Keep Me from Temptation

Meditation June 2,2020

Matthew 6

“ ‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

10your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

11Give us today our daily bread.

12And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

 

We have before us not the last two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. We will not deal with that part of the prayer as found in the KJV and other versions that reads “for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. It is not found in the NIV and there are good arguments made that it was not a part of Jesus original teaching but added later either by Matthew or by a copier of the Greek manuscript. If such was the case, it was very early on that such took place and only later, much later, when various Greek texts were found that some were found not to have that phrase included. The phrase does appear in the Byzantine majority text. For myself, I think the Byzantine text, because it belonged to the Greek speaking church, is likely the most accurate, so I accept the phrase as part of the prayer and will continue to do so until the Lord Himself appears and tells me it was not original in the prayer as He taught it. In any case, it is a doxology and there is not much more than that to be said about it. That being the case, I will deal with the phrase no more than what has been said; i.e. it is a doxology.

 

There are fundamental needs that all men have. First and foremost, they need to recognize God. The great crime of mankind is that knowing God they neither glorified Him nor thanked Him nor acknowledge Him; consequently, God gave them over to a depraved mind and the rest, as they say, is history. It has been and will continue to be a sad history as long as man refuses to acknowledge God. Therefore, the first petition of the prayer Jesus teaches is for God to grant us that we acknowledge Him as we ought. The second of the fundamental needs of man that Jesus addresses in the prayer is the need for food, water, those things that are needful to sustain physical life and wellbeing; i.e.; our daily bread. Thirdly, we need pardon, we need to be forgiven in order that we may approach our God.

 

Thomas Boston divides the life of man into four stages, posse peccare, non posse no peccare, posse non peccare and non posse peccare; i.e. possible/able to sin, not possible/able not to sin, possible/able not to sin and not possible/able to sin. Adam was created innocent but able to in. All the sons of Adam are born into the stage of not possible/able not to sin. Being born again, born from above and brought into Christ, believer are now in the state where we are able not to sin. The money on our back is the old man of sin against whom we fight daily “our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with” (Romans 6:6). That is our current state. There is, as Paul acknowledges, a war going on within our members (Romans 7:23) It is the burning of dross from the gold; a war in by which we are daily made more and more into the image of Christ. Thus, our fourth fundamental need is for protection in the battle. For that protection, Jesus teaches us to pray “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

 

Those who pray the Lord’s prayer, actually pray it considering the words they are repeating, are often and understandably perplexed at the thought that God may lead us into temptation. How can it be that God would lead us into temptation? Do we not have trouble enough with temptations without God leading us to them? That question is cleared when we understand that temptation here means a test or trial. Language changes and we must be careful to understand language as it was used when something was first said or written. Peirasmos means to test or try. It can also mean to tempt, a temptation or both test and tempt. Context determines whether it is this, that or both. We know God does not temp anyone (James 1:3) nonetheless, I think that here the meaning is both trial and temptation.

 

How, if God does not tempt us, can the meaning be both? Trials are for our benefit, our sanctification; to make us more and more into the image of Christ, and in and of themselves are not temptations that God sets before us. That said, we are yet only able not to sin which means that though we are now new creatures in Christ Jesus we are still able to sin and often that which God means for good the old nature that remains in us tends to turn to evil to evil and we are tempted in a trial when we are led away by our own lusts or desires. (James 1:14) Consequently, what God sends as a trial, the old nature of sin that remains in us tends us to turn it into a temptation. Thus, Jesus teaches us to pray “lead us not into temptation”.

 

What God intends for good, the tempter, Satan, tries to exploit by that sin nature that remain in us to turn that test to his ends and our ruin. Satan did so with Job and he did so with Peter when Peter denied the Lord. God will not let his own be taken again captive by sin and in the end came to the rescue of Job, and Jesus before Peter sinned in denying Him told Peter He had prayed for him so that his faith would not ultimately fail. Jesus knows Satan. He was led away into the wilderness to be tried by Satan. He was tried in every way that we are; yet without sin. Jesus knows well that the pressures of a trial can be appallingly difficult. So much was the pressure, the Lord in the garden fell on His face before the Father sweating great drops of blood and beseeching God “Father, remove this cup…” When even the Son of God, clothed in the flesh of man, rages such war under trial that He beseeches the Father for His protection, rightly does he teach us to pray that the Father will not lead us into such trial that we cannot withstand the test. So we plead with our Father that he will deliver us from evil, from the temptations into which the remaining lusts of our flesh would lead us when under trial.

 

When we honestly look at the power of sin and at our too often proven weakness under trial, we cringe at the thought of the temptations that arise in our hearts when under trial; thus the petition for God to provide that which we ourselves do not have. One of the great old hymns of the church says “Day by day and with each passing moment strength I need to meet my trials here” so the petition of the prayer ‘lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Trials will come and must come but “ As I would not run into temptation of myself, I pray thee, do not lead me where I must inevitably meet it. But if I must be tried, Lord, deliver me from falling into evil, and specially preserve me from that evil one, who, above all, seeks my soul, to destroy it. Temptation or trial may be for my good, if I am delivered from evil. Lord, do this for me, for I cannot preserve myself (Spurgeon)