Lord’s Prayer — 6th Petition

Lead us not into temptation — negative side of the petition (Protection)

Deliver us from evil — positive side of the petition (Triumph)

With these two corresponding petitions the saint is asking for, on the one hand protection and preservation from sin, Satan, and self while at the same time asking not only for protection and preservation but also for much more than that – for outright victory.

The Christian does not merely desire to be kept in this battle against evil and the evil one, the Christian desires to be delivered from it. We see this demonstrated in Romans 7 where the Apostle Paul can say, “O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death.” Paul sees his sin and he desires deliverance from it.

We should say here then that in this prayer for protection and triumph we see the characteristic Christian in prayer and it causes us to ask if our prayer lives are so characterized. Do we long for, not only protection, but do we long for deliverance from evil and the evil one?

This is a prayer that reflect that we have a right estimation of ourselves and of God.

A right estimation of ourselves because we know our own weakness towards Temptation and a right estimation of God as the only one who can deliver us from our enemies. It is a prayer that once again confesses our own lack of sufficiency. We pin our hopes not upon ourselves for overcoming in this battle that rages about us, but we pin our hopes upon God for his protecting and delivering ability.

Of course, as such, this prayer on our lips, bespeaks that character of God that we Reformed Christian, with Scripture, return to over and over again and that is God’s sovereignty. In this prayer we are entrusting ourselves to the one who directs our steps and to the only one who has the power and authority to deliver us from our own weaknesses, and from the onslaughts of the evil one.

We must be careful here though to not make this prayer only personal and individual, though it is that. We remember that the teaching of the prayer begins with the Pronoun “Our,” (Our Father who art in Heaven) and that even here the pronouns are plural. We are praying, “lead US not into temptation, deliver US from the evil one.” So while it is fitting and proper to ask for this individually we would also do well to remember that this is a prayer that God’s people together are to be praying. This is a covenantal prayer. Not only is this “lead me not into temptation and deliver me from evil” as appropriate as that is, but it is also lead us not into temptation and deliver us from the evil one. All of us together are praying that we, as the glorious body of Christ, might not be led into Temptation but be delivered from the evil one.

In this covenantal aspect of the prayer we are reminded again that in a healthy Christianity there is not a Lone Ranger kind of Christian existence. Together we are asking to not be led into temptation and together we are asking to be delivered from the evil one.

Just a brief word here on this score. We live in a time and an environment that so desperately wants to peel away from us every and all of our covenant identity markers. Our current culture wants to produce atomized individuals peeled away from Christian covenantal loyalties of Christian family, Christian church, Christian guild, or Christian school so as to remake people to be conformed to something other than Christ. If our Christian covenantal identity markers are successfully stripped away from us then we are left naked before the various non Christian ideologies which would seek to reorganize our identity — our self understanding — as set against the back drop of a rival theology that serves purposes that are alien to Christ’s purposes.

Christian covenantal categories are monumentally important and in the Lord’s Prayer we find the covenant aspect of the Christian life being subtly set forth again. We pray, “Lead US not into temptation, but deliver US from the evil one.”

As we continue to consider this two sided request of preservation and deliverance that our Lord Christ puts upon the lips of His people, we are mindful of the flow of the Lord’s Prayer. In the previous petition we are crying out for forgiveness of sins, while here we are crying out for deliverance from sin. There is a proper symmetry here. When we are united to Christ the Christian cries out at one and the same time both for forgiveness and for deliverance from the grip and filth of sin.

Logically, we cry out first for forgiveness because there can be no deliverance from the grip and the power of sin until we have first been forgiven for our sin. The cry of forgiveness is the cry for the reckoning of Christ’s righteousness to our account. The cry for preservation and deliverance is the cry that we might increasingly become what we have been freely already declared to be.

All Christians upon being united to Christ long both for forgiveness and release. There is thus an inseparability of justification (forgiveness) and sanctification (deliverance) for the Christian. And we find that here in the Lord’s Prayer. True, the proper ordering is the cry for forgiveness and then the petition for deliverance but never one without the other for they imply one another.

The close relationship between forgiveness and ongoing deliverance from the grip of Sin is seen in a myriad of places in Scripture. Consider Romans 6

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Calvin can say on this point,

In Romans 6 he (Paul) turns to discuss the sanctification which we obtain in Christ. As soon as the flesh has had a little taste of this grace, it is liable to gratify its vices and desires w/o disturbance, as though grace were now ended. Against this Paul maintains here that we cannot receive righteousness in Christ without at the same time laying hold of sanctification…. It follows therefore, that no one can put on the righteousness of Christ without regeneration.”

Also Romans 8 has this close relationship,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[a] 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you[b] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

You see it here again. No condemnation for those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So there is this intimate insoluble relationship between the petition of forgiveness and the petition for perseverance and deliverance. You have the petition for forgiveness and you have the petition for preservation and deliverance. Never one without the other and each presupposing the other.

This insolubility between the two is so true that Calvin can comment elsewhere,

“All those who have been grafted into Christ our Lord by His Spirit are beyond danger or likelihood of condemnation, however burdened they may still be by their sins. In the Second place, if those who remain in the flesh lack the sanctification of the Spirit, none of them has any share in that great blessing.”

So we see here the insolubility between the petition for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer and the petition for deliverance. We have this union with Christ and so we pray for both ongoing forgiveness that is never anything but final and we pray for ongoing deliverance.

Here we should say a word about “Temptation.” We are praying that we would not be led into Temptation. Obviously the reference is to a Temptation to sin. Well, how can we know what the sin is that we are praying that we might not be led into except for a close and proper understanding of God’s Character as championed in His law-Word?

You see even this prayer for perseverance and deliverance presupposes God’s law. We are praying that we would be delivered from lawlessness. Lead us not into temptation in those aspects of our lives that are considered more individual and private and lead us not into temptation in those aspects of our lives that are considered as belonging more to the public square.

The Temptation that we are praying that we might not be led into might best be understood as that which our first parents went through. They were tempted in the Garden. And what was that Temptation? The Temptation was to ignore God’s authoritative interpretive Word over all reality in favor of their own autonomous authoritative and interpretive word over all reality. All Temptation unto sin is the Temptation to de-God God and en-God one’s self. Temptation is characterized by setting aside God and his legislative Word in favor of our own fiat self word.

But once again at this point we run smack into God’s law. This Temptation that we are praying that we might not be led into is a prayer that is saying “lead us not into our law word over your law word, grant us thy Spirit that we might understand your Character as revealed in your law word that we might delight in it and walk in it routinely.” Deliver us from the evil one who is the Tempter and grant us triumph over him in this life.

Let us end with some concrete examples of the Temptations we might pray that we would not be led into and the corresponding hope to be delivered from the evil one.

1.) Popularity with the wrong group of people — Friendship with the world is enmity towards God
— Bad company corrupts good character

2.) Staying dumbed down — We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ
Scripture talks about the necessity of the renewing of the mind

All of us live in and among a people who have been purposefully dumbed down. Because this is true it has affected all of us. There is the Temptation thus to want to stay in the dumbed down comfort zone with the rest of the dumbed down oi polloi. There is safety in numbers.

Now some might contend there is a certain arrogance in this but it is not intended that way for I find myself fighting the same Temptation. This Temptation would have us be satisfied with dumbed down versions of Christianity and dumbed down understandings of grace. This Temptation would not allow us to see the in-congruence of being adherents of this pop culture while trying to be adherents of Christ.

3.) Antinomianism and legalism

There are those in the Reformed Church today who would lead us into public square antinomianism where we no longer apply God’s law to our public square interactions. God’s word has nothing explicit to say about public morality. God’s Word has nothing explicit to say about any kulturkampf (cultural struggle) that we may be involved in. To give into this would be to delivered over to the evil one.

On the other hand there are those in the Reformed Church today who forget that Justification is bases solely on Christ’s work for us and who subtly — very subtly — want to introduce our works (our performance) into the foundation of our Justifications.

Whether it is antinomianism which hates God’s law or Legalism which would use God’s law unlawfully we must pray that we would be delivered from the evil one.

Conclusion

And so here we are … weak creatures totally dependent upon God’s grace. If left to ourselves we will get it wrong every time all the time. And so our Lord Christ rightfully puts upon our lips a prayer for preservation and deliverance.

Matthew Henry’s Progressive Postmillennialism

“David rose gradually; he was first anointed king in reversion, then in possession of one tribe only, and at last of all the tribes. Thus the Kingdom of the Messiah, the Son of David, is set up by degrees; he is Lord of all by divine designation, but we see not yet all things put under Him (Hebrews 2:8).”

Matthew Henry
Commentary II Samuel, Chapter 2:1-7

And as a throw in this wonderful gem from Henry

“Divine providence serves its own purposes by the stupidity of men at sometimes.”

The Worldview Machen On The Modern Age — A Rebuff To Hart’s R2K Machen

“The truth is there can be no real progress unless there is something that is fixed. Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.” Well, Christian doctrine provides that place to stand. Unless there be such a place to stand, all progress is an illusion. The very idea of progress implies something fixed. There is no progress in a kaleidoscope

That is the trouble with the boasted progress of our modern age. The Bible at the start was given up. Nothing was to be regarded as fixed. All truth was regarded as relative. What has been the result? I will tell you. An unparalleled decadence—liberty prostrate, slavery stalking almost unchecked through the earth, the achievements of centuries crumbling in the dust, sweetness and decency despised, all meaning regarded as having been taken away from human life. What is the remedy? I will tell you that too. A return to God’s Word! We had science for the sake of science, and got the World War; we had art for art’s sake, and got ugliness gone mad; we had man for the sake of man and got a world of robots—men made into machines. Is it not time for us to come to ourselves, like the prodigal in a far country? Is it not time for us to seek real progress by a return to the living God?

J. Gresham Machen
The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance

1.) Notice how integrated Machen’s worldview here is in this excerpt. He starts with the necessity of the absolute given-ness of the Scriptures and the Historic Christian Doctrine that they convey. From there he segues into the reality that without the Archimedian fixed reference point there can be no progress. And the progress which Machen is referring to is not merely progress in the Church but progress in culture and social order. Machen explicitly says because of the loss of fixity that is provided with and by Scripture and the Christian doctrine that flows from it, “there is decadence, there is liberty prostrate, there is slavery stalking almost unchecked upon the earth, the achievements of centuries crumbling in the dust, with sweetness and decency despised.”

    Now clearly this is worldview thinking at its best.

Machen, writing as a Christian Minister, and a Doctor of the Church, tells the Christian community that unless they return to Scripture not only will all hope of progress is abandoned but also regress into old chaos and dark night is guaranteed.

2.) Notice also, how Machen connects the teaching of Scripture to what some style the “common realm.” Machen, like all good worldview thinkers, explicitly notes that when we embraced Science apart from Christian doctrine, Art apart from Christian doctrine, Man apart from Christian doctrine the consequences were war, ugliness gone mad, and robots. Machen clearly sees a connection here between Scripture, Christian Doctrine and all of life. Machen’s faith is not a privatized faith that is cordoned off from the public square. Machen’s faith is not a faith that appeals to Natural Law to govern science, art, and man. Machen’s faith is not a faith that would keep him from boldly speaking as a Christian minister to the life issues of the time. Machen’s faith was a wholistic integrated faith as this quote clearly reveals.

3.) In his appeal to return to the living God is implied the idea that should man return to the living God then the problems he makes mention off will find themselves receding. Man will no longer be a robot and a machine but instead will discover again his manishness. Art will no longer be ugliness gone mad but will once again find its proper place and role in God’s world. Science will no longer be prone to producing War but will be harnessed for the glory of God.

Machen finds in God’s Word and Christian doctrine not only the resolution to individual men’s hostility to God and God’s hostility to them, but Machen also found in God’s Word and Christian doctrine the resolution to a world gone mad and a civilization undone by sin.

And for that R2K must re-invent the Machen of History so that he is, as one R2K advocate recently put it one who believed that, “fighting these (cultural) battles was not the ministry of the visible church.” Quite to the contrary this piece reveals a man of the visible Church fighting with an eye not only to the Church but also to the cultural issues in the world.

The Blackmailing Of Woodrow Wilson And The Rise Of Louis Brandeis

All American Presidents come to the office with a past. This was no less true of Woodrow Wilson as it was of Warren Harding, Jack Kennedy, or Bill Clinton. Wilson, like those just mentioned was rumored to have been a womanizer and this womanizing came back to bite him during his Presidency.

Those that put the bite on Wilson came to him through a close knit constituency that had supported Wilson in his candidacy for President. This constituency was the Jewish presence in America. Leading American Industrialists noted this tight knit relationship with the Jewish vote by writing, “The Jews made much of Woodrow Wilson, far too much for his own good. They formed a solid ring around him.” One of those Jewish leaders in Wilson’s inner circle was New York attorney Samuel Untermyer.

This same Untermyer was retained as a lawyer by one of Wilson’s former flames in order to try and discreetly take care of a potential breach of promise action against Wilson by this former Wilson mistress. Untermyer had been a supporter of the Wilson campaign and a contributor to boot. Untermyer came to Wilson hoping that the case could be taken care of discreetly without public embarrassment to the President.

The problem was that Wilson’s former paramour, who had remarried since the previous dalliance, had a step-son whom she was fond of who was in hock to the tune of 40K. The damsel, through Untermyer was hopeful that the President would have access to the funds to help her step-son get out of debt and in return she would surrender Wilson’s steamy love letters, which were now in Untermyer’s possession.

President Wilson conveyed his gratitude that the “lady” in question was trying to discreetly take care of this situation as opposed to going to a Republican lawyer who would make political hay out of Wilson’s indiscretion. Wilson, however had a couple problems. First of all he didn’t have 40 thousand dollars laying around. Secondly, hone didn’t think it wise to publish his need for that money to supporters given the questions that would naturally arise. (We must keep in mind that 40K in the early 20th century was a large sum of money in today dollars.)

Untermyer offered a solution to Wilson that would satisfy all parties. Untermyer offer that,

1.) Untermyer himself would, out of his own pocket, provide the needed 40K
2.) Untermyer assured Wilson that the breach of promise lawsuit would never see the light of day
3.) Untermyer promised Wilson that he would place the love letters in a safe place where no one would ever see them

The only quid pro quo that Untermyer asked was that Wilson would consider Untermyer’s counsel when the next Supreme Court Justice opening required Wilson’s appointment. That vacancy soon did occur and Untermyer suggested that the jurist Louis Brandeis be named the first Jewish Justice to the Supreme court. Untermyer’s suggestion became President Woodrow Wilson’s appointment.

Sources,

Lundberg, Ferdinand, America’s Sixty Families (New York: Vanguard Press, 1937).
Murphy, Bruce Allen. The Brandeis/ Frankfurter Connection.
Viereck, George Sylvester, The Strangest Friendship in History (New York: Liveright, Inc., 1932).
Wise, Jennings, Woodrow Wilson: Disciple of Revolution (New York: Paisley Press, 1938).
Freedman, Benjamin, Facts are Facts
Coleman, John, One World Order

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Why Rape Is A Capital Offense Per Scripture

“Third, the reason the rapist in Deuteronomy 22:25 is put to death is not because the woman he raped was betrothed, but because rape is a crime equivalent to murder. Verses 26b and 27 read: “For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.”

Francis Nigel Lee writes

‘Why precisely death to this rapist? God says: “For it is as when a man rises against his neighbour and slays him, even so is this matter” (Deuteronomy 22:26b). Rape is thus like a case of premeditated murder, where God says also the murderer is to get the death penalty’ (Genesis 9:6). [4. Lee, Rape!!!, 10.]

The reason rape is equivalent to murder is because the woman is forced against her will: “because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.” This can and does happen to betrothed and non-betrothed women alike. Since forcing a woman to have sex against her will is the basis for executing the rapist, then rape always warrants capital punishment—regardless of whether the victim is betrothed or not. Just as murder is always a capital offense, regardless of who is murdered, so rape is always a capital offense, regardless of who is raped.

Fourth, one might still ask, “Why then does Deuteronomy 22:25-27 deal only explicitly with a betrothed woman?” Michael H. Warren, Jr., believes it
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speaks of a betrothed virgin because it is continuing the theme of Deuteronomy 22:23-24 in which a betrothed virgin consents to sex with a man not her husband, not because the latter was meant to limit the death penalty for rape to betrothed virgins. The distinction that is the focus of the section is between betrothed virgins who consent (Deut. 22:23-24) and unbetrothed virgins who consent (Deut. 22:28-29). [5. Michael H. Warren, Jr., e-mail message to author, January 3, 2010.]
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Moreover, while Deuteronomy 22:25-27 deals explicitly with betrothed women, it does deal implicitly with unbetrothed women. As noted in the previous point, rape in and of itself is equivalent to the capital crime of murder.

Fifth, the interpretation that Deuteronomy 22:28-29 deals with a man committing rape is counterintuitive, since the man is required to pay the woman’s father fifty shekels of silver and to marry the woman. But how many fathers would even want to see a man who raped his daughter, let alone permit him to marry her? How can he even look at the rapist without wanting to kill him? Moreover, “And what if the man rapes five virgins seriatim? Should he then marry all five?!” [6.Lee, Rape!!!, 11.] Or, what if five men gang rape one virgin? Should they all marry her? Finally, the requirement for the woman who is raped to marry “would lay a burden and penalty on the woman who had no part or consent in the act, which is as unfair and senseless as punishing the victim of attempted murder.” [7. Bahnsen, Pre-Marital Sexual Relations.] The Bible requires punishing the criminal, not the victim. Eye-for-an-eye means “you take an eye, you lose an eye”—not “you lose an eye, you lose another eye.”

“God is Just”