Temptation

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."

Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "

Then the devil took him to the holy 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 hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "

Jesus answered him, "It is also written: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "

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."

Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' "

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. (Matthew 4:1-11)

Barb is a young divorced woman with two pre-school children. Her ex-husband has stopped paying for child support. Barb works as a cashier in a department store. Every Friday, with unpaid bills piled on her kitchen counter, Barb debates with herself whether to take a small amount of cash from her register to help her put food on the table.

Carl is an impulsive spender. When Carl sees something that he wants he buys it, even though he and his wife are on food stamps. Every time Carl sees something he just has to have, he wrestles with his conscience. He soothes his conscience with the thought that since he is a Christian, God will make everything turn out okay for him in the end, even if he does go ahead and spends too much money.

Jim has been an honors student, but he has been labeled a "brain" by his classmates and has no friends. The head cheerleader stops him in the hall one day after class and asks to come over to his house to copy his homework, because she is in danger of getting kicked off the squad for low grades. All the way home, Jim weighs which is more important to him--integrity or popularity.

These three people are wrestling with temptation. Temptation is dangerous because it can lead us to betray our relationship with God. Barb’s temptation is to stop trusting God to feed her children. Carl’s temptation is to assume that God will bail him out without even trying to resist the temptation to spend money foolishly. Jim’s temptation is to exchange God’s favor for the favor of others—specifically, the favor of the head cheerleader. In each case, the temptation appears to offer a quick solution to a problem—food now, something that makes me feel good now, popularity now. But giving in to temptation does not provide any solutions—in fact, giving in to temptation makes things worse. If Barb stops trusting God and starts stealing to feed her children, God may abandon her to her solution and she will find herself stealing over and over again until she is caught. If Carl continues to take God for granted by assuming that God will bail him out of needless debt, God will likely allow Carl to find out how much work and humiliation is involved in going through bankruptcy. If Jim decides that it is better to please men than God, Jim will go through life constantly selling himself but never finding any self-worth. Giving in to temptation does not solve anything, it actually makes matters worse by damaging our relationship with the only one who can help us—our God.

Holy Scripture has recorded three ways in which Satan tempted our Lord Jesus, and how Jesus withstood each of those temptations. The first temptation attacked Jesus’ trust that His heavenly Father would provide for His every need. Jesus had been led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, where He had nothing to eat for 40 days. Others had endured fasts like this; Moses had spent 40 days on Mt. Sinai in the presence of God without anything to eat, and it took Elijah forty days to walk to Mt. Horeb to speak with God, 40 days in which he ate nothing. In both cases, God took care of His servants’ physical needs. At the end of the 40 days of fasting, Satan tempted Jesus to stop depending on His heavenly Father to provide food; Satan suggested that Jesus take matters into His own hands and make bread from the stones at His feet. This is a temptation that the Israelites had failed as they followed Moses; instead of trusting God to feed them in the desert, they complained that God had brought them into the desert to kill them by starvation.

But Jesus resisted the temptation. He did not argue with Satan, nor did He bargain with Him. Jesus merely quoted what His heavenly Father had said through Moses over a thousand years earlier: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' Unlike some popular evangelists of today, Jesus put trusting God in the place of first importance before personal comfort. Jesus succeeded in resisting the temptation of the stomach, the temptation that God’s people failed to resist in the desert and continue to fail to resist today.

The second temptation attacked Jesus’ humble relationship with His heavenly Father. Jesus and Satan both knew that Jesus would have a hard time convincing people that He truly was the Son of God. So Satan miraculously took Jesus to the peak of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple of God was the largest building in the city, situated at the highest point within the community; every day, hundreds of people came to this important location. Nowhere in Israel would Jesus have a larger audience. Satan then suggested that Jesus jump. Satan even quoted Scripture to Jesus to encourage Him—certainly Jesus’ loving heavenly Father would not allow Jesus to be hurt by the fall. Satan suggested that Jesus take advantage of His Father’s love and win the hearts of the crowd below with an incredible miracle from heaven. Satan wanted Jesus to take His Father for granted. This too is a temptation that the Israelites failed in the desert as they followed Moses; when they were without water, they demanded that God prove His presence among them by miraculously giving them water right then and there.

But Jesus resisted this temptation as well. Once again, Jesus quoted His Father’s words spoken through Moses: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' Satan tried to misuse the Scriptures against Jesus, but Jesus is the Word of God put in human form—there is no way that Satan can fool Jesus by misapplying Scripture, as some televangelists try to fool God’s people today. Jesus succeeded in resisting the temptation of taking God’s love for granted, the temptation that God’s people failed to resist in the desert and continue to fail to resist today.

The third temptation attacked Jesus’ commitment to God. Jesus and Satan both knew that the task of turning sinners to the worship of Christ would be very difficult and demanding. Jesus knew, in fact, that it would require His suffering to the point of death. So Satan again used his powers to give Jesus a miraculous view of all the nations of the world, of every person that Jesus had come to earth to save. Then Satan suggested that Jesus take the easy way out. Rather than go through all the suffering and pain of the cross of Calvary, rather than save the peoples of the world according to the Father’s plan, why not save the world Satan’s way? It would be so much easier. Satan would ask only one small thing—a single act of worship, of devotion, from Jesus. Satan wanted Jesus to serve his interests, not God’s. The Israelites failed this temptation in the desert when they made a golden calf and worshipped it, while Moses was on Mt. Sinai speaking with the Lord.

Jesus, who had to this point been patient in affliction, now became truly angry. Once more quoting Moses, Jesus said: "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' " God demands absolute loyalty; Jesus would cut no deals with Satan in order to gain worshippers, unlike some modern clergy who are willing to embrace same-sex marriages, abortion, and euthanasia in order to win converts. Jesus succeeded in resisting the temptation of divided loyalties, the temptation that God’s people failed to resist at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and continue to fail to resist today.

By resisting these temptations, Jesus accomplished three things for us. First of all, Jesus lived His entire life obedient to the Father’s Law. At no point in His life did Jesus ever sin; He never failed to trust in God for all things, He never took God’s love for granted, He never served anyone’s interests except God’s—Jesus was completely trusting, completely humble, completely loyal. Jesus led this perfect life for us, because our sinful nature makes it impossible for us to live this way. We are God’s modern Israel, and like the Israelites that followed Moses, we turn away from God again and again. But we are comforted to know that Jesus lived His perfect life for us, so that we no longer have to be perfect in order to enter heaven. Jesus is our perfection.

Second, by remaining holy and innocent throughout His life, Jesus was worthy to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Our sins of faithlessness, arrogance, and divided loyalties are crimes against God, crimes that must be punished with the spilling of blood. Jesus came to spill His blood for our sins. Because Jesus was perfect and without sin, God was pleased to accept His blood in place of ours. Because of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, our crimes before God are forgotten—all it takes are three little words: "Jesus, forgive me." Jesus can bring us forgiveness of sins because He successfully resisted every temptation to put Himself first, instead of putting His Father first.

Third, by resisting these temptations, Jesus showed us how we too can resist temptation. Every time Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus quoted the Scriptures as His defense. Jesus did not argue with Satan; He did not cut deals with Satan. Jesus’ defense was the Word of God, which He knew and used with confidence. Notice that at no time did Jesus use any of His divine power to resist temptation. Jesus prevailed against Satan’s attacks using exactly the same weapons and armor that we have: the Holy Scriptures. This is why it is so important that we know God’s Word. Our Lord’s Bible is the only defense we need to stop Satan from luring us away from God and everlasting life.

But the sad thing is, until death we all remain sinners. And as sinners, we don’t devote the time we should to the study of God’s Word. As sinners, our thinking is clouded and our judgment is faulty—sometimes we read God’s Word and our inner sin causes us to misunderstand the meaning of what we’ve read. Our sins can suggest that we read other things instead of the Bible—like the sports page, or a trashy romance novel. Our sins can cloud our understanding, so that false teachers can lure us into their false churches. But don’t despair—Jesus forgives our every sin. When you get frustrated with how you keep caving in to the same temptations over and over again, remember Paul’s words in Romans chapter 7: "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." And when you begin to worry that Jesus is tired of forgiving your repeated sinning, remember His instructions to Peter: "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:21-22). The point that Jesus makes to Peter, and to us, is that the forgiveness that comes from God’s love is unlimited.

Jesus came into this world to resist temptation for us. Jesus died in our world to free us from the death that caving in to temptation can bring. Jesus rose from the dead so that He can help us resist temptation, and forgive us when we fail. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for doing what we could not do, and we ask You to help us, every day, to resist Satan and cling to You alone.