The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 125

~•ith the sword of the Spirit. So must the Christian now. The memory should be stored through and through with the sacred words; they should be wrought into the heart by holy thought and diligent obedience, written there by the Holy Spirit of God. Then they will be at hand ready for use in the hour of trial, in tbe deadly Ftruggle. Then search the Scriptures; be not content with the knowledge of the letter; but pray for grace to realize and to know by personal experience that inner spiritual meaning without which "the letter killcth." (2) "Man shall not live by bread alone." "Man," the Lord says. He meets the evil one as e. Man, in our human flesh, and as a Man he conquers. He conquers for us, in our humanity; he sets us an example that, through spiritual union with the one holiest Man, we men may share ]us nctory, and overcome, even as he overcame. And this is his lesson: "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Life comes from God; he breathed into man's nostrils the breath of lifo. He fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna, the bread of heaven; he sustained his blessed Son in the wil?erness throughout that lengthened fast; he can in his own way support the life which he gave. The soul that trusts in God will not mean only common food by the "daily bread" for which we pray. Life is too great a thing, too Divine a gift, to be supported wholly by things outward. The true life, life worthy of the name, life worth living, needs a Diviner food-the Bread that came down from hea,·en, the Lord Christ himself. Man doth not live by bread alone; he will lose his life who seeks only that earthly bread. Christ is the Life-the Life of the world; they live indeed, in the full meaning of life, who have that Life abiding in them; they live in the faith of God, trusting in him. The words which proceed out of his mouth are the food of their souls, the stay of their hearts; for the Word of God is living and powerful; it liveth and abideth for ever. IIL TIIE SECO?>'D TEMPTATION. 1. The suggestion . .Again the doubt; the tempting, or perhaps the sarcastic, "if." But this time pride was the weak point in human nature which the tempter sought to find in the Lord-the pride of life. The tree, he had once whispered to Eve, was a tree to be desired to make one wise. He took him to the holy city, to the temple. .Alas I the devil can find an entrance there, into the very Church of Christ; sometimes he has found an entrance into the highest places in the visible Church. Pride has been the ruin of many who are set over their brethren; spiritual pride has ruined many a Christian who once seemed not far from the kingdom of God. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, perhaps the pinnacle from which, years afterwards, James, the Lord's brother, was cast down to meet the martyr's death. He set the Lord there on high as the Lord of the temple, the Messiah, the great King, the royal Priest, He bade him cast bimself·down. It would display his power, his dignity, h.i.s Divine majesty. Such a miracle, in such a place, before the eyes of assembled priests and people, would at once establish his claims; be would be recognized at once as the Lord that was to come, the Priest after the order of Melchizedek; and that without difficulty, without painful self-denials, without the cross. 2. The scriptural, quotation. The words were true, but there was an important omission. "He shall give his angels cho.rge over thee," said the psalmist, "to keep thee in all thy ways." "In all thy ways "-in all the ways marked out for us by bis pro- vidence, not in self-chosen ways, which he bad not appointed. The holy wordij of Scripture may be misapplied; they may be used to suggest a meaning which they were never intended to c:onvey; they may be bandied about in controversy, and employed simply as means to gain a theological victory. Such a use of the Bible tends to pro- duce pride. "Knowledge puffeth up." Pride perverts the sacred words; holy and humble men of heart, led by the Spirit of God, enter iuto their deep and blessed meaning. The devil might have misled some vain man; to such the Scripture ',l_uoted might have seemed apposite, and so he might have been beguiled to his ruin. But the Lord was meek and lowly in heart; he sought not honour from men; there was no thought of display, no ostentation in bis holy soul. He knew who.t the Scripture really meant. The blessed angels are charged with the care of God'11 saints; they do keep them in all their ways; they do bear them in their hands; but not if they cease to be saints, not "when the righteous man turneth away from his righteous- ness, and committeth iniquity;" not when he becomes presumptuous and self-willed. Misq_uoted texts, misapplied Scripture,did not ensnaretheLo!d; they will not ensnaro ou. 1v. 1-25.] THE GOSPEL .ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 115