122
The Truth About Angels
angels. He must personally conduct the warfare.—
The Desire of Ages,
116
.
While in the wilderness, Christ fasted, but He was insensible to
hunger.... He spent the time in earnest prayer, shut in with God. It
was as if He were in the presence of His Father.... The thought of the
warfare before Him made Him oblivious to all else, and His soul was
fed with the bread of life.... He saw the breaking of Satan’s power over
fallen and tempted ones. He saw Himself healing the sick, comforting
the hopeless, cheering the desponding, and preaching the gospel to the
poor—doing the work that God had outlined for Him; and He did not
realize any sense of hunger until the forty days of His fast were ended.
The vision passed away, and then, with strong craving, Christ’s
human nature called for food. Now was Satan’s opportunity to make
his assault. He resolved to appear as one of the angels of light that had
appeared to Christ in His vision.—
Manuscript Releases 21:8, 9
.
Suddenly an angel appears before Him [Christ], apparently one of
the angels that He saw not long since.... The words from heaven, “This
is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” were still sounding
in the ears of Satan. But he was determined to make Christ disbelieve
this testimony.—
Manuscript Releases 21:9
.
Satan appeared to Him [Christ] ... as a beautiful angel from heaven,
claiming that he had a commission from God to declare the Saviour’s
[172]
fast at an end.—
The Review and Herald, January 14, 1909
.
He [Satan] told the Redeemer that He need fast no longer, that
His long abstinence was accepted by the Father, that He had gone
far enough, and that He was at liberty to work a miracle in His own
behalf.—
The Signs of the Times, July 29, 1889
.
Believing that the angelic character he [Satan] had assumed defied
detection, he now feigned to doubt the divinity of Christ.—
The Spirit
of Prophecy 2:91
.
The First Temptation
Satan reasoned with Christ thus: If the words spoken after His
baptism were indeed the words of God, that He was the Son of God,
He need not bear the sensations of hunger; He could give him proofs
of His divinity by showing His power in changing the stones of that