The Lord's Prayer: The Sixth and Final Petitions

The Sixth Petition: And Lead Us Not Into Temptation

The Christian life can be a difficult one as we have already discussed.  The devil will stop at nothing to get us off track, to separate us from Christ, and to abandon the mission we have been called to by God.  For Luther it was important for him to mention that God is not a tempting God, even so we ask “that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and all our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. . .”

  Our prayer is that we would survive the vicious attacks and “gain the victory.”

  

Temptations, according to Luther, come in three types: the flesh, as we “carry the old creature around our necks;”

 the world, which drives us “to anger and impatience;” and the devil, “who baits and badgers us on all sides” but is especially persistent when it comes to matters of the spirit. Our prayer is that we would be able to hold fast in the face of temptation, that we would not be crippled or captured by the attacks made upon us, nor would we fail to put our ultimate trust in our holy, heavenly Father.  

It is important to pray this petition, Luther instructs, because if we become fragile in our spiritual strength then we will be more susceptible to the temptations that are certainly going to come.  He reminds us that the attacks will not be removed by this prayer, rather they will endure as long as we have breath in our bodies.  We have to come to grips with the fact that the flesh, the world, and the devil seek to betray us and lure us off track of God’s will.  “For no one can escape temptations and allurements as long as we live in the flesh and have the devil prowling around us.  We cannot help but suffer attacks, and even be mired in them, but we pray here that we may not fall into them and be drowned by them.”

  

Just because we are attacked does not mean that we have to succumb to that spiritual assailing.  For some the pummeling is more severe than for others; we know that Luther himself had a very difficult time with the devil’s attacks.  The attacks are not always the same for each person either; for some it is more of a physical, bodily temptation and for others it is a spiritual assault.  Luther assures us though, that we are not to fear, “As long as it is contrary to our will and we would prefer to be rid of it” we will not be harmed. For guidance on this matter we can look to Ephesians, where St. Paul teaches about Spiritual Warfare (Chapter 6).  We can be bolstered by his instruction to put on the whole armor of God:  the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes for proclaiming the good news of Christ, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.(Ephesians 6:10-17) 

We approach God with this most heartfelt petition, “Lead us not into temptation” knowing that God alone can save us from these trials.  When we try to deal with them ourselves, we only make matters worse!  Luther’s words bring us back to reality, “prayer can resist him (the devil) and drive him back.” Our hope is that with our prayer the temptation will subside and we will be given comfort, relief and strength.  

The Last Petition: But Deliver Us From Evil.  Amen.

Expounding on that phrase, Luther asserts that in the Greek “evil” is actually “evil one” and that the “sum of all evil” is the devil. From all that seeks to destroy us, from the devil and his trickery, from the flesh that seeks to enslave us, from the world that vexes us constantly, we ask for deliverance.   At the final hour of life we pray for “a blessed end” that God would finally “take us by grace from this valley of tears to himself in heaven.” Furthermore, God wants us to pray and has promised to listen to our concerns.  The “Amen” at the end of the prayer means “Yes, yes, it is going to come about just like this.”

  

Without God’s love and support we would be completely lost.  God wants us to come to him with every deep felt need that is part of our awareness, and be open to God’s working in those areas of which we are not yet aware.  He wants to “preserve us from sin and disgrace and from everything else that harms or injures us.” We can be sure that because of God’s great love for us that he will indeed answer our prayer!  Amen.