Matthew 4:8-10

THE PATH TO VICTORY

‘Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain.… All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.… Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’

Matthew 4:8

What is the significance of this temptation? Whence did it derive its force?

I. The recognition of Divine sonship.—We shall gain a clearer understanding of what this mysterious trial was, if we look back for a moment to those which preceded it. Both the other voices were prefaced by the words, ‘ If Thou be the Son of God.’ No doubt is here expressed or implied as to that Divine Sonship; the consciousness of it must, we can but reverently believe, have been ever present with the Christ. But the temptation was to draw upon that store of supernatural power which was ever within His reach. Nor would such yielding have been to all outward appearance a renunciation of His claims. The desire for food is innocent in itself; trust in the Divine Providence is the soul’s best strength and stay. But to have followed either suggestion would have been to turn aside from His appointed course. The first two trials were more subtle than appears at first sight. The victory lay in the refusal to separate Himself in His sorrows from mankind; it lay in that complete ‘self-emptying’ of which St. Paul speaks. And when we turn to the third and final conflict, we seem to find that it too was a far more terrible conflict than any which can come upon men, though it be full of the deepest teaching for us all. The Lord was in truth the Son of Man. He had taken upon Him that nature which is the flower and the crown of created life. Through this Incarnation it should receive new strength; fresh gifts were thus placed within man’s reach, for it is in Christ that men become partakers of the Divine nature. So is the Church in fact the Body of Christ. Why should it not be established then and there? The Gospel of an Incarnate Word might now be preached. Is not this the Gospel itself?

II. The fact of sin.—But for one fact, it would be the Gospel. That fact is the fact of sin. And does it not seem plain that the suggestion of evil which came to the Sinless One was that He should recognise the rights of sin in the universe of which He was the Creator? Was it, indeed, necessary that the Incarnation should be fulfilled in the Atonement, that the condescension of the Divine Charity should stoop to the Cross? The devil only departed for a season, and we know that more than once this very temptation assailed the Redeemer. The Shadow of the Cross was ever with Him; and in the earlier, as in the later days of ministry, the greatest, supremest trial of Jesus lay in the submission to the Cross and all that it involved. To have refused the Cross would have been to have left evil unconquered; it would have been a recognition of its right to a place in God’s world; and thus it would have left humanity unredeemed. And it is deeply significant that the two occasions on which the Lord was comforted by a ministry of angels were the two great occasions on which He resisted the impulse to shun the Cross, and thus leave the work of Redemption but half done. But the path to victory is ‘the royal road of the Cross.’

—Dean Bernard.

Illustration

‘Once more the scene changes. They have turned their back upon Jerusalem and the Temple. Behind are also all popular prejudices … They no longer breathe the stifled air thick with the perfume of incense. They have taken their flight into God’s wide world. There they stand on the top of some very high mountain. It is in the full blaze of sunlight that He now gazes upon a wondrous scene. Before Him rises from out the cloud-land at the edge of the horizon, forms, figures, scenes—corn, woods, sounds, harmonies. The world in all its glory, beauty, strength, majesty, is unveiled. Its work, its might, its greatness, its art, its thought, emerge into clear view. And still the horizon seems to widen as He gazes; and more and more and beyond it still more and still brighter appears. Foiled, defeated, the enemy has spread his dark pinions towards that far-off world of his, and covered it with his shadows. The sun no longer glows with melting heat; the mists have gathered on the edge of the horizon, enwrapped the scene which has faded from view. And in the cool shade that followed have the angels come and ministered to His wants, both bodily and mental.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE GREATEST DANGER IN LIFE

You have a ‘kingdom’; your greatest danger in life lies in the matter of that ‘kingdom,’ and that, in exactly the same way as the trial was presented to our Master—the temptation of ‘taking the kingdom’ too soon—or compassing it by a forbidden path—or by receiving it upon wrong terms.

I. The time of the kingdom.—In that ‘kingdom,’ which is coming, doubtless a part of the happiness will be, that there will minister to our joy everything which can please the natural senses. But are we, then, to grasp at these things now, when the indulgence can only be obtained at the sacrifice of the spirituality, if not of the life, of the soul? May I go into the pageant, and into the glitter, of life? May I allow myself brightness and music, where God is not? No. ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Or, take a young Christian, just going forth into the battle. He knows—and truly knows—that the victory, and the triumph, and the trophy, are already his. Is he, therefore, to walk now in his high confidences? Is he to be full of the elation of the assurance of a final perseverance? ‘Let not him that girdeth on his harness, boast himself as he that putteth it off.’

II. The way to the kingdom.—But the danger may lie, not so much in respect of the time, as of the way to ‘the kingdom.’ Between Christ and that ‘kingdom’ there lay a long and difficult road. It was a deep valley that He had to cross to reach the height, which lay before His view. In the journey to heaven, beware of taking the line which seems often the shortest. Whatever bright things are before you; and however near they look, depend upon it, you have to go lower before you can go higher. If even He was ‘made perfect through sufferings,’ shall we wonder that we must pass to our rest through much tribulation? Be content to go through the needful education of your soul. Be busy with your own proper duties. Then you will be ready to take ‘the kingdom.’

III. Happiness can be too dearly purchased.—Never accept anything, by accepting which, you would make a compromise with your conscience. Immediately, the value of it will be gone, and the bloom will perish! There are men of business. They amass great fortunes; and then they spend their fortunes nobly in the promotion of God’s glory. But, in the way in which they get their fortunes, and realise those earnings, their consciences are grieved, and their souls are damaged, in the seeking. It is a beautiful temptation! But, to get a fortune badly, and spend it well—is ‘worshipping Satan’!

IV. Have a fixed principle.—Observe our Lord’s mode of dealing with the suggestion, which would do an evil that a good might come. He lays down one great fixed principle. ‘God’—only God must be ‘worshipped.’ Whatever trespasses on His solitary majesty, whatever detracts, in one iota, from Him, that must never be! Admit of no possession, no joy, no privilege, no honour, temporal or spiritual, which does not, in some way or other, glorify God. If your love and reverence for God be diverted one hair’s breadth, by any proposition that is made to you, that proposition is a lie! Suspect anything—however pleasant, however great, however good—which does not directly glorify God. ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’ Act with it as you would act with a viper. Fling it off! Fling it off in a moment. ‘Get thee hence, Satan!’

V. Victory.—‘Then,’—before that holy firmness,—‘the devil leaveth Him, and behold angels came, and ministered unto Him.’ God knows well how to make up to His own child—when He is alone with Him afterwards—for all He has been passing through, in the day, for His sake! What a little sanctuary will his own room be to him that night! Look at the matter thus, you, who are tempted; lay in strength for the battle again, you, who are being comforted: for so it must be, so it will be, to the end. The battle will never close,—the lights and the shadows will fulfil their courses: peace and trouble, trouble and peace, alternating, as the tide—till He comes—till He comes in His ‘kingdom.’

The Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustrations

(1) ‘It is utterly idle to attempt to reduce to any natural law, or even to a definite idea, the circumstances which attended this third temptation. I am inclined to think that the transit of Christ was to a real mountain, and that there was an actual prospect of exceeding grandeur and beauty lying at its foot: but that, aided by the scene it sought, the imagination was carried further than the landscape, either to the glories of the Roman Empire, then called “the world,” or, wider still, to certain great transcendant kingdoms, such as shall be hereafter. The pattern, therefore, submitted to the view will be neither altogether material, nor altogether ideal, but a part true, and the more the mirage.’

‘Just as almost all the seductions are, which do play before our minds. There is a reality, no doubt, in the rich, and gay, and pleasant things which this world presents, to lure away the young heart. But, oh! if a little, a very little of it, is solid, how large, how cruelly large is the fiction which surrounds it!’

(2) ‘A world of exceeding loveliness is appointed to you, where, even now, your prepared throne stands waiting for you. There, every desire that ever played upon your imagination, shall more than realise itself; and all the capabilities, of which you are conscious in yourself, will find infinite satisfaction in the perfected will of God. Brighter things than fancy ever drew,—loves, sweeter than you have ever conceived,—an elevation of knowledge that no thought has ever touched,—and power and might greater than the archangels,—and purities spotless as the throne of God,—and pleasures sweet and fresh as the rivers of paradise,—and light that never shall be dimmed, ministering to all, that is yours— not very far off! But, between all this and you, Satan has spread his fatal counterfeit. Too well it mimics the true!’