Last week we gave an overview of spiritual warfare.
This week I want to look at the text in more detail.
Matthew 4:1-11 (NIV)
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
·
Then, gives us the
connection to Chapter 3
o
Temptations are based on
the fact of Jesus being the Son of God
·
Led by the Spirit
o
To baptism
o
To Temptation
o
The Holy Spirit was
continuously active in Jesus’ life
·
The desert
o
Barren, dangerous
wilderness
·
Tempted
o
The word
"tempted" means "to put to the test to see what good or evil,
strengths or weaknesses, exist in a person."
o
The Spirit compelled Jesus
into the wilderness where God put Jesus to the test—not to see if Jesus was
ready, but to show that he was ready for his mission.
o Satan, however, had other plans; he hoped to thwart Jesus'
mission by tempting Jesus to do evil. Life Application Bible
Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – Matthew.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
·
Fasting – going without for
a spiritual purpose
o
Preparation for a greater
task
·
40 days
o
the forty days of rain in
the great Flood (Genesis
7:17),
o
the forty days Moses spent
on Mount Sinai (Exodus
24:18),
o
the forty years of Israel's
wandering in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 29:5),
o
the forty days of Goliath's
taunting of Israel prior to David's victory (1 Samuel 17:16),
o
the forty days of Elijah's
time of fear in the wilderness (1 Kings 19:8).
o
In all those situations,
God worked in his people, preparing them for special tasks. Life Application Bible Commentary
- Life Application Bible Commentary – Matthew.
o After all those 40 day periods God brought VICTORY!!!
·
He was hungry
o
He was fully human
o
His body felt and suffered
like any human body
§
Hebrews 2:14 (NIV)
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil—
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil—
·
The three temptations
recorded here occurred when Jesus was at his most physically weakened state.
But Satan could not weaken Jesus spiritually.
Life Application
Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – Matthew.
3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
·
Satan is referred to as
“the tempter”
·
Satan was hoping to persuade
Jesus to demonstrate His power to verify that it was real. That would mean
violating God's plan that He set that power aside in humiliation and use it
only when the Father willed. Satan wanted Jesus to disobey God. Affirming His
deity and rights as the Son of God would have been to act independently of God.
·
The first direct temptation
in the wilderness was for Jesus to act against God's plan and to command
that these stones become bread. This temptation involved a great deal more
than Jesus' satisfying His hunger. After forty days and nights of fasting, He
certainly was hungry and thirsty, and He had the right to have something to eat
and drink.
o
The most obvious part of
the temptation was for Jesus to fulfill His legitimate physical needs by miraculous
means.
o
But the deeper temptation
was Satan's appeal to Jesus' supposed rights as the Son of God.
"Why," Satan seemed to say, "should you starve in the wilderness
if you are really God's Son? How could the Father allow His Son to go hungry,
when He even provided manna for the rebellious children of Israel in the
wilderness of Sinai? And had not Isaiah written of the righteous that 'His
bread will be given him; his water will be sure'" (Isa. 33:16)? You
are a man, and you need food to survive. If God had let His people die in the
wilderness, how could His plan of redemption have been fulfilled? If He lets
you die in this wilderness, how can you fulfill your divine mission on His
behalf?
·
The purpose of the
temptation was not simply for Jesus to satisfy His physical hunger, but to
suggest that His being hungry was incompatible with His being the Son of God. He
was being tempted to doubt the Father's Word, the Father's love, and the
Father's provision. He had every right, Satan suggested, to use His own
divine powers to supply what the Father had not. The Son of God certainly was
too important and dignified to have to endure such hardship and discomfort. He
had been born in a stable, had to flee to Egypt for His life, spent thirty
years in an obscure family in a obscure village in Galilee, and forty days and
nights unattended, unrecognized, and unpitied in the wilderness. Surely that
was more than enough ignominy to allow Him to identify with mankind. But now
that the Father Himself had publicly declared Him to be His Son, it was time
for Jesus to use some of His divine authority for His own personal benefit.
·
This first temptation in
the wilderness implied essentially the same mocking taunt that the crowds made
at the crucifixion: "If You are the Son of God, come down from the
cross" (Matt.
27:40; cf. vv.
42-43).
·
It also included the wicked
attempt to cause the Second Adam to fail where the first Adam had failed—in
relation to food. Satan wanted Christ to fail because of bread just as Adam had
failed because of fruit. Above all, however, he wanted to solicit the Son's
rebellion against the Father. MacArthur New Testament
Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 1-7.
It was that absolute trust and submission that Satan sought
to shatter. To have succeeded would have put an irreparable rift in the
Trinity. They would no longer have been Three in One, no longer have been of
one mind and purpose. In his incalculable pride and wickedness, Satan tried to
fracture the very nature of God Himself.
MacArthur
New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew
1-7.
4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
·
All three of Jesus’
responses begin with “It is written”
o
Jesus believed, lived,
practiced, memorized and quoted the Bible!!
·
In quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 to
Satan, Jesus declared that we are better off to obey and depend on God, waiting
on His provision, than to grab satisfaction for ourselves when and as we think
we need it. MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The -
MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 1-7.
·
Obeying God’s Word is more
important than
o
Fruit – Adam and Eve
o
Bread – Jesus
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
·
Satan didn’t back off his
attack
·
He continued by taking
Jesus to the highest point in Jerusalem
·
The peak of the Temple
6 "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 quoted scripture and
now Satan would too
·
“If you are the Son of God”
o
Not so much to cast doubt –
they both knew Jesus was the Son of God
o
If you are – God will
protect you
·
Throw yourself down
o
Satan wanted Jesus to test that
relationship to see if God's promise of protection would prove true. Life Application Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary –
Matthew.
o With that subtle and clever twist, the tempter thought He had
backed Jesus into a corner. If Jesus lived only by the Word of God, then He
would be confronted by something from the Word of God. "You claim to be
God's Son and You claim to trust His Word," Satan was saying. "If so,
why don't you demonstrate your sonship and prove the truth of God's Word by
putting Him to a test—a scriptural test? If you won't use your own
divine power to help yourself, let your Father use His divine power to
help you. If you won't act independently of the Father, let the Father act.
Give your Father a chance to fulfill the Scripture I just quoted to you." MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament
Commentary – Matthew 1-7.
o
Satan was quoting Scripture
out of context, making it sound as though God protects even through sin,
removing the natural consequences of sinful acts. Neither jumping from the roof
in a public display or jumping in order to test God's promises would have been
part of God's will for Jesus.
o
In context, the psalm
promises God's protection for those who, while being in his will and serving
him, find themselves in danger. It does not promise protection for artificially
created crises in which Christians call to God in order to test his love and
care. We should not test God, as Jesus will explain (see the following verse).
Life Application Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – Matthew.
Life Application Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – Matthew.
No matter how noble and important we may think our reasons
are, to test God is to doubt God. And to doubt God is not to trust Him, and not
to trust Him is sin. That, of course, is what Satan wanted Jesus to do. To
induce Jesus to sin, if that were possible, would shatter His perfect holiness,
and therefore shatter His divinity and man's hope of salvation. Had Jesus put
His Father to such a test, He would have separated Himself from His Father and
perverted the divine plan of redemption—the very purpose for which He had come
to earth. MacArthur
New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew
1-7.
7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
·
Jesus’ response – “It is
also written!!”
·
“Do not put the Lord you
God to the test!”
·
We tempt God when we put
ourselves into circumstances that force Him to work miracles on our behalf. The
diabetic who refuses to take insulin and argues, "Jesus will take care of
me," may be tempting the Lord. Bible Exposition Commentary (BE Series) - New Testament - The Bible Exposition
Commentary – New Testament, Volume 1.
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
·
Why wait, I’ll give it all
to you now
·
Why endure the suffering,
shame and solitariness of the cross?
·
Satan offered a painless
shortcut
o
There are not painless
shortcuts!!!
o
NONE!!
·
Jesus would have to
denounce his loyalty to the Father in order to worship Satan. Satan's goal
always has been to replace God as the object of worship.
10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"
·
Away from Me, Satan!
o
Get out of here! NLT
o
Be Gone! ESV
·
Worship the Lord your God,
Serve Him Only
o
I’m done – Get out!!
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
·
Satan had to leave at the
authority of Jesus
·
Angels came and attended to
him
o
Physically – Spiritually
·
Until the next time
o
Luke 4:13 (NIV)
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
·
Satan tempts us in the same basic ways he tempted Jesus
in the wilderness.
o First, he will try to get us to distrust God's providential care and to try
to solve our problems, win our struggles, and meet our needs by our own plans
and in our own power.
o Second, he will try to get us to presume on God's care and forgiveness by
willingly putting ourselves in the way of danger—whether physical, economic,
moral, spiritual, or any other.
o Third, he will appeal to selfish ambitions and try to get us to use our own
schemes to fulfill the promises God has made to us—which amounts to trying to
fulfill God's plan in Satan's way. MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament
Commentary – Matthew 1-7.
CHART: KNOW THE ENEMY,
KNOW THE METHOD
Satan, the archenemy of all believers, has been tempting
people to turn from God since the first woman on earth listened to his lies.
Interestingly enough, his methods have never really changed. He tempted Eve in
the Garden of Eden, Jesus in the wilderness, and tempts us in our daily lives.
When we know how he attacks, we can be prepared.
How Satan tempted . . .
Jesus
|
Eve
|
Us
(see 1 John 2:16)
|
Turn stones to bread to eat
|
Fruit would be good to eat
|
Lust of the flesh
|
Prove his divine Sonship
|
Gain wisdom so as to be like God
|
Pride of life
|
Obtain all he could see
|
Look at the fruit and see that it looks tasty
|
Lust of the eyes
|
Life
Application Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – Matthew.
Victory over
Temptation
1. Know the Devils Schemes
2. Know the Word of God
