We read that after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, and the full evidence given of His mission and of His divine Sonship, the Saviour of men was immediately driven by the Spirit away from all that would sustain Him in His mission, out into the wilderness alone with the wild beasts. There was no voice to speak a word of assurance, no indication of the Father's favor or divine support as the startling questions arose. Nothing could be heard but the howling of wild beasts and the screech of the night birds of prey. He was seemingly excluded from the plan of salvation. As He fasted and prayed, no light came to Him, but day by day deeper and deeper darkness wrapped itself about Him. The Saviour was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and for forty days and nights He was left alone with the tempter.
Then Satan, the prince of darkness, began his subverting work by adding his strange influence adversely to the former testimony at the baptism. But He who was chosen as the chief Corner-stone must be proved and tried, to be one upon whom we might build and confide. Character is developed through trials. Strength and confidence come to us in overcoming; so God tries His chosen ones. Abraham was tried, Moses and Elijah were tried, Job was tried, and the Son of Man was not exempt from the test of the law of God. He was tempted in all points like as we are.
Unlike John the Baptist, Jesus was not accustomed to the hardships of the wilderness. He had grown up amid home duties and innocent pleasures, and the privations would be harder for Him to bear. Mark and Luke suggest that there were temptations during the whole of the forty days. The trials were not the arrangement of Jesus or of Satan, but of the Spirit. The temptations were of the devil. God permits temptations, that our faith may be tried, and to make us overcomers of evil, and not to yield or fall a prey to them.
Meditate upon the scene,—the holy One of God, sinless, now tried for the plan of salvation of our souls, and the experience of God's grace is not set aside.
We must be tried as He was, tho not above that which we are able to bear. Life does not consist in what we possess or profess, but in trusting every word of God. Angels can not minister to us if we are not in the line of duty. The kingdom and crown are won only in serving God. "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
C. L. YOUNG.
Bloomington, Indiana.
