Luke 4:1 Victory over the Besetting Sin. Our Lord, in defeating Satan's temptations, taught us also how to overcome them: (1) by answering Satan at once; (2) by not vouchsafing to enter into his subtleties; (3) our Lord teaches us that there is an order in Satan's temptations. I. If thou canst not... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:1 "Tempted like as we are.". The temptation, as is evident from the language employed, was in some way connected with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon our Lord; and we are thus taught that God, for their own and others' good, may lead His people through trial. It behoved Jesus to be made... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:4 Christian Fasting. I. There is a kind of fasting which can be nothing but good for us to practise. Self-denial relates to something which belongs to ourselves, but yet is not our highest property; and this especially applies to our pleasure in bodily enjoyments. This pleasure is really nat... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:7 I. When Jesus was offered the kingdoms of the world in return for an almost trivial act of homage, in His mind the proposal would assume the aspect of an expedient for advancing His kingdom, with the policies and prudences and compromises of this world; an expedient which must have been as... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:9 I. The spirit of temptation here presents himself in the character and with the accents and demeanour of an ally who desires nothing so ardently as the establishment of Messiah's kingdom in its integrity, and is ready with a proposal to accelerate, nay, precipitate its inauguration, and to... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:18 I. These words describe the part of our Lord's work which was not to be confined to His own personal agency; and this invites us to consider that other parts of His work were to be confined to His own personal agency. This is so; the work of a perfect righteousness wrought by man in absolu... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:18 Missionary Work. I. If missionary enterprise were nothing more than one of the most remarkable characteristics of our time, it would well deserve a place in the thoughts of those who are brought up to become English citizens. Missionary work is becoming more and more a _national_undertaki... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:19 Jesus read the prophets' testimony regarding God's goodness, and then closed the book, hiding the severity under the parchment folds. He preached on one half of a clause; did He intend to conceal the harsher portion of prophecy to cover with a veil the frowns that gather on the Father's c... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:22 Christ's words of love the reproof of detraction. St. James is amazed at it, as against nature and one of the deepest aggravations of the sinfulness of sinful speaking, that the tongue, which was made to bless God, a harp to make sweet melody to Him, should also utter evil against God's... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 4:26 _(with 1 Kings 17:9)_ I. Faith precedes blessing. There are no blessed rays till we believe, till we have acted on our faith, and found the answer in the Father's eternal love. I think the woman did not regret the day she met the strange man on the borders of the wilderness. In the land... [ Continue Reading ]