40 Days in the Wilderness (Part 2)

Second Temptation

You can live on heavenly bread; they can’t. Only by feeding them can you enslave them. Oh, right, you’ll say you don’t want slaves, you want sons. But whatever you call it, you want them to obey. And slaves and sons alike obey the one who feeds them.

But you’ll say that if they come to you merely for bread, they won’t be coming for your sake, only their bellies. And you want to be worshipped for your own sake, don’t you? Come, then, I’ll show you how to make it happen.

Jump down from here.

Don’t look at me like that, I don’t mean you should commit suicide. I mean that your father will send angels to catch you.

Consider: If everyone knows that God breaks all the rules of cause and effect for you, such that gravity and death itself have no power over you, they will worship you simply out of awe.

Better still, if they know you can get away with anything, they’ll believe they can, too. And that’s all they’ve ever really wanted, that kind of freedom. They will indeed be as gods, like I told them in the Garden. Why do you think they listened to me? I promised what you denied – unlimited knowledge, power, freedom, and no consequences. If you deliver on the promise I broke, they will all turn from me and follow you. Surely you aren’t too selfish to give them what they want? Surely you won’t keep that kind of freedom to yourself.

I know, you’ve forgone that freedom and made yourself limited like them. How does that help them? You don’t jump into the water to save a drowning man, you throw him a rope so he can climb up to where you are. They don’t WANT you to be a man, they want to be gods. I tell you, these apes of yours are much more like me than like you, and I know how they feel when they chafe at their limitations. Go on, jump! Show them Daddy will always bail them out.

YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD.

(To be continued...)

© John M. Munzer