‘The Evil One’

‘The Evil One’

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one….

Matthew 6:13a

As we come to this portion of our consideration of Christ’s teaching on prayer, we arrive at a discussion of Satan and his involvement in our temptation. Christ affirms, very clearly that Satan is real. The Scripture shows us that Christ Himself had confrontations with Satan long before His Incarnation. We see the first recorded occasion in the pronouncement of the curse in Genesis 3. There, Christ declares Himself to Satan directly as ‘the seed of the woman.’ He prophesies that Satan will succeed in wounding the heel of Christ, but that Christ would prevail in crushing the head of the Serpent. We find that Matthew records another encounter between Christ and Satan where Satan tempts Christ directly with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Christ successfully resists this temptation and prevails. What we are doing by having this discussion is establishing the fact that Satan is, in fact, a real person. The Scripture treats him everywhere as such. He is not a phantom, nor a figment of imagination. He has been in operation as the enemy of Christ, apparently since before the creation of humanity. There are other passages of Scripture which catalogue some of his activities. Therefore, before we begin any discussion of temptation, as it occurs in our own lives, we ought to recognize that Christ treats Satan as a real person, with real power, and a stated agenda. This will enable us to pray with understanding, ‘And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

Our Great and All-Powerful God,
we praise You that You are able to deliver us.
We rejoice that You are our strength
when we have no strength.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning