Do you ever wonder whether these temptations of Jesus were a fair test. After all, he was the Son of God, so Satan was out of his league really, wasn’t he? It wasn’t like you or me being tempted. I mean Satan hardly has to lift a finger and we give in. But then we’re a lot weaker than Jesus. But still, having said that, it’s also true that the setting of Jesus’ temptation was a lot more difficult than we normally encounter. He first spends 40 days and nights fasting in the desert. So he’s physically weak, hungry and presumably thirsty. Now that’s the time when we’re most prone to doing the wrong thing isn’t it? I mean think of those times when you’ve had a fight with someone. How much did tiredness or stress contribute to the nasty things you said or thought? My guess is it was a fair bit. Physical tiredness often leads to emotional and spiritual tiredness, doesn’t it? And when we’re emotionally and spiritually tired, we’re also emotionally and spiritually weak. And that’s when Satan loves to get at us.
Well, today I want us to think about temptation. Specifically, of course, about the temptations of Jesus. But we can use this account to learn about our own temptations. So we’re going to think about the nature of temptation, how we can fight it, and what we do when we fail.
First though, we need to be aware that the temptations of Jesus were specific to him and his role as the promised Messiah, the Saviour of the world. They come straight after his baptism; straight after the moment when the Spirit descends on him and the voice from heaven speaks and identifies him as God’s beloved Son; and they come as the Spirit leads him out into the desert for 40 days and night of testing. It’s as though Jesus is being tested to see whether he’s worthy of the role of Messiah. Is he worthy of the title ’the second Adam’ as Paul refers to him (Rom 5:18-19)? That is, will he resist all the temptations that Satan throws at him, where Adam and Eve failed?
But having said that, as I said, these temptations of Jesus are such that we can find useful parallels with the sorts of temptations that we all face day by day. So let’s think about the nature of temptation as we find it here. (Luke 4:1-13)
Well, first of all, notice how Satan attacks Jesus at his point of weakness. "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished." Jesus is hungry, so Satan attacks him where he’s weakest. That’s how it often happens doesn’t it? We have some area of weakness or stress in our life and Satan homes in on it and usually he scores a direct hit. The share market drops and our superannuation fund starts to look a little shaky and he tells us we’re in trouble. So anxiety starts to rise.
We have some success at work and he tells us it was all due to our hard work and our ingenuity. And pride wells up inside us.
You’ve come to the end of a big Christmas dinner and your hostess offers you a second helping of Christmas pudding with brandy sauce and you think to yourself, in the words of Samuel Johnson, "I’m not hungry, but thank goodness I’m greedy."
Satan will always attack us at our point of weakness, if he can.
But then Satan’s next ploy is to plant a doubt in Jesus’ mind. In fact we find the same thought repeated in vs 3 and 10: "If you are the Son of God". He doesn’t deny it. He just plants the doubt. Maybe you are, maybe not. Why don’t you just test it out? Put your money where your mouth is. It’s the same technique used in the temptation of Eve. "Did God really say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?" Twisting the truth just enough to put a doubt in her mind about God’s intent. Satan’s desire, you see, is to have us questioning God’s goodness, or his righteousness, or his justice, or the truth about him. These days the temptation often comes in the form of questions about the truth of the Biblical record. Could Jesus really have healed those people or is it just that the writers didn’t understand human physiology or psychology the way we do? Or perhaps they were exaggerating for effect, just to win their case.
The next thing we find is that sometimes temptation seeks to remove us from the arena of faith to that of works or self-reliance. Why should Jesus trust God to look after him when he’s quite capable of looking after himself? Why not just turn those rocks over there into loaves? He did it with water into wine a few months later. Why should Adam and Eve trust God to lead them in the ways of righteousness, that is, to show them good things to do and guard them from evil, when they can find out for themselves what’s good and what’s evil? Why should Jesus trust God to see him through the pain and suffering of the cross, when he can achieve the same end by bowing down to Satan?
This seems to me to be one of our great danger areas in the 21st century. We put so much store on self-reliance that it’s not easy to trust God to look after us. We want to be in control of our own destiny, so we sometimes find it hard to leave our destiny to God. One of the great temptations for the religiously minded person is to seek to achieve our own sanctification, our own level of holiness, by religious means - by fasting, or meditation, or Bible reading, or prayer, or even attendance at worship services, as though such outward shows of religion could make us right with God.
Sometimes the temptation comes in the form of an easy solution to a dilemma. "the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, ’To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’" All Jesus had to do was bow down to Satan, and his Lordship over the Earth would be established. Just like Eve: all she had to do was to eat of the fruit and she’d be like God, knowing good and evil. She could avoid all those years of learning and growing before she came to maturity.
Imagine if someone came to you when you were about to enter year 11 at school and said, I can get you straight into University if you want. All you have to do is pay me a small fee and you’ll be there next year. It’d save you all that stress of VCE assignments and exams. What a bonus! But the trouble is, you’d have missed out on all that basic teaching that you need to understand what they’ll teach in your university course. Well, that’s what it was like for Adam and Eve. They jumped to graduate level before they’d even done the basic course. What was needed was for them to take one step at a time. To obey God in this little thing and trust him to see them through the rest. What Jesus had to do was to learn obedience, first in this small way, but later on the cross. That was a much harder route to follow, but it was the only route that would truly achieve what he’d come to do.
Notice that one of the ways Satan tempts us is by telling us lies dressed up as truth. Often he’ll tell us half truths. Plausible stories with just enough truth in them to lead us astray. "If you worship me this will all be yours." Well, it might all be his, but only under the overall rule of Satan. And even then, still under the authority of God. Notice Satan doesn’t mention the fact that he too is a creature subject to the rule of God. Any authority he may have is only his because God allows it for the time being. But Satan is under the judgement of God and his kingdom will be destroyed.
But his lie has another subtle twist to it. He says "If you worship me this will all be yours," But in fact Jesus hasn’t come just to make all the kingdoms of the world his own. Perhaps Satan misunderstood his purpose as much as the Pharisees did, or perhaps he was just hoping Jesus had. No, Jesus had come to put an end to Satan’s power over people. He came to enable us to stand before God with our sins forgiven. Conquest of the world wasn’t his goal, it was conquest of sin and death. It was liberation of all those people whom Satan claimed were his. So Satan’s half truth in fact couldn’t have been further from the mark could it?
Finally, sometimes Satan attacks us at our point of strength. In fact isn’t it true that our strong points are often also our weakest, because we become over confident in those areas. If you watch the cricket you’ll no doubt have noticed how the good batsmen often get out playing the shots that get them the most runs. Why? Because their strength is also their weakness. And that’s true of most of us. Satan delights to attack us at our point of strength as much as at our point of weakness. So he comes to Jesus and says "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ’He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11and ’On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’" Jesus loved to quote Scripture. He believed God’s word implicitly and so Satan uses it to tempt him. We evangelical Christians occasionally fall into a similar temptation. We believe implicitly in God’s word and so Satan tempts us to read it unthinkingly, to take it out of context, to read it literally where it isn’t meant to be taken literally, to read into it what our traditions have taught us rather than checking our traditions against what it teaches. This is precisely where the fundamentalist churches fall down. But don’t be fooled by Satan’s subtlety because he’ll use every means he can to defeat us, to lead us astray.
So how can we fight Satan’s temptations? Well, obviously, Jesus’ example is a good one isn’t it? Use God’s word. In Romans 8 Paul says (Rom 8:13 NRSV) "for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." Now how do you do that? How do you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit? Well, remember the description of the armour of God in Ephesians 6? The only offensive weapon in that list is a sword. It’s called the sword of the Spirit. And what is it? It’s the word of God (Eph 6:17). God’s word cuts through Satan’s lies and exposes the truth. It tells me how I’m to live. It tells me where true happiness is found. And it assures me of God’s love and care. Let me give you some brief examples: Matt 6:25-34 - "God cares for you just as he cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field."
Phil 4:6,19 "Be anxious for nothing ... my God shall supply all your needs."
2 Cor 12:9 "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Here’s one for those like me who are getting old: Is 46:4 "even to your old age I am he, even when you turn gray, I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save."
So God’s word gives me hope for the future even when hope seems futile. What’s more, it shows me the source of real joy and meaning and fulfillment. e.g. "In your presence is fullness of joy, in your right hand there are pleasures forever." (Ps 16:11) It promises the peace of God to those whose minds are filled with what’s good: "Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." (Phil 4:8-9 NRSV)
When we’ve been wronged it reminds us that God is the one who will vindicate us, that we don’t need to bear a grudge because God will judge righteously: ’Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." (Rom 12:19)
So read God’s word and write down the promises you find there, memorise them, so you can use them when you’re tempted to disobey God.
Finally, what do you do when you fail? Well, I hope you know the answer to that. You go to God and ask him for forgiveness on the basis of Jesus’ holiness. This is the whole point of this account of his temptation. Hebrews chapter 4 sums it up for us.: "14Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Heb 4:14-16 NRSV) Don’t let Satan accuse you unjustly. Go to Jesus and ask him to ask the Father for forgiveness on your behalf. For those who are followers of Jesus forgiveness is granted freely, because Jesus has paid the penalty on our behalf, because he alone was tempted yet didn’t sin.
So here’s what we’ve seen: understand the nature of the temptations Satan throws before you, fight them with God’s word and seek forgiveness from Jesus when you fail, knowing that he understands what it’s like to be tempted. That’s the message from the passage today.
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