Deliver us from evil is an easy concept. Who wants bad things to happen?! The challenge I think is grasping the width and breadth of this petition. First let’s flesh out evil. You can watch in the video the congregation rattle off ten examples of evil. We didn’t even mention disease! We’re surrounded by so much evil, our problem is that we don’t understand how much evil our God keeps from ever touching our “tent”. How many near miss car accidents, “light” colds that never became pneumonia, or schemes of our evil foe that never went into action because God stopped that evil in its tracks?
What I want to focus on is the harder questions of God’s deliverance. God keeping evil away is a simple concept. But there are three other ways God delivers is from evil.
God gives us the strength to bear up under the evil. God makes the evil work out for the good – not necessarily our good. Finally God will rescue us from evil by taking us home to heaven.
Let’s work through these. I meet many people who suffer from chronic pain or sickness. That is a difficult cross to bear. Over time through prayer, pouring their heart out to God, and listening to God’s answer in the Bible, the Spirit does give them peace. I don’t have a hard and fast time line, but I have seen God’s deliverance from evil in this way.
Working evil out for the good is a scary one for me, because I wonder if God might allow something to happen to me or someone I care about so that I might be able to minister to someone going through that misery. You might laugh, but spending a month with a dog is an INCREDIBLE conversation starter. This might not be evil to you, but it was for me for the first week or so.
Finally, be at peace, Christian when God calls home to heaven someone you love. There is no more hunger or thirst – no more pain or sickness. That person is in glory – at peace.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s Bible class in our series on the Lord’s Prayer: 7th Petition – Deliver Us from Evil.
Please click HERE for the Bible class slides.