Spurgeon's Sermon 2997 Tempted Of The Devil ... - APIBS Home

460Then saith the pirate, “Up with the black flag; now is our time for prizemoney.” And when you have been to baptism, or the Lord’s supper, or toprayer, and your soul has grown rich through fellowship with the LordJesus, “Now,” saith Satan, “it is my time. I will attack the heavenly-ladenship, and see what spoil I can get.”Not only had our Savior been devout and obedient, but he had also been inan exceedingly humble frame of mind. He was baptized by John. John said,“I have need to be baptized of thee;” but the Master puts it, “Suffer it to beso now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. “Talking ofwhat is booming! The Son of God speaking, not only of what is right, butof what is becoming and expedient! This shows how holy was his mind asto humbleness before God; and yet he was tempted. When we are proud,we may expect to be tempted; or, rather, we are tempted already, for thedevil hath at least one of the meshes of his net over us; but when we arehumble, when God has been pleased to make us lie low at the foot of histhrone, we perhaps think that now no temptation can come. Let us not bequite too sure. Where did Christians meet with Apollyon? Do youremember? It was in the Valley of Humiliation. Not on the mountain top,but in the valley, where the shepherd boy said he who was down needs fearno fall. The boy was right in one sense; but there are some of us who, inanother sense, need to be watchful and afraid even there. Satan doth sohate humility that he will spite all his venom on it; he doth so thoroughlyabhor that sweet flower, the perfume whereof God doth delight in, theprayer of a humble and contrite heart, that he will pour all his malice uponit. If thou hast had a broken heart, Satan and thou will never be friends, forthou dost fulfill the promise, “I will put enmity between thee and thewoman, and between thy seed and her seed.” God hath put an enmity,which never was in your heart before, between you and Satan. Yourbrokenness of heart is an evidence that God put that enmity there; of gracealone cometh such experience. Your antagonist, seeing that enmity againsthim in the fact of your humiliation and contrition before God, will do hisutmost to tempt you, if he can, to commit sin.We find that our blessed Lord was on this occasion favored with a divineseal and token of his Sonship. From the opened heavens, the Spirit, like adove, descended upon him, and a voice came from the excellent glory,saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Will he nowbe tried by the arch-fiend? Did the devil hear that? He has much too quickears not to have heard it. He therefore must have known that Christ was