THE KING’S BUSINESS
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were crises in the history o f America. The duel between Goliath and David was a crisis in the history of Israel; and this duel between the prince of the power o f the air, and the Lord Jesus Christ was a crisis in the history of our race. “ The Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness.” The word will not soften. It means what the Eng lish saith, “ The Spirit driveth Him.” In every fibre of the being of our Lord He shrank from the presence of the foul fiend. His sensitive holiness, His tenderness, His gentleness, everything in Him made Him shrink from con tact with the very climax of evil. So “ The Spirit driveth Him.” But read in the 10 th verse, “The Spirit like a dove descendeth upon Him.” The driving of the dove, no harsh ness, no severity. Matthew and Luke tell us He was led o f the Spirit. The Spirit’s leading is God’s driving. That is God’s compulsion, that is God’s must; and it drives not with the lash and the goad, but drives by the gentle influence of the dove. He deals with us gently and quietly and lovingly, “ I will guide thee with mine eye.” Keep near enough to see His eye, please, so that He may guide you by His ev ery look! There is to-day such a thing as be ing driven by the Spirit. Moses shrinking from the task was driven of Jehovah into Egypt. Wm. Carey was driven from his carpenter’s bench into Burmah. David Livingstone was driven from his native country into Africa. “ The love of Christ constrain- eth me.” I must go under the influ ence of that constraining^ power. Will it be out of place to speak a personal word? You ask me why I went to England. I can hardly tell you. I did not plan it. I had no thought of it. I received my first im pression to preach the Gospel by read ing Charles H. Spurgeon’s sermons in my father’s home. He was a moun
tain preacher, and he only had three or four books in his library, the Bible, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Cruden’s Concordance, and Cole ridge’s Poems (I never knew why!) and Spurgeon’s sermons as they came out volume by volume. He said to me more than once, for he preached the Gospel sixty nine years before he went to glory, “ All you need, my boy, are those four books. You burn up the rest o f your library, and you will be a better preacher.” I am inclined to think he was right! I did receive my inspiration to preach from Spurgeon’s sermons, but if anybody had told me that I might some time stand in Spur geon’s pulpit as the pastor of the Met ropolitan Tabernacle, I should have said, “ Impossible!” When the call came I stood bewildered, and I went because I could not help it. That is all I can say—just because I could not help it. I went shrinking, I went trembling, I went full of trepidation, believing that the God of Charles H. Spurgeon and John Wesley, and Whit field, and the rest of our fathers lived in England to-day. “ The Spirit driv eth Him.” Oh, let us be willing to be driven against our fleshly indulgence, against our plans, against all our scheming. Let us be willing to be driven even by the dove in gentleness and quietness of Spirit. Now let us go into it as far as time will permit; and you will see, as we study this testing of the Incarnation in the Temptation o f our Lord the purpose of Satan. Let me say first o f all,—bear it in mind—that the pur pose of Satan was to deflect Christ from the cross. He knew what the cross meant and his purpose was to destroy the sacrificial mission of our Lord, and to give Him any other mis sion however glorious. He made these three appeals. The first was to the physical nature; the second to the spiritual nature, the third—and we shall show you I think, a distinction
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