MY NEXT PROBLEM IS SATAN IS ALIVE & WELL

ANTAGONISM TO MY SPIRIT

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."—Matt. 4:1

"For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted."—Heb. 2:18

           

            Perhaps one of the greatest and most mysterious problems of life is that of spiritual antagonism. Beyond the disa­bilities of environment and heredity there is yet this other. To every soul there comes from without an intelligent sug­gestion of evil, enticement toward evil, provision for evil.

            Quite apart from the temptations which come to us from the ordinary environ­ment of everyday living, or from the tendencies toward evil with which we are born, there is this subtlest, pro­foundest danger; in other words, we have to contend not only with the world and the flesh, but also with the devil.

            There are great mysteries concerning the existence of these spiritual adver­saries which I do not stay to discuss.

            Let it only be said, here and now, that to my own heart one of the great sources of hope, in life and work and outlook, is to be found in the ultimate conviction that I hold of the existence of actual spiritual enemies. Did I not believe in the existence of Satan and his emissaries, and then I must believe that all the dark and dreadful deeds that smirch the page of human history have their origin in human nature. This I do not believe. Evil, sin, wrong; these are not the natural products of that great creation of God, of which we form the crown and glory: evil is not native to the soil of the earth, it is an introduction; and its exist­ence in other realms is a mystery, abso­lutely beyond the possibility of our ex­plaining or understanding.

            We have to face the fact of its exist­ence, side by side with that other inspiring fact, that our ambitions are Godward. We have endeavored, so far, to think of the evil that is around and within; now we consider these spiritual antagonisms, and desire to learn how we are to com­bat these forces, so as to gain complete victory over them.

            Jesus came to reveal God to man. He came also to reveal man to man. Apart from Him—His person, His character, His teaching—we can have no true con­ception of the Divine ideal for man; but in Him we have a concrete example of the great thought that possessed the mind of Deity when God said, "Let us make man." Now we know what He was thinking!

            May I take you one step further upon the line of the truth that Jesus is the Re­vealer, and say that He came not only to reveal God and Man, but also those very spiritual forces that oppose us? It is only as we study the life and conflict of the perfect Man that we are able to un­derstand all the subtlety and the power of the enemies that are against us. Out of obscurity into brightest light He dragged these forces; and from His dealing with them we are to learn our relationship to them, and the possibility of our triumph over them. Man had been tempted and tried in all the ages. Prior to His com­ing, these forces had always been busy spoiling the work of God and marring its beauty. He came and revealed the enemies in the light of His pure life. No part of that revelation of Satan is more startling, more vivid, more commanding, than the story to which this first verse of Matthew 4 is the introduction.

            He went, the last Adam, no longer to the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden, but to the loneliness and the deadly desolation of the wilderness, in order that His humanity might pass beyond the stage of innocence into that of holiness; that He might not only be innocent and pure, but triumphant over the forces of evil that had wrecked all before. Satan confronted Him with threefold tempta­tion—to make stones into bread; to se­cure the kingdoms of the world; to fling Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. With that story, so familiar to us all, as a background, we shall proceed to con­sider, first, the revelation of evil that Jesus gives; second, His conquest of evil: and from that twofold considera­tion we shall draw the comfort of the second verse that I have chosen, "That He Himself having suffered being tempted, is able to succor them that are tempted."

            What, then, is the revelation of evil that we have in this wilderness scene?

            (1) That evil as represented by Satan in his attack upon the Christ is audacious effrontery. The devil is impulsed by everything foreign to the nature of God. "God is Love"; but Satan is the embodi­ment of cruel hate. "God is Light"; but Satan's suggestions are of the very nature of darkness. "God is Liberty"; but if you scrutinize these temptations, you will find that they are designed to enslave.

            Jesus is the realization of all the will and purpose of the Father. "God is Love”; at once He is the tenderest and strongest expression of that love. "God is Light"; He is the most perfect out‑shining of that light. "God is Liberty"; He is the Son, making men free indeed. Through all the years of His life, prior to this hour of temptation, He has lived in the fierce light of the Eternal Throne of purity and righteousness, and no single flaw has there been in His obedience.

            Yet such is the insolence of hell that it will attempt to blight even such beauty. We learn, therefore, that no regard for conduct will prevent his approach; no purity of yesterday will be sufficient to hinder him from attempting to render the soul impure.

            (2) In the second place, we have a revelation of the cunning of evil. Evil chooses its time of attack. There is no moment when the soul of man is more susceptible to the onslaught of evil than after some high vision and ecstasy. Jesus had come from the seclusion of Nazareth to the waters of His baptism, where He had heard the voice of the Father saying, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased."

            The moment when we are most in danger of attack is the moment immedi­ately following some new vision of God. The devil chooses his time.

            The elusiveness is more clearly shown, however, in the fact that he advances upon legal lines. A hungry man must provide bread for himself. "If Thou be the Son of God," says the tempter, "command these stones that they be made bread." That is the first tempta­tion; satisfaction for physical need—not a desire for luxury, but necessity—bread. He does not come to the pure Soul in the awful loneliness of the wilderness with a temptation to evil in some repulsive form, but with a suggestion that He should provide something that is right in itself. Make for Thyself bread, O hungry Man; tired and weary with the waiting and loneliness of forty days—bread!

            Not only does he advance upon legal lines, but he bases his temptation upon the very highest relationships. "If Thou be the Son of God"—he does not say, "Yield Thy Sonship, set it aside"; but use it, and use it not for what appears to be wrong, but for that which is a natural demand—make bread. "If Thou wilt fall down and worship me, all these kingdoms, which in panoramic view I have stretched before Thy vision, shall be Thine." Here, also, he appeals to some­thing which is right. It is to possess these kingdoms, not plural but as the kingdom, that this Man has come; it is to hold the staff of government over these kingdoms that He has lived, moved, and had His being among men. Satan only offers Him that which is right, when he suggests to Him that He should take the kingdoms in a divided state.

            Again, you will notice that he proceeds along the line of righteousness. He takes Him to the high mountain—the Soul in loneliness—and shows Him the kingdoms of the earth, and suggests, not that He should give up loyalty and wor­ship, but that He shall worship, and that He shall worship one who appears to have a right over these kingdoms.

            Once more he brings Him to a high pinnacle of the temple, and says, "If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down; for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.” What can be more beautiful in a beautiful soul, more pure in a pure soul, more saintly in a saint, than that the beautiful, pure, saintly One should abandon Himself to the strength and tenderness of the Father? "Here is an opportunity for Thee to prove the Fatherhood of Thy Father, the tender­ness of His love, the strength of His arm. Step out upon Him, cast Thyself down, go out of the common ruts in which men so long have travelled in their trust, or in their failure, and, by a magnificent renunciation of Thy life, test thy Father's love."

            No, these temptations are not coarse, low, and rude, in the common acceptation of those words; they are high, spiritual, subtle, insidious, far-reaching tempta­tions. Their meaning and force can only be learned as we consider the resistance of Christ to every one of them. We need to know the subtlety of the foe with whom we have to deal.

            (3) Then, again, mark his persistence; the conflict does not begin in the wil­derness. For thirty years this Man has faced temptation in some form or other. Every day there has come against that pure Soul some force of evil, and back­ward each has been driven, unable to storm the impenetrable barrier of Christ's mighty purity. In every case He has put the conquering foot of His humanity upon the neck of His enemies, scattering irretrievable ruin in their camp; and yet Satan will come again, even though He is now anew baptized with the Spirit from on high. With strange and awful persistence he will dog His footsteps to the last. After that temptation, we read, "The devil left Him for a little season." Do you know when he finally left Him? He left Him on the Resurrection morn­ing, and never till then. He followed Him to Gethsemane; and I hear the echo of his temptation in the prayer of the Christ, "If it be possible let this cup pass from Me." He followed Him to the Cross; and the presence of this relent­less, uncompromising, persistent foe is to be detected in that agonized prayer of the Son of God: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Never—until back from Hades and the shades of black darkness the conquering Man came, holding in His own pierced right hand the keys of darkness and death—did these forces leave Him or cease their attempts to conquer and spoil the life of the Son of God.

            (4) But I have another word to say about evil as revealed in that temptation. Not only do I find its boldness, cunning, and persistence, but its madness. See the craziness of evil when compared with right­eousness. Mark how Satan, elusive be­yond our comprehension, has only three avenues of attack; for, remember, these are typical, and no soul in the history of the world has ever been tempted except along one of these—Bread, Office, Trust. That is the threefold attack of the devil from the first to the last. Physical, mental, spiritual. He has never yet understood the omnipotence of a soul "homed" in God. That pure white Soul in the wilderness cannot be beaten so long as He abides in God. Satan himself has not measured the depth, the infinity, the boundless spaces of the Most High, or he never would have com­menced the struggle between his own comparative weakness, and the almighti­ness of God and righteousness.

            Then we are to remember that these forces that are coming against us are characterized by their marvelous nerve. When you feel you are safest from the attack of Satan, you are most in danger of becoming a victim to his wiles. Show me the man who has had some spiritual experience—call it conversion or second blessing, or anything you please—and who, coming out of that experience, says, "Now am I safe. I have passed the region of temptation; I have gained the mastery": and I show you the man in highest danger. It is the man who clings tenaciously; out of the agonized sense of his own weakness, who is strong; and not the man who stands erect, and says temptation can have any power on him. Satan has no respect for any building, or convention, or religious frame of mind man has ever possessed. The pure soul of Jesus was met with temptation when the Divine voice had been heard, and the Divine ap­proval declared.

            Remember also, that these foes are subtle beyond all our knowing. Oh, we are so sure the devil cannot overcome us in certain ways; and we are quite right. Here is one man standing up in the great consciousness of his strength, and being very angry with the man who has failed. The man who never felt the fire and thirst for drink moving in his veins, pro­nounces his small anathema upon the drunkard in his cups, and says that Satan cannot tempt him like that. And he will never try! He is not such a fool! But he has tempted you, and you are falling—falling of pride and self-suffi­ciency, as you dare to pass thy sentences upon thy fallen brother. Do not forget, the devil will not attack you upon the place where you are strongest. He will come where the door is weakest in its fastenings, and smite the chain on the link where the flaw is hidden.

            Remember this, too: his temptations are always based upon that which is right. I believe if young men only learned that secret of temptation, it would be a great help to them. He sug­gests that you should do something. Now, everything is primarily right. It is perfectly right to have bread; to get the governments; and to trust God.

            As to his persistency. Dear child of God, have you been following for forty, or even fifty, years in His footsteps? You are not safe. The devil will still dog your pathway. Upon the very approach to the pearly gates he will suggest a lie and a blasphemy to you.

            Remember also his madness; but that will be more clearly seen as we think for a moment how the conquest of evil is re­vealed in this same story.

            How was it that this Man conquered? And the answer can be given in a very few sentences. It is the simplicity of the method that is its magnificence and its strength. First of all, Jesus conquered because, as the prophet Isaiah said of Him, "He was keen of scent in the fear of the Lord." (Isa. 11:3 RV) He recognized a tempta­tion to evil when He was asked to make bread. He was asked to satisfy a right craving in a wrong way. God had led Him by the Spirit into the wilderness to fast. To feed when God said fast, was to sin. This may appear a matter of small moment, but it is the basis of all evil. There is no essential evil. Evil is forevermore a prostitution of right. Evil is an abuse of a good gift. Bread? Certainly; but if God has said fast, then there must be no bread, even though death come on from that.

            It was in the attempt to draw Him from the will of God that the temptation was centered; and Jesus, "keen of scent in the fear of the Lord," (Isa. 11:3) detected, by reason of His habitual communion with God, by reason of the Divine atmosphere in which He lived and moved and had His being—the evil that those not living so might have missed. My brother, if you are to overcome, you must live with God, and must become "keen of scent in the fear of the Lord."             How often people have said to me, and I dare say you have heard it also, "But I was tempted, and I fell before I knew it." Quite true. It has been the story of many a sin in my own life. I was in the mire before I knew it. I ought to have known it. Had I been living in God and depending on God when the slightest breath of evil came, I should have detected it. "To be fore­warned is to be forearmed." To be conscious of your enemy is to be half­way to being victorious over him. Jesus lived in the Divine, and detected the evil.

            Again, He had one refuge from all attacks; and that refuge was the Divine will. Whatever the attack, He remained there. He dwelt within the stronghold of the Divine government; and within that stronghold no force was able to overcome Him; and no attack, however violent, could shake the foundations of eternal righteousness and eternal justice, as evidenced in the will of God. "Com­mand these stones that they be made bread." "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'" "My life is not the life you think it is. O Satan; you imagine My life is physical, and needs bread. That is the probationary basis upon which life is being created and fashioned. Man does not live by bread alone": and so He abode in the will of God, refusing every alluring call. Staying there, He became more than Conqueror over the forces that assailed Him.

            Now the gospel message for us is that of Hebrews. "He has suffered being tempted, and now He is able to rescue." How can He aid? I can only answer this in sentences. Given the soul that yields to Him, what are the methods by which He aids that soul in the hour of temptation?          First, He cleanses the nature; second, He restores that soul to its true environment, and makes it conscious of God; and then—let me put it simply, I do not want anyone to miss this, as the highest thought of this article—then He, by His Spirit, takes up His abode within, and fights the battle and gets the victory. When the enemy comes in like a flood, He lifts up His standard against him. And so, when I am victorious over the assaults of spirit­ual antagonism, it is not because I am strong, but because I have given the key of the citadel into the hands of the thorn-crowned King, and He locks the door and Himself holds it; and when the enemy seeking spiritual devastation comes against me to assault my soul, and blight my life, and mar my character, it is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me; and He repeats the con­quest of the wilderness, and scatters my foes like chaff before the wind.

            Thy secret place of victory, for my soul’s understanding, is not the place where I shall assert my strength; it is the place where I shall assert the strength of thy Master, and put Him as my shield for evermore to quench the fiery darts of the evil one, and make Him the Captain of my salva­tion to strike my blow for me, and get for me my victory. The whole story of victory over spiritual antagonism is clearly put in these words: "Submit thyself unto God; resist the devil, and he will flee from thee." (James 4:7) That is how I should have been doing this in the past. God’s Spirit was waiting for the day I was able to understand this. Is it your day? I sincerely hope so.