Luke 4:2-4 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungry.… There is — I. AN APPEAL TO APPETITE. It is here that temptation first and most strongly besets a youth. The great turning question of life is, "Am I to be the body's; or is the body to be mine, and mine for God's?" He only can be truly said to live who, by faith in God's Word and obedience unto Him, seeks constantly to serve the Lord. II. AN APPEAL TO AMBITION. The same insidious temptation is, in one form or another, repeated in the case of every man; and for the most part, in the commencement of his career, he has to fight the battle, or to yield himself a captive. God's way to honour and power and wealth is still steep, and arduous and rugged; and to the man who is wearifully exerting himself to overmaster its difficulties, Satan comes, offering his short and easy road to the summit of his ambition — in how many cases, alas! with the most complete success. Avoid the devil's short cuts, and make the words of our Lord, "Thou shalt worship," &c., the motto of your lives. Listen to the words of Havelock when told that there were prejudices against him in certain quarters on account of his religion: "I humbly trust that in that great matter I should not change my opinions and practice, though it rained garters and coronets as the reward of apostasy." III. AN APPEAL TO FAITH. This as insidious as the rest. Jesus had already repelled the tempter by expressing His confidence in God, and allegiance to His Father; and to that very principle which had before foiled him, he addresses himself now; as if he had said, "Dost thou trust God? come, and I will place thee in circumstances such as will make manifest to all His guardian care of Thee." The principle of Christ's answer is this: We are never to be guilty of tempting Providence by setting either His natural or spiritual laws at defiance. If we are in danger, in God's service, we may rely that He will be with us. But we have no right to imagine that He will suspend the law of gravitation, whenever we choose to leap over a precipice; or that He will suspend the spiritual laws which regulate the actions of our souls, whenever we put ourselves in the way of temptation. APPLICATION: YOU may overcome every temptation by giving up the fortress of your soul to this same Jesus, who vanquished Satan here. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. |
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