Sermon - Lessons From Demas (The Temptation Of Ease)

The Christian should view the “world” as often used in the New Testament, as a moral and spiritual system, in both time and space, which is designed to draw the believer in the Lord Jesus away from his or her love for the Lord and any service that might be rendered to Him.

This world system has only three allurements to draw the believer away from his or her love for the Lord. First, there is the lust of the flesh, second, the lust of the eyes, and finally, the pride of life. The first, the lust of the flesh, has to do with the gratification of the flesh (what makes me feel good physically). The second category is the lust of the eyes (what possessions I want to make me happy). The final category is pride of life (what I want to be). This is the arrogance that one has when they boast about themselves, their accomplishments, or their possessions. Whatever, “Demas’ love of the world” might have been, fell into at least one of these three categories. This observation causes some to assume Demas left God. Yet Apostle Paul said, “Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica.”

Satan has used the lust of flesh, the lust of the eye and pride of life to tempt all mankind since Adam and Eve were tempted to disobey the Lord God in the Garden of Eden. In the most perfect conditions humans ever lived, Satan came to Eve, disguised as a serpent, and cast doubt on the Word of God, and then he blatantly challenged the Word of God. So when Eve “saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), that it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes), and a tree desirable to make one wise (pride of life), she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate”.

On the other hand, the Lord Jesus, after He was baptized, was tested by the Devil in the most imperfect conditions for forty days. In the Gospel of Luke, the Lord Jesus is presented as the Perfect Man, the Last Adam who overcame the temptation of Satan and won the victory. The first testing by Satan was to challenge the Lord Jesus to turn the stone into bread (Luke 4:2-4). Here was the lust of the flesh, the desire to have physical food while He was fasting. But, Jesus answered Satan from the Word of God saying, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” He was quoting Deut. 8:3.

In the second testing, Satan takes the Lord Jesus to a high mountain and shows Him all the kingdom of the world and says they could all be the Lord’s if only He would bow down and worship Satan (Luke 4:5-8). Satan tested Him with the lust of the eyes because there was the desire to see and covet that which was not His. This world system was under the dominion of Satan. Yet again, Jesus quotes from the Word of God: “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve” (Deut. 6:13; 10:20).

The final testing, Satan takes the Lord Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and says: “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here” and then he proceeds to misquote Psalm 91:11, 12. Here was an attack on the deity of the Lord Jesus. He was the Son of God. Yet Satan was attacking with the “pride of life.”