The Lord’s Prayer: Deliver Us from Evil

In W. H. Auden's "For the Time Being," evil King Herod declares that the world is admirably arranged: he likes to sin and God likes to forgive. Our faith is a faith of forgiveness: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." But we don’t receive forgiveness as a sinning license.  Our faith is also a faith of "Lead us not into the time of trial, but deliver us from evil." Our faith is a faith of having been forgiven, to struggle against sin. The final petition of the Lord's Prayer is an encouragement to avoid evil, to resist its attractions, to break with it, to seek deliverance from its hold on us.

 

The key to understanding this request is the word “evil." The last phrase reads literally "but deliver us from the evil." We can’t tell whether Jesus meant "the evil one" (masculine), the devil; or "the evil thing" (neuter), the power of evil. But it’s clear that he meant something quite definite: not just the absence of good, the sort of necessary defect in the best of all possible worlds, but a definite, cunning force arrayed against the will of God.

The problem of evil is much greater than just the problem of your sins and mine. This world, which God created fair and good, has somehow departed from its Maker, and there is a great separation, a great falling away. God's name isn’t hallowed as it should be. God doesn’t rule on earth as God does in heaven. God's will isn’t done promptly, perfectly and willingly. There is at work in the world another will, an evil will, a will that resists and struggles against the will of God. This will wears a thousand disguises. It seems purposive and intelligent. It’s a master organizer, combining our sinful wills into a vast network of evil that seems far greater than the sum of its parts.

The evil makes the world a dangerous place for God's children. It was a dangerous place for Jesus, and he encountered the evil-which he called Satan—again and again: at the beginning of his ministry, at the hour of his death, and in between. He was "in every respect ... tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15).

You know, it’s too bad that in the Middle Ages fantasy went to extremes in picturing Satan in human form, with his red union suit, horns, and tail. In the old days, demons sat on every rooftop. Ghosts haunted castles. Witches rode broomsticks. In the old days superstition gripped the world. Many innocent people—mostly strong and assertive women—were burned. Life moved under a pall of fear and spells and magic.

It was a good thing when the forces of enlightenment put down superstition, the demons ran away, the pall of fear lifted, and scientific investigations and experiments replaced magic. I'm glad I don't throw inkwells at the devil like Martin Luther did when he studied!

But behind all the superstition was a reality that the modern world forgot—the reality of organized, powerful, and pervasive evil. It operates in the world, no matter what name you give to it.

Isn't it strange that toward the end of the scientific, enlightened twentieth century the whole medieval pack of demons has erupted again as if from underground? We have astrology, witchcraft, Satan worship, and who knows what else? There seems to be a principle that whenever something isn’t openly faced and grappled with, but is suppressed and ignored, it will burst out in extreme and distorted forms. After decades of pretending that there is no reality or potency to evil, that it’s merely lack of education or the evolutionary lag, we’re now witnessing such a regrettable and distorted outburst.

If we had but paid attention to this familiar prayer, which we repeat so often, we wouldn’t have forgotten that there are indeed forces outside ourselves that tempt us and entice us to do evil even when we know better. We wouldn’t have forgotten that evil can get us so firmly in its grip that only some other force outside ourselves, the love and power of God, can deliver us.

The world is a dangerous place for God's children. It’s perhaps more dangerous now, more in the grip of evil, than ever before. Sure, we’ve made progress on many fronts and the world has in some respects become a better place, but evil has progressed. Its symbol is no longer a grotesque figure in a red union suit but so-called “weapons of mass destruction” that kill indiscriminately and poison earth and air and water for the long-term future.

In such a world we’re taught to pray, "Deliver us from evil" or, as the traditional prayer says, “Lead us not into temptation.” Does it imply that God would entice us to do evil, would lead us into temptation? That isn’t God's role. The Letter of James makes this clear by saying in effect: "Let no one say when tempted, 'I am tempted by God'; for God can’t be tempted with evil, and neither does God tempt anyone; but everyone is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed" (James 1:13-14).

The confusion deepens when we realize that in the original language the same word may mean either "temptation," where the desired outcome is enticement to evil, or "trial," where the desired outcome is proof of faithfulness and strengthening of character. God does not tempt, but God does test. God put Abraham to the terrible trial of giving up his own son. God put God's own son to the test in the garden of Gethsemane.

Why should we be taught to pray, "Save us from the time of trial"? Well, this dangerous world is full of trials. Is this a way of praying "Stop the world, I want to get off”? Jesus refused to pray such a prayer for his disciples. “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one" (John 17:15). As all parents know, as they watch their children leave home, you can’t grow to maturity—physical, mental, or spiritual—except as you are exposed to this dangerous world. It’s the only school of character. Every follower of Christ knows that God does put us to the test and that test, properly endured, strengthens our faith and aligns our wills to God's will.

Why should we pray, "Save us from the time of trial"? Because we will go through times of trial. We ask God for deliverance in order to keep us from being too confident in our own strength. There is something in us that wants to say to God, "Put me to the test. I can pass it. Bring on the tempter; I can defeat him in fair combat." Or, as Peter put it, "Even though they all fall away, I will not"; "I am ready to go with you to prison and to death" (Mark 14:29; Luke 22:33). Peter went as far as the garden, and there he went to sleep. And Jesus warned him: "Pray that you may not enter into temptation" (Luke 22:40, 46). Far better he should have prayed that prayer than have made his boast. For later that night he denied that he ever knew Jesus.

At the Last Supper Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." Everybody there said, "Lord, is it I?" (Mark 14:18-19). My goodness, didn't they know? No, they didn’t, and you and I don’t know. No one listening to me is automatically and completely and forever incapable of denying Jesus Christ, or of the foulest crimes for which we now despise those whom we label criminals.

“Deliver us from the time of trial.” Don’t leave us without your help in such a dangerous world! Don’t abandon us in our weakness to the tempter's power!

What if we do fall? The prayer goes on, "Deliver us from the evil." Evil is so insidious, cunning, and powerful that we can’t deliver ourselves. But there is a power outside ourselves that can deliver us, a power more powerful than the evil, the power of God. God can snatch us from the grasp of the evil.

To repeat: the world is a dangerous place. And if we trust ourselves to be strong enough to resist all temptations, to go through all our trials in our own strength, we’re fools. But our God is able to deliver us. There is no pit of depression so deep that God can’t draw us out of it. There is no addiction to alcohol or other drugs so enslaving that God can’t give us victory over it. There is no distortion of our highest and best into our lowest and worst so clever that God can’t reveal it to us and deliver us from it. God will deliver us. This prayer will be answered. But if beyond our understanding we’re burned to a crisp in the flames of life, we can still trust God, we can still hang on in the face of death. That is all the deliverance he granted to his own Son. But in that death all the powers of the evil one were trumped and defeated. Death itself was overthrown. And there was deliverance not only for him but for us all.