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Selected Messages Book 1
skillfully devised, did not move the integrity of God’s dear Son. His
abiding confidence in His Father could not be shaken.
Christ Did Not Parley With Temptation
Jesus did not condescend to explain to His enemy how He was
the Son of God, and in what manner, as such, He was to act. In an
insulting, taunting manner Satan referred to the present weakness and
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the unfavorable appearance of Christ in contrast with his own strength
and glory. He taunted Christ that He was a poor representative of the
angels, much more of their exalted Commander, the acknowledged
King in the royal courts. His present appearance indicated that He was
forsaken of God and man. He said if Christ was indeed the Son of God,
the monarch of heaven, He had power equal with God, and He could
give him evidence by working a miracle and changing the stone just
at His feet into bread, and relieve His hunger. Satan promised that, if
Christ would do this, he would at once yield his claims of superiority,
and that the contest between himself and Christ should there be forever
ended.
Christ did not appear to notice the reviling taunts of Satan. He was
not provoked to give him proofs of His power. He meekly bore his
insults without retaliation. The words spoken from heaven at His bap-
tism were very precious, evidencing to Him that His Father approved
the steps He was taking in the plan of salvation as man’s substitute and
surety. The opening heavens, and descent of the heavenly dove, were
assurances that His Father would unite His power in heaven with that
of His Son upon the earth, to rescue man from the control of Satan,
and that God accepted the effort of Christ to link earth to heaven, and
finite man to the infinite.
These tokens, received from His Father, were inexpressibly pre-
cious to the Son of God through all His severe sufferings and terrible
conflict with the rebel chief. And while enduring the test of God in
the wilderness, and through His entire ministry, He had nothing to do
in convincing Satan of His own power, and of His being the Saviour
of the world. Satan had sufficient evidence of His exalted station. His
unwillingness to ascribe to Jesus the honor due to Him, and manifest
submission as a subordinate, ripened into rebellion against God, and
shut him out of heaven.