Luke 20:1-4

CHAPTER 5

THE DISCIPLE'S PRAYER

Luke 20:1-4. “ And it came to pass, that He was in a certain place, praying; as He ceased, a certain one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” We have this same lesson in the Sermon on the Mount, which he preached near Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, early in His ministry, and we have expounded in Volume 6. I have repeatedly visited the spot on Mt. Olivet where this prayer was offered. A few years ago, Aurelia de Rossa, a French princess, expended a great sum of money in the erection of a beautiful, snowy-white, stone church-edifice on this very spot. It is really magnificent and charming, having in front a great open court, on whose surrounding walls of white marble this prayer (popularly denominated the Lord's Prayer, but really given to His disciples for their use till He comes in glory) is superscribed in every language under heaven, so that every one of the thirty thousand pilgrims, annually coming to Jerusalem to explore the footprints of Jesus, can there read the Lord's Prayer in his own language. The marble tomb and statue of this noble saint, who, at her own expense, erected this memorial edifice, is also at the south Side of this great veranda. “ He said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father who art in the heavens, let Thy name be hallowed.” Hence it is never to be spoken except in the deepest reverence, humility, and godly fear. “ Let Thy kingdom come.” The kingdom is already here, in the hearts of all saints. While we should pray for it to come to all aliens in the whole earth, the moment of this prayer contemplates the kingdom of glory coming down to earth in millennial triumphs, as the kingdom of grace had already come in the first advent of Jesus. How strange that a species of infidelity has ever crept into the Church, ignoring and rejecting the coming of the glorious kingdom! There never was a dissenting voice on this subject raised in the first three centuries, till after the Constantinean apostasy had so secularized the Church as to disqualify her to meet her descending Lord and enter the glorious kingdom. Consequently, during the Dark Ages, the millennium was repudiated, and, as a necessary consequence, the whole Book of Revelation repudiated as spurious. It is the glory of the present holiness movement now to preach the coming kingdom in all the earth. “ Thy will be done, as in heaven, even upon the earth.” This is a beautiful standard of entire sanctification, which alone can qualify people to do the will of God on earth as the angels do it in heaven. While multitudes of preachers stand in their pulpits and preach against sanctification and the coming kingdom, it is very gratifying to know that they all pray on the side of truth, when, on their knees, they repeat the Lord's Prayer, in concert with their congregations, Sabbath after Sabbath. O that they would preach what they pray for, thus bringing heaven down to earth! “ Give us this day our daily bread.” This is to be understood spiritually, in a very pre-eminent sense, while in a secondary significance it includes temporal sustenance. “ Forgive us our sins; for we truly forgive every one who is indebted to us.” We have no promise of pardon unless we actually forgive everybody else; thus all unforgiving spirit actually rearing between us and the mercy-sea, a mountain, high as heaven, deep as hell, and broad as the universe. Whole Churches are dragged by Satan into apostasy black as midnight by an unforgiving spirit. “ Lead us not into temptation;” i. e., Suffer us not to go into temptation, an Orientalism we frequently meet in the Bible. We have the blessed assurance that if we are true to the triple Divine leadership God's Word, Spirit, and providence He will never suffer us to be tempted beyond our ability, by His wonderful grace, to bear it for His glory, and receive a blessing thereby; i. e., strength from the conflict and courage from the victory. The ponderous blows develop the Herculean muscles of the blacksmith's arm. These awful fights we have with the strong intellect of the devil are a wonderful means of grace, constituting the grandest spiritual gymnasium in probationary life. Temptation from within, when “each one is drawn out by his own lust and enticed,” should be utterly dispensed with, as entire sanctification eliminates all that inward lust, putting all of our enemies on the outside, and giving us the down-hill pull against them. “ Deliver us from the evil one.” The E. V. is too weak, rendering this, “Deliver us from evil;” i. e., giving the abstract, whereas the Greek gives the concrete; not simply meaning evil, but the evil one i. e., the devil. What a glorious privilege, not only to be delivered from everything the devil ever put in us, but from the devil himself! This prayer goes up from pulpit and pew throughout all the Churches of Christendom, and the people at the same time ridden and debauched by the devil, without the remotest apprehension of the glorious privilege, not only to get rid of all their sins, but even the devil himself. Will you not go and tell them this wonderful news? The Omnipotent Christ is ready, by their side, responsive to their perfect consecration and doubtless faith, to confer on them this glorious triumph, not only delivering them from everything in them belonging to Satan i. e., all sin, actual and original but, best of all, delivering them from the devil himself, so he never again can put his black hand on them, and they can go shouting on their way:

“Hallelujah! ‘t is done! I believe on the Son, I am saved by the blood of the Crucified One!”