Thus far, this series concerning how we Christians ought to conduct ourselves when the governing authorities are evil and threaten harm upon anyone who dares to disagree with and voice objections to their edicts, orders, and laws has not been exceptionally provocative to most Christians. With this installment, that may change. Because so few ministers of the gospel address the full implications of what we call The Lord’s Prayer, will what I say in this entry seem provocative? The provocation one feels may be because one hears a tame Jesus, a nice Messiah, a domesticated Lion of the Tribe of Juda preached from many pulpits. In his The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis exposes a commonplace notion concerning the Christ, who is represented by Aslan, in the conversation between Susan and Mr. Beaver who says, “Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh,” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” . . . “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Yes, many view Jesus as “safe” rather than good and just. Consequently, many Christian pulpits fall short of proclaiming the full ramifications of The Lord’s Prayer touched on in this blog entry. Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to address these matters briefly. So, here is the fifth installment that is fairly concise, but I trust it is useful.
Keep in mind that the question I am seeking to address concerns how we Christians should conduct ourselves when those who govern are evil. My interest is not simply for Christians in America but for Christians everywhere, for we ought not to be concerned only about those who have an immediate governing impact upon us and our immediate family members and friends but for the whole family of God in Christ everywhere. Even more than this, our concern should be the universal reign of Christ over all without any resistance anywhere.
The second installment in this series focused on praying for those who govern our nation. This entry returns to the issue of prayer but with a different emphasis. Scripture instructs us to pray for the Lord’s kingdom to come, that the Lord’s will would be done upon earth willingly, eagerly, joyfully as it is done in heaven where God’s reign is unopposed.
Here is Matthew’s account concerning Jesus’ instructions to his disciples concerning how they should pray in contrast to how the religionists of their day were praying.
This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:9-13).
Among the many things that one might say concerning The Lord’s Prayer, I direct you to ponder five matters for the purpose of this blog posting.
a. We need to understand what it is that we are petitioning God to do whenever we pray “The Lord’s Prayer.”
We must never perfunctorily or mindlessly recite The Lord’s Prayer, for those things for which we petition the Lord by reciting the prayer are profound, eternal, and of eternal consequences upon every human who has lived, who is living, and who will live on this earth.
b. The Lord’s Prayer consists of six petitions:
1. Let your name be hallowed.
2. Let your dominion come.
3. Let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
4. Give us today our daily bread.
5. Grant to us forgiveness of our debts.
6. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. By way of litotes, means, this petition is a forceful way of saying, “Most assuredly lead us into righteousness.”
My interest focuses on the first three petitions which all direct our desires away from ourselves to the Lord’s universal dominion.
c. Do you realize that every Christian who prays the Lord’s Prayer calls upon God the Father to imprecate, to curse evildoers? You say, “What?” Yes, Jesus teaches us to petition our Heavenly Father to curse evildoers. What are the first three petitions again?
First petition: Our Father in heaven, let your name be sanctified. Let your person be worshiped as holy. Ultimately, for this petition to be fully realized it means the banishing of evildoers from the earth.
Second petition: Let your kingdom come. Let your dominion come upon the earth. Let your reign fill the earth. Again, for this petition to be fully realize it means that we are calling upon the Lord to purge the earth of evildoers.
Third petition: Let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. In case someone objects that the first two petitions do not call upon the Lord to banish evildoers from the earth, this third petition makes it plainly obvious that this is precisely what we are petitioning our Heavenly Father to do. For if our Father in heaven is to bring about the doing of his will on earth as his will is being done in heaven, this means that he must purge the earth of evildoers either by subjugating them to his reign through the converting power of the gospel by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit or by banishing them from the earth as he will do in the Last Day. Those who do the Father’s bidding in his heavenly realm do so willingly, fully, and perfectly. This is what we petition the Father to bring about upon the earth. Thus, we are necessarily calling upon the Lord to take action in two directions: (1) to conquer evildoers by rescuing them from the kingdom of darkness to take them captive through regeneration to become his subjects in the kingdom of light; and (2) to imprecate, to curse evildoers, which means to banish them to eternal perdition.
d. Martin Luther, rightly observes that The Lord’s Prayer entails an implicit imprecation.
Luther points out that whenever we pray, “Let your name be hallowed, let your kingdom come, let your will be done,” we are praying that our Heavenly Father will heap “Curses, maledictions and disgrace upon every other name and every other kingdom. May they be ruined and torn apart and may all their schemes and wisdom and plans run aground” (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan [St. Louis: Concordia, 1956], 21:101).
e. In another place, Martin Luther offers an account of imprecatory prayer for a wicked ruler.
“We should pray that our enemies be converted and become our friends, and if not, that their doing and designing be bound to fail and have no success and that their persons perish rather than the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ. Thus, the saintly martyr Anastasia, a wealthy, noble Roman matron, prayed against her husband, an idolatrous and terrible ravager of Christians, who had flung her into a horrible prison, in which she had to stay and die. There she lay and wrote to the saintly Chrysogonus diligently to pray for her husband that, if possible, he be converted and believe; but if not, that he be unable to carry out his plans and that he soon make an end of his ravaging. Thus she prayed him to death, for he went to war and did not return home. So we, too, pray for our angry enemies, not that God protect and strengthen them in their ways, as we pray for Christians, or that He help them, but that they be converted, if they can be; or, if they refuse, that God oppose them, stop them and end the game to their harm and misfortune” (Martin Luther, What Luther Says [St. Louis: Concordia, 1959], p. 1100).
This is how we ought to pray for all evil rulers and governors.
I will return to the matter of praying for God’s salvation and judgment in the two final installments in this series.