Evil hides behind many faces, the most well-known is that of the devil. While he is often pictured with horns, a red cape, and carrying a pitchfork, he really comes in the guise of a snake or an angel of light. He tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, he bartered for Job’s life, he is called “the father of lies,” he prowls around the earth like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, and he wages battle against God in Revelation. He has been the center of many sermons, the villain in many movies—sometimes even the good guy—, and has been declared by some to be The King of Rock and Roll. When bad things happen, most people say that the devil was behind it, for he is, in a word, evil. And other than God, he is probably the most well-known being in the world. He is why many people think we are to pray for deliverance from evil in the Lord’s Prayer. And why not? He is the actual and tangible personification of evil in this world.
But I’m not so sure the devil is the main focus of this penultimate section of Lord’s Prayer.
If, as I have proposed, the Sermon on the Mount explains each section of the Lord’s Prayer, we will find the corresponding section in Jesus’s famous sermon telling us to “Beware of false prophets” (Matthew 7:15). I realize that when false prophets are mentioned, many might think of the books of Jeremiah and Revelation. In Jeremiah 28 false prophets tell the people of Israel that God would take them back to the promised land, a claim God declares to be false. In Revelation, we read of the false prophet who comes to deceive the nations. Certainly, there are other instances in the Bible of false prophets, but these two seem to top the charts. And I don’t wish to diminish the importance of these false prophets, but I think the Sermon on the Mount has other people in mind.
Jesus says false prophets are those who come to us in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15). While that sounds an awful lot like Little Red Riding Hood’s wolfish grandmother, I don’t think Jesus was warning us about the Brothers Grimm. I think he was warning us about anyone who looks like a prophet or preacher of God but who, behind their disguise, is really evil. These are people who might speak in ways that sound consistent with God’s words, but inwardly they are untouched by God’s Spirit. They live duplicitous lives speaking the truth but living lies. They are the children of the Devil—the Father of Lies—and they think and act as he does.
I realize most of us fall into hypocrisy from time to time, but false prophets live their entire lives in hypocrisy; they know what they are doing and they have no desire to change. False prophets might do tremendously good things; they might speak the truth in Jesus’s name, they might cast out demons in Jesus’s name, they might do miraculous signs in Jesus’s name, but they don’t do the will of the Father; that is, their lives aren’t lived consistently with the teachings of Jesus.
While there are many modern-day false prophets, there is nothing to be gained by naming them; but they really aren’t that hard to spot. Jesus tells us that false prophets are identified by their fruits. A good tree bears good fruit; a bad tree, bad fruit. It’s that simple.
In Galatians, Paul describes good fruit this way, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22-24). People bearing this type of fruit should usually be easy to spot.
Paul also describes bad fruit when he writes, “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21). And just like those bearing good fruit, these sorts of people are also easy to spot. I mean, it’s kind of easy to spot witches, pimps, whores, swingers, and lushes, right?
But let’s look at bad fruit in another way. John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world” (I John 2:15-16). The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life are fairly concise descriptions of bad fruit. False prophets, then, are those who preach or allow their life to be consumed by, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life.
We can use these criteria to describe false prophets, but let’s use them to see what a false prophet is not. As pertains to the desires of the flesh, Jesus refused to turn the stones into bread even after not eating for forty days; as pertains to the desires of the eye, Jesus refused to bow down to anyone other than the Father, even if he could have gained all the kingdoms of the world; as pertains to the pride of life, Jesus refused to reveal his glory to everyone by jumping from the top of the temple, instead he awaited the Father’s timing for his glory to be revealed. Jesus’s life exhibits no lust, avarice, or pride, and the same should be said of any true prophet.
Lust, avarice, and pride are the fruits of false prophets. And as we eat of this fruit, it will not be long before lust, avarice, and pride begin to grow in our own lives. These pieces of bad fruit are the defining characteristics for anyone who is bound to the evil one and is a citizen of his kingdom.
But there is one more face behind which evil hides, and it might just be the most important one to address. In The Italian Job (2003) one character says, “I trust everyone. It’s the devil inside them I don’t trust.” When talking to another person, it doesn’t matter who, we have no clue about what is found inside of them. They might be the kindest and most loving person on the outside, but behind their eyes, they could be filled with rotting flesh and dead men’s bones. You never know. But when we stand in front of a mirror and look into our own eyes, we know everything that lies behind the face staring back at us.
We know if lust, avarice, and pride lurk in the dark places of our soul. We know the sort of fruit our life bears. We know if we are a false prophet. We know and no one else does.
But we also know if behind our eyes rests a child of the Father. We know if, despite our sin nature, we are constantly striving to follow the Father’s will. We know if we continually repent of our sins. We know if the fruit of our life is always becoming more like the good fruit of the Spirit. We know if we are a true or false prophet.
Certainly, we should pray to be protected from the evil one, the devil. And certainly, we should pray to be protected from false prophets who seek to draw us away from the Father. But above all, we should pray to be protected from the evil that constantly battles for our soul. It should be no wonder that the words “deliver us from evil” follow immediately on the heels of “lead us not into temptation,” for to be led away from temptation is the first step along the path protected from evil; a path leading to lives bearing good fruit.
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