“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.”
By C. F. Wilcox
AT the beginning of Christ’s ministry He was baptized. On coming up out of the water, He heard the Father’s voice from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” His life work was before Him. Here was His Father’s word announcing Him as His own Son, and declaring that He was well pleased with His mission. Wonderful and marvelous was the blessing granted Him there upon the banks of Jordan. But what followed? Was the lost world waiting for Him to save it in His way? Did He at once begin His mighty miracles? Could He at once set the captives of Satan free? Listen, “And straightway the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness.” Mark 1: 12. Was His mission there? Would He find the souls He came to save in the solitude of the wilderness? Would the spiritually blind and deaf seek for Him when far away from all human habitation? Why should the Spirit of God drive Him into the wilderness? Matthew tells us the reason. He was “led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” Matt. 4: 1. God had given the world and all in it into the hands of man. Gen. 1: 26. But man sold out to the devil for a thing of naught; and thus Satan became the prince of this world. He possessed the souls and bodies of men, for they had given themselves to him. Christ came to set them free, to break the bands that held them slaves to Satan. Christ came to save man. He must take legal methods. He must be straightforward and open. He came to redeem, to buy back. He brought the purchase price with Him, and it must be paid over to the present owner. The fact that Satan secured the world from man through fraud, did not affect the fact that he had possession. Christ came to purchase the world. In His earthly mission He entered upon the real work of buying it back at the time of His baptism. He was then fully authorized to meet the claimant and make terms with him. One of the conditions was that He must stand single-handed in Adam’s place, meet the devil, and secure possession of the kingdom, paying all costs, satisfying all just claims, and reinstating man in his own dominion. And since “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Cor. 5: 19), the Spirit of God directed Him in all His ways on earth. Having come to purchase the kingdom, the very first one for Him to meet must be the usurper, the devil. Therefore, “the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness” “to be tempted of the devil.” Alone with the devil, and surrounded with savage beasts of prey, He must withstand every suggestion of doubt as to His mission, His father’s love for Him and His work, and not give place to the devil for one instant. Under the terrible physical strain of forty days without food or water, by day and by night, He must resist all that Satan and his host of evil could force upon His soul. He endured more than any mortal could ever know. Wealth and ease were offered Him, for all the kingdoms of the whole world and all their glory were laid at His feet. Even from this vantage point of glory, down through all that tempts mankind, even unto death itself, Christ drank the cup to its bitterest dregs. Had not angels ministered unto Him (Matt. 4: 11), He would have died right there under the terrible pressure brought to bear upon Him by the devil. Had He perished there, it would have been because the devil took His life—the price He brought with Him with which to redeem the world. But the unmasking of sin was not complete, the Sufferer must be revived that He might go forward and wholly show the hideousness of evil. He finished the work and came off a victorious conqueror in every detail. Now the connection between all this and the prayer He taught us to pray. Having endured all the temptations that could possibly come to mortal man, and knowing the terribleness of the same, He desires that man shall be saved even from temptation. Since He had stood the test, and paid the full price for liberty, He would give liberty to all who would accept it. He would therefore lead men to look for escape from temptation. He had won for them, in their place. His temptation had not come in the ordinary course of human events. His was not the common every-day temptations that come to man when surrounded by circumstances to relieve and help; but in the solitary wilderness He had met the devil face to face. And the Lord, “Our Father,” through His Holy Spirit, directly led Him there for the express purpose of having Him tempted of the devil. Christ, after this experience, knew what it was to be tempted of the devil. He knew, too, what it was to be led by His Father out into the lonely wilds, there to meet Satan single-handed. With midnight darkness around Him, with the wild beasts of the forest ready to devour, with all the hosts of evil crushing out His very soul, He realized what it meant to be led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And so He taught His followers to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Matt. 6: 13, R. V. He would have them pray that they might escape from the fearful ordeal through which God had driven Him. While God tempteth no man, yet He did directly lead Christ away as a gentle lamb, to be tempted of the devil. His victory was for the world, and man might be spared the fierceness of the open conflict. He might and should hide behind the victory of the mighty Conqueror; and he should pray that he might be spared the face to face encounter with the devil. Therefore, he is to pray to the Father, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”