THE TEMPTATIONS (1)
[p. 115] THE TEMPTATIONS (1)
If you speak of one being full of the Holy Spirit you regard such a person as a vessel. We all feel that we do not know much about being full of the Holy Spirit, but God would be greatly pleased to give us an impression of the character of such a man, for it is a great part of the work of God to give us an impression of the Man who was full of the Holy Spirit. This is set before us in Jesus; we see a Man upon this earth who was full of the Holy Spirit; we are introduced to such a Person as that. We all know the man after the flesh, and I hope we know him so well that we wish to have nothing more to do with him. Jesus was a divine Person in the Godhead, but we see Him here as a praying Man; He comes before us as a Man marked by absolute dependence upon God. There is nothing on the divine side to prevent us from being filled with the Holy Spirit, so that Jesus is, in some sense, a pattern of what is possible, through grace, for us. Jesus as a vessel was closed to the world but open towards God; He always looked Godward. It was a delight to God to have a Man who could withstand every temptation which could be brought against Him. He was personally a delight to God, and before He began His service He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness to be tested. The question was raised whether the dependent Man could stand where the independent man failed, and it is God’s delight to show us that Jesus could stand invulnerable against every temptation Satan could bring. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, and a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit can stand against every temptation that Satan can bring.
Now look at the 13th verse: “And the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time”. The three temptations which are here recorded comprise every [p. 116] temptation. The devil may have ten thousand different ways by which he tempts man, but these three temptations cover in principle everything Satan could bring; he had no other weapon in his armoury — he exhausted all temptations. The Spirit has singled out these three temptations as comprising every one that Satan could bring against man, and the way in which Jesus met them is a pattern of how we should meet temptation. There is a kind of man that Satan cannot touch; it is the dependent man who is full of the Holy Spirit and is in the consciousness of sonship. Power lies in seeing the place that the Son of God has taken as Man with reference to God. Christians greatly overlook this fact. They look at Jesus as the Saviour from sins, as having effected redemption, and other wonderful things, but we must not forget that He came into manhood as God’s beloved Son to be the Vessel of the Holy Spirit, and to meet in that condition every power of Satan.
Tonight we look at Jesus in relation to the devil — we have seen Him in chapter 3 in relation to God. I am deeply interested in desiring to know the kind of man who is full of the Holy Spirit; I have known the man after the flesh for a good many years. The relations which Jesus took up when here are patterns for us. There is to be a harvest for God, and every grain of wheat that will be gathered into His garner will take character from Jesus. It will as surely be brought about in every one of us as it was brought about in Him; God will realise it. As our souls come under His influence, He will work it out in us and enable us through grace to maintain such relations with Him as Jesus maintained when here on earth. God’s thought for us is that we should be filled with the Holy Spirit. We see this in Him first, and in seeing it in Him we see it in absolute perfection; then we cannot happily or spiritually accept anything less.
The first mark of a man who is full of the Holy Spirit is dependence upon God, and all the exercises God puts His people through in the wilderness are to teach us that important [p. 117] lesson. Man can only live by communications from God. Man is always trying to live on something that really cannot be made into food; but God is teaching each one of us that we must live on divine communications. Happy family conditions will not satisfy you: you must have something from God and then you will begin to live. Most Christians appreciate how good it is to read a little Scripture and have a little prayer before starting out in the morning. When you get something which is really food for your spirit you feel fortified, and it is really wonderful how one finds that God gives exactly what you need for the circumstances of the day. “Every scripture” is of great importance. An infidel who at one time was intimate with J.N.D. said that he had never met a man who was so purposed in his heart that not one word of Scripture should be a dead letter to him. He once asked J.N.D., ‘What would have been lost had what Paul said to Timothy about bringing the books and parchments been omitted?’ J.N.D. said that that verse just helped him with regard to his not disposing of his library. A sister once said to me, ‘My religion is to go to meetings’. Meetings are not everything, we must have personal communications from Him, and when you receive a divine communication you then turn it into prayer. You are handling in this way a draft from the bank of heaven, and it will be honoured! God says, ‘It is My currency; it bears My image and superscription and I must honour it’.