Last night I was praying for physical protection and safety. A natural disaster hit our area quite strong. No word on fatalities yet. A couple of towns are completely gone. People’s lives forever changed, but hopefully they are still with us. As of now, 7 hours later, no newscasters are reporting fatalities. Which is amazing.
Situations like that make us look at Scripture from our most recent experience. And today in John 17, this is what I saw:
“While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them” v. 12
My version of the Bible reads like this:
“I protected them and kept them safe by the name you gave me” (v. 12)
Our prayers for protection are almost always about physical protection. So that’s what we go to in our minds.
Yes, Jesus kept them safe physically. But it wasn’t to be for long. Soon enough they would all die horrible deaths.
Is this what Jesus was talking about though? When he said he protected them kept them safe by the name the Father gave him? Let’s look a little further.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one (v. 15)
The protection Jesus was talking about was protection from the evil one. It’s not the first time we’ve seen this. Jesus also taught us to pray this during the Lord’s Prayer:
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil (v. 13).
We all will die. But we will all be protected from the evil that assaults us?
Jesus taught on this further with those who heart the word:
“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path (Matthew 13:18-20).
The evil one comes to steal our soul, our faith, and our joy. He gets into our minds and our heart. We are tempted by the lust of sin. Our minds are tempted to devalue our worth. Our questions are enticed to doubt. Our fears erode our faith.
Jesus kept his disciples safe while he was with them. He can keep us safe too. We just have to be aware.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
But we should be encouraged as well. It’s a battle out there. We are not immune. But God’s got us. We just also need to do our part to fight the evil that wants to suck us back into the ways and thoughts of the world.
Lord, protect us from evil even as you protected your disciples.
John 17:6-26
I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself,[c] that they also may be sanctified[d] in truth.