Luke 4:5-8 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.… Put a bit of broken glass, or a shred of worthless mica, in a ploughed field, and let the sun shine upon it, and it sparkles as vividly as that gem which "spills its drop of light" on the finger of beauty. "Afar off," it is a glory: near, just a bit of broken glass, or shred of mica. My dear friends, beware of the "glory," the "splendour" that seems to show very substantially at a distance, but which needs only to be approached to prove unreal. I remember very well how, up in the Italian and Styrian Alps, many an apparent sky-kissing range of yet mightier Alps seemed to tower, white and lustrous, over what we had deemed the loftiest peaks. They were but vanishing clouds, climbing higher than the peaks, but with no base — showing fair, glitteringly, astonishingly, unutterably beautiful, but carrying within them the rain that drenches, and the lightning that smites and the blast that loosens the roaring avalanche. "Take heed" to this artifice of the world's "show" at a distance and from the mountain. top. There is delusion and peril in the "splendour." (A. B. Grosart.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. |
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