Immediately after His baptism "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert" (Matt. iv. 1).
1. Our Lord was subject to all the conditions of human life; and it was in accordance with law that He should prepare Himself by retirement and mortification for a great supernatural career, and for the temptation that is associated with it. The messenger of God must go straight from the Divine Presence to his task.
2. The lawgiver of the Old Testament, just before delivering the law and organizing Israel into a nation, retired alone to the recesses of the mountains, and spent forty days face to face with God. With the same solemnity the Lawgiver of the New Testament prepared Himself to proclaim the universal Kingdom of God.
3. The first epoch of human history had commenced with a personal struggle between the father of the race and the spirit of evil; a like struggle had to take place at the opening of the second epoch. Satan again girded himself to overthrow the divine plan, and hoped to succeed against the second Adam as against the first. You also have a work to do which requires all your vigilance and energy. Critical moments will occur in your life when you have to choose between God and Satan, and the nature of the issues is obscure. You cannot develop the necessary capacity on a sudden. It must be the fruit of a previous preparation like that of Our Lord.
