The Lord's Prayer--Seventh Petition

But deliver us from evil.

A man entered the lecture hall carrying a large roll of white paper. He unrolled the paper and hung the huge sheet on the wall. Taking a marker from his pocket, he put one black dot in the center of the paper; he then turned to a student in the front row and asked what she saw. "A black spot", she replied. The lecturer asked other students what they saw; each one gave the same reply—they all saw a black spot. Finally, the man shouted: "Isn’t there anyone here who can see the big white sheet?"

We can become so narrowly focused on the little black spots in our lives that we lose sight of the big white sheet of God’s goodness that surrounds us. We tend to forget that in spite of all the evil mankind is responsible for, there is still much good in this world. There is good food, fresh air, comfortable clothing; there are stoves and refrigerators, washers and dryers, cars and tractors. The world is blessed with babies, children and teenagers; husbands, wives and parents. Best of all, there is our Father in heaven who gives us life and health, His Son Jesus who repairs our broken relationships and fills our lives with love, and the Holy Spirit who gives us comfort and strength. There is the promise of God’s forgiveness, the offer of His wisdom, and the invitation to eternal rest in heaven. God surrounds us with goodness.

However, we are also surrounded with evil. There are fires and droughts, storms and floods, earthquakes and famines. There are fights and lies, broken hearts and broken homes. There are wars and murders and suicides. There are incurable diseases. There are false religions, false preachers, false hopes. There is pride, selfishness, disobedience and unbelief. There is self-righteousness, love of sin, rejection of Christ. The world is full of evil, and unless God rescues us, we will suffer under the curse of evil both here in life and eternally in hell. And so we need to pray, deliver us from evil.

The root cause of all evil is sin. When God had finished His creation He looked at everything that He had made, and it was very good (Genesis chapter one). There was no taint of evil. Sin and evil did not become a part of human existence until the devil tricked our first parents into disobeying God. Sin has its origin with the devil. However, we contribute to the evil in the world whenever we choose to follow the devil’s enticements instead of God’s commands.

We do not have to submit to the Devil’s control—not since Jesus came and crushed the head of the Great Serpent by dying on the cross for our sins. The devil does not have any power over those adopted by God as His children. Jesus assures us: My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand (John 10:27-28). Jesus has assumed the responsibility of being our shepherd, and as our shepherd He protects us from the hellish predator. The only danger the Old Serpent can threaten us with is the danger of the lure; just as a fisherman uses a lure to entice fish to bite, so Satan tries to hook us by dangling sparkly temptations before our eyes. Satan knows that he cannot forcibly take us away from God, so he tries to get us to abandon God on our own.

Because God provides everything that we need through Jesus, there is no reason for us to sin—there is nothing the devil can offer us that we need from him. Yet we still listen to him, still want what he offers, still sin, and the result is evil. Instead of raising their children to fear and love God, parents allow them to do what they want, with the result that their children grow up disobedient and selfish—and then the parents act surprised. Instead of investing his marriage with his time and energy, a man becomes so involved with making money that his wife ends up leaving him for the arms of someone else—and then the husband acts surprised. Instead of being content with what they have, people spend every free moment shopping, with the result that they end up unable to pay their bills and have to file for bankruptcy—and then they act surprised. Sin always leads to a bad end, and yet in spite of this obvious truth, people continue to flirt with the devil and leave behind God and the path of happiness. This is what we sinners do; this is why Jesus taught us to pray, deliver us from evil.

Sometimes we wonder why God seems slow in answering this prayer. We don’t understand why He allows a time of suffering to drag on and on. Sometimes it almost seems as if unbelievers are better off than we are; Jeremiah asked God: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? (Jeremiah 12:1) We have to understand that the suffering we Christians undergo is not the same kind of suffering that afflicts unbelievers. Psalm 103 tells us: he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. When Jesus suffered on the cross, He was subjected to all of God’s punishment for our sins--this means that the hardships in our lives are not because God is punishing us.

Unbelievers are punished because they reject Christ as their Savior. We Christians, however, are disciplined by God to keep us from falling into sin and the evil that it brings. A Christian and a non-Christian might face the same problem or have the same illness, yet there is a vast difference, because the unbeliever is being punished under God’s wrath, while the believer is being disciplined under God’s love.

A farmer had an apple tree and a peach tree. As the peach tree grew it became more and more of a nuisance; when the farmer walked through the garden gate the branches would knock off his hat and catch at his sweater. One morning, as the farmer went to work in his garden, one of the branches struck him right in the eye. Stomping off to the garage, the farmer grabbed his shears and whacked the peach tree down to size. As he finished, the farmer noticed the apple tree; since he already had the shears, he decided to prune the tree. He ended up cutting more branches off the apple tree than he had off the peach tree, yet there was a considerable difference: one was cut down in anger, the other was carefully trimmed in love.

So it is that unbelievers suffer under God’s anger, while Christians are disciplined with His love. The person who suffers most is not necessarily the worst sinner. Job and Paul are just two examples of godly men who endured many afflictions. When hard times come, it is not so much about what we have done as what God seeks to do through us once we have been properly prepared.

Our Lord’s foremost concern is to save us for everlasting life with Him in His kingdom. If it takes trials and struggles to bring about this blessed result, then the Lord in His love will use them. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us: Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Uninterrupted prosperity and health are dangerous to the soul. When a pastor visited a member in the hospital, the sick man told him: "I did something today that I haven’t done in years—I prayed." This man had been in church Sunday after Sunday, and had said his table prayers before and after each meal; but it was not until God made this man look up at Him while lying on his back in a hospital bed that true heart-felt prayer came about. And even though God had not yet relieved him from his suffering, he felt good in telling his pastor "I prayed."

Sometimes God sends trials to reveal Himself to us more fully. Near Jerusalem lived two sisters and their brother—Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Jesus loved them all and was frequently a guest in their home. But even though Jesus loved them, Lazarus became ill. As soon as his sisters realized the seriousness of his condition, they sent for Jesus. The disciples may have been puzzled that the Teacher didn’t rush to the home of His friends—in fact, by the time that Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead and buried for four days. Why did God permit the sickness to take Lazarus? Why did Jesus allow the grief that comes with seeing a loved one die? In this case, we are permitted to glimpse the reason. When Martha met Jesus, the following words were exchanged: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world" (John 11:25-26). Mary and Martha trusted in Jesus, but imagine how much stronger that faith became when Jesus spoke the words Lazarus, come out! and their brother was restored to them alive once more (John 11:43). On that day, these three people, along with the entire town, were rewarded with a new appreciation for the power of the Savior. Sometimes our Lord permits hardships to linger, so that when deliverance finally comes, we appreciate His love and care all the more.

And sometimes God permits troubles to nip at us so that we are bumped from our comfort zone and look at our lives as Christians from a new perspective. A man in Missouri had terrible asthma; he eventually moved to Arizona for relief. While in Missouri, he had done little more for the Lord than simply to attend church; but in Arizona, he helped start a new mission congregation and served many years as Sunday School Superintendent. Jesus said, I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful (John 15:1-3). If you have felt oppressed by some lingering problem, perhaps God is trying to get you to think "outside the box"; maybe He is nudging you to serve Him in a way that you haven’t previously considered.

As odd as it may sound, some suffering is good for the soul. In Romans chapter five Paul tells us, We can rejoice…when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us--they help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. And this expectation will not disappoint us. In 2nd Corinthians 4:17-18 he says, our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever. Every trial in the life of a Christian is for our good, unless we refuse to see God’s love in it and instead grow bitter and thus turn to the devil. Deliver us from evil is a prayer that God will fulfill His promise in Romans 8:28 that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.

Deliver us from evil is prayer that God would keep us safe—safe from hunger, homelessness, sickness or anything else that would threaten to destroy us. Even more importantly, it is a prayer that God would save our souls. The greatest evil of all is to be cut off from God, to end life without faith in Jesus and with our sins unforgiven, to suffer in loveless isolation the agony of dying forever in hell. Deliver us from evil is a fitting end to the Lord’s Prayer, because in it we ask God to guide us through life, shield us from Satan and sin, and finally take us from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven.