Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation… The first of these three petitions asks for forgiveness; the next that we may he spared the grievous inducements to the sins which need such forgiveness; and the following and concluding prayer embraces deliverance from all the power and all the consequences of sin. Deliver us from evil — from all the wretched fascination and all the miserable results of sin, from its blindness and insensibility, from its unspirituality and rebellion, from its hardness and its punishment, from all that dishonours God and ruins the soul, from its guilt, its power, its shame and its doom. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)It is worth while to remark the difference between the notion of evil which the Bible teaches and that which the world teaches. If you ask a man of the world what evil is. he will tell you everything that gives you pain, or annoys you, or makes you uncomfortable. Bad health, for instance, he will say, is an evil; a lazy servant, a hard master, a quarrelsome neighbour, a damp house, poverty, afflictions of all kinds are evils. In short, evil, according to the worldly man, is whatever troubles the body, or interferes with our worldly comfort or prosperity. But is this the Christian's notion of evil? Is this the answer which St. Paul or St. John would have given if any one had asked them what evil is. They would tell you that the only evil of any consequence is what is against the will of God. So that the devil is above all the evil one; because he is the great opposer of that goodness which God wills and delights in. Worldly afflictions are indeed grievous so long as they last, so that we may indeed pray against them. But such a prayer must be offered up with a full sense of their comparative insignificance, lest we be troubled by them above measure. It must be offered up moreover in humble reliance on the wisdom and goodness of our Heavenly Father, lest peradventure we should be praying against a blessing. In a word, we must pray against them with an if. But our sins need no if in praying against them. Their danger, their burthen, their grievousness, their shame, their curse, we know too well from sad experience. God Himself has declared them to be evil. Therefore they should be the uppermost evil in our minds when we say, "Deliver us from evil." (A. W. Hare.) Parallel Verses KJV: And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. |
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