Dear Christian friends:

We have all learned to pray the Lord's prayer and it is easy to say it or sign it. Any deaf person and almost any child can say the Lord's Prayer. We think it is easy to pray the Lord's Prayer. But really it is not easy. Really it is the hardest prayer of all. People who do not think or understand while praying it perhaps think it is easy. Saying it is easy, but praying it is hard.

The hardest verse in the Lord's prayer is the Third Petition: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."


Maybe you never that about it before. Maybe you think it is easy. If you do, you don't understand it. Even Jesus who taught us to pray this prayer had a very hard time to pray it. You remember the night before He was crucified, Thursday evening, He went with His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. And what did He pray? (read verses 36-39) "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt."

"Jesus was sorrowful and very heavy," we read in verse thirty-six. Why? He knew tomorrow. He must suffer much shame and mockery and be crucified for our sins. The devil was tempting Him and trying to get Him to quit, and not do the Father's will. The Father's will was that His Son must freely, gladly suffer and die for man's sin. The devil didn't want that. He wants men to suffer and go to hell with him. So he tries very hard to tempt Jesus to quit. So he says to Jesus: "You're not the Son of God, If you were God's Son, He would not ask you to suffer so much. God doesn't really love you. If God really loved you, He would find another way to save the world."

"And even if you suffer and die, maybe you will not rise again like the holy prophets say. You can't be sure." Another temptation the devil offered to Jesus: "Why should you suffer so much for people they don't love you. Look at Judas!"

"See Peter, James and John over there. They're sleeping. They don't care about you and your troubles. In a little while when Judas and the mob comes, they will all run away and leave you alone. People aren't worth dying for. Why not quit now and save yourself." These and many other things Satan offered Jesus trying to get Him to rebel against the Father's will.

But Jesus remembered His baptism when God said: "He is my beloved Son." Jesus knew He was God's dear and chief Son, so He obeys God's will and says: "Thy will be done, not mine," or Satan's or man's.

And even while He hung on the cross the thieves and chief priests tried to make Him doubt that He was God's Son. They said, "If you are God's Son, come down from the cross. Save yourself, if you are the Son of God. He saved others; Himself He cannot save."

But through all that temptation and mockery Jesus did not give up. He believed God's promises and Word in the Holy Prophets that He was the Son of God and that He must suffer and die and the third day rise again. So when He died He prays: "Father, Father, into Thy hands I give My Spirit." So you see it was very hard for Jesus to pray: "Thy will be done." For Him it meant suffering, shame and death to pray that short prayer and then do it.

Now, Jesus did not finish all of God's good and kind will. He did a large part by dying for man's sins, but it is also God's will that you and I become His children through baptism and then help to do His will on earth. What is God's will for us today? Again the Lord's prayer shows that "Hallowed be They Name" (Explain) "Thy Kingdom Come" (Explain).

Now today also Satan and our own selfish, sinful hearts don't want us to do this good and kind will of God. Satan tries to get you to quit the same as he tried to get Jesus, and often he is successful with you and I. He says, "Why support the church? Why go to church? Sunday is your only day off. You need some rest and fun. Why be a lay-visitor in the Every Member Visits (E.M.V.) program? Too many meetings, too much work. If you go to visit someone's house they will not listen or pledge, they will mock you after you leave. Why pledge for church and missions. You need your money yourself. If you get sick, the church won't help you."

Or he even thinks of a more tricky temptation: "He says pledge just enough to get by, so the preacher won't scold and you can save face." "Pledge one or two dollars a week, then they will leave you alone and not bother you." "Go to church once a month, keep the preacher happy, then they won't bother you."

That's what you and I often think and say and I'm sorry to say, we often do what Satan tells us to do and God's will is not done among us.

What I have told you since two years about church attendance, about missions, about witnessing, about E.M.V. is God's good and kind will for you and the deaf here." If you kick about that and refuse to do that you, are not doing God's will, but Satan's. Then you are acting like a slave of Satan, and not like a Son of God.

See how Jesus fought against the devil's temptation. He remembered His baptism, that He was the Son of God. Then He did the heavenly Father's will.

So you although you have often forgotten and often fail to do your heavenly Father's will, remember your baptism. By baptism you became sons and daughter's of God. You were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The Father gave His Son to die for your sins; the Son obeyed and suffered that; the Holy Ghost has led you to believe that good news. If you remember this every day, your baptism, it will help you to pray: "Thy will be done" and then you will try hard to do it and be sorry when you fail.

Some of you are not even sorry and think you do right to kick against God's will that I preach and urge. If you do that way then Paul says, "then are ye bastards, and not sons." (Hebrews 12:8) Don't be a bastard, be a son. God have mercy and help us.

Amen.