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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 029. Defeated by a Life
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Defeated by a Life
Satan was defeated by our Lord Jesus. There were two steps or stages in that defeat. The first was in the life He lived. That life ran through thirty-three years and a bit more. It was a long battle, and the defeat administered was all the more conclusive, and sure, and crushing, because of its length.
First of all came that Nazareth life. The one word that marks that Nazareth life, and sums it up, is the great, simple word "obedience." From the early, tender years, when the consciousness of His mission first began to come to Him, on through the years of growth and maturity, He obeyed. He insisted on obeying.
Jesus insisted on going that daily commonplace routine: white-washed cottage home, companionship with his fellow-workmen and fellow-villagers, long hours in a wood-working shop, driving nails, pushing a plane, mending ploughs and yokes for customers hard to please sometimes. That was the Father's plan for His life. He obeyed, because it was the Father's plan. If the Nazareth round be put in sharp contrast with the conditions to which the Son of God was accustomed in His Father's presence—His intense humility stands sharply out.
Did no temptation come to Him those Nazareth days to quit that retired humble round and go forth to let men know who He was, and why He had come? Look at Him a moment in Nazareth. He is, say, twenty-eight years of age, in the maturity of His human strength as a man. Yet He goes the old humble commonplace round in that shut-away village, in the little narrow-walled cottage home, rising early, helping about the home, then down the street with a cheery "good-morning" to neighbour and fellow-craftsmen, then the carpenter shop, mending a table, smoothing up carefully the handle of a plough, at it for long hours, then home again for the frugal meal, with the small familiar talk of a home circle around a table. Then likely as not talking over with the mother of the home the ever present problems of housekeeping, figuring out the slender funds to meet obligations, and so on, and so on.
Does any one of you think that no such temptation as this came subtly stealing in those days: "what are You doing here in this shut-away corner. You are the Son of God! (no 'if Thou be' then) You have a mission to the whole world; it is such a needy world too; so needy. You are to redeem a world. This is no place for You; assert Yourself, as the Son of God, for the good of the world."
Did no such insinuating voice speak such words in His ear? No one who knows the tempter can doubt it. But faithfully, steadily, obediently He went the old round up to the very last, when the Father's voice sent Him forth. The one touchstone of His life was obedience to His Father's plan.