One More Victory by W. S. Ritchie

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 29, 1906

One More Victory

By W. S. Ritchie

W. S. RITCHIE

“In all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” is the statement of the Sacred Word regarding our Saviour’s life in human flesh. Let us study, then, the temptations that came to him.

First, he was tempted on appetite: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” That is where we all begin the battle with temptation. The church of God has had to struggle there, and thank God, has come off victorious. Let us hold fast the victories we have gained.

Next came to our Saviour the temptation of presumption. “Cast yourself down,” the tempter said. Has not God given his angels charge concerning you to bear you up? Here in the sacred precincts of the temple, surely he will allow no harm to come to you even if you depart somewhat from the written word and launch out into space. How exhilarating it will be to find yourself borne through the air, overcoming the natural law of gravitation to which you have so long been subject.

The church has had its experience here, too. It has been tempted with false theories and speculations, to accept which would have been like walking off into the air. But, thank God, the church has again gotten the victory.

But there still remains another temptation; and can we say that the people of God have gotten a complete victory over it? If so, then the work is about to be finished, for it is the last temptation and trial that is to come to the children of the kingdom to fit them for their return home. The glory and riches of the kingdom of this world were as a crowning temptation held out to our Elder Brother. What charming scenes of riches and glory passed before his vision as the satanic moving pictures merged one into another in the bewitchery of the deceitfulness of riches. Our Saviour seemed for the first time fully to recognize in this temptation who it was that was seeking to lead him astray, for he addressed the enemy directly, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” And the great deceiver, being fully discovered in this his last temptation, and having no other temptation by which he might hope to achieve success, departed from the Saviour, leaving him exhausted, but victorious.

Is it not significant that there should be so much pertaining to financial affairs in the closing up of the work of God on earth? Is it not to give his people an opportunity to become victorious over this last great temptation of earthly riches that the many openings to invest means in the cause appear around us? The church of God, following its Saviour, must be wholly victorious here also. Its means will be consecrated and laid upon the altar. The deceptive inventions of the enemy as he presents to us the desirability of retaining them will be fully discovered. The veil will fall from our eyes in this temptation more than in all the others; and we shall be victorious, though exhausted; and the holy angels will come and minister to us, and the work will close with the power and glory and love they bring to us.

Corona, Cal.