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EVIL

'But deliver us from evil' (Matthew 6: 13)

the prayer begins with our Father in heaven and ends with ourselves in evil. It is a guide not only for our praying but for all our serious thinking. The first consideration should be our Father in heaven, the last, ourselves.

We have prayed not to be led into temptation. Now we are praying to be delivered from evil, from whence temptation comes.

Perhaps few of us appreciate the horrible nature of evil. It thrives in self-love and self-importance. It destroys that in us which is truly human. It causes indulgence in pleasures that destroy body and soul. It robs us of delight and peace and hope. In appearance it is often most attractive but, in fact, it is full of disease and decay. All evils are related as members of one family. They are the foes of our personal household.

Our Father has taught us to pray 'Deliver us from evil,' and in doing so we acknowledge two things: first that we are in evil and secondly that He can save us.

In civil life when our house is on fire we are told to dial 999, then help comes to save us. In spiritual life when evil burns in our hearts, we are taught to call on our Father to deliver us. It is wonderful to be saved from a burning house, but it is everlasting life to be delivered from the fire of evil burning in the house of the soul.

Let us remember that our Father in heaven is kind to the unthankful and to the evil, and that if we ask Him, He will deliver us and set us free (Luke 6, 35.)

'Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies' (Matthew 15, 19)


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