Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter: 060. "Lead Us Not Into Temptation."
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 060. "Lead Us Not Into Temptation."
Other Subjects in this Topic:
"Lead Us Not Into Temptation."
The second temptation cunningly plays upon our Lord's mood. Our Lord says, "Not by bread, but by trust." "Ah!" the devil says, "we will just play on His trust in His Father. He is in a deeply religious mood. We will have a religious temptation." And so he shifts the scene. I think he is very glad to do this. He gets away from that Wilderness; he is uncomfortable there. He takes the very height of the temple. It is a religious atmosphere. I sometimes think the temptations hardest to meet are those that have a religious setting.
The tempter said this time, "Since Thou art God's Son, cast Thyself down." That is to say, "You trust the Father. That is splendid! Now just show the world how you do trust Him. Cast yourself down before it, and they will accept you as their Messiah. Just show all the world how you trust your Father." Satan preaching the Gospel of Trust! Have you ever known that temptation? I have.
There is an inner response here. The inner response to the first temptation is in the hunger; the inner response here was His settled purpose to trust His Father. But His reply comes, "Thou shalt not test. To throw Myself down would be testing God's love. Does God love? I will not test it. I will rest upon it. Love never tests. Love trusts. Thou shalt not make test of the Lord thy God, but go in the way He leads."
The third temptation was the last attempt. Satan takes Him up to a high mountain and shows Him the whole world, the glory of it, with a very quick panoramic view. It is not an impossible thing to do in that country, for Moses from one of those neighbouring mountain tops saw the whole land. So Satan comes to Him with a swift world view. He thought he would sweep the Master off His feet. Again this is one of his favourite methods.
A great many people have met the first temptation and resisted; and the second and resisted; and have been swept off their feet by the dazzling view of the third. I think it is pathetic to the point of weeping to find how one leader after another in Christian service has been swept off his feet by a dazzling view of the kingdom of this world, and been set aside as no longer use-able by the Father. It was the temptation of the Church in Constantine's time, and some of us think the Church has never recovered from that temptation of the fourth century.
There is a real temptation here, an inner response. Man was given the dominion of all the world; that belongs to us. And our Lord Jesus was come down to restore that dominion. Here is the point of inner response. Somebody might say, "Did Satan really think that the Lord Jesus Christ would do such a thing as fall down and worship him?" At first flush you might say, "No, surely he could not think that." But the more you think into it, the more you see that his proposition is this: "Let us make a combination. You tie up with me. Of course God is over all, and you will have the dominion of the world, which is your right. Let us combine." It is a favourite word of his—"combination." It has slipped many a man off his feet who has given in a bit to the devil, working tinder cover, that he might have the dominion over the kingdom. I sometimes think it has led more, far more, Christian leaders off their feet than have been able to withstand its dazzling lure.
The answer was, "Get thee hence." That is a bit that I like. "Leave!" Don't ask him to go; tell him to go. And the marvellous thing is this, he obeyed.
And just one word as we close our talk together. What did our Lord Jesus mean in the prayer He gave us to use when He taught us to say, "Lead us not into temptation"? It has puzzled a good many to know just what that means. Would God lead a man into temptation? What does that mean? There are three or four interpretations, and each has some shade of truth. But I keep swinging back to this: this is what the Master meant, "You cannot stand being tempted alone. You alone cannot stand temptation. I know; I have been there; I have been there forty days. I know temptation as no other man knows it, in its storm, in its subtlety, in its persistence." And now He says, "The thing for you to do is this. I have gotten the victory. You pray, 'Lead me not into temptation, but help me in fighting, help me to live under the shadow of Thy victory.'"
You cannot meet temptation alone. You are no match for the evil one. There is not one of us here who is any match for him. It is only as we come up close to our Lord Jesus, under the shadow of His Cross, that we get victory. But we can get it there. Let us remember that Revelation word, (Rev_12:11.) "They overcame him on the ground of the Blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony" carried to the point of a sacrificial life. May our Lord Jesus Christ help us to live in the strength of His victory.