Today the world is not God’s kingdom but His enemy’s kingdom. This is why the Bible says that Satan is the ruler of today’s world (John 12:31). In Satan’s kingdom, the world, there is no righteousness, no peace, and no joy. Romans 14:17 tells us that the reality of the kingdom life is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. In Satan’s kingdom today, there is no joy, because there is no peace. In the United Nations, peace is talked about all the time, but there is no peace, because there is no righteousness. Peace is the issue of righteousness. In his second Epistle, Peter tells us that the unique thing that dwells in the new heavens and new earth is righteousness (3:13). In the coming kingdom, the millennium, the primary thing will be righteousness. There is no righteousness in today’s world, because this is the kingdom of Satan, the evil ruler.
Today Satan’s will is being done on the earth through evil men. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin tried to carry out his will along with most of the rulers on this earth today. Thank the Lord that Satan’s will is not fully carried out. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were destroyed. Napoleon wanted his will to be done, but he did not succeed. We need to pray for the Father’s divine will to be done on earth as in the heavens. This is to bring the heavenly ruling, the kingdom of the heavens, to this earth. Then the Father’s will surely will be done on the earth.
These three things—the name, the kingdom, and the will—are the attributes of the one Triune God. The name is of the Father, because the Father is the source; the kingdom is of the Son, and the will is of the Spirit. To pray in this way is to pray that the Triune God will be prevailing on the earth as He is prevailing in the heavens.
In His prayer, the Lord covers our daily necessity. He teaches us to pray for our bread only for one day. We are to ask our Father to give us today, not tomorrow or next month, our daily bread. He does not want His people to worry about tomorrow. He wants them to pray only for today’s needs. When I was younger, we co-workers in China sometimes came to the end of our material supply, and we did not know how we would live the next day. Something always came to meet our need for that day. The Lord is faithful to take care of the supply of our daily necessity.
In the Lord’s prayer, we see that we need to take care of our relationship with others. As we ask the Father to forgive us our debts, we should forgive our debtors. We are in debt with God, and we also have debtors who owe us something. To maintain a peaceful relationship with others, we have to forgive them. Thus, we have to clear up any separating factors between us and God and between us and others.
Sometimes our God, who is faithful and who takes care of us, brings us into a situation of temptation to test us as the Spirit of God did the Lord Jesus (Matt. 4:1). But because we know our weakness, we should pray, “Do not bring us into temptation.” This indicates our knowledge of our weakness. To pray for deliverance from the evil one is to deal with Satan. The Lord’s prayer takes care of the Triune God, of our daily necessity, of our relationship with God and with others, and also of Satan.