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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 008. The Keynote
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The Keynote
Wherever there is temptation there is a tempter. It tells of him. Whenever it comes, if you will look about a bit, you are sure to find him.
Temptation may come through an evil heart inside. It often does. But there's always something outside, too. And that something is pretty sure to conceal some one. It may come through inner passions or desires. It is very apt to come through a coming together of an inner desire and an outer circumstance.
But however it comes, through the inner, through the outer, or through these two getting together, it always comes from the tempter. The inside longing and the outside opening are simply coverings to hide his approach. He uses whatever is handiest and most usable.
The very name "tempter" tells at once his most striking characteristic. The word itself means that there is something wrong near by. There's somebody being urged to do the thing that is wrong. There's some one, more or less out of sight, doing the urging. The wrong itself tells of a right. There is only one right. Any turning aside is wrong. The only right thing to do is that right.
And—remember—there is some One else present, too. The wrong tells of the right, and the right tells of this other One who is close by, earnestly longing to have us do the right, and eager to help us do it. That is the some One who gave His image to us, and will stop at nothing to help us in our fight against the bad.
I want just now to talk with you a bit about the tempter who is sneaking behind the temptation. It is very striking that the true keynote to a talk about the tempter is in the name of the One who is the very opposite of that tempter. The name of Jesus is the keynote that must give the pitch to the music here as everywhere else. For that name "Jesus" means "Victor," literally "Jehovah-Victor." It is a word taken bodily over from the old language of the Hebrews into the Greek or Aramaic of our Lord's time; and thence it has gone into every language where it is found to-day. There is the shout of victory in the very name.
And, of course, "victor" means that there has been a victory. And victory tells of a battle, a fight. It must have been a real fight to call for as strong a word as "victor" in telling the result. And both of these words, "battle" and "victory" tell of a foe, and, more yet, that that foe has been fighting, and has been defeated.
And that great name of "Jesus" tells of another name, the name of a place, the name of an event, of an experience—Calvary. That is the great outstanding word in our Lord Jesus' life down here. That was the pitched battle of the long fight which really began back at the manger-cradle, and ran on through Nazareth, and through the three-and-a-half years of tireless service.
There the tempter did his utmost and his worst. There our Lord by His sacrifice upheld the righteousness of His Father, revealed the great love of His Father's heart, and forever defeated the evil one, loosening us from all his claim upon us. Those must be the two ringing keynotes in talking about the tempter. The very name of our Lord tells of him who has been defeated. And Calvary spells out the place and the time and the blessed fact of the tempter's defeat.