"Then was
Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil... Again, the devil taketh him unto
an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them and he said
unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt
fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him...
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
thou serve" (Matt. 4:1,8-10).
"Bring us not
into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one: For
thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for
ever" (Matt. 6:13).
"Then was Jesus
led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of
the devil."
"Lead (or bring)
us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil
one."
"...showeth him
all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
...said unto him, All these things will I give thee if
thou wilt fall down and worship me."
"Deliver us from
the evil one: For thine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory for ever." As one who greatly
believes in the Revised Version, perhaps it becomes
necessary to say just a little word here, because the
Revised Version leaves that Doxology out of the text and
puts it in the margin. It is a very great question indeed
as to whether the Revisers were right in doing that. Out
of some fifty original authorities, only eight omit that
Doxology, and therefore an overwhelming mass stands for
it; and personally I feel, and I believe a great many
others feel, that there is every reason in the Word of
God why it should be retained in the text. For me, the
greatest reason is the significance of it, and I have
tried to allow the Word itself to suggest that
significance by bringing together these two different
parts. I am quite sure that most of you have perceived
the complementary element in these two passages, how they
go together in principle, how they are a part of each
other in meaning. We shall, therefore, seek to abide
rather in that realm of spiritual values than of mere
technical interests, with regard to the Word of God.
We are not going to
dwell upon fine points in what is called "The Lord's
Prayer", but to look at some great spiritual
features which come up in this great final clause of the
prayer. "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver
us from the evil one: for thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory" - Kingdom, power, glory, as
belonging unto the Lord for ever and ever.
The
Real Issue Behind Temptation
The first thing of
which we take note is the significance of that little
conjunction, "for". "Deliver us from the
evil one; for thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory". Carry that back to Chapter 4, where
the kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof are
offered by Satan to the Lord Jesus, and refused with a
reminder from the Scriptures: "Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve."
That surely corresponds to the first declaration,
"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory". Bring us not into trial, but rescue us away
from the Evil One; for Thine is the kingdom.
When you translate the words thus literally, you get
nearer to their significance. Trial in this particular
respect from the Evil One's standpoint would have as its
objective the inducing of us to have the kingdom as on
the lines of this world and lose it as on God's lines;
for that is exactly what it meant in the case of the Lord
Jesus. That is the essence of the enemy's pressure and
assault, to bring us down and to cause us so to
compromise for an easier way as to come into present
possession of a kingdom on earthly and temporal lines,
and miss the great thing which God has reserved in heaven
for us. That is the object of all Satan's trying of us,
as of the Lord Jesus, and it was because the Lord Jesus
was able to see through the enemy's strategy and effort
and detect what he was after in offering something seen,
something tangible, something present, something great,
apart from suffering and sacrifice and in the place of
that which was eternal in the heavens, though costly for
the time being; it was because the Lord Jesus was able to
detect this, and perhaps feared that His Church would not
see through the enemy's strategy, that He said to the
Church, 'Pray thus: Bring us not into trial, but rescue
us away from the Evil One'. In other words, Save us from
falling a prey to this subtle thing which, under intense
pressure, would make us turn away from the kingdom;
unseen, heavenly and eternal, to something offered us
now, glorious apparently, yet in reality a thing which
must come under Divine judgment and be destroyed and
prove to be an empty substitute for the great and
glorious thing which God has for them that love Him.
Now that
has a very real message for us in itself. I have no doubt
that it goes to the heart of everyone of us, for we all
know that kind of pressure and temptation from the enemy.
It is ever present. Ah yes, and when adversity is
strongest, the evil most intense, the suffering keenest
and the way before us most obviously the way of the Cross
and of rejection and of ostracism and of loneliness, then
the enemy's suggestion, to turn aside and have something
here and now, both gathers force and gathers point. If
only we will let go something and take a lower level, a
less utter position, we can have something; we can have
some of the glory of this world, we can have a kingdom now.
Thus he is ever seeking to bring us into a position
where, with that fiery dart, he can lay us low and rob us
of the kingdom. The Lord Jesus says to His own,
"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's
good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32);
but Satan is always seeking to offer a kingdom as well.
The
Vocation of the Church
Well, that
is only a fragment of the message in these words. There
is always bound up with the simplest and briefest
statement from the lips of the Lord Jesus a very great
deal of Divine meaning, much more than lies on the face
of things in the actual words themselves. Thus here in
these words, amongst the most familiar words on Christian
lips, in what is called "the Lord's Prayer", we
have something of tremendous meaning. It has been but
little recognized, but it can be caused to stand out by
bringing together these passages from chapter 4 and
chapter 6 in the way we have done. To me, it says so
clearly that the Lord calls His people to pray and to
take up a certain position in prayer. That position is
set forth as a stand for God's rights against the
counter-claims of the adversary, the claims of the
adversary to power, to authority, to the right to give,
and to glory. On the one side, he displays himself as one
who is in a position, and that of great authority and
power, and he seeks to show off his power, to make us
conscious of his power in respect of his position, and
this, of course, unto his glory. On the other side, there
is God. God is not always vaunting Himself, nor making
His authority and His power and His glory a matter of
display. Between these two stands the Church - the people
of God stand in the gap - and this prayer puts the Church
in a parallel position to that of the Lord Jesus in the
wilderness. There, on the one hand, we see Satan standing
out and making a display of his authority and his power;
that is, of his rights, what he can do, what he has the
ability to do; and of his power and of his glory. On the
other hand, God! But where is the display of power
authority, glory? It is hidden, it is not in
manifestation at all. In between the two, the Lord Jesus
is standing as in the gap and repudiating this that is
demonstrating itself, for that which is not seen, not at
the moment manifest, but which to Him is the supreme
thing, far more real than this and, moreover, eternal.
"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only
shalt thou serve": For Thine, not his, is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.
The
Inward Nature, Character, and Cost of True Testimony
But that
is taking a tremendous stand when you are in a wilderness
and have nothing whatever to prove it, and all you are
conscious of is of the fierce and bitter assault of the
Devil in power and ostentation. It is something which
belongs to an inner relationship. Do you see the
significance of that? The point, beloved, is that the
Church is called to stand in that gap and, toward the
ostentatious display of assumed right, authority, power
and glory, to maintain a position of fixed repudiation;
but toward that unseen spiritual, eternal, heavenly
reality of the kingdom and the power and the glory, not
now ostentatiously displayed, but hidden, to stand as a
testimony. And when you have said that, you have summed
up the Church's vocation. In this prayer, the Lord Jesus
puts the Church there. These petitions may become
personal, but remember, the Lord Jesus did not say, 'When
you pray, pray after this manner - My Father'.
No, it is "Our Father". The deepest
and the inmost reality about the Church is that it is a
family, and that means that it is the glory and power and
kingdom which has become the real concern of the Church.
This is
not some temporal thing, this kingdom, this power, this
glory. This is something which is our Father's, and we
have an inner, heart relationship with this. That is what
I meant just now when I said it is a matter of an inward
relationship. Our King? True, He is our mighty Potentate
on high. Yes, quite true, but not so presented here.
"Our Father": "Thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory"; and what is
implied is a repudiation of any kind of relationship with
that other one and all that belongs to him.
Well now,
all that I have to say for the present is wrapped up in
that. What is the Church's vocation? To occupy the
position into which it is put by the Lord Jesus in
prayer; to stand in the gap for a testimony, as over
against all that is display and ostentation and
demonstration from the Evil One, to the fact that
"Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the
glory". That is not a mere testimony in words. Oh,
if all the people who use those words so frequently,
perhaps almost every day of their lives, as a formula,
really came into the spiritual meaning of them, what a
time they would have! What an awful time they would have!
You know it is true that we cannot really in a spiritual
way make a declaration without drawing upon us some
challenge. In a formal way, out of the mere mental
conception or by way of learning by heart, you can say
anything, go to any length, and not meet any challenge at
all. But come into the wilderness in the power of the
Holy Ghost and say something, touching ultimate forces,
and then your testimony - Thine is the kingdom! - will
become more and more a grim thing, and there will be
times when, in face of the enemy demonstrating fiercely
and furiously, you will be on your knees simply wrestling
to hold to that position - Thine is the kingdom! -
nevertheless, Thine is the kingdom! It is standing in
battle for something. Thine is the power! Thine is the
glory! That is what we are here for, to maintain that
position for God. That issue is becoming a very real one
for many of the Lord's children today in an outward way,
as well as in a spiritual.
The
Conflict for World Dominion
Now, just
look at these three words - kingdom, power, glory. They
represent two histories from eternity to eternity. On the
one hand, Satan seeking a kingdom, world domination;
displaying power, terrible power. Look at it today: awful
power, ruthless power, startling power, to that end -
world domination. That has been so all the way through
the centuries, Satan seeking to build his kingdom, and in
doing so displaying his power, and making for himself a
reputation, glory. Is this not reflected in some of the
great episodes in the Scriptures? Is it not that which is
seen in Egypt? A kingdom, a sphere of supreme government
in the earth, power, display of power, glory, and all at
the expense of what was of God; for the chosen seed was
brought under that power in that kingdom to be made the
instrument of that glory. The Pyramids, again, an abiding
monument to the fact that a great world power or kingdom
exploited something that was of God for its own glory. Of
Babylon the same may be said. "Is not this great
Babylon that I have built for the royal dwelling place,
by the might of my power and for the glory of my
majesty?" said Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, interpreting
the dream, "God hath given thee a kingdom": but
that kingdom, that Gentile kingdom, was taken for the
glory of a man and not the glory of God; and that was the
interpretation of the dream. Nebuchadnezzar was driven
from amongst men to have his habitation with the beasts
of the field, because he gave not glory to God in his
kingdom, and when he came back and his reason returned
unto him, and he walked again in Babylon, his great
proclamation was to this effect, This God of heaven is
the only God.
So we
could pass down history and see it repeated again and
again. But today we have it perhaps more manifest than
ever. A kingdom, world domination, a display of awful
Satanic power, all for the glory of Satan in the
Antichrist eventually, so that he, sitting in the Temple
of God, claims to be God, taking God's place. A kingdom,
power and glory in the place of God.
I said
that many of the Lord's children are right up against
that thing in a literal, as well as a spiritual way
today. How far all will be involved in the outward and
literal expression we do not know, but we are all
involved in this thing spiritually. It is a mighty thing
that we are in.
There is
the other side - His Kingdom, His
power, His glory. But the ground of the testing
for us is that His Kingdom now is not a Kingdom to be
seen, His power now is not a power which is being
outwardly displayed, His glory now is something which is
in the heart in a spiritual relationship and knowledge of
Himself. It is what He is, what we know Him to be. The
Church has to stand for that against this other. It comes
down to us in our lives every day, is pressed home to us,
and is going to be pressed home - to be able at all times
to stand under intense trial and say, "Thine is the
kingdom". Ask friends just now in certain parts of
Europe whether it is easy to say that right into the face
of the Lord as the hordes of iniquity sweep on and do
their devastating and devilish work and seem to meet with
so little power to resist or throw them back, and no
display from heaven. It seems they are doing as they
will. Then ask these children of God whether it is easy
to say after all, Nevertheless, Thine is the kingdom, and
Thine is the power, and Thine is the glory! It is a very
living question. It presses in upon faith. That is where
we are. That is our vocation, that in the heavenlies in a
spiritual way we stand for God in the breach and maintain
in spirit and in faith that testimony.
A
Final Word on Temptation and Vocation
Let us get
away from all the romantic elements, (if indeed there be
such,) of a great world situation, and see that this
comes right down to our own personal life. It is the
supreme question in all our personal trial, our
sufferings, our afflictions, and all that we meet at the
enemy's hands. It lies behind all our temptations;
for all temptations are one in essence. The
one end of them all is to force us, or entice us, to let
go the heavenly for something that may be had here and
now. All trial has that at its heart. You know quite well
that in the secret place, under trial and difficulty and
adversity, it is always this question that is cropping up
- 'Must it be like this? Is it necessary for it to be
this way? Are we not being too utter, too heavenly? Could
there not be something of real gain if only we were to
(we would never use the word) compromise?' Yes, that is
what it means; to let go a little, slacken a little, drop
down a little. In some form or other, that is the heart
of all our temptation, and the question which it raises
is whether we are standing for God's rights or for
something that will come to ourselves.
Now have
you got the heart of it, of this temptation of the Lord
Jesus in the wilderness? In order to stand firmly for the
rights of the Father right through to the glorious issue,
He had persistently to refuse to listen to suggestions
which would bring Him advantage, get Him out of a
difficulty, make His way easier. Showing Him all the
kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, the Devil
said, "All this power will I give thee and the glory
of them..." The Lord Jesus refused. "Thine
is the kingdom"! If we go to Daniel, we meet
the same declaration: 'The kingdom is the Lord's! He
gives the kingdom to whomsoever He will. He will give the
kingdom to the saints'. We will wait for that, we will
stand for that, and we will repudiate the other. Whatever
Satan might give us would be a very poor substitute
indeed.
I do
wonder if you see the point in this word. It is simply
one thing. The Church is here, by the Lord Jesus, placed
in a position. It is a prayer position, and the earnest
of that which is fully developed in Ephesians 6, the
conflict with principalities and powers, world rulers of
this darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenlies; and we are bidden there to pray with all
prayer. The Church is to function in prayer against an
assumption, against a demonstration, against a claim,
against an ostentation, against presumption on the part
of the Evil One, all of which is to get us drawn into his
domain and under his power, and to use us for his glory.
To resist that, to stand against that, to stand clear of
it all for God's rights is the Church's business. Thine
is the kingdom: Thine the power: Thine the glory, for
ever and ever! That is our calling, that is our vocation.
There is much more in it than that, but that is where the
thing begins, where the Lord Jesus puts His people by
this prayer as in a testimony to God's rights, against
the one who would deny the Lord those rights and
appropriate them himself. The Lord strengthen us unto it.