Humility – Jesus in the Wilderness

Some of you may remember that I’m slowly studying Humility by Andrew Murray and reading through the Gospels while paying attention to His humility. I thought perhaps you all would like to read a few notes I’ve been making as I go:

Matthew 4:5-7: Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus said unto him, “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ ”

Not only is Satan misquoting verses on Psalm 91 here, it wasn’t until a friend told me about this verse (I’m slowly working my way through the Gospels but I haven’t gotten to the end yet) that I realized how many angels Jesus had that He could have called, but didn’t:

Matthew 26:53: “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?”

Legion: “a military division varying at times from 3,000 to 6,000 foot soldiers, with additional cavalrymen.” (Thank you, Webster’s dictionary.) So, my friend encouraged me to do the math here. At the very least, 3,000 X 12 = 36,000, and at the most, 6,000 X 12 = 72,000.

And He said “more than.”

That’s a lot of angels.  😮

Just think, when the mobs surrounded Him, when Satan tempted Him, and when He was sent up to Cavalry to be crucified, He could have called 36,000 – 72,000 angels – or more! – to deliver Him.

But He didn’t, because it wasn’t His will – it was the Father’s will He obeyed. Now that is what I call humility.