Lead Us Not into Temptation

One of my best friends from high school emailed me yesterday and told me she had a good 9/11 sermon illustration if I wanted to use it. I called her and told her I wasn’t going to preach on 9/11, that I was continuing with the sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, but that I wanted to hear her story and thought I could save it for sometime in the future. It turned out her story was fitting both for 9/11 and for the Lord’s prayer.

Jenny works for the 9/11 museum in New York and she comes into contact with the many stories that are shared. She reminded me that Todd Beemer is the man from flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania, who is credited with storming the cockpit. He had an air phone at his seat and he spoke with a GTE operator named Lisa Jefferson. Their conversation lasted nearly 20 minutes as the two talked through what to do. In their conversation, they learned that both were Christian and they decided to pray together. As they prayed, they said the familiar words of the Lord’s prayer. Todd’s call is probably the most recognized, but after the plane crashed there were still survivors above the impact zone and they too called for help and there were multiple 911 calls that day. And as operators realized there was no way they could help and as people shared their final words, they prayed together. When no other words would suffice, when no action was possible, when hope for life and rescue waned, people prayed.

We’ve been looking at the Lord’s prayer for a month now. We’ve been trying to dig deeper into the meaning so that we have a stronger connection to the words we say. And hopefully, in saying those words, we also recognize the connection we have to Christians around the world. Hopefully these familiar words can bring peace and comfort in a time of crisis as they did for Todd Beemer and Lisa Jefferson and the many others who prayed on the plane that day. Hopefully they bring us peace and comfort and when we have no other words left to pray, may these words flow from our mouths.

When we remember 9/11, we see both the amazing ways we connect with one another, strangers and friends brought together by a common pain and a common hope. We also see the power of evil, of corruption, of the perversion of religion. We see what happens when a few detach from the larger community and corrupt the doctrines of the faithful. We see a patch work of good and evil—the best and worst we are capable of. And in many ways, it’s fitting that our focus today is on the words, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We need to be drawn away from malice, and harm, empowered to choose for God’s will and not for our own.

There are various translations for these verses:

• “And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one”
• “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”
• “Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil”
• “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”

Though some translations imply that the “time of trial” refers to the final judgment that doesn’t seem to be the heart of this verse. All of the times “time of trial” is used in the New Testament the meaning seems to be like a show of proof. Time of trial is less like persecution and more like a chance to put our money where our mouth is and practice what we preach. Temptation is something that plagues our weaknesses and lures us in—baiting us to do that which we ought not. And the test is whether we will remain faithful.

Our inclination is to think we always practice what we preach and that of course we’d be faithful. But temptation is strong. It is powerful and potent and very hard to resist. And we need God’s intervention to make us strong and draw us away from it. We are even tempted to think we are independently good and righteous. But without God, all we are is sinful. As we read through the beginning of Romans, we hear all about how sinful we are. According to Paul, after the fall, we are basically a lost cause. Paul puts it this way in Romans 1:24, “Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies. Verses 29-31 say, “They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”

When we read this, we hear “they” and maybe assume we are not a part of them. But if we read carefully, we will see that “they” here refers to all humanity—that includes us. Paul is talking about the broken human condition before God intervenes on our behalf. Without God we can’t help but sin. But when God intervenes on our behalf, we are empowered to do good instead of evil. We are capable of fighting the temptation of sin. Through God we are justified. Through God we are renewed. Through God we are given a second chance.

So when we ask God to “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” in essence, we are saying, “Please don’t leave us to our own devices, please help us turn away from evil.” We are acknowledging we are prone to sin and we need God’s help to live differently. We acknowledge we are broken and in need of rescue.

Try as we might, we cannot do this on our own. We cannot wade through the mire of lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, wrath, envy, and pride without help. The power of evil is overwhelming. Temptation is not simply interesting, it is tempting—it draws us in. It’s alluring and enticing. And we need help resisting it. We need God.

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” reminds us that we are prone to sin, that we need God’s help to resist the lure of temptation and God’s protection from the calamities of the world.

Let us pray: