Old Testament Reading: Revelation 12:3–12

³And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. ⁴His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. ⁵She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, ⁶and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

⁷Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, ⁸but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. ⁹And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. ¹⁰And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. ¹¹And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. ¹²Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Epistle: Ephesians 6:10–17

¹⁰Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. ¹¹Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. ¹²For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ¹³Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. ¹⁴Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. ¹⁶In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; ¹⁷and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Holy Gospel: Luke 4:1–13

¹Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness ²for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. ³The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” ⁴And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” ⁵And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, ⁶and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. ⁷If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” ⁸And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”

⁹And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, ¹⁰for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to guard you,’

¹¹and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

¹²And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ¹³And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Grace to you and peace in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Technology has a powerful impact on our lives. Perhaps its greatest affect has been in finances. The ease of access to our money. You remember the “good ol’ days.” You work all week. At the end of the week you get your paycheck. Then you take that paycheck to the bank to deposit it and get some cash. The only way to spend your money would be: go the bank and make a withdrawal. It may have been easier to keep track of exactly what you spent because most every transaction was with cash.

These days things are different. With credit cards and check cards spending money has become far more convenient. Many cell phones now have NFC or Near-Field Communication which allows to you to hold your phone over a scanner and without even touching your wallet or purse a happy little tone says you can take your stuff home. No money, no visible transaction, no fuss, no muss.

With this convenience comes a danger. It is really easy to overspend. It takes the same effort to touch your phone for a ten thousand dollar charge as it does for a ten-dollar charge. The result is many people have charged so much they find themselves in serious financial trouble. All of that: “No money, no visible transaction, no fuss, no muss” is an illusion. The bill will come later and the bill must be paid.

Here’s the darker truth. If someone were to pay off a person’s entire debt they would be back in the same situation in just a short time. I once heard from an employ at Quad Graphic in Sussex, Wisconsin, about the president and owner Harry Quadracci. A woman was complaining that she wasn’t being paid enough because she couldn’t pay her bills. Her comments include some less than flattering things and Mr. Quadracci and “all his money.” He over heard her comments, which as you can imagine stopped very quickly when she saw him.

Quadracci was quite a character. He was well known for his generosity and his refusal to fire workers unless they really worked hard to earn it. I’ve heard many stories from family and friends who worked there. This woman probably thought she was about to be fired. Instead Quadracci asked her how much debt she had. She apologized for her comments but he insisted, “How much debt do you have?”

She eventually gave him a number and he cut her a personal check for the amount. It was not long before she was back in debt, racking up credit card bills. He later spoke with her and explained the problem was not how much she was paid, but how she handled what she had. What is needed is to learn to control the bad spending habits and deal with the temptation to spend more than you can afford.

So what does any of this have to do with the Lord’s Prayer? Previously we learned what it means to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others.” We learned God has paid our debt to Him. Jesus paid the bill. Still we live in a sinful world and the temptation to rack up up our debt of sin is always an ever present danger.

In the Lord’s Prayer we are asking God to prevent this from happening to us. We are asking God to keep temptation out of our sight, out of our reach, or give us the strength to withstand it so we will not run up our spiritual debt. Today we learn to pray, “…deliver us from evil.” Which should really read, “from the evil one.”

Last week we explored the question: “Why would I ask God not to tempt me? He wouldn’t do that anyway, would He?” No He wouldn’t. The book of James tells us:

When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ God cannot be tempted by evil nor does He tempt anyone.¹

It is the devil who tempts us to sin.

If you look closely at the Sixth Petition you will see we are not asking God not to tempt us. We are asking God not to lead in the direction of things that tempt us. It literally means, “Do not carry us into temptation.” We are asking God not to allow us to fall prey to the temptations of the devil. Temptations are not to be taken lightly. We are warned in 1 Peter:

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.²

Martin Luther once wrote:

The devil takes no holiday; he never rests. If beaten, he rises again. If he cannot enter in front, he steals in at the back door. If he cannot enter in the back, he breaks through the roof or enters by tunneling under the threshold.

The devil will use whatever is at his disposal to tempt us. If a person is poor the devil will tempt him to blame God and covet what others have. If a person is rich the devil will tempt him to rely on wealth rather than on God. If a person is young he will tempt him to think he can do whatever he wants without consequence. If a person is old he will tempt him to blame God for regrets about the past and suffering in the present, or actions in the past that have caused the situations in the present.

Whatever our station in life: poor or wealthy, young or old, the devil will look for an opportunity. So we go to our heavenly Father and ask, “deliver us from the evil one!” where else can we go?

It was He who defeated the devil by sending His Son to pay our debt of sin, and destroy the power of death by His resurrection on Easter morning. 1 John 3:8 reminds us:

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

Revelation 20 pictures the devil’s defeat this way:

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit…³

God allows the devil to prowl around looking for someone to devour, but the devil is limited like a dog on a chain. Martin Luther wrote:

Why should you fear? Why should you be afraid? Do you not know that the devil has been judged? He is no lord. You have a different,

a stronger Lord, Christ, who has overcome and bound him. Therefore let the devil look sour, bare his teeth, and make a great noise, threaten and act in an unmannerly way; he can do no more than a bad dog on a chain, which may bark, run here and there, and tear at the chain, but because it is tied and you avoid it, it cannot bite you.

The problem is, we often get too close to the devil and his temptations. Like a fool who walks within the range of a chained dog, we put ourselves within range of the devil’s temptations. We ask God not to lead us into temptation and then surround ourselves with the people, places, television, magazines and Internet that are certain to tempt us!

Once we are in his sights the devil pounces and tries to devour us. He digs his fangs into our conscience and growls, “Now you’ve done it! God will never take you back! Not after this!” When we feel the devil tearing at our conscience, we must look to our salvation promised and assured by Jesus. There we are reminded our debt has been paid. There we are reminded we have a loving heavenly Father.

When we need to crawl back to Him bruised by our battle, into which we foolishly walked, our Father binds our wounds with the balm of His Son’s Body and Blood. That is the healing power of that Sacred Meal. Our Father embraces us, and reminds us He loves us still. Once again safe, we look to Him and plead, “… deliver us from the evil one.”

It’s like the boy who was walking with his father one winter day. His father warned him not to run too fast because there were patches of ice and he would fall. The boy didn’t listen and his feet went out and his bottom went down. After his father helped him to his feet he apologized for not listening to his father’s warning and then, tightly grasping his father’s hand he asked, “Keep me from the slippery spots. Don’t let me fall again.”

Don’t let me fall again. That is what we are praying in this petition. It is no coincidence the very last thing for which Jesus tells us to pray is to be delivered from the evil one. We hear a lot about evil these days, but evil is not always easy to define. Perhaps it is easiest to understand it this way: God is the ultimate good and whatever separates us from Him is evil. Anything that would prevent us from focusing on God’s Word, or placing God’s and His Word as the primary source for all we do is evil.

This world is full of evil. The land mines of temptation cover the battleground of life. While we are here we will never be rid of it, …while we are here. There will be deliverance one day. When our loving God decides our time on this earth is spent He will deliver us, the faithful, from evil forever.

Between now and then may we continue to go to the Lord’s throne of grace with the wonderful words of this prayer we call His.

As Luther wrote in his hymn:

From evil, Lord, deliver us;
The times and days are perilous.
Redeem us from eternal death,
And when we yield our dying breath,
Console us, grant us calm release,
and take our souls to You in peace.⁴

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

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