Ask Mr Bible

Question: What kind of person is unable to pray the Lord’s prayer?

Answer:
If you don’t know Christ … you can’t pray, “Our Father.”
If you glorify yourself … you can’t pray, “Hallowed be Thy name.”
If you reject His rules … you can’t pray, “Thy kingdom come.”
If you won’t submit … you can’t pray, “Thy will be done.”
If your life is only for here and now … you can’t pray, “On earth as it is in heaven.”
If you are self-sufficient … you can’t pray, “Give us our daily bread.”
If you won’t forgive … you can’t pray, “Forgive us our debts.”
If you seek sin … you can’t pray, “Lead us not into temptation.”
If you are a friend of evil … you can’t pray, “Deliver us from evil.”
If you build your own kingdom … you can’t pray, “Thine is the kingdom.”
If you want power … you can’t pray, “Thine is the power.”
If you always take credit … you can’t pray, “Thine is the glory.”

“And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom. 16:20).

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).

As one considers the unspeakable cruelty that human beings have imposed upon other human beings throughout recorded history (such as the holocaust, etc.), it may well seem these verses ring hollow indeed.  Did the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ really signify total victory over the devil?  If so, why is he allowed to continue his malicious and murderous reign over this earth?  Is Satan not aware that he is both a defeated and doomed foe?  On the surface, hard questions indeed!  However, an event at the end of World War II may help by way of illustration and application to answer these probing questions.

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the first two atomic bombs were dropped upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  In one blinding instant over 150,000 people perished.  Some were blown apart, others burned alive, still others crushed by fallen objects, and many were actually vaporized by the terrible heat.  However, a number of the survivors who may have escaped the initial blast perhaps without a single scratch or cut were, nevertheless doomed to die in the near future by a frightful and (up to that time) unknown terror called radiation poisoning.  Stated another way, these poor people were, practically speaking, as dead as the original bomb victims.

What is being proposed here is that Satan was being subjected to a double and lethal dose of divinely induced spiritual radiation poisoning, with the first being administered on the cross and the second inside the tomb!

Thus, while the devil may at present appear and act as if he survived God’s wrath untroubled, he is, in reality, a doomed foe whose time is running out.

Martin Luther may well have had all this in mind when he wrote the third stanza of his great hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.  Note the stirring words:

And tho this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph thru us.
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him—His rage we
can endure, for lo, his doom is sure: One little word shall fell him.

In an Old Testament chapter (Dan. 2), Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had just imposed the death penalty upon his wise men for their utter inability to relate and explain his mysterious dream of a huge statue.  In desperation, the terrified men cried out:

“The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore [there is] no king, lord, nor ruler, [that] asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And [it is] a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh” (Dan. 2:10, 11).

This event occurred around 600 B.C.  Theologically speaking, the wise men were correct in their claim that the “gods” did not indeed dwell in human flesh.  But six centuries later in a Bethlehem manger all this would change for God would take upon Himself the likeness of human flesh (Rom. 8:3; Heb. 2:14), and actually dwell with sinful humanity (John 1:14).

This miracle of miracles would transpire in Luke 2:7:

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).