God is doing what H promised. His word will come to pass. These events are as He said through His holy prophets of long ago. The promise involves rescue: God will save His people from their enemies and from all who hate them. Such salvation reflects the mercy of God and the recollection of the covenant made with Abraham.
All six of the requests in the Lord's prayer concern God's kingdom. The prophets predicted that when God acted decisively, these developments would take place: He would be recognized as holy, His kingdom would come, His will would be done, daily bread would be given, sins would be forgiven, deliverance from evil would be granted. When Jesus offers this prayer to those who are listening, then, He is saying that God's kingdom is breaking in even now.
The Lord told the prophets that He would act to establish His kingdom in a new and better way through a new and better king from the line of David, who would vanquish evil, redeem His people and reign in righteousness (Isaiah 9:6, 11:1-5).
We long for Him to vanquish evil and reign in righteousness, but we do not realize that the evil is in our own hearts. The kingdom we envision is one that defeated our enemies; Jesus came to defeat the enemy within - Satan, who had exerted such influence within our hearts that we were no longer interested in following God.
When we pray that the Father's kingdom would come, we again are praying dangerously. It means we are praying for Him to vanquish evil, to remove even the smallest spec of dust that does not bring honour to Him.
Bread is not as important as forgiveness, nor is forgiveness as important as deliverance from evil.
One who prays this prayer today, then, acknowledges their deeply rebellious state, that they are prone to be influenced by the evil one away from the call of the kingdom, away from the devotion to the king, away from "the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). It is an acknowledgment that they cannot deliver themselves. It is a prayer that casts oneself on the mercy of God.
When Satan caused the death of Christ on the cross, he not only lost his power over those he held captive in death, but he also demonstrated the extent to which sin had corrupted him. He was willing to murder the source of health and strength for all mankind to accomplish his selfish purposes. In this he lost any sympathy he might have had from all who had remained faithful to God. He proved himself worthy of eternal destruction.
It was part of God’s plan and purpose for the salvation of man to allow Jesus to be tempted by Satan. The activity of Satan is therefore governed by God. The purpose of God in allowing His Son to be tempted was two-fold. In the first place, ‘God displayed in the Person of His Son, as on a brilliant screen, how hostile and persistent an adversary Satan is against the salvation of man.
Secondly, that Jesus willingly underwent the temptations, and met the devil in a trial of strength, ‘that
by His victory He might win us the victory.’
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