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Temperance
Counsel which they once respected, they learn to despise. They put
on swaggering airs, and boast of liberty when they are the servants of
corruption. They mean by liberty that they are slaves to selfishness,
debased appetite, and licentiousness.
The Controversy Is On
—A great controversy is going on in the
world. Satan is determined to have the human race as his subjects,
but Christ has paid an infinite price that man may be redeemed from
the enemy, and that the moral image of God may be restored to the
fallen race. In instituting the plan of salvation, God has made it
manifest that He values man at an infinite price; but Satan is seeking
to make this plan of no effect, by keeping man from meeting the
conditions upon which salvation is provided.
When Christ began His ministry, He bowed on the banks of
Jordan, and offered a petition to heaven in behalf of the human
race. He had received baptism at the hands of John, and the heavens
opened, the Spirit of God in the form of a dove encircled His form,
and a voice was heard from heaven saying, “This is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The prayer of Christ for a lost
world was heard, and all who believe in Him are accepted in the
Beloved. Fallen men may through Christ find access to the Father,
may have grace to enable them to be overcomers through the merits
of a crucified and risen saviour.
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Significance of Christ’s Victory
—After His baptism, Christ
was led of the Spirit into the wilderness. He had taken humanity
upon Himself, and Satan boasted that he would overcome Him, as
he had overcome the strong men of the past ages, and he assailed
Him with the temptations that had caused man’s downfall. It was in
this world that the great conflict between Christ and Satan was to be
decided. If the tempter could succeed in overcoming Christ in even
one point, the world must be left to perish. Satan would have power
to bruise the heel of the Son of God; but the seed of the woman was
to bruise the serpent’s head: Christ was to baffle the prince of the
powers of darkness. For forty days Christ fasted in the wilderness.
What was this for? Was there anything in the character of the Son
of God that required such great humiliation and suffering? No, He
was sinless. All this humiliation and keen anguish were endured for
the sake of fallen man, and never can we comprehend the grievous
character of the sin of indulging perverted appetite except as we