THE DEVIL IS A POOR SWORDSMAN

THE DEVIL IS A POOR SWORDSMAN

“Again it is written."

We turn now to consider the victory of Jesus, and in doing so note first of all the weapon He used. Again the flash of the sword is seen as He says, “It is written." It is as though He first replies to the very subtlety of the enemy's attack by revealing the fact that He is still living upon the Word of God, and that as His physical being was content to be conditioned by the law of God, so also it is that law which defines His spiritual responsibility. He no more attempted to live outside the realm of His Father's will in spiritual life than in physical; and was no more pre­pared to trespass upon the limits God set upon His spiritual liberty, than He was to trespass upon the limits set upon His physical being. And yet notice the slight variation in the form of His use of the weapon. In the first tempta­tion He said, “It is written." In the second He said, “Again it is written." In the use of the word “again" is a revelation of our Lord's perfect mastery of the weapon. In comparison with Christ THE DEVIL WAS A POOR SWORDSMAN, when he attempted to use the sword of the Spirit, and MANY follow his lead. It would seem as though with quiet and yet mighty move­ment of His strong arm Jesus wrested THE SWORD from Satan. The force of the “again” lies in the fact that it is an answer to Satan's, “it is written." He does not deny the correctness of the satanic quotation, but He replies to it by saying, "Again it is written." That is to say, there must be proper use made of the words of God. No one statement wrested from its context is a sufficient warrant for actions that plainly controvert other commands. "It is written," but "Again it is written," and for the proper definition of life, no one isolated text is sufficient. It is necessary that there should be acquaintance with the whole scheme of the Divine will, and the true balance and pro­portion of life is only discovered in this way.

What infinite value there is in that word "again." How excellent a thing it would be if the whole Church of Christ had learned that no law of life may be based upon an isolated text. It is forever necessary to discover the varied sides of truth, for these limit each other in operation, and create the impregnable stronghold of safety for the soul of man.

In a study of the heresies of the Church--not a very profitable one, be it said—it will be seen that all these have been based upon Scripture used as the devil uses it—SCRIPTURE TAKEN OUT OF ITS CONTEXT, and out of its relation to the whole of the revelation. Every false teacher who has divided the Church, has had an "it is written" on which to hang his doctrine. If only against the isolated passage there had been the recognition of the fact that "again it is written,” how much the Church would have been saved.

To pass, however, to the actual Scripture with which Christ resisted the attack, "Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God." (Matt 4:7) It has been somewhat commonly understood that here Christ was addressing Himself to the devil as though He should say to him, Thou art not to make trial of Me. That, however, is surely to miss the highest value of the words. In these words, as in those with which He defeated the enemy in the first temptation, He was defining His own position. The command, "Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God," WAS ADDRESSED TO MAN, and in this quotation the Lord gave His reason for refusing to cast Himself from the wing of the temple.

Here, then, is the exposure of the deepest meaning of this subtle attack. What could be more excellent to all outward seeming than that this perfect Man should trust in God? What more fitting than that He should prove His trust by daring something, by taking some great risk? In a sentence the Master strips the whole hypocrisy of its speciousness, and reveals the murderous intent. To have cast Himself from the wind of the temple into the abyss that yawned below would have been to tempt God, and in THE LAST AND FINAL ANALYSIS WOULD HAVE DEMONSTRATED NOT TRUST, BUT LACK OF CONFIDENCE. It is when we doubt a per­son that we make experiments to discover how far they are to be trusted. To make experiments of any kind with God, is to reveal the fact that one is not quite sure of Him. Trust never desires to tempt, to test, to trifle. It calmly, quietly abides in sure confidence. With what matchless skill this perfect Man has revealed at once the strength and weakness of the satanic onslaught. The true territory of trust is revealed by the Lord's answer. That territory is again the will of God. In effect the Master declared that He could trust God perfectly so long as He remained within the sphere of His revealed will but that if He passed out of that sphere, then He had no right to trust, and could not trust.

What infinite value for all men is there in this unfolding of the true nature of faith in God. The devil is perpet­ually saying, Do something adventurous, do something magnificent, do something out of the ordinary, and thus demonstrate your confidence. The Master is always reply­ing: Trust is not evidenced by such action. That would be to tempt God, and to tempt Him is to reveal the death of trust. Trust never makes experiments outside the divinely marked pathway. Such experiments are evi­dences of timidity rather than of trust. How many in the false religious realm perform this on stages.

Thus again the citadel is held, and the foe is vanquished. Jesus refusing to tempt God, demonstrated His perfect con­fidence in Him, and thus revealed for all time the fact that man, so devoid of selfish interest as to be willing not to ap­pear heroic, in confidence may dare all hell, and issue from the conflict more than conqueror.

In these first two temptations the twofold nature of the sec­ond Man has been subjected to severest testing, and the last Adam, Head of the new race, has been proved invulnerable to the assaults of evil. Weakness in the physical realm was tested. Strength in the spiritual realm was attacked. Physical weakness, abiding in the will of God, proved stronger than the mightiest force of evil; and spiritual strength, calmly content with what seemed to be the commonplace of life, was demonstrated mightier than all the subtlety of spiritual wickedness. The Man Jesus is victo­rious over evil in both departments of His nature. Be­hold Him, God's perfect Man, standing still erect, not merely in the perfection of created and untried humanity, but having passed through trial and testing still triumphant. He has chosen hunger, rather than bread which God does not provide. He has selected to appear to lack daring, rather than to demonstrate His fear by testing God. When the alternative of hunger in the will of God, or food outside, was presented to Him there was not one moment's hesitation; and yet again He elected the commonplace of patient waiting, rather than the brilliant magnificence of an act, which would have revealed fear rather than faith.

In what clear shining the deepest facts of human life are revealed in these hours of the temptation of the Son of Man. Perhaps nowhere is life seen to be simpler. Man in his fall has rendered it complex by endeavoring to act upon a thousand different principles, and with complexity has come confusion. This Man had but one principle, and that the will of God, and whether the enemy approached along the line of PHYSICAL NECESSITY, or of SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY, it mattered not, he was foiled and driven backward. It is for man to remember that by the mystery of His Cross and passion, and the triumph of His resurrection, this victo­rious One now dwells in him. In proportion as man is loyal to Him, as He was to God, his loyalty is also loyalty towards God, and as He conquered the subtlest temptations of the evil one, so also may all be “more than conquerors through Him that loved us." (Rom. 8:37).