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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 093. Hiding Behind Men
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Hiding Behind Men
Then mark that the tempter disguises his approach to us behind men. I do not mean bad men necessarily. I mean that quite unconsciously to themselves he uses good men in ways that will work out his purposes. That word "unconsciously" should be underscored. There are four illustrations of this sort of thing in the life of our Lord Jesus.
The first is the coming to Him of His mother and brethren to seek an interview while He is in the midst of teaching the multitude. (Mat_12:46-50; Mar_3:31-35; Luk_8:19-21.) It seems to be a strange incident. It occurs at the time when the opposition to Him by the Jerusalem leaders had reached the aggressive stage. They were following Him up into Galilee, hounding His steps, and trying by every sort of means to hinder and, if possible, stop His work. Their opposition had reached the point of danger to Him. For a second time it is said that He "withdrew" from the area of their activity. That word "withdrew" is a significant one, indicating the seriousness of the danger threatening Him. The awful charge of Satanic collusion had been made against Him. This setting of the story should be kept in mind.
One day as He is teaching in the midst of a great crowd an interruption occurs. Strangely enough it is a message sent in to Him that His mother and brethren are on the outskirts of the crowd and desire an interview. It is wholly probable from the records that they had free access to Him ordinarily, when they were where He was. Why this unexpected breaking in while He is at His work? It looks very much as though the leaders had been cunningly working upon her mother heart. They would use her influence to side-track Him. Surely such a finegrained man as He clearly is will be open to His mother's influences and to her fears and wishes. It was an appeal to a natural love. It touched the tenderest earthly tie our Master had. He revealed a tender solicitude for His mother amid the pain and distress of hanging upon the cross.
It looks very much like an approach by the tempter behind the tender relation existing between Him and His mother. She, of course, would be wholly unconscious that it was so. Only so can His words in reply to the request be fully understood, "Who is my mother?" and so on. He evidently recognized the interruption as something serious. His reply in effect is this: "My mission is not subject to earthly human ties, even though as tender as that of a mother. My relation to my Father is the one controlling purpose and passion of my life." The doing of the Father's will was higher than any human tie or relationship. It is not the first time, nor the last, that the tempter has come behind the sacred, tender tie of kinship.
The second of these is the story of the enthusiastic multitudes over this Man, who could supply bread enough for their hunger. (Joh_6:1-15; with Mat_14:13-22; Mar_6:30-45.) The violent taking off of His Herald, John, led Jesus to seek a bit of quiet solitude for prayer and thinking. The end was drawing sharply nearer in this event. The multitudes invade His privacy. He patiently teaches, and then feeds the vast crowd with the few loaves and fishes. The crowd is completely swept off its feet by His graciousness and power, and by the sense of inner physical comfort. Their leaders seem to have actually conferred with the disciples, and to have gotten their consent to the proposed plan of making Jesus King. For the Master was compelled to "constrain" them to get into the boat and leave. (Mat_14:22.)
They propose a great popular uprising to proclaim Jesus King. It may seem to us like an immature, weak movement. Yet, if such a thing can be imagined as our Lord taking advantage of such a thing, it would have undoubtedly become a most formidable movement. At any rate it was clearly a repetition of the old Wilderness temptation of world-wide dominion without suffering. Many a Christian leader has yielded to that sort of a temptation. All unconsciously to themselves, the tempter was coming up behind these multitudes in their pathetic need, with the old temptation under new guise.