The model prayer

by J. D. Jones

Of heaven and let us in.

Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! for by every sin of ours we crucify the Lord afresh, and put Him to an open shame. The programme of the Christian life is not sin and pardon, sin and pardon, sin and pardon, day after day, month after month, year after year. The programme of the Christian life is pardon, sanctification, holiness. After pardon comes the daily struggle with sin, until its power in our souls is broken, and we come off more than conquerors, through Him who loved us. Not that I would imply that any one on this side the grave attains to a state of sinless perfection, or that the time will ever come on earth when the prayer, “Forgive us our sins,” will be out of place on our lips. But the goal set before us is the perfect life; towards that goal we must daily press, and though on earth we may never attain to it, yet to-day ought to see us nearer to it than yesterday, and to-morrow ought to find us nearer than to-day. There is something radically wrong with us if sin has as great a power over us to-day as it had, say, ten years ago. Repentance is never genuine and sincere unless it creates within us a hatred and loathing of sin. We have never been truly forgiven if we can go on sinning the old sins day after day; for we never hear Christ say to us, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” without hearing Him add this charge, “From henceforth sin no more.”

But the command is a hard one to obey. In a world so full of trial and temptation, so full of seductions and enticements to evil, how hard it is for poor, weak, frail men to obey the command, “Go, sin no more.” In a world that presses in upon us on every side, that spreads its glittering prizes before our eyes to tempt us, how hard it is to be unworldly, to hold earth’s best gifts cheap, while we set our affections on things above! In a world so full of uncleanness and impurity, how hard it is to keep one’s garments clean and unspotted! Hard, did I say? Nay, impossible. With the world as it is, and man as he is, the task is impossible. To obey that command, we need help and strength. The task is too difficult for us. It is more than we can do in our own native strength. So we cast the burden back again upon our Lord and say to Him, “Master we would fain obey Thee: we would fain live without sin; but we are weak, and the world is strong—too strong for us. Lord, undertake Thou for us. Have pity on our weakness, and bring us not into temptation.” There it stands, a prayer for the future; a cry to God that He will not suffer the world to overcome us, and drag us down again to sin.

Now you will notice that this prayer recognises the fact that—

(1) The world is full of peril to the Christian, because it is full of temptation. The word translated “temptation” in my text really means “testing, trial.” Never a day passes but something happens which puts our moral strength to the test. God does not “tempt” in the sense of inciting to evil; God TESTS. The presence of evil in our world, the incitements to evil that abound, looked at from God’s standpoint, are tests—tests of character, tests of moral strength. But these incitements to evil appeal to weakness and evil in our own hearts, and so to us they become “temptations.” And of such “temptations” our world is full. Bunyan described the Christian life as a journey, but it is a journey through a very dangerous country. There are snares and pit-falls around us on every side. The path leads between a ditch on one side and a quagmire on the other, and along the route are the Slough of Despond, and By-Path Meadow, and Doubting Castle, and the Mount of Error, Broad Way Gate, and Dead Man’s Lane, and Vanity Fair. Yes, the path is one that is surrounded with peril, and to stray from it is a very easy matter. That path is the path of life, and these pitfalls and snares and by-paths that endanger the unwary traveller on every hand, are the temptations that beset a man in life, and lure him to his ruin and death. The old story of the fight between the English and the Scotch at Bannockburn says that Bruce, on the night before the battle, honeycombed the ground in front of his army with pit-falls, each of which contained a hidden stake, and then covered them up again with the green turf. In the morning the English cavalry, when it charged upon the Scottish troops, found that the ground, which looked so firm and solid was deceitful and treacherous, and, falling into these hidden pitfalls, horse and rider met their fate. Does life to you look in prospect like a firm, safe, solid road? I tell you that at every step you take you need to beware of some secret pitfall. Does life appear in prospect to any of you like the still, glassy sea of a summer’s noon? I tell you that beneath that shimmering, smiling surface lie hidden the dark and treacherous rocks which have meant wreck and death to many a voyager. Oh, yes, human life is beset with temptation. No one is exempt from it. No moment of the day is free from it. Incitements to sin abound. Invitations to enter the broad way meet us at every turn. Why is it parents are so anxious, when their children are sent for the first time to fight life’s battles for themselves in a large town? I will tell you. It is because they know that temptations abound. There is temptation in the glare and false gaiety of the public-house. There is temptation in every painted shameless face seen upon our streets. There is temptation in the companionship of foolish and godless friends. There is temptation in the coarse and filthy speech of associates. There is temptation in unclean literature. There is temptation in business, in the home, at work, at play. Nay, where is it temptation does not lurk? It penetrates everywhere. It found its way into Paradise of old, and Adam yielded to its power. Who is free from it? Not one. Wherever man is, there temptation is. There is no escape from it. Men try to avoid infection, in case of an outbreak of disease, by removing from the infected district. So men of old tried to escape the assaults of temptation by leaving the busy world and fleeing into solitude. But it was all in vain. Temptation followed them to their retreats, and many were the fierce struggles an old saint like St. Anthony had to wage in the secret of his cell. Oh, the world is full of temptation. Every lot has its own fierce tests for character. Business life has its temptations; home life has its temptations. The life of hard grinding toil has its temptations; the life of ease and leisure has its temptations also. Never a day passes but in some way or other an appeal is made to our lower, baser nature, and we are urged to yield. The old Greek legends speak of the syrens—creatures half women, half fish—who lived upon the rocks and could sing the most ravishing songs. So entrancing was the music that who ever heard it was irresistibly drawn to the singers. But it was woe to them; for the rocks whereon the syrens lived were strewn with the bones of dead men who had listened to their song and yielded to its fascination. That syren’s song is still being sung, and every mariner on life’s main hears it. The world, the flesh, and the devil are the syrens of to-day. Who has not heard their song? Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we hear its luring, tempting strains. God grant, brethren, we may not yield—for yielding still means destruction and death.

(2) This verse implies the WEAKNESS of man. “Bring us not into temptation,” into trial, into testing, because we are so prone to break down under the trial. The fact that temptations abound would not matter very much if we were proof against them. It is because we ourselves are so prone to yield that temptation is terrible. To take a spark to green wood would not do very much harm. But to bring temptation upon us is like applying flame to dry shavings or a match to gunpowder. The attack of temptation from without is made formidable by the weakness and treachery within. It is because we know our own weakness, it is because we know how liable we are to break down under any severe test, that we pray, “Bring us not into temptation.” I am simply stating a matter of fact and observation when I say that there is in all of us a bias toward sin, an inclination toward evil. We talk lightly sometimes of the old doctrine of “original sin.” But surely it expressed a truth that we dare not ignore. There is a bias in the human heart toward sin. It is easier for us to do wrong than to do right. That was the truth our Lord meant to convey when He said the path of evil was a broad way, while the road to life was a narrow path. To do evil is easy; you have only to shout with the crowd and swim with the stream. But to do right is hard; you must swim against the current, you must dare to stand alone. And it is just this that gives temptation its power and makes it terrible. It accords with our own inclinations. The passions and desires of the flesh second its efforts. The devil finds his best ally in the lusts and weaknesses of a man’s own heart. There is no man safe from temptation. There is no one who can boast that he is strong enough to resist every allurement. There is in all of us some weakness of the soul, and temptation will assail us just at the weakest point; it will find the unfortified place and concentrate its attack upon that; it will find the joints in our harness and point the poisoned arrow there. The old Greek story says that Achilles, the great hero of the Trojan war, was dipped while he was yet a child in the waters of the Styx by his mother, Thetis, in order to make him invulnerable. And the result of that plunge was that every part of Achilles’ body was proof against wounds with the exception of the heel by which his mother held him, and which had not been submerged in the waters. For many years, as a result, Achilles escaped unhurt, but at last the poisoned arrow of the Trojan Paris found the weak spot and inflicted the death wound there. So sin and temptation attack us where we are weakest. They appeal to our inclinations, our passions, our lusts; they find out the weak spot. I can only discover One Man in the history of the whole world who was proof against temptation, and that was the Perfect Man, Christ Jesus Himself. But as for everyone else, the best, the bravest, the noblest, surprised by some temptation, betrayed by some weakness, have fallen into sin. Do not say, brethren, that this petition is a prayer for the weak! Do not say it is a prayer for the timid and the cowardly! It is a prayer for us all. Peter very likely thought that there was no need for him to pray this prayer. Perhaps in his heart he longed for an opportunity to be given him of showing how strong and brave he was. Deny his Lord? No! not though all the world forsook Him! No! not though it meant death to be faithful! Well, the night did not pass without bringing an opportunity of putting his boasted strength to the test. But how badly Peter came out of the trial! Would you recognise the proud boaster of a few hours before in the swearing, blaspheming denier at cock-crow? And we have many an example in the old Book, beside that of Peter, to warn us against over-confidence. Abraham, whose faith is commended in Scripture, lost all his faith in Egypt. Moses, the man who was renowned for his meekness, lost his temper when the children of Israel murmured. David, the sweet singer of Israel, the man after God’s own heart, was swept by his lust into an act of foulest wickedness. And these examples are enshrined in the pages of this old Book, to bid us beware of over-confidence, and not to boast ourselves in our strength. Pride ever cometh before a fall. There is weakness in all of us. To the strongest of you here this morning, to you who perhaps think yourselves beyond the reach of temptation, let me repeat the old Bible warning, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” It is the knowledge of our own weakness that makes temptation terrible. We distrust ourselves. We look back over past years and see the number of times we have fallen, the number of times we have yielded to the fascination of the world’s syren song. We remember, too, that when we did escape it was so as by fire; it was through pain and agony. We remember how hard the struggle was, and how near we were to yielding. And the remembrance both of our falls and our escapes makes us afraid. We feel that our safety lies in never hearing those fatal strains again. So, conscious of our own weakness, and yet desiring not to offend our heavenly Father again by our sin, we make this our prayer, “Bring us not into temptation.”

(3) Let me ask you to notice that this petition illustrates the spirit of true Christian courage. It is not courage, but foolhardiness that courts danger. It is not courage that risks life and limb in an utterly stupid, needless, bootless task; it is folly. It was not courage that made that mad youth climb the sheer face of the cliff at Folkestone the other day, it was mere senseless bravado. True courage will keep away from danger; true courage will only incur risk and peril when duty demands. Let us learn this lesson. You young men learn this lesson. It is not courage to venture into doubtful places; it is not courage to unite with questionable companions; it is not courage to peer into unclean books; it is not courage to spend your evenings in the public-house; it is not courage to dally with the intoxicating cup; it is not courage to frequent the theatre, with its evil associations, to accustom yourselves to gaze upon the indecencies and to listen to the pruriencies too often heard upon the stage. It is not courage to court company where the filthy jest and the coarse laugh and the brutal blasphemy are common; it is not courage to see how near you can go to the edge of the precipice without falling over. No, this is not courage, unless you are prepared to say that it is courage that makes the silly moth flutter round the flame until at last it flutters into it. Courage? No! it is not courage—it is wicked, mad bravado! Your safety, brethren, against sin lies in being shocked at it. True courage looks at the incitements to evil with which life abounds and confesses, “I am afraid of them,” and then makes this petition its prayer, “Father, bring us not into temptation.”

But it may be that in spite of our fears, and in spite of our prayers, God may see fit to bring us into temptation, into some fierce trial that shall test our moral strength. “God,” we read in Genesis, “did tempt, i.e. did test, Abraham.” He put Abraham’s faith and obedience to a searching trial. Jesus, we read, was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, to undergo those forty days of fierce testing. We shrink from these fierce trials, but they are good for us, for if resisted they knit thews and sinews of strength in our souls. We are better for temptation resisted and overcome than we should have been if we had never been tempted at all. It is in conflict with temptation that God’s Victoria Cross—the Cross “for valour”—is to be won. Let us ever remember this—there is nothing sinful in being tempted. We sin only when we yield to temptation. Well, supposing that God does see fit to let us enter into temptation, to let our strength and courage be tested in fierce, grim, deadly conflict with sin and evil, what shall we pray for? We will pray then, “Deliver us from the evil one.” We will pray to Him to help us, that we may not sin against Him by yielding. We will ask Him to clothe us with the whole armour of God, and to put in our hands the sword of the Spirit, and so enable us to withstand the assaults of the evil one, and having done all things to stand. There shall be on our part no foolish rushing into temptation; nay, remembering our own weakness we will pray, “Father, lead us not into it.” But if temptation comes upon us when we are in the path of duty, then we can look up to him, claim His presence with us in the battle, and say, “Deliver us from the evil one.” We say “Let us not be overcome in the struggle. Let us not be beaten in the fight. Suffer us not to fall away from Thee. Deliver us, by Thy mercy deliver us, good Lord.” And God will deliver us. I say nothing about the man who rushes into temptation of his own free will; but of the man upon whom temptation comes when he is in the line of duty I am bold to say, “God will deliver him.” His promises are here in this book. Here they are—“God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptations make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.” “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation.” “I will keep you also in the hour of temptation.” Christian had a fierce, long, and stubborn fight with Apollyon, but he won the victory at last, and was able to shout exultingly, “Now, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Oh, take comfort, you who feel the force and keenness of temptation. No conflict need end in defeat. No struggle need end in disaster. Pray to your Father, “Deliver us from the evil one.” By prayer link yourself to God’s Almightiness, take Him with you into the conflict, and every fight shall end in victory, and every struggle in triumph, and these very temptations when vanquished and overcome shall help to make you a strong man in Christ, and you will be able then to realise the truth of that word of the Apostle James, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he hath been approved he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to them that loved Him.”

“Deliver us from the evil one,” that must be our prayer. Do you remember that sentence in Christ’s great intercessory prayer? “I pray, not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” We are in the world, and we have no right even to wish to leave it. It is the coward who runs away, locks himself up in some monastic cell, and leaves the world to perish. Our place is IN the world. But the world is full of evil, evil which presses itself, forces itself upon us at every turn. From that evil we must ask God to keep us. “Deliver us from evil.” We have been forgiven. We want now complete deliverance from sin. We want to be emancipated from its power. We want to be rid of its foul stains. We want to grow in purity, truth and grace, and to become daily more like our Lord. Oh, this is the prayer of the Christian life “Deliver us from evil!” When shall this deliverance come? Perhaps not completely here—though the chains shall be loosened. But absolute deliverance shall come in the beautiful homeland.

Where we shall see His face,