) 1888.

{171}

LXVIII

POWER AND TEMPTATION

_Matthew_ iv. 1-11.

All these temptations of Jesus came to him through the very sense of
power of which he could not but be aware. Here was this great
consciousness of capacity in him to do wonders, to display himself, to
get glory. How should he use his gifts? Should it be for himself, for
honor, for praise, or should it be for service, for sacrifice, for God?
The devil's temptation was that Jesus should take the gifts of which he
was conscious and make them serve his own ends of ambition or success.
The first great decision in the work of Jesus Christ was the decision
of the end to which his powers should be dedicated; the use to which
his powers should be put.

The same fundamental decision comes to every young man in his own
degree. Here are your gifts and capacities, great or small. What are
you to do with them? Are they for glory or for use? Are they for
ambition {172} or for service? The sooner that decision is made the
better. Some people have never quite done with that temptation of the
devil. They go on trying to direct their gifts to the end of
reputation, or wealth, or dominion; and they attain that end only to
find that it is no end, and that their lives, which should have grown
broader and richer, have grown shrunken, and meagre, and unsatisfied.
Such a life is like a fish swimming into the labyrinth of a weir. It
follows along the line of its vocation until the liberty to return
grows less and less; and, at last, in the very element where it seems
most free, it is in fact a helpless captive. The man's occupation has
become his prison. He is the slave of his own powers. The devil has
withered that life with his touch.

And then, on the other hand, you turn to lives which have given
themselves to the life of service, and what do you see? You see their
capacity enlarged through use, you see small gifts multiplied into
great powers. Few things are more remarkable in one's experience of
life than to see men who by nature are not extraordinarily endowed
achieve the highest success by sheer dedication of their {173} moderate
gifts. Their capacities expand through their self-surrender, as leaves
unfold under the touch of the sun. They lose themselves and then they
find themselves. The devil tempts these men, not with a sense of their
greatness, but with their self-distrust; yet he tempts them in vain.
Their weakness issues into stre