nd temptation had been laid to heart!

III. The final assault and repulse, on the mountain.

Again the scene changes, because the stress of the temptation is
different. The 'exceeding high mountain' is not to be looked for in our
atlases. The manner in which all the glories of the world's kingdoms
were flashed in one dazzling panorama, like an instantaneous photograph,
before Christ's eyes, is beyond our knowledge. We note that Satan has no
more to say about 'the Son of God.' He has been foiled in both his
assaults on Christ in that character. If He stood firm in filial trust
and in filial submission, there was no more to be done. So the tempter
tries new weapons, and seeks to pervert the desire for that dominion
over the world which was to be a consequence of the sonship. He has not
been able to touch Him as Son; can he not spoil Him as King? They are
rivals: can they not strike up a treaty? Jesus thinks that He is going
to reign as God's viceroy; can He not be induced, as a much quicker way
of getting to His end, to become Satan's? Such a scheme sounds very
stupid; but Satan is very stupid, for all his wisdom, and the hopeless
folly of his proposal is typical of the absurdities which lie in all
sins. There is an old play, the title of which would be coarse if it
were not so true, 'The Devil is an Ass.'

His boast, like all his wiles, is a little truth and a great lie. It is
true that his servants do often manage to climb into thrones and other
high places. It is true that beggars and worse than beggars on
horseback, and princes and better than princes walking, is often the
rule. It is true that the crowned saints of the world might be counted
on the fingers. But, for all that, the Father of lies was like himself
in this promise. He did not say that, if he gives a kingdom to one of
his servants, he takes it from another. He did not say that his gifts
are shams, and fade away when the daylight comes. He did not say that
he and his are, after all, tools in God's hands.

What was it that he thought he was appealing to in Christ? Ambition? He
knew that Jesus was destined to be King of the earth, and he blunders to
the conclusion that His reign is to be such as he could help Him to. How
impossible it is for Satan to penetrate the depths of that loving heart!
How mole-blind evil is to the radiant light of goodness! How hate fails
when it tries to fathom love! If all that Satan meant by 'the glory' of
the world had been Ch