In this manner pray… “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil…(Matthew 6:9-13).
In James 1:13, the Bible says “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. Also in Matthew 4:1, the Bible says “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”. By these verses, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that God tempts no one; it is the devil who does the tempting.
Even so, no where in the Bible has it been said or suggested that the Spirit of God leading Jesus up to be tempted by the devil was an Old Testament trait of God or His Spirit. God actually declares of Himself that “For I am the Lord, I change not “ (Malachi 3:6); He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Therefore, to claim that the prayer above only reflects an Old Testament attribute of God, so that we do not have to pray it in the New Testament, has no basis in the Bible. As we examine the New Testament, we will see the great need to pray this prayer, exactly as Jesus taught us to pray.
The Greek word translated “lead” in the prayer above is “eisphero”, which also means to bring to or bring into. It is also worth noting that, Jesus when He taught His disciples to pray for God not to to lead them into temptation had Himself, not long ago, been permitted by God to be tempted by the devil. This wasn’t a mere enticement to sin but like Job, the devil had been granted permission from God to bring Jesus into the full weight of temptation. And Jesus was tempted in every way a person could be tempted (1 John 2:16) yet sinned not (Hebrews 4:15). We may think we are immune to every form of temptation but the Scriptures warns us that “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Already, the Scriptures also say to Christians that “We all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). Therefore, it is wisdom for us to pray to God not to bring us into those situations where we may yield to sin – although we may often cry to Him to bring us into those very places.
We may all have prayed to God earnestly about certain things we wanted, which seemed right and good to us but God withheld from us. Many good people may have passed on to glory and we struggle to understand why. Many of these things, may simply be God’s answer to our prayer not to bring us into temptation. For many of the things we wanted, if we had attained unto them would be the very temptation that would have led us away from God. And some, if they have lived only a day longer, may have encountered the temptation by which they would have been separated from God forever. Just as the Scriptures say “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12)”, and “The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil” (Isaiah 57:1). When we pray “and do not lead us into temptation”, we pray for God’s divine intervention into those seemingly good things by which we may be led astray, even before we encounter those things and pray to God for them. It’s our cry for God’s mercy.
The Bible teaches us, Christians, to know both the kindness and severity of God (Romans 11:22). We are deceived if we only know just His kindness or severity. He is perfectly kind and perfectly severe all of the time. God Himself has declared that if any man decides to continue in sin without repentance, He will eventually bring them to a place where they will be of a reprobate and depraved mind (Romans 1:28). When your mind becomes reprobate, you will eat every bait of temptation the devil throws at you, and this will be God’s judgement on you for destruction. Again, in 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12, God Himself warns that for those who do not believe His truth and do not receive the love of His truth but take pleasure in wickedness, He Himself will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false in order that they may be judged. When God gives a man this deluding influence because of their will to to reject God’s truth and the love of His truth, there would not be a temptation they will not be subject to to their own eternal ruin.
So, Jesus has taught us to pray to God not to lead us into temptation. To pray thus, is our surrender to God and holy determination to stay on the path of righteousness all the days of our lives so that we are not counted among those who are given up by God to every kind of temptation to their own destruction.
Kwadwo Omari, PhD
March 24, 2019.