IDEA: We need to pray to be delivered from the falsehoods which keep us from the shield of God’s truth.
TEXT: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s" (Exodus 20:17).
"You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s" (Deuteronomy 5:21).
PURPOSE: To help listeners focus on praying about being delivered from covetousness.
Do you ever struggle with prayer? What is the nature of the struggle?
One struggle is that we end up praying platitudes. How do you get rid of that? How do you stop that?
Sometimes we can use the prayers of others to enable us to pray more effectively ourselves.
Agur (writer of Proverbs 30), who was a very modest man, gave us two requests that can guide us in our prayer.
"Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar. Two things I request of You (deprive me not before I die): Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches–feed me with the food allotted to me; 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 30:5-9).
Agur’s first request is "remove falsehood and lies far from me." What kind of falsehood is he talking about?
I. One kind of falsehood he was concerned about is adding to the Word of God.
God will be a shield to those who take his Word seriously.
We often find ourselves lying about the command "You shall not covet" in order to deflect its penetration into our lives.
II. Another kind of falsehood is the lie that comes to us from our society.
We are told that we must accumulate things, that our life consists of the things we possess. When we buy into that, we really lose out on God’s protection in our lives.
We sit in front of a television set and think we’re simply seeing ads for goods, but we are being given a whole philosophy of life. The lies are so prevalent that we don’t see them for what they are.
This prayer in itself could help deliver us from the snare of covetousness.