Regis Philbin has become a household name because of his familiar and often repeated question, “Is that your final answer?” from his popular, primetime television game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? This probing question amplifies the suspense and adds to the drama of each answer, turning up the heat on the contestant in the “hot seat” with the reality that one wrong answer usually means forfeiting a large portion of the accumulated prize.
As disciples of Jesus, Satan loves to light a hot seat underneath each one of us in this life. He loves to hit us with probing questions, taunting questions, misleading questions. He turns up the heat on us by posing those questions at inconvenient times or in uncomfortable circumstances. But Satan’s goal in asking these questions isn’t dramatic effect. His earnest desire is to tempt us to choose the wrong answer every time so that we ultimately lose out on the eternal prize Christ has won for us. Thankfully when Satan’s got us on the hot seat of temptation, as our status as disciples of Jesus hangs in the balance, our Savior does not leave us squirming without a lifeline. In fact, Jesus is our lifeline – because Jesus gives us the final answer to temptation! He gives us the final answer 1) to Satan’s temptation of casual discipleship. He gives us the final answer 2) to Satan’s temptation of daredevil discipleship. He gives us the final answer 3) to Satan’s temptation of carefree discipleship.
Jesus’ answer to the temptations we face isn’t some hypothetical meandering of a self-appointed know it all, but from one who has been there and faced that. In fact Jesus shows us in the text for this morning that his answer to temptation is the only one that actually works. It’s the answer that chases away Satan and all of his devilish lies and deceits. It worked for Jesus. It will work for us too!
Shortly after his baptism Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Though God was not tempting Jesus, it was God’s will that Jesus be tempted. It was God’s will that Jesus be tempted so that he could triumph over the devil and his temptations as our perfect Savior. But Satan wasn’t willing to be a patsy. He would use every trick, every maneuver, every deceit he had in his bag to try and lead Jesus to sin and thereby destroy Jesus’ work as our Savior. Though Satan is eager, he is also a master of timing and waits until Jesus is weak and perhaps seemingly more susceptible. It’s not until Jesus had gone forty days and nights without food that Satan comes to him and tries to put Jesus on the hot seat and test his discipleship.
The devil’s first temptation doesn’t seem all that evil at first glance. “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:3). Jesus is the Son of God. He certainly had the power to turn those stones into bread. He’s incredibly hungry – so why not? What would be so wrong about that? Because this was not his Father’s will. His Father’s will was that Jesus would go without food these 40 days and nights and counting. His Father’s will was that Jesus would drink the cup of human suffering brought on by sin to the dregs and triumph over that suffering as our Savior, not only here in the wilderness, but throughout his life and ministry, culminating at the cross. So what Satan is really suggesting is that Jesus would start being selective about when he would follow his Father’s will. Satan wants Jesus to be a casual disciple. A casual disciple is someone who does what God wants but only when it suits their comfort level, or their own interests, or their timeframe. Surely this whole ordeal was a bit uncomfortable for Jesus. Going hungry these 40 days hardly seemed to be in Jesus’ best interest. “Jesus, no reasonable person would think any less of you as one of God’s followers if you just made yourself a little bread,” Satan is whispering under his breath. “This part of God’s will for your life doesn’t suit you real well, so don’t worry about,” Satan’s suggesting.
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Jesus knew full well that true discipleship is not a casual commitment but a full time way of life. To guard himself against Satan’s dangerous and tempting way of thinking Jesus uses God’s own Word as his sure and strong defense. Jesus quotes the words of Deuteronomy 8:3 – words that God himself shared with his disciples, the Israelites after he had sustained them in the desert for forty years with manna from heaven. What is Jesus’ point? A disciple’s life consists in more than just his physical existence. His real life, the one that matters most, is the life he enjoys in communion with God, the spiritual, Spirit-filled life, that is created and sustained through the Word that has come from the mouth of God. As God’s Son, as the preeminent disciple Jesus was not about to sacrifice his perfect communion with God in the misguided hope of finding some temporary relief for his suffering here upon this earth. While this was certainly a temporarily attractive temptation that Satan had offered, Jesus remained firm in his faith, content to follow God at all costs, confident that God would provide all that he needed as he did his Father’s will.
Satan may have lost a battle but he wasn’t ready to admit defeat in the war with Jesus just yet. Quickly he turns the tables and attempts to exploit the strength of Jesus’ faith for his own malicious ends. Satan now confronts Jesus with the temptation to daredevil discipleship.
Satan takes Jesus to the top of the Temple in Jerusalem and tempts him to put his faith where his mouth was. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’” (Matthew 4:6). Satan is taunting Jesus, and he uses the words of Psalm 91:11,12 to do it!
But Jesus quickly reveals Satan to be the father of lies seen in the way he has just used the Scriptures. While Satan may have quoted those verses accurately he applied them in a way that does violence to the context of those words and the whole of Scripture. God’s promise in Psalm 91 is not a promise of unlimited angelic protection under all circumstances. It is rather an assurance of the Lord’s protection while his people go about their God-given responsibilities from day to day.
In thwarting Satan’s temptation Jesus also gives the devil a lesson on the proper way of understanding and interpreting the Bible. Jesus understands that divine truth cannot contradict itself; therefore proper Scripture interpretation considers a particular passage or section of Scripture in light of the whole of Scripture; and the whole of Scripture consisting of the cohesive unit of its individual teachings that are tightly interwoven throughout its pages. That’s exactly the method Jesus uses when he quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 where God says: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” God has commanded his disciples to care for their bodies and treasure their lives. That’s how they demonstrate their faith. Playing daredevil isn’t a disciple’s act of faith, but a demonstration of disobedience that flows from a heart of unbelief that tries to trap God into doing something against his will. Jesus won’t fall for it.
Satan’s down but he’s not out. Twice he’s come with convincing temptations and twice Jesus has rebuffed him. Satan tries one last temptation. He tempts Jesus with an invitation to carefree discipleship.
In his final temptation on this day Satan unmasks his true intent and spells it out in plain words. He takes Jesus up on a mountaintop and shows him all the kingdoms of the world in their splendor. Then he lays his proposition on the table: “All this I will give you if you bow down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). You’ve got to give Satan this much, he’s bold in his lies. He just claimed authority that belongs to God alone and proposes to offer Jesus a life of carefree discipleship. All that Jesus had to do was bow down and worship Satan this one time out in the desert where no one would even have to see him. Then Satan would be glad to hand over all the kingdoms that Jesus was out to win – no fuss, no suffering, no mess.
But what Satan conveniently forgot to mention was that he has no right or power to set anyone free from the punishment that God pronounces upon those who have rebelled against him. Not only that but would Jesus have offered Satan even an ounce of allegiance or accorded him a smidgen of honor he would have broken God’s clear command recorded in the Holy Scriptures: “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only” (Deuteronomy 6:13). Jesus will not succumb to the temptation to think that there is an easier way to do God’s will than the path of the cross. He will serve the true God by embracing the cross and triumphing over suffering, over Satan, and over sin at the cross!
With all of these temptations Satan was trying to overthrow Christianity. Had he succeeded in leading Jesus to sin, Jesus could no longer be our Savior. His death would have been his rightful punishment rather than his selfless sacrifice. But if Satan is anything, he is persistent. If he can’t have all Christians he’s at least going to try and get some. So he foists similar temptations upon us. Have we fallen prey to his deceitful charms? Ask yourself these penetrating diagnostic questions and you’ll know the answer: Do I consider following Jesus to be my way of life or is being a Christian only one aspect of my life? Do I nourish the life God has given me consistently, exercising it regularly, and managing it carefully – both physically and especially spiritually? Is it my belief that as a Christian I will have a life without troubles and trials on this earth- or do I see Christ’s call to follow him as an invitation to live gladly as I embrace the burdens of this life for the sake of his name? I didn’t do so well. How about you?
So what’s the answer? The answer is the same one that Jesus gave. Three little words: “It is written.” The answer is God’s Word. I need to know more of it, structure my life around it, and live more in line with it, so that I might resist Satan more day by day. Only God’s Word keeps me sensitive to God’s will for my life. Only God’s Word shows me Jesus’ perfect example. But most importantly only God’s Word opens my eyes to Jesus’ perfect sacrifice for me. For there it is written: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16, 17). That my friends, is the answer, the final answer that does away with our guilt, the final answer that chases Satan and his temptations far from us, and the final answer that opens the gates of heaven wide to us. May we never get tired of hearing, learning, and living that answer! Amen.
