The Temptations Of Christ

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.