Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2997
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” Matthew 4:1.
WHAT a terrible incident! Well may our hearts be moved with fear and our blood run cold as we read it! Our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We are taught by our Lord Jesus to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.” What we are taught to seek or shun in prayer we should equally pursue or avoid in action. Very warily, therefore, should we endeavor to avoid temptation, seeking as to walk in the path of obedience that we may never be guilty of tempting the devil to tempt us! We are not to enter the thicket in search of the lion. Dearly might we pay for such presumption. The lion may cross our path, or come to our houses and doubtless he will, but we have nothing to do with hunting this lion. He that meets with him, even though he wins the day, will find it sharp work and a stern struggle! Let the Christian pray that he may be spared the encounter. Our Savior, who had experience of what temptation meant, thus earnestly admonished His disciples, “Pray that you enter not into temptation.”
But let us do what we will, we shall be tempted! God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without temptation. The natural man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward—and the Christian is born to temptation just as certainly and necessarily. It is our duty to be always on our watch against Satan because we do not know when he will come. He is like a thief—he gives no intimation of his approach. Like the assassin, he will steal upon his victim. If Satan acted always above-board—if he were a bold and open adversary, we might deal with him—it is because he meets us unawares, and besets us in dark and miry places on the way, that we have need to pray against temptation and have need to hear the Savior’s admonition, “What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.”
Still, wise Believers, those who have had experience of the ways of Satan, will have found that there is a method about his temptations—that there are certain times and seasons when he will most probably attack the child of God. It often happens that a Christian is put on a double guard when he expects that he is in double danger. The danger may then be averted by his preparation to meet it. Prevention is better than cure—it is better to be so well armed that the devil will not attack you—than to endure the perils of the fight, even though you do come off conqueror.
We have observed—you have all done so who know anything of the spiritual life—that the most likely times for Satan to attack a Christian are those he deems unlikely. In carnal security you are most insecure. In such an hour as you think not, the Prince of this world comes. Just when you would have said, speaking after the manner of men—“I am safe,” then it is that you are in danger! When Mr. Carnal Security has said, “There is no need for us to be in perpetual alarm—evidently the Prince Emmanuel smiles upon us and the Holy Spirit dwells within us—we are the children of God, let us sit at the table and feast. Let us eat, drink and be merry”—it is at that very time that you might hear a sound as of One who says, “Arise, let us go hence, for this heart has become polluted. I will no longer shed abroad the conscious delights of My Presence in it.” Beware, dear Friends, of the devil! Beware of him most when you think you have least need to beware of him!
For a key-note to our meditation tonight, I propose to take the word, “Then,” as it stands in the forefront of our text. I think there will be found something of instruction here, especially to young Believers, as to the times when Satan will most probably beset them and they will, probably, be surprised to find that the very times when Satan will be likely to attack them, according to the judgment of experience and the examples of God’s Word, are the times when they would
have thought him least likely to do so! I want you to observe the time of our Savior’s temptation—first, with regard to the circumstances which preceded it and then the circumstances which followed it. When we have noticed those two things, we will take the whole case and see if we do not derive some instruction from it.
I. First, OBSERVE THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH PRECEDED THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOR IN THE WILDERNESS.
Jesus had been in an especially devout frame of mind before He was led into the wilderness. It is recorded by Luke that our Savior, when He was baptized, was praying. He was always a Man of prayer. This is, indeed, a Characteristic of the Savior—and if we should be asked what there was in Christ which distinguished Him from other men, besides His outward holiness and His inward consecration, we would say, “The habitual exercise of a spirit of prayer.” It is recorded that Jesus, as He was baptized, was praying and yet, after this prayer was offered, after Jesus had thus worshipped at His Father’s Throne, the temptation came! So, you may have been in your closet and had a season of special refreshing. The Lord may have manifested Himself to you, as He does not unto the world, in your private devotions—but do not, therefore, conclude that you are rid of Satan’s temptations! You shall no sooner, it may be, have passed out of the closet than you shall be challenged to the conflict. The communion shall cease and the combat shall begin! Satan knows that you have been doing mischief to his cause in your prayers. Have you not been bringing blessings down from on high? Have you not been shaking the walls of the spiritual Jericho—and does he not, therefore, hate you? Satan has the same hatred of you that we find in evil men—and we know that all bad men are always more angry when good men are more busy. So Satan becomes the more Satanic when he knows that you have been unlocking the treasury of God to make those rich whom he would have poor. Why, your prayers, if I may use so daring a speech, have been instrumental in opening blind eyes, quickening dead hearts, unlocking the doors of spiritual prisons and shaking the gates of Hell—and do you not think that Satan will attack you now? Expect that Satan is at the closet doors and if, when you are lax in devotion, you are not tempted, rest assured that whenever you are much in prayer, you may expect Satan to be exceedingly enraged against you. Do you not see, dear Friends, that it is not to his advantage to let you continue in the act of prayer? He knows that when you grow more like your Master, you get more of the Holy Spirit in you and, therefore, it is to his interest to spoil this spirit of prayer! So he meets you, as it were, with his great club in his hand to knock you down. “Pray, will you?” he says. “No, that you shall not, for I will tempt you. Pray, will you?—Grow strong and laugh me to scorn? No, that you shall not,” he says! And he leaves no stone unturned to try, if he can, to lead you away from the heavenly, soul-enriching employment of private prayer! Now, if such a thing should happen to you, do not be surprised, as though some strange thing had occurred. It was so with your Lord. He prayed and temptation came! And when you have been in prayer, you may expect to be tempted by the devil.