Lead Us Not Into Temptation But Deliver Us From Evil
And so to our final verse in Jesus teaching on prayer in Matthew 6. But lets read the whole passage again, just because we know it does us good to hear Gods word…
9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.13 And lead us not into temptation,[a] but deliver us from the evil one
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one
In one of his sermons, CH Spurgeon refers to an exegetical outline of the individual verses of the Lords prayer as petitioners that relate to different aspects of our identity, I’d not seen it before and i thought it was rather helpful, particularly as a starting point for looking at this final verse. The outline he presented was this.
- Our Father who art in Heaven relates to our identity as the children of God
- Hallowed be thy name….relates to us as worshippers
- Thy Kingdom come – relates to our identity as subjects of the King
- Thy will be done……relates to our identity as servants
- Give us this day our daily bread…..relates to us a beggars
- Forgive us our sins….relates to us as sinners
- And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil…relates our situation as sinnersin danger of being greater sinners still.
Now I don’t have time to unpack all of these but I offer them to you for further reflection. But I do want to draw us back to the assessment of the last verse as one that relates to us as sinners, in danger of becoming greater sinners.
You may not be entirely comfortable with the language that is used but I think the analogy has much to offer us for the context of understanding the verse.
We know that our sin cuts us off from God. We know that in his mercy God in Christ can and does forgive us our sin but we also know that even despite having received the kindness of God and that it external exists for us that there is something within us that has the capacity to take us right back in that place of dislocation.
It’s a truthful admission of this condition on our part that makes this prayer so vitally important and incredibly helpful to us.
So what is it that we are praying when we pray this prayer. I want to suggest 3 quick points.
In praying this prayer we are:
1. Requesting Wisdom Regarding Our Soul
Proverbs 4:23 says:
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
1 Peter 5:8 says
8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Part of our responsibility before the Lord is to remain alert. In our endeavour to do this the Lord is able to give us wisdom to make good choices.
James encourages us to ask for wisdom if we think we lack it.
Proverbs encourages to lean not on our own understanding or insight but to acknowledge or to know or to come into relationship with God and he will direct our paths.
Therefore to pray this prayer, lead us not into temptation means that we need to engage with God over the choices that presented to us and that we make.
He is able by His Spirit and his word to direct us in the choices we might make.
Brother Lawrence in his book ‘Practicing the Presence of God’ says
We should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s presence, by continually conversing with Him.
If you’ve ever read the story of Jackie Pullinger “Chasing the Dragon” you will know how significant developing a prayerful lifestyle was to seeing not only only breakthrough in her ministry amongst the Triad gangs and opium dens but how God led her in the daily decisions that she made.
I know that it sounds impossible…especially if you’re in meetings ad infinitum or your mind is in your work. But there maybe ways that you might pray simple prayers as you are going through your day. Lord, give me wisdom in this meeting, help me to love
It is through our constant invitation and engagement with the Lord through prayer that enables to discern the choices that are placed before us. Keeping close to Him and listening for his voice is the way we invite his wisdom to guide us.
We are less likely to allow our own selfish desires to carry us into temptation and potentially into sin.
This is really part of my exhortation at the beginning of this talk. We need to make prayer a life style and not an event in calendar.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to sense the same closeness that Jesus had with Father as we do our work, spend time with our family, do the shopping, meet with friends. It’s totally possible for each of us to know that sense of intimacy.
And so the challenge is, do you have this walk with the Lord, if not why not? What is stopping you? Are there things that you need to do differently? What practices and disciplines might help you to develop a greater closeness with God….because we need it.
2. Renouncing Sin Intentionally
The second thing that we are doing when we pray this prayer is that we are intentionally renouncing sin and our desire to sin.
Our petition to the Lord to lead us not into temptation must come from an intentional desire to be free from sin.
If you’re like me then this is a good practice and discipline to do throughout the day. If we pray this prayer slowly and meaningfully it can be a very useful and powerful discipline in our lives.
The reality is that we know that we are constantly tempted and there is nothing that we can do about that. There is a contest for our souls.
We have any enemy that wars against us and is relentless in his pursuit of us.
Yet because of Jesus victory on the cross and through the resurrection we are able to resist the devil. We are empowered to do so through the victory of Christ. James 4 says
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners;
and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
It sounds dour and morose but praying this prayer, understanding and meaning it as part of our daily walk keeps us in not only a place of humility before the Lord but also one of gratitude for the freedom he has given.
It is important that a brutal understanding of our sinfulness, the wages of that sin and our ability to keep messing up is also important.
I’m sure we’ve all been through these battles. A good friend helping me through one of those battles said to me you’ll come through but like Jacob you might walk with a limp to remind you of your encounter.
Ive never forgotten their wisdom and its true. I thank God for his mercy and his kindness and his love. There have been moments of my life when I have become painfully and fearfully aware of the judgment of God on my life for my sinfulness….indeed I invited it… (be careful what your pray for).
God showed me, it crushed me, I feared for my salvation and he spoke mercy and forgiveness over my life. And I will never forget how all of that felt. The last thing I want is to be caught up in that sort of situation again and so I choose to put the discipline of renunciation in place to remind my soul of the freedom it now enjoys, the peace which I experience and the assurance of salvation that Jesus gives to me and my desire to never go back.
I don’t live controlled or in fear of sin but neither do I want to become so conceited that I lose sight of where my help truly comes from. So the discipline enables me to offer myself to God and celebrate and worship him for his continued kindness.
So we’ve considered how this prayer is a request for wisdom for our soul, it is. renunciation of our desire to sin and so finally lets look at how it is
3. Requesting the Avoidance Sin & Evil
Let me be clear from the outset this is not a belief that just because we’re Christians that bad things won’t happen to us. Clearly that is not true of the world and our own experience. However, that is not to say that our prayers can’t be for God to lead us away from it or out of it.
I don’t know if you’ve read Pilgrims progress but there is a point where on his journey to the Celestial City Christian has enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The way is dark, the path is narrow and he is surrounded by quagmire and deep pits, and all sorts of traps and snares – so he steps very carefully. at the darkest point at the mouth of Hell he resorts to a weapon called AllPrayer as he cries… “Oh Lord, I implore you to deliver my soul!” His desire is to at all costs avoiding walking off the good path or encountering a demon, and that is the nature of the prayer.
The prayer is no dissimilar to Jesus own prayer in Gethsemane..
My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me..
It is foolishness to invite suffering and temptation. I’ve heard this, particularly in relation to how the Church has flourished in Nations where Christianity is outlawed.
“What the Church in the Uk needs is a good dose of oppression”….really? We really believe those are the conditions God wants for his children? He wants to see them tortured, beaten and executed?
No, I reject that as nonsense and I want it as far away from me and my family and my friends and my country and this world as it can be. Actually my prayer is Lord, deliver them from evil, let this cup of suffering pass from them, Lord, restore love and peace in humanity….let your Kingdom come, let your will be done.
This is a prayer not just for my life but for us all. The Lords prayer is after all a community prayer. Lead US not into temptation, deliver US from evil. What might have happened at Dunkirk had the nation not prayed.
This is a prayer that is needed for the circumstances we are in today. But it is a prayer that is also will be needed every day until the Lord returns. Yet, how regularly do we pray it.
I think it is a prayer worth praying all the time. Yet how often do we pray it. If you take nothing else from this sermon take away this challenge…pray the Lords prayer every day.
I think like Christian we won’t actually see the ways that God answers this prayer until we are able to look at our lives and see the ways that God has guided and directed our paths
to avoid the pits, snares, traps and getting stuck in hopeless situations.
Therefore, as we close with this encouragement let us be determined to strengthen our prayer life. In doing so let us not neglect this amazing prayer that Jesus taught us. My prayer is that these last few weeks will have expanded your understanding of how the prayer can apply to your life and our lives together as a Church and hopefully deepened your desire to pray. Let’s be known as a people of prayer, let’s commit ourselves making pat of the way we do things around here. And in doing so lets be expectant to see all that the Lord does amongst us.
Group Work
Opening Activity
Read through the Lords prayer verse by verse, pause between each verse and allow the words to rest into your soul. Invite the Holy Spirit to lead your thoughts as you begin to meditate on Gods word.
Questions
- To what extent do your relate to the headings from Spurgeons exegesis and how helpful are they?
- What activities and disciples have you found helpful in developing your prayer life?
- How realistic do you think it is to ‘walk prayerfully’ through your days?
- What might help you to engage with God throughout your day
- How do your hear God’s voice leading you?
- What disciplines have you found helpful to keep your heart and soul in check?
- Do you think that being mindful of our sin can be helpful?
- How do you reconcile the prayer to be delivered from evil and the suffering weexperience as Christians?
- Who has God put on your heart to intercede and pray this for?
Closing Activity
Pray the Lords prayer again and then spend time praying for the situations that the Lord impressed on your hearts from Question 9.