Deliver Us from Evil

a prophetic prayer for this hour

I’ve been praying the Lord’s Prayer, daily, and in an expanded way, for ten years now.

It has shaped and discipled my prayer life in ways I could hardly imagine, and I consider it one of God’s greatest gifts to me personally. Maybe you, likewise, find the Spirit uses this cornerstone prayer to guide your devotional prayer or intercession. Each petition is rich with the gospel, leading us to life and life to the full.

Recently however, I’ve felt the Holy Spirit prophetically emphasise the last section of the prayer. I think this reveals something that He’s doing in the Church in a particular way in this season.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Two petitions that are interlinked.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

If we look around us, we quickly become aware of the deterioration of our society. I won’t list all the ways that evil seems to have grown unchecked and is gaining the upper hand; so prayer for deliverance from evil is exactly what we need. However, this prayer for deliverance is not just focused on society at large; it also applies to the evil within us: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We continually pray for God to deliver us from these corruptions, to uproot them, and to lead us into holiness. This is our lifelong path of sanctification.

But then, this prayer is also a petition that the Father would deliver us from the Evil One, the Devil with all his works of darkness, deception, and torment. This, too, is an important daily prayer. Our present reality means that temptation and darkness are always crouching at the door, looking for opportunity. While we are secure in Christ’s victory and don’t focus on the enemy, still, we are not naive. We daily choose not to let the enemy gain a foothold in our lives, for if he does, he wreaks havoc and destruction; he is never a neutral, passive presence. You can’t make a peace treaty with a devil.

THE FATHER IS EAGER TO ANSWER

One of the things I love about this simple petition—such an integral part of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray—is the confidence we can have in the Father’s desire, and of course ability, to answer this request. It’s not a maybe. It’s not just possible that He might hear our cry and rescue us from the enemy of our souls—He will. Jesus didn’t instruct us to pray a prayer that the Father was lukewarm about answering, this prayer is the very essence of the will of God for our lives and the Father is waiting for us just to ask.

And the Lord’s Prayer is not a random assortment of petitions, arbitrarily thrown together. The requests perfectly reveal the will of God, and the sequence of requests also reveal how we are to approach the Father. So the revelation that we ask for forgiveness with an authentic, open, contrite spirit and that we do the heart work to forgive others before we ask for deliverance is absolutely essential.

ALIGNMENT MATTERS

You see, we cannot align with the enemy’s ways and at the same time, ask the Father to deliver us from them! The enemy loves sin and will do everything he can for us to avoid repentance and the path of sanctification. But just as much, he hates for us to imitate the Father and hold out our hands in generous forgiveness. The devil delights in festering resentment, bitterness, and offence, while tempting us into judgemental accusations against each other. So we have a choice. On one hand, we have the Devil’s ways of unforgiveness, and on the other, we have the Father’s way of extravagant, sacrificial, forgiveness. Where do we align? Which path do we walk?

I trust you understand that I am not advocating for a boundary-less life where anyone can abuse us and keep getting free access to our lives. No. Forgiveness is freely given, trust, especially once violated, takes time to be restored, and that’s only done with wisdom. But with that in mind, let’s explore how forgiveness might have an application or two that we hadn’t considered.

Teaching on forgiveness is a mainstay of the Church’s preaching and discipleship, as it should be. As a result, we all have likely had many moments of inviting the Holy Spirit to sift through our life’s story and to highlight anyone we might need to forgive. We likely also stay alert to current happenings in our lives where we need to offer forgiveness. This is familiar territory; we understand this is part of discipleship.

MORE APPLICATIONS?

Yet there are two areas where extending forgiveness is important but not often taught, even though unforgiveness, even in these areas, aligns us with the enemy’s ways and opens up doors to give him access to our lives.

The first one is forgiving sins of omission. Have others not loved, supported, provided, or protected us the way that they biblically should have? They haven’t proactively done something to us, but they didn’t do what we needed them to do, and what the Bible teaches they should have. This lack is just as much a sin as a sin that involves an action, but we don’t always think about it. Still, our hearts may have been wounded, and we may hold resentment even though it feels undefined.

If this resonates with you, and either some situation springs to mind, or a niggling sense of resentment, it’s likely the Spirit speaking. Why not pause right now and work this though with the Lord, allow Him to fully show you the sin that has been committed against you, and lead you into forgiving.

The second area where we need to practice forgiveness, which we don’t always consider, is forgiveness towards those with power over us, whose words and actions impact us, directly or indirectly. Or this could even be leaders who are wounding the vulnerable by wielding their power in a corrupt or evil way. Our hearts grieve on behalf of the injustice done to the powerless. These people could be bosses, professors, politicians, or even Christian celebrities without Christian character. Because we have a degree of separation, we don’t feel responsible to love them as our neighbour. But they are sinning against us and others, and we are called to forgive. Clearly, this doesn’t mean that we excuse them or approve of their policies. We can vigorously oppose them in every lawful way, but if our hearts become hateful, we are again aligning with the enemy.

I don’t find this easy. I have to keep coming back to the Lord for the grace to forgive, especially governmental leaders that I feel are choosing destructive ways for our province and country, but I cannot afford to resent or hate the individuals. As a nation, we are on the edge of offering MAiD to those with mental illness instead of fighting for these precious people made in God’s image, to find a path to health and healing. These types of injustices should make us angry.

Perhaps for you, the most difficult struggle is to forgive leaders from other countries that are upending the status quo…. You know who I’m talking about.

But friends, Jesus didn’t teach us, to forgive those who mistreat us— with the exception of Trump! As Christians, we cannot allow the festering of anger and resentment against any leader, political or otherwise, to lodge in our hearts. It gives place to the enemy and puts us at odds with the ways of God. We can still be angry at injustice or corruption without sinning. We guard our hearts and choose not to cross the line into hate.

When I say the enemy can have access to our lives, I am not saying anyone is going to be demon-possessed. That’s the extreme. However, he can harass, afflict, or torment us in different measures. It is up to us how much we resist the correction of the Lord and align with the enemy— this will determine how large a foothold the enemy gains in our lives.

THIS I CAN PROMISE YOU

Now, while I can’t say to what degree unforgiveness may be giving the enemy opportunity to prey on us, I can say with certainty that there is a way to close that door. Back to the Lord’s Prayer.

Forgive us our sins.

We begin with repentance for how we have allowed—what began as righteous anger, grief, or outrage—to morph into disdain or even hatred for another.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” Mt 5:43-45a

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. Lu 6:27, 28

Secondly, we choose to forgive. I know this isn’t easy, so we ask for the Lord to give us compassion and genuinely see the person that we’ve struggled with, through His eyes. We pray for what’s best for their soul, that they would turn to wholeheartedly follow the Lord.

Thirdly, we ask the Lord for deliverance from all evil that has encroached into our lives. We can now pray with boldness, faith, and confidence. We can pray comprehensively for all the rotten fruit of the enemy’s activity to be washed from our lives, and God will answer us.

IT’S THE WAY OF THE CROSS

It’s helpful to remember that the Church has always walked this way. Think about Christ, Himself, forgiving from the cross. Think about Stephen, the first martyr, emulating Jesus and asking that the Lord not hold guilty those who were—right in that moment—in the process of violently murdering him. Think about the Church who received Paul, even after he had severely persecuted them. He wasn’t just disparaging them in the press or mocking them—he himself said he tried to destroy the Church.

But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Acts 8:3

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. Gal 1:13

Yet, during this horrific time of persecution, the Church steadfastly forgave and prayed for Paul in obedience to Christ’s teaching, and the Lord answered their prayers, transforming him into their strongest apostolic apologist. We know this because Ananias immediately obeyed the Lord’s instruction to go and minister to Paul after Jesus had appeared to him (Acts 9:11). Yes, Ananias needed to clarify the assignment, but he didn’t need to go on a two-week prayer retreat to reorient his heart so that he could carry it out. He had already forgiven; he was already praying for Paul’s salvation.

Let’s follow this example. Let’s forgive and keep on forgiving as we look to our Great Deliverer to rescue us, our churches, and our nation, from evil.

For His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.