Deliver Us From Evil

Philippians 1:21

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Deliver us from evil. I always find it interesting that that word we use “deliver” the same word for salvation is the same word we use for baby being born into the world. What are we praying for when we pray to God deliver us from evil? Well, we’re asking God to rescue us from every evil attack and ultimately to bring us safely into His heavenly kingdom. And there’s three different ways God can answer that prayer to deliver us from evil.

The first thing that we usually have in mind when we say deliver us from evil is we are praying for God to essentially keep us in this dark world. Part of living in this dark world is that our life is afflicted with pain, sickness, disease, temptation. And so the Christian will often pray to God, deliver me from evil, take this evil out of my life. And though God, certainly at times, according to his good and gracious will, will grant that prayer, we also have to understand as Christians how God uses that pain and trouble in our life. That God uses these things to create a yearning in our hearts, to be borne out of this world, to leave this world behind and be brought into heaven’s glory. And so for as often as we pray for God to deliver us from those evils. We can sometimes be praying in a way that conflicts with God’s will.

The second way we might have that prayer answered is when God takes the Christian out of this world and grants them a blessed death. The dying process can often be a long, painful process or it can be short, quick, sudden and without warning. But for the Christian, all death is a blessed death.

I know sometimes people feel conflicted, even guilty, about either longing for their own departure out of this world or even praying for God to end someone else’s suffering and bring them out of this world. But for the Christian, we never need to feel guilty about that. Paul says,

For me to live as Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

And only the Christian, only the Christian can have that attitude about death because Jesus has died for us, because through faith in Christ, our sins are forgiven and we have eternal life. Only the Christian can look at death as a blessed rest from our labors.

The only difference for Christian is that we ultimately, we ultimately leave that decision of when into God’s hands. The final way God answers that prayer, deliver us from evil, is to suddenly return. That whenever we pray those words, we are praying for Jesus to come back from heaven, to end this world, to tear open the sky and to take his children and rapture us into heaven. On that day he’ll raise the dead, raise our bodies from the ground. That’s the day he ultimately will bring us out of this world of darkness, evil, and suffering and bring us to eternal life.

All these things we pray for when we pray, deliver us from evil. And as a Christian, you pray with confidence knowing that it is God’s holy gracious will to break and defeat every evil attack of the devil and ultimately bring you safely to his heavenly kingdom. Amen.