Discipleship Ii “Deliver Us From The Evil One”
Discipleship II
“Deliver us from the evil one”
Satan has been caricatured so much over the centuries that most people don’t take him seriously or even believe he exists. To them Satan is a myth, an ugly red creature with a forked tail, pointed ears, and a malicious smile who carries a pitchfork. The Bible paints an entirely different picture, and it’s nothing to laugh at.
One of Satan’s titles is “the tempter” (Matt. 4:3; 1 Thess. 3:5). Whether he comes as a serpent to deceive (2 Cor. 11:3) or a lion to devour (1 Peter 5:8), Satan roams throughout the earth opposing God’s work and tempting God’s people to disobey. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:11–12).30 If we want to remain standing in this battle and be able to withstand the enemy, we must by faith put on all the defensive armor God provides and take the weapons of the Word of God and prayer to use offensively against Satan (Eph. 6:13–20; see Acts 6:4). God equips and enables us if we trust him.
I doubt whether Satan has ever personally opposed me and my ministry, or that his demonic forces even know my name. Unfortunately I’m not that big a threat to their operation. “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15). Satan is a created being, which means he isn’t omnipresent, as is the Lord God Almighty. If Satan is at work in Chicago, he can’t be causing trouble in London or Berlin, except through his agents. The devil appears to be omnipresent because his demonic assistants are constantly busy all over the world. The tempter has probably assigned one of his apprentice demons to tempt me and interfere with my life and work, but I still have to watch and pray if I expect to “stand” and “withstand” as I fight the battle together with the saints (Eph. 6:13).
As Christian believers, we have every right to pray against the devil and ask God to “deliver us from the evil one.” Satan and his army are too strong for us but not for God. Jesus commands us to pray for deliverance, and he himself prayed for us that we would have victory. “My prayer is not that you take them [believers] out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Jesus intercedes for us today, and if we trust him and join our prayers with his, he will give us the victory. The Lord “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Col. 1:13). We don’t fight for victory but from victory, the victory Christ won for us on the cross. “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col. 2:15).
The enemy is already at work in and through the lives of lost sinners and disobedient believers. If we are obedient disciples, then the devil will attack us and try to move us out of God’s will. He certainly attacks our prayer life and Bible study because he knows that the Word of God and prayer are the most powerful weapons we possess for opposing him and his army. In recent years, churches by the hundreds have eliminated regular prayer meetings, and Satan must be happy about that.
Basically Satan is a counterfeiter and has no original ideas. He takes what the Lord says and offers us substitutes for the true blessings God wants to give us. Read Genesis 3:1–7 and notice how Satan deceived Eve and then used her to tempt Adam. “If the Father loves you so much, why has he forbidden you to eat of the tree? Did God really say that? The Lord is holding out on you!” When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the enemy used a similar approach (Matt. 4:1–4). “Your Father just said that you are his beloved Son. Then why are you hungry? If he loved you, surely he would feed you. Turn these stones into bread. Use your power for yourself, not for others.”
When we pray “Our Father,” we must believe what we are saying, that our Father does love us and will provide for us. The word our reminds us that his people are also there to help us in our needs. Otherwise one of Satan’s demonic servants will be on hand to tell us that his master cares for us more than God does and that the believers in our lives don’t care at all. The father of lies (John 8:42–47) wants to replace the heavenly Father, the God of truth; and Satan’s counterfeit Christians want to be on hand to replace the fellowship of true believers (Matt. 13:7, 36–39). Satan promises to give us just what we need, but in the end he takes away far more than he gives. Jesus saves the best wine until the last (John 2:1–10); Satan starts with the best he has but ends with poison.
We must never forget those two little words our and us . They remind us that we are not fighting alone (1 Peter 5:8–9). Satan hates the church and uses every weapon available to deceive it, defile it, divide it, disgrace it, and destroy it. He especially enjoys using believers in the church to do his dirty work, as he did with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) and the troublemakers in the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:4–17; 5:1–6:20). If he can infiltrate the church with his agents, he can work from the inside and do terrible damage (Phil. 3:17–21; 2 Tim. 3:1–9; 2 Peter 2:1–22).
Have you ever considered the Lord’s Prayer from Satan’s point of view? To him the words “Our Father in heaven” are a declaration of war, not a declaration of faith. God is our Father, “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3), while Satan is a murderer and “the father of lies” (John 8:44). We are part of the church that Jesus is building and that Satan cannot overcome (Matt. 16:18). The Father and the Son are enthroned in heaven and giving us all we need to keep on building and batthng until Jesus comes.
When we pray “hallowed be your name,” it must infuriate Satan and his demonic army, because Satan’s consuming passion is to make himself “like the Most High” (Isa. 14:14). According to Matthew 4:8–10, Satan wants us to worship him! According to Revelation 9:20 and chapters 13–14, the unsaved world will one day believe Satan’s lies and worship him, and this will ultimately bring them to hell. Why would the world follow Satan? Because unsaved people put security and material possessions ahead of the kingdom of God. They take the easy way, which ultimately becomes the hard way that leads to destruction.
The church has been praying “your kingdom come” for centuries, and though Satan convinces some people that Jesus will not come (2 Peter 3), the Lord will keep his promises and return! The day will come when loud voices in heaven will announce, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). This request focuses our hearts on our future hope, and this is a posture Satan despises. Hope is confidence ignited by joy. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief” (2 Peter 3:10). Christians who live in the future tense experience the joy of the Lord and find strength (Neh. 8:10).
“Your will be done” is a key request that the enemy hates. Jesus made this his prayer in the garden as he faced the cross, and he admonished Peter, James, and John, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). Instead, they went to sleep. When the mob came to arrest Jesus, Peter tried to defend him, and then all the disciples fled. Jesus warned his disciples to go away immediately (John 18:8), but Peter and John followed the mob to the high priest’s house, and there Peter denied the Lord three times. Had they joined Jesus in praying “your will be done,” they would have obeyed him and not failed in their assignment.
God’s will is discovered in God’s Word, and Satan wants to keep us from God’s Word. If we read the Scriptures daily and meditate on them, then Satan tries to keep the seed of the Word from bearing fruit (Matt. 13:18–23). God reveals his will to those who pray, and sometimes we must “wrestle [agonize] in prayer” as we seek his will (Col. 4:12). If we want deliverance from Satan and his agents, we must feed on the Word, fellowship with God’s people, pray earnestly, and seek to glorify God. If we do, Satan will mark us as tough targets and assault us even more, but the Lord will give us victory.
That covers the first three requests in the Lord’s Prayer, requests that focus primarily on God and his desires. But Satan attacks our personal prayer requests as well.
When we pray “Give us today our daily bread,” the Lord promises to meet our needs. He will provide our daily food, even if he has to enlist birds to help him, as he did for Elijah (1 Kings 17). Jesus began his ministry by fasting, and Satan used that situation to tempt him. If Jesus had taken the approach of some believers, he could have said, “I need bread, I desire it, and I deserve it, so there’s nothing wrong in doing it.” Satan often appeals to the natural human appetites God has given us, and we must be careful how we respond.
Satan doesn’t want us to experience the forgiveness of sins. God says of his children, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Heb. 10:17), but Satan is the accuser of God’s people (Rev. 12:10) and attempts to remind us of our mistakes and sins. This may be what Paul means by “the flaming arrows of the evil one” in Ephesians 6:16. I have felt the devil’s accusations even while standing in the pulpit preaching God’s Word! During those times we must take up the shield of faith and trust God’s promises that our sins are held against us no more and that we cannot be condemned (Rom. 8:1). “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (Isa. 43:25). When you recall a sin you’ve committed but have confessed (1 John 1:9), don’t dwell on it. Instead, thank God for his forgiveness and praise him for being such a merciful God. For “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). Psalm 32 and 1 John 1 are good reminders that God does not hold our confessed sins against us.
The enemy wants to argue with us about how we have treated those who have sinned against us. Jesus commands us to forgive them, but Satan will oppose this response. “After what she did to you, she doesn’t deserve forgiveness.” Does anybody deserve forgiveness? Of course not! This is where God’s mercy and grace come in. Cultivating an unforgiving spirit only fertilizes the soil of the heart so it can produce bitter roots that will poison our lives and defile others (Heb. 12:14–15). But let’s remember Jesus’s prayer on the cross when he said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Or Stephen’s prayer as the angry mob stoned him, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).
The enemy doesn’t want us to pray for God’s leading or for deliverance from his snares. He prefers that we feel confident and capable of handling whatever comes our way. Peter said to Jesus, “I will lay down my life for you” (John 13:37) and tried to prove it with his sword, but a few hours later he had denied the Lord three times and sat alone weeping. “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Our Lord’s frequent admonition to watch and pray reminds us that Satan’s devices are subtle and we can’t successfully follow the Lord with our eyes closed.
Let’s keep “fixing our eyes on Jesus” (Heb. 12:2), not on Satan or on ourselves and our circumstances. The enemy may come as an angel of light and deceive us (2 Cor. 11:13–15). For every lie that Satan tells, we have Bible truth with which to answer him. For every “bargain” he offers us, we have a precious blessing from the Lord that is far better. We must not turn trials into temptations by questioning the love of the Father or trying to scheme our way out of difficult circumstances. Above all, let’s remain humble before the Lord and trust him to do what is best for us. “The tail feathers of pride should be pulled out of our prayers,” wrote Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “for our prayers need only the wing feathers of faith.”31 John agrees with him: “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).
Most of us know what sin or sins will tempt us, so we must be careful not to get careless and tempt ourselves. Sometimes the enemy surprises us, but it’s more likely he will use the same bait that has already proved successful. For example, Samson knew that as a Nazirite he wasn’t supposed to touch a dead body, but he scooped honey out of a lion carcass anyway (Judges 14). After all, he was hungry, and a man has to live. But that act was the beginning of the lying and lusting that ultimately led to Samson’s defeat and death.
Lot knew that the cities of the plain were saturated with sin, but he moved into Sodom and eventually sat in the gate of Sodom as one of the city officials. He should have remained with his uncle Abraham, but he had different plans. God’s judgment fell on the cities and Lot lost everything (Gen. 13:1–13; 19:1–38). Had it not been for Abraham’s intercession with the Lord, Lot would have died in that fiery holocaust.
As we seek God’s guidance and his protection from sin and the evil one, let’s remember these words of wisdom: “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Humility is the fear of the LORD; its wages are riches and honor and life” (Prov. 22:3–4).