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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 063. The Tempter Afraid of Jesus
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The Tempter Afraid of Jesus
Fear is the beginning of defeat. I do not mean the fear of reverence, but fear that is afraid. Of course defeat is a fighting word. It means that the enemy has been recognized and resisted. There are persons who do not know fear because they don't recognize the enemy, and don't oppose him. They move smoothly along the lines of least resistance regardless of moral issues. The absence of a sense of fear there simply tells of cowardice or childishness. But where the fight is on, and blows being exchanged, there fear is a sure element of defeat.
It recognizes and realizes that some one greater and stronger is actively opposing, and that makes it shrink and tremble. A false fear thinks the enemy is stronger. Real fear knows it. Fear sucks the spirit out of one's fighting, it takes the nerve out of one's courage, and the vim and zest out of one's action. Fear is the beginning of defeat.
Now the tempter knows fear. That is a fact of great comfort for us. And the fear he knows is not a false one; it is founded on fact and experience. He has met One greater and stronger than himself. The two have measured strength in a long and bitterly waged contest. And he knows the bitter sting of defeat. That defeat taught him fear. He is afraid of his Victor. He knows what it means to be thwarted and resisted, beaten back steadily, and defeated clear off the fighting ground. There has been a man upon the earth of whom Satan is afraid, whom he can neither touch nor resist—that man is Christ Jesus.
Satan is afraid of our Lord Jesus. He learned to fear Him in Nazareth early in the fight. In the Wilderness fear became a real force in his life, weakening, dispiriting, and even terrifying him. That Wilderness siege of temptation was as carefully planned out as it could be. It began on Satan's part with eagerness mingled with fear. There was eagerness because everything the tempter prized and wanted was at stake. There was fear because of his previous dealings with our. Master during those Nazareth years. Though the Wilderness temptation began with eagerness and fear, it ended with rage and a fearsome terror, because this new Man, Jesus, was so strongly steady in His obedience to the Father. Satan was having a new experience. There was something new and strange and terrifying to him in this quiet, steady, obedient Man, who knew only Another's plan for His life. The tempter became afraid of Jesus, and is afraid of Him.