Hi, I'm David Bercot, and today we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed about the Lord's prayer. In the 11th chapter of Luke, starting with verse 1, we read, " Now it came to pass as Jesus was praying at a certain place when He had ceased that one of His disciples said to Him, " Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught His disciples. " So what did Jesus tell them? Did He lay out some basic principles for prayer?
Did He give them the type of advice that we would find in most Christian books today that are written about prayer? No, actually he didn't. Instead, he gave them a specific prayer which has become known as the Lord's Prayer. Now most of us know this prayer best in the form that he gave it as part of the Sermon on the Mount, which is almost identical to the form that he gave there in the book of Luke.
In the language of the King James Version, which is the form in which I originally learned the prayer, the prayer that Jesus gave us says this: " Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Now, in giving this prayer to His disciples, did Jesus intend for them to pray those specific words when they prayed? Well, when I was young, I was taught definitely no. The sect that I belonged to said that Jesus did not want us to pray those specific words. Instead, He was simply giving us a model. In fact, they always referred to this prayer as the model prayer, not as the Lord's Prayer. Now I learned to know the prayer by memory because we prayed it in school.
And as I said, I learned it in the form that it appears in the King James Bible because that's what we prayed. Now the group I belong to did teach that we should model our prayers after the things that Jesus outlined in what they call the model prayer. And I did follow that in my private prayers. I would take the elements that are in the Lord's prayer, paraphrase them, make them perhaps more personal in certain situations, and I would pray that way.
However, in public prayers, in congregational praying, we rarely model our prayers after the Lord's prayer. Well, when I was 26, I left that sect and a few years later I joined an evangelical church. I remember one day I was praying before a meal at my house. We had some friends over from church and I was still using that concept of a model prayer. And so in the course of my prayer before the meal, I prayed and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Well, during the course of the meal, I was then corrected that we as born again Christians shouldn't be praying that. All of our sins were forgiven at the time that we invited Jesus into our heart and received the new birth. So we shouldn't be asking forgive us our sins because they were already forgiven a long time ago. And forgiveness of our sins is not based on whether or not we forgive other people their sins. So after that I quit using the Lord's Prayer even as a model.
And during the years that I was a member there at that church, I don't remember anyone's prayers ever being based on the Lord's prayer. We always prayed quite differently. In fact, it was generally viewed as a mark of spiritual immaturity. Or perhaps even evidence that you really were never saved if you actually prayed the words of the Lord's prayer as Jesus gave them. We felt, " Hey, we're not babes in Christ. We've surpassed praying in that childish manner.
" And that was my frame of mind when I began reading the early Christian writings back in 1985. And so you can imagine my surprise when I soon discovered that the early Christians regularly prayed the Lord's prayer on a daily basis. In fact, the earliest writing that we have after the New Testament, the Didache, says this, " Do not pray as the hypocrites.
Rather as the Lord commanded in His gospel, pray this way: " Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the power and the glory forever. He continues, " Three times during the day, pray in this manner. " Now that absolutely surprised me.
I was not expecting to find that that would have been the practice right at the close of the apostolic age. In fact, the Didache may have been written while the Apostle John was still alive, if not no doubt shortly after his death. About a century later, Cyprian wrote, " In the daily prayer, we ask your will be done on earth as in heaven. " He said, " In the daily prayer.
" So this was still a practice of daily praying this prayer, probably three times a day, because the early Christians had what they called their prayer stations. Now this has nothing to do with the stations of the cross that are practiced today in certain liturgical churches. Rather, they viewed their responsibility as Christians to keep watch over the world. They felt that their prayers are what brought peace to the Roman Empire, are what held back demonic forces.
And so like a soldier who had specific watch duties, they felt at a minimum they should pray three times a day. And not that their prayers were limited to the Lord's prayer, but they made certain that they prayed that specific prayer at each of those prayer watches. Well, here I had always associated people who prayed the Lord's prayer as either nominal Christians or baby Christians.
Yet here were the disciples of the apostles, Christians who were dying for their faith, mature Christians who lived a life of separation from the world and radical discipleship to Jesus Christ. And they were praying the Lord's prayer on a daily basis. Now I'd like to talk a few minutes about why we should pray the Lord's prayer. But first let me make it clear that I'm not saying that the only prayer of the early Christians was the Lord's prayer and that that's all we should pray.
No, the early Christians definitely prayed extemporaneously as well. And I don't think any mature Christian's prayer life would ever be limited to just praying the Lord's prayer. At the same time, the early Christians did make me think about the Lord's prayer in an entirely new way. For one thing, they actually saw it as a commandment. Because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus did specifically say pray in this manner. Now, everything else in the Sermon on the Mount, they took very literally.
And in the groups where I fellowship, we try to take everything literally there in the Sermon on the Mount. We certainly apply it imperfectly, but that certainly is the standard that we set. This is how we should live. These are the commandments we should obey. And that is actually one of his commandments. When you pray, pray in this manner. Now he didn't say only pray in this manner, but it should be part of our prayer life anyway.
So who are we to imagine that we're too mature to pray in the language that Jesus gave us? Secondly, the early Christians helped me to see that there's a reason why Jesus gave us specific prayer language. After all, James had written, " You ask and you don't receive because you ask amiss. " And Paul said, " For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us.
" So the truth of the matter is that we think we know what we should pray for, but often we are quite mistaken. But when we pray the Lord's prayer, we are always praying the right things. Because those are the words of our Lord Himself. If we think it's childish to pray with the words that Jesus gave us, then perhaps it's time for us to humble ourselves and to become His little children, just as Jesus told us we needed to. Now again, throughout this entire discussion, please don't misinterpret me.
I'm not saying that our prayers should be limited to the Lord's Prayer. I'm not saying the prayer life of the early Christians was limited to the Lord's prayer. Indeed, we know for a fact that the apostles didn't limit their prayers to the Lord's prayer because we read of things they prayed about in the New Testament. But that doesn't mean that they didn't pray the Lord's prayer regularly. And if you notice I used the word pray, not recite. If all we're doing is reciting words, it's probably a waste of time.
We should never recite the Lord's prayer. We should always pray it. And that's probably why it came into disuse, because for so many thousands of nominal Christians, that's exactly what they would do. They would recite the Lord's prayer. As I said, we used to do that in public school when I was a boy. We would start the day off reciting the Lord's prayer. Now some of us were actually praying it, but I think for most of the children, that's all it was.
Words, and we got to know them all by memory, but it was just something rote that we would spill off and our mind might be entirely somewhere else. On the other hand, even those kind of prayers probably did a tremendous amount of good. Certainly the condition of our schools today is far different than what they were when I was a boy, and we did pray. I don't know if that's the main reason why things have gotten a lot worse, but I'm inclined to think it's certainly one of the reasons.
So when the early Christians came together for prayer, they prayed the Lord's prayer as part of their prayer time. And I think we need to do the same thing. Not only that, but we should also use it as a model or as a blueprint for our entire time of prayer together, say on Wednesday night when we come together for prayer. Now by that I don't mean that everybody's individual prayer should be a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer.
Rather, what I'm saying is that by the end of the prayer meeting, like in our church, we pray for about an hour, we should have prayed somewhat equally for all of the categories of things that Jesus listed there in the Lord's prayer. But I think if we're honest, we know that is not what happens. At least that's not what happens at any of the prayer meetings I've ever participated in.
Whether it's in the church where I am now, or various churches I've attended in the past, or places where I've been a guest and attended their prayer meeting. Instead, our prayers nearly always tend to be top-heavy in praying for the sick or praying for other physical or material needs. And those are certainly things that we should properly pray for. But you know Jesus doesn't even mention the sick in the Lord's prayer.
He does mention, " Give us this day our daily bread, " which comes under the category of bodily needs, and I think sickness would be properly placed in that category. And yet even there, that was in the bottom half of the list of things that Jesus said we should be praying about. Normally, at most prayer meetings, no one ever prays about the kingdom, nor does anyone pray about God's name being hallowed, the things that Jesus put at the top of his list.
And that's why we need the Lord's Prayer, not only as a specific prayer in its own right, but also as a model of things for which we should be praying. So rather than disdaining this prayer as something for spiritual babes, we should welcome it and be thankful that Jesus did teach us how to pray, just as His disciples asked Him to teach. Cyprian wrote, " Jesus Himself gave us a form for praying. He Himself advised and instructed us as to what we should pray for.
" Now what can be a more spiritual prayer than that which was given to us by Christ, by whom the Holy Spirit was also given to us? How much more effectively do we obtain what we ask in Christ's name if we ask for it in His own prayer? You know, one of the things that the early Christians brought to my attention is that Jesus taught us through the Lord's Prayer to ask first for spiritual things, and then for bodily or material needs. Our first focus should be on heavenly things, then on earthly things.
At the same time, Jesus showed us that it's not wrong to pray for bodily needs. Rather, he taught us that we should first focus on spiritual needs and then pray about bodily needs. But again, that's not how most of us pray. Whether we're praying individually or whether we're praying corporately in a group. So we think we're really mature, but I think the truth is we aren't. At least we're not in our prayer life, or else we would have the proper order or the proper emphasis in our prayers.
While we're on the subject of what Jesus taught about prayer, let's briefly look at some of the other things he said about prayer. In His Sermon on the Mount, He gave us some other commandments concerning prayer, such as, " When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Assuredly I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room.
And after you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Again, it's rather ironic that in the spiritual circles I've been in most of my adult life, we don't believe in praying secretly. I mean, yes, we're encouraged to have a personal prayer life, but the ideal situation in our minds for prayer is to pray where we can be seen, in church or in a prayer meeting in a private home.
Again, obviously we should pray in church, and there are certainly New Testament examples of meetings for prayer. But somehow, in our tradition, we have made the teaching of Jesus invalid. I mean, we know it's wrong to pray just to be seen, but Jesus ' directions go beyond that. He did say that we should pray secretly, just like we should give alms secretly. And of course, most churches don't follow what he said about alms giving either. They make it very difficult to give secretly.
From some of the things I've read in the early Christian writings, I get the impression that when they came together to pray, they didn't necessarily do so audibly. In other words, each person at church prayed their own silent prayers when they met together to pray. Now, I don't mean when a minister was leading them in prayer and praying over the bread and wine at communion, that sort of thing. I'm talking about when they met together for prayer.
Now I'm not certain of that, but it's what I infer from certain passages in the early Christian writings, like the following ones. Tertullian said, " The sounds of our voices likewise should be subdued. For if we were to be heard for our noise, what large windpipes we would need? " But God is the hearer not of the voice, but of the heart. What superior advantage will those who pray too loudly gain, except that they annoy their neighbors?
No, by making their petitions audible, what less error do they commit than if they were to pray in public? In another passage, this one from Cyprian, he said, " For when we pray, we should let our speech and petition be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. For it is characteristic of a shameless man to be noisy with his cries. On the other hand, it is fitting to the modest man to pray with moderated petitions.
In fact, in his teaching, the Lord has told us to pray in secret, which is best suited to faith. Again, he said, " When we meet together with the brethren in one place, we should be mindful of modesty and discipline. We shouldn't throw out our prayers indiscriminately with unsubdued voices. " God does not need to be clamorously reminded, for he sees men's thoughts. Hannah prayed to God not with clamorous petition, but silently and modestly, within the very recesses of her heart.
She spoke with hidden prayer, but with open faith. She spoke with her heart, not her voice. Now again, I'm not sure that that means that they weren't praying audibly in their prayer meetings at church, but I get the impression that's what it means, or at least that they prayed very quietly, not necessarily being intended to be heard by everybody else. But in many of the circles I've been in, we teach just the opposite. If you're really spiritual, you pray out loud and you shout.
And that's evidence of your being filled with the Spirit and being zealous for God. And I'm not ridiculing Christians who pray that way. I've prayed that way myself when I've been in circles like that. Again, it does seem to go against what Jesus taught. And it doesn't seem to be what Christians originally practiced. Again, Jesus said there in the Sermon on the Mount, " And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Therefore, do not be like them. For your father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. " Now, the sect I grew up in used that verse as their basis to say, " We shouldn't ever pray the specific words of the Lord's prayer, but we should only use it as a model. " Otherwise they said we're guilty of vain repetition or of saying the same words over and over again.
And I would agree with that if we're talking about repeating the Lord's prayer many times in succession, such as a person might do if they're praying with a rosary. But to pray at one time when we come together for prayer or in our private prayers, I hardly think that's what Jesus meant. It's certainly not vain repetition if we're using His words, and we're not repeating His words over and over again, but just praying them one time.
And certainly not what the early Christians believed, because as we've seen, they prayed the Lord's prayer daily. In fact, the normal practice was to pray it three times a day. So they understood Jesus to be saying that God isn't impressed by wordy or lengthy prayers. Now we do know that Jesus prayed in private for hours and hours on the night of his arrest.
So obviously he wasn't setting a limit on the time we spend in prayer, but it is interesting that even in that setting, Jesus moved away from the apostles to pray privately with God. And usually this problem of repetition arises when we pray in public. I know from personal example, I would never have that problem when I'm praying just by myself with God. I mean, why would I be repeating the same thing over and over again? I know instinctively to get to the point, say what I want to say.
But in public, I find that sometimes I'm different. Because we're viewed as being more spiritual if we give a lengthy prayer rather than a concise short one. Someone who gives a concise prayer, like the one Jesus gave us, what we call the Lord's Prayer, in the circles that I'm in is usually viewed as unspiritual or immature or maybe new in the Lord. Isn't it strange how we do things just the exact opposite of what Jesus said? And then we imagine that it shows our spiritual maturity.
One more thing Jesus taught about prayer, how we should pray, and then we're gonna get back to examining the Lord's prayer in more detail, is the passage in Luke chapter 18 verses 10 through 14, where Jesus said, " Two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breasts saying, " God, be merciful to me a sinner. " I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. And the early Christians encourage this type of praying.
For example, Cyprian wrote, " Beloved brethren, let the worshipper not be ignorant of the manner the tax collector prayed with the Pharisee in the temple. The tax collector did not pray with eyes lifted up boldly to heaven, nor with hands proudly raised. Tertullian wrote, " We more commend our prayers to God when we pray with modesty and humility, with not even our hands too loftily elevated, but elevated temperately and becomingly. " And not even our countenance should be uplifted too boldly.
For that tax collector who prayed with humility and dejection, not merely in his supplication, but in his countenance too, went his way more justified than the shameless Pharisee. Now the early Christians did pray with their hands lifted up, as is taught in the New Testament. But both of these men are saying, let's not raise them too proudly, too boldly to heaven, but rather raise them in humility in the form of asking a petition. But again, in so many Christian circles today, we teach just the opposite.
We say we should approach prayer with boldness and be as loud as we can. And as I mentioned before, we often teach we shouldn't ask God for mercy or for forgiveness of sin because we know that we've already been eternally saved and all of our sins have been pre-forgiven. And so we don't pray at all, like the tax collector there who Jesus pointed out as an example of how we should pray.
Well, in summary, it seems like most of us Christians today who are trying to follow Jesus in a radical way, for whatever reason, we ignore just about everything He taught us about prayer. We may follow His teachings in other areas, but we ignore His teachings on prayer like, oh, well we actually know better Jesus than what you've just told us. Now let's analyze the various passages in the Lord's Prayer. Tertullian made the remark that in the Lord's Prayer, we have a summary of the whole gospel.
Now, I had never thought of it that way before, but as I read the early Christians and their breakdown or analysis of the various petitions in this prayer, I realized just how right Tertullian was. It is a remarkable prayer, something that we would expect from the Son of God. Every phrase in it, in fact, every word in it is packed with meaning. So what I want to do now is to go through the Lord's Prayer, phrase by phrase, and share with you the significance the early Christians saw in each phrase.
Now, occasionally I will be quoting from them as I go, but I don't plan to just quote from them extensively. At the same time, every thought I'm going to be sharing with you is from them. It's not original with me. In fact, many of these same thoughts are published today in various commentaries and devotional writings, but usually they don't acknowledge that these insights originally came from the early Christians. But that is the original source. So let's start with our Father who art in heaven.
The very first word " our " is extremely significant. Because here Jesus is teaching us not to just pray for ourselves when we pray. Rather, we should start off praying our, even when we're praying in private, because we're including other people. If we enter into prayer thinking only about ourselves, well, we're already off track before we've even started. As Cyprian said, we don't say my Father who is in heaven, nor give me this day my daily bread. Our prayer is public and communal.
When we pray, we do not pray for one person, but for the whole people. " End quote. You know, a lot of good things have come out of the pietist movement of the 1600s and the awakenings of the 1700s and 1800s. But one of the things that they originated that I don't think was good was their emphasis on salvation is primarily a personal thing. Of course, salvation is individual. We aren't saved because we belong to a certain church or something like that.
But it was the pietists and the revivalists who originated phrases like " my Jesus, " which is now woven into many of our hymns. My Jesus? Why not our Jesus, or more correctly, our Lord? The apostles never use any such expression as " My Jesus. " Again, I do appreciate the fact that the pietists and revivalists help people to realize that salvation has to be a personal thing, that is in many respects. But I think they erred in making Christianity itself a rather personal thing. It's just me and my Jesus.
In contrast, Jesus taught us to think collectively, our Father. We should think of Him as our Lord. The word Father also carries great significance. Cyprian remarked, " The new man, born again and restored to his God through His grace, can say Father at the beginning, for He has now begun to be a Son. " Remember, it was the disciples to whom Jesus gave this prayer. Now, in one sense, God is the Father of all mankind because He's our Creator.
On the other hand, Jesus told the Pharisees that God was not their father, but rather their father was the devil. So addressing God as Father has more to do than simply the fact that He created us. Rather, it speaks of a relationship, a very wonderful relationship. God had wanted to have a fatherly relationship with the Israelites, but most of them didn't want it.
They either didn't want to obey him as a child should obey his father, or like the Pharisees, they viewed him more as a taskmaster rather than as a loving parent. John wrote, " But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become sons of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. " You know, in the Old Testament, the phrase " sons of God " is almost always used with regard to the angels, not to men.
In fact, offhand, I can't think of a single exception to that. But now, through Jesus Christ, we have the right to become sons of God through the new birth. Now, when Jesus taught His disciples the Lord's prayer, he hadn't yet explained to them about the new birth, but it was already anticipated in the phrase, " Our Father. " This opening of the Lord's prayer is also significant in that Jesus was teaching us to whom we should pray. He said we should pray to the Father.
He didn't teach us to address our prayers to Him. In fact, He gave His apostles these instructions at the Last Supper. This is in John 16: 23. He said, " And that day you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly I say to you, ' Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you.
What a wonderful thing. We can speak directly to the Father, the one whom the Scriptures tells us is the head of Christ. We don't have to pray to the Son to intercede with us to the Father. And we certainly don't have to pray to Mary or to some saint asking them to intercede for us. No, as children, we can go directly to the Father Himself. Unbelievable. Once again, I see such an irony in so many spiritual circles today.
In many churches, it's seen as being particularly spiritual to address our prayers to Jesus rather than to the Father. As I've said before, it's like we've thrown out just about everything Jesus taught us about prayer. He told us one thing, but we think we know better. Now at least it's not theologically wrong to pray to Jesus. He is fully divine. It's not like praying to an angel or to Mary or something. But it's not the way he taught us to pray.
Even sadder is that so many professing Christians today think they can't approach the Father. In fact, they don't even think they can approach the Son. So they pray to Mary. Then Mary is supposed to intercede for them to Jesus. What about the Father? Well, he's sort of left out of the picture entirely. Mary runs everything. But if we go back to Jesus ' very simple prayer, we'll never fall into that ditch because He taught us to pray our Father. Now let's move to the next phrase, hallowed be your name.
Cyprian wrote, " It is not that we wish for God to be hallowed by our prayers. Rather, we beseech Him that His name may be hallowed in us. " We ask and entreat that we, who were sanctified in baptism, may continue in that which we have begun to be. And we pray daily for this, for we have need of daily sanctification that we who daily fall away may wash out our sins by continual sanctification. Now, as you probably know, the word hallow means to make holy. So we're asking for God's name to be holy.
But we're not praying this in a causative sense. Like we can somehow make it holy. God's name is always holy. There's nothing we can do to make it holy in the absolute realm, because it's already that. So rather we're making this petition, as Cyprian pointed out, in relation to ourselves and our fellow men. We're praying that we would all recognize His name as holy, that we would always treat it in a holy way.
Praying the Lord's prayer helps us to realize that it should be a desire and an expectation in us that God's name be recognized and treated as holy, not only by ourselves, but by all men. Because again, we're praying our Father. At the same time, we pray this because the sanctification of God's name among the nations depends inseparably on our lives and our prayers. We ask God to hallow His name, which by its own holiness saves and makes holy, all creation, all who submit to Him, that is.
It is His name through Jesus Christ that gives salvation to a lost world. So when we pray, hallowed be your name, we're asking that the name of God should be hallowed in us through our actions. For God's name is blessed when we live godly lives. But it is blasphemed when we live hypocritically or wickedly. As the apostle Paul said about the Jews, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. You see, the unfaithful Jews brought reproach on God's name. They didn't hallow His name in their lives.
So one of the things this petition in the Lord's prayer should impress upon each of us is how much our lives, our teachings, and our actions affect how the name of God is viewed and treated in the world. When we sin, it's not our own reputation that we should be thinking about the most that has suffered. Rather, we should be thinking about the reproach it will bring upon God.
I want to read you an example of how our conduct and even our theology about God can bring terrible reproach on his name and cause his name not to be hallowed. This week the biggest item in the news was the shooting of the girls at the Amish School here in Pennsylvania. Right now at this point in time, five of the girls in that shooting have died and were recently buried. Now some of the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas were actually planning to come and picket the funeral.
Not because they're against the Amish, but because they want to get out the message that the shootings happened because the United States permits homosexuality, abortion and other similar sins. At least that's what they believe why the shootings happened. But they agreed to call off the picket in return for one of their members being allowed to speak on a radio talk show. Now I didn't listen to the radio interview, but I was able to obtain a copy of the transcript of it.
It was an interview on the talk show of Hannity and Colmes, which I've never listened to before. I don't know much about them. And the person they interviewed from the Kansas church was a woman named Shirley Phelps Roper. Now, as I read this transcript to you, and I'm reading just an excerpt from it, I'm going to refer to Hannity and Colmes simply as the interviewers, and I'll refer to this woman from the church as Roper, okay? So we begin off.
Interviewers, do you have any sense of how much additional pain you would be causing these families by protesting at the funeral of these young girls? Roper, there isn't any way to fix that situation for them. It's not going to be any less painful if we are there or aren't there. They did that to themselves, and you say they're not involved. Interviewers, what do you mean they did that to themselves? Roper? I mean, they sit over there and create their own form of righteousness instead of interviewers.
Did those girls deserve to be killed? Roper? Well, they did get killed, and they did that. Who controls the hearts of men? It was at the hand of an angry god that those girls are dead. Interviewers, did they deserve to die? Roper, they did deserve to die. Interviewers, how can you possibly make a statement like that? Roper, because that's exactly what happened. And it happened at the hand of the Lord your God.
Interviewers, how can you possibly say that young girls who have never done anything wrong, who are innocent, who are just a few years old, who have never sinned, who have never done anything, deserve to die? How could you possibly make a statement like that? Roper, you told me that you served the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who says that when Adam sinned, all sinned, there are no innocent human beings. Interviewers, you know, you protest funerals of soldiers.
You protest funerals of anybody who dies under any circumstances. Anybody who is not a member of your church is a sinner and is hated by God. Who serves God besides people in your church? Roper, well, you tell me. I don't see anyone on the landscape in America. Interviewers, you are a twisted human being. Where is your soul that you come on the air, and as young, innocent girls are going to die, and you're going to, you're going to open up the family's wound and pour salt on it. Where is your heart?
Where is your soul? Where's your compassion? Where's your love? Roper, our message is for the living, and that is the only loving thing to do. Interviewers, what about the living families that lost their daughter? Roper, they did that to themselves. Interviewers no they died because some animal killed them in cold blood. The families didn't do it. Roper, who controls the hearts of men? Interviewers, do you sin? Did you ever commit adultery? Roper, of course not. Interviewers, have you sinned Miss Perfect here?
Roper, of course. You know that I have sinned. And that's not the point. Interviewers, you have. So you're a sinner. When you die, would you deserve to die? Roper, well, of course, all of us deserve to die. But I'm not the one who did die. And my message is for those living people who brought that pain upon themselves. And that's the end of that interview. You know, when I read that interview, I couldn't help but thinking of Paul's words, " The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
" Now some of the things that woman said are actually true. We die because of sin, but the whole thing was so sad. The members of Westboro Baptist Church think that they're hallowing God's name and what they're doing. But in reality, they're doing just the opposite. They're causing the name of God and of Christ to be blasphemed among the world.
I hope that interview wasn't heard by a lot of non-Christians, because I'm sure they've been probably permanently turned away from God and from Christ, hearing what they did. Now let's move to the phrase " Thy kingdom come. " The theme of Jesus ' preaching was the kingdom of God. So it would have been surprising to me if one of the first petitions in his prayer didn't pertain to the kingdom. Cyprian had this comment about that phrase. He says, " There follows in the prayer, your kingdom come.
" We ask that the kingdom of God may be set forth to us, in the same sense that we also ask for His name to be sanctified in us. For when does God not reign? So one reason we pray for God's kingdom to come is that we're asking that Christ will reign in our hearts rather than sin reigning in our hearts. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. So we want the kingdom of God and the king of that kingdom to always dwell within us. And that is something we need to pray about on a daily basis.
We also want to see the kingdom of God reign in others. So we're not just praying for ourselves, but for the whole world. We want to see the kingdom of God spread and bring more and more of mankind within its loving boundaries. So when we pray, " Thy kingdom come, " we're praying for the gospel to be preached around the world. And what gospel was it that Jesus said would be preached throughout the entire world before the end would come? He said it would be the gospel of the kingdom.
Now the Scriptures teach that right now Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool. So even though God's kingdom is a reality right now, it's a real kingdom. It's a present reality. Christ still does not reign in everyone's heart. In fact, He reigns in the hearts of only a small minority. But it's not going to stay that way forever. By that, I don't mean he's going to convert the whole world.
But this situation that the ones who subject themselves to God's kingdom are a small minority, and Satan and sin have their way on the earth, that's going to come to an end. So when we pray, " Thy kingdom come, " we're also praying for the future. We're praying for the return of Christ. We're praying for the time when His kingdom will be established over everyone. We're praying for the day and the time when every knee will bend and acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
The next phrase is, " Thy will be done on earth as in heaven. " An early Christian work entitled " The Apostolic Constitutions " says this, " When we pray, the Lord has taught us to say to His Father, " Your will be done on earth as in heaven. " Now the heavenly creatures of the spiritual powers all glorify God with one accord. So likewise upon earth, may all men glorify with one mouth and with one purpose, the only the one and the true God through Christ His only begotten.
" So the petition, " Thy will be done on earth as in heaven " is very similar to the phrase " Thy kingdom come. " Because we want God's will to be done in our lives, that we would live obedient lives to Him. And in praying this, we're acknowledging our dependence upon His empowering grace. His will will not be accomplished in us merely through our own efforts. We need His help and we need it on a daily basis.
At the same time, His will will not normally be accomplished in us apart from our surrendering ourselves to Him so that we can be molded by Him. It's a matter of us working with God, making ourselves available to Him, surrendering our will to His. The early Christians also stressed our need to pray for rulers, just as the Scriptures tell us we should do. Because we want God's will to also be accomplished through our governmental leaders.
Not that the United States or back then Rome or any country stands in the situation of ancient Israel. We're not living under that arrangement anymore. We have a new kingdom, God's kingdom, that is not of this world. At the same time, human governments wouldn't exist unless authority had been given them from heaven. So we pray that God's will will be accomplished even through ungodly leaders. Now we move to the petition. Give us this day our daily bread.
And there are several noteworthy things to mention about this petition. First, as I've remarked before, you notice how Jesus directs us to first pray about spiritual and heavenly things. Then we pray about our physical needs. We pray about God, His name, and His kingdom before we pray about ourselves. Secondly, as we noted before, Jesus tells us to pray, " Give us this day our daily bread, not give me this day my daily bread. " So he's teaching us here not to be selfish.
We pray about others ' needs alongside our own needs. It's also significant that he tells us to ask only for our daily bread. We don't pray for prosperity. We don't even pray about tomorrow's bread. But just for the needs of today. This harmonizes with the rest of his teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Let me read you the passage from Matthew 6:25 through 34, which is just a short ways after he gave the Lord's prayer.
He said, " Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. Yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Therefore, do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For after all these things, the Gentiles seek.
For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So when we pray with Jesus ' words, we're automatically praying the right thing about our physical and bodily needs. We're praying in harmony with the Sermon on the Mount.
Sadly though, so many of the prayers I've heard at prayer meetings over the years are very selfish and materialistic, praying about new cars and expensive houses. In fact, in many circles, it's viewed as an indication of how close we are to Christ when we pray about petty and materialistic things. And as I've said over and over, we obviously think that we better know how to pray than what Jesus told us. And that's sad. Cyprian, who wrote extensively about the Lord's prayer, said this about this passage.
He said, " In these words, it's understood that we who have renounced the world and have cast away its riches and pomps in the faith of spiritual grace should ask for ourselves only food and sustenance. For the Lord teaches us and says, " Whoever does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. " So he who has begun to be Christ's disciple and renounces all things according to the word of his master, should ask only for his daily food. He should not extend the desires of his prayer to a long period.
Well, the next petition in this prayer is, " Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. " Once again, it's a short phrase, but it's packed with meaning. First of all, Jesus shows that we can't automatically assume our sins are forgiven just because we're a Christian. We're not to take God's forgiveness for granted. No, we're to confess our sins to God and seek forgiveness. Tertullian wrote about this part of the prayer: " Now a petition for pardon is a full confession.
For he who begs for pardon fully admits his guilt. " Moreover, in the Scriptures, debt is a figure of guilt. That is because it's equally due to the sentence of judgment. Now if we aren't truly repentant for our sins, it does little good to pray these words. We need to be truly sorry that we have sinned against God and freely confess our sins to Him. On the other hand, for the repentant sinner, we can receive forgiveness for our sins. Jesus wouldn't tell us to pray this way if God were unwilling to forgive.
So there's something very exciting here. The Christian receives forgiveness for his sins just by asking. Yet at the same time, Jesus put a condition on this forgiveness. He said that we should only ask forgiveness to the extent we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. And just in case we missed that point in the prayer, Jesus drove it home by adding after the prayer, " For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. " But once again, we modern Christians think we know better. Theologians like Martin Luther have told us that salvation by grace means that God doesn't put any conditions on us. In fact, once we're born again, every past sin we've committed is forgiven and every future sin we're going to commit is pre-forgiven.
I guess it's too bad that Jesus didn't study in a school of theology because he doesn't seem to know anything about that. He told us that our sins will not be forgiven if we don't forgive others. And if our sins aren't forgiven, then there's no salvation. So we need to decide whom we're going to believe, Jesus or the theologians. For my part, I choose to believe the one who has saved me and who is also the judge of all mankind.
Somehow I think he's in a better position to know about forgiveness of sins than Martin Luther. Now we come to the last petition of the prayer. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is probably the phrase in the Lord's prayer that is the most perplexing to us. After all, would God lead us into temptation? Well, Tertullian's response was the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt us, as if he either were ignorant of the faith of someone or else was eager to overthrow it.
Rather, this means do not allow us to be led into it by Him who tempts. Cyprian added, " In these words it is shown that the adversary can do nothing against us unless God has previously permitted it. " Also, when we ask that we may not come into temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and weakness, and that we need to ask this. Otherwise, someone may insolently vaunt himself or proudly and arrogantly assume anything to himself.
Jesus actually shed a lot of light on his meaning in this phrase in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he told his apostles, " Pray that you may not enter into temptation. " So we need not only to ask God's forgiveness for the sins we've committed, but we need to pray that He helps us to avoid committing sins in the future. Here Jesus is showing our dependence on God and our need for His protection. We're asking God to help us so that we don't enter into temptation.
And we're asking Him to not permit Satan to test or tempt us. That's why Jesus added, " But deliver us from evil. " That's the point of this petition. Deliver us from evil. Protect us from sin. Protect us from every temptation. And just like we can't take God's forgiveness for granted, we can't take His protection for granted either. We need to petition Him on a daily basis for this protection. In fact, I can well appreciate why the early Christians prayed this prayer three times a day.
Because temptation never takes a holiday. It never takes a coffee break. It's always there. Now, in the book of Luke, the prayer ends with that petition, but deliver us from evil. And neither Tertullian nor Cyprian, who both wrote quite a bit about the prayer, seem to know anything about the ending that we're familiar with. That is, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Yet the writer of the Didache seems to be familiar with it because it is mentioned there.
And I have to admit, I like ending the Lord's Prayer with that doxology. At the same time, I recognize that it's not contained in many of the early manuscripts of Matthew, yet it is contained in other manuscripts. But it hardly matters. The prayer is complete without it, but I think it adds a nice finishing touch to the prayer. Well, in conclusion, I hope you can now see why Tertullian called the Lord's Prayer a summary of the whole gospel. It is truly packed with meaning, and it teaches us the right way to pray.
I know that for me, just discussing the prayer with you this past hour has made me eager to get down on my knees and pray it. I hope it's had the same effect on you.