Luke 4:2-4 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungry.… Here in this chapter the devil doth "strive to put out the very eye of God's providence," that he might shake Christ's faith, as it were, and drive Him to distrust. He accuseth His wisdom in our retirement and secret sins, and that with some scorn: "Tush, God doth not see it: nor is there knowledge in the Most High" (Psalm 73:11). He accuseth His justice, and puts stout words into our mouths when we deny our obedience: "It is in vain to serve the Lord: and what profit is there that we have kept His ordinances?" (Malachi 3:14.) He defames His mercy, when, remembering our sins, we fall under them, as a burden too heavy for us (Psalm 38:4), and as if God had "forgotten to be merciful" (Psalm 77:9). He roars loud against His very power in the mouth of a Rabshakeh, and would persuade the Israelites that to say God should deliver them was nothing else but to deliver themselves up to famine and thirst (2 Kings 18:30). He casts his venom upon all the Divine attributes, and makes them the inducements to sin, which are the strongest motives to goodness. He never presents God to us as He is, but in several forms and all such as may drive us from one attribute to run us on another. He presents Him without an eye, that we may do what we list; without a hand, that we may trust in a hand of flesh; without an ear, that our blasphemies may be loud. He makes us favourable interpreters of Him before we sin, and unjust judges of Him when we have sinned. He makes Him a libertine to the presumptuous, and a Novatian to the despairing, sinner; being a liar in all, whose every breath is a defamation. Nulla spud cum tuttis ratio vincendi, as was said of king Philip: "He is not ashamed of any lie that may lead us from the truth." And as he defameth God unto us, so in every sin almost he accuses us unto ourselves. In the heat of our zeal he accuseth us of madness, that we may be remiss; and in our meekness he chargeth us with folly, that we may learn to be angry. In our justice he calls us tyrants, that we may yield it up unto unnecessary pity; and in our compassion he urgeth the want of justice, that, to put on the new man, we may put off all bowels of mercy. He accuseth our faith to our charity, and persuades us that for all our good works we are none of the faithful; and our charity to our hope, as if it were so cold it could kindle no such virtue within us. From religion he drives us on to superstition, and from the fear of superstition into that gulf of profaneness which will swallow us up. And then, when he hath us in his nets, when he hath by accusing us unto ourselves made us guilty indeed, when by accusing our virtues he hath brought us to sin, he draws his bill of accusation, and for one sin writes down a hundred. (A. Farindon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. |
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