Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil.”
What evil? All kinds of evil. That includes the sinful tendencies inherent in being a member of this fallen race. It is a prayer for deliverance from pride, gossip, impure thoughts, unholy anger, self-centeredness, and a host of other sins. It includes the idea of protecting us from Satan and his minions who use our sinful tendencies against us.
We also need His deliverance from the evil that attacks from without. Only a few days ago, a young woman stalked the halls of a Christian school, carrying guns with which to hunt down and kill 9-year-olds and their caretakers. Evil stalks our children, physically and spiritually. Even as evil physically stalked the halls of that Christian school in Nashville, evil’s lies permeate much of the world’s educational systems. Hatred and rage increasingly dominate the thoughts of people in our generation. Please God! Deliver us from evil!
I’ve seen His miraculous deliverance. I’ve seen it in my life, in the lives of thousands of other individuals, and I’ve even seen it on a global scale. When I was a boy, nations prayed, “Deliver us from evil!” And Hitler — with his vile aggressions and concentration camps — fell. Later, nations again prayed, “Deliver us from evil.” And the Soviet Union — with its gulags and show trials — fell. Propaganda’s veneer was stripped away, and the nations finally saw the evil of those regimes for what it was.
During the days of slavery in the US and later in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, an entire race prayed, “Deliver us from evil.” And God did it. No, the world was not suddenly made perfect. That won’t happen until Jesus comes. But God answered prayer and He continues to answer prayer. It happens when people pray as Jesus told us to pray — “Deliver us from evil!”
I hope it has happened in your life. I know it has happened in mine. When we pray, “Deliver us from evil,” we pray for ourselves and for our whole world. In some ways, the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:13 is like the prayer found in the Bible’s next to last verse — Revelation 22:20. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
May He come, and deliver us from evil! May He come soon “with healing in His wings!” [Malachi 4:2] Psalms 50:3 says, “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent.” Isaiah 25:9 says, “And it will be said in that day: ‘Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.’”
Jesus even delivers us from death. John 5:28-29 says, “The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth.” Philippians 3:21-22 says that at His coming, “The Lord Jesus Christ… will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”
No wonder the New Testament repeatedly speaks of the followers of Christ as those who “eagerly wait for Him,” or who “love His appearing.” Like the young woman in the last verse of the Song of Solomon (8:14), we cry out, “Make haste, my beloved.”
