Protection

FCF: Have you ever wondered why we often struggle during testing?

Main Idea: God's grace is not just abundant; it is all-encompassing. Through His Son, He has bestowed upon believers the power to triumph over testing and temptation, filling us with hope and empowerment.

Introduction

I remember that, growing up, one of my favorite movies was The Matrix. It is one of the best science fiction movies ever made. It has a character named Neo who remembers this event from another character named Morpheus, who presents him with a choice. Now, Morpheus is trying to convince Neo that the world he is living in is fake. In the movie, he gives him a test or a choice to take the red or blue pill. It is through this choice that the whole film is set up. Like Neo had an option during this testing time, so do we. We face testing times all the time. During these test times, we can see God’s faithfulness shining through. I want to ask (FCF) why we have difficulty during testing. Even though Remember, God is always faithful, even in our most challenging times. His faithfulness is our anchor, our comfort, and our reassurance. We must remember that during these times, God was gracious; He allowed believers to overcome it through His Son.

Context

As we embark on this series, we encounter the pinnacle of the Lord’s Prayer. Our Lord, Jesus, imparts a final instruction on how to conclude our prayers in life. This concluding part is not just a general guideline but a deeply personal mission for each of us, serving as a bridge connecting prayer to our daily lives. It urges us to pray for an area of our human life where we are most vulnerable. The challenges we face in our spiritual journey are temptation and, more significantly, spiritual warfare. But have we ever wondered how this prayer is relevant to our daily struggles? What if this prayer could give us the strength and guidance we need in our daily battles? Let's embark on this journey of exploration together, stirring our curiosity and deepening our understanding.

Let's unpack the first clause, “Lead us not into temptation.” What does this mean? It begins with a seemingly puzzling request from our Lord: Does God lead us into temptation? This might be linguistically confusing for some, leading to a lack of comprehension. However, a deeper understanding of the original word for temptation, πειρασμός (peirasmos), can offer us a more direct interpretation of this clause, bringing us comfort in our daily lives. This word is translated as temptation, but what does that mean? While the debate over this word could yield various theological insights, the most common interpretation is “test or trial.” We know that God is never the one who causes temptation. (James 1:13) So what is this testing, then? This testing is conducted in a variety of ways. One of these ways is that our Lord instructs us to pray that we are not led to be tested like our Lord Jesus. This understanding can give us a sense of security in our faith, knowing God is with us in our struggles.

We can also look at the Old Testament when God tested Israel for faithfulness. We see God Test Israel in the wilderness. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3 ; 13:1-3) We see God test the people after giving them the law in Exodus to see if they will follow him. (Ex. 20:20). God constantly tests his people to ensure they are faithful. In the O.T., unfortunately, we see the Israelites fail this test continually. It is there that we see the need for a savior.

Deuteronomy 8:2–3 CSB

Remember that the Lord your God led you on the entire journey these forty years in the wilderness, so that he might humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your ancestors had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 13:1–3 CSB

“If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let’s follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let’s worship them,’ do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.

This testing of Jesus, a testament to his strength and faith, can be found in Matthew 4. During this narrative, we see our Lord, who is being tested. Satan is testing him to abandon. This testament shows that Jesus, our guide and example, also faced trials and temptations. It reminds us we can overcome our tests and temptations with faith and perseverance. But what is the difference between this testing period and our testing period? First, let's look at this narrative. Our Lord, going through his temptation, is different. He did not fall into temptation. Even though Jesus never failed in his testing period, we can also reflect that unto us to rely on God during ours. While this initial application shows the disciples, who were the original audience, were to pray that they are not being tested as Jesus shows us that we are to rely on our Lord. This comparison helps us understand our unique challenges and how to navigate them with faith and reliance on God. This inspiring example of Jesus can motivate us to face our struggles with faith and reliance on God.

This reality of us being tempted or tested is a different scenario. We consistently see that we are weak spiritually. This testing period would be brutal. One doesn’t have to look far again at Jesus' testimony. He was tempted with the same temptations that we have. He can relate to us because of His humanity without sacrificing His divinity. What happens to us during our testing period? We can look at some situations we put ourselves into—God testing us. Then what are we praying about? We should pray that with the help of God, we will not be put into situations where we will be tempted. Martin Luther says, “Not that we are not to be tempted but that when temptation comes, we are to remain steadfast in faith and not let temptation get the upper hand.”[1]

Now, let's look at the final section of verse 13. Matthew records our Lord, “but deliver us from the evil one.” The first action we must seek is to deliver to us. What does that mean? How are we delivered from the evil one? According to Quarles, this would “deliver” is closely associated with “saving someone from something they cannot save themselves from. (Quarles. Pg. 191) Quarles highlights a spiritual reality from us. In the time of the testing, when faced with temptations, we cannot rely on ourselves. This is no more evident than the fall. While being tempted by the serpent, Adam even fell into temptation. Through that, we can see that humanity cannot resist temptation.

This “evil one” can be translated to other “evil.” Nevertheless, this depiction is paramount to this final clause. Grammatically, God is the one that tests, “do not lead us into testing or trials.” Syntactically, the devil is the one who tempts us. God allows us to be tempted. The devil does the tempting. So, Jesus is teaching the disciples to pray in a way that does not lead to temptation. We are to be delivered from the one who is tempting us. As we have already established, we cannot save ourselves. This evil one even tried to tempt our Lord. Remember that it was the devil that tempted Jesus in Matthew 4. He tried to give our savior false promises. This same evil influences not just Christ's life but all of us.

You may have noticed that I have excluded a part of the prayer in some translations. If you read from the KJV or NKJV, you will see that the conclusion of the prayer reads, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” To be fair to this point, I have chosen not to expand on this for various reasons. Some may ask why the Bible is missing some verses. But let me be very honest. These verses are not missing. They were never in the Bible to begin with. Much to the appeal of social media is the absence of actual accredited arguments that deal with arguments. We don’t include some of these passages because they do not appear in our earliest and most reliable manuscripts. They show up late in our manuscripts. Our Bible is reliable insofar as it is translated correctly and carefully. To quote one commentator, “Surely it is more important to know what the Bible contains and means than to cling to something not really in the Bible, merely because it gratifies our taste, or even because it has for us some precious associations” (Matthew, D.A Carson, EBC, pg. 174)

Application

In the order that our Lord teaches us how to pray, we see a theological issue that we often don’t consider. It is spiritual warfare. This is an issue that has plagued the church. What are we supposed to do when we feel tempted? Well, I believe Christians can prevail when presented with a tempting situation! First, let me say this: if you put yourself in a tempting situation, you are foolish. An example is that you complain about how the temptation is to have premarital sex when you are alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend or even when you live with them. I have been told these two scenarios in the past. Intentionally putting yourself in danger rather than asking God to rescue you is dumb.

There are two ways to fight temptation: by immersing yourself in God's word and thinking about God's armor (Eph. 6). The weapon we have in our arsenal is the Word of God. We must cling to this Word because it is our only way to battle against the enemy. This is how we attack temptation. When we get into temptation, we must rely on God's Word. The more time we spend in the world, the more time we can prepare for the next attack. Just look at what our Lord did when we faced a time of testing. He quoted scripture when the devil tempted him. Should we not do the same? Let’s use this as the foundation if our Lord did it.

The final area in which we can begin to fight the battle is through prayer. Prayer towards our heavenly father is paramount to this struggle and is one of the most critical aspects we often forget. When we face this time, we should go to prayer first. I remember praying to God when I faced these trials to take it away. I also remember what St. Augustine says, “if he (the believer) prays for that he is not brought into temptation, is thengranted to him, then certainly, in sanctification, which by the gifts of God he has to obtain, the gift of God that he (the believer) also persists.”[2]Augustine identifies that we can resist temptation only by a gift from God himself. Again, he highlights that we must pray for it. We must remember this critical stage in our defense.

[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 36: Word and Sacrament II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 36 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 190 [2]The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 86, Gift of Perseverance, Agustine, pg. 278