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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 057. The Holy Spirit's Generalship
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The Holy Spirit's Generalship
And then the second suggestion is this. He took possession of our Lord Jesus. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit took possession of our Lord. Before the temptation came, the Spirit filled Him with Himself, to meet the temptation.
And yet I want to remind you of this, and I ask you to listen keenly that you may not misunderstand—the Lord Jesus was not filled with the Holy Spirit in a sense peculiar to Himself. Now I say that reverently, but I say it because of this,—He insisted at every point in living the life of a man, dependent entirely upon the Holy Spirit. And the thing to mark is this, that just as the Son of Man as man was filled by the Holy Spirit before the temptation came, that He might meet and resist the temptation, even so you and I will be filled if He may have His way, filled beforehand that we may meet temptation as He did, prepared ahead. It is immensely suggestive to us. So many of us play a back-handed game. We wait until we are pushed, and then we do the best we can. If we yield to the Holy Spirit's sway we will be prepared ahead and force the fighting, and make the devil hunt his corner.
Then note very keenly, please, the Holy Spirit took charge of our Lord's temptation; not in a peculiar way; in just the same way that He takes supervision of our temptation. He takes supervision of all our temptations. The whole thing is to yield to His filling, to His sway; He takes care of the rest. In 1Co_10:13 we are told, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God... will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." He is the Superintendent of our temptations. If we yield to His sway, he attends to the victory always. If we appreciated this, it would change our whole attitude toward temptation.
Most folks fear temptation. We are afraid of it. We are afraid we will be tempted. But instead of that we ought to think of the temptation as a chance to defeat the devil. A temptation is two things: it is a chance to make the devil go; secondly it is a chance to win a great victory. We ought not to think of the temptation from the evil one's side only, who will overcome us if we stand alone. Were we to magnify the Holy Spirit, and think of the temptation from His side, that would mean a fresh defeat for the tempter, and a fresh consciousness of the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We would go to the ground of the temptation, in the path of duty, never otherwise, but we would go there with a zest because we know in our Lord's power it means victory, and it means defeat; defeat for Satan, and the victory of our Lord Jesus anew in our lives.
Then please mark keenly, the Holy Spirit stays with our Lord Jesus through the temptation. He took charge ahead of the whole situation; He prepared our Lord for the temptation as a man; He stayed with Him throughout. There is one thing you can count on all the time, the blessed Holy Spirit's presence with us. He does not leave us. If there is any parting of company here, it must be after the old Eden pattern; that is, you go, God doesn't go. It was Adam who hunted the cover of the trees. The blessed Holy Spirit stays.
And then the fourth thing to mark in the Spirit's preparation is a very keen thing, the place of the temptation. The place was the Wilderness. The Wilderness of Judea practically begins at the door, or the gate of Jerusalem, and it runs down that eastern slope to the great Dead Sea. What does the Wilderness mean? What does the Dead Sea mean? You know. It is the greatest sin-scar on the surface of the whole earth. There were the cities of the plain, beautiful and fruitful as Eden, as the garden of the Lord for beauty and fertility. They are sunken out; they are swept away. Judgment upon sin is scarred into the earth's surface. Will you mark keenly that the Dead Sea—and the Wilderness is the fringe of the Dead Sea—the Dead Sea, the whole Wilderness is the fact of judgment upon sin scarred into the very earth's surface. If folks do not believe the Bible, the Old Testament, let them go to the Dead Sea, and simply study the case historically. The Dead Sea speaks out the terrible fact of sin, and the sure coming of judgment upon sin.
Now this is the place where the temptation took place. Who chose it? Satan? Not a bit of it. It was the last place he would choose. He did not like the Wilderness. It was too uncomfortably familiar to him; it told too much of his trail for him to choose it. No! The Holy Spirit set the first bit of the temptation in the place where sin's scar was burned deepest in. A bit of his strategic generalship!
And then, fifth point in this preparation of the Holy Spirit, the time of the temptation, forty days. That is to say a long time. It was a full test; it was a severe test. You know the time test is the hardest test. We are all fairly good, I suppose, at short-suffering, but a few of us do not know much about long-suffering. "The fruit of the Spirit is... long-suffering." (Gal_5:22) The time test is the hardest test for everybody. You keep sweet for a while, but how about keeping sweet all the while. Forty days long the Holy Spirit plans the temptation for Satan. Listen, keenly, that Satan may have the fullest sweep of his power, and do his best and his worst, and that he might know a certain defeat, and the more certain because the temptation lasted so long.
And just one last minor suggestion under that preparation is this—the wild beasts were there. What does that suggest? Would they help the Lord, do you think? Or would they hinder? That bit about the wild beasts is an added touch to show the terribleness of the situation for the man Jesus. I wish I had a company of missionaries here just now, foreign missionaries, to remind them particularly, and all of us, that a calm confidence in our Father gives us peculiar power over the whole lower creation. Man was given the dominion over the lower creation, and as we rest in the victory of our new Head, the Lord Jesus, we shall just quietly, calmly, meet any situation, any wild beasts. A calm confidence in the Father gives man his real dominion power over the lower creation.