And Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From Evil

Bienhome Muivah *

A prayer session during Easter Sunday at MBC Church, Chingmeirong, Imphal in 2012 :: Pix - Phurailatpam Banti

Our Lord gives us three prayers to pray for ourselves. One is for the present, "Give us this day our daily bread". One looks both to the past and to the present, "forgive our sin". The prayer looks to the future. As our need to pray for bread and for forgiveness we are in agreement, but most of us take a view different from that of our Lord as to the prayer we should pray for tomorrow.

As we look to the future what is it we need to pray about? What do we fear and shrink from the most? For some the answer is sickness, so we ask God to keep us well, we are interested in preventive medicine. We fear poverty, so we save our rainy days. Others fear suffering. We worry about the possibility of being hurt.

We fear unpopularity and criticism, we fear old age, and we fear death. But when Christ tells us what to pray about for the future, He mentions not one of these things. The one thing we need to pray about for the future is the possibility of doing wrong. The one fear we should have above all fears is that in the midst of temptation we shall slip.

But we take less seriously our Lord's Prayer for the future than we take any of the other five petitions. We are not afraid of temptation. In fact, we are so confident of being able to command our own selves that we make temptation a constant companion.

There is an old story of a man who had been the victim of strong drink but had reformed and apparently was the conqueror of his evil habit. However, when he drove into town, he continued to hitch his horse at the post in front of the town saloon. Eventually he fell into his old ways again. Had he had a healthy fear of temptation he would have changed his hitching past.

Temptation most often comes first as thoughts. In the secret places of our minds we dramatize and act out the thoughts. We read books that describe wickedness, we play with emotional dynamite as if it were a harmless toy. We keep the wrong company. When we go about work or pleasure some enticing voice may whisper, "Lend me your soul". We might hesitate to give away a dime, even if we have a pocketful of coins, but we risk our souls though we know it may be for eternity.

When it is temptation we face foolishly brave. Not so with Jesus. He tells us to fear the temptation of the morrow more than any other thing. Our very strength is our greatest weakness, because the overconfidence in our strength leads to our downfall. We are afraid of our weaknesses and guard against them. But we take chances with our strengths, and that is where we lose. "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" (I Cor. 10:12).

What is temptation? First, it is an inducement to evil. Read the third chapter of Genesis and you see a story that has been repeated in some form in the life of every person who has come after Adam and Eve. The serpent says to Eve, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Eve replied, "All except one. If we eat of that one we shall die". The serpent tells her it will not hurt her. "In fact, if you eat of that tree you will know more, you will have a larger and freer life".

Here her inclinations began to struggle with her reason and conscience. The "Thou-Shalt-not" of God and the bright alluring promise of forbidden pathways came in conflict. Thus, temptation was set up. Second, temptation means a test or a trail. It is like a fork in the roadway of life, when one must decide the direction to take, an action to carry out, a character to be. A mother whose son has been killed may be tempted to become bitter and harsh. One who is facing a difficult life situation may be tempted to escape by getting drunk.

One who is destined to a bed of suffering or the choir of an invalid may be tempted to self-pity. When someone has treated us unfairly there is the temptation to hate, spite, or resentment. One who has prospered is tempted to vanity and self-love. The successful is tempted to seek undue power.

When he was a boy in school Napolean wrote an essay on the dangers of ambition. Yet his own ambition wrecked his life. Moses was noted for his meekness. In fact, the Bible says he was the meekest man on earth (Num. 12:3). Yet, in a moment, when he tried to usurp the power of God by striking the rock, he lost his chance to enter the Promised Land. Simon Peter was noted for his impulsive courage. Yet it was through failure of his greatest strength that he denied his Lord.

A man is no stronger than his weakest moment, and every man has an Achilles' heel, a point of vulnerability. We cannot escape temptation because we are endowed with freedom of choice. And since no person has an iron will, everyone is in danger of falling. We can choose between good and evil, between being true and false, between being brave and cowardly, between being generous and selfish. And the very freedom of choice becomes in itself temptation.

Many stumble at the interpretation of this petition, feeling that God would not lead one of His children into temptation. But God is concerned with the creation of character, and to create character He give us freedom of choice. Otherwise we would be mere puppets.

Life would be much simpler if we had no such freedom. Thomas Henry Huxley once declared: "If some great power would agree to make me think always what is true and do what is right on condition of being turned into a sort of clock, I should instantly close with the bargain. The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with". But one freedom requires the other freedom, thus our temptation.

God gave to each of us a free will, yet the very possession of our freedom should so frighten us that in every possible way we should throw safeguards around it. We should be very afraid of any circumstance that might mean our downfall.

Jesus tells us, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away" (Matt. 5:30). He may mean those words literally, for certainly it would be better to lose one's hand than to lose one's soul. However, I think He means by the hand the work of the hand-"whatsoever thy hand findeth to do …" If your daily job bring you into situations which tempt you, better for one to give up the job even at the cost of sacrifice.

And He says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away" (Mt.5:29). Probably what He means by "thy eye" is the things you have your eyes set on-your goal and ambitions. One can be so set on success, social or material, that he reaches the point where he demands "success at any price". If the direction of your life is a peril to your soul, better to try another road.

"Lead us not into temptation" is a prayer that makes us look at our choices, beyond our goals to the final destination of the road we would travel.

This is a prayer that can be answered and is answered in many ways. Sometimes it is answered by God's direct providence by what we call coincidence. Why is it you missed getting a certain job or opportunity? Maybe it was God intervening. At times this prayer is answered by what we call insight. In certain hard moments of decision we feel deep inside the right course to take.

Most of all is this prayer answered by the inner strength which God gives to all who sincerely desire it. In despair we sometimes throw up our hands. We feel caught in an entanglement of circumstances, or by the chains of some habits, or by our own inherent weakness. We say, what's the use? I cannot do better. But when we sincerely desire to rise above our temptations and look to God for deliverance a new inner strength becomes ours, a new spirit of confidence rises within us.

One of the most sublime verses in the Bible is tucked away in the little book of Jude: "To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy" (verse 24). You begin to realize you are made for victory instead of defeat, that you are to overcome evil rather than to be overcome by it, and triumphantly you declare with the apostle's. "I can do everything through him who gives me strength". (Phil. 4:13).

The biggest lie of the devil is that we have to sin. "After all, you are human", he says, and thereby our high resolved are destroyed. We surrender and quit the struggle. One takes a very different view when he becomes acquainted with a power beyond human power "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me". That is a tremendously powerful truth, once we possess it.

There is a little story we read as children about the engine climbing the hill. As it puffed and struggled it kept saying, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can", is to gain immediate power. But to add two words and say, "I can in Him", "I can in Him", is to multiply your power many fold.

With great confidence in Christ we can triumphantly declare: For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen". We can see the complete victory of God in our own lives and our world. Flee from temptation without leaving a forwarding address!