Preached Sunday, November 7, 2010
from
Luke 4:1-13
Theme: The temptations our Lord suffered in the wilderness teach us important spiritual lessons about our own times of temptation to sin.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
I ask you to turn with me, this morning, to Luke 4. It’s there that we read of an important event in the earthly life of our Lord—something that occurred immediately after another important event.
The first important event was His baptism in the Jordan River. The Bible tells us that after He was baptized, “the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, ‘You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:21-22).
What a marvelous thing this was! But it was immediately afterward that something else happened—something that we might not have expected to occur after such an event. It was the event of His being led out by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The Bible tells us, in Luke 4:1-13;
Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written:
To keep you
and,
‘He shall give His angels charge over you,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
‘In their hands they shall bear you up,
And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’” Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time (Luke 4:1-13).
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This passage is very important to us as followers of Jesus; and one reason it is so important is because of what it teaches us about Jesus Himself.
If ever there was a passage that taught us about the full humanity of our Savior, it would be this one. After all, how could one who is declared to be the Son of God be subject to the temptations that human beings like us are subject to unless He Himself was also fully human? But because He was genuinely tempted to sin—just like we fallen human beings are—we can take great comfort in knowing that He truly is one of us!
But at the same time, this passage also teaches us about His full deity. He was tempted like we are—and more than that, was tempted with an intensity and to a degree that was far greater than anything we poor fallible creatures could ever endure. And yet, He did not sin. He was fully human; and so, He could genuinely be tempted to sin. And yet, His full humanity was joined to His full deity; so that though tempted, it was not possible that He could sin.1
I’m glad for this; aren’t you? You and I need a Savior who is fully human and understands what it feels like to suffer the trials of temptation; but who is also fully divine and stands on our behalf before the heavenly Father without sin. And that’s what we have in Jesus. The Bible tells us, in Hebrews 2:17-18;
Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:17-18).
When we come to Jesus in the deepest times of temptation—and even in the times when we fail and fall into sin, as we so often sadly do—our Savior doesn’t reject us, or condemn us, or turn us away. He understands how it feels to be tempted, because He felt it too. And if we’ll trust Him, He’ll stand as our Helper; because as the book of Hebrews goes on to say, in Hebrews 4:15-16,
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).
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Now; that’s one reason I believe we should love the story of Jesus’ temptation so much. It teaches us about our wonderful Savior—how strong He is on our behalf; and yet, how sympathetic He is to our weaknesses. We should be very glad that we have Him as our Advocate—sitting for us at the right hand of God the Father, and interceding for us on our behalf when we’re tempted (Romans 8:33).
But another reason I believe we should love this passage is because it gives us His own example to follow, while in the midst of the trial of temptation; and because it shows us important lessons about what to do during our own times of temptation.
Let’s look at some of these lessons together; and notice first that . . .
1. TEMPTATION IS A NORMAL PART OF OUR LIFE IN CHRIST (vv. 1-2a).
Now; we may prefer to think that that’s not true. We may wish instead that once we’ve placed our trust in Jesus, confessed our sins, and trusted in His blood to wash all our guilt away, joined a church, got baptized, and started to read our Bible, we’ll never have to worry about temptation again. But the example of our Lord proves to us that that’s just not so.
If anyone could have expected to have been free of all temptation, wouldn’t it have been Jesus?—especially after His baptism?—and especially after the heavens opened up over Him, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, and the Father declared that He was His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased? And yet, we read that—right after His glorious baptism—even He suffered the attacks of temptation to sin from the devil.
In fact, it’s really quite remarkable to read that it was the very same Holy Spirit, who had descended upon Him at His glorious baptism, that then led Him from that experience into a time of intense temptation. As our passage tells us, “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil” (vv. 1-2a). The Gospel of Matthew puts it even more directly; and says that He was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1; emphasis added). You certainly would have thought that the Holy Spirit would have done for Jesus what Jesus Himself taught us to pray for in His Sermon on the Mount—”And do not lead us into temptation . . .” (Matthew 6:13)!
But then; you remember how it was that Jesus taught us to pray in that great sermon, don’t you?—”And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (or, as it is in some of our translations, “from the evil one”)? And since our Lord was, Himself, led by the Holy Spirit into a time of temptation, we shouldn’t take Jesus’ prayer to mean that we can expect that God will never be led into times of temptation. Rather, we should take it to mean that we will never be led into times of temptation that will be greater than we can endure, or through which “the evil one” will be able to overcome us, if we will trust fully in the Lord’s help in the midst of that temptation.
You see; I believe we can dare to say that God sometimes so leads us in our lives that we are brought by Him into particular times in which we are tested and tried by temptation. We need to be careful how we say that, of course; because the Bible tells us that “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (James 1:13). And we must never presume to lead ourselves into places of temptation and pretend that it was God who did it! But the example of the Lord that we find in this passage shows us that God allows His precious sons and daughters to suffer times of testing in order cause their faith in Him to be strengthened. As it says in James 1:2-4;
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-4).
Our heavenly Father loves us so much that He won’t allow our faith in Him to grow weak and lazy and untried. He makes us put our faith in Him into action through times of trial. But we don’t ever need to fear such times; because we also have our loving heavenly Father’s promise that He will never lead us into times of such testing that are greater than we can endure, if we will cling tightly to His Son Jesus, trust Him, and do as His word tells us. As Paul wrote;
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it (1 Corinthians 10:13).
So, brothers and sisters in Christ; let’s do away, once and for all, with the idea that we can ever arrive to a place in our lives on earth where we will never have to suffer temptation again. We may find that we will grow, over time, to resist certain temptations in one area; but the enemy will cause temptations in another area of life to spring up against us. And yet, our heavenly Father has absolute control over even the evil efforts of the devil; and uses those evil efforts for the strengthening of our faith. He will help us through those trials, if we will remain dependent upon Him in them. Jesus’ own experience teaches us this.
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Another thing that Jesus’ experience teaches us is how to trust in the resources that God the Father gives us to resist temptation and endure the times when they come upon us. This passage goes on to show us that . . .
2. TEMPTATION IS RESISTED BY TURNING TO GOD’S WORD (vv. 2b-12).
Now; it needs to be said that the specific temptations that Jesus suffered were unique to Him as the Son of God in human flesh. But nevertheless, they represent the general types of temptations by which the devil might seek to tempt us. Like the writer of Hebrews said, He “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 6:15). So; let’s look at these temptations one at a time; and see how Jesus dealt with them.
First, we’re told that Jesus had been led by the Holy Spirit in “the wilderness” (which was probably the lower Jordan valley); and that He had been there forty days. We’re told that, “in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry” (v. 2b). Can you imagine how weak His human flesh must have felt? Can you imagine how much His body would have cried out for food? And it was right then that the devil came to Him. Perhaps the devil—in some way that this passage doesn’t tell us—drew our Lord’s attention to a particular stone lying nearby. We’re told that he said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (v. 3). Can you imagine how pleasing it would have felt to take the devil’s advice?
And have you ever been tempted in a similar way? I don’t mean to suggest, of course, that you’ve been tempted to turn a stone into bread. But have you ever had times when your body just craved something?—when your fleshly passions longed to be gratified; even though you would have to disobey God in order to do so? This type of temptation is something that the apostle John described in 1 John 2:16 as “the lust of the flesh”. It’s something that the devil often appeals to in order to entice us to step over God’s moral boundaries. It was how he enticed Eve in the garden—when he showed her the fruit God had forbidden to her, and caused her to think about how good for food it would be (Genesis 3:6).
But why would it have been wrong for Jesus to do this? Why would it have been wrong for Him to use His divine power to turn a stone into bread? Well; do you notice how Satan tailored his temptation toward Jesus? He said, “If you are the Son of God . . .”; and thus, he sought to call to mind the heavenly power and authority Jesus possessed throughout eternity past—long before He came into this world. It was a power and authority that He had willingly—in full agreement with the Father and the Holy Spirit—set-aside for a time, in order to take human flesh to Himself and be our Savior. As it says in Philippians 2:7, He “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” He came, as He Himself said, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him (John 6:38).
If Jesus were to use His divine power and authority in this way, then, He would have been acting in contradiction to His Father’s will—even though it would have satisfied the craving of His body. And so; in answer to this temptation from the devil, Jesus said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (v. 4). He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 back to the devil; where it teaches us that life is not all about satisfying whatever cravings the fleshly body has. Rather, what we do in the body is to be done in obedience to the word of God.
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So; an appeal to “the lust of the flesh” having failed, Satan sought to tempt our Lord on another front. We’re told that the devil took Him up on a high mountain and showed Him “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time” (v. 5).
Now; there’s no mountain that high in the Jordan valley. And what’s more, even if there are mountains in the world that are so extremely high that you could see one entire kingdom, you certainly wouldn’t be able to see them all—and certainly not “in a moment of time”. And so, we should take it that this was, in some sense, a “vision”. And it may even be that the “mountain” itself was some kind of a visionary symbol. It may be that the devil was appealing to the dream concerning Him from the book of Daniel—the one in which the Messiah’s kingdom reign was depicted as a stone that was cut without hands, which struck the kingdoms of the world and became a great mountain that filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:35, 44-45).
The devil told him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish” (v. 6). What kingdoms do you suppose the devil caused to flash before the Lord’s eyes? Did Jesus see Egypt? Did He see what remained of Babylon, and Persia? Did He see the glory of Greece? Did He see all lessor kingdoms—great and small? Could it even be that all of the glory of the Roman empire was actually being offered to Jesus? Did the devil even take Him beyond that time, and show Him the kingdoms that would be in the centuries to come?
What a tempting offer this must have been!—especially for one who came into this world to obtain His kingdom through the death of the cross! But this would have been what 1 John 2:16 called “the lust of the eyes”. It was an appeal to that sinful desire in us to have what our eyes see—even though taking it would be contrary to God’s will for us. It was the way the devil tempted the woman in the garden, when she saw that the fruit God had forbidden to her was “pleasant to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6). All these kingdoms, and their glory, were being offered to Jesus now. He would not have to die on the cross to obtain them! And all He had to do was meet the devil’s one condition; “Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be yours” (v. 7).
But what a dreadful, twisted condition this was! Jesus is the Creator God in human flesh! And here, the creature is demanding to be worshiped by the Creator! And it was then that Jesus answered this temptation by again turning to Scripture—once again from the book of Deuteronomy. He quoted Deuteronomy 6:13-14; and said, “For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God and Him only you shall serve'” (v. 8). Our God loves us; and is jealous for our exclusive devotion to Him. We must not set anything else in His place in our hearts—even if it were as much as all the glory of all the kingdoms of this world!
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Two attempts to entice Jesus to sin had been made—one through “the lust of the flesh”, and another through “the lust of the eyes”; and both attempts had failed. And so, the devil attempts one more.
We’re told that the devil took our Lord to Jerusalem and set Him on “the pinnacle of the temple”. This would have been the highest spot of Herod’s temple—one that biblical historians tell us would have looked down upon the valley below from a height of almost 450 feet. Then Satan told Jesus, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone'” (vv. 9-11). The devil was quoting from Psalm 91; although misquoting it a bit, and taking it out of context—as the devil so often does in order to deceive.
Now; what kind of temptation is this? Who would be tempted to throw themselves off a 450-foot high pinnacle into the valley below? Well; we need again to notice how the devil tailors his temptation. He began by saying, “If You are the Son of God”—once more reminding Jesus of the power and authority that He had temporarily set aside; and citing the Old Testament promise that God would send His angels to to bear His beloved ones up with their hands, ‘lest they dash their foot against a stone’. It was as if the devil were saying, “Well then; if You’re truly the Son of God, let’s try this passage out! After all, jumping would be ‘biblical’. No stone could dash Your foot more than if You struck it from a 450-foot fall; and no one would have a greater right to claim this passage for himself than You. Let’s see if God will keep His promise to you! Let’s put God’s word to the test! Wouldn’t it be spectacular? Wouldn’t the crowds below be in awe?”
Now; you may already know that the devil left out some words from that Old Testament quote. He didn’t mention the part of the promise that says God would give His angels charge over His children, “to keep you in all your ways”. For Jesus to presumptuously leap from a 450-foot height with the expectation that God’s angels should catch Him would not be walking ‘in the way’ that God had set for Him at all; and it would have amounted to trying to manipulate God.
This is a type of sin that 1 John 2:16 calls, “the pride of life”—where we take the attention off of God, and put it on ourselves; where we unseat God from His throne and put ourselves in His place; where we try to make God our “tool” to get what we want. It was the sort of temptation that the devil used to entice Eve when she saw that the forbidden fruit was “desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6)—so that, by eating it, she could elevate herself instead of trusting God. It was, in fact, the very temptation that Lucifer himself fell to when he declared, “I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14).
And yet, look at how our Lord responded. The fact that the devil quoted Scripture wrongly didn’t prevent the Lord from quoting Scripture rightly—and once again from Deuteronomy. He quoted Deuteronomy 6:19; and told the devil, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God'” (v. 13).
And I hope you can see from these three examples that the way our Lord handled every temptation from the devil was to respond with “It is written . . .” He trusted in God’s promises in the Scriptures; and quoted those promises at every turn! He used, as Paul puts it, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).
And if you and I want to stand strong in our battles against the temptations the devil throws at us, then we’d better follow our Lord’s example! In response to the devil’s temptations, we should say what God has said. But we shouldn’t just think we can quote the Bible at the devil. Rather, we must also personally believe in it as a revelation from God, rest upon what it says as our authority for faith and practice in specific challenges, and conform our thinking and our actions to it in a thoughtful and strategic way. That’s what Jesus did. As long as we also faithfully do so, the devil cannot ‘undo’ us.
May God help us to know our enemy—and know our Bible!
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Now; a final lesson I believe we can learn from our Lord’s example is that . . .
3. THE TEMPTATOR, WHEN PROPERLY RESISTED, LEAVES (vv. 13).
We’re told, “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time” (v. 13). The devil, of course, didn’t give up. As the Bible teaches us, he came back on later occasions to further test the Lord—most notably as Jesus drew near the cross (Matthew 16:23), and at His betrayal (Matthew 26:36-44). But the Lord’s example shows us that, as He kept resisting the devil by constantly turning to the word of Scripture, the devil eventually left.
This reminds us of what it says in James 4:7; “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” We should have no expectation that the devil would flee from us if we were to seek to resist him in our own power. But he cannot bear it if we do as James says and “submit to God” in the face of the temptations he throws at us. If we cling to Jesus, follow His example, and faithfully declare what God has said from Scripture, Jesus’ example gives us the confidence that the devil will flee from us. He could not defeat Jesus; and so long as we cling to Jesus and follow His example of trusting in Scripture, we too become ‘undefeatable’.
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So, dear brothers and sisters; let’s remember the lessons we learn from this remarkable event in our Lord’s life:
First, because of the fact that even our Lord was tempted, let’s remember that temptations to sin are going to be a normal part of our life with Him. We shouldn’t be surprised by them; but remember that God allows them and uses them to strengthen our faith in Himself.
Second, let’s remember the resource that Jesus Himself used in resisting every kind of temptation the devil threw at Him—the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. No other weapon on earth is strong enough to withstand the devil’s attacks against us; and if the Lord Jesus would put His confidence in it, so should we.
And thirdly, in the times when the devil tempts us to sin, let’s remember to be persistent in resisting him as Jesus taught us—knowing that when we do so, he will eventually flee.
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1Someone might say, “If it was impossible that Jesus could have sinned, then how could it be said that He had truly been tempted?” But as William G.T. Shedd suggested, that would be like saying that if an invincible army was attacked by a a tiny, weak, little opposing army that could not defeat it, how could it be said that it had truly been attacked (William G.T. Shedd, Alan W. Gomes, ed., Dogmatic Theology, 3rd Edition [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 2003], p. 662). Jesus, because He was fully human and had a human nature, could truly suffer temptation. But because He was the second Person of the Trinity in human flesh, the temptations He suffered could not—in any way—induce Him to sin. It would be as if His full humanity was a thin piece of wire that—on its own—could be genuinely subject to the efforts of someone to bend or break; but that was so inseparably joined to the titanium steel bar of His full deity that it could not be bent or broken, no matter how hard anyone tried (see Shedd, pp. 660-1).