The CRCA
Lord's Day 52
Word of Salvation – Vol. 24 No. 26 – March 1978
Lord’s Day 52
Sermon by Rev. K. V. Warren, B.A. B.D. on Lord’s Day 52
Just before Jesus died on the cross, He said: "It is finished!"
What did He mean by that? WHAT was finished?
His life? Did Jesus mean that?
No, He did not!
In these few words was a far deeper meaning. With that very short sentence Jesus expressed the GLORIOUS fact...
that NOW the law had been fulfilled;
that NOW sin's penalty had been paid;
that NOW the Mediator had done His work;
that NOW the way to God was open once more; and...
that NOW at last the promise of Genesis 3 had been fulfilled:
Satan's head had been crushed!
There, on that cross, at the very same time that Jesus was bleeding to death, Satan was being defeated! For NOW the world was being saved through Christ, out of the claws of the devil.
If that is true (and thank God IT IS true!) WHY then do you and I pray:
"Deliver us from the evil one!"?
For we HAVE been delivered, haven't we?
Christ HAS made us His own possession!
The believer HAS become a child of God,
his sins have been washed in the blood of Calvary,
and he is no longer a slave of sin and Satan!
Why then pray: "Lord, deliver us from the evil one"? Why?
Because the FINAL victory is still to come...! It is only at the second coming of our Lord that the believer will be COMPLETELY delivered from the Evil One, and from evil. As for NOW, there is still hard and bitter fighting to be done. The enemy is determined to fight to the last man, or rather: - to the last devil.
Indeed, congregation, a very necessary prayer:
"Deliver us from the evil one".
But this is only the SECOND half of this petition.
There is also a FIRST half: "Lead us not into temptation".
Lord, keep us away from it.
From the things which tempt us, which make us ignore your commandments.
Keep us away Lord,
from all the things which do not belong in the life of a child of God,
things which damage our faith,
things which do harm to our neighbour,
things which grieve your Holy Spirit.
Lead us not into them, into these temptations!
To get things straightaway in the right perspective:
God of course never tempts!
He never deliberately sends us into evil so as to have us sin.
How could He?
He Who hates sin; He Who is the holy and perfect God!
SATAN, HE tempts us, so as to destroy our faith.
But God TRIES us, to build up our faith!
To be sure – and this is for our comfort –
the devil can only do what God ALLOWS him to do.
Satan indeed goes round as a roaring lion,
but only because God hasn't as yet shut him up in his cage for good!
This vicious and murderous enemy is still attacking,
but God has him on the chain,
and that chain is only as long as God wants it to be.
But we ask: WHY?
- Why does Satan still have such power?
- Why does God still allow him to continue spoiling this creation,
to make us do things we ought to stay away from,
to upset our home, our marriage,
to upset the peace in our hearts, in the church, in the world?
WHY?
Cannot God take the devil and throw him into the lake of fire NOW, TODAY?
Yes, of course He can.
But apparently it is not yet God's time.
Apparently the number of the elect is not yet complete.
And besides, the Bible often talks about the believer
having to enter the Kingdom of God through many tribulations.
Think of a foundry where they are casting church bells,
the ones that go in the top of the church steeple.
But before it is hung high up there,
that bell is tried with a big and heavy hammer,
and it is beaten all around, to see if there is a crack somewhere.
Just as that bell has to be tried before it can go up,
so the believer will have trials and temptations before HE can go up!
Can you make these words of Lord's Day 52 your own, my brother and sister, young people: "...since we are so weak in ourselves that we cannot stand a moment.”
Do you really believe that?
That you cannot stand one moment when you would be left on your own.
That the trials and temptations then would sweep you away!
O, let us never depend on our own strength, most certainly not in spiritual things!
I once read on a desk calendar the phrase: 'Self-trust is the first step of success'.
But in RELIGIOUS matters self-trust is the first step towards destruction.
There self-trust leads straight to hell!
Young people, do not think too much of yourself.
Do not trust yourself in the face of temptation!
Many people who did are bearing the scars for life.
Sometimes, when warning a young person of one danger or another,
the answer is: “O, I'll be right. Don't worry about me.
This won't happen to me.”
But of course we worry about you.
Of course your father and mother are concerned about you.
For they have been in this world longer than you and they know very well
that THEY and YOU TOO are so weak in yourself
that you cannot stand a moment.
Stay close to the Bible! Stay close to Christ Jesus!
HE desires very much to see you have a beautiful and wholesome life.
But there are OTHERS who would really love to see you spoil and ruin everything!
What others?
The enemies! Three of them! The devil, the world and our own flesh.
The devil!
The prince of this world; the father of lies; the murderer from the beginning.
The world!
Not the world as it was created by God.
But the world which brought His Son to the cross.
The world of which Paul warns:
do not be conformed to it, don't let is squeeze you into its mould.
Our own flesh!
The enemy within.
Opening the door of our lives from within,
so that the devil and the world can enter to spoil, to break down, to destroy.
Are we truly aware of these enemies, congregation?
Do you know of this spiritual battle, young people?
Are you at home in the world?
Do you pamper your own sinful flesh?
Has the devil too easy an access into your life?
Or are we a people who say:
By the grace of God, I will NOT give in!
Go devil! Go world! Go my own sinful nature!
In the Name of Jesus Christ my Saviour, go!
Have you heard that little story about the church-father Augustine,
who as a young man often prayed:
Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one,
and then Augustine added,
just for himself so that others certainly could not hear it:
'BUT NOT YET!'
First he wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the world,
LATER there was always time to be delivered from the evil one.
So he thought.
How is our spiritual battle?
How do we face the trials and temptations?
Oh, at times they seem to us like black threatening clouds,
and that's indeed what they are.
But remember each cloud
– also the cloud of trial and temptation – has a silver lining.
Because the SUN is behind it !
The sun of God's victory, of His grace in Jesus Christ, the King of kings.
In HIM we are more than conquerors!
And let us then not forget that whenever we give in to a temptation,
we are deliberately placing ourselves on the side of the loser!
Lord, deliver us from the evil one.
Of course no prayer can stop right there,
and before the Lord's Prayer comes to an end,
it climbs right back to God again:
it ends in adoration and glory!
It leaves temptations, it turns away from evil,
and our eyes are lifted up to Him Who is Lord of Lords.
Before we rise from our knees, we look up to God,
by Whom and in Whom and unto Whom are all things,
and we confess a God Who will keep us into all eternity:
"For Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever."
That is how the Lord's Prayer ends.
When you pray, says Jesus, this is the way I want you to end your prayer.
Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory.
What a glorious confession.
And to add this confession to your prayer,
is to make clear that your prayer is not a man-centred,
not a self-centred prayer, but one which is centred in GOD!
You see, the Christian doesn't say: Lord, hear me for my sake alone.
He doesn't say: Lord, give me what I want, for I need it.
No! The Christian says: Lord, hear my prayer,
for Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.
First then: For Thine is the Kingdom.
Is it possible to say that,
when you think of such problems as hunger, terrorism,
graft, corruption, crime... to just mention a few things...?
Is it today possible AND realistic to believe in a God
Who is King of kings and Lord of lords?
For when we say: 'Thine is the Kingdom', we mean just that!
That the Lord IS King, that HE is the sovereign ruler over all...
that HE is in complete control.
IS God still in control?
Do the hard facts of life not tell a different story?
No, says the believer.
For he sees more than the facts of everyday life.
He has the EYES OF FAITH.
Is God still in control?
Yes, says the believer, He is! He's got the whole world in His hands.
Not even a sparrow will fall to the ground without the will of our heavenly Father.
If that was not so, what kind of a God would He be anyway?
What would be the sense to pray to Him at all,
if all kinds of things could happen apart from His will?
Is this not the only sensible way to pray:
to surely believe that God IS in control,
that He DOES have all power,
and not the Communists, or the Americans,
or whoever else may hit the headlines.
Congregation, let us BELIEVE – and continue to believe in the power of God.
Let us not believe in the power of money,
the power of weapons,
the best equipped army,
the most sophisticated nuclear missiles.
Let us not be fearful in the face of the power of the devil,
the power of sin,
the power of hell.
Believe what Psalm 46 says:
"Be still and know that I am God.
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob is our refuge!"
Now this absolute authority and control,
God has given into the hands of JESUS CHRIST,
Who was nailed to the cross
so that He could receive all authority in heaven and on earth.
So when a child of God really applies his faith
to the situation in which he finds himself,
he comes to the conclusion that there is nothing to fear!
For I am hidden in the hollow of my Father's hand.
And other people will say: These Christians, what is it that they have?
How is it that they remain calm and quiet?
What gives them that certainty and outlook for the future?
Ah, the Christian has learned to say it with David:
"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?....”
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
So in the midst of madness and despair,
in the midst of darkness and hatred,
the Church continues to speak of God's glory forever and ever!
In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the first question is:
"What is the chief end of man?"
So with other words: What is man in this world for...,
what is the reason of our existence?
The answer is:
“To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
But if that is true, if glorifying God is the chief end of our life,
how necessary for us to say,
– after we have mentioned daily bread and forgiveness
and temptation and all that –
that we then say:
Lord, do all this, so that through it Thy Name be glorified!
When we so pray this prayer of our Lord, congregation,
with new hopes, a new love,
new happiness and a new expectation, yes indeed,
we will be more and more renewed after the image of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ! He has not mentioned Himself at all in this prayer.
But that does not mean that He does not live in it.
Jesus speaks in every sentence of the Lord's Prayer.
His Spirit is in every word.
Who else but Jesus has made known to us all that the Father is and does?
Who has wrestled in life and in death
for the glorification of God's Name as Jesus has done?
And is there someone who has prayed more and worked harder
than Jesus for the coming of God's Kingdom?
And then we conclude it all with that little word: AMEN.
I read somewhere about a child who was asked what it meant to say: Amen.
The answer was: It means that you mean it! That's exactly right!
It means that you mean it!
Our prayers are not just some vain words, shot into space.
We're not talking to some fickle kind of god who may help or who may not.
Prayer is not like a lottery ticket;
you may win the prize, but it's much more likely that you do not!
When we conclude our prayers with that word AMEN,
we are not just telling God and others that we have now finished our prayer.
It is not like a full stop at the end of a sentence.
It is not around the table a sign that we can start eating.
It is not in Church a sign that we can now cough and blow our noses.
It is a CONFESSION!
We are confessing, by the use of this little word:
'I know that my God and Father hears and answers prayer.'
We might say that in a way it means TWO things.
The first is that you meant what you said in your prayer.
It means that you prayed sincerely
as a true believing child of God to the Father; from the heart!
Secondly, it means that you TRUST Him.
It means that we have no doubt whatsoever
that He will hear us hear us for Jesus' sake.
What a precious gift, this Lord's Prayer.
From Christ Himself.
In it our Lord shows us how we ought to approach His Father.
A Prayer which BEGINS with God and which ENDS with God.
A prayer which is born out of the needs of human frailty,
but which concludes with heavenly glories.
Jesus has given this prayer also to you, young people.
He also places this gift in your hands.
You may have it, use it, for the rest of your life.
But this gift is useless unless you use it under His guidance,
unless you go to Jesus and ask: Lord, teach me to pray.
Teach me to pray this prayer.
Teach me to pray in faith,
with my heart filled with obedience, expectation and joy;
with a vision of your glorious Kingdom!
Lord Jesus, teach us to pray in Spirit and in Truth.
AMEN.
