I. SYNAGOGUE SERVICE. It was the sabbath, and our Lord was teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum. The service of the synagogue was simple. In addition to the prayers, there was the reading of the Divine Word. First came the Parashah, or lesson of the Law; then followed the Haphtarah, or prophetical section. Hence we read, in the account of our Lord standing up to read in the synagogue of Nazareth, that the roll of the Prophet Isaiah was further given him (ἐπεδόθη), that is, in addition to the lesson of the Law already read, he was handed the prophetical section, to be read as the second lesson. Any competent person might be invited by the ruler of the synagogue or elders to discharge this duty, and afterwards address "a word of exhortation to the people," as in Acts 13:15.

II. OUR LORD'S OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. Our Lord honored the Lord's day, the house of God, and the ordinance of preaching which God has appointed for the instruction and edification of his people, as also for the explanation and enforcement of his Holy Word.

III. HIS MODE OF TEACHING. He was teaching, and, as we are told, "with authority, and not as the scribes." His method of teaching differed from theirs. Instead of appealing to precedents or citing the traditions of ancient rabbis, our Lord taught with independence, originality, and freshness, enforcing what he taught by his own authority. The matter of his teaching also differed from theirs. Instead of subtle, useless distinctions, almost evanescent differences, and trifling puerilities, he expounded the great things of God - his kingdom, grace, and glory. Still more than the mode of teaching or the truth taught was the manifestation of power in proof of, or at least accompanying, his teaching. The power by which he confirmed, and the evidence which he adduced in attestation of the truth, was something new and strange and unequalled. Hence the subsequent question, "What new teaching with respect to power?" or, "What new and powerful teaching is this?" for so we must read with the critical editors rather than with the received text, "What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits;" because "with authority" would regularly be ἐπ or μετ ἐξουσίας, rather than κατ ἐξουσίαν His teaching was accompanied with a novel exercise of power, not merely over the minds of men, but over beings of another race and belonging to a different sphere, even the spirits of evil. For one discharging the office of teacher to exercise such authority, and to put forth such power in commanding, coercing, and controlling such spiritual agencies, was unprecedented, and naturally enough led to the inquiry or exclamation we are considering. It may be observed that in some copies of the Italic Version the "and" in the clause "and not as the scribes" is omitted, but erroneously, for the copulative is used of things different rather than of opposites. In case of things not merely different, but opposite or contrary, the omission of the copula is admissible, as in the next chapter at ver. 27, "The sabbath was made for man, [and] not man for the sabbath," though the English Version inserts "and," and Tregelles reads the clause with καί. On this occasion, then, of our Lord's teaching in the synagogue, the healing of the demoniac was effected.

IV. REALITY OF DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. The subject of demoniacal possession has been so fully and frequently discussed that little remains to be said on it. Certain it is that, to any unprejudiced reader of the Gospels, such possession must appear an undeniable reality. This man in the power (ἐν) of an unclean spirit addresses Jesus, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?" literally, "What is common [κοινόν understood] to us and to you?" In ch. 5 Jesus commands the unclean spirit to come out of the man; and in the Gospel of St. Matthew (Matthew 8:32) he suffers the demons to go away into the herd of swine. There can be no reasonable denial, then, of the actual personality of these evil spirits. Their presence and personality are distinctly and decidedly recognized in such Scriptures as those just mentioned.

V. NATURE OF THIS POSSESSION. The poor demoniac had, it would seem, a sort of double consciousness. His own will was dominated by a superior internal agent, who held him in terrible thrall. There was the human personality of the man possessed, as in the ease of the Gadarene demoniac, who, when he had descried Jesus afar off, ran and worshipped him; there was the demoniac personality, or personality of the evil spirit, at the same time, which, employing the instrumentality of the man's organs of speech, cried with a loud voice, "I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not." This possession was not disease, nor was it madness; it was not physical alone, nor mental alone; it was not corporeal merely, nor spiritual merely; but a strange and shocking combination of both.

VI. WHY WAS DEMONIAC POSSESSION CONFINED TO OUR SAVIOUR'S THE OF SOJOURN ON EARTH? The most perplexing question perhaps in relation to this matter is, Why was it that such possession occurred just at the time of our Lord's ministry on earth - apparently neither before nor since? Several answers have been given to it, such as the prevalence of certain diseases, whether bodily or spiritual, at particular periods of the world's history; the climactic pitch which moral disintegration and social disorganization had reached at the time of Christ's appearance on earth; the check given to such possession by the introduction of Christianity; our ignorance of cases of the kind that may still exist. There may be an element of truth in each of these; still they are each and all inadequate as an answer to the difficult question propounded, and we must seek for a more satisfactory solution in some other direction.

VII. SATAN'S POWER. The discrowned archangel, called now Diabolos the accuser, again Satan the adversary, is the acknowledged head of these daimonia or daimones. He is still, as we have seen in connection with the temptation, the prince of the power of the air, and the prince of this world to a lamentable extent. His knowledge is immense, yet he is not omniscient; his power is enormous, yet he is not almighty; his presence is little short of ubiquitous - "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it" - yet he is not omnipresent; his resources for evil and for injury are amazing, yet they are not absolute. Happily, he is limited to some extent and restricted in some ways; he is not by any means infinite.

VIII. AN IMITATOR. With all his knowledge and power and resources, he is only an imitator at the best, and a destroyer at the worst. What God made he marred, as far as permitted to do so; what the Saviour does, he imitates. Accordingly, when the Son of God became incarnate, Satan or his subject-demons became incarnate too - at least, to the extent of entering and taking possession of the bodies of men. Again, when the dispensation became distinctly spiritual - when, after the Saviour's ascension, the Spirit was sent down - Satan confined himself also more to spiritual influences; that is to say, such influences as he still exercises over the spirits and minds of men.

IX. RECOGNITION AND CONFESSION OF THE SAVIOUR BY SATAN'S SUBJECTS, It need be no matter of surprise that, in person or by proxy, he is here found in the house of God, for such has been his practice from days of old. In the ancient time, when the sons of God came together and presented themselves before the Lord, Satan came among them and put in an appearance too. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that he continues his custom of frequenting the place of religious assemblies still. To the present hour he is sometimes with the preacher in the pulpit, sometimes with the hearer in the pew, though in neither case to help, but, whether with preacher or auditor, to hinder and to hurt. So in the instance before us.

X. THE SAVIOUR'S REFUSAL OF SUCH ACKNOWLEDGMENT. His acknowledgment of the Saviour is sternly rebuked. "Be muzzled (φιμώθητι) and come out of him! "was our Lord's indignant command. The acknowledgment, we therefore conclude, was either the expression of fawning fear, or rather an effort of fiendish malice to compromise the Saviour's character, as though in league with Satanic power and the spirits of evil. If so, our Lord's acceptance of such acknowledgment would have tended to discredit his mission and to damage his work. Demons knew him, for Satan, their chief, had followed him on his mission of mercy to man. He had dogged his steps as if to find out his true relationship - if indeed he was the Son of God - and to foil and frustrate, as far as practicable, his redemptive work. He had encountered him in the wilderness, and by his own defeat had learnt with certainty that he was in truth the Holy One of God.

XI. A KNOWLEDGE THAT IS NOT SAVING. Though demons knew and confessed the Son of God, they had nothing to do with him, so that they could truly say, "What have we to do with thee?" Sad thought! These lost ones had nothing to expect at his hand but further, fuller, and final destruction. Alas! that any should know Christ as these evil spirits, acknowledge him, and yet have neither part nor lot in the matter! There is a knowledge that does not save, for it lodges in the head and never touches the heart; it makes itself known by profession, but never manifests itself in practice. There is a faith that only genders fear, but never gains forgiveness nor goes the length of favor; for devils believe and tremble. Blessed be God for the truth which, brought home to the understanding and heart and conscience by the Holy Spirit, saves the soul: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent"!

XII. SATAN AND HIS SERVANTS EVERMORE EVIL. The unclean spirit was coerced into obedience. When reluctantly compelled to obey, he resolved to work all the mischief possible. He tore or convulsed (σπαράξαν) the man, "threw him (ῤίψαν) in the midst," as Luke informs us, but yet had no more that he could do, for he was obliged to come out without doing him any real or permanent bodily injury (μηδὲν βλάψαν). "It is much easier," says an old divine, "to keep him (Satan) out than to cast him out." And now heaven had acknowledged the Messiah; hell, as we have just seen, had to own him; while it remained for earth to confess its King. - J.J.G.

Satan knows how to write prefaces: here is one. He began the whole series of his temptations by a doubt cast upon our Lord's Sonship, and a crafty quotation from Scripture. He caught up the echo of the Father's word at our Lord's baptism, and began tempting where heavenly witness ended. He knew how to discharge a double-shotted temptation, and at once to suggest doubt and rebellion — " If" "command."

I. THE TEMPTER ASSAILS WITH AN "IF."

1. Not with point-blank denial. That would be too startling. Doubt serves the Satanic purpose better than heresy.

2. He grafts his "if" on a holy thing. He makes the doubt look like holy anxiety concerning Divine Sonship.

3. He "ifs" a plain Scripture. "Thou art My Son" (Psalm 2:7).

4. He "ifs " a former manifestation. At His baptism God said, "This is My beloved Son." Satan contradicts our spiritual experience.

5. He "ifs" a whole life. From the first Jesus had been about His Father's business; yet after thirty years His Sonship is questioned.

6. He "ifs" inner consciousness. Our Lord knew that He was the Father's Son; but the evil one is daring.

7. He "ifs" a perfect character. Well may he question us, whose faults are so many.

II. THE TEMPTER AIMS THE " IF" AT A VITAL PART.

1. At our sonship. In our Lord's case he attacks His human and Divine Sonship. In our case he would make us doubt our regeneration.

2. At our childlike spirit. He tempts us to cater for ourselves.

3. At our Father's honour. He tempts us to doubt our Father's providence, and to blame Him for letting us hunger.

4. At our comfort and strength as members of the heavenly family.

III. THE TEMPTER SUPPORTS THAT "IF" WITH CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. YOU are alone. Would a father desert his child?

2. You are in a desert. Is this the place for God's Heir?

3. You are with the wild beasts. Wretched company for a Son of God I

4. You are an hungered. How can a loving Father let His perfect Son hunger? Put all these together, and the tempter's question comes home with awful force to one who is hungry and alone. When we see others thus tried, do we think them brethren? Do we not question their sonship, as Job's friends questioned him? What wonder if we question ourselves!

IV. WHEN OVERCOME, THE TEMPTER'S "IF" IS HELPFUL.

1. As coming from Satan, it is a certificate of our true descent.

(1)He only questions truth: therefore we are true sons.

(2)He only leads sons to doubt their sonship: therefore we are sons.

2. As overcome, it may be a quietus to the enemy for years. It takes the sting out of man's questionings and suspicions; for if we have answered the devil himself we do not fear men.

3. As past, it is usually the prelude to angels coming and ministering to us.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

What force there is often in a single monosyllable! What force, for instance, in the monosyllable "if," with which this artful address begins! It was employed by Satan, for the purpose of insinuating into the Saviour's mind a doubt of His being in reality the special object of His Father's care, and it was pronounced by him, as we may well suppose, with a cunning and malignant emphasis. How different is the use which Jesus makes of this word "if" in those lessons of Divine instruction and heavenly consolation, which He so frequently delivered to His disciples when He was on earth l He always employed it to inspire confidence; never to excite distrust. Take a single instance of this: "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" What a contrast between this Divine remonstrance and the malicious insinuation of the great enemy of God and man!

(Dean Bagot.)Oh, this word "if"! Oh, that I could tear it out of my heart! O thou poison of all my pleasures! Thou cold icy hand, that touchest me so often, and freezest me with the touch! "If! I!"

(Robert Robinson.)

I. The first step towards God is faith in Him and His love. The first step away from Him is doubt. Therefore the devil begins all temptation by seeking to inspire the human soul with doubt. He sought to make Eve doubt God's loving purpose towards her by his "Yea, hath God said?"

II.

1. How often are we tempted to doubt God's love! Especially is this the case when we are left for a time without any sensible tokens of His presence.

2. How shall we meet this temptation? By reliance on the Word and the promise of God. Is there not in His Word food for the hungry, solace for the lonely, comfort for the desponding?

(Canon Vernon Hutton, M. A.)

The end is least in mention, and the means in their fit contrivance takes up most of his art and care. The reasons whereof are these —(1) The end is apparently bad, so that it would be a contradiction to his design to mention it. It is the snare and trap itself, which his wisdom and policy directs him to cover. His ultimate end is the destruction of the soul. This he dare not openly avouch to the vilest of men.(2) The means to such wicked ends have not only an innate and natural tendency in themselves, which are apt to sway and bias men that way, but are also capable of artificial improvement, to a further enticement to the evils secretly intended; and these require the art and skill for the exact suiting and fitting of them.(3) The means are capable of a varnish and paint. He can make a shift to set them off and colour them over, that the proper drift of them cannot easily be discovered; whereas the ends to which these lead cannot receive, at least so easily with some, such fair shows. It is far easier to set off company-keeping, with the pleasurable pretences of necessity or refreshing divertisement, than to propound direct drunkenness, the thing to which company-keeping tends, under such a dress. If it be demanded, How and by what arts he renders the means so plausible? I shall endeavour a satisfaction to that query, by showing the way that Satan took to render the means he made use of in this temptation plausible to Christ, which were these:(1) He represents it as a harmless or lawful thing in itself. Who can say it had been sinful for the Son of God to have turned stones into bread, more than to turn water into wine?(2) He gives the motion a further pretext of advantage or goodness. He insinuated that it might be a useful discovery of His Sonship, and a profitable supply against hunger.(3) He seems also to put a necessity upon it, that other ways of help failing, He must be constrained so to do, or to suffer further want.(4) He forgets not to tell Him that to do this was but suitable to His condition, and that it was a thing well becoming the Son of God to do a miracle.(5) He doth urge it at the rate of a duty, and that being in hunger and want, it would be a sinful neglect not to do what He could and might for His preservation.

(R. Gilpin.)

The devil here seeing Him in great want and hunger, would thereby bring in doubt, that He was not the Son of God, which is not a good argument. For whether we respect the natural tokens of God's favour, we see they happen not to the wisest and men of best and greatest knowledge, as appeareth in Ecclesiastes 9:11, or the supernatural favour of God. We shall see Abraham forced to fly his country into Egypt for famine (Genesis 10:12). So did Isaac (Genesis 26:1). And Jacob likewise was in the same distress (Genesis 43:1). Notwithstanding that God was called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yet were they all three like to be hunger-starved. Yea, not only so, but for their faith many were burned and stoned, of whom the world was not worthy (Hebrews 11:37). So fared it with the apostles; they were hungry, naked, and athirst (1 Corinthians 4:11).

(Bishop Andrewes.)

Hope, joy, peace, thankfulness, repentance, obedience, prayer, patience, worship — all these will vanish away like a morning mist before the sun if the devil can make you distrust with such a temptation as this, "If thou," &c.

(Bishop Hacket.)

1. That the Holy Ghost doth beget a true and an humble assurance in many of the faithful touching the remission of their sins in this life.

2. The Holy Ghost doth beget this assurance in them, by causing them to examine what good fruits they have produced already from a lively faith, and do resolve to produce thereafter.

3. This comfortable assurance is not the formal act of justifying faith, but an effect which follows it.

4. This assurance is not alike in all that are regenerate, nor at all times alike.

5. No mortified humble Christian must despair, or afflict his heart, because scruples arise in his mind, so that he cannot attain to a strong confidence or assurance in Christ's mercies. He that can attain but to a conjectural hope, or some beginnings of gracious comfort, shall be blessed before God, who will not quench the smoking flax.

(Bishop Hacket.)

Every tree doth not shoot out its root so far as another, and yet may be firm in the ground, and live as well as that whose root is largest. So every faith streteheth not forth the arms of particular assurance to embrace Christ alike, and yet it may be a true faith, that lives by charity, repentance, and good works; some faith abounds with one sort of fruits, some with another. God is delighted with all that are good, and He will reward them. In all kind of Divine conclusions some are more doubtful spirited than others.

(Bishop Hacket.)

We see it is the devil's endeavour to call into question the truth of God's Word. God had said, "Thou art My Son," and now he comes with his "If Thou be the Son of God." In the Word of God there be specially three things —

1. Commandments.

2. Threatenings.

3. Promises.Secondly, faith is the very life of our lives, and the strength of our souls, without which we are but very drudges and droils in this life. "The Holy Ghost fill you with all joy in believing" (Romans 15:13). "And believing, ye rejoiced with joy glorious and unspeakable" (1 Peter 1:8). Therefore the devil, envying our comfort and our happiness, would rob us of our faith, that he might rob us of our joy. Thirdly, faith is our choicest weapon, even our shield and buckler to fight against him, "whom resist steadfast in the faith" (1 Peter 5:9). Therefore, as the Philistines got away the Israelites' weapons, so doth Satan, in getting away faith from us, disarm us and make us naked. "For this is our victory whereby we overcome, even our faith" (1 John 5.). And in this faith apprehending God's strength lies our strength, as Samson's in his locks; and, therefore, the devil, knowing this, labours to do to us which Delilah did to Samson, even to cut off our locks.

(D. Dyke.)

If any man should be used like a dog, or a bear, yet as long as he sees human shape and discerns the use of human reason in himself, he would still, for all this usage, think himself to be a man. So though the children of God be used here in this world as if they were wicked, yet as long as they feel the work of grace, and the power of God's Spirit, they must still hold themselves to be God's children.

(D. Dyke.)

That Satan usually endeavours to run his temptations upon the plea of necessity, and from thence to infer a duty. The reasons of this policy are these:

1. He knows that necessity hath a compulsive force, even to things of otherwise greatest abhorrencies.

2. Necessity can do much to the darkening of the understanding, and change of the judgment, by the strong influence it hath upon the affections. Men are apt to form their apprehensions according to the dictates of necessity.

3. Necessity offers an excuse, if not a justification, of the greatest miscarriages.

4. Necessity is a universal plea, and fitted to the conditions of all men in all callings, and under all extravagancies. The tradesman, in his unlawful gains or overreachings, pleads a necessity for it from the hardness of the buyer in other things.We may observe three cheats in this plea of necessity.

1. Sometimes he puts men upon feigning a necessity where there is none.

2. Sometimes he puts men upon a necessity of their own sinful procurement.

3. Sometimes he stretcheth a necessity further than it ought. This must warn us not to suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by the highest pretences of necessity.

(R. Gilpin.)To open this a little further, I shall add the reasons why Satan strikes in with such an occasion as the want of means to tempt to distrust, which are these: —

1. Such a condition doth usually transport men beside themselves.

2. Sense is a great help to faith. Faith, then, must needs be much hazarded when sense is at a loss or contradicted, as usually it is in straits. That faith doth receive an advantage by sense, cannot be denied. But when out. ward usual helps fail us, our sense, being not able to see afar off, is wholly puzzled and overthrown. The very disappearing of probabilities gives so great a shake to our faith that it commonly staggers at it. It is no wonder to see that faith, which usually called sense for a supporter, to fail when it is deprived of its crutch.

3. Though faith can act above sense, and is employed about things not seen, yet every saint at all times doth not act his faith so high.

4. When sense is nonplussed, and faith fails, the soul of man is at a great loss. The other branch of the observation, that from a distrust of providence he endeavours to draw them to an unwarrantable attempt for their relief, is as clear as the former.That from a distrust men are next put upon unwarrantable attempts, is clear from the following reasons:

1. The affrightment which is bred by such distrusts of providences will not suffer men to be idle. Fear is active, and strongly prompts that something is to be done.

2. Yet such is the confusion of men's minds in such a ease, that though many things are propounded, in that hurry of thoughts they are deprived usually of a true judgment and deliberation.

3. The despairing grievance of spirit makes them take that which comes next to hand, as a drowning man that grasps a twig or straw, though to no purpose.

4. Being once turned off their rock, and the true stay of the promise of God for help, whatever other course they take must needs be unwarrantable.

5. Satan is so officious in an evil thing, that seeing any in this condition, he will not fail to proffer his help; and in place of God's providence, to set some unlawful shift before them.

6. And so much the rather do men close in with such overtures, because a sudden fit of passionate fury doth drive them, and out of a bitter kind of despite and crossness — as if they meditated a revenge against God for their disappointment — they take up a hasty wilful resolve to go that way that seems most agreeable to their passion.Application: Failures or ordinary means should not fill us with distrust, neither then should we run out of God's way for help. He that would practise this must have these three things which are comprehended in it.

1. He must have full persuasions of the power and promise of God.

2. He that would thus wait upon God had need to have an equal balance of spirit in reference to second causes.

3. There is no waiting upon God, and keeping His way, without a particular trust in God. But let the strait be what it will, we must not forsake duty; for so we go out of God's way, and do contradict that trust and hope which we are to keep up to God-ward. But there are other cases wherein it is our duty to fix our trust upon the particular mercy or help. I shall name four; and possibly a great many more may be added. As —

1. When mercies are expressly and particularly promised.

2. When God leads us into straits by engaging us in His service.

3. When the things we want are common universal blessings,, and such as we cannot subsist without.

4. When God is eminently engaged for our help, and His honour lies at stake in that very matter.

(R. Gilpin.)

How many are there that turn, not stones into bread, but lies, flatteries, base shifts, into silver and gold, yea, jewels and precious stones? Others turn stones, yea, precious stones, and their whole substance into bread, into meats, drinks, and apparel, and wastefully lavish God's good creatures on idle backs and bellies, using this as a means to procure something their affections want.

(D. Dyke.)

It teaches us not to measure actions by the outward appearance. What a matter is it to eat bread when one is hungry? but we see what a matter it would have been here in Christ. A little pin, specially being poisoned, may prick mortally, as well as a great sword. Adam's eating the fruit seems a small matter to flesh and blood, which wonders that so small a pin should wound all mankind to the death. But Adam's sin was not simply the eating of the apple, but the eating of the apple forbidden by God. There was the deadly poison of that little pin. And there also the devil so handled the matter, that all the commandments were broken in that one action. As the first table in his infidelity, doubting both of God's truth and goodness, contempt of, and rebellion against God, preferring of Satan before God, and in the profanation of that fruit he ate, which was a sacrament. And for the second table, he broke the fifth commandment, in his unthankfulness to God his Father, that gave him his being, and had bestowed so many blessings upon him. The sixth in the murder of himself and all his posterity, body and soul. The seventh in his intemperancy. The eighth in touching another's goods against the will of the Lord. The ninth in receiving the devil's false witness against God. The tenth in being discontent with his estate, and lusting after an higher. Take we heed now of the deceit of sin. It shows little sometimes, but oh the bundle of mischief that is lapped up in that little!

(D. Dyke.)

Like a waterman, he looks one way and rows another. The special thing he shot at, indeed, was to make Christ call in question the truth of that oracle that sounded at Jordan, to think through unbelief that He was not the Son of God. But yet the words of the temptation seem to import that he sought only the working of the miracle. And yet the devil would rather a great deal He would never work the miracle, so He would doubt Himself not to be the Son of God. For this would have been the greater foil. This discloses to us one of Satan's mysteries. Sometimes he will tempt us to some sin, to which yet he cares not much whether we yield or no, hoping to get a greater conquest of us by not yielding. As thus, when by not yielding we grow proud, vain-glorious, secure, confident; wherein the devil seems to deal like a cunning gamester, that hides his skill, and loses two or three games at the first, that he may win so much the more afterwards.

(D. Dyke.)

If every good Christian were satisfied at all times with temporal blessings, we should appear to serve God for our own profit, that we might lack nothing which concerned this transitory life.

(Bishop Hacker.)

God doth not suppeditate bread always to him that is His son, that he may loathe this world, and look for a recompense for all this misery, not among these hard-hearted generations of men, but among the habitations of the blessed.

(Bishop Hacker.)

It is my turn to want for awhile, I shall be replenished hereafter.

(Bishop Hacker.)

Though a good man labour and watch, and cannot earn the bread of his carefulness, yet he shall fill his bosom with better fruits, for occasion is given hereby to the righteous to exercise these three spiritual graces, Prayer, and Patience, and Charity.

(Bishop Hacker.)

There are others under these, indeed, yet of a most vile condition, that eat their bread by wrongful dealing, when it is grounded with the devil's millstones; and according to Aristotle, my former director, these may be ranged into three sorts: Such as maintain themselves with no calling, such as use a bad calling, and such as cheat in a good calling. We must eat our bread by prayer to God, and good employment in the world, that is, by the duty of invocation, and by the fruits of our vocation; therefore he that fills up no place or part in a commonwealth to earn his gains must needs take the devil's counsel to live by unjust means, command that these stones be made bread.

(Bishop Hacker.)

— By extortion and usury we may make stones into bread, that is the devil's alchemistry: or haply we may make bread of nothing, when a man gets a thing by another's oversight (Genesis 43:12). Or else, what and if we can overreach our brother in subtilty, and go beyond him with a trick of wit or cunning t "Let no man defraud or oppress his brother in any matter: for the Lord is avenged of all such" (1 Thessalonians 4:6). The one is called" the bread of violence and oppression" (Proverbs 4:17); the other, "the bread of deceit."

(Bishop Andrewes.)

Though in form sensuous, it is in essence moral or spiritual. What constituted it a temptation-where lay its evil? Christ had to live His personal life(1) within the limits necessary to man, and(2) in perfect dependence upon God. Had He transgressed either of these conditions, He had ceased to be man's ideal Brother or God's ideal Son. His supernatural power existed not for Himself, but for us. The ideal Son could not act as if He had no Father. He conquered by faith, and His first victory was like His last. The taunts He had to bear on the cross — " He saved others, Himself He cannot save," &c. — were but a repetition of the earlier temptations; and then, as now, though the agony was deeper, and the darkness more dense, He triumphed by giving Himself into the hands of the Father.

(A. M. Fairbairn, D. D.)

I. THE SATANIC SUGGESTION. TO have complied with it would have been a violation of what, on reflection, appeared to Jesus to be the Father's will.

II. THE REPLY OF OUR LORD — "It is written, man shall not live," &c. This reply —

1. Disposes most effectually of all the arguments which are commonly urged in defence of modern excesses.

2. Points to man's higher nature as his distinguishing possession.

3. Teaches that man is not dependent on bread or material sustenance even for his lower life, but on the sustaining Word of God.

(W. Landels, D. D.)

In excuse for some offence against the moral law, it was said to our great English moralist of the last century: "A man must live." "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "I do not see the necessity." That was the Stoic form of the principle enunciated in our Lord's reply, but our Lord invests it with an infinitely higher character by expressing it in the gracious tones of the gospel. It was true in the highest sense that a man must live; but his life does not consist in the mere gratification of his bodily cravings, or even the natural desires of his mind and heart, or even in his life here. The essential life of his nature consists in his living and acting in harmony with the will of God.

(H. Wace, D. D.)

The temptation was shrewdly contrived to meet the peculiar circumstances. Remember that the desert and the Dead Sea, lying in the basin of the barren hills, were a figure of the desolation brought on the world by sin, and that probably our Lord, from the wilderness, looked over this picture of death, and saw in it a figure of the scene of His moral operation. Now Satan steals up to Him, holding out a dead stone, and asks Him to begin His work by transforming that stone. As He is about to make the desert fruitful, and the wilderness blossom as a rose, and the Sea of Death become a lake of living water, let Him begin His work symbolically, with a stone of this district. Very probably the temptation was not to turn the piece of black stone into white wheaten bread, but into the homely, hard rye, black bread, which nourishes, but is no dainty. On the way to Jericho, and, indeed, all around the Dead Sea, are to be found in chalk beds, masses of flint, of rounded shape, which the Arabs suppose to be the olives, apples, melons, and other fruit of the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, which, at the overthrow of the cities, were turned into stone. Some of these stones have the size and shape of loaves, and it is possible that Satan took one of these rounded masses of flint, and, with his undercurrent of bitterness and scorn, offered it to Christ, supposing Him to share the popular superstition about them. If we may expand his words, they ran thus: "See this loaf-like flint stone! No doubt it was once bread in one of the houses of Sodom, but God overthrew the wicked city, and the bread was turned into stone. Now, O Son of God — that is, if you are the Son of God — as you have come to undo the work of destruction wrought by sin, and to bring life into a world subject to death, show your power on this stone, and turn it back into the loaf of bread which it once was."

(S. Baring-Gould, M. A.)

They were, perhaps, those siliceous accretions, sometimes known under the name of lapides judaici, which assume the exact shape of little loaves of bread, and which were represented in legend as the petrified fruits of the cities of the plain. The pangs of hunger work all the more powerfully when they are stimulated by the added tortures of a quick imagination; and if the conjecture be correct, then the very shape and aspect and traditional origin of these stones would give to the temptation an added force.

(Archdeacon Farrar.)

The stones called "Elijah's melons," on Mount Carmel, and "the Virgin Mary's peas," near Bethlehem, are instances of crystallization well known in limestone formations. They are so called as being the supposed produce of these two plats turned into stone, from the refusal of the owners to supply the wants of the prophet and the saint.

(Dean Stanley.)

Elias, Elijah, Eliseus, Elisha, Esaias, Isaiah, Jesus, Joseph, Naaman, SimonCapernaum, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jordan River, Judea, Nazareth, Sidon, Wilderness of Judea, ZarephathCapernaum, Caper'na-um, Descended, Frequently, Galilee, Giving, Sabbath, Sabbath-days, Sabbaths, Taught, Teach, Teaching, Town1. The fasting and temptation of Jesus.
14. He begins to preach.
16. The people of Nazareth marvel at words, but seek to kill him.
33. He cures one possessed of a demon,
38. Peter's mother-in-law,
40. and various other sick persons.
41. The demons acknowledge Jesus, and are reproved for it.
42. He preaches through the cities of Galilee.

Luke 4:31

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Luke 4:15-33

     7456   synagogue

Luke 4:31-32

     7757   preaching, effects
     8235   doctrine, nature of

Luke 4:31-35

     7430   Sabbath, in NT

Luke 4:31-37

     5381   law, letter and spirit

Preaching at Nazareth
'And He began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled In your ears.'--LUKE iv. 21. This first appearance of our Lord, in His public work at Nazareth, the home of His childhood, was preceded, as we learn from John's Gospel, by a somewhat extended ministry in Jerusalem. In the course of it, He cast the money-changers out of the Temple, did many miracles, had His conversation with Nicodemus, and on His return towards Galilee met the woman of Samaria at the well. The report of these things, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Temptation
4 And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2. Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days He did eat nothing: and when they were ended, He afterward hungered. 3. And the devil said unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread, 4. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. 5. And the devil, taking Him up into an high …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Temptation of Christ
Matthew 4:1-11 -- "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield

Private Prayer, and Public Worship.
"And, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day."--ST. LUKE iv. 16. "He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there He prayed."--ST. MARK i. 35. These two texts set before us our Saviour's habit in regard to public and private spiritual exercise; and they suggest to us the question, What have we, on our part, to say of these two elements in our own life? These texts, we bear in mind, represent not something casual or intermittent in the life of our Lord. They …
John Percival—Sermons at Rugby

Salvation by Faith
"By grace are ye saved through faith." Eph. 2:8. 1. All the blessings which God hath bestowed upon man are of his mere grace, bounty, or favour; his free, undeserved favour; favour altogether undeserved; man having no claim to the least of his mercies. It was free grace that "formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him a living soul," and stamped on that soul the image of God, and "put all things under his feet." The same free grace continues to us, at this day, life, and breath, …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Massillon -- the Small Number of the Elect
Jean Baptiste Massillon was born in 1663, at Hyères, in Provence, France. He first attracted notice as a pulpit orator by his funeral sermons as the Archbishop of Vienne, which led to his preferment from his class of theology at Meaux to the presidency of the Seminary of Magloire at Paris. His conferences at Paris showed remarkable spiritual insight and knowledge of the human heart. He was a favorite preacher of Louis XIV and Louis XV, and after being appointed bishop of Clermont in 1719 he …
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 3

Jesus Sets Out from Judæa for Galilee.
Subdivision C. Arrival in Galilee. ^C Luke IV. 14; ^D John IV. 43-45. ^d 43 And after the two days [the two days spent among the Samaritans at Sychar] he went forth from thence [from Samaria] into Galilee. ^c 14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee [Power of the Spirit here means its manifest use to perform miracles, rather than its presence, influence or direction. Jesus was always under the influence and direction of the Spirit, but did not previously perform miracles]: ^d …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Divine Healing.
The thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah is a prophecy beautifully extolling the glories and virtues of Christ's redemptive works. "The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." "It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.... Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the …
Charles Ebert Orr—The Gospel Day

The Synagogue at Nazareth - Synagogue-Worship and Arrangements.
The stay in Cana, though we have no means of determining its length, was probably of only short duration. Perhaps the Sabbath of the same week already found Jesus in the Synagogue of Nazareth. We will not seek irreverently to lift the veil of sacred silence, which here, as elsewhere, the Gospel-narratives have laid over the Sanctuary of His inner Life. That silence is itself theopneustic, of Divine breathing and inspiration; it is more eloquent than any eloquence, a guarantee of the truthfulness …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

His Training.
WITH the exception of these few but significant hints, the youth of Jesus, and the preparation for his public ministry, are enshrined in mysterious silence. But we know the outward condition and circumstances under which he grew up; and these furnish no explanation for the astounding results, without the admission of the supernatural and divine element in his life. He grew up among a people seldom and only contemptuously named by the ancient classics, and subjected at the time to the yoke of a foreign …
Philip Schaff—The Person of Christ

Standing with the People
We have found two simple and axiomatic social principles in the fundamental convictions of Jesus: The sacredness of life and personality, and the spiritual solidarity of men. Now confront a mind mastered by these convictions with the actual conditions of society, with the contempt for life and the denial of social obligation existing, and how will he react? How will he see the duty of the strong, and his own duty? DAILY READINGS First Day: The Social Platform of Jesus And he came to Nazareth, where …
Walter Rauschenbusch—The Social Principles of Jesus

Christ the Deliverer.
"And he [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that …
Frank G. Allen—Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel

Quotations from the Old Testament in the New.
1. As it respects inspiration, and consequent infallible authority, the quotations of the New Testament stand on a level with the rest of the apostolic writings. The Saviour's promise was: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth;" literally, "into all the truth," that is, as immediately explained, all the truth pertaining to the Redeemer's person and work. When, therefore, after the fulfilment of this promise, Peter and the other apostles expounded to their brethren …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

From his Commission to Reside Abroad in 1820 to his Removal to Germany in 1822
In 1822 John Yeardley went to reside in Germany. As his residence abroad constituted one of the most remarkable turns in his life, and exercised a powerful influence on the rest of his career, we shall develop as fully as we are able the motives by which he was induced to leave his native country. By means of his Diary we can trace the early appearance and growth, if not the origin, of the strong Christian sympathy he ever afterwards manifested with seeking souls in the nations on the continent of …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel

Whether in Christ There were the Gifts?
Objection 1: It would seem that the gifts were not in Christ. For, as is commonly said, the gifts are given to help the virtues. But what is perfect in itself does not need an exterior help. Therefore, since the virtues of Christ were perfect, it seems there were no gifts in Him. Objection 2: Further, to give and to receive gifts would not seem to belong to the same; since to give pertains to one who has, and to receive pertains to one who has not. But it belongs to Christ to give gifts according …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

It is the Final Court of Appeal.
It is not a question of what I think, or of what any one else thinks--it is, What saith the Scriptures? It is not a matter of what any church or creed teaches--it is, What teaches the Bible? God has spoken, and that ends the matter: "Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven." Therefore, it is for me to bow to His authority, to submit to His Word, to cease all quibbling and cry, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." Because the Bible is God's Word, it is the final court of appeal in all things …
Arthur W. Pink—The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

Epistle xiii. To Serenus, Bishop of Massilia (Marseilles) .
To Serenus, Bishop of Massilia (Marseilles) [128] . Gregory to Serenus, &c. The beginning of thy letter so showed thee to have in thee the good will that befits a priest as to cause us increased joy in thy Fraternity. But its conclusion was so at variance with its commencement that such an epistle might be attributed, not to one, but to different, minds. Nay, from thy very doubts about the epistle which we sent to thee it appears how inconsiderate thou art. For, hadst thou paid diligent attention …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Book x. On Numbers
In truth, we interpret, however briefly, these numbers of perfect names. The mystical account of these examples makes them more honored among the blessed. I. This number refers to the unity of the divinity; in the Pentatuch: hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. [Deut. 6:4] II. [This number refers] to the two testaments; in Kings: and He made in Dabir two cherubim in the measure of 10 cubits. [III(I) Kings 6:23] III. [This number refers] to the Trinity; in the epistle of John: three are those …
St. Eucherius of Lyons—The Formulae of St. Eucherius of Lyons

The Doctrine of the Scriptures.
I. NAMES AND TITLES. 1. THE BIBLE. 2. THE TESTAMENTS. 3. THE SCRIPTURES. 4. THE WORD OF GOD. II. INSPIRATION. 1. DEFINITION. 2. DISTINCTIONS. a) Revelation. b) Illumination. c) Reporting. 3. VIEWS: a) Natural Inspiration. b) Christian Illumination. c) Dynamic Theory. d) Concept Theory. e) Verbal Inspiration. f) Partial Inspiration. g) Plenary Inspiration. 4. THE CLAIMS OF THE SCRIPTURES THEMSELVES: a) The Old Testament. b) The New Testament. 5. THE CHARACTER (OR DEGREES) OF INSPIRATION. a) Actual …
Rev. William Evans—The Great Doctrines of the Bible

The Cornish Tinners
Saturday, September 3.--I rode to the Three-cornered Down (so called), nine or ten miles east of St. Ives, where we found two or three hundred tinners, who had been some time waiting for us. They all appeared quite pleased and unconcerned; and many of them ran after us to Gwennap (two miles east), where their number was quickly increased to four or five hundred. I had much comfort here in applying these words, "He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor" [Luke 4:18]. One who lived near …
John Wesley—The Journal of John Wesley

Wesley Begins Field-Preaching
1739. March 15.--During my stay [in London] I was fully employed, between our own society in Fetter Lane and many others where I was continually desired to expound; I had no thought of leaving London, when I received, after several others, a letter from Mr. Whitefield and another from Mr. Seward entreating me, in the most pressing manner, to come to Bristol without delay. This I was not at all forward to do. Wednesday, 28.--My journey was proposed to our society in Fetter Lane. But my brother Charles …
John Wesley—The Journal of John Wesley

The Redeemer's Return is Necessitated by the Present Exaltation of Satan.
One of the greatest mysteries in all God's creation is the Devil. For any reliable information concerning him we are shut up to the Holy Scriptures. It is in God's Word alone that we can learn anything about his origin, his personality, his fall, his sphere of operations, and his approaching doom. One thing which is there taught us about the great Adversary of God and man, and which observation and experience fully confirms, is, that he is a being possessing mighty power. It would appear, from a …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

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