The devil said to him, "I will give you all this authority, and their glory, for it has been delivered to me; and I give it to whomever I want.

 We must not think that the three temptations came and went like scenes in a play. We must rather think of Jesus deliberately retiring to this lonely place and for forty days wrestling with the problem of how he could win men. It was a long battle which never ceased until the cross and the story ends by saying that the tempter left Jesus--for a season. 