenly Father, His omnipotent power makes Him able to do anything.

After the invocation, we looked at the first of the 7 petitions: Hallowed be Thy name. This is a prayer that God’s name will be reverenced and held sacred throughout the world. It is a prayer that men and women, boys and girls will come to know God and that as His children they will honor and obey Him and treat His name with the sacredness it deserves.

Then last time we looked at the second petition: THY KINGDOM COME. Jesus is a King, and some day soon He is coming back to earth to set up His Kingdom—a Kingdom of righteousness and joy and peace. But until He comes and sets up His visible Kingdom, He is already setting up His Kingdom in the hearts of men and women, boys and girls—those people who surrender their lives totally to Him and acknowledge Him as their King. So when we pray “Thy Kingdom come” we are praying for two things: we are praying that His invisible Kingdom of grace will be extended—that more and more people will surrender their lives to Him; that the gospel message will go forth with power throughout the earth; and we are also praying for the coming of that great day when His Kingdom of Glory will be manifested and visible on the earth. Thy Kingdom Come.

Tonight we want to look for a few moments at the next petition: THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

The will of God is a huge subject and in some ways a very difficult subject. Whenever we think or talk about the will of God, questions immediately come to our minds. Questions like:

What is the will of God?

How can I know the will of God?

Why should I pray that the will of God be done? Isn’t God’s will always done? I mean, isn’t God going to do whatever He’s going to do, whether I pray or whether I don’t pray?

Are my prayers that God’s will be done really going to change anything in the end?

The answer of course is that God’s will has at least two aspects: His decreed will (or sovereign will) and his preceptive will. His decreed will is that which sovereignly and efficaciously brings to pass whatever He decrees. For instance, when God created the universe, He spoke and the world came into existence. When He said, “Let there be light,” the lights simply came on. When God commanded Lazarus to come forth from the grave, he simply came forth.

The preceptive will of God is what He has commanded for His creatures. For example, it is the will of God that you have no other gods before Him, that you honor your father and mother, that you love God with all your heart, and that you love your fellowman as you love yourself.

The difference between those two aspects of God’s will is that with the decreed will of God, He speaks and the thing is done; but with regard to the preceptive will of God, it can be disobeyed and violated, and it IS violated every day by millions of people the world over.

This concept of the will of God is central to our understanding of the Christian life and of the Scriptures. And we know that it’s important in our prayer lives because we find it right here in the middle of the Lord’s prayer.

The question is, then, which aspect of God’s will is Jesus talking about when He tells us to pray: “Thy will be done”? Is he talking about the decreed, sovereign, efficacious will of God, or is He talking about the preceptive will of God?

Well, I think we can figure that out by the context: “Thy will be done IN EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” His words here suggest that there is some kind of discrepancy between how God’s will is being done on earth and how it is being done in heaven. So, I think we can safely say that He is not talking about God’s sovereign, decreed will here; He is talking about His preceptive will. His decreed or sovereign will is always performed the same in earth as it is in heaven, but His preceptive will is not.

In heaven, His preceptive will is done perfectly and completely and joyfully. Those who dwell in heaven have been brought into complete conformity to God’s preceptive will. They render complete and joyful obedience to all of God’s moral requirements and commandments. They love God with all of their being and do nothing that is contrary to His will. But we know that this is simply not the case down here on earth.

So that’s why we are told to pray this way. It goes right along with the previous two petitions: “Hallowed be Thy name” and “Thy Kingdom come.” When we pray those things we are praying that God’s will shall be done, that His preceptive will shall be obeyed. His Kingdom will never fully come on earth until everyone obeys His commandments. His name will never be truly and fully hallowed on earth until mankind as a whole submits to and performs the will of God.

When we pray “Thy will be done,” we are praying for ourselves, that our wills will be strengthened to do God’s will and we are praying for other Christians, that they also will be strengthened to choose God’s will above their own. And of course, we are praying that men and women, boys and girls, who have not yet submitted their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, will bend the knee to Him, will bend their wills to Him, that God’s will might be done in their lives also.

Our Lord not only commanded us to pray this way, but He Himself modeled and demonstrated this very thing. You remember when He was in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew that His hour had come, and His spirit began to be very heavy. In that moment He prayed these words, with which I am sure you are very familiar:

“Father, if thou be willing, remove?? this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

What was this cup that He talked about? Was it the extreme physical torture that He knew He was about to undergo? The scourging, the beating, the mockery, the crown of thorns, the nails in hands and feet; the excruciating, lingering death on the cross where the whole body cries out to die and yet can’t quite die—every muscle and every cell crying out in unimaginable pain? Was that the cup? No! the cup was GOD’S WRATH, God’s HOLY WRATH against the sins of all mankind—your sins, my sins, and the sins of every human being that has ever lived and is living now and ever will live. That cup of wrath was more terrible and more horrific than any amount of physical suffering.

What was Jesus praying in the garden? He was saying, “Father, if there is some other way, I would rather not have to do it this way. What you have set before me is more ghastly than I can contemplate. I’m entering into my grand passion and I’m terrified, but if this is what you want, this is what I’ll do. Not my will, but your will be done, because my will is to do your will.”

I notice that in answer to this prayer, God sent an angel to strengthen Jesus. The angel came from heaven with God’s answer to Jesus’ prayer. That answer was: “You must drink the cup.”

This is what it means to pray “Thy will be done.” It means that we accept God’s answer, whether it’s the answer we wanted or whether it isn’t. God’s answer only intensified Jesus’ agony. We read that after the visit of the angel that He prayed more earnestly and that His sweat became as great drops of blood falling to the ground.

Jesus didn’t want to drink the cup of God’s wrath, but He did it anyway because He knew it was God’s will. He drank that bitter cup to the last drop. And in that moment, Jesus didn’t give us words to show us how to pray; He gave us His life as an example of praying that the will of God would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What about you? Will you pray that prayer? “Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.”

Is the will of God being done in your life as it is in heaven?

In heaven the will of God is done constantly, not intermittently. It is done joyfully, not grudgingly. It is done completely, not selectively. The dwellers in heaven don’t pick and choose which parts of God’s will they want to do and omit the parts they don’t want to do. How about you and I? Do we obey God’s will only when we feel like it?

“Not everyone who saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, BUT HE THAT DOETH THE WILL OF MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.”

“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Amen and thank you for your attention.

Some time ago I began focusing my devotional talks here on the Lord’s prayer. On the first occasion we looked at the words, “Our Father.” The next time we looked at the larger phrase, “Our Father, which art in Heaven.” Then on the third occasion we looked at the first of the seven petitions found in the prayer: “Hallowed be Thy name.”

Just very briefly to recap:

This is a model prayer—not necessarily to be repeated word for word—a skeleton or outline.

“Our Father” reminds us of our intimacy with God. “Our” reminds us that we are part of a family that is worldwide. “Our Father in Heaven” reminds us that this Father is the creator and supreme Ruler of the universe—all powerful, all knowing. Nothing is too big for Him. But because He’s our Father, nothing is too small.

After the invocation follow the seven requests:

1. Hallowed by Thy name

2. Thy kingdom come

3. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven

4. Give us this day our daily bread

5. Forgive us our trespasses

6. Lead us not into temptation

7. Deliver us from evil (or better, “from the evil one”)

We already looked at the first petition: Hallowed be Thy name. This is a prayer that God’s name will be reverenced and held sacred throughout the world. It is a prayer that men and women, boys and girls will come to know God and that as His children they will honor and obey Him and treat His name with the sacredness that it deserves.

Tonight I want to draw our attention to the second petition:

THY KINGDOM COME

What an interesting petition! Thy Kingdom come. What can it mean? Well, I suppose in order to find out what it means, we need to know what Jesus means here by the word KINGDOM. A kingdom is simply a realm which is ruled by a king. I guess that’s a little difficult for most Americans to grasp, since America rejected monarchy at its very foundation and opted to become a republic. Modern Americans have never been ruled by a king so the idea of a kingdom might be a foreign concept. Often in the past kings have had absolute power, or very nearly so. Look at Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament. He could have people thrown into a fiery furnace at a moment’s notice. He threatened to have all his wise men executed and cut into pieces and their houses made into dunghills.

Well, Jesus is a King. He’s the ruler of a Kingdom. The Kingdom is owned by God the Father, but God the Son is the King. When Jesus came to earth, He preached the Kingdom of God.  “Repent,” Jesus said, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand [or near].” “The kingdom of God has arrived.” What did He mean? He meant: “the King is here!”  Turn your lives around. Submit yourselves to God. Repent, for the King is here!

What we have to understand is that God’s Kingdom has not reached and will not reach it’s visible manifestation until Jesus comes back at His second coming. At His first coming He came to set up the Kingdom of God in the hearts of men and women; but at His second coming He will set up a visible Kingdom on earth and reign with absolute authority.

So there is a sense in which the kingdom has two manifestations: the current manifestation can be described as the Kingdom of GRACE. The future manifestation will be a manifestation of GLORY. The current phase of the kingdom is mostly invisible—within the hearts of His people, but there is coming a day when God’s Kingdom will no longer be invisible and inward, but it will be outward and visible. At the present moment, not everyone acknowledges Jesus as Lord and King of their lives; but there is coming a day when EVERY KNEE shall bow and EVERY TONGUE shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Today, Satan is the king, or as the Bible calls him, the prince of this world. The majority of mankind have given their allegiance to satan and thus made him king. But this is only a temporary arrangement. One day, satan’s reign will come to an end and he will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, along with all those who would not surrender their lives to the rightful King, Jesus the Son of God.

So when we pray this prayer, THY KINGDOM COME, we are really praying for the coming of the Kingdom of God in two aspects:

We are praying that the kingdom of grace will advance in the hearts of men and women; that more and more people will surrender their lives to His kingship and enter His Kingdom through the new birth; that the gospel message will continue to be sounded out throughout the world; and that in our own hearts, His kingdom will advance; that we will be more and more given up to Him, more yielded, allowing more and more of His presence and His power to shine through us for His glory and for His honor.

And we are also praying that the kingdom of glory, that day when Jesus will be crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords and set up His glorious reign on earth, when the kingdom will be outward and visible, will speedily come.  One of the last prayers in the Bible says, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”

What about you tonight? Has the Kingdom of God come in YOUR heart? Do you know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is your King, that your life is surrendered to Him, and that your only goal in life is to glorify Him and see others brought into this glorious Kingdom? If not, your prayer tonight should be, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart and set up your kingdom within me. May your Kingdom come in MY LIFE. Come, Lord, and reign and rule in me.”

May the Lord help us to learn from this model prayer how to pray aright. It shows us that we shouldn’t come into God’s presence with an outpouring of petitions for our own needs first, but rather we should seek first God’s interests. The first three petitions here all focus on God: the hallowing of His name, the advancement of His Kingdom, and the accomplishment of His will; it’s only after we have prayed for those things that we should begin to bring our own petitions regarding our own needs.

Prayer is the most important thing we do as Christians. May God help us to be faithful to the task!

Thank you for your kind attention.

Amen.

I want to speak about a MAN.

He is only mentioned in one place in the Bible.

His whole biography takes up a mere 11 verses.

Only six verses of his actual words are recorded in the Bible—just six!

We know hardly anything about him.

He was not a king or a political leader.

He was not a prophet—at least not in any official sense.

He was not a priest as far as we know.

We don’t know what his occupation was; whether he was rich or poor; or whether he was married or had children.

But we do at least know his name: his name was SIMEON.

Let’s read together his short biography. It’s found in Luke 2:25-35.

Here we have the extremely short biography of an ordinary man walking in total obedience to the Spirit of God and as a result being a partner with God in His purposes at a very important juncture in the history of the world.

He’s a bit like the Old Testament character Melchizedek. Remember him? He just suddenly appears on the pages of the Old Testament, and then just as quickly—he’s gone. The writer to the Hebrews said, “Without father, without mother, without descent (or pedigree)”—we know so little about him that we don’t even know who his parents were. That’s a bit like Simeon.

One of the lessons that we can learn from Simeon’s life is that sometimes God prepares a vessel for one particular purpose, and then they’re gone. They flash onto the scene like a meteor, and then just as quickly—they’re gone!

Another example would be Ananias—the one who laid hands on Saul of Tarsus in Acts chapter 9. We know little or nothing about him, except that he was a Christian brother whose life was being controlled by the Spirit of God. We remember him for one specific task, which in all probability was the most important thing he ever did.

Maybe you are that person. Maybe God has some important task for you to do that only you can do. Maybe your whole life is a preparation for the task of a moment.

Remember that in God’s eyes the preparation is as important as the task itself.

Simeon, then, stands on the boundary between two dispensations.

He has one foot in the OLD and one foot in the NEW.

His faith reaches out to the NEW THING that God is about to do; he is full of hope for the coming of MESSIAH.

His whole life revolves around the Coming One. Does ours?

4 CHARACTERISTICS OF A GODLY MAN OR WOMAN

(1) JUST AND DEVOUT

The first thing that Luke tells us about Simeon is that he was “just and devout.

“Just” means that he was righteous in heart before God. He respected and obeyed God’s law.

“Devout” describes his conduct in relation to other men—he had a reputation for godliness; he had a good name.

This is rather different from the gospel that we find preached in America in the 21^st century. “Be saved and be happy” seems to be the message. But God says, “Be saved and be holy.”

So that’s the first characteristic of Simeon that we need to emulate if we want to be pleasing to God: we must be righteous in heart before God and have the testimony of a holy life before men.

(2) HE KNEW HOW TO WAIT GOD’S TIME

This always characterises a man who is in tune with the purposes of God.

None of us are born patient, but God puts us through a process whereby we can attain it: “tribulation worketh patience.”

I know we’re in days of instant everything. We don’t want to wait for anything, and we must be really careful that this attitude doesn’t creep into our spiritual lives.

The Scriptures are full of examples of people who had to wait.

Look at Abraham waiting for a child!

Look at Joseph waiting in prison for the fulfilment of his dreams—there must have been times when his faith was sorely tried.

Look at David–anointed to be king and then chased by Saul “like a partridge in the mountains.”

Look at Moses, tending sheep for forty years on the backside of the desert, and yet he became the meekest man on earth. Heb. 11:27 says that “He endured as seeing him who is invisible.”

Simeon also endured because he had a vision.

Many in Jerusalem had become discouraged; some even mocked and scoffed as they do today. “Where is the promise of His coming?”

Patience is the crowning grace, according to James 1:4: “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” But it’s one of the hardest to attain.

Simeon must have found it very difficult as the days kept going on and on. But he found strength from God. In Col. 1:11, Paul prays that those believers would be “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto…” what? “all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”

May the Lord help us learn to wait God’s time.

(3) HE HAD VISION

v. 30 “mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”

What had his eyes seen? He had seen a babe in arms with his physical eyes; but he saw something beyond that.

His spiritual eyes saw something that no one else in the temple saw, with the exception of Anna.

He had been prepared by God for this day, he had been longing and waiting for this day, and when it came, he just knew–

knew that he was holding in his arms

God incarnate

God contracted to a span

A child who, though fresh from his mother’s womb, was eternal years old

A child which was set for the fall and rise of many in Israel

and a sign to be spoken against

A child which would grow up, live a sinless life, and be put to death

He saw the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world

–the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world

He saw and knew that God’s ultimate plan for all the ages was wrapped up in that tiny helpless babe. What vision!

He saw beyond the here and now, beyond today, into the vast stretches of the future and God’s ultimate purpose for mankind.

It was that which gave him strength to carry on.

We need vision in this day if we are to carry on for God and accomplish His purposes for our generation.

The religious leaders of Simeon’s day were not looking for the kind of Messiah that Simeon was looking for. They were looking for an emancipator, an earthly king who would be a deliverer for the Jewish nation primarily. And yet here is Simeon, recognizing that this Messiah is also a deliverer for the Gentiles—verse 32: “A light to lighten the Gentiles.”

He recognized that this Messiah would suffer: “This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against.” This was not popular theology in Jerusalem! This is not the kind of Messiah that the religious leaders of that day were talking about and expecting.

We, too, need vision that will enable us to help fulfill God’s purpose for our generation.

(4) HE WAS A BONDSERVANT

V. 29 “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.”

The underlying Greek for the words “Lord” and “servant” are very significant.

“Lord” is a translation of the Greek word despotes, which is where we get our English word “DESPOT.”

Now the usual word for Lord in the New Testament is kurios, which simply means Lord, or master.

This word DESPOTES or DESPOT only occurs about five times in the entire New Testament, and I believe that for that reason alone, it’s use here becomes very significant.

The word DESPOT has a very unsavoury connotation for us, but it really just means ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY, someone to whom unquestioning obedience and submission is rendered.

Now let’s look at the underlying Greek for “Servant”: it’s the word “doulos” which means bondslave.

So there you have it. This is how Simeon viewed his relationship to God—the BONDSLAVE of a DESPOT.

He recognized and accepted that he was God’s absolute property, to do with as He pleased.

This is normal, NT Christianity.

Paul calls it our “reasonable service.”

Not hard bondage, but the only true liberty. Real bondage is when the devil is our master, or self is our master.

Paul uses this same word “slave” of himself in Rom. 1:1 and Titus 1:1. “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Again, it’s that same word that Simeon used: DOULOS, which means slave.

James, Peter, and Jude also all use it of themselves.

We can’t truly be men and women of God without this total, utter subjection to God as supreme ruler over our lives, our property, our time—everything!

It was Hudson Taylor who said: “If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.”

Many professing Christians live distracted, divided, unmeaningful lives because of divided interests—having more than one master spells disaster.

Our lives can only become meaningful, definite, effective for God if we have ONE MASTER.

Christ demands utterness of devotion not because he is a tyrant, but He knows that a man cannot serve two masters.

His bondservice is sweet: “Take my yoke upon you…my burden is easy….my burden light.”

If God is going to do any work through us, we must give up our rights to ourselves.

I think one of the other occurrences of this word DESPOT helps us to understand the relatioship. 2 Peter 2:1 says, “But there were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the DESPOT that bought them.”

He is our DESPOT, our ABSOLUTE MASTER, our ABSOLUTE LORD because He bought us with His precious blood. He’s our Lord because He paid the price—not with silver and gold, but with His own precious blood. And He bought us because He loves us.

Conclusion

So there we have it: one of the shortest biographies in the Word of God, and yet this man Simeon, of whom we know so little, has so much to teach us. May God help us to be men and women who are just and devout, patient, possessing spiritual vision, and totally surrendered to God as his bondslaves.

Amen.

I want to draw our attention tonight to the second half of verse 29: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” This is a very familiar verse to most of us I’m sure, but I wonder if our familiarity with it has deadened our sense of the greatness of these words. What kind of an effect must they have had on those who first heard them? Here was John the Baptist declaring that this carpenter from Nazareth was someone of worldwide and infinite significance. John the Baptist was declaring that all the prophecies and revelations of the Old Testament that looked forward to a Saviour and a deliverer had finally been fulfilled in this Jesus of Nazareth—the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

What did John the Baptist mean by calling Him the LAMB of God? Was he talking about His gentle, meek disposition? Was he referring to the fact that He was innocent and pure? Not primarily. Yes, Jesus IS meek and gentle, but John’s reason for calling Him the Lamb of God goes much deeper than a mere description of His disposition.

What would be the first thing to jump into the mind of Jew if someone began talking about the Lamb of God? Wouldn’t it be the lamb of the daily offering in the temple? In Numbers 28 the children of Israel were commanded to offer two sacrificial lambs every day—one in the morning and one in the evening. Day after day, day after day, for weeks and months and years and even centuries the daily sacrifice had been slain and offered as a sacrifice.

Or if was not the daily sacrificial lamb that those standing by thought of, then possibly they thought of the Passover lamb—that lamb which was slain and whose blood was sprinkled over the lintel and doorposts as a pledge of deliverance from the destroying angel. Every year at the Passover feast there would be a re-enactment of this ritual of the slain lamb to remind of their deliverance from the destroying angel.

So these words of John the Baptist, “the Lamb of God,” would bring to mind these sacrificial offerings which were associated with expiation for sin and deliverance from destruction.

Other thoughts that might come into their minds would be those very familiar words from the prophecy of Isaiah: “He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.” And these further words from the same 53rd chapter of Isaiah: “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all… By His knowledge shall He justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.”

Or how about the story of Abraham offering up His only son Isaac? You remember that when Abraham took that very difficult journey to Mount Moriah to offer his son to God as a burnt offering, the boy asked his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” What was Abraham’s answer? “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” John the Baptist now says, “Behold, here He is—here’s the Lamb that God has provided, the Sacrifice, on whom is laid the world’s sins, and who bears them away.”

These simple words bring before us the very foundation of the Gospel: that on Jesus Christ were laid the guilt and the consequences of a world’s sin. I don’t think we can ever fully understand how it happened. We have our ideas and our theories about the atonement, but I think until we leave this world of shadows and see things more clearly in the dazzling light of heaven, we may never fully understand how our sins could be transferred to another; how our debt could be cleared by the suffering of an innocent victim; how someone else could be punished for our sins and we could go free as if we had never committed any sin. But even if we don’t fully understand it, we can believe it and trust in it. We can stand firmly on the authority of God’s Word and say, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away MY SIN.”

That word “taketh” away has a double meaning. The first meaning is to BEAR or carry, and the second meaning is to TAKE AWAY. Our Lord Jesus Christ did both: he both took our sin AND took it away. Think for a moment on this first fact—that sin was actually laid on Christ. Isaiah tells us that the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Peter says that He “bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” Our sin was laid on Him as a heavy burden. The heaviest thing in the universe is sin. Neither angels nor men can stand under the load of sin—it sinks them lower than the lowest hell. When sin was laid upon the Son of God, He bore it, but He sweat as it were great drops of blood, and He was exceeding sorrowful even unto death. To have born up the WEIGHT of the world would have been nothing compared with bearing THE SIN of the world.

But even better than Christ bearing our sin is the news that he bears it AWAY. He “taketh away the sin of the world.” The sin which was laid upon Christ didn’t remain there—He took it away—it remains no more. We read in Scripture many things about sin, such as God forgives it, blots it out, forgets it, casts it into the sea, puts it behind His back and a lot of other expressions, but in some ways this is the best of them: He takes it away! If we are Christians tonight we don’t need to ask where our sin is, because Jesus took it away. It’s gone, gone forever, completely abolished.

The Old Testament furnishes a wonderful picture of this truth that Christ not only bears our sin but bears it away. In Leviticus 16 we find God’s instructions to Moses concerning the scapegoat. They were to take two goats. The first goat was to be slain for a sin offering. The second goat was to remain alive and they were to confess over it all the sins of the children of Israel and then they were to take the goat into the wilderness and let it run away. This is a picture of our sins being taken away and forgotten—sent into oblivion.

Behold the Lamb of God, which not only taketh, but TAKETH AWAY the sin of the world.

The Lamb of God has taken YOUR sin away and you can be free from the guilt and condemnation of sin if you will put your trust in Him tonight.

God bless each one of you.

Amen.

Hopefully you’ll remember that last week I spoke about prayer, about praying until we get an answer. My illustration was from the parable of the friend at midnight: how we need to be like shameless beggars if we really want to receive from God.

Tonight I want to speak about prayer again. This time I want to show that for prayer to be effective it must be UNCEASING. Once again I’ve chosen one of our Lord’s parables as an illustration—this time the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. In this case, Jesus tells us EXACTLY why he is giving this parable: “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”  And as someone has aptly said, “One thing is certain: IF WE DON’T PRAY, WE WILL FAINT!”

The picture that Jesus paints in this parable would have been quite a familiar one to the Lord’s hearers.  The widow in those days was perhaps the most defenceless person in society. Remember that Jesus in Matt. 23:14 accused the Scribes and Pharisees of “devouring widows houses.”  And James tells us that “pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this, To visit the fatherless and WIDOWS in their affliction. . . .”

Notice our Lord’s characterization of the Judge: He feared not God, neither regarded man.  If we have no fear or love for God, then we have little reverence or respect for our fellowmen.  The story shows that the man had no real interest in dispensing justice.  The man was absolutely lacking in nobility, finesse, and a true sense of justice. He had absolutely no regard for the misfortunes of this widow and the false accusations that were being made against her.  There was nothing good in the man that the widow could appeal to.  Her only hope lay in UNCEASING APPEALS.  She pestered him and bothered him and came back and came back and came back until she received justice.  Every other expedient was gone, except this one of continual appeals.

Note that the word “avenge” here doesn’t mean “REVENGE.”  It’s a legal term and simply means to administer justice.  The widow wasn’t wanting revenge on her adversary, she was merely demanding that justice be done.

In the end, the judge had enough foresight to see that this tenacious little woman wasn’t going to give up until her case was settled, so he might as well act now before she wore him out.  She won her case because of one thing: “HER CONTINUAL COMING.”  The whole point of the parable is this: if an unjust judge, with no fear of God or man, can be moved to avenge the widow purely on the basis of UNCEASING appeals, HOW MUCH MORE will God avenge his own people which cry DAY AND NIGHT unto him.

The words of the judge in verse 5 are very interesting: “Lest by her continual coming she WEARY me.” That word weary in the underlying Greek is a word that means “to beat with blows”—like a boxer. The judge was speaking metaphorically, of course, but he was saying that this widow was so persistent that eventually she was going to wear him out or beat him down like a boxer. It’s all to do with persistence.

There are times when God will withhold the blessing and appear to be acting like the unjust judge. That’s because God is testing us—testing us to see HOW BADLY we want what we are praying for. If we pray a few times and then give up, that tells God that we are not very serious about the matter. He wants to see persistence, determination, earnest desire, desperation. The widow in the parable would have lost everything if she had given up after a few tries. It was her untiring persistence that won the day. But the trouble is that many of us Christians get weary before God does; we too often go away without the blessing because we lack persistence.

The judge in the parable was totally unjust and unscrupulous, but our God is infinitely just and absolutely fair at all times. This widow was a stranger to the judge, but God’s people are His special friends; He cares for them and looks out for them with infinite tenderness and compassion. “How much more shall God avenge His own elect!”

Who do we need to be avenged of? Who is our adversary? The Bible teaches that during this present age Satan is the Christian’s chief adversary—he is the Prosecutor General against all believers.  In fact, that’s what the name Satan actually means—adversary. He constantly appears in court accusing God’s children.  Rev. 12:10 says that he is “THE ACCUSER OF THE BRETHREN.” 1 Peter 5:8 calls him “YOUR ADVERSARY THE DEVIL.”  An adversary is someone who accuses in a court of law.  This widow asked to be avenged of her adversary.  Believers need to be avenged of their adversary Satan.

In the first place, we need to make sure that Satan has no grounds for his accusations; in other words, we need to keep our lives free from all known sin.  Secondly, we need to make sure that we make PLENTY OF APPEARANCES IN COURT. Despite the fact that we have Jesus Christ as an Advocate, we also need to appear in court personally. In other words, we need to plead our cause in constant prayer.  If we don’t make our appearances in court, the case may go against us by default; that’s the peril of the prayerless Christian.

It’s always important to look at the larger context of any text or passage so that we can find out the true meaning and application of what is being taught.  Sometimes we’re hindered from seeing the full context because of chapter divisions.  This parable begins chapter 18 of Luke’s Gospel and so we are tempted to take it in isolation from what goes before.

In verse 20 of chapter 17 the Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come and the rest of the chapter gives a sort of synopsis of the church age.  Jesus shows that He Himself will be rejected and a period of spiritual darkness will set in, during which time the church will be a persecuted remnant.  Just before His return, conditions will be very similar to the days of Noah and Sodom–dark days indeed.  Then He goes on to describe the rapture.

And then immediately after this description of the progression of evil and darkness Jesus gives this parable of the widow and the judge.  It seems that Jesus is comparing the position of the church in the last days to the position of this widow–defenseless and vulnerable in a world of darkness and wickedness.  And just like the widow, the church’s only hope in such a situation is UNCEASING PRAYER.

Notice that at the end of the parable, Jesus asks the question, “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  In other words, Jesus is wondering whether, when He comes back at the end of the age, he’s going to find a church who have the same kind of faith as this widow–persistent faith, unceasing faith, faith that can see a light at the end of the tunnel (be it ever so small) and won’t give up.  It’s this kind of faith that will be absolutely necessary as evil progresses and we get nearer and nearer to the dark days just prior to the Lord’s return.

The Bible has a lot to say about UNCEASING PRAYER.  In closing, I’d  like to quickly read through a collection verses on this subject.

Col 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, ALWAYS labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, DO NOT CEASE to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Ps 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
Ro 12:12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; CONTINUING INSTANT in prayer;
Eph 6:18 Praying ALWAYS with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all PERSEVERANCE and supplication for all saints;
Php 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in EVERY THING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
1Th 5:17 Pray WITHOUT CEASING.
Lu 21:36 Watch ye therefore, and PRAY ALWAYS, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

May the Lord help each of us to pray without ceasing.

Amen.

My subject tonight is Prayer, and I want us to begin tonight by asking ourselves a few questions–like: “Do I pray out of a sense of duty–that as a believer it’s something I ought to do; or as a kind of Christian lucky charm, hoping that if I keep up my daily prayers everything will somehow turn out right? Or do I pray with the intention of getting answers; of actually receiving something from God? And do I stay with the thing and stay with God until I receive something from heaven?”

I’m afraid that personally I have to admit that a lot of the time my praying falls into the first category. Not that I’m denigrating praying out of a sense of duty–that’s much better than not praying at all. And I suppose the “bless so-and-so” and “help so-and-so” kind of prayers are heard in heaven. But at the same time I think we’ve got to take prayer into the realm of expecting something to happen as a result. In Psalm 62:5 we read “My soul, wait thou ONLY upon God, for my EXPECTATION is from him.” The Psalmist was clearly expecting something from God as a result of his praying.

It’s this thought of praying UNTIL we get an answer that I want to pursue with you for a little while tonight. Let’s look for a moment at the example of the friend at midnight that we just read in Luke 11. The picture, I suppose, seems a bit strange to us: a weary traveler arrives on your doorstep very late at night and you haven’t got a crumb in the whole house so you go to your friend’s house and batter down the door until he gives you some bread. That seems a strange way of carrying on to us. I wonder what kind of reception we’d get from some of our friends if we went battering on their doors at midnight wanting bread? It seems reasonable that if your house was burning down or something really drastic was happening, then it wouldn’t be out of place to go down the street and shout and bang on someone’s door for help. But the idea of doing that for just three loaves of bread seems incredible.

But, we’ve got to remember that hospitality in the East, especially in Bible times, was considered obligatory. That is to say that if someone came to visit you and you didn’t have a meal to set before them, you must go and do something about it at the risk of life and limb. It was an INTOLERABLE situation. It couldn’t be allowed. And this is just the situation that the man in the parable found himself in–an intolerable one. Something MUST be done. The only thing to do was to go to the house of the nearest friend and stay there and make a hullaballoo if necessary–anything just to get some bread on the table.

Picture this man, then, rushing down the street to his friend’s house. When he arrives he gives a sort of gentle tap on the door so that he can perhaps get away with not disturbing too many folk. But there’s no answer. He keeps knocking, and keeps knocking, louder and louder until someone from inside finally sticks his head through an upstairs window. “What on earth do want at this time of night?” By this time some of the neighbours are awake and wondering what the commotion is in the street. Perhaps a few others get up and poke their heads through the window and give him a bit of a telling off for disturbing the peace at such a late hour. Perhaps they think he’s drunk.

When the man inside realizes that it’s just Joe Bloggs down the road wanting bread, he tells him he’s in bed, everything’s shut up, locked and barred, so be quiet and go home if you please. I’m told that in those days in the working men’s homes the whole family would sleep in one room on a sort of shelf, and if one got up, it disturbed the whole lot. The man outside must have known this, but he just kept on knocking and shouting. He was undeterred by his friend’s refusal. The man inside ONLY got up and gave his friend the bread in order to SHUT HIM UP. It wasn’t because he was his friend. It was because his friend was acting like a SHAMELESS BEGGAR.

In the text it says “He will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his IMPORTUNITY…” Do you know that the word “importunity” in this text really means “shamelessness” or “impudence”? I didn’t know that. I had always thought that importunity meant that you just keep on and on and on; and it does mean that as well. But the predominant sense of this word as used here is SHAMELESSNESS.

Now if we study the context a little, we can see that this parable was spoken in answer to a request by the disciples. In Luke 11:1 the disciples had said, “Lord, teach us to pray…” And as an answer to this request, Jesus gave them what we call the Lord’s prayer and then this parable of the friend at midnight, followed by the example of fathers giving good things to their children. It was all instruction regarding prayer. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this parable was spoken in answer to the request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In fact, you could say that the Lord’s prayer shows us WHAT to pray for (in other words the coming of the Kingdom, daily bread, forgiveness, etc.) and this parable shows us HOW to pray. We are to pray, Jesus says, like SHAMELESS BEGGARS. “Blessed are the BEGGARS in spirit,” Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount. That’s what we are–poverty-stricken beggars.

What do I mean when I say that we are poverty-stricken beggars. Well, just think about it for a moment. What spiritual blessing can we possibly confer on ourselves? Take forgiveness of sins, for example. In order to have our sins forgiven we have no option but to come to God and plead with Him for this blessing. What about the gift of the Holy Spirit, mentioned in the Scripture portion we just read? The same principle applies: we are poverty-stricken beggars! Our only option is to plead with God for the blessing. We are totally dependent on God for every good thing. We have nothing good in ourselves. We’re totally bankrupt, spiritually speaking. Listen to Paul in Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.” All of this means that if we are to obtain any good thing, any spiritual blessing, we must come before God as shameless beggars and ask—and keep on asking until we receive.

This man at midnight could have allowed a sense of shame to make him retreat and leave without the needed loaves. “What will the neighbours think? What will my friend think of me after this? Will he ever look at me again?” But the driving sense of obligation to provide hospitality gave him the motive power to overcome all sense of shame. And that’s what makes prayer effective–the sense of need so overrides every other consideration that we forget all our unworthiness and shame and everything else that would hinder us coming to a holy God.

Let’s just cast our minds back to the Old Testament for a moment. There we find a real-world example of someone who prayed shamelessly: Jacob. When Jacob fled from home after stealing Esau’s birthright he prayed to God at Bethel and made vows. But then when he got to Padan-Aram he got married and prospered in business and soon FORGOT GOD and all the promises he had made. I think if you read carefully the history of his twenty years in Padan-Aram, you’ll see that Jacob seldom, if ever, prayed. I don’t think he became an idolater or anything like that, but he just NEGLECTED GOD. Follow Jacob to the river Jabbok, though, as he travels back to Canaan, and what do we find? We find Jacob praying!–praying like never before in his life–as if his very life depended on it (and it did!). After twenty years of neglecting God you’d think he would be too ashamed to pray. Probably he was ashamed. But he couldn’t let that hinder him from praying for deliverance from Esau who was coming with 400 armed men. And his shameless begging prevailed with God. He stayed with God until the answer came.

Now let’s come back to our parable of the friend at midnight. “Because of his SHAMELESSNESS he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.” The point of the parable is this: If an earthly friend can be moved to give loaves of bread at midnight because of shameless begging, “how much more (verse 13) shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.” It’s not that we have to somehow overcome God’s reluctance to give; God delights to give good things to His children. It’s that God wants to see that we are determined to get an answer, that we won’t be put off. He doesn’t dole out His best gifts willy-nilly; He waits until our asking reaches the place where, like Jacob and the friend at midnight, we won’t take no for an answer.

Of course that doesn’t mean that we can ask God for anything and if we ask hard enough and long enough He’ll give it to us. That’s not what I’m saying. Remember that immediately preceding this parable we have the Lord’s prayer and in this prayer the Lord safeguards his teaching on the efficacy of prayer by laying down strict conditions. For example, “Thy Kingdom come. . . Thy will be done.” This means that we can’t pray selfish “I want” prayers and expect God to answer them, but we must pray IN ACCORDANCE WITH GOD’S WILL.

If we DO pray according to God’s will, and if we ARE determined not to give in without an answer, God WILL give us the blessing we’re asking for.

Amen.

The verses I just read to you are from one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Paul is talking about that great subject that was never far from his thoughts: the reconciliation of God and man through the death of Christ.

A key verse in this passage is the one that’s probably best known from this chapter—verse 17: “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (or a NEW CREATION): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” What does Paul mean? He means that the man who has been reconciled to God through Christ has new life, new senses, new faculties, new affections, new appetites, new ideas, and new conceptions. He is like a new man in a new world.

Tonight, I just want to look very briefly at one of the ways in which we are changed when we become a new creature in Christ: The person who is a new creature in Christ has an overwhelming sense of indebtedness to the Saviour. I would go as far as to say that it’s the hallmark of every truly born again soul, that he has this sense of the tremendous debt of love that he owes to Christ; and I would also go as far as to say that anyone who has never experienced this tremendous sense of indebtedness has never truly seen the extent of his sin and has never been born again and never been constituted a new creature.

You find this truth all through Paul’s writings. You find it in this passage in 2 Corinthians. Look at verses 14 and 15 again. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live SHOULD NOT HENCEFORTH LIVE UNTO THEMSELVES BUT UNTO HIM WHICH DIED for them and rose again.”

What is Paul saying here? He is saying that the person who has come into the realization of all that Christ has done for him on the cross, the infinite debt of sin that has been canceled on his behalf, can never again be his own. This is the purpose of Christ’s death–He has purchased us for Himself. When we stand back from the cross of Calvary and see the suffering Saviour dying our death, paying our debt, suffering our penalty, and coming into raw contact with that vast amount of wrath that had accumulated against us and bearing it away, how can we do anything but fall on our knees and adore Him and pour out our lives for Him and give ourselves away completely to Him? We can never be our own again after such a sight. We can never live our own life henceforth. “That they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them.”

By nature we all love ourselves. We are in love with self. We love our own way, our own desires, our own way of looking at things. But when we become a new creature, we fall out of love with ourselves. Self is no longer the center; instead, Christ becomes the center, because we realize that because of what He’s done for us, we owe Him everything we have.  To love someone means that we put them before ourselves. If we truly love our wife or our husband, we gladly sacrifice our rights, our happiness, our desires in order to make them happy, prosperous, and secure. If we truly love our children, we put them first before ourselves. The same is true with Christ: once we come to the full realization of what He’s done for us, we put Him before ourselves; we put His interests before our own; we put His will before our own will.

“Ye are bought with a price,” Paul says in 1 Cor. 6:20. “Ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Then again in 1 Cor. 7:23 he says something very similar: “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.” In other words, be the servants of God, His bondslaves, his love-slaves. It’s impossible to serve men, impossible to serve self when one has come to the full realization of how much one owes to Christ and His cross.

Matthew 20:28 says that “the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” He gave Himself entirely for us, and the only possible response is that we give ourselves entirely to Him.

1 Timothy 2:6 also states, “He gave himself a ransom for all.”

Titus 2:14 “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” He GAVE HIMSELF, and by doing that, He purified us unto Himself! He made us His own!

1 Peter 1:18 “Forsasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ.”

Oh dear folks, how much we owe to Him–what a debt of love! Isaac Watts’ great him says it very well:

But drops of grief could ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe.
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
’Tis all that I can do.

Another hymnwriter sings, “Jesus paid it all: All to Him I owe.”

“The love of Christ constraineth us,” he says in verse 14. What does he mean? “Constrain” is a very expressive word which means to “hold fast”. You remember that when the soldiers took hold of Jesus in the garden that it says they held him fast; well, Paul says this is what the love of Christ has done to him, it has him in a vice-like grip. He is in complete bondage to the love of Christ. You remember also in Luke 19 where Jesus prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem, in verse 43 he says that the invading army will come and cast a trench about Jerusalem and “keep thee in on every side.” That is the same underlying Greek word as the word that Paul uses here translated as “constraineth.” Paul says that he is kept in on every side by the love of Christ. He is compelled to do certain things, and compelled not to do certain other things.

In verse 13 Paul says, “For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God.” He means that sometimes he gets so carried away in his devotion to Christ that he seems to other men to be acting not quite rationally. You remember, too, that there was an incident in the life of Christ where His family and friends thought that he was taking things a little bit too far, that He was sort of overheated. The incident is recorded in Mark 3:21 “And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.” Has anyone ever accused you of being beside yourself because of your devotion to Christ? I don’t mean that we deliberately act silly, but there are times in the life of the believer when we are so carried away in devotion to Him that people may think we are not quite normal, not acting quite rationally.

Are you a new creature in Christ? If so, you are conscious tonight of the tremendous debt you owe to Christ, and you have laid down your life at His feet to be no longer your own, but to be His servant for ever.

Amen.