You know a man whom you look up to with profound regard and reverence. Not only this, {130} but his unfailing goodness to you under many and various conditions has claimed and won your deepest love and gratitude. This man has an enemy, a despicable character, universally known to be devoid of every sentiment of common decency and honour, who has for years scrupled at no means, even the foulest and most contemptible, to injure the object of his hate. You know these facts to be true, and have yourself had the misfortune to have many dealings with him, and have always found that his actions justify the low opinion that all right-thinking men have of him. One day this creature has the audacity to approach you, and try deliberately to turn you against your benefactor, and to induce you to consent to something that would be to the dishonour and contempt of the one to whom you owe so much. How long would you listen to him? Do you think you would stop to weigh calmly the arguments for and against his proposition? Or would you not, without a moment's hesitation, turn upon him with indignation, and drive the contemptible creature from your presence, with a sense of loathing, almost of contamination, that you had been made to listen to such a suggestion? We do not have to go far to find a key to the parable. The benefactor whom we regard with {131} so deep a reverence is our loving heavenly Father, who has claimed and won our love through the goodness and mercy with which He has followed us all the days of our life. The enemy whose age-long efforts have ever been for His dishonour is the devil, who seeks to make us the instrument by which he would dishonour God. When illustrated thus, the audacity of the tempter, and the insulting character of every temptation, are made plain. This simple parable will surely enable us to grasp the relations between God and ourselves and Satan, and with this realization fresh upon us, we can go on to consider some of the special methods we may use to overcome God's enemy and ours. II. _The Divine Example of Humility_ It is interesting to note that when our Lord was assailed in the wilderness by the Tempter, His method of resistance was to turn immediately to the consideration of His Father's word. He did not address Himself to the pros and cons of the Satanic suggestion. He inflicts instant and crushing defeat upon His adversary by turning His attention, not to the character of the temptation, but straight to the will of the Father. {132}