Triumphant Over Temptation

1. To use His authority as the Son of God for personal purposes.

1. There was no other time in Christ's earthly life when He was more susceptible to temptation than He was in the wilderness.
2. He was weak physically from not having eaten for forty days and nights. He was probably drained emotionally from His prolonged time in prayer.
3. If ever there was a time to tempt Jesus  - this was the time and Satan knew it.

2. The devil tempted Jesus to use His power as the Son of God to create bread to satisfy His hunger.

1. Satan tried to entice Jesus to use His power for His own personal gain.
2. For all of us there is always the temptation to be guarded against of using selfishly and for personal gain, whatever powers, giftings, and abilities God has given to us to use in Kingdom work.
3. The way we use God given abilities and giftings is an indication of whose will we are trying to accomplish.
4. Jesus refused to use His power and authority as the Son of God for His own gratification and pleasure. Notice Satan did not say pray to your Father that He would turn the stones into bread, but you command it to be done. He infers that  the Heavenly Father had forsaken Jesus so Jesus would have to fend for Himself. Satan wants to draw us from our dependency on God and lean on our own self-sufficiency.
5. Jesus refused to comply with Satan's request. He would not command the stones to be made bread. Not because He could not (because soon after this Jesus used His power to turn water into wine), but Jesus would not. I suggest three reasons:
   

1. To do so would show He distrusted His Father's care of Him.
2. To do so would take the management of His life out of the Father's hands and into His own. Jesus believed that as the Father had led Him into the wilderness, so the Father could take care of His needs in the wilderness just as He did Israel's in their wilderness experience.
3. To do so would have let Satan determine Jesus' course of action - not the Holy Spirit's.

6. The devil would have Him distrust His Father's love and care in a time of great need.

1. That is what Israel did in their wilderness journey when they were in want.
2. They asked, "Is the Lord among us? Can He furnish a table in the wilderness? Can He give bread?"  The answers to those three questions is: He was - He can - He did.
3. God gave Israel manna to eat. It was not bread out of the earth, but bread out of heaven. It was sent by the command of God. God does not have to use natural bread to sustain man, but anything He appoints and orders will maintain man as well as bread. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Luke 4:4).

7. God has just sustained Jesus for forty days without bread. He had done the same for Moses and Elijah. He sustained Israel with bread from heaven, angel's food. Another time He sustained Elijah with bread sent miraculously by ravens, and another time with the widow's meal miraculously multiplied. Therefore, Christ did not have to take matters into His own hand and turn stones into bread. He had only to wait for Jehovah-Jireh (the Lord will provide) to meet His need.
8. Jesus trusted His Heavenly Father to supply His daily bread. Later, He would teach His disciples to do the same. He taught them to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." He also told them "Take no thought what you shall eat or drink, for your Heavenly Father knows you have need of all these things" (Matt. 6:31-32).

3. Clear lessons are seen in this temptation.

1. Temptation often attacks us in an area of desperate need. There is a right way and a wrong way to meet that need. There is God's way and our way. It matters to God which way we choose.
2. God's power is to be used as the Spirit directs  - not us. To satisfy a legitimate need in an illegitimate way is never right. Satan will tell us, "the end justifies the means."
3. Temptations are to be resisted by using the Word of God against it. The believer must study and learn the Word of God in order to use it to withstand the tempter (Psa 119:9,11; Col 3:16; 2 Tim 2:15).

The Second Temptation

1. To presume upon the Father's power and protection.

1. Christ was tempted to put God the Father to the test. He was to jump off the towering pinnacle of the temple and let God send His angels to catch Him in mid-air and lower Him gently to the ground.
2. Christ was tempted to attract attention by doing the spectacular. The spectacular was always what every would be leader in Jesus day promised.

1. Theudas led people out to the Jordan River promising to part the waters with a word from his lips.
2. A famous Egyptian Pretender had promised that with a word he would lay flat the walls of Jerusalem.
3. Simon Magus, so it is said, had promised to fly through the air and perished in the attempt.

3. Every morning a priest stood on top of the roof of the temple with a trumpet in hand waiting for the flush of dawn across the hills of Hebron. At first dawn light he sounded the trumpet to tell people that the hour of morning sacrifice had come.
4. Why should not Jesus stand there and jump right down into the temple court to be caught in His fall by angels? The worshippers at the temple, seeing such a spectacular display would immediately accept and proclaim Him to be the Son of God and follow Him.
5. The devil, quoting from Psalm 91:11,12 was challenging Jesus to put God to the test again. Would God really be true to His Word and do what He said He would do?
6. God is not to be tested or tried, but God is to be trusted. His will and His Word are to be trusted and obeyed because we honor who He is and not because He passes some test we put Him through.

2. God's protection and promises are not to be presumed upon or taken advantage of.

1. Psalm 91 describes the safety and security that can be expected by those who dwell under the shadow of the Almighty
2. The child of God has the protection of God in the will of God. If what we do is out of the will of God, He is not obligated to protect us.
3. There is no Scriptural basis for anyone to deliberately put themselves into a threatening situation recklessly and needlessly and then presume that God is honor-bound to rescue them from it. But many believers do just that. Churches which practice snake handling and poison drinking constantly put God and His Word to such a test. Tragically, many die as a result.
4. Christ was already satisfied that God was His Father, and took care of Him, and gave His angels charge concerning Him. Jesus did not need to put His Father to testing to see if it were true. He believed God. He would not act presumptuously.

3. Satan frequently uses the Word of God to tempt us.

1. The devil can and does quote Scripture, but he can also misquote it.
2. If you compare Satan's quote of Matthew 4:6 with Psalm 91:11 you will discover he purposely left out the phrase "in all Thy ways." If we go out of our way (a way not of God's leading) we forfeit the promise of divine protection. Satan knew this so he omitted this phrase.
3. Satan twists certain passages of Scripture and omits others in an effort to cause us to misinterpret the Word of God. Every cult that uses the Bible does this in presenting their false teaching.
4. We need to beware of taking the promises of God out of context  and claiming promises when we have not met the conditions.
5. We must be careful to interpret any verse of Scripture in its entirety and in light of what the rest of the Scripture states.

4. The Word of God is a weapon that will enable us to defeat Satan anytime, every time and all the time if we will use it in faith.

1. When Satan tempted Jesus to test God's promised protection, Jesus told him, "It is written"  and again, "thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
2. What does it mean Scripturally to tempt God (to put Him to a test)? It means to place yourself needlessly in a threatening position and expect God to miraculously save you. It also means to take hold of some Bible promise and misapply it and try to force God to make good on it.

 

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