John 17:10

John 17:10. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil.

Christ did not pray that there might be monasteries and nunneries where his servants might be shut away from the world, nor even that his followers might die in early youth, and go home to heaven; but he prayed that, remaining in the world for gracious purposes, -to be its salt and its light-, they might themselves be kept from the evil that is in the world. It would be a dreadful thing indeed if the chosen people of God were to be overcome by the world; so Christ prayed that his Father would keep them from the evil, for he well knew that they could not be kept from it by any power that was not divine. There is no less power needed for the preservation of a believer than for his regeneration. The sustentation of a Saint is a constant miracle, which can only be wrought by God himself.