Call to Worship March 18 2018
Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke
J.C. Ryle Luke 11:1-4
“The third division of the Lord’s Prayer, respects our daily DANGERS. We are taught to make mention of two things which we ought to fear every day, and which we must expect to meet with as long as we are in this world. One of these things is “temptation.” The other is “evil.”
We are taught to pray against TEMPTATION — “Lead us not into temptation.” We do not mean by this expression, that God is the author of evil, or that He tempts man to sin. (James 1:13.) But we entreat Him who orders all things in Heaven and earth, and without whom nothing can happen — so to order the course of our lives that we may not be tempted above what we can bear. We confess our weakness and readiness to fall. We entreat our Father to preserve us from trials — or else to make a way for us to escape. We ask that our feet may be kept from temptation, and that we may not bring discredit on our profession and misery on our souls.
We are taught, lastly, to pray against EVIL — “Deliver us from evil.” We include under the word evil — everything that can hurt us, either in body or soul — and especially every weapon of that great author of evil, the devil. We confess that ever since the fall, “That the whole world is under the control of the evil one!” (1 John 5:19.) We confess that evil is in us, and around us, and near us, and on every side — and that we have no power to deliver ourselves from it. We apply to the strong for strength. We cast ourselves on Him for protection. In short, we ask what our Savior Himself asked for us, when He said, “I do not pray that you should take them out of the world — but that you should keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:15.)”