Do Not Lead me Into Temptation, but Deliver me From Evil
Matthew 6:9-13 (NKJV) 9“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
As we come to the end of Jesus’ prayer template, we have been seeing prayer through the eyes of Jesus. When we pray as he prayed, prayer becomes a powerful weapon against our adversary, the devil. As we come to the end of this study, we see some statements that can, on the surface, seem a little out of place. He prays that God would not lead us into temptation and that he deliver us from evil. Why would Jesus tell us to ask God not to lead us into temptation. The same Holy Spirit who inspired Jesus to give us this template for prayer also inspired James to write these words in his letter.
James 1:13 (NKJV) 13Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
If God does not tempt us, why would he lead us into temptation. It is obvious in his prayer that Jesus considers that being led into temptation would be something that is not good. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus told his disciples to pray so they would not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41.) It is also important to understand that the word for temptation here also means testing and, by implication, adversity. Does this mean that if we pray according to this part of Jesus’ template, we never have any temptation, any testing times or any adversity in our lives. I only wish that were true.
In James 1:13 we find a key phrase. He says God does not himself tempt anyone. Temptations, Testing and even adversity come to all of us. However, it is not God who brings these things. All these things are part of the human experience. They are in the world. James further reveals how they gain entrance.
James 1:14 (NKJV) 14But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
We are tempted, and by extension, tested and fall into adversity, when we are drawn away from God’s ways by our own desires. Some of our desires are easily perverted by the devil or the world. Every one of us will find ourselves in situations where we give in to something that produces bad things in our lives. What is Jesus praying for, and what is he putting into our prayer life that will help us resist the devil.
There are two other scriptures that I think can shed some light on this, and both occur at times when Jesus himself is praying. While I believe he was praying when he gave us this template, the two verses I want to look at happen as Jesus is exercising his own prayer life. The first comes at the beginning of the greatest time of testing and trial he would experience on earth.
Luke 22:41-42 (NKJV) 41And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Jesus knows what is before him. He asks the Father to take this cup from him. He did not want to be crucified. It might be said that Jesus is asking God not to lead him into this temptation, test and trial. One might say, “Surely Jesus wasn’t tempted.” Hebrews 4:15 makes it clear that he was.
Hebrews 4:15 (NKJV) 15For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
The key to overcoming testing, temptation and trial is what he says next. “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” God did not just lead him into a place of temptation to see if he could get through without giving in. Jesus led him into the will of God. God was not tempting him. His humanity was tempting him. I believe it is valid for us to pray and ask God to keep us out of temptation, testing and trials. However, there will be times when we must go through these things. Sometimes they will come because we are in the world and the world challenges us in all three ways this Greek word implies.
Other times we find ourselves in these situations because God has called us to do something that will take us into enemy territory. We must be willing to deal with them no matter what the cause may be. One of the most powerful things we can pray when they come is, “not my will but yours be done.” We will never pray that in faith unless we believe that God is not just testing us to find out what we will do There is always purpose behind God’s leading.
Let me look at one more time when Jesus was praying and not teaching on prayer.
John 17:14-16 (NKJV) 14“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
As Jesus prays for his disciples, and by extension us, he says that we are not of the world. Once we are born again, our life is no longer drawn from the world but from God. We are part of this world in the flesh, but we are not of this world. We are different. Even so, Jesus does not pray that God would take us out of the world. How could any of us reach those who are not yet in relationship with God through Jesus if we were not still in the world?
Jesus understood the world. He was tempted according to Hebrews 4:15 in every way that we are. He knows that keeping us in the world is putting us in a position of vulnerability to temptations, testing, and trials or adversity. However, the 12 he was praying for directly had to stay. They were going to face some very difficult things. They were going to be tempted to give in to the pressure of rejection, torture and martyrdom. What is the answer for them and for us. We are not likely to face what they did, but we do face temptations, testing and trial all the time.
The answer is exactly the same as what he prayed in his prayer template. He asked God to keep them from the evil one. Most of my quotes are from the NKJV Bible. The original King James says deliver them/us from evil. The Greek word can be translated either way. When we face temptation or temptation or even the trials of adversity, we can be assured that God is with us in whatever we are facing. He is not the problem. He has not led us into something just to see how we react, hoping we do not fail. He is with us and if he is with us, no one, not even the devil, can succeed against us.
There are many people more studied and smarter than me who can probably give you a scholarly exposition of what this part of Jesus prayer means. I can only tell you how it has helped me in my life. I know that God is not leading me astray. I pray he will not lead me into difficult circumstances, but if I find myself there, I know he is not behind the temptation, the testing or the trial. They may be part of what I must go through to get to where I need to be, but he is not the source of my problem.
I also know without any shadow of doubt that no matter how I got into this difficult situation, he is with me and his hand of protection is upon me to overcome both the evil one, Satan, and anything his evil has brought into my life. I will prevail, and when I pray the way Jesus prayed, I release the power to get me through.
Leave a Reply