Read the Large Catechism with me.
Ten-minute studies on short readings from the Large Catechism.
Let's do this.
Click on the link below and read the short assigned reading. Then, if you have time, check out what I have to say about it. If not, no problem. Just soak up the goodness of the LC.
The Lord's Prayer, Sixth Petition: Click here and read 99-111.
The basics:
- And lead us not into temptation.
- Although we have received forgiveness and a good conscience and are entirely acquitted, yet is our life of such a nature that one stands today and tomorrow falls.
- Temptation is of three kinds: of the flesh, of the world, and of the devil.
- Of the flesh: our old Adam incites in us all manner of evil lusts which cling to us by nature.
- Of the world: the world offends us in word and deed, and impels in us anger and impatience.
- Of the devil: the devil provokes us from all directions, especially in spiritual matters. He induces us to despise and disregard both the Word and works of God, to tear us away from faith, hope, and love, and bring us into misbelief and false security, or to despair, denial of God, blasphemy, and innumerable other shocking things.
- In this life we are moved to cry out and to pray that God would not allow us to become weary and faint and to relapse into sin, shame, and unbelief. Otherwise it is impossible to overcome even the least temptation.
- In this life we must endure and be engulfed in trials, but we pray that we may not fall and be drowned in them.
- To feel temptation is a different thing from consenting or yielding to it. To consent thereto is when we give it the reins and do not resist or pray against it.
- We must all feel temptation, although not all in the same manner, but some in a greater degree and more severely than others.
- Pray - Dear Father, Thou hast bidden me pray; let me not relapse because of temptations. Then you will see that they must desist, and finally acknowledge themselves conquered.
- If we venture to help ourselves by our own thoughts and counsel, we will only make the matter worse and give the devil more space.
My thoughts today:
I cannot talk about anything else before saying that Luther's final words made me want to throw up. I seriously felt sick. I mean, come on, who likes snakes? They are disgusting. I know...I know...some people have snakes as pets, but I don't go to those people's houses, nor do I even pretend to understand them at all.
Yuck.
"For he has a serpent's head, which if it gain an opening into which he can slip, the whole body will follow without check."
Yuck. That puts some seriously disturbing images in my mind. Which I suppose is very fitting, since the devil and his sly ways should put disturbing images in my mind. Well played, Luther.
Because of our flesh, because of the world, and because of the devil there are plenty of little holes in our lives, quite large enough for the serpent's head to come through.
And where he can fit his head, he can fit his entire being.
And this is the reason we pray for God to fill those holes - to aid us in blocking the temptations from taking hold of us. For we all must feel the temptation, some with more intensity than others, but the feeling of temptation is far different from the consenting of it.
"For though I am now chaste, patient, kind, and in firm faith, the devil will this very hour send such an arrow into my heart that I can scarcely stand. For he is an enemy that never desists nor becomes tired, so that when one temptation ceases, there always arise others and fresh ones."
Thanks be to God! There is a Man who had no holes for the serpent's head. But because of our holes, He laid down His life in our place. He was pierced, and from that hole sprang blood and water. Blood shed for me and for you. Water used to Baptize us into His death. The blood and water that fills the holes of our temptations.
And because of this, we are able to boldly pray, "And lead us not into temptation."
