The Lord’s Prayer: The Sixth Petition, Deliver Us From Evil

This year, we have heard public figures say things like, “Prayers aren’t enough to prevent evil.” The mayor of Minneapolis mocked prayer and Christians with his comments following the horribly tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic School.

Unbelievers will often point to this petition of the Lord’s prayer and say, “See! Prayer doesn’t work. If prayer worked, evil wouldn’t happen!” Our unbelieving neighbors get something right. Evil is all around us. On our phones, on our televisions, in the news, in our schools, and in our communities. But what about prayer? More specifically, what about this petition? Setting aside the question of evil in general, why do evil things happen to people who pray the Lord’s Prayer?

This petition is probably the most misunderstood and publicly maligned petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. Luther’s explanation of this is simple and beautiful. We pray that our Father in heaven “would rescue us from every evil… and give a blessed end…” The words of the petition are simple enough that no one misunderstands the meaning of the petition. The misunderstanding comes when we don’t understand prayer and when we don’t understand evil.

Simply put, prayer is “letting your requests be made known to God.” (Phil.4:6) Prayer is faith. It recognizes that God is God. I am not God. Something isn’t right here. And, I can’t do this on my own. Because prayer is faith that recognizes our weakness and God’s power, it is always humble. We pray in Jesus’ name because without the cleansing blood of Jesus we would have no place to even pray to God. We pray according to the will of God because we trust that He knows what is best for us in all situations. Sometimes, this means that the answer to our prayer is, “Not yet,” or even, “Never.”

What about evil? Evil is real. What is more, evil is personified in the devil. Matthew 6:13 makes this explicit. My Bible has a footnote here and it seems that the best translation from Greek to English is, “but deliver us from the evil one.” The devil’s desire is to separate you from God. He does this with all sorts of tricks. He uses boredom, guilt, disasters, illness, addiction, politics, technology, or any other thing to distract you from the Gospel. He wants to rob you of the Gospel because he understands eternity is in the balance.

So how do we put this all together to better understand this prayer? We must see that this is a petition for temporal and eternal delivery from evil.

This petition asks for delivery from temporal evil. This would cover concerns over safety for travel, good government, good health, and the like. Sometimes we are delivered from these evils because of God’s fatherly love for us. Sometimes, temporal evil still afflicts us. This does not mean God does not answer this prayer.

If we only focus on temporal evil, we miss the greater delivery from evil that is accomplished through faith in Christ. Through faith in Christ, we are finally and eternally delivered from evil. Even if evil results in our death, our eternal salvation in Christ Jesus means that evil can no longer touch us – forever. That is what our unbelieving neighbors do not understand. Jesus’ death and resurrection from the dead gives Christians a delivery from eternal evil. The world scoffs at this sort of teaching. But we believe, “To live is Christ, but to die is gain.”