And when He was at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. Luke 22:40
When I was a lad, there was an old man in the community who I used to spend some time with. He had lived a long time and had seen some interesting things, and had learned some important lessons along the say. Frequently, he would give me bits of advice along with his stories, and I took heed to his advice, because it was worth heeding. I stopped in one day as he was preparing to go to the hospital for medical treatment. He took the time to sit with me on his porch and chat awhile. Looking at the park across the road, he said, ‘Imagine how much more we would know if we trained ourselves to observe everything around us all the time.’ I thought about that. And I thought about it even more after learning that my old friend did not survive the medical treatment. To some extent, I have tried to follow that advice because it was the last piece of advice that he gave me. Just like the Lord Jesus telling His disciples to pray that they would not enter into temptation was the last advice that He gave them before His arrest by the temple mob.
The scene was the garden of Gethsemane, and the Lord Jesus was about to go pray privately before His ordeal of rejection, torture, and crucifixion was to begin. And He repeated the words at the end of His time in prayer, just as the mob was entering the garden to capture Him. So it must have been important, both at that moment and in the days and years ahead. Its importance is reinforced by its inclusion in what is called the Lord’s Prayer: Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. The Lord Jesus had proven Himself victorious over temptation in the desert some three years earlier. The devil’s attacks could never penetrate nor mar His holy character in any way. Not so with us! The devil successfully tempted our first parents in Eden and has successfully tempted every one of Adam’s descendents since that time. We are beings prone to submit to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. In our unsaved days, we had no resource to protect us from the temptations that assaulted us. As Christians, we still do not have the power in our sinful flesh to resist temptations. But we do have the power within us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, Who can deliver us from evil.
When the Lord Jesus told His disciples to pray that they enter not into temptation, He was telling them that, through prayer, they could prevent themselves from entering into temptation. That is an encouraging thought, as we consider all of the temptations around us today. The world, the flesh, and the devil have more and more ammunition every day, it seems. But we have protection against the arsenal of evil. The protection is not in ourselves, for sure. In fact, it is only by accepting that we are unable of ourselves to resist temptation that we will submit to the power of God to preserve us. And only the power of God can preserve us. So we come to our Saviour’s advice: Pray that ye enter not into temptation. God would love to give us protection from temptation, but we keep interfering with our own ideas and efforts. We must give up those ideas and efforts, and simply and humbly pray.
Delivery from temptation is by prayer alone. Pray that ye enter not into temptation. -Jim MacIntosh