A WORTHLESS OFFER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1903

A WORTHLESS OFFER.

WHEN Jesus was in the wilderness of temptation, physically weak by fasting, alone, and apparently without a friend in all the universe, Satan came to Him with advice. He told the “Man of Sorrows” how to supply His lack of food. “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread,” said the adviser. This would be a quick means of supplying a pressing need, and entirely within the power of the suffering One—if He was the Son of God.

Again, if He was the Son of God, the promised Messiah, He ought to be demonstrating that fact to the world. His pitiable plight in the wilderness forty days after His mission had been publicly announced by John the Baptist, might indicate that the announcement was a mistake, or that Jesus did not know how to make His position felt and appreciated by the people. So His new adviser suggested a way to make a decided impression. If He would jump from one of the high pinnacles of the temple, and light down among the people unhurt, they would be convinced.

Failing in these devices, the adversary made the seemingly deserted One a most extraordinary offer. Showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, he said, “All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.” But perishable kingdoms and their fading glory had no attraction for the Son of God, who, notwithstanding His forlorn appearance and apparent helplessness in the wilderness, was even then establishing a kingdom destined to destroy and supersede them all, and to stand forever. He knew that the offer was utterly worthless of itself, besides being a device to wean Him away from an invaluable inheritance.

But, notwithstanding the worthlessness of the things offered to Christ as a bribe for His allegiance, and notwithstanding the Saviour’s prompt and decisive rejection of it, the same tempting bait is still being held out to the world in contrast with the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ. And the deplorable feature of the situation is that so many, even of the professed disciples of Christ, are being allured by the glamour of the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. There are so many who will compromise truth for the sake of even a subordinate position in the kingdoms of the world; there are so many who seek such positions that they may wield even a modicum of power over their fellow-men. But Christ declined even the dominion of them all. He spurned the position offered to Him by the adversary. Shall not His disciples follow His example?

It is not only so of the political positions of the world, but also of all that pertains to the world. The man who made a business of indulging every feature of worldly pleasure and worldly gain, has declared that it is all “vanity and vexation of spirit.” See Ecclesiastes 2. But the possession of even the kingdoms of this world—all of them, and the glory of them—is a worthless gift, so considered by Him who knows all about them, and will soon destroy them. Yet that is all that the enemy of Christ has to offer. To allow even all of this world to sway one from the prospect of an everlasting inheritance is the extreme of folly. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”