Temptation from God and from Satan.
I. Speaking of Satan's temptation is in itself a temptation, unless in humble dependence upon God our object is practical, to guard against the enemy, and to be prepared and strengthened for the conflict. The world does not know or remember Satan's existence and his aims. This is one of his stratagems. The young Christian does not sufficiently think of his strength and subtlety. How ample is Scripture's teaching on Satan ample for guidance and instruction, though not to satisfy curiosity. The origin of evil we may not know, but our chief anxiety ought to be to know its destructionthe victory over evil as far as we are concerned. (1) It is of the utmost importance in our conflict with Satan to know what is his real and ultimate aim. His object is to diminish, to obscure, if possible to take away, God's glory, and this object he wishes to effect through the fall and ruin of man. (2) Satan's method is to alter your attitude towards God. He suggests to Eve to examine God's word as standing on a level with God, or rather for the time being surveying and criticizing God's command. (3) Satan suggests that God's threatenings will not come true, and that His love is not great. (4) Satan promises glory apart from God and in rebellion against God.
II. God tempts. His motive is love; His object is our good. Even during the temptation He weighs with fatherly pity the burden and our strength, and with the temptation He makes a way to escape. The trial of our faith will be formed unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Temptations sent by God bring to light hidden sins and infirmities; they are meant to deepen our humility, that, sinking deep in self-abasement, we may rise higher in simplicity and strength of faith. Such temptations prepare us for closer fellowship with God, they prepare us for greater usefulness in the world, and they manifest unto angels and devils the power of Divine grace in human hearts.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 327.
I. There is one little word in this petition which we have not yet noticed. It is the word "us." It seems to suggest three important thoughts. (1) It reminds us of the universality of temptation. All children of God are taught to offer this petition, because they are all in danger of temptation. (2) Whenever you notice the sins and failings of your fellow-Christians and of others, remember they were tempted. Think not so much of their guilt as of their actual condition, and come to their rescue. (3) If we say, "Lead us not into temptation," we profess to be concerned about the safety of others as well as our own.
II. Consider the special temptations of the believer. It is in the nature of things that the presence of God should rouse the opposition of evil. When Jesus draws near the soul temptation immediately arises, and we are kept from the Saviour either through the love of our sin or through the love of our righteousness. When Jesus enters the heart the conflict is decided, but only to begin in a new form.
III. Consider the safety of the believer. The believer may fall, but he cannot fall away. This doctrine, like all Scripture truths, is salutary and comforting to earnest, prayerful, God-loving souls; misleading and dangerous to the formalist and prayerless. Christians cannot fall away, but they may fall. And is this not a great evil? Our life may be embittered and our usefulness impaired. Let none of us, therefore, think of the safety of the believer in a manner which would be at once foolish and ungenerous, without true love to ourselves and to our most merciful God. We are safe in Him if "near the Cross abiding." Christ is our High Priest, and we are safe. As the names of the children of Israel were engraven on the shoulders and breastplates of Aaron, even thus are we represented in heaven by the Lord who died for us. We are protected by His power and blessed in His love. Golden chains secure the precious stones, so that none can ever be lost. Christ will present us unblamable unto the Father, and the Lord will perfect that which concerneth us, for we are the work of His hands.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 348.
I. Evil is around us and within us. (1) The evil that is around us may by God's grace be converted into a channel of blessing, and thus belong to the all things which work in harmony for good; and yet let us not forget that from this external evil, also, we ask to be delivered. Let us not forget that all misery is the consequence of sin, and as such evil, which God regards with displeasure, and from which it is His purpose ultimately to deliver. (2) Sin dwells in us; it is not a visitor, but an inmate. "When I would do good, evil is present with me." It is not merely an inmate, but a bold, ever-watchful, persistently interfering enemy."I see another law striving in my members." It is not merely an enemy, but it has established itself in adaptation to my organization, mental and physical, and through long habit become a law, working almost unconsciously, and with a regularity and force which are appalling. No wonder the believer exclaims, "Deliver us from evil."
II. But who delivers? The evil is so great, so deep, so widespread, that none can deliver but God. Our Father who loves us our Father who is in heaven, whose power is infinite, whose glory is above all He is willing, He is able. Here are the hills to which we lift up our eyes, imploring help. But how does God deliver us? He delivers us by Christ. "Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom." Who delivers the true Israel from all evil? Who else but the Angel, the Messenger of the Covenant.
III. Look, in conclusion, at the promise involved in the petition. At the appearing of Christ our life shall be made manifest, our salvation shall be revealed, our adoption, even the redemption of the body, shall be complete. Blessed and peaceful as is our condition immediately after death, only when Jesus comes again shall we receive the crown of righteousness and the perfect glory.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 362.
I. We take a sevenfold view of praise. (1) Prayer ends in praise; but God, who sees the end from the beginning, sees praise in every petition. (2) Praise is the language of the soul in communion with God. (3) Though praise is essentially contained in every supplication, and all meditation and the whole inner life of the Christian is in constant adoration, yet we may regard praise as the culminating point of prayer.(4) Let us learn, too, that the doxology is an argument. We say, " Forthine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." We expect to be heard, not on account of anything in ourselves, not because of what we are or promise to be; but our sure and only hope is in God, His character, His name, His promise. (5) Praise is faith, and it is more than faith. It stands on the borderland very bright indeed; for faith itself is in light between faith and vision, between earth and heaven. (6) The great bond of union is praise. (7) Praise is God's gift, the flower of redemption, the breath of the Spirit, the voice of Jesus in the Church.
II. Consider the threefold ascription of praise. (1) "Thine is the kingdom." It is not ours; it is altogether His. He prepared it from all eternity. He founded it on a sure foundation. In nature, in providence, in grace, He is sovereign; and there is a kingdom of glory which He is preparing through these subordinate kingdoms. (2) As the kingdom is His, so power belongeth unto the Lord. He is able to do all things which please Him. Christ is the Word of His power. By Him all things were created, and by Him they are upheld. The power of God is manifested through His Son. (3) His is the kingdom, and by His power will it be established, for the end of all Divine works and ways is His glory.
III. The kingdom, power, and glory belong to the Triune God,and for ever.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 379.
I. The Church may reckon the doxology amongst the treasures which it inherited from the synagogue and the Temple. The Greeks did not invent it; they adopted it. In fact, we may find the doxology ready made, so to speak, in the Old Testament itself (1 Chronicles 29). David was not peculiar in his utterance; his mode of speech became a common mode in the Jewish Church; the ascription of glory became an almost necessary adjunct of Jewish prayer. The addition of these words as a crowning sentence to the Lord's prayer in the Liturgy of the Primitive Church may be regarded as an unconscious prophecy of the eventual triumph of the Cross.
II. The doxology, which the piety of early times or the inspiration of the Holy Ghost added to the original words of the Lord's prayer, and which the instinct and conscience of Christendom have ever recognized as a worthy addition, has an interesting and valuable bearing upon primitive Church history and primitive Church feeling. But it is for ourselves still more interesting and still more valuable, as suggesting thoughts concerning the nature of prayer in general, and the manner and temper in which men ought to pray. Petition melts into praise; asking has its climax in ascription; thanksgiving from man to God is as essential an element of prayer as any giving of good things from God to man. It is when petitions turn into doxologies, and doxologies accompany and qualify petitions, transforming the mere demand of a beggar into the ethereal essence of communion with God, that prayer is most truly offered on earth and most acceptable in heaven.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, The Oxford Review,Feb. 4th, 1885.
I. If we ask in what way "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory" belong unto God, it is obvious to answer that they are His because He is the one self-existent supreme God, the I am that I am,He who owns no origin, who has no cause of being besides Himself. But there is another way in which we may think of a kingdom and power and glory belonging to God, and which other way has a nearer connection with us as Christians than that general way of looking upon such things as belonging to God in right of His being the supreme God and Creator of all things; I mean that our Father who is in heaven has established a right to the title of King of men, and has given men better cause to give in ascribing power and glory to Him, by what He has done for us in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.
II. If the kingdom, and the power, and the glory do indeed belong to God, then doubtless it is our duty, yea our very highest duty, to recognize in our lives and practice that such is the case. (1) If God be really your King, take care that you really fear and obey Him; if in your prayers you ascribe the kingdom to God, then do not in your lives ascribe the kingdom to any person or anything else. There are many competitors for the crown: there is Satan in all his manifold forms; there is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; there is that usurping king which governs so large a part of the world, that tyrant self;take care that none of these become your masters, and usurp that throne which belongs to God, which belongs to Him by every right which can give Him a title to you. (2) Let us further illustrate by our lives these other words, "Thine is the power;" let us endeavour to live practically in the faith that all power belongs to God. We are in a world of much confusion and difficulty, and we feel that we ourselves are weak and feeble; but surely our God is a God of power, powerful to preserve from evil, powerful to keep us from sin, powerful enough to give us peace in our death and a happy resurrection after it. (3) If you ascribe in your prayers glory to God, then see to it well that you do ascribe glory to God in your lives, glorifying God with your bodies and your spirits, which are His.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,1st series, p. 143.
1. The word "Amen" is a word of venerable history in Israel and in the Church.
2. The word Amen announces God's truth and faithfulness. Prayer is a great reality. It is speaking to the living God. The object of prayer is not that we may speak, but that God may hear. Amen assures us we have spoken to Him who is, and who is truth. God lives; "faithful is He that calleth you."
3. Amen is the name of Christ. "All the promises of God are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus."
4. We view Amen as the seal of prayer.
5. Amen is the voice of faith.
6. Amen is the answer of a good conscience.
7. It is a renewal of our dedication to God.
A. Saphir, Lectures on the Lord's Prayer,p. 404.
References: Matthew 6:13. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiv., No. 1402; vol. ix., No. 509; J. N. Norton, Every Sunday,p. 98; M. Dods, The Prayer that Teaches to Pray,p. 151; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xix., p. 339; W. Hubbard, Ibid.,vol. xxvi., p. 155; R. Payne-Smith, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 9; F. D. Maurice, The Lord's Prayer,pp. 89, 117; J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week,p. 440; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons,p. 471.