Was the trial sore ? Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time ! Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot. And so be pedestaled in triumph ? Pray
"Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!" Yea, but, 0 Thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Eelnctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may do battle and have praise ! ^
2. But we have to be careful that we do not seek tempta- tion, under the impression that it is God's purpose for us, or that it is good for our growth in grace. We may not know what is God's purpose for us. Let us rather pray, " Lead us not into temptation," and remember that Christ did not enter into temptation of His own will, but was driven into it by the Spirit. All three Synoptists emphasise the fact that the temptation of Christ was the result of Divine compulsion and not self -sought. The Spirit " led " or " drove " Him into the wilderness. He who taught us to pray, " Lead us not into ^ G. S. Barrett. * E. Browning, The Ring and tlie Book,
ST. MARK 27
temptation," did not court temptation Himself. So may we expect God to help to " deliver us from evil " and to emerge from the conflict victorious, if our temptations come to us, but not if we go to them.
H Once, while William of Orange was laying siege to a town on the Continent, an officer ventured to go with a message to r the spot where he was directing the operation of his gunners. When the message was delivered, and the answer to it received, he still lingered. " Sir," said the Prince, " do you know that every moment you stand here is at the risk of your life ? " "I run no more risk," replied the officer, " than your Highness." " Yes," said the Prince, " but my duty brings me here, and yours does not." In a few minutes a cannon-ball struck the officer dead. The Prince was untouched.^
iii. Driven.
"The Spirit driveth him forth." Yet it was not some outside force. He had received the Spirit which now drove Him into the wilderness. It was a pressure from within, although it is not to be watered down into a mere desire of His own soul to be alone. It was that pressure of the Spirit of God, though here in larger, fuller measure, which drove the prophets to do their unwelcome duty and sent them to carry their "burden. When Jesus sat down to speak in the synagogue of Nazareth, He applied the prophet's words to Himself, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. ... he hath sent me."
Jesus was not driven forth in spite of His own will. H. J. C. Knight notices that Christ had to take account of four wills — the Father's will, His own, the will of man, and the will of the devil.^ The will of the devil He deliberately thwarted, and that on all occasions. The will of man He respected, drawing it by the bands of a man, which are the bands of love, but forcing it never. The will of the Father He made His own, bringing His own will into harmony with it.
But He had a will of His own — " Father, if it be possible . . . nevertheless not my will, but thine be done." He was driven forth by the Spirit, because that was the will of the ' C. Stanford. ' Tht TemptcUion 0/ our Lord, 45.
28 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
Father. But in the wilderness, as in Gethsemane, He made the Father's will His own.
IF There is only one knob to the door of a man's heart. That is on the inside. The tempter cannot get in unless the man within turns that knob and lets him in. And, be it remembered with greatest reverence, that our gracious God won't come in except by the man's free consent. Man is the battle-field. He decides which way the battle should go. No man can be whipped without his own consent. And every man may have victory, sweet and full, if he wants it.^
0 well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: For him nor moves the loud world's random mock,
Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound. Who seems a promontory of rock,
That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd.^
iv. Dkiven to be Tempted.
I. Why was Jesus driven forth to be tempted ?
1. Because He was a man. Temptation is as inevitable to man as death. " Terrible to all men is death," says Carlyle ; "from of old named king of terrors." But to some men at least the real king of terrors is not death, but temptation. Jesus was " in all things made like unto his brethren " (Heb. ii. 17).
To be human is to be tempted. It is a matter of fact, wherever you find a man you find a tempted being. God's will has never been that we shall find it easy to do right and hard to do wrong. And the reasons lie in the nature of the case. For the making and training of moral beings, temptation is necessary. Virtue untried is no virtue ; valour untested is no valour. Untempted virtue is at best what Milton calls " a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary." We are destined to gain moral strength and a developed manhood by the over- coming of trials, difficulties, temptations. As Milton further * S. D. Gordon. ' Tennyson.