Jesus knew that evil existed and that it was epitomized in the person of the devil. He Himself had personally met the devil in the wilderness during His temptation (Matt 4:1-11). The devil wasn’t just a concept to Him. Consequently, Jesus taught about the reality of the devil and the reality of evil, because He knew that people encountered those realities on a regular basis. He has taught that the common practice of exaggerating agreement or disagreement through the swearing of oaths is based on a lie from Satan that we should reject out of hand, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” He has taught that His followers should not resist someone who is evil, but instead demonstrate goodness to them, “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
The principles of rejecting demonic lies and demonstrating goodness in response to evil are useful tools for everyday life. Yet Jesus knew that such principles have limited use among fallen human beings. We need more than a couple of tools to know how to deal with an adversary stronger than we are. We need deliverance. To that end Jesus includes the line in His prayer template, “deliver us from the evil one.”
Praying for deliverance is usually something we see only at charismatic prayer and healing events, or in the odd illustration a pastor uses during a sermon. Jesus apparently designs that it should not be so rare. He includes it in His prayer so that we might likewise pray at least as regularly as we normally pray. For the Christ-follower, that means daily at least!
One might not think we really need daily deliverance from the demonic. Yet how often are we tricked into believing an untruth? Even if we reject the very great majority of them, the reality is that virtually no one has a worldview that is entirely Kingdom minded. If we did, we would act as Jesus did every day. The fact that we do not is evidence that we have believed and yet believe some things that are just not true.
How often do we respond negatively to what others impose upon us? Yet Jesus did not turn from the lash or the cross. Nor did He use His power to make bread from the stones, but how often do we seek to satisfy ourselves through our own power instead of relying on the goodness of God? He did not presume upon God’s agents of intervention by throwing Himself down from the temple. But how often do we do foolish things for the sheer pleasure of the experience, presuming we will feel no consequence? Promised all the world’s power and wealth, He did not yield to idolatry. Yet we almost daily fall for the allure of want. All that to say nothing of the spiritual forces arrayed against us, or of the wicked plans of demonic beings for our ultimate destruction.
It is true of course that we are saved. For that we are thankful. It is equally true that we are in the process of being saved. In that we must be prayerful. We may be the people of God and children of our heavenly Father, but until the day that we are set completely free from our fallen fleshly state, we stand daily in need of deliverance as much as the Israelites in Egypt did.
Amen.
Not only do we have Jesus to intercede for us to protect us from the enemy, but we ourselves are also to ask God to keep us safe from the enemy’s hand.
R. C. Sproul
APPLICATION: Intentionality
We do not know what we will face in the next 24 hours. Pray that God would keep the evil one far from you and your house.