Lead Us Not into Temptation
Prov 30:7-9
Introduction
To Robert Selig, George Washington's victory at Yorktown, aided by French General Rochambeau, was the pivotal point in the American War for Independence. 1980 was a bad year for the Continental army, and their financial woes were coming to a head.
Washington's army was on the brink of collapse, and so, as Selig records, he wrote, “We are at the end of our tether, and . . . now or never our deliverance must come.” Just a few days before Washington wrote that to a comrade, French ships set sail for the colonies to help them. Later in September, Washington asked the French for 26,600 Spanish dollars. By the end of October of that year, the Americans and their French allies had forced the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, and turned the tide of the war.
Washington recognized his army needed help, and he needed help. Reportedly, he was reluctant to let the French troops help them on the battlefield, but later did allow them to do so. Without his willingness to receive help, the war would not have likely been won.
George Washington recognize his situation was dire, and depended upon others.
People face a far more dire situation today, and we must depend upon God for help.
Humble people pray to God dependently.
If you have been at Brookdale for the past few Sundays, then you have learned a lot about this man Augur from Proverbs 30. In fact, all that we know about him is found in these verses.
How would you describe Augur? What kind of person was he? Well, first of all, we notice that he was a truly humble man.
The vast majority of this book of wise sayings, or the Proverbs, was written by Solomon, the king of Israel. Solomon says, tells us that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. As Pastor Thomas preached a couple weeks ago, Augur says that wisdom begins with admitting how dumb you are. And really, Augur and Solomon are not different at all because after he admits how much he doesn't know, he compares himself to the one who does know everything. Humility is not merely lowering ourselves. It is lowering ourselves under God. The humble man deprecates himself only to show how great God is.
So, last week, we progressed through Augur's flow of thought. We don't know everything; God does know everything. Now, Augur tells us that God reveals his truth to us in His Word, which is fully reliable and certain.
This week, we take the next step. I don't know everything, God does, God communicates his knowledge to us in the Bible, and so what do we do? We ask God for his help.
True humility results in a dependence upon God/dependence.
We may say that we are humble. We may have perfect theology (we don't), but if we are not like Augur, without moving from our beliefs about God to prayer to God, are we truly humble?
Did you ever marvel at a bird feeder as a child? You set this food out, and after some time, maybe even a few days, birds start showing up. And they keep showing up. There's a member of our church who has his own kind of mobile bird feeder. In fact, the birds basically view him as the feeder. He walks around his neighborhood, culling rabbits. When he finds one, he tosses it to the crows. Now, when this man goes for a walk, the crows follow!
Here's the difference between us and crows: the crows go where the food is. They have no shame. They are happy to have someone give them what they need. And their knowledge of where the food can be found results in action. We are either too self-dependent or lazy to be like the crows.
Peter recognized thin his first letter to the church at large.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6–7
And Peter takes it a step further: He cares for you. Our God is not a cosmic bird feeder. He is a person who loves and cares for us.
There may be some exceptions to this rule, but who is the one person in the world to whom you might go to for help more than anyone else? Your father whom you know loves you and cares for you.
Are you depending on God in prayer? Are you humble enough to seek his help? Prayer is the place where doctrine turns to practice. He is a good God who wants to be there for his children.
So Augur's view of himself, and his view of God cause him to depend upon God in prayer. He asks God for help. What does he ask God for?
The first thing he asks for is to be kept from deceit.
Now, what does it mean to be kept from deceit? Does he mean that he wants God to help him tell the truth, to not tell lies himself? Or, does he mean to keep him from being lied to?
Well, I'm gonna level with you. I can't be sure. I can give you my sanctified and (modestly) informed opinion, but I think that is beyond the point.
If he means, he wants God's help to rightly respond when he is lied to, then he is talking about how easy it is for us to be deceived by money and the way the world views it. We so easily are tricked into believing that money will make our lives better. Whether we have too much or too little, we think that more money means more happiness. This is a lie! So he is asking for God to preserve and protect him.
If he means, he wants God's help to not tell lies, is this a general request for all lies? No, it seems his request here is a further confession of his need for God. He is admitting he is weak and very well may tell lies, and his concern is primarily about money and meeting one's needs. How would he do this? By living lies when it comes to money. In order to tell lies by living them out, you have to believe them.
Whether he is talking about the deceit of riches and poverty, or from being a liar himself about riches and poverty, either way, he is admitting that he himself can be deceived. And therefore...
Everyone can be deceived.
Whoever is doing the deceiving, Augur is doubling down in his humility and his dependence upon God. He is admitting that he is vulnerable and needs God's help, especially when it comes to finances.
and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Mark 4:19
And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:24
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:10
Scripture is clear about the complexity and danger that money brings to our lives. There is real peril, or mortal danger when it comes to money. Augur is saying, "When it comes to money, I do not have it all figured out. And even when I might have part of it figured out, I can be deceived."
According to the Scriptures, a humble person recognizes, I can be deceived by this. I cannot handle this on my own, and I must be careful about this matter.
This is a crucial aspect of humility, recognizing how susceptible we are to sin. And this susceptibility is for life:
"Deprive me not before I die..." (vs. 7)
Augur is not giving his final wish. He is saying, I need this for the rest of my life. As we get older, at least in our society, we typically have more money. We tend to be able to sustain higher standards of living, and a lot of the time our net worth increases. We have less expenses, and can use our wealth to make more money! The temptation may be in that stage of life to think that we are passed needing any help when it comes to money. That is not how Augur feels.
Whether you are young or old, poor or rich, Augur says there is a real danger to money. We must ask for God's help to not be deceived by money. Instead, we must go to the Word! This is why the sufficiency of God's Word is so crucial for us to practice! The only way to combat lies is to know the truth. God cannot answer Augur's prayer for protection from lies unless he is working to know the truth himself.
This humble dependence upon God that Augur demonstrates by his prayerfulness and his confession of weakness is a model for us, not just when it comes to finances, but in every area of sin, especially those that are tricky or devious.
If we had a child watch you, and they saw your attitude and could hear your prayers, how dangerous would they think sin is? How convinced would they be that you have specific and deadly weaknesses?
Or, based on your life, would they think, oh, sin is no big deal?
You ever watch someone pull out one of those pill organizers? How careful and detailed they are? How serious do they take those health conditions? How dangerous do they believe their weaknesses are?
I like to think that I am good at situational awareness. I want to appear as if I am good at reading the room, and doing what is appropriate. I think we often lack situational awareness because we think we can handle temptation.
Have you ever thought about that part of the Lord's prayer? As a kid, I did. I thought, isn't a good thing to be strong? Shouldn't we pray to handle temptation better? Well, that's not how the Bible views it primarily. (1 Cor 10:13; 2 Tim 2:22)
This why Paul says to mortify, or KILL these things "which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." (Col 3:5-7)
You can't handle it. You're not that guy, pal.
1. Ask for God's help to know your particular areas of weakness.
2. Ask for God's help to not believe the lies of sin, especially in your areas of weakness.
3. Seek and give help in these things from and to the church.
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12–13
Augur couples his wisdom about God, himself, and the truth with a hatred for sin, and so he asks God for help in defeating it. Now, let us look at the rest of this prayer in earnest.
Wisdom prioritizes personal godliness over material prosperity.
Tim Keller, author of Counterfeit Gods, a book about idolatry, taught that there were multiple tests to see what your idols are. One of them, he said was that he would ask the person he was counseling about this, "What are your greatest nightmares? What keeps you up at night?"
As we have seen, one of Augur's greatest nightmares is having too much or too little money. Well, I think many many people can identify with one of those nightmares, having too little money. But that one monster under the bed often isn't scary to us for the same reason that it was to Augur.
The reason that monster (which was inside of him, not outside) was scary was because of this:
Lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God. Proverbs 30:9
Wow! Can you imagine the kind of person that would make this request? Do we often think about the ideal amount of money and ideal standard of living being just enough to keep us humble and dependent upon God?
He wanted just the right amount to make him worshipful, and to keep him from temptation.
Many of us just want more! But Augur uses his theology as a lens to view all of life. He only wants money and possessions to help him be content in God.
While I think the primary temptation for most of us is to sin when it comes to wanting too much, Augur also says he wants to not have too little. I want to ask a question, why does he say not too little? Is there really temptation in that?
Another way to ask this is:
Are poverty and persecution ideal for Christianity?
For kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 1 Timothy 2:2
Does a quiet and peaceful life, dignified in every way sound like impoverished ostracization? It talking about our life circumstances, not inner peace, although that is addressed elsewhere in scripture. The prosperity of Western civilization has, especially in the past, been a good thing. Money and societal stability have been blessings God has given through the Protestant tradition, and we experience those blessings in our church and the Fargo-Moorhead community. We need to prioritize godliness over prosperity, but don't fall into the ditch of believing that poverty is inherently virtuous. Trust in the Lord to give you what you need, and pray far more for deliverance from temptation than deliverance from Walmart.
We often hear of how Christianity is thriving in persecuted places. And we praise the Lord. We're thankful to God for the testimonies we hear from people we know about such places.
Conclusion
In closing, I want to tell you a fairy tale story. It's called, Augur-locks and the three friends. He goes to visit his friends, Peter, Matthew, and Bert.
Peter's house is too big, Matthew's house is too small, but Bert's house is just right. Why? Because it is just the right size for Augur-locks to think about living in his father's house for all eternity and help others do the same.
Peter's car is too luxurious, Matthew's car is too dumpy and breaks down too much, but Bert's car is just right. Why? Because it helps him to focus on the good responsibilities he has to travel to do in the car, and bringing others to good places too.
Peter's clothes are too flashy and impractically extravagant, Matthew's clothes are too tattered and dingy, but Bert's clothes are just right. Why? Because they keep him warm and appropriate for the settings he goes into to do what he needs to do, and they are durable enough to keep him focused on what he needs to do.
By the grace of God in Jesus, be thankful for what God has given you, and strive and pray to be like Bert.
Discussion Questions
Introduction
To Robert Selig, George Washington's victory at Yorktown, aided by French General Rochambeau, was the pivotal point in the American War for Independence. 1980 was a bad year for the Continental army, and their financial woes were coming to a head.
Washington's army was on the brink of collapse, and so, as Selig records, he wrote, “We are at the end of our tether, and . . . now or never our deliverance must come.” Just a few days before Washington wrote that to a comrade, French ships set sail for the colonies to help them. Later in September, Washington asked the French for 26,600 Spanish dollars. By the end of October of that year, the Americans and their French allies had forced the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, and turned the tide of the war.
Washington recognized his army needed help, and he needed help. Reportedly, he was reluctant to let the French troops help them on the battlefield, but later did allow them to do so. Without his willingness to receive help, the war would not have likely been won.
George Washington recognize his situation was dire, and depended upon others.
People face a far more dire situation today, and we must depend upon God for help.
Humble people pray to God dependently.
If you have been at Brookdale for the past few Sundays, then you have learned a lot about this man Augur from Proverbs 30. In fact, all that we know about him is found in these verses.
How would you describe Augur? What kind of person was he? Well, first of all, we notice that he was a truly humble man.
The vast majority of this book of wise sayings, or the Proverbs, was written by Solomon, the king of Israel. Solomon says, tells us that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. As Pastor Thomas preached a couple weeks ago, Augur says that wisdom begins with admitting how dumb you are. And really, Augur and Solomon are not different at all because after he admits how much he doesn't know, he compares himself to the one who does know everything. Humility is not merely lowering ourselves. It is lowering ourselves under God. The humble man deprecates himself only to show how great God is.
So, last week, we progressed through Augur's flow of thought. We don't know everything; God does know everything. Now, Augur tells us that God reveals his truth to us in His Word, which is fully reliable and certain.
This week, we take the next step. I don't know everything, God does, God communicates his knowledge to us in the Bible, and so what do we do? We ask God for his help.
True humility results in a dependence upon God/dependence.
We may say that we are humble. We may have perfect theology (we don't), but if we are not like Augur, without moving from our beliefs about God to prayer to God, are we truly humble?
Did you ever marvel at a bird feeder as a child? You set this food out, and after some time, maybe even a few days, birds start showing up. And they keep showing up. There's a member of our church who has his own kind of mobile bird feeder. In fact, the birds basically view him as the feeder. He walks around his neighborhood, culling rabbits. When he finds one, he tosses it to the crows. Now, when this man goes for a walk, the crows follow!
Here's the difference between us and crows: the crows go where the food is. They have no shame. They are happy to have someone give them what they need. And their knowledge of where the food can be found results in action. We are either too self-dependent or lazy to be like the crows.
Peter recognized thin his first letter to the church at large.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6–7
And Peter takes it a step further: He cares for you. Our God is not a cosmic bird feeder. He is a person who loves and cares for us.
There may be some exceptions to this rule, but who is the one person in the world to whom you might go to for help more than anyone else? Your father whom you know loves you and cares for you.
Are you depending on God in prayer? Are you humble enough to seek his help? Prayer is the place where doctrine turns to practice. He is a good God who wants to be there for his children.
So Augur's view of himself, and his view of God cause him to depend upon God in prayer. He asks God for help. What does he ask God for?
The first thing he asks for is to be kept from deceit.
Now, what does it mean to be kept from deceit? Does he mean that he wants God to help him tell the truth, to not tell lies himself? Or, does he mean to keep him from being lied to?
Well, I'm gonna level with you. I can't be sure. I can give you my sanctified and (modestly) informed opinion, but I think that is beyond the point.
If he means, he wants God's help to rightly respond when he is lied to, then he is talking about how easy it is for us to be deceived by money and the way the world views it. We so easily are tricked into believing that money will make our lives better. Whether we have too much or too little, we think that more money means more happiness. This is a lie! So he is asking for God to preserve and protect him.
If he means, he wants God's help to not tell lies, is this a general request for all lies? No, it seems his request here is a further confession of his need for God. He is admitting he is weak and very well may tell lies, and his concern is primarily about money and meeting one's needs. How would he do this? By living lies when it comes to money. In order to tell lies by living them out, you have to believe them.
Whether he is talking about the deceit of riches and poverty, or from being a liar himself about riches and poverty, either way, he is admitting that he himself can be deceived. And therefore...
Everyone can be deceived.
Whoever is doing the deceiving, Augur is doubling down in his humility and his dependence upon God. He is admitting that he is vulnerable and needs God's help, especially when it comes to finances.
and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Mark 4:19
And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:24
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 1 Timothy 6:10
Scripture is clear about the complexity and danger that money brings to our lives. There is real peril, or mortal danger when it comes to money. Augur is saying, "When it comes to money, I do not have it all figured out. And even when I might have part of it figured out, I can be deceived."
According to the Scriptures, a humble person recognizes, I can be deceived by this. I cannot handle this on my own, and I must be careful about this matter.
This is a crucial aspect of humility, recognizing how susceptible we are to sin. And this susceptibility is for life:
"Deprive me not before I die..." (vs. 7)
Augur is not giving his final wish. He is saying, I need this for the rest of my life. As we get older, at least in our society, we typically have more money. We tend to be able to sustain higher standards of living, and a lot of the time our net worth increases. We have less expenses, and can use our wealth to make more money! The temptation may be in that stage of life to think that we are passed needing any help when it comes to money. That is not how Augur feels.
Whether you are young or old, poor or rich, Augur says there is a real danger to money. We must ask for God's help to not be deceived by money. Instead, we must go to the Word! This is why the sufficiency of God's Word is so crucial for us to practice! The only way to combat lies is to know the truth. God cannot answer Augur's prayer for protection from lies unless he is working to know the truth himself.
This humble dependence upon God that Augur demonstrates by his prayerfulness and his confession of weakness is a model for us, not just when it comes to finances, but in every area of sin, especially those that are tricky or devious.
If we had a child watch you, and they saw your attitude and could hear your prayers, how dangerous would they think sin is? How convinced would they be that you have specific and deadly weaknesses?
Or, based on your life, would they think, oh, sin is no big deal?
You ever watch someone pull out one of those pill organizers? How careful and detailed they are? How serious do they take those health conditions? How dangerous do they believe their weaknesses are?
I like to think that I am good at situational awareness. I want to appear as if I am good at reading the room, and doing what is appropriate. I think we often lack situational awareness because we think we can handle temptation.
Have you ever thought about that part of the Lord's prayer? As a kid, I did. I thought, isn't a good thing to be strong? Shouldn't we pray to handle temptation better? Well, that's not how the Bible views it primarily. (1 Cor 10:13; 2 Tim 2:22)
This why Paul says to mortify, or KILL these things "which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." (Col 3:5-7)
You can't handle it. You're not that guy, pal.
1. Ask for God's help to know your particular areas of weakness.
2. Ask for God's help to not believe the lies of sin, especially in your areas of weakness.
3. Seek and give help in these things from and to the church.
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12–13
Augur couples his wisdom about God, himself, and the truth with a hatred for sin, and so he asks God for help in defeating it. Now, let us look at the rest of this prayer in earnest.
Wisdom prioritizes personal godliness over material prosperity.
Tim Keller, author of Counterfeit Gods, a book about idolatry, taught that there were multiple tests to see what your idols are. One of them, he said was that he would ask the person he was counseling about this, "What are your greatest nightmares? What keeps you up at night?"
As we have seen, one of Augur's greatest nightmares is having too much or too little money. Well, I think many many people can identify with one of those nightmares, having too little money. But that one monster under the bed often isn't scary to us for the same reason that it was to Augur.
The reason that monster (which was inside of him, not outside) was scary was because of this:
Lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God. Proverbs 30:9
Wow! Can you imagine the kind of person that would make this request? Do we often think about the ideal amount of money and ideal standard of living being just enough to keep us humble and dependent upon God?
He wanted just the right amount to make him worshipful, and to keep him from temptation.
Many of us just want more! But Augur uses his theology as a lens to view all of life. He only wants money and possessions to help him be content in God.
While I think the primary temptation for most of us is to sin when it comes to wanting too much, Augur also says he wants to not have too little. I want to ask a question, why does he say not too little? Is there really temptation in that?
Another way to ask this is:
Are poverty and persecution ideal for Christianity?
For kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 1 Timothy 2:2
Does a quiet and peaceful life, dignified in every way sound like impoverished ostracization? It talking about our life circumstances, not inner peace, although that is addressed elsewhere in scripture. The prosperity of Western civilization has, especially in the past, been a good thing. Money and societal stability have been blessings God has given through the Protestant tradition, and we experience those blessings in our church and the Fargo-Moorhead community. We need to prioritize godliness over prosperity, but don't fall into the ditch of believing that poverty is inherently virtuous. Trust in the Lord to give you what you need, and pray far more for deliverance from temptation than deliverance from Walmart.
We often hear of how Christianity is thriving in persecuted places. And we praise the Lord. We're thankful to God for the testimonies we hear from people we know about such places.
Conclusion
In closing, I want to tell you a fairy tale story. It's called, Augur-locks and the three friends. He goes to visit his friends, Peter, Matthew, and Bert.
Peter's house is too big, Matthew's house is too small, but Bert's house is just right. Why? Because it is just the right size for Augur-locks to think about living in his father's house for all eternity and help others do the same.
Peter's car is too luxurious, Matthew's car is too dumpy and breaks down too much, but Bert's car is just right. Why? Because it helps him to focus on the good responsibilities he has to travel to do in the car, and bringing others to good places too.
Peter's clothes are too flashy and impractically extravagant, Matthew's clothes are too tattered and dingy, but Bert's clothes are just right. Why? Because they keep him warm and appropriate for the settings he goes into to do what he needs to do, and they are durable enough to keep him focused on what he needs to do.
By the grace of God in Jesus, be thankful for what God has given you, and strive and pray to be like Bert.
Discussion Questions
- What is a specific time in your life when you finally had to admit you couldn't complete a task alone and had to ask someone for help?
- What are some everyday signs that we are acting too self-dependent or lazy to go to God for our daily needs?
- What does neglect in killing (or totally removing) sin from our lives say about our belief in our own strength?
- How would your daily habits and routines change if you took your spiritual weaknesses just as seriously?
- What are some of the lies you might believe about money?
- What about other areas of temptation?
- What are some specific, practical ways to prioritize spiritual growth over material success?
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