C 09 - Deliver Us from the Evil One

9. Deliver Us from the Evil One Lead us not into temptation. Here we are concerned with the great testing, not with evil merely, but with the Evil One.

There are minor trials, sins which are not mortal, one might almost call them provisional temptations, which God sends us every day and which vary according to our age some for the young, some for the not so young, and some for the old. God sends them because they are necessary for us; they are temptations which we can resist. In the Epistle of James, indeed, it is written that they can be an occasion of joy : ’Blessed is the man that endureth temptation’ (James 1:12). There are evils which cause suffering, both within and without, that may be severe and extremely unwelcome; but when looked at closely, they are found to be bearable. It can even be said, as Paul does, that ’they work together for the good f those who love God’ (Romans 8:28). One must not ask to be spared these trials and evils at all costs. It would be wrong to say to God : Do not make me go through what Job, David and all the saints have had to endure, in accordance with thy purpose which is always good. We are wrong to cry : Deliver us from everything which might be a danger or a cause of sorrow to us. The sixth petition of the ’Our Father’ is not concerned with evils of this kind, minor trials which are only relative and can be endured. But there is the great eschatological testing*, which may, no doubt, appear in the guise of a minor trial, but is itself entirely different : it is the activity of the Evil One. Moral and physical testings may in fact be identified with it; they can be the expression of its deadly action, but a distinction must be drawn. There is no question here of an ordinary danger which could be clearly recognized and resisted; it is, rather, the infinitely dangerous threat of that nothingness that is opposed to God himself. It is a threat which involves, for the creature, not merely a temporary danger, a relatively unimportant destruction, or a momentary corruption, but complete and utter ruin and final extinction. (* The ’temptation’ (NEB : ’test’) of which the Lord’s Prayer speaks is generally agreed by scholars to refer to the testing of man in the final conflict with evil.-Ed.) This is the supreme testing. There is nothing in it from which we may profit; it is fruitless, and if it comes upon us, one cannot say of it, `rejoice’; it holds no hope. There is an intolerable, unendurable evil which is in no way a rival to what is good, and the threat of it exists and manifests its presence. This supreme and infinite evil is not part of the created order. There are evils belonging to the created order, as we have said, but they are relative and can be borne. But that evil has no part in what God has willed and created; it exists at the farthest limit of creation, on the left hand as God is himself the limit on the right. This absolute evil thrusts itself upon the created order in forms which we all recognize-sin and death. It is seen in the unlawful and inexplicable domination of what the Scripture calls the Devil. The creature is defenceless in face of this menace; God is stronger than it, but his creatures are not. Once the Devil has gained a footing he wreaks endless havoc, against which we can do nothing without God’s protection. Where God is not, or where he is not master, there the Devil reigns : no other alternative exists. The Reformers, both Luther and Calvin, experienced not only small trials but the great testing; they knew that they had to do with the Evil One. They had no respect for him, since he is not worthy of respect, but they were aware of his existence; they knew very well that they had to reckon not with men’s malice only - that of the Pope and all those who opposed them; there is also the Evil One, who turns to evil all those things with which we are occupied and about which we care. God’s enemy is the enemy of his creatures also. If we are to pray this last petition as we should, we must recognize that the Reformers were right.

I have no intention of preaching to you about the Devil; one cannot preach him and I have no desire to cause you pain. But, nevertheless, this is something real, which modern Christians tend to pass over too lightly. There is an enemy possessed of superior power whom we cannot resist without God’s help. I have no love for demonology nor for the way people concern themselves with it nowadays in Germany and possibly elsewhere also. Do not, therefore, ask me questions about demons, for I am no expert! We should, however, realize that ’the Devil exists and then make all haste to get away from him.

We pray thee, our Father, so to lead us that we may be able to avoid this sinister, this baleful borderland; lead us thy children, the redeemed of Jesus Christ. Spare us, not the struggle, for we must accept it, nor suffering, for one must suffer, but spare us the encounter with that enemy who is stronger than our utmost strength, more wily than our understanding (including our understanding of theology), more dangerously sentimental (for the Devil is sentimental too!) than we can ever be. He is more pious (yes, the Devil is pious also) than our Christian piety, ancient, modern or theological. Shield us from the possibility of such evil, from which we should not know how to protect ourselves and which would utterly and finally brutalize us. This is not merely one trial among others, if somewhat more painful or sinister; it is the supreme testing in which the impossible becomes possible.

Deliver us from the Evil One. We discover and experience his power, though in fact the power is apparent and not real. But the terrible thing is that, though unreal, it is active; it is useless to make little of it because it is unreal; it is dangerous because it is a crafty and insidious power and its domination is only too real. Our sins give it power over us because we have yielded to it. We are in the very jaws of death; we complain, we suffer, but we cannot free ourselves. The Greek word usually translated `deliver’ may also be rendered ’snatch’ us from those jaws. In the Old Testament, the Psalms from beginning to end echo with the cry `snatch us’, and Christianity takes up this cry in the sixth petition, for it knows this enemy because it knows Christ and that he has encountered not only the ill-will of men but also the enemy of God and of his creature. It needed the Son of God to unmask the sinister wickedness of the enemy. This is why the Lord’s Prayer ends with this cry de profundis, and if our prayer does not end on this same note, it does not answer to what Christ has taught us. But this last petition also presupposes that we know, more certainly than we know anything else about this danger, that God has already done what we ask of him; before we thought of praying or had framed this petition lead us not into temptation, he had done it. In truth, God does not drive us into this testing.

No, our Father, this thou dost not do; how couldst thou, who hast revealed thyself in thy Son? Thou dost not deceive us; thy mind concerning this great testing is not in doubt, it is explicit; thy resistance is clear and plain and has been so since the first day of Creation when thy word was uttered: `Let there be light.’ Thou, our Father, hast no commerce with evil, thou knowest no compromise, thou dost not tolerate it. The menace of nothingness can never come from thee, it will never be admitted or allowed by thee. Nay, rather, when thou leadest us in thy paths, in the way of thy goodness and thy forgiveness, thou wilt lead us always to the right, never to the left. We can be certain that while we follow thy word we shall never be led into the great testing. While we follow the path that thou hast prepared for us and hast revealed in thy Son we shall always be sheltered from this aberration. Thou wilt deliver us from the Evil One.

Art thou not God the liberator? There is only one who is able to effect a decisive deliverance, and thou art he. We know now that thou art the great liberator; thou thyself hast joined issue with the Evil One, that usurper whose dominion must be destroyed because he has no part in thy creation. Thou hast gone forth to shatter the powers of this kingdom of the Devil; thou hast caused him to fall like lightning from heaven, and we have seen him fall. In the resurrection of thy Son thou hast triumphed over the powers of darkness; thou hast proclaimed thy victory by many signs and wonders, and thou dost proclaim it still among us by baptism in the name of thy Son and by the presence of his body and his blood in the Holy Communion.

Thou hast snatched us already from those jaws; thine be the glory! We need no longer be oppressed by the menace of the Evil One or go in fear of him. That is why we pray `lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One’. Be ever with us, 0 thou our true and faithful guide, to show us the right path and open it before our feet; thou art the victorious leader before whom the Evil One is no more than a witless and ludicrous goblin, a nothing.

We know that without thee it would not be so. Our ways would not be the right way, and our moral and religious enterprises could never be successful. Without thee our efforts to overcome temptation, evil and the Devil would only make matters worse. It is for thee alone to protect us and rescue us from the position we are in. Once more, to thee be the glory, to thee in whom we put our trust. This is the final liberty that God grants us.

There is reason to pray. Without the last petition of the ’Our Father’, and the response which precedes our prayer, we should be not merely crippled and handed over to judgment, but reduced to nothingness. Thine be the glory! Thou hast destroyed the one who would have destroyed us! Thou hast loved us and dost love us, and thy love is efficacious; it delivers once and for all!