I. The mischief of sin is its universality; it is everywhere, different parts of the world have different products, and men have different characters in different quarters of the world, and different manners and customs, and different colours, but in this one thing they all agree, that sin has tainted them all. And it does not confine itself to any particular age; as soon as a child can walk and speak it is made quite clear that the root of sin is in it, that it only requires favourable circumstances and it will spring up and flourish.
II. And here is the key to the fallen state of our nature; it is this sinfulness which runs through all our acts, except those which are done by the help of God's Holy Spirit, which renders our condition so deplorable. Sin hath separated us from God; betwixt Him and us there is a great gulf; our wills are not the same; we do not naturally love what He loves, and hate what He hates; we have lost by Adam's transgression our union with God, we have lost our life in Him; but we have not lost our wills, we have still free wills given us by Almighty God, and have still the heart aspiring to God, though a body of flesh inclining us to sin; we have still the power of shaking the fetters which sin has riveted upon us, and wishing ourselves free, and exulting in the hope of liberty.
III. Sin is a thing which must be punished; it may seem a mysterious thing that God cannot forgive sins, but He cannot that is, He cannot except through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are to get rid of our sins we must consider what is to be done on God's part and what on our own. (1) In the first place, we must repent of our sins; repentance must go before forgiveness. (2) And then there must be determination to amend and to forsake sin; it will not do for us to repent of our sins, and then go and do the like again. (3) Our Lord will not allow us to pray for pardon except under certain conditions; namely, that we give pardon ourselves. A man who does not forgive others cannot be forgiven himself, and therefore is not permitted to pray for forgiveness. We need not deceive ourselves by fancying we can obtain pardon of God, so long as there remains an injury unforgiven by us, or any injury that we have done and have not made amends for; we shall only receive the portion of the hypocrites if we approach Almighty God with a prayer for pardon on our lips, and have unforgiveness towards any in our hearts.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,1st series, p. 108.
I. Some may say that if temptation is the lot of all men we ought not to pray as in the text: "Lead us not into temptation." This does not follow; sickness is the lot of our race, and yet we pray to God for health, and God will send it to us so far as He sees it to be good for us; indeed we may pray for all things if we use the proviso which our Saviour added to His prayer: "Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done;" and thus we may pray against temptation because it is a dangerous thing and a thing painful to endure, even though we should come off victorious in the end. But, after all, I conceive the spirit of the prayer against temptation is to pray quite as much for grace to withstand temptation as for freedom from it, quite as much for strength when temptation comes as for the happiness of its not coming at all.
II. There is one practical piece of advice which belongs to this subject, which I may give here. When you use the Lord's Prayer, you pray that you may not be led into temptation, and inasmuch as the flesh is weak, however willing the spirit may be, you do rightly so to pray; but you must remember that you must act consistently with this prayer; that is, if you pray that you may not be led into temptation, you must take care that you do not go into it of your own accord: it is impossible that your prayers can be answered if you do not do what you can towards obtaining an answer to them.
III. This life of ours is a warfare and not a time of rest; rest belongs to the next world, where the evil one may not enter, but to this belongs continual battle and alarm, and it behoves us to be clad in the whole armour of God. He is a Christian of the true stamp who not only prays "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," but who bears this prayer about with him as the motto of his life, and who feels that as it has pleased God to place him in a world where he is liable to temptation, so it is his duty to be continually on his guard to resist temptation; and that as there is in this world an evil one, whose constant aim it is to become his master, and usurp that place which of right belongs to Christ, so it is to be the business of his life ever to fight against this enemy of his soul, and to see that his heart is a pure and undefiled temple, worthy in some degree, at least, of the presence of Christ's Holy Spirit.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,1st series, p. 143.
References: Luke 11:4. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 40; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons,pp. 456, 471; C. Stanford, The Lord's Prayer,pp. 179, 203, 229; H. N. Grimley, The Prayer of Humanity,pp. 113, 138, 156, 169, 178. Luke 11:5-8. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 341; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem,p. 349; R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables,p. 330; H. Calderwood, The Parables,p. 133; A. B. Bruce, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ,p. 144.Luke 11:5-10. Expositor,1st series, vol. viii., p. 318.