Contrary to the message of many popular television preachers, the Bible does not promise health and prosperity. What we are promised is that we are engaged in a spiritual battle. Perhaps it would be better stated this way; we are involved in an all out war. Satan our archenemy is actively involved in carrying out His sinister strategy to separate us from our Heavenly Father. He has been aggressively tempting people to turn away from God since the first woman listened to his lies in the Garden of Eden. The interesting thing is that after all these years Satan is still using the same methods. He tempted Eve in the garden, Jesus in the wilderness and he actively tempts us in our daily lives. His temptations generally come in one of three areas: physical needs and desires, possessions and power and pride. In our text we see Satan and Jesus going head to head. Satan is offering Jesus a crown without a cross and a kingdom without human suffering. We need to notice that Satan is not trying to distract Jesus from His mission, but merely offering Him a shortcut. He is basically telling Jesus that there is an easier way to accomplish God’s plan. None of what Satan offers is within the boundaries of God’s will. Just as in the battle presented in our text, the stakes in our battle with Satan are high. As we look at our text today we will discover some valuable lessons for winning the battle against temptation.
I. Satan launches three aggressive attacks against Jesus.
A. Satan first challenges Jesus to use His power to take care of His physical needs.
1. Satan makes his first calculated attack when Jesus is weak and undoubtedly hungry from fasting for forty days.
2. On the surface this seems to be quite innocent, “wouldn’t God expect us to use our resources to care of our physical needs?” “What’s wrong with feeding your starving body?”
3. This is quite different from just going down to the local store and buying a sandwich. Satan is encouraging Jesus to use His divine power for personal gain by miraculously turning stones into bread.
4. This temptation is quite overpowering, when you are hungry it is hard to think of anything else. Hunger has often drove people to steal in order to have this need satisfied.
5. This naturally raises a question, “what is more important compliance to God’s will or providing for your own physical needs?”
6. The bottom line is that Satan is trying to get Jesus to trust His own ability instead of trusting God as the provider and sustainer of life.
B. Satan’s second challenge is for Jesus to use His position to gain for Himself approval or attention.
1. Satan now tries to get Jesus to test God’s protective care by leaping from the highest point of the temple which was around 450 feet above the ground. This would have been the portico of Solomon’s porch which overlooked the Kidron Valley.
2. Satan is challenging Jesus to test God’s promise that is given in Psalm 91:11-12. This almost seems like he wants Jesus to base His loyalty to God upon the condition of God acting in a certain way.
3. It is quite alarming to realize that Satan knows Scripture as well as knowing how to use it to accomplish his purposes.
4. Think about the implications of Satan’s challenge. If Jesus suddenly appeared on the pinnacle of the temple and then jumped and then was safely set upon the ground by God’s angels wouldn’t that remove any doubts about Him being the Messiah?
5. However, Jesus answers Satan’s challenge by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16.
6. Jesus shows that His faithfulness to God is not dependent upon God protecting Him from all harm. Especially in these situations that our manufactured in order to manipulate God.
C. Satan’s third challenge is for Jesus to worship him in order to gain power.
1. Satan saves the temptation which is most obviously contrary to God’s will for last.
2. Satan offers Jesus authority over the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Him bowing before Satan in worship.
3. Psalm 2:6-8 shows that this authority is promised to the Son but would only be realized through that lowly path of service which led to the cross.
4. Satan is basically telling Jesus that He can have wealth and power now without having to deal with all the unpleasantness of the cross.
5. This temptation is seen so often in the get it now mentality. Satan promises wealth, health and prosperity in exchange for our allegiance.
6. All the temptations involved a choice between God and Satan. After successfully resisting all the temptations, Jesus dismisses Satan by saying, “away from me.”
II. Jesus’ temptations show us that He has walked where we walk.
A. Satan uses the same strategy on Jesus that he used on Eve in the garden and uses on us today.
1. When you examine each of the temptations you see that Satan uses a real need to cause doubt about God’s provision to cause doubts to arise resulting in an inappropriate desire.
2. Consider the human needs that each one of the temptations meets.
a. Turn stones to bread: the need to be met is physical; to satisfy hunger and it raises the doubt if God would provide food.
b. Test God’s protective care: the need to be met is emotional; it is that of security and the doubt it raises is whether or not God cares.
c. Exchanging worship for power: this is the satisfying of the psychological need for power and significance. It raises the question if there is an easier way to accomplish God’s purpose.
3. Some may try and argue that Jesus’ divine nature overruled His human nature, just as God is incapable of sinning, He was too. However, if this is true than Jesus is not the one that is described in the Bible.
4. Jesus showed us that God can be trusted not only with the details of our lives but with our destiny.
B. So did Jesus really have to endure all that we are forced to endure in this fallen world?
1. His parents were not divorced, He was never sexually abused, He never had to file for bankruptcy and He never lost His home, He never lost His spouse or had to face some other catastrophic event.
2. In this sense there is really no one can who can truly understand the depth of our personal pain.
3. It would be the height of arrogance to say that we are the only ones to ever feel sad, lonely, abandoned or overwhelmed.
4. The truth is that in every major category of human sin, Jesus has experienced exactly the same the things that we have. The only difference is that He resisted the temptation to sin.
5. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15—NIV)
III. Jesus’ temptations show us that there is a way to win this battle.
A. We need to know exactly who we are.
1. Jesus knew He was the Son of God and because of who He was, He refused to disgrace Himself or His Father.
2. As Christian we enjoy a special relationship with God and that is our first line of defense against temptation.
3. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. (Galatians 4:6-7—NIV)
B. We must be willing to admit our weaknesses.
1. Jesus’ dependence on the Word of God as He faced the different temptations showed that self reliance is insufficient during these critical moments.
2. It is extremely dangerous not to admit our areas of weaknesses. Especially since those are the very areas that Satan tries to exploit.
3. God may have blessed us with great strength and ability but that does not mean that we are invincible.
4. Self confidence is very healthy but arrogance will lead us down the path of destruction.
C. We must be students of God’s Word.
1. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy when He says, “Man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
2. Jesus was able to resist Satan based on His thorough knowledge of both the words and meaning of Scripture.
3. With all the different philosophies of life circulating in our world, we need to be students of God’s word to insure that we head down the right road.
4. Being students of God’s Word will allow us to see the truth when Satan tries to twist God’s Word to accomplish his purpose.
D. We must be willing to faithfully serve God.
1. Jesus’ ultimate choice throughout these temptations is obvious, “Should I serve God or Satan?”
2. We do very well when it comes to fending off the obvious attacks by Satan, however the subtle ones are much more difficult to resist.
3. Jesus showed that Satan often comes offering assistance, often justifying the means by the end or suggesting ways we can really do what we want.
4. We need to stay true and faithful to God’s plan and faithfully serve Him.
In December 1914, a huge fire destroyed Thomas Edison’s lab in West Orange, New Jersey. The fire wiped out more than two million dollars worth of equipment and destroyed the priceless records of his life’s work. Edison’s son Charles ran about frantically trying to find his father. Finally he found him standing near the fire, his face shown in the glow of the fire and his white hair was blowing in the cold winter wind. Charles said that when he saw his dad, his heart ached for him. He was no longer young and everything he had dreamed of and worked for in life in a moment had been reduced to charred rubble. Surprisingly, Thomas Edison had different thoughts going through his mind. He told his son to find his mom and bring her to the edge of the fire. Edison smiled and said, “She will never see anything like this again.” The next morning walking about the rubble of so many of his hopes and dreams, the sixty-seven year old Edison exclaimed, “There is great value in disaster. All of our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew!”
