“The Case for Christ - Temptation” - (part 2)

Jehovah spoke in Ex 20:2-5 and said: ‘I am the Lord thy God...thou shalt have no other gods before Me...thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything...thou shalt not bow thyself to them and serve them.’ (Ex 20:2-5)

It is clear here that the Lord God was to be made the first consideration of the lives of His people - is it not?

Later, Moses, in rehearsing before them all of the Lord’s benefits that He had bestowed upon them, is encouraging them to make a choice - obviously, they were not heeding that word God had spoken but were changing their loyalty to idol worship.

And, so Moses said to them, in Deut 30:15 - Deut 30:15: ‘See, I have set before thee this day life and good and death and evil...’.

And, he went on to say, in v 19: ‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore, choose...’. 

Joshua, in Josh 24:15, cried out to the people of God, some time later on, the challenge of: ‘...choose ye this day whom ye will serve!’

And, Elijah spoke those terrible, summoning words to them when they stood at the crossroad of choice: ‘How long halt ye between two opinions? How long will you straddle the issue? Will you never cease to waver between two loyalties?...’.

And, then, he went on to point out the two issues: ‘If the Lord be God, then follow Him; if Baal [be God] then follow Him.’

The people of God were dishonoring God’s word - they were compromising the God-given prescription of life they were to follow.

Now - turn in your Bibles to Mt 4, and in verse one we read: ‘Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. and when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ 

Then in vs 5-6: ‘Then the devil took Him to the city and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘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 hand, so that you will not strike Your foot against a stone.’

Now - vs 8-9: ‘Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give You,’ he said, ‘if You will bow down and worship me.’

And, in v 11, after the temptation was over: ‘Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto Him.’

Now, turn over to Luke 4:14: ‘And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee:...’.

We saw last week why this scene came about: God, by the Holy Spirit, led His Son into this temptation setting where He would be inaugurating His earthly ministry.   

Ministry of what and where? - surely, in the wilderness, alone and before the devil, is no place to set in motion the ministry of the ages - or is it? So - to whom was He ministering? 

It becomes quite obvious that Jesus would minister to His Father first through this provocative ordeal. 

It was there, in the wilderness, not in the public eye, that He would start; it was there that He must first reinforce His loyalty and fidelity to His Father. 

It was there that He would disclose to His Father that He was able to sustain the enemy’s attacks, that He was well able to learn obedience to the completion of the Father’s plan by the things He would suffer under the enemy’s hand, and that He would be made in all things like unto His brethren.

And, for our study tonight, we also see that it was there that He would confirm to His Father His agreement to validate the divine prescription of human life and living. 

In this, He would be also ministering to man - be tried as a man regarding the issue of God’s spoken word in His first great commandment: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.’

The final and the overriding issue is what we hear Satan saying, in essence, to Jesus: ‘Choose this day whom you will serve!’

Look at Satan’s final appeal: he tried desperately, after failing in the first two attempts, to bribe Jesus with: ‘I will give you all my kingdoms...’!

Why? - Why such a bribe? Satan just wanted Jesus to bow down before him in worship.

‘Just bow down and worship me’, the devil petitioned.  

There are those who say that Jesus was tempted in the only three points in which anyone can be tempted: in appeals to the lust of the flesh, to the lust of the eye, and to the pride of life. 

The point is also made that Satan is ever working in these three areas of life, trying to entice man to sin.

Yes, we can agree with that when we look at each of the three strikes against Jesus individually, independently - I am sure that most would concur there, for - He was tempted ‘in all points like as we are, yet without sin.’    

We need to also remember this: even though some of Satan’s suggestions may seem small and trifling, the principle involved in each one is nothing short of rebellion against God, nothing short of rebellion against the divine prescription for man’s living and life, and, certainly, nothing short of rebellion against that place of consistent, tireless worship and service of God, the Most High, through Jesus Christ! 

That was the broad and the chief issue of this sustained temptation set before Jesus in the wilderness. 

This is what it was all about - Jesus was thoroughly tempted, yet He did not yield in letting His heart, His mind, and His soul focus upon Himself - He responded, instead, to the direction of the Holy Spirit. This is the side of the temptation I would like to address tonight, to see why this aspect of it is so significant. 

In the perfection of His humanity, Jesus was led into the wilderness ‘full of the Holy Ghost...and was led by the Spirit’. (Lu 4:1)

Understand, please, that that is the normal human life as God intended for man to live originally - it was the standard, the official way of living life, the divine prescription. Man was to be led by and to be full of, or controlled by, the Holy Spirit.

Man was to live in a loving, worshipful devotion to the God Who created Him, Who brought Him to life here on earth - and, he was equipped to do that by being led and directed by the Spirit.

For what other reason did God give that first and great commandment to worship Him only! 

He created life. He created a being whose mental and spiritual power, in order to come to a fullness of life, was to be controlled by the Holy Spirit and to be led through life by Him. That is living in His divine prescription. 

It was life to be lived in its highest sense. And, that life depends on divine sustenance and approval in all things. It depends on conformity with the divine will all the way around. It depends on feeding upon every word that proceeds from God’s mouth. That is the essence of worship and service to God.

The people in the Old Testament failed in this in spite of the repeated reminders by Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and others.

So, Jesus is seen here as such a man, full of the Holy Ghost, perfectly equipped in His fellowship with God, to face everything laid out before Him, as a ‘normal’ man should, and must, live.

He was in the wilderness, and He was also in the Spirit! He was a man who was to be tempted in that solitary setting of desolation, of physical need, of the temptation to change it all, to get out from under it all.

You can be sure that Jesus was confident, not in the strength of His human life apart from God, but He was confident in His humanity that had developed a relationship and a fellowship with God, His Father, over the past thirty years of his manhood.

If that had not been so, He would not have been blessed with the divine approval at His baptism and the seal of the Holy Spirit!  

And, yet, it was absolutely imperative that He faced that temptation alone with the full force - let me say, more accurately - the fullest, possible force of Satan’s forces to dissuade Him - to get Him to a place of an excruciating hard choice and decision!    

Thus, in the battlefield of His humanity, to whom would Jesus bow the knee? - that was the question that would be answered.

So - ‘Satan came to Him and he said: ‘If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.’

Since He had not eaten the past forty days, Satan tempted Him to use His power to turn stones into food. 

Actually, Jesus could have made bread of stones at any time during these past forty days if His hunger was the real issue. Had He really wanted to satisfy His hunger, Jesus could have done it without the temptation of the enemy.

Just because Jesus was enduring a keen bodily craving did not mean that the Holy Spirit was leading Him to use His power for that. Oh, no!

It would have been of no benefit to Him to merely save His life and throw His Father’s will aside.

If He did this now, what would He do when He would have the Cross to bear - would He yield to the temptation of calling angels to His side to relieve Him at that time?

The normal human life, of being led and controlled by the Spirit, depended on divine sustenance and on divine approval to turn stones into bread!

Satan came again, this time with the notion that since Jesus would not use His power to satisfy His physical need, then perhaps - since He is the Son of God - He would do something bold in showing His dependence upon God. 

‘If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. You can assume that God will keep His promise to protect You.’

The difficulty here is that the normal Spirit-filled life depends on conformity to God’s will: it purposely does not deviate from it. ‘God is not to be tempted’; ‘...neither let us tempt Christ...’ is His Word. (Deut 6:16; 1 Cor 10:9)

So, Jesus retained His dignity and perfect trust in His Father - He did not need to prove His relationship with Him with an act so presumptuous. 

It was at this point, as I stated earlier, that Satan’s actual objective finally spilled out with his bribe for Jesus to bow down to worship him - but that, too, was rejected.  

And, now, look what is said of Jesus in Luke 4:14: ‘Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee...’. He returned, ‘...armed with the power of the Spirit.’

All the pleading done by Moses, and by Joshua, and by Elijah, and all the others could not bring this unwavering loyalty about with the people. But it was demonstrated in this man, Jesus!

Now - how does this all impact us as Christians? And, I say it that way purposely, for only Christians can be under the full control of the Holy Spirit.

What was Satan trying to do in this agonizing temptation? 

Was it not that he was trying to persuade Jesus to distrust His Father’s providential care? Was he not trying to shift His loyalty and His dependence upon God by getting Jesus to use His power selfishly? Was he not trying to get Jesus to ‘...seek His own will’ and, thereby, fall to the worship of Satan?

But - it is in this temptation wherein Satan tried to persuade Him to sever His loyalty to God that Jesus verified for man this issue: a Christian’s life can be a life of worship and devotion to God. He can live by the divine prescription through the leading and control of the Holy Spirit and he can live it successfully!   

But, let me say this in regard to that truth: this normal Christian way can only come to its perfection as it faces temptation. And it can only be victorious over temptation by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Try to face it in any other way - and you are the loser - that I can guarantee!

We stand under the mastery of the Spirit of God in this matter of who gets our worship.

The Word of God says: ‘...Resist the devil, stand firm against him, and he will flee from you.’ (James 4:7) 

And, here, I would like to draw your attention to one more phase of the temptation setting: He had submitted Himself to God so it was not needful for Jesus to fight against the devil - all He did was refer the devil to the Scripture and then stood firm in the Scripture He quoted - they were words proceeding from the mouth of God and that was enough!

And, now notice verse 11 of Mt 4, after enduring the full force of the temptation: ‘Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him.’

True - it is not easy when we feel the weight to yield to the temptation of being taken up with ourselves. But Jesus has shown us that there is no need for defeat and there is no need to give in to that temptation when we live under God’s divine prescription. 

In fact, quite the opposite is true: in relationship and in fellowship with the living, victorious Christ over temptation, man is mightier than hell itself! For all heaven stands with us! Yes - as angels came and ministered unto Jesus, all the power of heaven stands with us in this.    

Let me read Col 2:8-10 that says: ‘So, ‘...beware, be on your guard: do not let your minds be captured by hollow and delusive speculations, following material ways of looking at things instead of following Christ. For it is in Him that God gives a full and complete expression of Himself within the physical limits that He set Himself in Christ.

So you have everything when you have Christ and you are filled with God through your union with Christ, Who is the authority over all authorities, and the supreme power over all powers.’ 

To this full assault of evil, Jesus answered strictly as a man, in this normal prescription of living life led by the Spirit of God as proof that man can live it exactly that way ‘without halting between two opinions, without wavering between two loyalties’!  AMEN!

Lord willing, we will continue next week in our study of Jesus. In the meantime, I urge you to let the Word of God dwell richly in you throughout this coming week. Let it work its wonderful work in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  

Let us pray!