Jesus is Tested in the Wilderness

Take Every Passage to Prayer - Volume 2, The Gospels
^{Monday June 03, 2024}

Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13

Effective ministry by humans requires two critical elements:

• We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We can do nothing without Him. We cannot bear fruit without Him. (John 14:12, Romans 8:11, John 15:18-16:4, John 16:8-15, Galatians 5:22-23). If we do not have the Holy Spirit, we simply will not be able to touch any life for Christ. We need to give evidence of our transformed hearts by how we act and speak differently as we are led by the Holy Spirit. Our character needs to be different than the godless people surrounding us.
• We need to have our character proven during a challenging time in our life. It is one thing to have a godly character when life is easy. It is quite something else to have a godly character when life is hard. It is when people watch us suffer, and witness that our faith does not waver during that suffering, and that we continue in the peace and joy of Christ, that they conclude that our faith is genuine, and the presence of the Holy Spirit is confirmed. We need a testimony that our faith remained strong in a season of hardship.

With these two elements in place, I can share the gospel effectively with Joe Schmoe because he sees my godly character and he knows my godly character survived an intense time of suffering. He concludes there is depth to my godly character and to my beliefs and, therefore, my faith is genuine and authentic.

In the last passage we studied, we learn that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit at the Jordan River after His baptism by John the Baptist. We also learned that You encouraged Him, giving Him the comfort that You loved Him, and that You were pleased with Him. This awareness of Your deep love and pleasure with Him was vitally important as Jesus was about to experience oppressive temptation.

In this passage, we witness that Jesus’ godly character, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, is proven as His faith remained strong despite having suffered through intense temptation by Satan . The text tells us that the Holy Spirit led Jesus to a rendezvous with Satan where Jesus faith would be proven for all of posterity.

Father, many of us are “good Christians” when we are getting good sleep, enjoying good food, and experiencing a season of health. However, when we get exhausted or hungry or sick, our characters often change. We become grumpy and irritable and say and do things we regret that we wouldn’t normally say and do when we are feeling better.

With this in mind, we see in this passage that Jesus was pushed to the limits of His endurance. He fasted for forty days and He was no doubt “starving”, as we would say it in 21st century America. If I, the weak and sinful man that I am, was in that situation, I would no doubt have said something like:

“Ok. I’m done. I don’t care about ministry anymore. I just want food. Now. I’ll give anything for food.”
Father, the battle between Jesus and Satan was waged on the battlefield of the Word of God. Who knew Your character better, as revealed by knowledge of the scripture? Apparently, Satan thought he could win the argument, citing just the right passage of scripture that would lead Jesus to say, “Hey, you are right. I didn’t think of that.”

Satan was in battle against the Word, and the Word was with You, and the Word was You (John 1:1). In essence, Satan was arguing with the author of the book about the author’s intent when He wrote a passage in the book. This was not one of Satan’s brightest moments, a losing strategy destined to failure.

However, Satan was not attempting to lead the Son of God into rebellion. That was an impossible task (James 1:13). He was attempting to lead Jesus, the Son of David, the human with flesh and bones, into temptation. If Jesus the man would give into temptation, the entire Word of God, which was centered upon the saving grace that comes to believers from the death and resurrection of the sinless Son of David, would collapse. If Jesus’ human side had sinned, His own sin would have to be punished and He would not be able to be the substitute for any other human on the cross. Every one of us would be doomed.

Therefore, Satan fired every weapon he had in his arsenal at Jesus. If Jesus had lived in 21st century America, Satan would have bombarded Him with drugs, alcohol, pornography, women, gambling, narcissism, post-modernism, greed, gluttony, violence, corruption, and much more. Jesus had to “go down” and I suspect an all-points bulletin was flashed to every dark corner in the spiritual world for demons to come running to join in the effort.

The attack on Jesus was three-fold:

• Satisfy the lusts of the flesh . “You are hungry, Jesus. Your hunger needs to be satisfied. Since You are God, turn these stones into bread. Go through life acting impulsively and spontaneously on Your every feeling and satisfy Your every desire. It’s Your life - do with it whatever You want. Oh, and by the way, if You live this way, I will give You every desire a man could ever want. The money. The women. The servants.”
  
  Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV): “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Jesus said that a full life of peace and contentment does not come from satisfying our every desire but from obeying God’s every command.
  
• Temptation 2A - Turn yourself into a celebrity. After leading Jesus to the top of the temple, which was about 200’ above the valley floor, Satan said (paraphrased): “Jesus, turn Yourself into a celebrity. Do tricks for people. Like jump off this roof and survive without a scratch. It will amaze people. They will think You are so cool. Become a performer and dazzle people with all the ‘magic’ You can do. Imagine the receipts. You can cash in on being the Son of God and make yourself rich and famous. After all, it’s Your life - do with it whatever You want. If You live this way, I’ll turn You into a star! You’ll be on the cover of every issue of Vanity Fair.”
  
  Temptation 2B - Doubt the faithfulness of Your Father. “Does God really have Your back? Would He really protect You from all harm? Go ahead and jump off this roof and fall 200’. Will the Father really protect You? After all, He promised:
  
  For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12 (NIV)
  
  “Are You too scared to jump off this roof, Jesus? I bet You are doubting the Father’s faithfulness, aren’t You? You do realize that doubt is sin. Are You a sinner, Jesus?” (Paraphrased)

Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16 (NIV): “Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.” Jesus said we are not to doubt God’s character under any circumstance. We know He is faithful, and we don’t need to test if He is.

• Become the god of this world. Satan took Jesus to a high mountain, telling Him that all of the kingdoms that can be seen to the horizon, in every direction, belong to Satan. Satan will make Jesus the king of them all if Jesus worships Satan . “Jesus, You will be god to the people of the earth. I’ll make everyone worship you. Guess what? You won’t have to go through all the suffering and persecution of the cross. Just change Your allegiance from the Father to me, and all of the leaders of the world will fear You and bow at Your feet.” (Paraphrased).
  
  There are many fascinating details in this temptation.
  
• Satan has a point. In John 14:30, Jesus declares that Satan is the “prince of this world.” It is his world, to some extent. However, perhaps in reference to this very temptation in this passage, Jesus also says that Satan has “no hold over me.” (NIV) Jesus did NOT give in to Satan’s temptation.
• Satan was mimicking God. Where did God meet with His people? On His mountain. See Genesis 22, Exodus 3, Exodus 4, Exodus 18, Exodus 19, Exodus 24, Exodus 34***, Numbers 10, Numbers 20, Numbers 27, Deuteronomy 5, Deuteronomy 9, Deuteronomy 33, 1 Kings 19, Psalm 2, Psalm 3, Psalm 15, Psalm 24, Psalm 36, Psalm 43, Psalm 48, Psalm 87, Psalm 99, Isaiah 2, Isaiah 11, Isaiah 25, Isaiah 27, Isaiah 30, Isaiah 40***, Isaiah 56, Isaiah 57, Isaiah 65, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 20, Ezekiel 43, Daniel 11, Micah 4, Zechariah 8, Matthew 28, Mark 9. Satan is literally imagining himself on God’s throne as he is tempting Jesus.
• This is the polar opposite of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18 (NIV). In the Great Commission, Jesus says: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’ Satan is now claiming that all authority on earth has been given to him. Jesus already has the authority (and more, including all authority in heaven) that Satan offers to give him. It is like, in a miniscule way, offering a man who is already a member of the US Olympic Ski team a bribe to make it onto the ski team. The bribe has no power when the bribee already has what the briber is offering.
• Jesus already knew His destiny - every knee will bow before Him. (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11). This included all the leaders throughout the globe and throughout history. Once more, Satan is offering Jesus something Jesus had already been given.

Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 4:8 (NIV): Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Jesus tells us that the recipe for satisfaction in life is for us to fear You and to serve You only. This is the description of confession, repentance, and surrender.

With this last temptation, Satan was out of bullets. He had failed to hit the target and put to spiritual death He who was destined to crush his head (Genesis 3:15). To tell the truth, Satan may have hit the target perfectly. However, Jesus was armed with the Word of God, and He was protected against all of Satan’s lies. The bullets never penetrated His soul. Regardless, Satan had to flee from Jesus to lick his wounds from the lost battle (James 4:7). Father, You know all things, including things that occur in the future. I do not doubt that when You told Jesus You were well-pleased with Him, You knew He would be victorious in His battle against Satan in the wilderness that would immediately follow.

We can be confident that if we desire to do Your work, Satan will tempt us as well in order to derail our ministry (2 Timothy 3:12). Since Satan is not omnipresent (Job 1:6) , he will most likely assign our temptation to the demons who answer to him. Satan gets directly involved with tempting those who are most dangerous to him, such as the Son of David, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

We can have confidence when we are experiencing temptation. We too, like Jesus, can be victorious. I Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God will not let us experience temptation greater than what we can bear. He always provides a way out so that we can endure it. The way out of temptation?
Finally,

• Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
• Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then,
• with the belt of truth buckled around your waist,
• with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
• and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
• In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
• Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
• And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:10-18 (NIV)

The war wasn’t over yet, at least in Satan’s mind. The text tells us that Satan didn’t quit trying to defeat Jesus. He merely retreated to regroup and attack Jesus again at the next opportune time. Amen.