4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
MacArthur talks about two reasons for the temptation of Jesus.
since Matthew is always concerned with presenting Jesus as King, he here wants to show Jesus in conflict with the other great monarch in the universe [Satan], to show that Jesus defeats him, that Jesus has control over him, that he is nothing but a, but a subject, to Christ's power and authority. And so the test first of all comes ah, to prove the royalty of Christ, to prove the Deity of Christ, to affirm that He is the King. Secondly, I believe it is included in the Word of God as a demonstration of victory over sin, to show how the believer is to tackle the situation of peirasmos, testing and temptation.
By resisting and overcoming temptation, Jesus proves His deity and royalty as the King of Kings.
And He gives us a living example of 1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
God always provides a way out. There is always a way to resist and overcome temptation. And what I love about this passage is that Jesus always fought temptation with the very Word of God, with scripture. That is why it's so important to read, study and memorize scripture - that's how we fight the enemy, that's how we resist temptation. If we don't know it, it's going to be pretty hard to resist. Psalm 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Notice how Satan almost always tempts us using "if".
He doesn't say, You are the Son of God right out, he says, if You are, implying that there needs to be the proving of it. If he can create doubt about the reality of the standard, doubt about the authority figure involved he can lessen the concern of the one being tempted. So he tempts us with his evil whispers, breathing doubt into our souls, doubts about who we are in Christ, doubts about the veracity of God's revelation, doubts about God's power, doubts about God's love, doubts about our conversion, if thou be a child of God. Doubts about our inabilities, doubts about our strengths. He suggests again and again the terrible if, harassing the soul of a man with fear, with perplexing doubt. He knew Jesus was God's Son, and Jesus knew Jesus was God's Son but that didn't stop Satan from starting with if. Always questioning, always wanting to plant doubt.
And here Satan tries to get Jesus to distrust God. If You are the Son of God, why are you so hungry? Why isn't God caring for you? He's trying to destroy the Son's confidence in the Father. The sin wouldn't have been in satisfying His human hunger. And if Jesus had acted out of distrust for His Father it would've created an irreparable rift in the trinity. Can you even imagine?!
But Jesus responds with scripture. “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
You are better off, He says to obey God end to depend on God and to wait for God's sustenance than to grab some satisfaction, in this physical world. He relied on Scripture, it is written. And He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 That text in Deuteronomy 8 pictures Moses.Moses is reminding Israel of God's tender care for His people during the wilderness journeys. ... You don't need to mistrust God, you don't need to gripe, you don't need to complain God is gonna take care of you, God is gonna supply for you, you don't need to be complaining and worrying about getting your satisfaction, you live by God's Word and God will honor your obedience and take care of your needs. That's what Jesus was saying. A man is better off to obey the Word of God, and then count on the wonderful providential sustenance of God than he is to let his own desire and lust cause him to grab satisfaction that he knows is against the will of God because he thinks he deserves it. Oh, we get that temptation a lot. We could paraphrase it this way, Satan, Jesus says, you are proceeding on a false assumption, and that false assumption is that for a man, in order to appease hunger and stay alive he's gotta have bread, that is wrong, over against this erroneous idea I now declare to you that it is not bread, but it is the creative, energizing, sustaining power of God that is the only real source of any mans existence.
The principle Jesus demonstrates here must be the principle in our life too. We must affirm our absolute confidence in God's care, and that we will never bend to fulfill our own satisfaction at the expense of disobedience or distrust.
So Satan continues in his temptations - if Jesus really trust God, prove it, by throwing Himself off the cliff trusting that God would save Him. He even quotes (misquotes technically) Psalm 91:11-12. Satan quotes scripture. And if we are not familiar with scripture and the context in which it's said, how can we fight against that? Jesus counters with accurate scripture, refusing to presume on God or to force God's hand.
Then Satan finally gets to what he really wants - he wants Jesus to worship Him. And so he offers Him what is actually God's will - for all the kingdoms in the world to be His. That is God's will for Jesus. But certainly not by those means! In order to shortcut the cross, He'd have to forfeit His soul to the devil.
Don't we try to do that so often? We justify the means because the end is of God.
Don't almost all our temptations fit into these 3 categories? Doubting God's providential care and lusting after things of the flesh, presuming on God and especially on His grace for our sin, and wanting to fulfill goals on our own selfish terms and methods.
One thing that I love is that after Jesus resisted temptation, He told Satan to get lost and he did, and then the angels came and ministered to Him. Perhaps they brought Him food, they definitely brought Him worship.
Some things to remember....
Watch for temptation at the high points of your spiritual life, or when you just embark on the beginning of a new ministry. It's in the exhilaration of those moments that Satan wants to knock you down. No sooner was Christ out of the water of baptism than He was in the fire of temptation....
Secondly be careful of times of weakness and times when you're in evil surroundings. Jesus was in the wilderness and He was weak, and Satan came...
Thirdly, watch for your Strengths, for they're the things Satan likes to push into sin....
Fourth, watch for the subtlety of temptation...And I would sum it up by saying be alert....Watch and then pray.
Finally know the Word. The Word is the sword, the Word is the sword.
The temptation of Jesus by Satan failed, the test by God succeeded. Jesus came out the victorious King.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 4:12-25
1 comment:
Great post. I love the point you made that Satan uses Scripture as part of his strategy. It is easy sometimes to hear or read a verse out of context and use it to support a misleading or outright false argument. All the more reason to read, study, and memorize, as you said.
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