Triumphing Over Temptation Part IV I Corinthians 10:1-13

This is the last in our series on Triumphing over Temptation.

We have looked at how Jesus triumphed using the Word of God.

·       He is victorious

·       We are in Him

o   Therefore we are victorious in Him

There is one more passage that we have to look at before we end this series on Temptation.

I will share a little background and then make the point -  Be Careful – God will provide an escape. 

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (NLT)
²⁴  Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!
²⁵  All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.
²⁶  So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.
²⁷  I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

·       We are saved by Grace

·       But we have to run the race or lose the prize

o   Is it possible a person may think and say he is saved, but he may be wrong. Saying and thinking do not make a person safe and secure in Christ. Saying and thinking are not the reality or the evidence of salvation.

o   Is it possible a person may be baptized and belong to a church, but baptism and membership in a church do not make a person safe and secure in Christ.

o   Is it possible a person may take of the Lord's supper or sacrament and think he is thereby safe and secure in Christ, but taking of the bread and wine do not make a person safe and secure in Christ.

o   Is it possible a person may sense the presence of a supernatural being, or be greatly gifted and very active in the church, but it is not these things that make a person safe and secure in Christ.

o   This was the problem with the Corinthian believers. All of these things were true of them, and they felt safe and secure in Christ. But they were wrong, and they needed to be strongly warned or be doomed.

So Paul continues on with a real life example…

1 Corinthians 10:1-13 (NIV)
¹  For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.
²  They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
³  They all ate the same spiritual food
⁴  and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

·       They had relationship with God

⁵  Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

·       God had performed great miracles for them

o   Setting them free from Egypt

o   Parting the red sea so they could pass through

o   Providing food and water miraculously for them

·       Yet God was not pleased with them

o   The Israelites and the Corinthians had the idea they could do whatever they wanted and still be right with God

§  Wrong!

·       And they died under the wrath of God for their sins  

First Warning  

·       Privileges were no guarantee of success

Second Warning

·       Good beginnings do not guarantee good endings

⁶  Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.

·       This story is related to the NT church as an example

^·               The Corinthians had the false notion that one can be saved and then live a faithless, God-less life ^{Life Application Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – 1 & 2 Corinthians.}

⁷  Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry."

·       Where we invest God’s money? Checkbook

·       Where we invest God’s time? Calendar

·       We live in a broken world but we must not live like the broken world

o   James 4:4 (NLT)
⁴  You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

⁸  We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did--and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.

·       All sexual relations outside of a marriage, between one man and one woman, is sin

o   Sex is reserved for a Married man and a Married woman

o   There is no debate in the Bible

§  Believers who live an opposite lifestyle are subject to the wrath of God

⁹  We should not test the Lord, as some of them did--and were killed by snakes.

¹⁰  And do not grumble, as some of them did--and were killed by the destroying angel.

·       According to Numbers 14 and 16 grumbling against God and His leaders resulted in divine punishment

¹¹  These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

·       Us – believers

·       Bottom line – we can’t say we love Jesus and live any way we want.

·       One Concern

o   We will fall to Sin

¹²  So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

·       Second Concern

o   We will fall to Pride

§  That would never happen to me

§  Look at that other person – I am better than them

o   Pride will lead to a fall just as

§  Immorality and grumbling

But these falling to these temptations are not inevitable

·       They don’t have to happen

Here is the key verse…

¹³  No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

·       Temptations come to every believers life

o   They are common to man – common to all

·       How do we resist

o   Look upon the Character of God

§  He is Faithful

·       He limits the temptation

o   Never beyond what we can bear

o   God knows what we can bear and how much we can bear; therefore, He limits every single temptation within our limits to overcome it. God is faithful.

o   Look for His way out

§  He always gives us the strength and energy to walk through or over the temptation or else to turn and flee from it.

·       Joseph in OT was tempted by Potifers wife

o   He ran away

·       2 Timothy 2:22 (NIV)
²²  Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

·       BATTLE PLAN

·       In a culture filled with moral depravity and sin-inducing pressures, Paul gave strong encouragement to the Corinthians about temptation. He said:

o   Wrong desires and temptations happen to everyone, so don't feel as though you have been singled out.

o   Others have resisted temptation and so can you.

o   Any temptation can be resisted because God will help you resist it.

·       God gives you a way to resist temptation by helping you

o   recognize people and situations that give you trouble;

o   run from anything you know is wrong;

o   choose to do only what is right;

·       pray for his help; and

o   seek friends who love God and can support you when you are tempted.

·       Running from a tempting situation is your first step on the way to victory

^{Life Application Bible Commentary - Life Application Bible Commentary – 1 & 2 Corinthians.}

You don’t have to yield to temptation

You don’t have to sin

He is Faithful

He will provide a way out!!

The Gospel of Matthew – Jesus is King Matthew 4.1-11 Part II Jesus is Tempted

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.

·       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—

·        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.

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.

·        Satan would continue to tempt Jesus throughout Jesus’ time on earth

·        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