Article January 20, 1945 Issue

Meeting Temptation

MYRTLE R. BIGGINS

The Gospel records give us an insight into the method used by Christ Jesus in dealing with evil suggestions. He squarely faced and nullified them. His clear spiritual sense enabled him to detect at once the false argument, and his listening ear always heard the voice of Truth. Then he followed without hesitation the divine guidance. In Matthew we read, "Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." Because divine Mind governed his thinking and actions, his reply came instantly, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

The three temptations met no response in the thought of Jesus. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 42), "Because of the wondrous glory which God bestowed on His anointed, temptation, sin, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus." Consequently he was prepared to enter on his sublime and tremendously successful work of healing and revealing to humanity the everlasting victory of Truth over error, Love over hate, and Mind over matter. Following this strengthening experience in the wilderness, Jesus went forth clothed with power to conquer every phase of error and to prove man's dominion over evil.

Some time later the Master was placed in a situation similar to the one he had had in the wilderness, where the devil, evil, had bidden him cast himself from the pinnacle. We read in the Gospel of Luke that he came down into Galilee and taught in the synagogues and his fame spread abroad. But when he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and read and expounded the Scriptures in their synagogue, the people rose up in wrath, resisting the truth which he was teaching. And so again error, manifested this time as malice and hate, attempted to destroy him.

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Children of Light
January 20, 1945
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