Luke
4:5 (NKJV)
5Then
the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the
world in a moment of time.
Question-How
many kingdoms were around at that time?
Pulpit
Commentary-This temptation was something more than
"offering to One who had lived as a village carpenter the throne of the
world." It appealed to his ambition certainly, but in Jesus’ case it was a
high, pure, sinless ambition. This much he certainly knew already, that he
was destined to rule over men from pole to pole. It was for him a righteous
longing, this desire to have the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth as his possession. No false ambition was this in Jesus, this
desire to realize the glorious Messianic hope. Again, how typical a temptation!
All ranks and orders are often soon tempted here. A noble end as they think,
and in the beauty of the goal they forget that the road leading to it is paved
with evil and wrong.
Cf. the destiny of the Christian, 1
Corinthians 2:9 & 6:2-3
Does Satan try to sell Christians their
destiny after he has stolen it from them?
We are, obviously, not the Lord Jesus but I suspect the enemy uses the
same tactics over and again.
1 Corinthians 2:9 (quoting Isaiah 64:4 &
65:17) But as it is written; "Eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered in to the heart of man the things
which God has prepared for those who love Him." Though Paul continues that the Spirit reveals
these things, having searched the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 6:2-3 Do you not know that the saints will judge
the world? And if the world will be
judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this
life?
Note: Both these verses, that mention the amazing
destiny in store for the follower of Christ, are set in the context of a call
for humility and a call against strife and "one-upsmanship". Are we always trying to get what Mark Twain
called "mean little advantages over one another" and selling out for
much less than what was offered Jesus? I
could live and act and speak as an inheritor of the earth (the meek shall
inherit the earth), but instead are there not times when I sell that out for
some "mean advantage" over another person and make myself look at the
expense of another?
Mark Twain’s Thoughts On
Man
Mark
Twain shortly before his death wrote, “A myriad of men are born; they labor and
sweat and struggle;…they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for
little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities
follow; …those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to
aching grief. It (the release) comes at last—the only unpoisoned gift earth
ever had for them—and they vanish from a world where they were of no
consequence,…a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.”
Source
Unknown https://bible.org/illustration/mark-twain%E2%80%99s-thoughts-man
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