Based on a message preached at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO, on 1-22-2023. This is not an exact transcription.
Introduction: Last week we looked at how John the Baptist came preaching, far away from town, much like he might do here if he lived here. To give a kind of local flavor, he might have “set up shop”, so to speak, way out of town, maybe to the west where the land was level and was close to the river.
John baptized Jesus, which could have been one of the greatest moments of our Lord’s life. I can remember being baptized; it was in a baptistery just like the one behind me but I remember a lot of other people who were baptized in a literal river! I can tell you more about that later on.
But at any rate, Jesus was led (Mark says He was driven) into the wilderness. Now, “Wilderness” didn’t mean desert land or steppe/semi-arid land, such as what Elijah lived in for a while, and it wasn’t untapped forest, like what Daniel Boone might have come into. The word, here, simply meant land that didn’t have a large population; kind of like wide open spaces.
Jesus went there and was in for one of the greatest tests of His life. Let’s read the text and see what God’s Word has to say:
Text: Luke 4:1-13, NASB: 1 Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.’”
5 And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I want. 7 Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”8 Jesus replied to him, “It is written: ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’”
9 And he brought Him into Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; 10 for it is written:
‘HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS ORDERS CONCERNING YOU, TO PROTECT YOU,’ 11 and, ‘ON THEIR HANDS THEY WILL LIFT YOU UP,
SO THAT YOU DO NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’”
12 And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been stated, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’” 13 And so when the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.
<Opening prayer>
The first temptation: hunger
Let me begin by saying fasting, or refusing to eat foods or certain foods, has been around for many years. Daniel was one such Old Testament saint who didn’t eat much for three weeks (Daniel 10:1-3). Moses spent 40 days on the mountain alone with God, as recorded in Exodus, and Elijah’s angel-prepared meal kept him going for 40 days (1 Kings 19) after he stood alone for God at Mount Carmel.
Jesus was not under any command or directive to fast for as long as He did. We’re never told why He fasted for so long but we do have a hint of what happened during that time, and it wasn’t very good news.
At least twice, He was put to the test by the Devil. Here at this first time, when Jesus was weak, physically, and now He was hungry—just look at verse 2! And it’s here that the Devil tries to test or tempt Jesus, not to do anything wrong, necessarily, but to take matters into His own hands. Who needs to wait for anything or anybody when you’re hungry, right?
Here’s what the Devil said: “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” You know, I’ve read this passage many times but never have I understood why Satan made the request of Jesus to turn a stone into bread. Matthew uses the plural, “stones”, in his account but the idea is the same: Jesus, You are hungry, so let’s do lunch. You know, let’s fellowship like we did before You kicked me and my friends out of heaven. It’s all forgiven, right?
But Jesus saw right through the words and the intents and everything else the Devil was trying to throw at Him. Stones—there were and are plenty of them in Israel but in this wilderness, some of the most worthless land in Israel (I mean, if it was any good, there would be people and domestic animals, not just the wild beasts like Mark described, wouldn’t there?), there probably wasn’t much of anything else!
In fact, I’ve read somewhere that there is a type of rock called an “Elijah’s melon”, that looks just like a lightly browned, large, bun, maybe like a “Kaiser” roll. As Jesus was, and is, Son of God, as even Satan knew this, it would be relatively easy for Him to soften a stone and make a bun out of a rock.
Jesus, though, had nothing whatsoever to do with this and promptly told Satan, “Man shall not live on bread alone.” Of course, “bread” is the general term for food; we know some people cannot eat certain breads because of problems with yeast, wheat, gluten, or other things. The Hebrews ate manna for nearly 40 years, between leaving Egypt and entering Canaan. And what was this manna called? Bread.
Oh, hunger makes good people do bad things, but even as Jesus resisted, I hope we too can resist even when hunger makes almost anything look good.
And speaking of looking good, how would being offered the easiest job in the world look to you?
The first temptation: Jesus 1, Satan 0.
The second temptation: power
Satan found he couldn’t get Jesus to doubt the Father when He was hungry, so he tried this appeal to power. He offered Jesus the easiest job in the world: world ruler. Let me talk about this in a moment.
Now, I’ve often thought the easiest job in the world would be a square-dance caller. My wife and I like to watch a few shows on RFD-TV, one of these being “Country Stars of the 50’s” or something like that. Hey, they have some good stuff, like videos of Carl Smith, Webb Pierce, Kitty Wells, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and others. Best of all, it’s all good, clean stuff, nothing dirty or less than honorable in any of that stuff. We like it.
But the easiest job I’ve ever seen is the square dance caller. Every show they have some square dancers, going out there and doing whatever—sometimes, I get dizzy watching the whirl and twirl of it—and there’s one man, off to the side, just hollering like he slammed his hand in a car door and yelling for dear life. Whether the dancers hear him or not, he’s doing his thing, they’re doing theirs, and what could be easier than that/
Oh, and sometimes they’re not called “square dancers” but “cloggers.” The dancing looks the same, and the caller is still shouting the same commands, I suppose, but it’s still an easy job. On one show, one of the cloggers was shouting the “cadence” as they did their thing. Now I have to tell you, the only kind of clogging I do is washing my whiskers down the bathroom sink but to stand and shout “Mary had a little lamb” or whatever while the cloggers or whomever do their thing—that has to be easy, right?
Now just think how easy it would be to rule the world and have someone else manage it for you! This is the “deal” that Satan was offering Jesus, control of all of the world’s kingdoms and all of their glory, and Jesus had only one thing to do to make it happen:
Worship Satan. I can imagine the full thrust of the conversation going something like this, “Just fall on Your knees, Jesus, and worship me. I have it all, and I can give anything I want to anybody I want to.” I don’t believe this was the first time Satan had made this offer, and I don’t believe very many turned down this offer. Think how many people, men and women alike, achieved all kinds of power over other people when I suppose a lot of others thought “How did this happen?” Satan made it happen, along with his willing accomplices, and he may have thought Jesus was weak enough through hunger to take the deal.
But He didn’t.
And He told Satan, “You will worship the LORD your God and serve Him only.” No room for the True God and something else, no room for the True God and anything or anyone else. Jesus was offered the chance to convert to Satan worship but rejected or turned it down decisively.
Second temptation: Jesus 2, Satan 0.
The third temptation: prestige
Satan had tried to tempt Jesus twice, by now, using hunger and earthly power as bait to try and hook Jesus Himself but neither of these worked. Now he’s trying another appeal, or a different bait, so to speak—the desire to be recognized, or prestige.
Incredibly, Jesus allowed Himself to accompany Satan to Jerusalem (they were in the wilderness, before this) and while there, both went to the “pinnacle of the Temple.” I’ve lost track of how many interpretations of that term, “pinnacle of the Temple”, but the most common thread of this phrase is that it was very high above the Temple buildings themselves. One estimate is that this pinnacle or highest point was over six hundred feet above the ground.
As a point of reference, the St Louis Gateway Arch is 630 feet tall, per Wikipedia and other sources! So imagine—to put it in local terms again, Jesus being taken to the Gateway Arch and Satan telling Him, “Jump down and angels will catch You before You hit the ground or the Mississippi River!”
That would make news, wouldn’t it! Newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, you name it, they’d all be there to interview Jesus, maybe, to ask Him how He got there, how He made it down, and so forth. All kinds of questions from an admiring press and media, and wouldn’t that go to just about anybody’s head?
But Jesus, again, would have none of it. He wanted people to follow Him out of love, not just admiration or being a superhero or anything like that. Once again, our Lord went back to the Word of God and quoted this verse to Satan: “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.” Israel did that many times during the wilderness journey but that’s another story. Satan had tried, and failed, again to get Jesus to listen to Him, and not the Father.
Third temptation: Jesus 3, Satan 0
When you look at it, there are only three basic areas where the devil tries or tempts us. He’ll try physical hunger, knowing the longer one goes without food, the more likely the person is to do something, anything, to stop the hunger. That was the first try, too, when Satan tempted Jesus, knowing the Lord would be hungry—and He was—after eating nothing at all for 40 days (that was nearly six weeks!)
Then, if that doesn’t work, he’ll try the offer of power. You can’t tell me that Satan didn’t offer this kind of power, politically or otherwise, to any number of people before he did this to Jesus. Just think how many absolutely evil people have walked this earth, done unspeakable things, and seldom if ever faced justice for it down here. Sure, Satan protects his own—up to a point, up to when he’s done with you. Is the offer worth the price? Jesus said no.
And then he can and increasingly does offer prestige. Think about the various things in various shades of insanity that people have done and still do in order to get attention, be noticed, get likes or clicks or whatever on their social media. Had Jesus jumped from the Temple, sure, that would have made big news but that wasn’t God’s way. Jesus promptly quoted a Scripture and that did the job. Eventually the devil left Jesus, at least for a while.
You and I are going to face testings, temptations, you name it, and they probably won’t stop as long as we’re on this earth. But we have various items we can use: call them tools, weapons, devices, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is what we do when any or all of these temptations come our way.
Let me close with this illustration I heard on Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s “Thru the Bible” radio program some years back. He told the story that out in Texas, where he lived at the time, the railroad put in a new bridge. Once it was finished, the railroad brought two of the largest locomotives in the fleet to run across that new bridge. One of the engineers was asked, “Aren’t you afraid the bridge will fall down?” The engineer replied, “No, we’re going to prove it won’t fall down.”
You and I, let me say it again, are going to face any number of temptations and so on. The good news is that we have the example of Jesus—He never failed, and we don’t have to fail either.
Always trust in Jesus and He will help all of us through anything that comes our way!
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASB)
