God. It cost God the death of His own, His only Son. The Cross was
necessary to make pardon possible. “Without shedding of blood there is
no remission.” That is what your forgiveness and mine cost God, it cost
Him the blood of His Son. But what will it cost us? What will it cost?
It will cost us _nothing_. As I said, when speaking of the previous
petition, God does not sell, God _gives_. Some have tried to buy
forgiveness by fasts and vigils and penances and rigid self-discipline.
That is how Luther, when he was a monk at Erfurt, and Thomas Bilney,
when he was a student at Cambridge, tried to obtain pardon and peace.
Some have even believed that pardon was to be bought with money, so the
boxes of the Indulgence sellers in Germany were filled with the coins of
men and women who wanted forgiveness. But pardon is not to be bought,
neither with money nor with penances nor vigils nor fasts. Forgiveness
is to be had for nothing. Pardon is given without money and without
price. All that is required is that you should _ask_ for it. “Ask and ye
shall receive.” Zacchæus asked, and he received it. Mary of Magdala
asked, and she received it. The thief on the cross asked, and he
received it. Come and ask, and you too shall receive it. Why will ye be
stricken any more? Why will ye die, O house of Israel. Come and ask, and
you shall hear the answer fall on your ears like sweetest music, “Son,
daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace.” That is what this
petition teaches us to do. It bids us come and ask. For Jesus recognizes
that we are all of us “debtors.” But the debt will be remitted for the
asking. Therefore He teaches us to pray “Forgive us our trespasses.” The
ground of forgiveness is not in ourselves. It is not because of our own
merit that the debt is cancelled. We are saved not by works, but by
grace. We are forgiven because of the boundless love that fills the
heart of God, the love that found expression in the Cross of Christ. Our
confidence lies in the fact that God is our Father. Let us trust the
Father! Let us believe the message of the Cross! Let us not hang back
through doubt or fear! Let us go with boldness to the throne of grace
just as we are—guilty, sin-stained, and vile. He will cast none of us
out, but He will forgive us freely; His anger will be turned away and He
will comfort us, and peace like a river shall flood our troubled souls!
Let me now go on to ask you to notice for a moment the qualifying
clause: “As we also have forgiven our debtors,” says Matthew. “For we
ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us,” says Luke. I
think these words are meant to be in the first place _words of
encouragement_. If man can forgive, much more can God. They remind us of
that splendid verse, “If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto
your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give
good things unto them that ask Him.” We have known men who have
generously and freely forgiven great wrongs committed against them. We
are here told to think of the way in which even men can forgive in order
that we may have faith to believe that God, who is infinitely more
loving and pitiful than the best of men, can and will forgive to the
uttermost. But these words are also words of _solemn warning_. Sometimes
they make the prayer die upon our lips, for they require the forgiving
spirit to be in us before we ask forgiveness from God. Do you notice how
this prayer, which soars to the heights, enforces also the simple
everyday moralities? Look at this petition, “Forgive us our sins, _for
we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to us_.” “For we
ourselves also forgive every one.” Is that true? Have you forgiven every
one? Are there no grudges that you cherish? Are there no enmities in
your heart? Is there no one against whom you cherish malice or ill-will?
If there is ill-will against anyone in your heart, can you pray this
prayer? Can you say to God, “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive
every one?” You remember how, in the striking story of the two debtors,
our Lord condemned the man who could ask God to forgive him that awful
debt of sin, and yet cherish an unforgiving spirit against his
neighbour. Oh what a warning, a solemn warning, there is in this
petition, “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses.” Or look at the way Matthew puts it,
“Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.” I want to ask you
a plain question: “Would you really like God to forgive just in exactly
the same way as you forgive your enemies?” Do you think you would? Why,
is not our forgiveness all too often grudging and half-hearted? Do we
not often cherish the remembrance of the offences? Do we not say, “I
will forgive, but I cannot forget?” Would you like God to forgive you
like that? I can never forget the words which Augustus Hare writes on
this passage. He pictures an unforgiving man praying this prayer, and
this is what he says: “O God, I have sinned against Thee many times from
my youth up till now. I have often been forgetful of Thy goodness. I
have neglected Thy service. I have broken Thy laws. I have done many
things utterly wrong against Thee. Such is my guiltiness, O Lord, in Thy
sight; deal with me, I beseech Thee, even as I deal with my neighbour.
He has not offended me one-tenth, one-hundredth part as much as I have
offended Thee. But I cannot forgive Him. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, O
Lord as I deal with him. He has been very ungrateful to me, though not a
tenth, not a hundredth part as ungrateful as I have been to Thee. Yet I
cannot overlook his ingratitude. Deal with me, O Lord, I beseech Thee,
as I deal with him. I remember and treasure up every trifle which shows
how ill he has behaved to me. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, O Lord, as I
deal with him. I am determined to take the very first opportunity of
doing him an ill turn. Deal with me, I beseech Thee, O Lord, as I deal
with him.” Oh, what a terrible curse such a prayer is! But, brethren,
may it not be that, if we cherish unkind feelings in our hearts, if we
hug secret hates and enmities, when we ask God to forgive us, in exactly
the same way as we forgive others, we too may be invoking not blessing,
but doom upon our own heads. Before we can pray this prayer we need the
spirit of forgiveness in our own hearts. Emerson says of Abraham
Lincoln, that “his heart was as big as the world, but there was no room
in it for the memory of a wrong.” Such must be our spirit also, the
spirit that Jesus showed when on the Cross he prayed, “Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do.” May God help us even now to
forgive from our hearts our brothers their trespasses, then can we draw
near with boldness to the throne of grace and pray, “Father, forgive us
our sins, for we ourselves also forgive every one that is indebted to
us.”
VIII
“Temptation”
“And bring us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil
one.”—MATT. vi. 13.
“And bring us not into temptation.”—LUKE xi. 5.
Forgiveness is the beginning not the end, the first step not the last in
the Christian life. In the Gospel according to John, we read a story
about a poor woman who was dragged half dead with shame into the
presence of Christ, and charged before Him with a nameless crime. Her
enemies crowded round clamouring for her instant punishment. But Jesus,
just because He was so pure and good, was infinitely tender and pitiful.
He had no harsh judgment to pronounce upon this poor, shame-stricken
woman.
When her brutal accusers, made cowards by their own consciences, slunk
away one by one, leaving the sinner alone with her Saviour, His word to
her was one of pure compassion, “Neither do I condemn thee.” There was
pardon for her black sin, forgiveness for her shameful past. But having
forgiven her, Christ did not let her go without laying a command upon
her. This forgiven woman was not at liberty to return to her old life of
folly and shame. “Go,” said Jesus, dismissing her, “sin no more.” That
is an illustration of Christ’s unvarying methods with sinners.
Forgiveness—full, free forgiveness—is to be had for the asking. Bring
your sinful, shameful past before Him; you will hear no bitter, angry
words of reproach from His lips. The words you will hear will be words
of tenderest compassion. Bring your terrible debt before Him and tell
Him of your dire, your abject, your utter poverty. Say to Him, “Lord, I
have nothing to pay,” and He will say to you, “All this thy debt, I
freely forgive.” Bring your burden of guilt and shame to Him. He will
not spurn you from Him though He is so pure and you so unclean, but with
words of pity and love He will welcome you, and take the burden of your
guilt and shame clean away. Yes, Christ will freely forgive you. He will
have mercy upon you. He will abundantly pardon. But forgiveness of the
past is not all. What of the future? Well, as to that future the Master
will lay upon you also the old injunction, “Go, sin no more.” For the
forgiven man cannot return to his old life of sin. After forgiveness
comes the life of struggle and conflict against the world, the flesh and
the devil. After the blotting out of the shameful past comes the earnest
striving to keep the record of the future clean. Forgiveness is not the
end, but the beginning. After forgiveness comes all that our fathers
meant by the old term, “sanctification.” After forgiveness comes all
that John means when he tells us to purify ourselves even as He is pure;
all that Paul means when he tells us “to work out our own salvation.”
The struggle, the conflict, the battle comes after pardon has been
bestowed. For when Jesus whispers into our ears the gladsome message,
“Thy sins are forgiven thee,” He lays upon us also the command, “Go, sin
no more.”
What I have been saying up to this point illustrates the connection
between this petition and the one we studied together last Sunday
morning. “Forgive us our debts” is a prayer that God will blot out the
record of _past_ sin. “Lead us not into temptation” is a prayer for
protection in the _future_. For I want you to notice that the man who
has truly repented of his sin wants not simply the past to be blotted
out, but he wants grace to shun sin in the days to come. He wants not
only to be delivered from the _penalty_ of sin, but he also longs to be
emancipated from its _power_. Let not the freeness of forgiveness ever
lead you to think lightly of sin. There were some in the very early days
of the Church who interpreted this freeness of forgiveness as a licence
to sin. They said, “What matters it? God will forgive.” Nay, they even
thought, or at any rate they tried to persuade themselves, they were
doing a favour to God by continuing their old wicked practices, as the
greater their sin was, the finer the opportunity for the display of
God’s forgiving love. They sinned, so they said, that grace might
abound. The Church has been troubled and harassed by many a heresy in
the course of the centuries, but the most damnable, the most
soul-destroying that ever assailed it, was this Antinomian heresy, which
bade men sin on because God was ready to forgive, which taught that sin
was light, trivial, cheap, because pardon was free. Sin light? Sin
cheap? Sin trivial? Brethren, look at the Cross of Jesus Christ! Measure
the enormity of the sin by the sacrifice of the Cross! It cost God the
life of His own Son to deliver us from it.
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin,
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.
Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! for by
every sin of ours we crucify the Lord afresh, and put Him to an open
shame. The programme of the Christian life is not sin and pardon, sin
and pardon, sin and pardon, day after day, month after month, year after
year. The programme of the Christian life is pardon, sanctification,
holiness. After pardon comes the daily struggle with sin, until its
power in our souls is broken, and we come off more than conquerors,
through Him who loved us. Not that I would imply that any one on this
side the grave attains to a state of sinless perfection, or that the
time will ever come on earth when the prayer, “Forgive us our sins,”
will be out of place on our lips. But the goal set before us is the
perfect life; towards that goal we must daily press, and though on earth
we may never attain to it, yet to-day ought to see us nearer to it than
yesterday, and to-morrow ought to find us nearer than to-day. There is
something radically wrong with us if sin has as great a power over us
to-day as it had, say, ten years ago. Repentance is never genuine and
sincere unless it creates within us a hatred and loathing of sin. We
have never been truly forgiven if we can go on sinning the old sins day
after day; for we never hear Christ say to us, “Thy sins are forgiven
thee,” without hearing Him add this charge, “From henceforth sin no
more.”
But the command _is a hard one to obey_. In a world so full of trial and
temptation, so full of seductions and enticements to evil, how hard it
is for poor, weak, frail men to obey the command, “Go, sin no more.” In
a world that presses in upon us on every side, that spreads its
glittering prizes before our eyes to tempt us, how hard it is to be
unworldly, to hold earth’s best gifts cheap, while we set our affections
on things above! In a world so full of uncleanness and impurity, how
hard it is to keep one’s garments clean and unspotted! Hard, did I say?
Nay, impossible. With the world as it is, and man as he is, the task is
impossible. To obey that command, we need help and strength. The task is
too difficult for us. It is more than we can do in our own native
strength. So we cast the burden back again upon our Lord and say to Him,
“Master we would fain obey Thee: we would fain live without sin; but we
are weak, and the world is strong—too strong for us. Lord, undertake
Thou for us. Have pity on our weakness, and bring us not into
temptation.” There it stands, a prayer for the _future_; a cry to God
that He will not suffer the world to overcome us, and drag us down again
to sin.
Now you will notice that this prayer recognises the fact that—
(1) The _world is full of peril to the Christian, because it is full of
temptation_. The word translated “temptation” in my text really means
“testing, trial.” Never a day passes but something happens which puts
our moral strength to the test. God does not “tempt” in the sense of
inciting to evil; God TESTS. The presence of evil in our world, the
incitements to evil that abound, looked at from God’s standpoint, are
tests—tests of character, tests of moral strength. But these incitements
to evil appeal to weakness and evil in our own hearts, and so to us they
become “temptations.” And of such “temptations” our world is full.
Bunyan described the Christian life as a journey, but it is a journey
through a very dangerous country. There are snares and pit-falls around
us on every side. The path leads between a ditch on one side and a
quagmire on the other, and along the route are the Slough of Despond,
and By-Path Meadow, and Doubting Castle, and the Mount of Error, Broad
Way Gate, and Dead Man’s Lane, and Vanity Fair. Yes, the path is one
that is surrounded with peril, and to stray from it is a very easy
matter. That path is the path of life, and these pitfalls and snares and
by-paths that endanger the unwary traveller on every hand, are the
temptations that beset a man in life, and lure him to his ruin and
death. The old story of the fight between the English and the Scotch at
Bannockburn says that Bruce, on the night before the battle, honeycombed
the ground in front of his army with pit-falls, each of which contained
a hidden stake, and then covered them up again with the green turf. In
the morning the English cavalry, when it charged upon the Scottish
troops, found that the ground, which looked so firm and solid was
deceitful and treacherous, and, falling into these hidden pitfalls,
horse and rider met their fate. Does life to you look in prospect like a
firm, safe, solid road? I tell you that at every step you take you need
to beware of some secret pitfall. Does life appear in prospect to any of
you like the still, glassy sea of a summer’s noon? I tell you that
beneath that shimmering, smiling surface lie hidden the dark and
treacherous rocks which have meant wreck and death to many a voyager.
Oh, yes, human life is beset with temptation. No one is exempt from it.
No moment of the day is free from it. Incitements to sin abound.
Invitations to enter the broad way meet us at every turn. Why is it
parents are so anxious, when their children are sent for the first time
to fight life’s battles for themselves in a large town? I will tell you.
It is because they know that temptations abound. There is temptation in
the glare and false gaiety of the public-house. There is temptation in
every painted shameless face seen upon our streets. There is temptation
in the companionship of foolish and godless friends. There is temptation
in the coarse and filthy speech of associates. There is temptation in
unclean literature. There is temptation in business, in the home, at
work, at play. Nay, where is it temptation does not lurk? It penetrates
everywhere. It found its way into Paradise of old, and Adam yielded to
its power. Who is free from it? Not one. Wherever man is, there
temptation is. There is no escape from it. Men try to avoid infection,
in case of an outbreak of disease, by removing from the infected
district. So men of old tried to escape the assaults of temptation by
leaving the busy world and fleeing into solitude. But it was all in
vain. Temptation followed them to their retreats, and many were the
fierce struggles an old saint like St. Anthony had to wage in the secret
of his cell. Oh, the world is full of temptation. Every lot has its own
fierce tests for character. Business life has its temptations; home life
has its temptations. The life of hard grinding toil has its temptations;
the life of ease and leisure has its temptations also. Never a day
passes but in some way or other an appeal is made to our lower, baser
nature, and we are urged to yield. The old Greek legends speak of the
syrens—creatures half women, half fish—who lived upon the rocks and
could sing the most ravishing songs. So entrancing was the music that
who ever heard it was irresistibly drawn to the singers. But it was woe
to them; for the rocks whereon the syrens lived were strewn with the
bones of dead men who had listened to their song and yielded to its
fascination. That syren’s song is still being sung, and every mariner on
life’s main hears it. The world, the flesh, and the devil are the syrens
of to-day. Who has not heard their song? Wherever we are, whatever we
are doing, we hear its luring, tempting strains. God grant, brethren, we
may not yield—for yielding still means destruction and death.
(2) This verse implies the WEAKNESS of man. “Bring us not into
temptation,” into trial, into testing, because we are so prone to break
down under the trial. The fact that temptations abound would not matter
very much if we were proof against them. It is because we ourselves are
so prone to yield that temptation is terrible. To take a spark to green
wood would not do very much harm. But to bring temptation upon us is
like applying flame to dry shavings or a match to gunpowder. The attack
of temptation from without is made formidable by the weakness and
treachery within. It is because we know our own weakness, it is because
we know how liable we are to break down under any severe test, that we
pray, “Bring us not into temptation.” I am simply stating a matter of
fact and observation when I say that there is in all of us a bias toward
sin, an inclination toward evil. We talk lightly sometimes of the old
doctrine of “original sin.” But surely it expressed a truth that we dare
not ignore. There is a bias in the human heart toward sin. It is easier
for us to do wrong than to do right. That was the truth our Lord meant
to convey when He said the path of evil was a broad way, while the road
to life was a narrow path. To do evil is easy; you have only to shout
with the crowd and swim with the stream. But to do right is hard; you
must swim against the current, you must dare to stand alone. And it is
just this that gives temptation its power and makes it terrible. It
accords with our own inclinations. The passions and desires of the flesh
second its efforts. The devil finds his best ally in the lusts and
weaknesses of a man’s own heart. There is no man safe from temptation.
There is no one who can boast that he is strong enough to resist every
allurement. There is in all of us some weakness of the soul, and
temptation will assail us just at the weakest point; it will find the
unfortified place and concentrate its attack upon that; it will find the
joints in our harness and point the poisoned arrow there. The old Greek
story says that Achilles, the great hero of the Trojan war, was dipped
while he was yet a child in the waters of the Styx by his mother,
Thetis, in order to make him invulnerable. And the result of that plunge
was that every part of Achilles’ body was proof against wounds with the
exception of the heel by which his mother held him, and which had not
been submerged in the waters. For many years, as a result, Achilles
escaped unhurt, but at last the poisoned arrow of the Trojan Paris found
the weak spot and inflicted the death wound there. So sin and temptation
attack us where we are weakest. They appeal to our inclinations, our
passions, our lusts; they find out the weak spot. I can only discover
One Man in the history of the whole world who was proof against
temptation, and that was the Perfect Man, Christ Jesus Himself. But as
for everyone else, the best, the bravest, the noblest, surprised by some
temptation, betrayed by some weakness, have fallen into sin. Do not say,
brethren, that this petition is a prayer for the weak! Do not say it is
a prayer for the timid and the cowardly! It is a prayer for us all.
Peter very likely thought that there was no need for him to pray this
prayer. Perhaps in his heart he longed for an opportunity to be given
him of showing how strong and brave he was. Deny his Lord? No! not
though all the world forsook Him! No! not though it meant death to be
faithful! Well, the night did not pass without bringing an opportunity
of putting his boasted strength to the test. But how badly Peter came
out of the trial! Would you recognise the proud boaster of a few hours
before in the swearing, blaspheming denier at cock-crow? And we have
many an example in the old Book, beside that of Peter, to warn us
against over-confidence. Abraham, whose faith is commended in Scripture,
lost all his faith in Egypt. Moses, the man who was renowned for his
meekness, lost his temper when the children of Israel murmured. David,
the sweet singer of Israel, the man after God’s own heart, was swept by
his lust into an act of foulest wickedness. And these examples are
enshrined in the pages of this old Book, to bid us beware of
over-confidence, and not to boast ourselves in our strength. Pride ever
cometh before a fall. There is weakness in all of us. To the strongest
of you here this morning, to you who perhaps think yourselves beyond the
reach of temptation, let me repeat the old Bible warning, “Let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” It is the knowledge of our
own weakness that makes temptation terrible. We distrust ourselves. We
look back over past years and see the number of times we have fallen,
the number of times we have yielded to the fascination of the world’s
syren song. We remember, too, that when we did escape it was so as by
fire; it was through pain and agony. We remember how hard the struggle
was, and how near we were to yielding. And the remembrance both of our
falls and our escapes makes us afraid. We feel that our safety lies in
never hearing those fatal strains again. So, conscious of our own
weakness, and yet desiring not to offend our heavenly Father again by
our sin, we make this our prayer, “Bring us not into temptation.”