Let's Start Praying More (Part 18)

 
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION: A BIBLICAL EXAMPLE
 

“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matt 6:13)

 

God will test a person “that He might know all that was in his heart” (2 Chron 2:32), but temptation does not originate from God, “for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone,” (James 1:13). Often we think of Satan as the source of temptation.  He tempted Eve in the garden, Jesus after He came out of the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11), and Paul feared for some of the Thessalonians, “that the tempter might have tempted you,” (1 Thess 3:5). The NIV took this position in translating the LORD'S prayer, “deliver us from the evil one.”

 

The Jewish perspective would more often be “deliver us from the evil inclination,” that is, our own sinful nature found in the flesh. James appears to adopt this view writing, “Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it bring forth death,” (James 1:14-15).

 

The truth resides in a combination of the two. Our evil inclination (the flesh) is always fighting against the spirit within us. Sometimes, maybe often, that evil inclination is strengthened by spiritual forces that seek to destroy us and plan that God has for us. The good news, “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation,” (2 Pet 2:9).

 

The believer is protected from temptation by a combination of instruction and intervention. Through the word we are instructed to flee from temptation (1 Cor 6:18) and take other steps that will reduce the temptation within us, (1 Cor 7:5)(Job 31:1). The primary protection against temptation is through prayer. In the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of the crucifixion Jesus told His disciples,

 

“Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” (Matt 26:41).

 

During that night, scripture tells us that Jesus prayed three times (Matt 26:44). On the same night prior to these three prayers, Jesus prayed the prayer recorded in John chapter 17 and then crossed the Kidron valley with the disciples to reach the Garden of Gethsemane, (John 18:1). Four prayers on the night of His betrayal strengthened Jesus so that He could endure the cross, as the Hebrew writer wrote, “For the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,” (Heb 12:2).

 

In the account of Luke, Jesus twice told His disciples to “Pray that you may not enter into temptation,” (Luke 22:40, 22:46). Scripture does not give us any indication that any of the three with Jesus; Peter, James, and John, prayed on the night before the crucifixion.  Each time Jesus returned from praying He found them asleep. Peter should have been motivated to pray after he received a warning from Jesus at the Passover dinner earlier in the same night, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat,” (Luke 22:31).

 

When they came to arrest Jesus, all of His disciples ran away, (Matt 26:56). One ran away naked (Mark 14:52), which may have been John who recorded this warning in the Book of Revelations, “I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keep his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame,” (Rev 16:15). The later part of John's words sounds like a recounting of the night in the Garden.  History records that Jesus prayed three times while Peter denied the Master three times “and went out and wept bitterly,” (Matt 26:75).

 

Through prayer, Jesus was prepared for the coming trials of the cross and He overcame the temptation to call twelve legions of angels, (Matt 26:53). Without prayer, Peter, John, and James were counted among those who ran away during the arrest of Jesus. The notable difference in the two outcomes, Jesus prayed and the disciples did not. The lesson to every believer, pray often for the LORD to “deliver us from evil.” (I credit the previous example to the discussion of our Sunday Bible study group at FEFC.)

 
(The End of this Dusty Disciple EntrySubject - Now Let's Start Praying More and More and More)