There is the general faith that His Providence orders our lot, and the specific that God orders and brings about temptations.
To tempt is to present inducements to sin, but a secondary significance is to do so maliciously, and with desire that we should fall. It is in this secondary sense that James denies that God tempts any man. We tempt ourselves, or evil tempts us. But God does tempt in so far as He presents outward circumstances which become occasions of falling or of standing, as we take them. He sends temptations, He sends trials, and the two only differ in name, and in what is implied in the word, of the disposition of the sender. Christ was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted. If God does not in malice tempt, still He does in mercy try. God sends trials; we make them temptations.
II. Implies that our chiefest wish is holiness, our greatest dread sin.
This is the only negative petition.
What would be our deprecatory prayers? Lead us not into sorrow, loss, poverty, disease, death?
How we fill our prayers with womanish shriekings and fears!
This petition can come only from a man whose will is resigned and fixed on God. One thing he fears, and that is to sin.
The one thing to be desired is not outward well-being, but inward character.
Think of our lives: what do we dread most?
III. Expresses our self-distrust.