Matthew 4:1-17
ILLUSTRATION:
My wife is a consummate shopper and she once saw this cart with variety of rugs being sold near our home. When she asked how much it was, the guy said, Rs. 17,000/-. She managed to bargain and bring the price down and she got the rug. Later another day, the same cart guy comes in front of our home, and it was surprising that she just let him pass by. I appreciated her winning over the temptation and asked her how she overcame it, she said, “I knew you were watching me. I am sure the cart guy could make out that I wanted to buy too, but I had my shades on.” So the shades helped her overcome the temptation.
Temptation means tested. It can mean that you are drawn to do something you should not do. Most of us do not like tests, but God will allow us to go through tests. We must pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” He does not want us to give in to temptation, but will provide for us testing so that we mature through it.
James 1: 13 says, “Let no one says when he is tempted that I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil and He, Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust, and when lust can conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
We will look at 7 things from the word: T E M P T E D.
1. Temptation is TAILORED.
2. Temptation is EVASIVE.
3. Temptation leads to MISBELIEF.
4. Temptation is PASSING.
5. Temptation is not a TUSSLE.
6. Triumph in temptation leads to EXECUTION.
7. Triumph in temptation leads to DOMINION or authority.
1. Temptation is TAILORED.
Satan waited until Jesus was hungry to tempt him. There are days when you are busy and get to the end of the day and suddenly you realize you forgot to eat. When you are busy, you do not realize this. But if you choose to fast, one hour into the fast, and you are famished. You must eat NOW! Fasting has this kind of power that as soon as you decide to deny the flesh the flesh is going to come to life. Jesus chose to take the full fast.
ILLUSTRATION:
I went to speak at a church convention. The pastor came to pick us up at the train station, and said would give us lunch. But he said, he would not eat, because he was fasting. So we got there and we ate lunch, and the pastor was standing there the whole time we were eating. We asked, “Pastor, will you not eat anything.” He said, “No, I am fasting.” I was looking at him for some time and asked, “Do you fast like this very often?” He said, “Yes, we are very regular in fasting.” But as I looked at him, I thought if he were to dress like the Santa Claus, he would perfectly fit the role, because when he laughs his tummy would jiggle like a bowl full of jelly. He said, he was fasting till 4:00 pm and after that he would feast!
So, some people fast part of the day and then feast! But the fast that Jesus was following here is the fast where you do not eat at all – a fast of famish. After 3-4 days your stomach gets used to this and does not any longer send the signal to your brain that you are hungry. But Jesus had gone beyond the 3 or 4 days fast. After between 20 and 40 days, depending on your metabolism, you will get hungry again. If you do not eat at that time, you will soon die. The Psychologists tell us there are few fundamental drives – air, water and food.
Satan waits until Jesus is at his vulnerable state of his fast. He “tailored” this temptation specifically for Jesus.
APPLICATION:
Satan will tailor his temptation to fit you. For different ones there are different areas of temptation, maybe it is pride, greed, power, lust, or some other issue that you have to deal with. Wherever your area of weakness is, that is where Satan is going to hit you. So it is important to identify our areas of weakness and build up barriers so that Satan cannot tempt us.
2. Temptation is EVASIVE
Several pastors mention this passage as a war. One pastor titled this passage as “Sword Fight in the Wilderness.” Satan uses evasive maneuvers. He will come at you at different angles, and actually use Scripture to confuse and have the right attitude. So just because a Scripture comes to your mind, you should NOT embrace it as if it was specifically for you.
ILLUSTRATION:
There is a story of a person who used to open the Bible for his devotionals, and would check where his finger pointed and that would be his Scripture for the day.
So one day as he pointed his finger on a particular passage, it said, “Judas went out and hanged himself.”
He thought to himself, wow that is scary. So he looked at another passage. This time the passage read, “Go thou and do likewise!”
We have to be careful about how we handle Scripture and not let Satan use to influence us to do something that is clearly against the will of God.
3. Temptation leads to MISBELIEF
Temptation will lead you in a path where you will begin to reject the fundamental foundations of faith, because if you accept what the Bible teaches, it will condemn your wrong behavior.
ILLUSTRATION:
Ravi Zacharias tells the story of a man who went to School in Wheaton with Billy Graham and later entered into politics. He was a popular man and rose to become the Prime Minister of Canada. In the process of going down that way, to fame, to popularity and power, he began to sacrifice his ethics and his morals. He had an affair. He divorced his wife and married a second wife. And in the process of these temptations, he realized that his faith did not match with what he was doing and so began to embrace alternative faith. He began to promote a faith of “all roads lead to Rome,” and even encouraged others into it. He even promoted this in the United Nations that one way to have peace in the world is just to accept one another’s faith and not speak against others’ faith.
He was interviewed on television in the 1990s and the interviewer asked him, “Were you not a fundamental, evangelical Christian?” He said, “Yes, I was.” The interviewer asked, “Have you not moved away from that?” He said, “Yes, I have become more mature as I have grown up, I have learnt. And I have rejected some of those fundamentalists belief that I was raised with.” The interviewer asked him, “Are you not sacrificing something by doing this?” He said, “No. I have actually grown by doing this.”
The interview asked an unexpected question, “What about Jesus?” And this man who was thought of as an important person who he had accomplished so much had tears well up in his eyes and began to pour on his cheeks. And he said, “I miss Jesus.”
Even though he had begun to promote an alternative faith, in his heart he knew it was wrong. He knew that he had put a barrier between himself and Jesus.
That is what temptation does. It will draw you away from the fundamentals of faith, because the fundamentals of the faith will fly in the face of your disobedience and will tell you, what you are doing is wrong! It will lead to misbelieve – false belief and false teaching.
4. Temptation is PASSING
Temptation does not last forever. Jesus answered the devil, and when the devil saw that he was not going to be successful in his temptation, he left. The Bible never teaches us to resist temptation instead to resist the devil. Instead we run away from temptation. Paul told us in II Tim.2:22 – “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.”
Joseph did not resist the temptation with the Potiphar’s wife. Joseph has this “babe,” or this “hotty,” saying, “lie with me.” Joseph does not stand there and say, “I am going to resist temptation.” No. As she urges him, he runs away. It was not cowardly to run away, it was an act of a wise man. The Bible teaches us to run away from temptation.
Aristotle put it this way:
“WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO. EXCELLENCE THEN IS NOT AN ACT, BUT A HABIT.”
Victory over temptation is not an act, but a habit. If you have areas of weakness, memorize Scripture relevant to that area. You must develop habits that will help you overcome
temptation, anticipating that the enemy will attack you at vulnerable moments.
5. Temptation is not a TUSSLE
In one of the messages I heard of this passage, the pastor actually got dressed up in military uniform, and also had all the ushers dress up in a military fashion. Some had mock machine guns etc., and used it as a primary metaphor for teaching that morning.
But I do not see any kind of physical battle going on here at all. Maybe I would say, this is the WWF – in one corner we have Jesus Christ and in the other, we have Satan with muscular horns – a pitched battle between Satan and Jesus – NO! That is not really what we see here in the passage. Instead, this is something that is internal – it is an internal battle that is primarily in the mind.
In each case Satan gives a temptation to Jesus, and Jesus answers them all with Scriptures. They are from the Book of Deuteronomy, from chapters 6 through 10.
Jesus answers temptation with Scripture. Paul said, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, powers, rulers of this world, and spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenly realms.
Most of our spiritual struggle is in our mind and in our heart. Rather than having this kind of a tussle, we should have our minds steeled with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When we have His Word hidden in our heart, we have an automatic response of Scripture.
6. Triumph in temptation leads to EXECUTION / Fulfillment
If you establish habits of righteousness, of memorizing Scripture, then you will have victory in temptation. That victory will lead you in:
Execution or Fulfillment:
When you are tempted, you are distracted from what God has called you to do and to be. When Jesus overcame the temptation, he moved to an area of fulfillment. The Bible says in Matthew 4:17, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach.” He fulfills the calling of God in His life, because He has been victorious over temptation.
Where does our strength comes from? Our strength comes from studying God’s Word and hiding it in our hearts. And when we have the Word in our hearts, we will overcome the evil one. (I John 2:14)
7. Triumph in temptation leads to DOMINION
Some preachers might preach good sermons but have a limited impact on people’s lives, because they themselves have not experienced victory. But when the Word of God has transformed you, and given you the victory - when you have endured the time of testing; you have persevered; you have come out strong, then as you live the Word, you will bring life in place of death and peace in peoples’ lives when there are battles.
If you are looking for power in life, then endure temptation! “Count it all joy – rejoice! When you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces ENDURANCE. But let ENDURANCE have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing”. (James 1:2-3) Such a person will bring victory into the lives of others!
