(2) This verse implies the WEAKNESS of man. “Bring us not into temptation,” into trial, into testing, because we are so prone to break down under the trial. The fact that temptations abound would not matter very much if we were proof against them. It is because we ourselves are so prone to yield that temptation is terrible. To take a spark to green wood would not do very much harm. But to bring temptation upon us is like applying flame to dry shavings or a match to gunpowder. The attack of temptation from without is made formidable by the weakness and treachery within. It is because we know our own weakness, it is because we know how liable we are to break down under any severe test, that we pray, “Bring us not into temptation.” I am simply stating a matter of fact and observation when I say that there is in all of us a bias toward sin, an inclination toward evil. We talk lightly sometimes of the old doctrine of “original sin.” But surely it expressed a truth that we dare not ignore. There is a bias in the human heart toward sin. It is easier for us to do wrong than to do right. That was the truth our Lord meant to convey when He said the path of evil was a broad way, while the road to life was a narrow path. To do evil is easy; you have only to shout with the crowd and swim with the stream. But to do right is hard; you must swim against the current, you must dare to stand alone. And it is just this that gives temptation its power and makes it terrible. It accords with our own inclinations. The passions and desires of the flesh second its efforts. The devil finds his best ally in the lusts and weaknesses of a man’s own heart. There is no man safe from temptation. There is no one who can boast that he is strong enough to resist every allurement. There is in all of us some weakness of the soul, and temptation will assail us just at the weakest point; it will find the unfortified place and concentrate its attack upon that; it will find the joints in our harness and point the poisoned arrow there. The old Greek story says that Achilles, the great hero of the Trojan war, was dipped while he was yet a child in the waters of the Styx by his mother, Thetis, in order to make him invulnerable. And the result of that plunge was that every part of Achilles’ body was proof against wounds with the exception of the heel by which his mother held him, and which had not been submerged in the waters. For many years, as a result, Achilles escaped unhurt, but at last the poisoned arrow of the Trojan Paris found the weak spot and inflicted the death wound there. So sin and temptation attack us where we are weakest. They appeal to our inclinations, our passions, our lusts; they find out the weak spot. I can only discover One Man in the history of the whole world who was proof against temptation, and that was the Perfect Man, Christ Jesus Himself. But as for everyone else, the best, the bravest, the noblest, surprised by some