It Is Written

It  Is  Written

Uranda   January 12, 1949

Now we note a very interesting and significant point.  "But He answered and said, It is written."  Jesus could have answered in words that had not been written before.  He could have used His Own expression, but His every answer to the tempter was a quotation from something God had already expressed to the children of men through His Prophets.  Jesus did not find it necessary to say anything that had not already been said and made available to the children of men, in order to meet the temptations which confronted Him.  The significance of this is shown, first, by the fact that God had already made provision for the meeting of the tempter's snares long before the coming of our LORD in the flesh; and, secondly He Who was, and is, the LORD of Lords was ready and willing to quote from the Word of God already expressed.  He did not feel that He had to make it original, and something peculiarly His own, to make it effective. 

The Word that had already been written was the word that He used.  "But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."  The significance of that Word, in the fourth verse, which the Master quoted from the third verse of the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, should come home with a new realization to each one here tonight.  "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

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