ense God
has given every one of us.

Did Jesus' wondrous, quiet calm nettle the tempter? Was He ever keener and
quieter? He would step from the substantial boat-deck to the yielding
water, He would cut Himself off from His Nazareth livelihood and step out
without any resources, He would calmly walk into Jerusalem when there was
a price upon His head, for so He was led by that Spirit to whose
sovereignty He had committed Himself. But He would do nothing at the
suggestion of this tempter. Jesus never used His power to show He had it,
but to help somebody. He could not. It is against the nature of power to
attempt to prove that you have it by using it. Power is never concerned
about itself, but wrapped up in practical service. There were no
theatricals about Jesus. He was too intensely concerned about the needs of
men. There are none in God-touched men. Elisha did not smite the waters to
prove that Elijah's power rested upon him, but _to get back across the
Jordan_ to where his work was needing him and waiting his touch. Jesus
would wear Himself out bodily in ministering to men's needs, but He
wouldn't turn a hair nor budge a step to show that He could. This is the
touch-stone by which to know all Jesus-men.

He rebukes this quotation by a quotation that breathes the whole spirit of
the passage where it is found. Thou shalt not _test_ God to see if He will
do as He promises. These Israelites had been testing, criticizing,
questioning, doubting God. That's the setting of His quotation. Jesus says
that love never tests. It trusts. Love does not doubt, for it _knows_. It
needs no test. It could trust no more fully after a test, for it trusts
fully now. Aye, it trusts more fully now, for it is trusting _God_, not a
_test_. Every test of God starts with a question, a doubt, a misgiving of
God. Jesus' answer to the second temptation is: love never tests. It
trusts. Jesus keeps true in His relation to His Father.

<u>The Devil Acknowledges the King.</u>

Another swift shift of the scene. Swiftness is a feature now. In a moment
of time, all the kingdoms, and all the glory of all the earth. Rapid work!
This is an appeal to the eye. First the palate, then the emotions, now the
eye. First the appetites, then the religious sense, now the ambition. The
tempter comes now to the real thing he is after. He would be a god. It is
well to sift his proposition pretty keenly, on general principles. His
reputation for truthfulness is n