When Temptation Comes, Matthew 4:1-11
Introduction
Our family pet, Happy the Saint Bernard, really doesn’t eat as much food as one might think she would for such a large dog but just because she doesn’t eat as much food as one might think doesn’t mean she does not have good taste!
Happy is not such a big fan of dry dog food. If you fill her bowl with dry dog food she will often go to it and use her big nose like a shovel to push all of the little dog food nuggets out onto the floor!
In fact, each evening after dinner I usually take any left over scraps of food and mix them up in her dry dog food so that in eating the scraps she will also eat the dog food. My wife Christina is much more prone to just leaving the dry dog food until she eats it but her daddy spoils her a little bit more than her mom does.
Happy is always on the prowl for high quality food. And her life is just filled with temptation. It really is terrible for her. I remember one evening a few months ago. I had stayed up after my family had gone to bed, as I sometimes do to work on research for a sermon or just enjoy the quiet.
This particular evening I got a little hungry and I decided to make a grilled cheese sandwich – my favorite kind of sandwich. The whole time I was preparing the sandwich Happy was laying on the kitchen floor watching me. Every now and then she would lift her head to sniff the smell of the sandwich in the air.
More than once I assured her that this was not her sandwich and to keep her big nose away from my sandwich. After I had made the sandwich I placed it on a plate with a few wheat thin crackers and a pickle and carried the plate into my home office as Happy trailed just a few feet behind me sniffing the air.
I sat down at my desk and Happy sat down just next to me as she would often do if she thought there was a chance for some leftover scraps. After I had sat down I turned – with the still uneaten sandwich in my hand – to reach for my drink and just as I did the dog jumped up and took the whole sandwich from me, chewed once and swallowed the whole thing!
As it turns out the temptation was simply more than Happy could bear to stand on that particular evening! Just so you know the story did have a happy ending and not just of for the dog! I locked her away and made another sandwich.
Transition
This Sunday is the first Sunday of the Lenten Season. It is during this season that we examine ourselves in the light of what God has done for us on the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Today’s Scripture reading recounts the events of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness after He had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. These events occur just prior to the beginning of Jesus public ministry.
As we examine this passage of Scripture I would ask that we pay particular attention to the principals that we see in the way that Jesus responded to temptation which we can apply to our lives today.
Why is it that opportunity knocks only once, yet temptation bangs on the door constantly? We all face temptations of various types in this life.
Today, let us learn from the life of Christ how to deal with temptation.
Exposition
Principal #1 (v2-3): When we draw close to God Satan will tempt you. It is at those times in our life when we are seeking God through prayer and worship; it is as we get closer to God that we will come under attack.
1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (NASB)
The Bible teaches us that we are living within the midst of a war. You and I can either choose to be an innocent bystander – which is most likely to make us unarmed casualties – or we can recognize the nature of this conflict and arm ourselves with the whole council of God which will enable us for victory!
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12 NASB)
I read the story of a Pastor who had an 11 year old son. He tells the story of a friend of his son who called one day, announcing he had a problem with spiritual warfare. The Pastor asked him what he could do to help, and he replied he wanted to speak with my son, Scott.
Proud that his son was being asked for spiritual advice, he later made a point to ask him how the conversation went. “Oh, fine,” his son Scott replied. “He just needed help getting to the next level of the ‘Spiritual Warfare’ Nintendo game.”
Principal #2 (v3-4): Don’t be surprised when temptation comes, be prepared. In this spiritual battle that is being waged all around us, our greatest weapon is the word of God. It is not as though we have been left unarmed to deal with temptation, we have the very words of God to enable us!
Time and again, when Jesus was confronted with temptation by Satan He responded plainly and simply with the word of God. In fact, in verse 4 Jesus gives us the twofold example of responding with the word of God while telling us that we shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from God.
I remember when I first entered Marine Corps basic training. It was very hard but I had always wanted to be a Marine. When I was a boy I had a paper route and one of the stops on my route was the local Marine Corps recruiting station.
I often say that I was destined to be a Marine from that point on from all of the propaganda that those Marines filled me with so early on in my life. They gave me posters and stickers and all sorts of things that I put all over my bedroom wall. I knew from very early on that I wanted to be a Marine.
After about a month of training in basic military precision – marching, saluting, and all the rest – we were bused from where we had been training in San Diego up North to Camp Pendleton where we were to learn marksmanship.
I remember that the first couple of days of training on the firing range I was barely hitting the target. I was all over the target and nothing my range coach did seemed to help at all until one afternoon he took a close look at my M-16 service rifle, only to discover that I didn’t have the sights set properly!
I had the rear sight set to the night time setting which means that instead of trying to balance the front sight in a small circle, I had been trying to balance it a huge circle that made the target appear tiny and almost impossible to see! After that I had not trouble at all and went on the score very highly on the range.
The trouble was that I was not familiar with my weapon. Our spiritual weapon is the Bible and it will only be effective in our lives to the extent that we are familiar with what it says to us.
The Bible is our only and most stable rudder as we sail together through the storms of this life. Here, at First Congregational Churchy, let us remain deeply committed to the teaching and preaching of God’s holy word.
Principal #3 (v6): Jesus knew who He was. Satan tempted Jesus to throw himself down from the top of the Temple and said that if He was the Son of God then surely He would not be hurt. Jesus did not see the need to prove who He was because He knew who He was.
There is strength in knowing who we are as children of God. We are not spiritual orphans. We have not been abandoned by our creator. You and I are heirs of the God of all glory.
This is perhaps the most important principal and also the one which is the most easily forgotten. When the troubles of this life come against us and temptation to be angry, depressed, sinful, or selfish come at us it is altogether easy to get so caught up in those troubles and temptations that we lose this perspective.
Pastor Erwin W. Lutzer wrote, “When we seek first the kingdom of God and righteousness, fulfillment comes as a by-product of our love for God. And that satisfaction is better than we ever imagined. God can make the pieces of this world’s puzzle fit together; he helps us view the world from a new perspective.”
Ultimately our source of strength is in knowing who we are. Galatians 4:4-7 says, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” (NASB)
Jesus knew who He was and He encourages us today to recognize and live full in the knowledge of who we are as well.
Conclusion
Do not be surprised when temptation comes at times when you are growing in Christ and when it comes remember that you are a child of the King.
Let us commit ourselves to allowing our Father’s words dwell in our hearts so that we might be prepared when temptation comes. Amen.
