Newport weekly independent., 1903-04-17


 strength to bear, and Who sets door of escape at the side of every tempta- ton, which even the hand of Satan cannot close. A faithful God! Faith less man! God and His Son Jesus Christ alone have right to be called faithful. The saint falls heir to the title as he lives the life of victory in Christ Jesus. A faithful God has done two things for the sinner: He has put restraining hand upon Satan so that he has been unable throughout the centuries, since the tragedy in the garden when he gained the victory over man, to ut terly destroy him, and He has made a way of escape in Christ Jesus so that the soul can pass from death in sin to life in Christ Jesus. A faithful God has done two things for the saint: He has placed bounds to Sa- tan's power over him, and has fitted every temptation with convenient door of escape. Satan with fiendish ingenuity devises manifold tempta tions which he places along the path way of life to ensnare unwary feet, but God with skillful and omnipotent hand fits into every one of the temptations the door of escape.
 TN THE heroic days of old when might was right and every man was law unto himself, houses and castles were fitted with secret stair ways and secret chambers and clos cts into which the persons whose lives were threatened might with draw and escape the enemy. The doors of entrance to these hidden recesses were so skillfully and in- geniously placed that the eye could not detect their presence without the closest and most careful scrutiny, and then the door would not open un- til the hidden spring was pressed. This may serve to illustrate the truth in regard to temptation which is presented to us in our text. Tempta- | tion may be likened unto a beautiful | palace which Satan with ready hand rears and into which he may entice | the souls of the saints. Satan learned long, long ago how to gild his wares with tinsel and make them look like real gold; he found out away back in | Eden that man would take his bitter doses of sin if the pellets were sugar. coated. And so he embellishes his ! temptations with an outside appear ance of beauty and wholesomeness. 1 He depends altogether upon outside appearances. The palace of tempta- tion is a place that appears goodly to the eye and gives every outward token of being full of comfort and | pleasure and intending satisfaction. It is into this place that Satan draws the soul, and if he can prevent that soul from looking for the door of escape and touching the spring which will open it, he will trip that soul up every time.
 | Every temptation known o man has, according to the plain declaration of | our text, its door of escape, so let us consider that point settled and de- vote our effort to learning where to look for the hidden door and how to touch the spring which controls it's opening. God has so contrived that the door of escape shall always be on the side of hardest pressure, That is, the direction from which the temptation presses on the soul the strongest will be found to be the exact point at which God has skill fully hung His little door. Take for illustra tion of this point the tempta- l of in hn which cover the whole possible range of human temptation from the lust of the flesh, through the lust of the eye, to that of the pride of life. | I ESUS lasted forty days and forty J nights and was afterward an hungered. Satan suggested that in- asmuch as He was furnishing for food that He test His power as the Son of God by making the stones at His feet bread and eating thereof. And it was right at that point that Jesus found the door of escape, for He re- piled: ''It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which prOceedeth out of the mouth | or GOQ. ASdln uHc DcNIl ldhcuh IlIiii up into the holy city and setteth Him on pinnacle of the temple and sug- gested miraculous way of His pre- senting Himself to the Jews as their Messiah. Surely if He cast Himself into their midst from the dizzy height where He stood they would be- lieve on Him and receive Him. And it was at this point that the way of escape was discovered, for He said: "It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," for pre- sumption is never faith. Again the Devil taketh Him up into an exceed ing high mountain and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto Him, All of these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me- And again Jesus found that His Father had placed the door of escape at exactly the place where the temp 1 4.4:a,, ,,,ae.a1 tho ba1.dacf and He