Lead Us Not into Temptation, but Deliver Us from Evil

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
February 11, 2024
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

Growing up, I enjoyed watching, “Lucha Libre,” It is a Spanish language show that featured wrestlers, some who wore a mask, like “El Santo,” and “Blue Demon.” Then they would bring other wrestlers like Andre the giant, a French wrestler dubbed as “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” because he was 7’4” and weight at 520 lbs. Then there was “The Cat,” (Ernie Ladd), a tall and muscular African-American football player turned wrestler. It was almost mesmerizing to see these people wrestling, apparently killing each other.

As Christians, we’re constantly in a wrestling match.

We’re looking at the last line of the Lord’s Prayer. The apostle Paul describes the Christian life in one word: struggle.

Ephesians 6:12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

We know that “heaven” does not mean “off somewhere,” heaven means “in the spiritual realm.”

We’re at the center of the prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is at the heart of why you and I exist. Additionally, Christian folks like You and I are in a constant wrestling match.

There is a spiritual presence and a force in our lives. I want us to think about 1) Who we fight? 2) What we fight? and 3) How we fight? This morning we’ll focus on who we fight.

Who do we fight? You and I are in a battle. There is demonic activity in many places around the world. One of the largest churches in Brazil is the Satan’s Church.

There are places around the world where people know there is a spiritual realm and it is the very thing, the knowledge of it, that helps them make sense of why things are the way they are in the world.

However here in the modern west we have a different mindset. When an appearance of evil or egregious acts take place, we say, “I think that man needs an education” or “Wow, that’s terrible, he killed some people. We need to bring more finances for rehabilitation.” Instead of saying: “We’re looking at people who are just evil.”

Some of you remember “Silence of the Lambs,” the creepiest film of all time. Hannibal Lecter. The investigator is talking to him and asks, “What happened to you.” And the villain says, “What do you mean what happened to me? I happened to me.”

Hannibal confessed, “You will not admit there is essentially evil in the world and I am the personification of evil, what do you mean what happened to me?”

We’re going around trying to define it in certain ways and the Bible is very clear: we’re in a fight. We’re in a battle.

So today we come to this latter part of the Lord’s Prayer, but before we get there, let’s put this in context as we do every week. The Lord’s prayer is a handbook for holiness, it is the summation of the life of the disciple.

This is for kingdom people. This is not for everyone, this is for people who have set their hearts on the Lord, who received his grace and said, “I am following you.” So the verses we’ve studied of the Lord’s Prayer are proclamations of what we already know it’s true. We’re already walking with Jesus as our guide. So let’s say it together:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

We’re looking at the last verse, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” A first reading it feels like we’re asking the Lord not to tempt us. This is rather strange. In fact, James 1:13 he says, “The Lord doesn’t tempt anyone towards evil.” We’ll make a distinction here, because the Lord does test us.

Some people think that is says, “Now, Lord don’t tempt us…” and that is not what it says. Instead, we’re proclaiming what is true: Father you are the one that can lead us from temptation and from sin, we cannot do it ourselves. I cannot keep myself from evil. I have a propensity towards sin.

The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible, says: Keep us safe from ourselves and from the devil. A modern translation says, “Rescue us from ourselves, the flesh, evil desires and rescue us from the evil one.” The word is “Satan.”

You see, we live on occupied space, there are spiritual forces around us. Our western mindset says, “Isn’t that pre-modern superstition?” And that’s precisely where Satan wants us to be: For us to think we’ve got no enemy, there is really nothing at play, we just live life, we can do this.

A leading American psychologist Andrew DeBlanco, a professor at Columbia University, wrote a book, The Death of Satan: How Americans have lost the sense of evil. DeBlanco who is a self-proclaimed secularist, not spiritual. He is the one who says this: “The great problem in America is that we have lost the sense that there is objective evil and objective good.” He said, “We’ve jettison the idea that cosmic evil, that transcendent evil doesn’t exist. The idea of transgression and the accountable self are fast receding.” I would say, “disappearing.”

We believe the autonomous self can proclaim what is true, what’s not. We say, “I can choose my own truth and I’ll live my own life,” and Satan has sifted us like wheat!

This is where the culture is heading, and some of us are heading, on any given day. If we are not pursing Christ, we are in a battle, we’re in a war.

It is crucial that we are aware that there is stuff coming at us all the time. The devil is real, there is demonic presence around in our world. This is true, we see it in the Bible; Jesus taught and proclaimed it. He came, was tempted by the devil, he came and demons fled, he would talk more about the evil spiritual forces in the world, more than anyone, why? Because the could see them. He knows that this is happening.

And every one of these evil forces they’re intelligent and he and his cronies are all hell bent on capturing our soul and taking us down.

Paul tells us there are spiritual forces, there are cosmic evils. We need to be reminded that there is a spiritual realm. But in Christ we have power to overcome.

There are two kingdoms: The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. Colossians remind us: “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins” Colossians 1:12.

As kingdom people in Christ, our fight is for an unrestrained intimacy with Jesus, that’s where the fight is.

As Christ stirs our affections for him, our focus is on him. What we need is the expulsive power of a new affection that allows any other affection that comes into our hearts and into our minds to be done away with. It is a constant battle, and it happens all throughout life.

To put this in context, the evil force has a three-fold stratagem. John Mark Comer recently wrote a book called Live No Lies: Recognize the three enemies that sabotage your peace. It is a great book and much of this is throughout scripture, in the New Testament in particular.

Three fold: The devil, the flesh and the world. The distinction is, the devil, he plants deceptive ideas in our minds, he deals in disinformation, he is a liar, he is an accuser. Deceptive ideas that play out to our disordered desires. We say, “The Devil made me do it.” No, it’s our own sinful flesh, our propensity toward sin. We have a predisposition toward sin and we need to recognize this. These desires become normalized in a sinful society. This is the world. This is the air that we breathe.  Constant lies that come at us and we need to discern, what is true and what is not. You’ve got to know the truth. This is why we say we’ve got to be in God’s word.

If you’re not in the word, filling your mind about the truth of who you are, about who God is and about the world, no wonder we’re struggling with sin, because we’re not combatting the truth.

These three enemies of the truth: The devil, the spiritual forces, the flesh (self) are constant in our world. The problem is not that we tell these lies to ourselves, but we actually live these lies. All around us are these deceptive ideas that wreak havoc on our souls, our emotional health and our spiritual wellbeing.

We have to be aware of this: Satan out classes us. The demons outclass us with skill, with cunning and experience. He lays countless traps for us, all the time and throughout the day.

C.S. Lewis noted that we either get over-obsessed with it all or believe that this does not exist at all, and this is where most people live.

In Christ, only God can protect us, only the spirit of God can give you power over the evil one. Satan doesn’t just tempt us to sin, he is also the accuser. So that when we fail, when we fall, he is quick to pile ridicule, shame and blame, this is where many of us live most of the time.

Because we want to follow Jesus, we want to live holy lives, and when we fall we feel that we need to pay this penance. Satan says, yeah you’re down, you are not worthy, you’re down, stay down. And we need to keep fighting, that’s the fight for some.

So we need a rescuer, we need a defense attorney. Who will constantly bring us back to where we are. We need God to revive us again; I need God to remind me again of who I am. That’s why worship is so important, we need to be here every week.

Remind me again of how much you love me, that’s who I am, I am loved by you, this is what’s true about you. The regular experience of worship, being with other believers, and hearing the word of God preached and taught is so critical in our lives.

So who do we fight? We fight the devil and the satanic forces that are at work in our lives. Living in this awareness of the enemy is essential to a thriving Christian life.