So when the invisible tempter suggested that he might at once relieve this pain and gratify this craving, he answered simply that there was a higher life than the animal, and that man could be upborne by faith in God even under the pressure of utmost want. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." How many poor, suffering followers of Christ, called to forsake the means of livelihood for conscience' sake, have been obliged to live as Christ did on the simple promise of God, and to wait. Such sufferers may feel that they are not called to this trial by one ignorant of its nature or unsympathetic with their weakness. And the same consolation applies to all who struggle with the lower wants of our nature in any form. Christ's pity and sympathy are for them.
All who struggle with animal desires in any form, which duty forbids them to gratify, may remember that God has given them an Almighty Saviour, who, having suffered, is able to succor those that are tempted.
The second trial was no less universal. It was the temptation to use his sacred and solemn gifts from God for purposes of personal ostentation and display. "Why not," suggests the tempter, "descend from the pinnacle of the temple upborne by angels? How striking a manifestation of the power of the Son of God!" To this came the grave answer, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," – by needlessly incurring a danger which would make miraculous deliverance necessary.
Is no one in our day put to this test? Is not the young minister at God's altar, to whom is given eloquence and power over the souls of men, in danger of this temptation to theatric exhibitions – ostentatious display of self – this seeking for what is dramatic and striking, rather than what is for God's service and glory? Whoever is intrusted with power of any kind or in any degree is tempted to use it selfishly rather than divinely. To all such the Lord's temptation and resistance of it gives assurance of help if help be sought.
But finally came the last, the most insidious temptation, and its substance seemed to be this: "Why not use these miraculous gifts to make a worldly party? Why not flatter the national vanity of the Jews, excite their martial spirit, lead them to a course of successful revolt against their masters, and then of brilliant conquest, and seize upon all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them? To be sure, this will require making concession here and there to the evil passions of men, but when the supreme power is once gained all shall go right. Why this long, slow path of patience and self-denial? Why this conflict with the world? Why the cross and the grave? Why not the direct road of power, using the worldly forces first, and afterwards the spiritual?" This seems to be a free version of all that is included in the proposition: "All this power will I give thee, and the glory of it; for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it. If, therefore, thou wilt worship me all shall be thine."
The indignant answer of Jesus shows with what living energy he repelled every thought of the least concession to evil, the least advantage to be gained by following or allowing the corrupt courses of this world. He would not flatter the rich and influential. He would not conceal offensive truth. He would seek the society of the poor and despised. He taught love of enemies in the face of a nation hating their enemies and longing for revenge. He taught forgiveness and prayer, while they were longing for battle and conquest. He blessed the meek, the sorrowful, the merciful, the persecuted for righteousness, instead of the powerful and successful. If he had been willing to have been such a king as the Scribes and Pharisees wanted they would have adored him and fought for him. But because his kingdom was not of this world they cried: "Not this man, but Barabbas!" It is said that after this temptation the Devil departed from him "for a season." But all through his life, in one form or another, that temptation must have been suggested to him.
When he told his Apostles that he was going up to Jerusalem to suffer and to die, Peter, it is said, rebuked him with earnestness: "That be far from thee, Lord; such things shall not happen to thee."
Jesus instantly replies, not to Peter, but to the Invisible Enemy who through Peter's affection and ambition is urging the worldly and self-seeking course upon him: "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me. Thou savorest not the things that be of God but of man."
We are told that the temptation of Christ was so real that he suffered, being tempted. He knew that he must disappoint the expectations of all his friends who had set their hearts on the temporal kingdom, that he was leading them on step by step to a season of unutterable darkness and sorrow. The cross was bitter to him, in prospect as in reality, but never for a moment did he allow himself to swerve from it. As the time drew near, he said, "Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But, for this cause came I unto this hour; – Father, glorify thy name!"
Is not this lifelong temptation which Christ overcame one that meets us all every day and hour? To live an unworldly life; never to seek place or power or wealth by making the least sacrifice of conscience or principle; is it easy? is it common? Yet he who chose rather to die on the cross than to yield in the slightest degree his high spiritual mission can feel for our temptations and succor us even here.
The Apostle speaks of life as a race set before us, which we are to win by laying aside every impediment and looking steadfastly unto Jesus, who, "for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross." Our victories over self are to be gained not so much by self-reproaches and self-conflicts as by the enthusiasm of looking away from ourselves to Him who has overcome for us. Our Christ is not dead, but alive forevermore! A living presence, ever near to the soul that seeks salvation from sin. And to the struggling and the tempted he still says, "Look unto ME, and be ye saved."
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OUR LORD'S BIBLE
The life of Jesus, regarded from a mere human point of view, presents an astonishing problem. An obscure man in an obscure province has revolutionized the world. Every letter and public document of the most cultured nations dates from his birth, as a new era. How was this man educated? We find he had no access to the Greek and Roman literature. Jesus was emphatically a man of one book. That book was the Hebrew Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament. The Old Testament was his Bible, and this single consideration must invest it with undying interest for us.
We read the Bible which our parents read. We see, perhaps, pencil-marks here and there, which show what they loved and what helped and comforted them in the days of their life-struggle, and the Bible is dearer to us on that account. Then, going backward along the bright pathway of the sainted and blessed who lived in former ages, the Bible becomes diviner to us for their sake. The Bible of the Martyrs, the Bible of the Waldenses, the Bible of Luther and Calvin, of our Pilgrim Fathers, has a double value.
I have in my possession a very ancient black-letter edition of the Bible printed in 1522, more than three hundred years ago. In this edition many of the Psalms have been read and re-read, till the paper is almost worn away. Some human heart, some suffering soul, has taken deep comfort here. If to have been the favorite, intimate friend of the greatest number of hearts be an ambition worthy of a poet, David has gained a loftier place than any poet who ever wrote. He has lived next to the heart of men, and women, and children, of all ages, in all climes, in all times and seasons, all over the earth. They have rejoiced and wept, prayed and struggled, lived and died, with David's words in their mouths. His heart has become the universal Christian heart, and will ever be, till earth's sorrows, and earth itself, are a vanished dream.
It is too much the fashion of this day to speak slightingly of the Old Testament. Apart from its grandeur, its purity, its tenderness and majesty, the Old Testament has this peculiar interest to the Christian, – it was the Bible of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As a man, Jesus had a human life to live, a human experience to undergo. For thirty silent years he was known among men only as a carpenter in Nazareth, and the Scriptures of the Old Testament were his daily companions. When he emerges into public life, we find him thoroughly versed in the Scriptures. Allusions to them are constant, through all his discourses; he continually refers to them as writings that reflect his own image. "Search the Scriptures," he