I suppose you will often have observed that my text is a variation on the theme of the Lord's Prayer. That said, Deliver us from evil'; Paul says, The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work.' That, according to one form of Matthew's version, ends with the doxology: Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.' Paul echoes that ascription of praise with his to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.' So we have here a little window through which we can see a wide prospect. For the gospels are later in date than Paul's letters, and the text shows that long before they were in existence the' Lord's Prayer' was familiar, so that allusions to it were made tacitly, and would be recognised. This allusion is interesting in another point of view, in so far as it seems to prove that, in Paul's time, at any rate, the doxology was appended to the Lord's Prayer; and that, therefore, the fuller form of that prayer with the doxology is more original than the truncated form without it.
But passing from such considerations, let us note this word of Paul's as an instance of how his mind was saturated with the Lord's utterances. So it should be with us. Christ's words should have so entered into the very substance of our minds and thoughts as that we give them freely forth again, in other shapes and in other connections; and the sweetness of them, like that of some perfume diffused through else scentless air, shall make all our words and thoughts fragrant. Do you so summer and winter with the Master's words that they suggest themselves spontaneously to you often when you scarcely know that they are His, and that you speak them, not with formal quotation marks in front and behind, but in that allusive fashion, which indicates familiarity and the free use, in other combinations, of the great truths which He has spoken?
Notice, too, that Paul turned the prayer into confidence. In the prayer his Master had taught him to say,' Deliver us from evil.' He had offered the petition, and therefore he had no more doubt than he had of his own existence or of Timothy's, that, having asked, he would receive. Therefore he is sure that the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work.' Is that how you treat your prayers? Are they worth treating so? Are they offered with such confidence as that you have any right to be sure that they will be answered? Are they offered with such submission as that you may well be certain of it; and do you wait, as this Apostle did, quietly expecting to have the answers? And are your eyes anointed to see the answers in things that some people might take to be the contradictions of them? Unless we have so moulded our petitions into assurances there is something wrong with them. If we pray aright,' Deliver us from evil,' there will rise up in our hearts the quiet confidence, the Lord will deliver me from every evil work.'
Here we have a beautiful illustration of the true use of--
