I reckon. I mean, it's a bit like Cairns in many
ways, but it just has a bit more surf, doesn't
it? Now, Hawaii was also like that early in World
War II. It was a great place for US Navy men
to take some shore leave, great bars, nightlife,
fishing, beaches. It was peaceful and refreshing.
If you got to go to Hawaii, that was a real treat.
Especially because at that point, America hadn't
entered World War II. No one was on high alert.
So many were there and taking it easy, having
a blast. But on December 7th, 1941, everything
changed. That was the Pearl Harbour attack. And
it was so brutal. These people in Hawaii suddenly
are at war. I mean, war was coming with Japan.
They just didn't know it. And all of a sudden,
bang, bang, bang, bombs are raining down on them.
A sleepy Sunday morning. And America, and especially
those in Pearl Harbor, were caught off guard.
Many aircraft and battleships were destroyed.
2 ,400 people were killed. Nearly 1 ,200 people
were wounded. And if only, if only they'd seen
that they were at war, it wouldn't have been
a bloodbath, would it? They would have been ready.
They would have been prepared. They could have
taken precautions. Now, why do I tell you this?
Well, you may not realise it, but every day when
you wake up in Cairns, it's like Pearl Harbour.
Things look calm. Things look relaxing. Things
look peaceful. There's no enemy on the horizon.
Bombs, they're not dropping over your head. There's
no bullets whizzing past you. Maybe, you know,
airsoft rifles and things if you're into that,
but there's no bullets. Just normal everyday
life. Actually, normal everyday life is better
than most, isn't it? And yet, we're living in
a war zone. And if we're not alert or ready to
it, we're vulnerable. Now, what are you talking
about, Brendan? What war zone are we in? Well,
we're at spiritual war. We're in a war for our
souls. A war with a satanic enemy telling lies
to us, trying to tempt us into sin, trying to
draw us away from God. Now you might be thinking,
well, is this war even real? I'm glad you're
here if you are. And you might be thinking, how
do I stay safe in this war? Well, I'm glad you're
here if you are. See, that's what the last petition
of the Lord's Prayer is all about. And that's
what we're going to look at today. Here's the
big thing we see today. We live in a spiritual
war zone, so keep praying for God's protection.
If there's one thing you remember, I hope it's
this today. We live in a spiritual war zone,
so keep praying for God's protection. There's
two things we're going to look at that feed into
that. Firstly, sin leads to eternal death. It's
hard to hear, but it's true. Sin leads to eternal
death. And that's why we need to pray for God's
protection. So let's start by seeing the danger.
Let's look at the first one. to eternal death.
Have a look on the screen at Matthew 18, 7 to
8. It says, Woe to the world for temptations
to sin, for it's necessary that temptations come.
But woe to the one by whom the temptation comes.
And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin,
cut it off and throw it away. It's better for
you to end a life crippled or lame than with
two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal
fire. Now talk about graphic, hey? Jesus is saying
you're better off amputating limbs than falling
into sin. Why? Because sin can stop you entering
eternal life. It does stop you entering eternal
life. gets you thrown into the eternal fire,
into God's judgment, into hell. My great -grandfather
won the military medal for bravery in World War
I. He ran messages across the different trenches
and bunkers, and as he was running a message,
he was hit by a shell. His arm was wounded, but
he kept running. and ran this message where it
needed to go. When they finally got to operating
on him, they were looking at his arm and they
said, we're going to have to amputate to save
your life. Well, luckily enough, he happened
to have, his dad was a surgeon, and the surgeon
who was about to operate him was friends with
his dad. And so he was able to save his arm.
Now, in that situation, if you can save your
arm, awesome. But if you can't, it's worth losing
your arm to save your life, isn't it? What about
losing something to save your soul? That little
piece of you that lives on for eternity, the
bit of us that lives on for eternity, to save
that, that's worth losing anything for, isn't
it? Now, before anyone reaches for a chainsaw,
Jesus is not suggesting to literally chop off
limbs. This is a metaphor. And he's showing to
us what's at stake with sin. He's saying sin
is so serious, you need to get radical with it.
You need to guard against it. You need to cut
it out of your life, no matter what the cost.
Jesus is saying, cut out anger. Lust, lies, hypocrisy,
any pride, any idolatry, any greed, any slander,
any theft, any porn, any sleeping around, any
judgmental spirit that you have. Sin is Satan's
lies. It's like gangrene. If you don't cut it
out, it will kill you. And if you don't believe
that, look at the cross. Yes, the cross. is the
place we look to where we see God's glorious
salvation, but it is also a window into hell.
For at the cross, we see how serious and real
sin is. It is so serious and real that Jesus
had to experience God's full wrath on the cross
so that we could be forgiven. You want to see
how serious and horrible sin is? Just take a
look at the cross. But you might be thinking,
well, hang on, especially if you're a Christian,
why do I need to take sin so seriously? I mean,
I believe Jesus died for my sins and I'm forgiven
all of my sins. You know, I believe that Jesus'
death is like a blank check. It pays for all
my sins. No matter how many I've done, I am fully
forgiven. I can't out -sin the saviour. Brent,
I heard you say that like a couple of weeks ago.
But you know what? Sin also hardens our hearts
against God. If you keep sinning, you'll rip
up that blank cheque. Have a look what it says
in Hebrews 3. It says, take care, brothers. lest
there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart,
leading you to fall away from the living God.
But exhort one another every day, as long as
it is called today. Is today called today still?
Yeah, okay, cool. Then I need to take care and
exhort you that none of you may be hardened by
the deceitfulness of sin. Every day, sin has
the potential to harden Christians. to slowly
and subtly corrupt and erode their faith. A little
while ago, we had an oil leak in our car engine.
And you know how bad that can be. It was dripping
away after we came from Broken Hill. And the
car was still working, but we worked out that
there was some oil leaking, and so we got it
sorted straight away. But imagine if we hadn't
have addressed it straight away. Imagine if it
hadn't have been patched up. You know, we'd be
driving around thinking everything's all good,
all gravy, and then all of a sudden, boom! I'll
tell you again later, Craig. You can give me
your impression of how that goes. Because the
engine will blow, won't it? It'll be an absolute
disaster. And every time we sin, it's like a
little faith leak, isn't it? And if we don't
address that, if we don't patch that up and get
our tanks full of faith again, eventually it's
going to lead to disaster, isn't it? Take care
is what God's word says. Beware. Be on the lookout.
The day before the attack in Pearl Harbour, the
US intercepted a Japanese message. And it was
after the weekend. They didn't really sort of
pay much attention to it. And on the day of the
attack, well, a radar spotted a group of planes
and they thought, oh, that's just some B -17s,
some US planes doing a training run. There were
signs everywhere that things were really dangerous,
that a war was brewing. But they weren't alert
to it. They didn't take care. And they paid the
price for it. We don't want to be like that.
We need to take care. How do we take care? How
do we be careful? We exhort and encourage each
other, don't we? Exhort each other to listen
to God's word, to his gospel. See, God's word
is like a radar. It alerts us to sin. It shows
us where sin is trying to ambush us. This is
an invisible war with eternal dangers. We need
to be on guard. Our world is a propaganda machine
that's trying to say to us, a lie as old as Adam
and Eve. Oh, you'll not surely die. There's no
hell. There's no judgment. Don't worry about
it. But it's not true. Sin leads to eternal death.
And that's why Sundays here at church, that's
why growth groups, that's why one -to -ones,
they're such key times for us because that's
where we get reminded again and again, there's
a war zone going on. And you're not alone in
it, but you are in a war zone. You need to keep
on guard against sin. Now, here's what it can
look like if you get that sort of encouragement,
that exhortation. I mean, this is what I hope
happens each week here at church. You come to
church and, hey, I get it. It's a battle, right,
to even just get to church, the busyness, the
tiredness, and that's if it's not even raining,
right? You work hard to be here. But then you
come in and you're greeted warmly and, You chat
with a few people. You take your seat. And the
service starts. And there's the first song. And
it lifts your eyes. Oh, hang on. God, God's real.
That's right, yeah. And there's spiritual realities
I need to be aware of. I'm in a war zone, aren't
I? And wow, God is such a good God. He loves
me and cares for me. And then the Bible's read.
Wow, there's. And the preacher starts preaching
and you get the, oh, that hurt. Oh, wow, how
good is God? Oh, yes, and praise God. And a whole
bunch of things start going on inside you because
you're connecting again with truth and reality.
And we sing more and we pray and we talk after
church and we swap details with each other so
we can connect throughout the week and encourage
each other. And you walk out that door and hopefully
you leave with a new outlook. I need to be ready
again for this week. There's a spiritual dimension
I must not ignore. Sin leads to eternal death.
Trusting Jesus leads to eternal life. I need
to stay on guard. That's what we're trying to
do here at church every single week. We need
those times in our week and our lives to remind
us of reality. Don't miss them. Don't treat them
lightly. They're a key lifeline as we live in
this war zone. But it's not the only lifeline.
Secondly, we must also pray. Pray for God's protection.
Pray for God's protection. When Jesus teaches
us to pray, lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil or from the evil one. What
he's telling us to pray for is to pray that we'd
avoid and be alert to Satan's lies. Now, why
do we need to pray that? Well, if we're alert
to sin's danger, I mean, surely we can just fight
it. Why do we need to pray about it? Well, it's
because we often overestimate our resources,
don't we? Years ago, I ran a kids' club after
schools for a church I worked at, and each week
we'd play soccer. And we'd try and make the teams
really even, have a few leaders on one team and
a few other leaders on the other team mixed with
the kids. But some weeks the kids would ask for
a leaders versus kids game. They were so sure
of themselves. What a mistake. 20 goals to one.
It was going well. It's one of the few times
where I get to feel like Ronaldo and Messi in
my life. But see, sin's like that. It's an opponent
that's too strong for us. We're like those little
kids with these big, mighty, muscly leaders.
Well, maybe not as muscly as I'd like to be,
but compared to sin, we're small and we're weak,
aren't we? And if you think your own willpower
will suffice, you're kidding yourself. Try this
experiment. Lying is a sin. Try not to lie for
a week. Just one week, see how you go. No white
lies, no lies of any kind to spare feelings.
Be completely truthful even if it lands you in
hot water. Then you'll start to see the hold
that sin really has on you. But when we pray
for God to protect us spiritually, we're not
just relying on our own resources. We're getting
God involved. And he's infinitely stronger than
sin. That'd be like getting Messi and Ronaldo
to play against those kids. When we're regularly,
genuinely praying that God would keep us from
wandering into tempting situations, that he'd
save us from Satan's lies, when we do that, God
often honours our prayers by sovereignly protecting
us. But also the very act of praying such prayers
changes our hearts so that we flee from sin and
when we can't, we fight it. Our willpower gets
strengthened by the Spirit. We hate our sin.
We don't want to do it anymore. And we don't
flirt with it. Yeah, I might just do a bit of
sin there. No, we run. Christian, when was the
last time you prayed about those things? Where
you searched your heart, where you went, where
do I feel the pull of sin in my life? Where you
looked at your life and went, yeah, where has
sin been deceiving me recently? Where you've
cried out for God's help, that he'd keep you
away from situations where you're tempted to
sin and where you'd say no, even if you're in
them. When did you last pray for your brothers
and sisters with this? People in your growth
group, people at church. Imagine how godly our
church would become if every day, individually,
every one -to -one, every growth group, we prayed
like that. Maybe we don't pray much about it.
Or as much as we should. Because sin doesn't
feel like that much of a threat. Maybe we forget
that we're at war. And if we do, that's actually
Satan's lie. Or maybe we actually love our sin
more than we care to admit. And we want to be
rid of it, but we kind of don't as well. If that's
the case, we need to wake up. We need to see
that we're in a war zone. And we need to start
praying fervently. All right, let's recap. We
started by asking, where are we at? Are we in
a spiritual war with sin? And I hope you've seen
today that the answer is yes. Even if you're
forgiven, even if you love Jesus, sin is at war
with you to destroy your faith. And we need to
be alert to that danger and actively protecting
ourselves against it by meeting together, encouraging
each other, but especially by prayer. As we saw
today, we live in a spiritual war zone, so keep
praying for God's protection. This is something
we can't stop praying about. You might be here
today and you're the sceptic. You're going, yeah,
I mean, Brendan, there's some interesting points
there, but I don't think that there is a spiritual
war zone going on. You know, you're maybe overstating
things a little bit. Well, I hope you've seen
some good reasons as to why there might be. I'd
want to ask you, are you sceptical of your scepticism?
Doubt your doubts. Maybe there's something there
you need to think about. But, I mean, ponder
this. If there's no sin or war, why haven't we
built a utopian world yet? I mean, Cairns is
a pretty good little slice of paradise, but there's
still crime, there's still hurt, there's still
domestic violence, there's still all sorts of
horrible things, isn't there? Why haven't we
built a utopia yet? There's got to be something
within us stopping us. What's going on? If there's
no war zone contrary to Jesus' claims, well,
what should we be fighting? Well, what should
you be living for? What should you be making
the purpose of your life? Here's the big one.
Why did Jesus die and rise again if it wasn't
to rescue people and free them from sin? What
do you think of Jesus? Why do you think he did
all that? Maybe your scepticism is a sign that
you're actually a POW, a prisoner of war, that
Satan has you right where he wants you. In that
movie, The Usual Suspects, there's a line in
it that says, the greatest trick the devil ever
pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist.
Is there even a small possibility that you could
be wrong? If you think there is, come chat with
me. Let's grab a coffee or we'll find someone
better looking that you can have a coffee with.
It's up to you. But let's have a chat. Let's
talk it through. But if you're a Christian, well,
the danger is that we're like the disciples that
we looked at in our passage earlier. Jesus tells
them to watch and pray, but what do they do?
They fall asleep. They didn't see the spiritual
battle happening as Jesus went to the cross.
But thankfully, Jesus drank the cup of God's
wrath down to the dregs so that sin's penalty
can't touch us. In one respect, if you trust
Jesus, you are bulletproof to sin. It can't get
you anymore. You will never be punished. Yet
as forgiven people, we still need to see that
sin is dangerous. As long as you have faith,
you're safe. But sin is trying to erode your
faith. It's trying to shipwreck your faith. Satan
is trying to destroy your faith by luring you
into sin's grip. In one sense, you're bulletproof.
In another sense, you're in a dangerous war zone.
Are you readying yourself every day for the fight?
One of my favourite quotes that sums this up
well is by John Owen, the theologian from many
years ago. He says, if you're not killing sin,
sin is killing you. If you're not killing sin,
Sin is killing you. I mean, that's how war zones
work, isn't it? If your enemy is attacking you
and hitting you, you're in danger. You're not
protected. You need to take your enemy out. How
do we protect ourselves? We put sin to death.
We get along to church and to growth group. We
start our day drawing on God's strength. We be
proactive, praying that God would protect us.
As we hear scripture at church, individually,
in growth group, we're alerted to sins that weren't
on our radar before. And we don't stop there.
When we're tempted, you know, when you're there
and you're facing that temptation, what do you
do? You pray. You're in that argument. Your anger
is rising by the second. What do you do? You
breathe. Lord, help me to calm down, to just
be loving in this situation. You're home alone.
And the pull to go on the computer and watch
something you shouldn't is strong. What do you
do? Go for a walk and pray. Lord, help me. Help
me to be pure. Help me to be godly. Help me to
see that I have better things in Jesus than what
sin can offer me. Or you catch yourself lying.
What do you do? You ask Jesus to forgive you.
Lord, I'm sorry. But then you ask for help. Please
help me next time to tell the truth. Help me
to be honest. Even when it's hard. Make it a
priority to pray like this both proactively and
reactively when you're in those tempting moments.
But the thing is, don't let your guard down.
We must, we must, we must take care and be on
guard. Because we're in an unseen war. Life in
Cairns is just like Pearl Harbour. Before the
attacks, it appears safe and calm, yet we really
are in a war zone. But we'll stay safe if we're
on our knees to our loving Heavenly Father, asking
for his protection. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly
Father, we want to thank you that you are so
kind to us. We thank you that in Jesus you have
forgiven all our sins. But help us, Father, to
keep trusting you, to not lose the safety and
security that we have in Christ by falling away.
Help us to persevere in our faith. Help us to
trust you. Help us to see that sin is dangerous
because it's trying to lead us into unbelief.
Please, Father, help us to take care. Give us
the strength we need to fight sin and to run
from it when it's tempting us. And help us, not
just us individually, but help us to encourage
each other, to exhort each other, to flee from
and fight sin. And we ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.