Here was One who came to do Another's will, to be perfectly obedient. If His Father wanted Him to be in a wilderness He would stay, and all the temptations in the world would not lure Him out. As for His lack of achievement, the time was soon coming when Palestine would ring with the accounts of His compassionate and powerful acts of deliverance. But never should any story of self-advertisement or personal aggrandisement be told. For here was One who came to seek another's glory, not His own. And so as with Ezekiel the vision faded, the scene changed, and He was back again amid the scrub and the sand, the owls and the jackals.

Yet, though twice baffled in his endeavour to corrupt the Son of God, the Arch-Tempter had one more attack to make upon His loyalty to His Father. It was all very well to offer to make Him King over Israel and the whole earth. But was not the price asked excessive? Solomon had been raised to the throne of Israel, but he had arrived there in the normal way, through inheritance and living in the palace, and becoming accustomed to the respect and grandeur due to the heir to the throne. But this road, through poverty, rejection and crucifixion, was absurd. Satan had never asked such things of anyone to whom he had handed over the kingdoms of this world. He had given them to Pharoah, to Nebuchadnezzar, to Alexander and Caesar, and the only payment he had ever asked was that they should acknowledge him as their Master, and walk in his ways. If Jesus would do the same He too should reap the same reward ...

But Satan had nothing to offer that Jesus wanted. Jesus desired the love, not the fear, of His subjects. He desired to please His Father, not Himself. He cared nothing for thrones and pomp and circumstance, but would rather gird Himself with a towel, and wash His subject's feet. He would ride into His capital on a colt's back—not surrounded