pable of temptation,
and the King has to begin his career by a battle. 'Of the devil'--then
there is a dark kingdom of evil, and a personal head of it, the prince
of darkness. He knows His rival, and yet He knows him but partially. He
strides out to meet him in desperate duel, as Goliath did the stripling
whom he despised; and both hosts pause and gaze. To a sinless nature no
temptation can arise from within, but must be presented from without.

We leave untouched the question as to the manner of this temptation,
which remains equally real, whether we conceive that the tempter
appeared in bodily form, and actually carried the body of our Lord from
place to place, or whether we suppose that, during it all, Christ sat
silent, and apparently alone in the wilderness. We only divert attention
from the true importance of the incident by giving prominence to
picturesque or questionable externals of it.

I. The first assault and repulse, in the desert.

Unlike John the Baptist, whose austere spirit was unfolded in the
desert, Jesus grew up among men, passing through and sanctifying
childhood and youth, home duties, and innocent pleasures. But ere He
enters on His work, the need which every soul appointed to high and hard
tasks has felt, namely, the need for seclusion and communion with God in
solitude, was felt by Him. As it had been for Moses and Elijah, the
wilderness was His school; and as the collective Israel, so the personal
Son of God, has to be led into the wilderness, that there God may 'speak
to His heart.' So deep and rapt was the communion, that, for forty days,
spirit so mastered flesh that the need and desire for food were
suspended. But when He touched earth again, the pinch of hunger began.
Analogous cases of the power of high emotion to hold physical wants in
abeyance are sufficiently familiar to make so extreme an instance
explicable.

We have to distinguish in the first temptation between the sphere in
which it moves, the act suggested, and the true nature of the act as
dragged to light in Christ's answer. The sphere is that of the physical
nature. Hunger has nothing to do with right or wrong. It asserts itself
independent of all considerations. In itself neutral, it may, like all
physical cravings, lead to sin. Most men are most tempted by fleshly
desires. Satan had tried the same bait before on the first Adam. It had
answered so well then, that he thinks himself wise in bringing it out
once more. Adam,