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Selected Messages Book 1
did not require Him to pass through self-denial and the sufferings He
anticipated; that he had been sent from heaven to bear to Him the
message that God only designed to prove His willingness to endure.
Satan told Christ that He was only to set His feet in the bloodstained
path, but not to travel it. Like Abraham He was tested to show His
perfect obedience. He also stated that he was the angel that stayed the
hand of Abraham as the knife was raised to slay Isaac, and he had now
come to save His life; that it was not necessary for Him to endure the
painful hunger and death from starvation; he would help Him bear a
part of the work in the plan of salvation.
The Son of God turned from all these artful temptations, and was
steadfast in His purpose to carry out in every particular, in the spirit and
in the very letter, the plan which had been devised for the redemption
of the fallen race. But Satan had manifold temptations prepared to
ensnare Christ, and obtain advantage of Him. If he failed in one
temptation, he would try another. He thought he would succeed,
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because Christ had humbled Himself as a man. He flattered himself
that his assumed character, as one of the heavenly angels, could not be
discerned. He feigned to doubt the divinity of Christ, because of His
emaciated appearance and unpleasant surroundings.
Christ knew that in taking the nature of man He would not be in
appearance equal to the angels of heaven. Satan urged that if He was
indeed the Son of God He should give him evidence of His exalted
character. He approached Christ with temptations upon appetite. He
had overcome Adam upon this point and he had controlled his descen-
dants, and through indulgence of appetite led them to provoke God by
iniquity, until their crimes were so great that the Lord destroyed them
from off the earth by the waters of the Flood.
Under Satan’s direct temptations the children of Israel suffered
appetite to control reason, and they were, through indulgence, led to
commit grievous sins which awakened the wrath of God against them,
and they fell in the wilderness. He thought that he should be successful
in overcoming Christ with the same temptation. He told Christ that
one of the exalted angels had been exiled to the world, and that His
appearance indicated that, instead of His being the King of heaven, He
was the angel fallen, and this explained His emaciated and distressed
appearance.