The Temptations of Christ
Scripture Readings
Hebrews 4:14-5:3
Matthew 4:1-11 (text)
Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ
It doesn’t take us long in life to learn that valleys follow mountains, lows follow highs, and solutions quickly dissolve into more problems.
You finish university studies and graduate as a teacher – you have arrived at your long-sought goal. But soon enough you find yourself feeling like a slave labourer teaching seven classes and barely preparing enough to keep one step ahead of your students – while at the same time endlessly marking the same answers.
You hear that glorious full-throated birth-cry of your first-born child. Tears of wonder and joy spill down your cheeks. A few weeks later, you’re walking around the living room at three o’clock in the morning, trying to calm a screaming infant; tears of frustration spilling down your cheeks.
Valleys follow mountains. Lows follow highs. Solutions quickly dissolve into more problems. None of us is immune – not even Jesus. First heaven opened up and God smiled, then hell opened up and Satan laughed. No sooner has Jesus got his spiritual Ph.D. than He’s stumbling around in the wilderness, alone with the devil as His wily companion. It’s strangely fascinating, and very comforting, to see that this happens to the Son of God. He truly is divinity in the flesh – but He wasn’t isolated and immunised from the real world. Which means that the ministry of Jesus is one that can give us real hope and strength – for His is a ministry of human realities.
In this case the issue is temptation. And there is nothing accidental about the encounter in the desert. The Spirit of God led the Son of God into the desert. This was an event which had to happen. As it unfolds we need to understand two things. Firstly the desert was a place away from people. The Son of God was alone in His temptations. He had no help, no support, and no encouragement from family or friends. Satan had Him one on one. Secondly recognise the terrible hunger which resulted from a forty-day fast – a hunger which left the Son of God at His weakest point. He was at His most vulnerable. It was a deliberate act. The test of Jesus’ will had to take place at His weakest moment. Famished and alone, the Son of God faced His greatest trial. If He withstood this test, He would be able to withstand all later tests. It had to be this way and God could not protect His Son from these trials.
As we see Jesus being tempted in this way it says volumes about the brazenness of the devil. If Satan is even brazen enough to deliberately tempt the Son of God then you can be sure that He will have no hesitation in coming to tempt us. Every follower of Christ will face temptation – and Satan will be more than happy to make sure that the temptation arises when you are at you greatest vulnerability.
I heard the story of a young man who became a Christian on Sunday and lost his job the following week. This resulted in the statement that he was not coming back to church because God had let him down. That’s an example of Satan catching him when he was vulnerable.
In the life of the church there are times when the church does let people down – the church isn’t perfect. How often it is that, at those times, Satan comes along and pushes people to drop out of the church because of the hurt they have experienced. It’s another example of Satan coming when we are vulnerable.
If you think that Satan is going to be merciful to you, you are mistaken. He knows no mercy. He will catch you when you are alone and vulnerable and will put you to the test. Which means we have to be on our guard. There is a book called “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S.Lewis. The whole book is a series of letters from Screwtape (who is a senior devil) to his nephew Wormwood (who is an apprentice devil). Screwtape is teaching Wormwood how to trap people and make them sin. Let me read a section of it to you:
“The most alarming thing in your last account of the patient is that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion … I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to this fact? … Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By Jove! I’m being humble”, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this for too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed”.
(C.S.Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”, pp.71-72).
C.S.Lewis knew what he was talking about because the devil is a master at trapping us. That is why the Scriptures warn us about his ability.
• He blinds us so that we cannot see the light of the gospel (2Cor.4:4).
• He prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1Pet.5:8).
• Just as Eve was deceived He continues to work against us hoping that our minds may somehow be led astray from our sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2Cor.11:3).
Truly the devil is a cunning enemy of God and God’s people … an enemy against whom we constantly need to stay on guard. But how do we do it? How do we stand against such an enemy? That is where the three temptations of Jesus help. As we think about the first temptation let’s ask ourselves some questions.
Maybe our younger members can relate to this. Have you ever had a time when you have ridden your bike to a friend’s house – and thought, “I’ve got a pretty cool bike”? But, when you got to your friend’s house your friend has a new bike … then all of the sudden you though “My bike is not cool, it’s a piece of junk”. Have you ever had that?
A number of our families have a Play Station 2 or an X-box – and we have all got some good games. But have you noticed that it doesn’t take long to get bored with the games you have. Have you had times when you thought, “I need to have the latest, newest, fastest game”?
And it’s not just our younger members. How often we get trapped by the “need” to have more. Luxuries become necessities. We put ourselves into debt just for that special “have to have” item – only to find it has no meaning six months later. We do like to have new cloths better things, and more modern stuff.
And then … and then we see what other people have. And then this little voice starts up inside of us. And it says something like:- Why does everyone else have better “stuff”? What is the difference between them and me? Don’t I deserve to have a better life? Have you ever had thoughts like that? Maybe you have. Maybe you have even gone a step further and said to God: Lord, aren’t I good? Don’t I love You? Why don’t I get the good things like other people? Why do you seem to make me miss out?
That’s temptation at work isn’t it … the devil trying to trap you by making you think “I deserve a better deal out of life”. It’s a trap to make us question if we should trust God … and it makes us start to question if He cares for us. And Satan is putting the same temptation before Jesus. Jesus has been in the desert for 40 days and nights. He is hungry and exhausted. Then the tempter comes, “You are the Son of God, yet you go hungry. Does that make sense? You should have the best. Go ahead, indulge Yourself”.
Jesus could do it, but he wouldn’t. “Man does not live by bread alone”. In other words Jesus is saying, “Life is not about how much ‘stuff’ you have, or how modern your ‘things’ are”. Instead we live on every word that comes from the mouth of God. We live as those who fill our lives with God. We don’t look at others and think, “I deserve better”. We look to Jesus who gave His life for us and we say, “I already have the best that God can give me – and everything else is just a wonderful bonus. Jesus overcame the temptation be focusing on what is important … and we can too.
That brings us to another temptation – a temptation that is quite closely related to the first one. And that is the temptation of make deals with God. We might make a deal with God just before we have to have an exam or an important test. “If You care for me Lord you will help me get good marks in my exam. If I get a good mark I will serve You more faithfully”.
I saw a movie and there is one scene where the man is drowning. So he starts praying. He says, “Lord I’ll come to church every week, I’ll give 10% of my income, I’ll teach Sunday school if only you will save me”. By the time this man gets to the shore the prayer has become “Lord that 2% I promised will come your way soon, perhaps when I go to church next month”. It was a comedy but the point is made on how we can treat God at times. “Lord if I do this, You can do that”. “Lord You have promised such and such, now You need to deliver”.
Again we have to realise that this is Satan is at work … he’s tempting us to have a little bargain with God. If all goes well, we can trust God till next time. But as soon as it doesn’t go our way we can blame God for not helping us. It’s a cleaver trap really – by making us test God Satan is working towards making us turn from God. In verses 5-7 Jesus is going through the same temptation. Cleverly the devil sets up the next temptation by using the support of Scripture. Basically Satan says:-
“You trust in God!? Let’s see. God’s Word says He will protect His people – that would especially apply to His Son. Throw yourself off the temple and see if He sends His angels. See if He is a God who keeps His promises”.
God is a God who makes many promises, and He keeps all of them. But there is a big difference between trusting the promises of God and trying to control God for our own selfish means. Whenever we get to the point of saying, “God, if You do this, then I will know You are real” … whenever that happens we have crossed the line. That is why Jesus says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.
• Do you make your parents prove that they love you by making demands of them? No. You know they love you because of what they do for you.
• Do we make our spouse prove that they love us? No, we see it by their actions.
• Does that then mean we have the right to make our parents and spouse do whatever we want them to … and if they don’t then it proves they don’t love us? Of course not.
It’s the same with God. He will fulfil all of His promises. But we don’t have the right to test Him – because as soon as we do we will find ourselves trusting Him less rather than trusting Him more. That’s how Jesus dealt with the temptation, we can do the same.
Which brings us to the last temptation that Jesus faced. And we can understand this temptation by asking ourselves a question, “Have you ever been tempted to take-short cuts in life?”. It’s easy to do.
You might take short-cuts at school. Copying homework from others. Cheating on exams. Getting older brothers or sisters to help you with your assignments. There is plenty of ways to do it. You might do that, or you might study hard and put all the effort in yourself. Again, the end result is the same, in fact you might even get better marks by taking short-cuts. But the way you got there is totally different.
You can take short-cuts with your parents. When they are around you say nice things and show respect. But when they are not around you bad-mouth them, and joke about them. You could be like that, or you could honour your parents at all times. The end result is the same – you get to have parents who love you. But the way you got there is totally different.
As adults we take shortcuts in life as well. We have certain goals and we reach those goals … but there are many ways to reach then … many which are shortcuts.
Taking short-cuts. That’s the temptation. A very effective temptation. It’s the temptation to get what you want, or to achieve goals, without putting in all the hard work and sacrifice. It’s a temptation to make yourself look good in other people’s eyes, so they don’t think you are a failure. It’s the temptation to get the glory, without the sacrifice. And it is this temptation Satan is putting before Jesus in verses 8-10. Basically Satan was saying:-
“There is no need for you to go to the cross to secure your kingdom … just bow once before me now and I will give it to You. Why make the sacrifice? Why go through the agony? Take a short-cut”.
It’s no wonder that Jesus says, in a very clear way, “Get out of my sight. I will worship God, and God alone”. When we are tempted to take short-cuts in life, no matter what that short-cut looks like, we need to remember these words of Jesus. “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only”.
• And worship is not just what we do here together on a Sunday.
• Worship is doing everything in our life in such a way that we do not humiliate God by our actions.
• When we copy and cheat we humiliate God.
• When we dishonour our parents we humiliate God.
• When we make ourselves look good, or pretend to be something we are not, we humiliate God.
Worship God. That’s how Jesus got through the temptation and we can do the same.
And that brings us back to where we started. We know that temptation will come. But why can we get through temptation? Because Jesus has shown the way. Not by avoiding the issues, but by dealing with them. For the fact is that Satan will come. Satan will tempt. Satan will have all sorts of ways to cast doubt on your claim to be a child of God. Satan will make you question who you are, and who God made you to be.
• “Look at you!”.
• “Look at your cravings and doubts”.
• “Look at your self-centred lifestyle and greed”.
• “Look at your spiritual sloth, your pitiful prayer life, and your fears”.
And then he disdainfully whispers, “And you call yourself a Christian”. That’s the accusation of the prowling lion the one who wants to devour. What do I say?
This is what we say. We say "Get behind me, Satan!".
• “Yes, I am a sinner”.
• “Yes, all these roaring beasts of lust and pride, of hatred and greed simmer within me and sometimes boil over”.
• “But, I walk through this wilderness with the one who is my Saviour and Lord”.
“My Jesus faced your blistering attack. He was tempted in every way that I am. All the temptations I faced, He faced. In His own fully human heart, He recognised all the things of which you rightfully accuse me. But, He defeated them. He conquered them. He paid for them. And, He crushed your power over me. I stand firm in Jesus and you cannot hold me down”.
When we face temptation that is our hope. A hope which comes to all who confess Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. A hope based on knowing His work. Knowing that He went from day to day fighting the temptations which were put on His path – and near the end, when He was being tempted to give up, He prayed to His Father Not My will but Your will be done. A hope based on the fact that He went to the cross to give His life for people who are constantly trapped by the devil. And then He rose from the grave which gave Him the right to release people from the traps of the devil.
What do we do when we fall into temptation? We look to Jesus and realise that He has defeated Satan, and He will help us to do the same. And that doesn’t give us an excuse to go and sin.
But it does give us true hope when we do sin. The hope which is ours when we come to Jesus in faith and trust in Him. He is the Son of God who died for us. Our older brother who shows us how to deal with temptation. Our Saviour who carries when we fall into Satan’s traps.
Amen.
