Temptation
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."
4 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"[a]
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
' He shall give His angels charge over you,'
and,
' In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"[b]
7 Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"[c]
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me."
10 Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you,[d] Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"[e]
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
It is strange isn't it? We have these wonderful experiences. These times in our life when everything seems to come together. When we seem especially close to God. When our life seems to make sense. And we wish we could stay in that place and that moment forever. But we can't. And then it happens. Tomorrow becomes today. And you must wake up, and live the life that is in front of you, instead of basking in the glow of what happened yesterday.
I imagine it was this way even for Jesus. One day he is immersed in the waters of baptism. As he comes out of the water the Holy Spirit decends on him like a dove. A Voice from his Heavenly Father speaks from heaven "This is my son, in whom I am well pleased". The day of Jesus' baptism was a very good, quite wonderful, very special day.
But the next moment was quite different. The Bible says, "then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil". Then the Bible said he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and that he was hungry.
It is interesting to note right at the beginning how this temptation is taking place. It is taking place at God's initative. The same Sprit that has decended on Jesus like a dove is now driving him into the wilderness. Jesus goes willingly. And fasts for forty days and nights, waiting for the confrontation. You can see from the text here, and the ancient church fathers make this point, that it is Jesus that goes out in the desert to confront Satan, not vise versa. Jesus has a battle to fight and a point to prove.
This 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness is interesting. In fact, if you were Hebrew this would have just leapt of the page. Many significant things happen in 40s. Moses is exiled for 40 years in the desert. He leads Egypt to wander for 40 years in the wilderness. Rabbinic tradition said Moses spent forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai receiving the law. Elijah encounters God on Mount Horeb after 40 days. Noah survives forty days and forty nights of flooding. So if you were a Hebrew and you would read this you would say, "Ah-hah….this man is like Moses…like Noah….like Elijah" This man is a deliverer for our people. Perhaps if he is fasting for forty days in the wilderness, he could be the Messiah. Our deliverer. The one we have been praying and hoping for.
And if you were not a Hebrew, you would be thinking about this too. But in a different way. You would be noticing that Jesus was going out to be tested and tempted. In Mediterranean culture, a father would test his son as a final right of passage, in one way or another, to see if he was worthy of carrying on the name and the identity of the Father. So you would be on your seat as you read this….Jesus is being tested, tempted and tried by the Father before he starts his public ministry in God's name. If you were in that part of the world, this is what you would expect.
And throughout Greek and even modern culture, we come to expect that our leaders, heros, and deliverers will be tested. It is part of their fulfillment of their qualification as a hero. To have faced temptation and overcome. To have faced the enemy and not to have failed against him or to have backed down. In Greek mythology we see this with Hercules or Odysseus. In human history we see this with George Washington at Valley Forge and we see this with Indian Chiefs like Geronimo in their early battles as well. There stories show them to be people who have been tested, and thus been shown worthy of respect or leadership. This is kind of testing of deliverers is even in a lot of modern movies—such as Star Wars. Luke Skywalker goes to train with Yoda, and is tested there. He succeeds where his father has failed. He is shown ready to be a Jedi on a remote planet in a remote place. He comes out of that "wilderness" of sorts ready to lead and deliver his people.
So, the fact that Jesus is driven into the wilderness to face temptation is what we would come to expect as Gentiles for our hero and our deliverer. And for Hebrews as well. Especially for the Jewish audience that Matthew is writing for. Let me remind you, that Jesus is Israel personified. He must experience what the nation of Israel experienced. Just as God's people were led into the wilderness for 40 years, Jesus goes for forty days. Israel failed to trust God in the wilderness. Jesus must show that he is obedient to and trusts God. He must come to make right what we have often failed at and made wrong. All of human history hangs in the balance in this temptation. Because everything that has happened before in the world leads up to the life and mission of Jesus, and everything good and hopeful in the world that happens is a result of Jesus' death and resurrection. This is why we label time BC (before Christ) and AD (after his death). Our calendars give proof that all of history funnels through Jesus. And thus, everything is on the line with the temptations that Jesus faces.
The life of Jesus is unique not because he faces temptation, testing and trials. The life of Jesus is unique because of the kinds of temptations that he faces, and how he responds to those temptations.
Satan comes to Jesus after he has been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness to test him. To tempt him. To see if he can get him to betray his call and his mission.
The first thing Satan tempts Jesus to do is to turn stones into bread. Seems kind of innocent doesn't it? Turning stones into bread? What could be wrong with that? Especially since Jesus has been fasting for 40 days. Certainly God would not begrudge him turning stones into bread so he can have a little to eat. After 40 days?
That is the thing about temptation isn't it? It seems kind of innocent at first. You work at getting your finances together. You decide to splurge a little. A person's got to have a car don't they? Pretty soon you have a truck with all the bells and whistles that costs about as much as your first house did. It started small…you thought. Now it has grown out of control.
But anyway…why not turn stones to bread? Why not? What is the big deal about a bite of something to eat? Maybe nothing. But it might be a big deal! Remember Adam and Eve in the garden? They took one bite of the forbidden fruit, and it changed the whole universe! Remember Moses hitting the rock when God had told him to speak to the rock to bring forth the water? It cost Moses the chance to go into the promised land. Sometimes a little something is a big something.
In the case of Jesus, turning rocks into bread would have repeated the miracle of manna in the desert. Imagine the people you could feed if all the stones into desert turned into bread! The hungry would fed! They would have more than enough! And they would worship Jesus because of this. And they would want to make him their king! Isn't this what we would want in our deliverer?
You can see how this would be a real temptation for Jesus our Lord don't you? Why go through the years with the disciples? Why go through the cross? Why not just turn the stones into bread now? The people would be happy! I could meet a lot of needs. And he would be able to eat. Man I bet he was hungry! I imagine this was part of what it meant for Jesus to be tempted to turn stones into bread.
It is always tempting to be a people pleaser. To do things and to say things just to make people happy. And making people happy isn't necessarily always a bad thing. It is just that some times, we can want to do all the right things in all the wrong ways. In ways that make us the star of the show. That make us feel important and needed. But the ends do not always justify the means.
But Jesus rejects this temptation. He choses to be dependant on God and his timing when he says, "Not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord"
Next, Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. Throw yourself from this pinnacle, Satan Says, and let the angels catch you on the way down. You know that if you do this, Satan said to Jesus, that a bunch of angels would catch you on your way down. The Devil even quotes a Scripture out of context to prove this to Jesus.
You can see how this would be tempting. If you cannot, picture it in your mind's eye. Jesus jumps from the temple, and all of the sudden a bunch of angels are escorting him to the ground. A bunch of angels and a Messiah decending upon the Temple Mount. If you cannot imagine that then, imagine what it would be like now, with Jesus and an army of angels decending on the temple mount. You would think…now here is the Messiah. Now there is Jesus Christ come again. In power.
Again, he would be a people pleaser. He would be giving hope to people longing for hope. It would be a first step at delivering a people under the foot of the cruelty of the Roman Army.
Satan is also appealing to his pride. People would look up and say "There is a Messiah to lead us!" The next day there would be Jewish schools and parks named after him, and all of the sudden his name would be on everyone's lips. Instead of starving in a desert, the finest foods would be available to him.
Why not do it? Why not set free your people? Why not give people hope and purpose? Why not, as the perfect Son of God use fame to spread God's message far and wide? Why not? Because God had a different way. A way that is more difficult. But also, a way that is better, more true, more right. The way of Satan might have seemed like good news for a while, but it would not have made the people of God any different from any of the other nations of the world. In the movie the Mission, toward the end, the priest says, "If might is right, then there is no place for love in the world." This is why Jesus could not leap from the Temple. God has a better way than the world's way. So Jesus tells Satan, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."
For the third and final temptation, Satan gets a little more bold. He takes him to a high place, where they can see all the kingdoms of the world. All their wealth. All their power. All their sin. All their selfishness and all their greed. All the power in the entire earth Satan offers into Jesus hands, if Jesus will just bow down and worship him.
Now some of us have heard the saying, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely." And we think that power is almost always bad. You may be right in the end. But, power can do a lot of good in the right hands. Power can make laws fair. Power is what can help those in need. Power is what determines life and death. Jesus might have been able to do amazing things if he ruled all the thrones of the world. All those bad things about power, those are in the fine print at the bottom of the page.
Jesus again recognizes that the temptation is against God's will and says. Get behind me Satan. The Bible says to worship God and God alone.
Jesus is up to facing down the temptation. He faces down the devil. And when the devil departs, he is ministered to by the angels. Jesus has passed the time of testing that was in front of him, and he has proven himself worthy. He has shown to us that he is the perfect lamb of God. He is ready to begin his public ministry.
And through Jesus' example, we learn a little bit about how to face down temptation, even in situations where discerning God's will is more difficult than we anticipate.
First, learn the word of God. Don't just know verses. Don't just learn what TV or radio preachers or even this preacher tells you. Read the Bible for yourself. And don't just read verses here and there. Get to know the big picture of Scripture. You might have noticed both in this passage, throughout Scripture, and even in our world, that the Devil knows the Bible too. And he knows how to twist it to make it say something it doesn't if he can. But Jesus is grounded in Scripture. The more you know Scripture, not just in your mind, but the more the Word has made its way into your heart, the easier it will be to avoid temptation.
Second, when you face temptation, know that the Devil does not usually tempt you with a gift wrapped package that says EVIL on the front. The Tempter is crafty and tricky. In the Garden of Eden, knowledge and evil sounded pretty noble to Adam and Eve. Satan convinced them. We can think that our sincerity and good intentions can sanctify behaviors that are totally wrong because we had good goals in mind. Or we can tell ourselves, that the end justifies the means. But sin is sin no matter how you use your reason to justify it.
Back home in Alaska they used to pick of these piles of moose manure. They would lacker them up, put little shiny things on these little moose nuggets, make them into earrings and broaches for tourists. But it didn't matter how much you gussied up that moose manure, it still wasn't diamonds or gold. It was just moose poop.
Sin is very similar to those moose "nuggets". You can justify it. Rationalize it. Pretty up your good intentions all you want. But sin is sin. And it doesn't matter what sincerity or good intentions you have when you are tempted, right is still right, and wrong is still wrong.
Finally, the way of Jesus is not often the easy way, but it is always the right way. When you are tempted you will always think it is easier just to steal. It is easier to cheat. It is easier to take shortcuts that you know are wrong. But giving into temptation always takes you further than you want to go, and costs you more than you want to pay.
Sin is like an adjustable rate mortgage. It seems to cost less on the front end, and you may have the best of intentions to fix it down the road, but it usually cost you more down the road that you intended it to.
Know, as you go this morning, that the way of Jesus is not always the easiest way. In fact, it may seem more painful, more stressful, and more difficult at times. But following Jesus is the right way. It is the way of strength and courage. It is a way of beauty. It is the way of blessing and hope.
And as we scrap, as we struggle, as we stand against temptation, we will know what Christ promised at the end of the book of Matthew, "For I am with you ALWAYS, even to the end of the age". When we stand against temptation, Jesus stands with us. And that is enough. That is always enough. Amen.
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