Read Luke 4:1-321And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. 3And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. 4And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. 5And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. 7If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. 8And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 9And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: 10For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: 11And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 12And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 13And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. 14And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. 15And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. 16And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 22And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? 23And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. 24And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. 25But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; 26But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 27And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. 28And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, 29And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. 30But he passing through the midst of them went his way, 31And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days. 32And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power. (Luke 4:1‑32).
In the sixteenth Psalm we find the Lord taking His place with the remnant, the excellent of the earth, in whom is all His delight. And we see, in chapter iii of this Gospel, that after His baptism, He was anointed as minister of the circumcision-the Holy Ghost descending on Him-and then His genealogy is traced up to the human family; " the son of Adam, which was the Son of God." His genealogy is not here traced up to David, that being in Jewish connection. Jehovah having anointed Him to preach the gospel to the poor, and the Lord having taken the form of a servant, (I speak not now of His power in Godhead,) he must fulfill the place of one: and so we find Him calling God His master: saying, in Psa. 16, " O my soul, thou halt said unto the Lord, (Jehovah,) thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee;" or, in other words, " Jehovah, my Master," &c. As a servant, therefore, we never find He did His own will; for if a servant is doing his own will, he is a bad servant. A servant is to do exactly his master's will, and not his own.
Then again we find Him as the dependent man, praying and waiting on Jehovah for deliverance; and never using His own power to deliver Himself; as in Psa. 40, " I waited patiently for Jehovah, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry." So likewise, when the multitude came " with swords and staves," to take Him, He said, " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" It was not merely that He did not have the twelve, legions of angels, but having taken the place of lowly dependence on Jehovah, He would not even ask for them. And as the trials thickened, even to the drinking of the bitter cup, He said, " The cup which my Father giveth me shall I not drink it?" If when everything that might have stopped a man in this path of obedience, y in His way, He went steadily on doing His Father's will, His obedience to the last must also be put to the test. He had presented a perfect God to man, for He said, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"; and He must, to the end, present an obedient man to God. " Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." It was not in His will that. He had to learn subjection-that was ever perfect—but He had to learn all that obedience cost, and all that it meant, even unto death. Moreover, if we walk in this same path, beloved friends, we also shall find trial, though we shall find blessing also. For 'we shall find it refreshing to our souls to tell of His love and grace to others, just as He found it blessing when He said, " Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest, and he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." Thus His joy is fulfilled in yourselves.
In all His trials He had no friends to stand by Him; but He was surrounded only by those who were like unto bulls; as He said, "strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round." Still it was His meat to do His Father's will-" He must needs go through Samaria," although He knew it was the path of rejection.
Thus, as " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," He went steadily on in the path of obedience. Not like the first Adam, who went out of the path of obedience; but, although tested in every step He took, He traveled on through every difficulty, till at last He bore God's wrath for man's disobedience.
In this fourth chapter of Luke the Lord's path of obedience begins; and it begins at a time when Satan had the mastery over man uncontrolled. For man had become the slave of Satan, as well as the slave of his own lusts, and so Satan had power over the bodies and over the souls of men. Satan had power over man in two ways, first, by allurement, and second by terror. By allurement in the way of man's lusts: by terror, as having the power of death. As the tempter he acts on our lusts; as we see an instance in Judas. The spirit of covetousness was in him, and then Satan presented that which met it; and this he is doing with man every day. Then again he has power over man by terror, for " he that hath the power of death is the devil," and through terror he led Judas to hang himself. Therefore if the Lord came down to deliver man, His obedience had to be put to the test, in these two points in which Satan had power over man. In the wilderness Satan presented himself to the Lord as a tempter trying to allure him out of the path; but in Gethsemane he exerted all his power of terror, to frighten the Lord out of the path of obedience. Jesus was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, but we are led by our lusts; and therefore it is that Satan has power over us.
Mark here, that not only was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness, but after being there forty days tempted of the devil, He returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. Then again the Lord goes to be tempted by the devil in far different circumstances than Adam was in, in paradise. Everything there spoke of the goodness of God; but in this wilderness, the Lord was tried on every hand; and there was no spiritual help, not even a John, but He was surrounded by wild beasts, and was hungry with nothing to satisfy His hunger. But amidst all, with everything against Him, He stood firm in this obedience to God His Father.
Then observe that He met all the temptations of Satan just in the very same way that we have to meet them every day, that is, by the written word of God. He did not say to Satan, I am God, and you are Satan, and therefore go away immediately;' that would have been no help for us if He had. Neither is it the archangel warring against Satan; but the Lord meeting him as a man, with the written word of God, and all His quotations are from the book of Deuteronomy. If the Lord came to deliver man, He must put Himself into the place of temptation and trial, and as man overcome where man had failed, and where he was lying under the power of Satan. It was not possible that Jesus could fail. If He could have done, it would have been worse than ever for us. But we see Satan tries to introduce into the heart of Jesus what he had too successfully introduced into the heart of Adam, but He could not, blessed be God! Satan said, " all this power will I give thee, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it." Jesus, who had walked in the constant joy of God, was to be exercised by temptation forty days in the wilderness, and to know what it was to have Satan working at Him for forty days.
It is a great comfort for us to know that Christ thus measured the whole power of Satan; for Satan put out his whole power against Him then, save the power of death, the time for which was not then come. But here was the strong man armed, keeping his goods in peace; but there was a stronger than he to overcome him, and take from him his armor wherein he trusted, and divide his spoils. While it was in so lowly a house as the human body, that Jesus overcame the strong man, it proved who Jesus was. Any other man had nothing to do but to go along with Satan, for Satan goes with him; but here Jesus had to get into the circumstances and to take this body, to visit Satan; and that proved that the person who was there was stronger than the strong man. You never find that any other man needs to be abstracted from men to be tried by the devil; for men are at home with Satan, while they are strangers to God. If man would be in communion with God, he must, like Moses, go up into the mountain; but Jesus did not need to be away from the conditions of human nature, to be in communion with His Father. He always was this. In grace He served men, but His true place was always with His Father. He took a place lower than Moses, but His person was higher. He took this place in order to meet Satan, which was the strongest proof of His divine love. While other men are at home with Satan and strangers to God, this emptied, humbled one would give full proof of His love, and as a stranger with Satan is met by him in circumstances abstracted from the ordinary condition of human nature, neither eating nor drinking, but afterward He hungered. Christ would not have His way in anything. Though tempted by Satan to command the stones to be made bread, He would not; for He came to show what man's obedience was, and virtually says in answer, I have emptied myself, and now I must wait for the word of the Lord, for man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
The written word of God has authority over man, and it is also wisdom to guide man. Here I am the Son of man, and under the authority of the word of God, therefore I will do nothing but by the word.' I live by the Father and speak by the Father, as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.' "By the word of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." (Psa. 17:44Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. (Psalm 17:4).)
Here we see the amazing importance of the written word. If God ministers grace and life to us, it is through the word; and if He acts on our wills and thoughts, it is by the word. Jesus did not resist Satan by saying, 'I am God, therefore do you go away; but He withstood him with the written word; and so now should we. "He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not;" for in the power of the Holy Ghost he takes up the written word, and then Satan is utterly powerless. The written word is the "sword of the Spirit," which Satan cannot grapple with.
If walking in the path of obedience, that is power, almighty power; for if walking in this path, I am going in a divine path, and nothing can take me out of it. The child of God, having the Holy Ghost, can quote the word when tempted. One single sentence will silence Satan; and here lies the secret of strength; it is not intellect, but the Holy Ghost keeping us dependent, and enabling us to use the right word at the right time. If some object, and say, "oh, I am so ignorant of scripture, and so weak," the answer to that is, "there has no temptation taken you, but that which is common to man, but God is faithful, (who is behind it all,) " and will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." Ignorance does not matter, if we are only faithful. The power and grace needed are there, to keep our feet from going astray.
It is by deceiving that the devil overcomes us.
That which was a snare to Adam, was an occasion of obedience to Christ. " The cup which my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it. ' If any one says, what harm is there in eating when you are hungry? I answer, no harm: but the harm is in doing our own will. The question is not, where is the harm in doing it, but why am I doing it? Is it to please God, or to please myself? If it is to please myself, that is doing my own will, and that is sin. If I ask myself why I am going to do this or that, if I cannot say it is to please God, then it is sin.
Some will say, am I always to be under such restraint? Ah, there comes out the true state of your soul; you do not like to be under the restraint of God's will. The old nature hates the restraint, while the new nature will delight in it. "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." We are quickened by the word of God at the first, and then we are to live by it. Not as the law, which says do this, and do not do that, but having life, we are to live by the word, the expression of God's mind and will, and thus have His will, and not our own, as the motive for all we do. "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Thus living unto God, our reasons and motives being according to His will, it will not be like fencing the old man from the power of temptation, but it will be living in the power of the new man. Man was to live by eating.
Power was the next thing. All had been subjected to Adam, and now all was to be given to the Son of man. "And the devil taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me: and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine."
Now, Satan is openly detected, and hence the word, "get thee behind me, Satan." But mark the perfect wisdom of the Lord's reply: He says not a word about taking the kingdoms from Satan, or about prophesies relating to them, but takes up the first common principle of obedience: " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."
It is no matter who all the kingdoms belong to; the simple word is a fitting word. It was the heart's question of its relationship with God; and if my heart is right, I shall begin to thank and to praise God before I receive the blessing; and why? Because I have got the God of the blessing. Look at Eliezer! he would not be contented until he had the word that Rebecca was of Bethuel's family, although he had had a remarkable answer to his prayer; but before she promises to accompany him, he bows down and worships the God of his master Abraham; thus rejoicing in the giver of the blessing itself. To worship God is ever the highest thing, though it may seem to be less. It is the immediate link of an obedient heart with God, and it was this that, in the power of the Holy Ghost, made the Lord look not at whom the glory and the power really belonged, but to whom the worship belonged; and said, " It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." Here the Lord is put into the place of Messiah glory; but what could be more subtle than Satan's quoting scripture promises when tempting the Lord to prove His Sonship? But why should He throw Himself down, before the time came? There was no command for that; and so the Lord replies, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." For tempting God is trying God before the need comes; not when it comes, as many have said. Christ could not listen to Satan for one moment; but, alas! we often do listen to him, that we may get a little bit of the world. Had God told Him to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple? He. Then He would not do it, to prove whether God loved Him or not. Israel did tempt God, by saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?" After the Lord had been stoned out of Jerusalem He returned again; but this could not be tempting God, because it was His Father's will for Him to go there again. Therefore He says, " Let us go into Judea again." How different it was when the sisters of Lazarus sent for Him. He moved not to them, but " abode two days still in the same place where he was," though the sympathies of His heart would have led Him to them at once. But He waited the word from His Father.
Beloved friends, we want the word behind us, saying, "this is the way, walk ye in it.' It is not what may be before us; but it is the word coming to me before I do a thing, and not afterward. If you have not the knowledge of God's will as to any matter, never do it; for if you do not know that it is God's will you should do such a thing, you will have uncertainly, although it may be God's will that you should be doing it; and acting thus you will be stumbled at every step, instead of going on in happy confidence. You ought never to have to question the certainty of God's being with you. Remember also that the word is not power and strength if you are not in the place of obedience. " If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love."
Then mark another thing. In Luke we have ever the moral connection of things before God. Two or three sabbaths are brought together to bring out certain principles, and so the temptations are not given in the order in which they occurred. It is the moral connection in the human character, and with the human family, the Spirit, by Luke, gives; and therefore the most spiritual and subtle temptation is mentioned last, though in order of time it was second.
In these progressive exercises of Christ, we get the progressive exercises in our souls. Promises suppose trial, and the Lord met Satan in every point which Satan could try us by, where we are; I say, where we are, for if Adam had been in paradise, there could have been no question about "the kingdom."
Christ put Himself into all the difficulties which man has made. The Lord has gone through all the temptations any saint can possibly be in. The saint wants the help of the Lord in temptation, while the sinner wants redemption. " The angels kept not their first estate," neither did Adam; and when Christ was here, He was tempted not to keep His first estate, but blessed be God He did; and the saints have practically in their walk to keep their first estate.
I am to reckon myself dead unto sin, and alive unto God. Are we doing this? If not, we are not keeping our first estate.
It does not suppose a man led astray by his lusts; but the godly man wants help to walk in the path Christ has marked out for him, being constantly exercised by temptation; Satan ever putting something before him to try his faith. Satan did this with the Lord, but He passed through it all and bound the strong man; and now He enters into all our sorrows and keeps us in the power of God, as He will the remnant in the latter day; so keeping us by the power of the Holy Ghost "that we may be able to stand in the evil day."
The Lord looks now out of Israel, and shows Himself ready to take up any poor sinner that will receive Him, as He says, " I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Therefore we are not always at the evil day work,-there is blessing for some days. If the gospel is being set forth by us in the power of God, it is not in detail an evil day to us; but a joyful one if souls are converted. Still, looked at in the general condition of man, it is an " evil day." It is of immense importance that we grieve not the Spirit, for this is the secret power of our life.
The power of the Holy Ghost was as perfectly seen in the temptations of our Lord, in the wilderness, as when the Lord was casting out the legion.
I would just turn for a moment to say, that when Satan promised to give the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, as having a title to give, it was true in one sense, and false in another. Satan can give as far as men's lusts are concerned. He led on Pontius Pilate, and he led on Judas, and he still leads on people to seek riches, power, honor, and "greetings in the market-place;" but such "have their reward;" for God sits behind it all as judge. Still it is by men's lusts that Satan works. Yet, in another sense, power belongeth unto God, and He pulleth down one and setteth up another.
The next moral fact in the chapter is, "Jesus came to Nazareth," working, laboring. He was sent to preach, to present God by the power of the word. And mark where Christ came, when He had all this power-to the very lowest place-"Nazareth," where shame and dishonor were attached to Himself; for that is exactly where power is found, He hath chosen " the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." They say of Him, "is not this Joseph's son?" "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" But will power be found by exalting the flesh? In truth it will not. He quotes from their own scriptures, and says, " the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." He is found having the Spirit of power, in this shameful place; neither was He ashamed of being called the carpenter's son. The first link of His soul with God was quite untouched by it; for He being full of the Holy
Ghost, what was it to Him? and when His power is manifested and shed abroad, we find Him in the very lowest place in man's estimation; healing the " broken hearted," preaching the acceptable year of the Lord, " saying this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Here we find it at once. He does not reason with men about it, but says here it is, presenting at once what men want, and presenting it to such as need,-the poor, the lame, the blind, the halt. He presents Himself to man's need, whatever that need is; no matter whether He be more or less than the carpenter's son, grace has come down where grace was needed; for it is the character of grace to go down to the very lowest place. I would do that for my child, that I would do for no one else, because I love my child; and that is grace. "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." The prophets were not the gospel; man in his shame, sin and misery are met by God now. Such is the gospel; and behold here it is before your eyes; this day fulfilled in your ears; God is come into man's misery and finds him just where he is, touching the leper in his leprosy, and cleansing the unclean. This is grace. If I find grace meeting me in my sins, then it must be God meeting me. An angel could not touch me in my leprosy; he ought not, for it would stain his purity; but God can, and this is grace.
Now the reasonings of man's mind begin. "Is not this Joseph's son?" No prophet is honored in his own. country. If Christ comes down to man, then man says, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
We get in the synagogue of that poor village the meeting-place of God and man. Grace had come down where grace was needed, but it awakens the slightings of men, though they wonder; for they cannot help seeing the power of God, for He was God. But they take the very occasion of His humiliation to slight Him. Man despises grace, and then sovereignty in goodness comes out. "Do also here in thy country." What grace of the Lord to speak of it as His country! The men of Nazareth were amazed, that there is a way in which God's grace can reach outside themselves, the place of man's pretended title as held by the Jews. But God's sovereign grace is above and beyond it all-God says you are bound to me; I am not bound to you. His grace is despised and His sovereignty hated.
The Lord comes to display His grace in Nazareth, and these despised Nazarenes hate Him for coming there; but God will act in grace in spite of them, and take up a poor widow of Sidon, and heal a leprous Syrian. " Then all they in the synagogue were filled with wrath and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong."
Thus virtually saying that 'God in acting in sovereignty is slighting us.' 'He is not making us of importance enough, and therefore He shall not be our God.' Christ goes on unmoved by it all, although He felt it, for reproach, saith He, "hath broken my heart." But He ever turns to God. If Eliezer, at receiving the blessing, instantly turned to God, so Christ at every fresh trial turns to God. "Father" was the first word that came out of His mouth when in the garden of Gethsemane.
So Paul was not cowed by all the trial at Philippi, although he felt it.
Moses fled when he slew an Egyptian, because flesh was in it, and that can never stand. Christ turns from the full scene of trial to the perfectness of the scene of grace, and He says, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you; how long shall I suffer you; bring him to me." That was God in grace. So here, when these Nazarenes would have cast Him headlong down the hill, He escaped from them and came down to Capernaum in His onward path of grace. I ought to "rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep," but, how can I rejoice with one, and sorrow with another? I cannot, I must be an hypocrite, if I have not the suppleness of divine love and grace which abides in Christ, and which can enable me to turn in a moment from rejoicing with one to weeping with another. How we get in Christ man perfect with God; and then turn and see all the blessedness of His grace to man.
What strength it is to my heart to say, there is one who has gone through every temptation for me. All Christ is, as a pattern, He is in grace, for those following that pattern, even now in this scene, where we are, down here.
Well, I have found God. I have heard the voice of the good Shepherd saying to my soul, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. If I say, O, but I am a wretched creature of Sidon-never mind, the Lord's grace goes even there! for the Lord having come, He will be to us all we want, even a rest to our spirits, and this we do want, and He can be this to us; for He was a perfect man with God, a perfect God with man.