Deliver Us From Evil: A Prayer For Our Times

By Dr. Arnold O. Thompson

Deliver Us from Evil: A Prayer for Our Times is a book written for the volatile evil times in which we live and what primarily the Christian church needs to know and do about it. Its purpose is to move beyond the performance stage to view the backstage, to look behind at the often unrecognized spiritual and evil infrastructure that constantly influence and corrupt what we see on the world’s popular stage. It explains why truth on every level is under attacked. It exposed the satanic strategy of lies, camouflage, hidden agendas, hidden spiritual wars that contribute to evil in the world. It reveals the many ways in which the Christian church is being dragged into wars God did not call us to fight, while neglecting the one he called us to fight. It reveals why the evangelical church is so deadly silent about God’s good news to our world while evil news is always viral in our times.

Most of all, this book lays out how we must fight our battles. It reveals the detailed biblical battle plan God gave his followers to follow, to fight, and to win. It shows the path back to the real spiritual war against evil God called his people to engage. It delivers the often hidden foundational reason and purpose for Christ’s prophetic prayer to his followers. This book shows Jesus’s prayer was meant particularly for our times and dispensation just before he returns to finally and ultimately “deliver us from evil.” It is one of the most important Christian books for survival for the Christian church’s effective witness in our times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638742531

Book preview

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Deliver Us From Evil

A Prayer For Our Times

Dr. Arnold O. Thompson

ISBN 978-1-63874-252-4 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88685-965-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63874-253-1 (digital)

Copyright © 2021 by Dr. Arnold O. Thompson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Scripture quotations were taken from the Holy Bible New International Version (NIV) Copyright © 1998–2019 Olive Tree Bible Software unless otherwise noted.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment

1

Evil Intent?

2

Deliver Us from Evil

(Matt. 6:13)

3

All This I Will Give to You

(Matt. 4:9)

4

Keep Them from the Evil One

(John 17:15)

5

The Whole World Is Under the Power of the Evil One

(1 John 5:19)

6

What Is Evil?

Different Shades from Bible Narratives

7

The Nature of Evil—Beyond Words

Angel of Light

8

The Root of Evil

Roots Implications

A Fall from Heaven—a Rise of Evil

The First Fall

The Rise of Evil—the Second Fall

A Good Creation Turned Bad

A Context That Was Evil

A Condition—Two Falls, One Salvation

9

Choice and Consequences

10

The Lucifer Legacy

11

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

12

The Main Actor on the World's Stage

His Power

13

A Look into the Abyss

Rise Above the Abyss

14

The Destiny of Devils

Evil Will Increase

15

Evil Will Inhabit a Man

Revelations Concerning the Antichrist to Come

16

The Days of Evil

The Dawn of Doom

17

The Resistance—Part One

18

The Resistance—Part Two

Tools of the Resistance

Be Saved

Be Strong

Be Smart

Be Standing

Be Safe

19

The Resistance—Part Three

The Ultimate Armor

20

The Panoplion for the Resistance—Part 1

Weapons of Defense

Belt of Truth

Breastplate of Righteousness

Feet Fitted…

Shield of Faith

Helmet of Salvation

21

The Panoplion for the Resistance—Part 2

The Offensive Weapons

22

Epilogue

A Prophetic Warning to Followers of Christ

About the Author

Acknowledgment

To the Congregation of Agape Bible Church who stood with me in some of the greatest battles we faced as founder and pastor for twenty-eight years, developing a Bible-based evangelical Black church ministry confronting evil in our times.

1

Evil Intent?

It was about thr ee o'clock on a quiet Florida afternoon in 1974. School was just getting out, and a boy was taking his delightful and casual walk home as he did after school each day. I was a student as well at a nearby university, and his walk passes my second-floor off-campus apartment each school day. A journey of about one hundred feet from the southeast corner of the parameters of his high school brought him within line of sight from my apartment balcony. He was tall and slim built, studious-looking with a carefree stride. On a beautiful afternoon, evil like a beast on the hunt followed this boy on his way home. It came like an uncertain dream, or more like a nightmare—his body came flying over a five-foot fence into my apartment parking lot. Like a bump from hell, I heard it. It was the kind of sound that echoed something has gone desperately wrong. I called 911 and rushed down to the mostly vacant parking lot that time of day except for the boy lying in his typical light denim pants and his brilliant white shirt soaking in a large pool of blood from a hole in his head as big as an apple. One of his blue and white sneakers hung from a twisted ankle like on a frayed rope, the other about four parking spaces away—a solitary grim reminder of what kind of impact would send a teenager's shoe flying without wings so far from where it was worn.

Why was he hit by another student driving a car so violently as to be thrown over a five-foot wired fence with shrubs rising two feet higher? Was it an accident or with deliberate evil intent? Was it a homicide or just an out-of-control student driver? The direction and impact some distance off the main road looked like evil intent—looked like homicide. I could not confirm that. But whether it was so, the result to me—the first one at the scene—seems with evil intent. For one thing, he or she could have hardly hit someone with such wicked force and not know it. The impact was evil enough even if it could have been an accident. Then, I ran to the scene while the driver—whatever their reason—swiftly drove away from it. And at the center of both actions lies a rendezvous with evil. It was as if they both left evil behind, and I have had to live with this image in my mind of a student dead with his brain exposed on an asphalt driveway, on an otherwise beautiful Florida afternoon. It was like the sunny day now had blood scattered all over its face. The driver never stops to look. Never stops to assist. Never stops to care, but for their own survival. And for some time, I never stopped thinking about it—thinking about the boy cut down in such a sudden and evil act just walking home. A boy I never knew only in his death and the many sleep-evaporating nightmares that followed.

The soldiers on the battlefields who often see such evil in multiple ways, I often wondered, how do they do it? How do they endure such evil intent all around? How do soldiers, veterans, first responders, or even regular people exposed to varied and sudden evil find a catharsis? I contend, evil intent shows itself in different ways, and when it does, it makes sure one can hardly forget it—even if they try. Evil intent lives on long after it appears. It is willing to corrupt the mind and control the senses to the extent of even recreating not only the scene, but of all things, even its smell long passed. It comes like a mystery beyond comprehension in those who dare to steer it down—dare to look into its face, dare to recognize its existence as a separate powerful entity in this world, like a powerful hurricane in a category that can destroy everything in its path.

Although I know the paramedics responded to my frightful call. Although I know other students rushed to the scene. Although I know the boy's bled-out body was removed and the bloodstained parking lot was cleaned up. My mind does not allow me even now to recall anyone or any of these events other than the boy on the asphalt dead with a baseball-size hole in his head. All I could recall is the evil of it all. It is in part the reason I am writing this book. It is from a space in my soul occupied by a profound need to make sense from the varied evil I see in this world.

2

Deliver Us from Evil

(Matt. 6:13)

Jesus was born in a stable for lowly animals. He was divine royalty transferred into this world into humanity in the body of a helpless human baby, into a place filled with symbols of a lost world, its people and mission to be their light. He was introduced for his public ministry in a similar lowly way. He came to the Jordan River filled with all the prophecy of who he was as a king of his people but walked up as a lone traveler without an entourage. He just wanted to meet a member of the family and be baptized like any other by an ordinary desert dweller named John the Baptist. John was there, like any other day, to baptize followers and became a prelude to Isaiah's prophecy, Prepare the way for the Lord (Isaiah 40:3, Mark 1:3). And then, Jesus showed up not with the trappings of a king or the prestigious attire of the religious leaders of his day but in the standard cloth of a commoner. Later in an evil act, John was going to have his head severed like a common criminal, and Jesus who came to his daily baptismal ritual was going to confront evil in the desert immediately after. And later, he would die on a wooden cross like a common criminal himself. I contend, if evil dared to confront the king of kings in historical space and time, it will confront anyone at any time.

John saw Jesus coming and declared to his followers, He is the one who comes after me, the straps of woes sandals I am not worthy to untie (Mark 1:7), yet Jesus willingly faced the ritual of his death at the hands of evil men. But even as he stepped into the water, the angels of heaven rolled back the clouds but for a moment, so the thundering voice of God the Father said, You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased (Mark 1:11), pleased to confront with love an unloving evil world that was going to hang him on a cross. But that was over three years away. At that moment, in that time, at the Jordan filled with not only water but all the history of his people that led him there. It was the fulness of time for his earthly ministry to begin in an ordinary place but with extraordinary events: A powerful voice from heaven rumbled through the Jordan. The Father declared with a voice from heaven his pleasure in his son as he stood in the river. The Holy Spirit descended like on the wings of a dove. The collective presence and persons of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a united display of power to fulfill salvation purpose against the evil of sin.

It must amaze all who were at the Jordan that day. But as often in a world of evil since the fall of humankind, the purpose of God is never without opposition. Even in the symbol of baptism of John that day Jesus was buried in the water and brought up out of it, there is a symbol of death before life, darkness before light, a battle to the death before ultimate victory in Life—the life in Jesus Christ.

Now to the point I am making here: This extraordinary event of the symbolic ritual of baptism with the expressions of the real presence of the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, must have lasted perhaps thirty minutes. The Gospel writers did not give us time. What they choose to give us was the time of the big battle after the time of great blessings. Jesus had but a moment of reprieve among the supportive company of his followers before he faced the evil of rebellion to begin his ministry. Forty days to be led away to be tempted by the Devil, the evilest of characters on earth (cf. Mark 1:12, Mat 4:1–7, Luke 4:1–15). So, there can be no doubt when Jesus asked his disciples to pray these two important spiritual continua, Lead us not into temptation, followed by the more revealing request, deliver us from evil, that he was highlighting the importance of this prayer through his own journey, precluding his earthly ministry with a direct confrontation with evil and the evil one in the wilderness. It is obvious that the scriptural account of a brief conversation is meant to give us only the critical line of defense in the word of God, as well as the mode of attack to deal with evil and the evil one.

If we were to get a full forty days report of the nature of the battle, we may not want to get up in the morning. For the evil that Satan himself would affront the Son of God and what that confrontation looked like would be unbearable to the human eye. That Satan would spend even but a moment directly confronting the Son of God is overwhelmingly perverse. Yet massive of the people of the world live in the same evil space in complete rebellion against God. Deliver us from evil is perhaps the most relevant prayer to be made on earth today. It was a unique request out of the most crucial battlefield of war ever fought on earth between the armies of Satan in confrontation with Christ for the role of who would ultimately rule and dominate the people of earth. This is not an event in the life of Christ to take lightly. For we are left in this world in a strange continuum: For although Christ won the battle, He did not stop the war. He did not completely dispose of Satan and evil. However, what He did was important, for it convincingly demonstrated that He could. He says to all of us. I have been attacked and tempted by the evil one. I won the battle. I will win the war when I return (cf. Rev. 12:11).

Until then, the war rages on, the battle for the souls of humankind is still engaged, evil victoriously confronted by Jesus Christ yet present. But this is the reason for this unique request. It shows both the nature of the continued battle past forty days and the overwhelmingly critical necessity for each believer; indeed, the entire world to pray, Deliver us from evil. Why? In brief, it is important to realize (1) the battle is not over and (2) evil is still on the loose. This is the continuum until the next battle between Christ and the Antichrist in the great battle of Armageddon. Jesus was the winner in the first encounter. He will win in the next. In the meantime, in this our time of prelude, the battle between the forces of good and evil rages on. This is the time each human is given a time, a space, a period of grace and mercy, to make a choice of which side of the war they are fighting on.

3

All This I Will Give to You

(Matt. 4:9)

The period of the greatest combat on earth took forty days between two ultimate warriors. The God the creator of the universe and all that is in it and Satan the Evil One (John 5:18), the destroyer of all that is good. The Gospel's account gives us only fragments of this greatest of the battle of good and evil. What is given, however, reveals the fundamental issues in the spiritual battle for the mind, heart, and souls of humankind. We can only consider but a few. The Gospel writers' accounts told us that at one point during the battle, Satan took Jesus up (we have no details how this was done, and I suppose our imagination could not entertain it) to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. Then Satan said to Christ, All this I will give to you if you…if you will bow down and worship me.

This is at the heart of the evil in this world. Evil offers the splendor of the world for the selling of one's soul—a splendor he did not design, a world he did not create, an object of worship he could never deserve, kingdoms of peoples all of which he claimed he could never totally possess. But it is his mantra—he cleverly uses what God has made as if it is all his, his creation to lie, deceive, and persuade the hearts and minds of people to do his biddings just as he attempted to do with Jesus Christ in the wilderness of temptation. The very notion that the devil, the father of lies, as the Apostle John labeled him (8:44) can give what he did not create or claim to own what he did not and could not purchase is the continuum of evil intent from Adam and in our time. He does this to create overwhelming destructive feelings and dispositions that can drive one to evil action.

For example: Extreme jealousies of others' possessions, all this will I give you kingdoms; people's lives and livelihood all yours, all this will I give you; the passion for what others possess; the lie of the ages—all yours, the powerful love of money that can form a destructive catalyst or root of all kinds of evil. All bitterness that begins like a small evil seed watered by hateful labels and language. All this appeal to the desire for power and control producing to dominate others. All this desire that grows into the targeting and selected objects of hate—people. All this the unthinkable results like the mass shooting of innocent people—the feeling of control with a gun, the diabolical control to subdue, to control, to dominate through violence. All this the devil offered the Son of God. What does he offer the people he