We would expect all the great events of Jesus' ministry to begin immediately after such a profound announcement, but instead we find Him being tempted in the wilderness. Spiritual attacks often follow right on the heels of a positive spiritual experience. In fact, that's when spiritual attacks are most likely to occur. I can think of several reasons why this might be. For one thing, Satan can't stand it when our cup overflows with the Holy Spirit. He wants to see our relationship with God broken so that he can make us broken. He wants to cut us off from the supply chain of power and grace by discouraging and confusing us with difficult circumstances so that we begin to doubt the promises of God. He wants to bring so much fear and distress upon us that in our human weakness we can't feel the presence of God.
But there's another reason for seasons of temptation. God sometimes chooses times of testing for us so that our faith has a chance to grow. Like a muscle on the human body, faith doesn't grow very well unless it meets with resistance. Faith, like a muscle, has to learn to push back. It's easy for us to trust God during our spiritual highs, but we don't live our lives in a constant state of spiritual euphoria, and we must learn to trust God in our low times too. We have to learn to push back against the darkness and against the lies of the devil and say, "My God is for me. If He is for me, who can be against me?" (Romans 8:31)
A third reason for temptation is that our ability to emerge victoriously from it proves to the world that we are who we say we are. It shows those around us that He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4) It testifies to unbelievers that the power of Christ is real and that our God is able to give us the strength to remain faithful to Him. We will not always perform our duties to our Lord perfectly, but He is able to help us live lives that honor Him so that those around us can say, "There must be something to this Christian life. They are able to resist a lot of things the rest of us fall for. And when they do make mistakes, they repent and learn from their mistakes and move on. They don't just keep lying there wallowing in the dirt; their God restores them to grace and helps them to do better. This is something different. This is something real." I think the reason for Jesus' temptation falls into this third category. He enters a difficult season of temptation and emerges from it victoriously in order to prove to the world that He is who He says He is.
Mark tells us very little about the temptation of Jesus. Right after Jesus' baptism, Mark says, "At once the Spirit sent Him out into the wilderness, and He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended Him." (Mark 1:12-13) Jesus had to be tested in order to prove He could stand firm against sin. When we test drive a car we aren't hoping it will fail. We test drive it to prove that it is reliable. We test drive it to prove that it's everything we've been told it is. This is the same reason Jesus had to be tested in the wilderness, to prove He is reliable and that He is everything we've been told He is.
Matthew's gospel tells us that Jesus fasted while He was in the wilderness, and I think we can safely assume He was praying during His time of fasting. Fasting and praying go hand in hand in the Scriptures. Fasting is a way of denying self and of ignoring the physical needs while attending to the spiritual needs. As God in the flesh, Jesus now has to deal with one of the most common human experiences: hunger. We all become hungry several times throughout the day, every single day of our lives. Jesus becomes exceptionally hungry during His time of fasting, so Satan comes to Him and suggests He do something to remedy the problem. "If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." (Matthew 4:3)
Satan knows Jesus is the Son of God. He knows Jesus is the Word of God without whom nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3) Jesus can simply speak the word and command a stone to turn into bread. But He doesn't do it. He sets a beautiful example for us all by not debating the issue in His own mind and trying to justify it; instead He simply speaks the word of God back to Satan, "It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4) Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8 where Moses reminds the children of Israel how God provided for them in the wilderness by sending bread from heaven. But man is more than flesh and blood; man is also spirit and the spirit must be nourished too. The only way to nourish the spirit is to stay in close communion with God and to be obedient to Him. Moses pointed out in Deuteronomy 8 that if the people will be obedient to God, He will supply everything they need. In quoting Moses' words Jesus is saying to Satan, "I'm trusting God the Father to provide for Me. He sent Me to complete a time of fasting in the wilderness before beginning My ministry and I'm going to see it through to the end. It would be disobedient of Me to turn stones into bread because this would demonstrate a lack of trust in the power of God to keep Me alive to fulfill what I've come to do."
Satan was able to cause the fall of man in the Garden of Eden over an item of food, but his scheme doesn't work on Jesus, so he attacks from another angle. He knows Jesus is on His way to the cross. There is no king's crown at the end of the dusty road Jesus is trudging. There's a cruel crown of thorns waiting for Him. Satan offers to help Jesus bypass the suffering and go straight to the glory. He tells Jesus to jump from the highest point of the temple, in full view of the crowds assembled there, and be miraculously delivered by God who will be compelled to save Him. "'If you are the Son of God,' he said, '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)
We don't want to miss the snide wickedness of Satan quoting Scripture back to the One who just quoted Scripture to him. We also don't want to miss the fact that Satan is quoting Scripture to its Author. There's something so slimy about this and so revealing of his serpent-like nature, that the devil would dare to fling the words of God into the face of the very Word of God. Don't ever think Satan doesn't know the Bible. He knows it better than you or I do. And he will use it in ways that try to twist its meaning, which is why it's imperative that we make Bible study a habit. Then we can remain steadfast like Jesus, who says, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (Matthew 4:7) Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6 which deals with the people murmuring against God in the wilderness. It has to do with not trusting God to do the right thing at the right time. Jesus is going to trust God to do the right thing at the right time, and He knows it's God's will that His glory should come after His torturous death on the cross, not before or instead of the death on the cross. It is because He is obedient unto death that God endows Jesus with glory, according to the prophet Isaiah, "After He has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:11-12)
Satan makes a third attempt to thwart the mission of Jesus Christ. He shows Him a vision of all the kingdoms of the world and offers them to Him if only He will bow down and worship him. "'All this I will give You,' he said, 'if You will bow down and worship me.'" (Matthew 4:9) Jesus doesn't refute Satan's ability to do this. Many have, in essence, sold their souls to the devil for fame and fortune. Men and women have turned their backs on the principles of God and have broken laws both moral and spiritual to enjoy the pleasures of this world for a season. But the kingdoms Satan offers Jesus are temporary, just as the fame and fortune of this world are temporary. If Jesus remains obedient to God, He will inherit an eternal kingdom. He will be King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:16) If Jesus remains obedient to God, He will be exalted to the highest place and given the name that is above every name. (Philippians 2:9) The rewards Satan promises Jesus are nothing compared to what God the Father has promised.
The devil has gone too far. He has been too bold and too obvious in his request to be worshiped. Since the beginning, Satan has often persuaded people to worship him by disguising himself as other things, but here he has brazenly come out into the open. Up til this point I think Jesus, in the part of Him that is man, felt the pull of an easy path to glory. In His humanness He must have dreaded the pain and the shame of the cross. But now Satan has shown himself in all his ugliness and Jesus appears to wave him away as easily as a person might wave away a gnat. "Jesus said to him, 'Away from Me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.' Then the devil left Him, and angels came and attended Him." (Matthew 4:10-11)
Jesus stood the test. He submitted Himself to God and resisted the devil. As a result the devil fled from Him. (James 4:7) In today's passage we have the perfect recipe for standing firm in the faith:
1. We are to know the Scriptures, for Satan knows them and will try to use them against us.
2. We are not to argue with the devil or to try to justify sin in our minds.
3. We are to resist the temptation by simply believing and quoting the holy and infallible word of God.
Whenever we, in our human weakness, fail in any of these three points, "We do not have a High Priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are---yet He did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:15-16) Because Jesus was tempted, He understands how difficult it is for us. And because He successfully withstood His temptation, gave His life for our sins, and was raised from the dead, "He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them." (Hebrews 7:25)
No comments:
Post a Comment