Sermon of the Week: “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”
This week we conclude our series on the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4, Jesus lays out the blueprint for all petitions made to the Father. From this foundational prayer, a wealth of theology springs. Each week, we will highlight a sermon by Charles Spurgeon that focuses on a different part of the Lord’s Prayer and draws out its devotional implication. Below is the final sermon in this series, titled “Lead Us Not Into Temptation.”
“How am I to endure temptations?” When we look down the road before us as we serve our Lord, trepidation may fill our hearts knowing that trials and allurements to sin surround our path. Charles Spurgeon, knowing full well this reality, brings to his congregation the final section of the Lord’s Prayer in his 1863 sermon titled “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” as encouragement and guidance for their walk with the Lord.
Spurgeon first answers a critical question: how can God lead us into temptation when James says in his letter that God tempts no one? Spurgeon observes that there is an important difference between leading one into temptation and being the author of the temptation. By God’s grace, He may set before us a path that leads through trials and temptations to sin, but He is by no means the one doing the tempting; that is the Devil’s work. “God tempts no man. For God to tempt in the sense of enticing to sin were inconsistent with his nature, and altogether contrary to his known character; but for God to lead us into those conflicts with evil which we call temptations, is not only possible, but usual.”
Having addressed that pressing matter, Spurgeon turns his attention to the request itself, “lead us not into temptation.” Spurgeon rightly points out that although temptations may come along the path of righteousness as we follow the Lord, we need not desire them. It is right and good to ask the Lord to steer us away from situations that can tempt us to sin. “Happy are they who have come through this temptation and have been delivered from the evil of it, but happier far are they who have never been led into it.”
But even when, through the Father’s perfect sovereignty, the Lord directs us through paths of difficulty, we can cry to Him for help. “Lord, do not so try us; send not such adversities upon us as to lead us into temptation; but if thou do this, be pleased to hold us up in the rough road, lest we fall into evil.” Jesus bids us petition our heavenly Father to provide the strength needed to overcome difficulties when they do come. He says so Himself in the closing of His prayer, saying, “but deliver us from evil.” Praise the Lord that we have a Savior who can deliver us from all strife.
Excerpt:
I charge you, elders of the Church; I charge you, seniors in the faith; I charge you, mothers in Israel, that you offer this prayer to-day and every day-“Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; temper the wind to the shorn lamb; put not the little boat upon the rough billows; send not thy little ones to stern battles; and, Lord, since we are all weak, old as well as young, since the grey locks cover no more wisdom than the child’s curls, except as thou givest wisdom, so do thou keep all the Church, and lead neither pastor, nor officers, nor members into temptation, or if we must be led there, take up the latter sentence and pray it still more passionately, “Deliver us from evil.”
Read the rest of the sermon here.