PRAYER ROOMS
Tuesdays (online only today)
PRAYER GUIDE
“But deliver us from evil.”
Jesus ends his instruction on prayer by teaching us to pray for deliverance from evil. There are two fundamental truths that are implied by this prayer. The first is this: there is evil at work in the world. As we learned last week when we discussed temptation, our world is not spiritually inert. It is not a moral vacuum. Our world is a spiritual battlefield and has been ever since the Garden of Eden and even before.
When God created the world, he made it good. And yet that goodness has been twisted as humans and angelic beings rebelled against God’s leadership and good order. And this rebellion and all the chaos that it has unleashed on the world is evil. The world we inhabit is in many ways, occupied by evil, as was Europe during the early part of World War II.
The Apostle John in his first epistle, pointed out that, in a reverse mirroring of the Holy Trinity, evil is at work in the world in the unholy trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil. That is, evil, over time can and does become embedded in the systems of the world. The institution of slavery in America is a blatant example. Over time the evil of slavery was embedded in the political, economic, and religious systems of our nation – so deeply that even if individuals opposed slavery – they were unable to dislodge it from its hold on America. It was so deeply embedded in the American way of life that it took a Civil War and 100 more years and many movements for social justice to affect it. Slavery is only one of many evil systems that are embedded in the systems of the world.
Evil is not only embedded in human systems and culture but it is reinforced by the devil. That is, evil is backed and fanned into flame by spiritual forces that remain in rebellion to God and his Kingdom. We talked last week about Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness and Adam and Eve in the garden. In like fashion, any effort to dislodge evil from human systems will be opposed not only by those systems but by the spiritual forces that support those systems. This is why scripture commands us to keep watch, to be aware of the devil and his schemes. Not to give the enemy a foothold in our lives.
Finally, evil takes root in the flesh. That is, evil exists in the unredeemed aspect of human nature. Because of the Fall, we human beings possess the instinct for evil within us. When the Holy Spirit regenerates our heart, we are given a new nature that wants to do good, but we remain subject to the inertia of the flesh, which is bent towards evil even when we want to do good.
The second truth implied in Jesus’ prayer is that we need to be delivered from evil. We cannot battle evil on our own, it is too strong for us. The devil is too strong for us. The world systems are too strong for us. And yes, even the evil within us is too strong for us. In order to battle and defeat evil in us, in the world, and in the heavenly realms, we need God. We need God’s strength, wisdom, goodness, and deliverance.
It is Jesus, who on the cross, defeated evil. We could never hope to do it. He came and died to do what we could never do. To bind the strongman Satan who had, like Hitler in Europe, laid claim to our world. Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. Jesus defeated Rome and every empire on the cross. And Jesus defeated even the human flesh that he took on in the incarnation.
And so we are called to pray “deliver us from evil.” And this means 1) we are to become aware of evil in the world and 2) we are to trust in God and His power to deliver us and 3) we are praying for an expansive “us,” not just you and me personally, not just those we love, but for the entire human family. We are praying for God’s deliverance and rescue and salvation from the evil that has occupied our world since the Fall.
For Prayer/Reflection:
- Where are you experiencing evil? In the world, from the Devil, in your flesh? Pray for God’s deliverance?
- Where do we see evil at work in the church? Pray for deliverance?
- Where is evil at work in our city or region? In its systems? Where is this evil reinforced by spiritual forces in the heavenly realms? Let’s name these places and ask for deliverance?
In Our Time 