1 C. J. Vaughan, Tlic Lord's Prayer, 131.
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that our Lord, to the petition for forgiveness, adds the further petition, " Lead us not into temptation." As that points to the past, this points to the future. When we pray, " Forgive us our debts," we think of contracted guilt which we ask God to cancel, liabilities we have failed to meet which we ask Him to pardon. When we pray " and lead us " (or " bring us ") " not into tempta- tion," we think of the temptations and difficulties which are lying before us, and ask for the needful grace and strength to meet them. It is as if with the Psalmist we cried, " Thou hast delivered my soul from death : wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living ? "
2. But it may be asked : " Why should we thus pray to God ? Do we not know that, as He ' cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man ' " (Jas. i. 13) ? Yes ; but God may permit temptation. He does not, like the tempter, stand on the side of temptation, and desire to see evil result from it ; but He may at times place a man in such a situation that it is very easy for him to do wrong, very hard for him to do right. Thus we read of our Lord Himself that He was " led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil " (Matt. iv. 1). He was as much under the guidance and direction of God then as when He went down into the water to be baptized; and because His will was in perfect harmony with the will of God, He successfully overcame the temptation. And so, when we look forward to the temptations which must meet us in the world, what petition can be more natural for us than that God should not bring us into such as may prove too strong for us ? It is our prayer of con- scious weakness, the weakness which shrinks from the danger by which it may be overcome ; or, in the words of the Shorter Catechism, it is the prayer " that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted."
3. If we are following Christ fully, we will not hesitate to go with Him into any experience, however perilous it may be. " He that saveth his life shall lose it." Yet so much is involved in temptation, such possibilities of defeat and failure are dependent on the issue, that we dare not desire to enter into it. It is pre-
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sumptuous to clamour to be led into the conflict. More than once Jesus warned His disciples to watch, that they might not enter into temptation. He knew how inadequate their courage and strength would prove in battle with the Evil One, how their faith would fail in the moment of assault. We read of soldiers sick of camp, and chafing to be led against the enemy, but the Christian who is impatient to be tempted is very foolish. Temp- tation is too terrible an experience to be rushed into, unled by God.
VII. The Evil One.
"Deliver us from the evil one" (R.V.).
St. Paul says, " We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world- rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." In other words, the temptations that come from visible and tangible sources draw their strength from a source which is unseen. Behind visible foes there is an in- visible ; behind the visible opposition of evil men there is an invisible prince of darkness and an unseen host of fallen spirits intruding themselves into the highest things, into the heavenly places.
^| I am quite sure that our Lord speaks so confidently and so frequently of the existence of evil spirits that a sober Christian cannot doubt their reality, and I feel sure also that their exist- ence interprets a good deal which would otherwise be unintel- ligible in our spiritual experience. When thoughts of poisonous evil, distinct and vivid, are shot into our mind, like suggestions from a bad companion ; when a tempest of pride and rebellion against God surges over our soul ; when voices of discouragement and despair tell us that it is no use trying, and that human nature is hopelessly bad ; when a sinful course of action presents itself to us in a wholly false aspect until we have committed our- selves to it, and then strips off its disguises and shows itself in its true colours, in its ugliness, in its treachery, in its infamy — in all such experiences we do well to remember that besides the weak- ness or pollution of our own flesh, and besides the solicitations of the world, there is "the adversary," "the devil," that is, the
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slanderer of God and of our human nature and the " father of lies," actually at work to seduce our wills and sophisticate our intelligences.1