Lately we have been working our way through The Lord’s Prayer, line by line, in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 6. And we’ve come today to the sixth and final petition of The Lord’s Prayer – “Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Martin Luther is said to have remarked that he prayed the fifth petition that we looked at last week every night – “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” And then he prayed the sixth petition that we consider this morning each new day – “Lead us not into temptation.” At the end of every day he cried out for the forgiveness of his sin. At the start of every day he prayed for protection against the temptation to sin. The fifth petition looks back at the sin into which we have already fallen and pleads for divine pardon. But the sixth petition looks forward to the prospect and possibility of coming temptation and pleads for divine protection.
That means that these final prayers for forgiveness, for deliverance from evil, are solemn reminders to us, aren’t they, that the Christian life is a daily struggle with the world, the flesh and the devil. “We do not wrestle,” the apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We are not wrestling with people, but we are wrestling, if we are Christians, struggling against the proclivity of our own sinful hearts, against the prevailing system of rebellion against God that characterizes the world, and against all the supernatural powers of the devil and his angels who assail us every day. The sixth petition of The Lord’s Prayer is calling us all to take sober cognizance of the fact that we live in a constant spiritual combat zone. And that makes this sixth petition vital battlefield equipment for the trench warfare in which we are engaged.
Now we are going to unpack its teaching under three simple headings. First, we will notice our daily danger. Our daily danger. Secondly, we will consider our deadly enemy. Our daily danger. Our deadly enemy. And finally, we’ll look at our divine Deliverer. Our daily danger, our deadly enemy, and our divine Deliverer. Before we consider each of those, let’s bow again in prayer and ask for the Lord to help us and give us the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Let us all pray.
O Lord, we come to You like those Greeks who came to the disciples and said, “We would see Jesus.” O Lord, we would meet our Savior now in the ministry of Your Word. Grant to us grace, we pray, to see Him in His fullness of mercy and grace for sinners like us, delivering us from all the powers of hell, and in His light, to see ourselves in all our frailties and our proneness to wander and proneness to leave the God we love, that we might flee temptation, submit to God, and resist the devil. For the glory of Your name, amen.
Matthew’s gospel chapter 6 at the ninth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Pray then like this:
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy, inerrant Word.
Let’s think together first of all about our daily danger. Jesus says, “Pray then like this: Our Father, lead us not into temptation.” Temptation is our daily danger. Temptation is aggressive, proactive, infectious, pernicious. It exerts constant pressure on the Christian mind and heart and will and affections, pushing and pushing and pushing us away from obedience to God and toward sin. It is a daily reality which, as we’ve already said, makes this sixth petition urgent and vital for everyone who wishes to live a faithful Christian life to learn to pray. But there are some questions we need to answer if we are going to understand precisely what it is that Jesus intends in this sixth petition. First of all, we need to wrestle with James chapter 1 verse 13, which says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil and He Himself tempts no one.” Now that’s crystal clear, isn’t it? God isn’t tempted ever to sin, and God is never the agent of temptation to sin in any of His creatures. God is not in the temptation business. Now God in His sovereignty certain superintends our temptations, and even our sins, for our ultimate good and His final glory. And yet He Himself never tempts anyone.
You see an example of exactly that in the life and temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t we? In Matthew chapter 5, we read that “Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” The Holy Spirit led Him there to be tempted, and yet God was not the agent of temptation but the devil. He was superintending even these temptations for His ultimately purposes and glory and our deliverance. Not even temptation is outside the purview of the sovereign purposes of God. And there ought to be a great deal of comfort in that if we are Christian people as we wrestle with temptation every day. God, even in this hot, fierce battle for holiness that I often fall short of obedience to God in the midst of, even here, the Lord is at work for His glory and for my good. But we need to be crystal clear that God isn’t, does not, cannot be the source of temptation. So what can it mean then, given that fact, that God never tempts anyone, what can it mean to pray, “Father, lead us not into temptation”? We are asking God not to do what James already tells us He never will do. What’s the point of asking that God refrain from leading us into temptation if He never does lead anyone into temptation?
Well hang onto that question and consider another issue with me that adds another wrinkle to our interpretation of this sixth petition. The Greek word that is translated here as “temptation” can also mean “testing” and it’s really the context that determines whether it’s “temptation” or “testing” in view. This is the same word that is used, for example, in 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 12. “Beloved, do not be surprised that the fiery trial which, when it comes upon you to test you” – there’s our word – “as though something strange were happening to you.” The fiery trial is a test, which Peter earlier has told us, back in chapter 1 verse 17, is designed to refine our faith like gold is refined in the fire. And so God deploys all sorts of trials in our lives, doesn’t He, to test and to refine and to purify our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He aims to deepen our trust in Him and to strengthen the muscles of perseverance in us as we learn to follow Him, no matter what.
Well okay, so where does that get us? Clearly we cannot be praying here that God would not lead us into trials, into tests of faith that have this refining effect, because the Scriptures are clear that He does exactly that all the time. And what’s more, we need those trials, those refining tests. They are principal instruments of our growth in grace. It is, we might say, God’s severe mercy that He does not refrain from sending us tests and trials to mature us and to grow us. Painful though they must often be, they are means of sanctification, of growing in holiness. And so we should give thanks to God that He disciplines those He loves and treats them as children, even in the hardships that in His providence He sends our way.
So what does it mean to ask God to not lead us into temptation? If we’re not asking God to do what He has told us in the book of James He never will do – God doesn’t tempt anyone – and we’re not asking Him to spare us from refining, sanctifying tests and trials, what does the sixth petition mean? Well here’s where I want you to think with me about the second thing to see in this petition. First, our daily danger is temptation, but if we are going to understand that daily danger better, we also need to face, in the second place, our deadly enemy. Look with me at the second half of this petition. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Now some have suggested that Jesus means “deliver us from all sorts, all kinds of evil” – from evil people, evil events, evil experiences. That seems to be the view of the English Standard Version translators – the ESV that we use here at First Pres, for example. They leave it undefined. Merely, “Deliver us from evil.”
But that could still mean, “Deliver us from the evil thing or the evil day,” but it overlooks two facts. First, in the original language, there is the definite article – “Deliver us from the evil” something. And secondly, when this expression is used elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, for example in Matthew 5:37 and in Matthew 13:19, it is used not of evil things or evil days or even evil people, but of the Evil One – capital E, capital O – the devil himself, the tempter, the great enemy of our souls, the ancient dragon, Satan himself. The Evil One, in Matthew 13:19 for example, is the one who snatches away the seed of the Word that is sown in the human heart. So every day that we face temptation, behind that temptation, Jesus says, stands the malice of the Evil One himself, the devil.
And when you hold both parts of this sixth petition together, it begins to help us make much more sense of Jesus’ teaching. It’s not that God might tempt us to sin and so we are asking Him not to do it. Neither is it that we want to refrain from necessary tests and refining trials in life. We need Him to do that. But it is that when God does send tests and trials our way, the Evil One immediately seeks to twist and warp those tests and make them into temptations. He seizes on your chronic illness and on your apparently unanswered prayers for relief. God intends by them to test and refine your faith, causing you to cling to Him more and more tenaciously, especially when you don’t understand what’s happening. He intends to make you long for heaven more and more and love the world and the things of the world less and less. He intends to work in you deeper, wider reservoirs of compassion for others who are suffering so that, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, “With the comfort with which you yourself are comforted in all your afflictions you are now able to comfort others also.” That is God’s agenda in your trials. But Satan comes along and he seizes on those testing experiences, this trying season intended for your sanctification, and he seeks to twist it. So that instead of refining you and maturing you and growing you, he incites bitterness at God in you and impatience with others who don’t understand, and anger and resentment at your own suffering.
Or suppose he allows some personal failure to overtake you – you don’t pass the exam, you don’t get the promotion, you lose your job. Up till now in life, if you’re honest, it seems like everything you’ve touched as turned to gold. You’ve never really had to work all that hard to develop discipline. You’ve never had to make many sacrifices along the way. Everything just seemed to work out. Everything just fell into place before you every step of the way. But you need to know that God is committed to your holiness. And that means He isn’t going to let pride and self-reliance grow for long in the hearts of His children. He will humble us and put us in the dust and smash our idols. And that can hurt, can’t it? But we need to remember that when He does such things He is doing open heart surgery in our life. Isn’t He? His designs in it, though painful, are for our everlasting welfare.
But then Satan comes along and seeks to twist the testing and trying of your faith by suggesting that you are not to blame for your failures. It’s other people’s stupidity that they can’t see your brilliance. Or he’ll suggest that actually you are just a victim. You don’t need to take responsibility. You haven’t been given your fair shake. Or he will suggest that you are a hopeless case, an abject failure that no one would ever want to know, let alone hire. And so you might as well wallow in self-pity. Or he’ll incite you to petty jealousy and spiteful vindictiveness toward other people who have what you have lost or who have achieved what you did not.
Do you see how this works? When we pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” we are praying, “Father, You have every right to lead me into whatever trials and tests you determine is in my eternal best interest. After all, I have already prayed, ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ and so Father, whatever Your will ordains for me, help me to face it in faith, meekly to endure it, make all the tests that You send me profitable and fruitful so that I might grow in grace and in likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ and bear much fruit for Your glory. But Father, when You do lead me into trials like these, please will You keep me from falling into the temptations that Satan certainly will throw my way in each of them? He wants to derail Your agenda for me and thwart Your designs for my good. And so Father, deliver me from the Evil One.” Do you pray like that? On the one hand, coming to God with submission to His will, ordering all your days, including all your trials, all your tests, yet pleading with Him to deliver you from the daily assaults of the devil who would take those trials and turn them into temptations.
Let’s pause for a moment, can we, and let the implications of that land – our daily danger and our deadly enemy. If we are Christians, we are constantly engaged in this very spiritual battle, every day. And we need to feel, I hope we do feel, the danger and the intensity and the urgency of that. Temptations are thrown at us all the time. The evil one is a restless, implacable enemy. He never ceases to strategize and to plot your harm. And to make matters worse, let’s face it, he has an inner ally in our hearts, doesn’t he? We are all sinners already, born guilty with the guilt of Adam’s first transgression, wholly inclined by nature to rebellion and sin. Our hearts, in their natural state, are predisposed to disobedience. And so when Satan dangles sex and gluttony and gossip and jealousy and self-righteousness and vanity and, and, and in front of us, our hearts are already hardwired for all of that, aren’t they? It all looks so very attractive and delicious to us. As I heard one preacher put it recently, “All sin is an inside job.” All sin is an inside job. Satan is the tempter, to be sure, but don’t ever, we don’t ever get to say by way of excuse, “The devil made me do it.” No, no. All sin is an inside job. You did it because you wanted to do it, and your heart was already inclined to do it.
That’s the point that James makes actually in the passage we read earlier from James chapter 1. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil and He Himself never tempts anyone. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed” – listen – “by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.” So the devil may incite us to sin, but it is our own wicked hearts that are the source and the spring of our disobedience and guilt in the sight of God. So we are in the trenches, aren’t we? The fiery darts of the Evil One, they are flying. The bullets whiz past our ears. The bombs are falling. The enemy of our souls is filled with a restless, implacable malice for each of us. And the battle is especially hot. Understand this – if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a sense, you see, in which before you were a Christian, you were no trouble to the devil. You were on his team. But now that grace has renovated your heart, now that you have been saved and made a child of heaven, you have become his enemy. Saving grace, in the eyes of the devil, is like a great big bull’s eye painted right over your heart. He’s coming for you today. He’s coming for you.
So what can we do about it? How should we respond? Well notice with me in the last place, not just our daily danger and our deadly enemy, but our divine Deliverer. Jesus says we are to ask the Father to “deliver us from evil.” Well how does God do that? How will He answer that prayer? Let me just list the ways, some of the ways in which God delivers us and then we’re done. First, God delivers us from the Evil One by triumphing over him at the cross. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Jesus died to destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” At the cross, Paul says, Colossians 2:15, the principalities and powers, these hosts of spiritual wickedness, have been made a public spectacle of as God triumphs over them at Calvary. Never forget, as you wade into sore temptations, amidst all the heavy trials of life, never forget that though he may do his worst, Satan is now today and forever a defeated enemy. Jesus Christ has already beaten him. The seed of the woman has already crushed the head of the serpent.
Now let me also say to you, if you are not a Christian, this is the vital, necessary starting place. You have no hope for deliverance from the ensnaring power of your own sin and all the predatory temptations of the devil, no way of deliverance, no escape through any mechanism you might choose to invent. You can only find deliverance from sin and temptation, from Satan and even from the judgment of God due upon your sin, only in the cross of Jesus Christ. Start here if you want to be free. If you want to be free, go to Calvary and cry to God to have mercy upon you by the blood of His Son. First, God delivers us from the Evil One by triumphing over him in the cross.
Secondly, God delivers us from the Evil One through the heavenly sympathy of Jesus Christ our great High Priest. Hebrews 2:18, “Because He Himself suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 4:15, “We do not have a great High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Jesus was tempted as we are, and yet He remained faithful, though we often fail, so that we can turn to Him in our temptations knowing that His heart beats, it throbs, it pulses with compassion and sympathy for us. He understands and is a storehouse and reservoir of grace upon grace for every child of God who needs Him.
In Luke 22, there is a fascinating little exchange between Jesus and Simon Peter where, I think, we get a glimpse of this high priestly ministry of Christ. He said to Simon, on the night of His betrayal, “Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” “I have prayed for you that you may not fail.” Jesus knows he is going to fall. “Before the cock crows, you will disown Me three times,” He says. Satan’s temptations were going to find purchase in Simon’s heart. And yet the remedy – here’s the remedy – it is the intercession of Christ, our great High Priest. “I have prayed for you.” Our prayers are fallible things, aren’t they? Often weak. And God must often say “No” to them because we ask a mess that we might spend it on our pleasures. But God has never, can never, will never say “No” to the intercession, the cries and prayers of His Son, Jesus Christ, on your behalf. The prayers of Jesus, your sympathetic High Priest, who prays your cause before the throne of heaven, are infallible prayers. Find refuge in the intercession of Jesus Christ.
Thirdly, God delivers us from the Evil One by mercifully limiting our temptations. First Corinthians 10:13 is a vital text that ought to be etched into our memories forever. First Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, He will also provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it.” Listen, it is a lie from hell that says to you, “You are powerless in the face of the devil’s temptations.” If you are a Christian, you are not in the position you were in before you came to know Jesus, where your heart was dead in trespasses and sins and Satan himself was your master. No, now you are a child of God. You have a new heart, and you are enabled by the grace of God more and more to say “No” to sin and “Yes” to righteousness. You have the ability, this text is saying, to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. You hand the enemy weapons every time you say, “I’m too weak. The temptation is too strong. I can’t help it.” Yes you can. Yes you can. Believe the Word of God and stand firm.
Fourthly, God delivers us from the Evil One by the diligent use of the means of grace, especially the Word of God and prayer. He delivers us by the Word. Remember the Lord Jesus, when He was tempted in Matthew chapter 4, how does He respond to each of the assaults of the devil? Well it’s very clear. He has been steeping His mind and heart in the Word of God, perhaps to your surprise, steeping His mind and heart in particular in the book of Deuteronomy of all places. We often read Deuteronomy and wonder, “What in the world do I do with this? Surely it has no relevance for my Christian life.” The Lord Jesus found in Deuteronomy the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, by which to defend Himself against the attacks of the devil. Get yourself into the Scriptures. Even those parts of it that are difficult and challenging, you will find it a great defense against the predations of the devil.
And not only the Word, but also prayer. Matthew 26:41, echoing the sixth petition of The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said to His disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, “Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Our flesh is inclined already to sin. We are predisposed to give into temptation, no matter how willing we are to be obedient. And so we need to pray and cry to God. That’s what Jesus is teaching us to do here. You’ve done a thousand things to resist temptation, created all sorts of systems to regulate your life and provide accountability. Have you been a man or a woman of diligent, faithful, consistent prayer? Prayer is the tool Jesus gives us that we might not fall into temptation.
Fifthly, God delivers us from the Evil One by watchfulness. Watch and pray. Not just pray, but keep watch also. What does it mean to keep watch? It means to be constantly on your guard against the pathways and schemes of the devil by which temptation comes to us. It certainly means not to play with your pet sin while you are busy praying, “Oh Lord, keep me from temptation.” You are a pornography addict, and you pray every day against temptation and deliverance from evil, but you will not take radical steps to cut off access to those screens. You avoid accountability. You are lying to yourself and you are putting yourself constantly in the road of temptation. It’s no use praying, “Lead me not into temptation” while you refuse to keep watch against temptation. Put it away. Stop playing with it. Keep watch. Be on your guard. We should submit to God, resist the devil, and flee temptation, but instead, too often we indulge temptation, submit to the devil, and flee from God! No, Jesus says, watch and pray if you want to stand firm against temptation. Watching without praying fails for lack of power, lack of heaven’s power. But praying without watching fails for a lack of due diligence. You’re kidding yourself if you are crying to God to help you when you will not take the steps He commands you to take to be on your guard.
And finally, God delivers us from the devil when we stand on His promises by faith. Romans 16:20 in particular comes to mind. Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Do not get discouraged by yesterday’s failure or by today’s weaknesses or by the prospect of tomorrow’s battles. The promise of God stands sure and firm and guaranteed. Satan has already been defeated, remember, at the cross of Jesus Christ. And that means he will certainly soon be trampled beneath the feet of even your weak and often stumbling Christian life. The people of God will never be destroyed by the Evil One, not because we are strong or wise or gifted, but because Christ has conquered. Christ has conquered. Don’t get up in the daily battle with temptation. Remember the victory is assured. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Keep watch and pray. Our Father, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the Evil One, and march back into the war zone, knowing that the battle belongs to the Lord.
Our daily danger is temptation. Our deadly enemy is the Evil One himself. But our divine Deliverer, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our all-conquering Savior who works by various means for our defense so that when the enemy comes in like a flood, even then the battle belongs to the Lord. Let’s pray together.Our God and Father, how we praise You for Your holy Word. We ask You please to forgive us for being people who pray without keeping watch, or people who think that by our own watchfulness, attentiveness and diligence we can neglect prayer. In both ways, You have seen us when under the tests and trials that You design for our sanctification, we have instead fallen into temptation. O God, our prayer is therefore again anew, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One and grant us the help of Your Spirit to watch and pray, for we confess the Spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak. Hear our cries, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.