Thus you have the history of the first temptation. Now for the observations.
Observe, first, That God may leave his children and servants to great straits ; for Christ himself was sorely an hungered : so God suffereth his people to hunger in the wilderness before he gave them manna. Therefore it is said, Ps. cii. 23, ' He weakeneth the strength of the people in the way.' He hath sundry trials wherewith to exercise our faith, and sometimes by sharp necessities. Paul and his companions had continued fourteen days, and had taken nothing : Acts xxvii. 33. Many times God's childi'en are thus tried : trading is dead, and there are many mouths to be fed, and little supply cometh in ; yet this is to be borne : none of us more poor than Christ, or more destitute than was Christ.
Secondly, That the devil maketh an advantage of our necessities. When Christ was an hungered, then the tempter came to him; so unto us. Three sorts of temptations he then useth to us, the same he did to Christ : —
[1.] Either he tempteth us to unlawful means to satisfy our hunger ; so he did to Christ, who was to be governed by the Spirit, to work a miracle to provide for his bodily wants at Satan's direction ; so us. Poverty hath a train of sinful temptations : Pro v. xxx. 9, ' Lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.' Necessities are urging, but we must not go to the devil for a direction how to supply ourselves, lest he draw us to put our hand to our neighbour's goods, or to defraud our brother, or betray the peace of our conscience, or to do some unworthy thing, that we may live the more comfortably. You cannot plead necessity ; it is to relieve your charge, to maintain life ; God is able to maintain it in his own way. No necessity can make any sin warrantable. It is necessary thou shouldst not sin ; it is not necessary thou shouldst borrow more than thou canst pay. or use any fraudulent means to get thy sustenance. If others be un- merciful, thou must not be unrighteous.
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[2.] To question onr adoption, as he did the filiation of Christ : ' If thou be the Son of God.' It is no wonder to find Satan calling in question the adoption and regeneration of God's children, for he calleth in question the filiation and sonship of the Son of God, though so plainly attested but a little before : Heb. xii. 5, 'Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as children, My son,' &c. Cer- tainly whatever moveth us to question our interest in God's fatherly love, bare afflictions should not ; for to be without afflictions is a sign of bastards. God hath no illegitimate children, but God hath de- generate children, who are left to a larger discipline.
[3.] To draw us to a diffidence and distrust of God's providence : this he sought to breed in Clirist, or at least to do something that might seem to countenance it, if he should upon his motion, work a miracle. Certainly it is Satan's usual temptation to work in us a disesteem of God's goodness and care, and to make us pore altogether upon our wants. A sense of our wants may be a means to humble us, to quicken us to prayer ; but it should not be a temptation to beget in us un- thanklulness, or murmuring against God's providence, or any dis- quietness or unsettledness in our minds. And though they may be very pinching, yet we should still remember that God is good to them that are of a clean heart : Ps. Ixxiii, 1. God hath in himself all- sufficiency, who knoweth both what we want, and what is fittest for us, and is engaged by his general providence as a faithful Creator : 1 Pet. iv. 19, ' Let them that sufier according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator ; ' but more especially as related to us as a Father : Mat. vi. 32, ' Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.' And by his faithful promise, Heb, xiii. 5, ' He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.' And he will give us every good thing while we fear him : Ps. xxxiv. 9, 10, ' 0 fear the Lord, ye his saints : for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger : but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.' And walk uprightly : Ps. Ixxxiv. 11, ' For the Lord God is a sun and a shield : the Lord will give grace and glory : no good thing will he withhold from them that walk up- rightly.' And seek it of him by prayer : Mat. vii. 11, ' Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'
But you will say. You preach only to the poor and destitute. I answer, I speak as my subject leadeth me : it will put the point generally ; Satan maketh an advantage of our condition. Christ had power to do what was suggested ; every condition hath its snares, a full condition most of all : Ps. Ixix. 22, ' Let their table be a snare, their welfare for a trap.' He hideth his snares and gins to catch our souls. In all the comforts men enjoy they are apt to grow proud, to forget God, to become merciless to others who want what they enjoy; to live in vain pleasures, and to forget eternity ; to live in sinful security, in the neglect of Christian duties ; to be enslaved to sensual satisfactions, to be flat and cold in prayer. This glut and fulness of worldly comforts is much more dangerous than our hunger.