Bible temperance.

Date:
[1880?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bible temperance. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    shall see, into the mightiest triumph of all on the side of heaven, and so the love and truth of heaven were again victorious over the hate and falsehood of hell. But while the Satan-blinded Jewish Church, with all her God- provided opportunities, did not recognize the Messiah when He came, He was clearly and immediately recognized by Satan, who was and and is about the greatest of Theologians. Probably no one but God Himself knew so thoroughly as Satan did all the promises, predic¬ tions, symbols, and tokens, wdiich indicated the coming, the charac¬ ter, and the work of Prince Messiah. With His inconceivablv powerful intellect, curbed and thwarted on earth only by the Om¬ niscient and the Omnipotent, Satan watched and studied with an intensity of interest which we may not fully comprehend every fresh revelation of the coming One who was to crush his power on earth, from the first promise in Eden till the Incarnation in Beth¬ lehem, heralded and announced by the natal anthem of the angelic choir and the miraculous star in the east. The youthful Jesus in His Nazarene home would also be eagerly scanned by His jealous powerful, malignant foe, in His blameless life, His consecrated de¬ votion, His prayerful studies, His marvellous growth in wisdom and knowledge, and His wonderful deportment and words in the Temple among the doctors; and He was doubtless many a time tried and tested by the arch-tempter before His baptism by John in the Jordan, accompanied by the visible descent of the Holy Ghost, and the “ voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased (Mat. iii 17).” IV.—SUBLIME ENCOUNTER BETWEEN JESUS AND SATAN. But now, after this sublime scene on the banks of the Jordan, when Jesus entered upon the three years of His special Messianic ministry, He was subjected to the mightiest onslaught of which the arch-seducer was capable in the Temptation in the Wilderness (Mat. iv. 1 —11). In this tremendous encounter, the greatest powers of the prince of tempters were exercised to their utmost capacity and tension, resulting in the greatest triumph of its kind that had ever been realized on the side of heaven. The temptations presented were of the most crafty and seductive character conceivable, the same in number (three), and much the same in character, as those by which the great seducer triumphed in Eden, where the natural in¬ nocence of the tempted was the same, while the circumstances were very different. But we should always bear in mind, that the temp¬ tation was as real in the one case as in the other. The humanity of Jesus was as real in every respect as His Godhead ; and as man He was liable to all the temptations to which sinless humanity could be liable. Had He not been capable of feeling the force of Satanic temptation and liable to yield before its power, then His wilderness temptation would be a mere sham, a dramatic or allegoric represen¬ tation, furnishing no real example to us in times of temptation, and affording to tried ones no comfort and strength, such as are derivable from the blessed truth, “ In that He Himself hath suffered being