The Temptation of Jesus – Part 3
Luke 4:5-13 (5-8)
December 24, 2017
As you know, we are working through Luke’s gospel and we are currently in the middle of the section regarding the temptation of Jesus.
As we have said, the purpose for this temptation from Satan’s perspective is easy to understand; Satan simply desires to ruin the righteousness of Christ.
The gospel hangs upon the understanding that
Believers are justified before God
Having received the imputed righteousness of Christ.
If Christ is not righteous, or if He stumbles in any way,
Then the gospel is shot and salvation is impossible.
From God’s perspective we also understand the purpose of this temptation.
• On one hand we have learned that God is using this temptation as a means
of perfecting Christ in the sense of qualifying Him to be a merciful and sympathetic high priest on our account.
Hebrews 2:18 “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”
• And not only that, but through His triumph over this temptation, He is also
proving His perfection and that He is qualified to be our Savior.
Hebrews 5:9 “And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,”
Through Christ’s temptation,
He is not only tested and made sympathetic to our hardships,
But He is also victorious and thus proves
That His righteousness can in fact save us all.
That being the case we have also seen why Luke has chosen to highlight the specific temptations that he is highlighting.
While he is clear that Satan does in fact try “every temptation” on Jesus,
Luke only highlights three of them in detail.
And we know why.
The three temptations Luke highlights as Jesus wanders 40 days in the wilderness directly correspond to the 3 giant blunders of Israel as they wandered 40 years in the wilderness.
We looked at them last week, so we won’t examine them again,
But you remember what they were.
1 Corinthians 10:8-10 “Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”
In Numbers 25 we read how the people were tempted by the Midianite women and they actually went and worshiped other gods. The result was that God sent a plague which killed 23,000.
In Numbers 21 we read how the people put God to the test, demanding different and better food from Him, and the result was serpents which arose from the sand and bit the people.
In Numbers 16 we read how Dathan, Korah, and Abiram challenged Moses as an unfit leader and were killed by God, and then how the people grumbled over their death because they agreed that God had not done a sufficient job of providing. In result, God sent the destroyer who killed over 14,000 Israelites before Aaron could make atonement.
Three major blunders:
• They abandoned the Lord to worship other gods
• They tested God by demanding better food
• They ignored God by seeking to overthrow His leader in Moses
When Satan hit Israel with those temptations,
Israel fell into terrible sin and the result was nothing short
Of the outpouring of God’s wrath.
Based on that reality, we better understand
Why Luke has chosen to outline these 3 specific temptations of Jesus,
For here Satan tempts Jesus in the exact same way.
Luke highlights those temptations as a way to demonstrate
That where Israel failed and thus incurred God’s wrath,
Jesus will triumph and earn God’s favor.
This is what proves that Christ’s righteousness is acceptable to God and what also makes Him “the source of eternal salvation.”
Now last time, we looked at the first temptation:
#1 THE TEMPTATION TO IGNORE GOD
Luke 4:3-4
Just as Satan had whispered in the ears of Korah and Dathan and Abiram that God’s provision was unacceptable,
Satan here did the same with Jesus.
• There is no way that the Son of God should have to endure hardships like You are having to endure.
• You should TAKE MATTERS INTO YOUR OWN HANDS and turn these stones into bread.
Satan wanted Jesus to
• Become inflated on His own self-worth,
• Become dissatisfied with the circumstances God had brought Him into,
• Ignore God’s plan,
• Take matters into His own hands,
• And make bread for Himself.
Jesus, however quoted from Deuteronomy 8 that
“MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.”
This was the perfect passage for it revealed exactly why God
Had led Israel into the wilderness and why He let them get hungry.
God purposely did both so that Israel would learn that
They could live without bread, but they could not live without God.
Furthermore, by allowing Israel to hunger, it would test whether or not they loved God, or if they just loved the things they received from God.
Sadly, in Israel’s case, we found out that
They did not seek God’s face, they only sought His hand. So long as God provided what they wanted, they followed God, but when God failed to produce up their standards, they were ready to find another way.
Israel revealed that to them God was a means, not an end.
But Jesus revealed just the opposite.
He didn’t serve God for bread, He served God because God deserved it.
So Satan tempted Jesus to ignore God,
Jesus overcame by believing that God is All-Satisfying.
And I think we all agreed that that was a lesson we all need to learn.
THIS MORNING, let’s move on in these highlighted temptations.
First, the Temptation to Ignore God
#2 THE TEMPTATION TO ABANDON GOD
Luke 4:5-8
And before we dive into the specifics of this temptation can I just point out the obvious flow here?
TODAY it may be a temptation to ignore God and take matters into your own hands, BUT TOMORROW Satan will raise the stakes and tempt you to abandon Him altogether.
So here Satan brings another temptation to Jesus.
(5-7) And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”
WELL THERE IS QUITE A BIT THERE TO DISCUSS.
FIRST, we notice that Satan “showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.”
This FURTHER EMPHASIZES the point we have made a couple of times
That what we have going on here IS A BATTLE OF THE MIND.
Satan is seeking to infiltrate the thought life of Jesus,
And also why it is so important that
Jesus take every thought captive to the word of God.
But here, into the mind, comes a thought by Jesus.
He thinks of “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time”
Now that seems a little peculiar.
What reason would Jesus have to think of such a thing?
I can tell you the reason, it’s because it would be His inheritance.
Psalms 2:7-8 “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.”
Now, this is not yet the temptation.
In fact, I don’t think it strange at all
That Jesus would focus on such things here.
He is actually commended for having such a focus:
Hebrews 12:2 “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Here you have Jesus, about to begin His earthly ministry.
• He is going to face 3 frustrating years of ministry with a crowd only interested in using Him for their own selfish purposes.
• He is going to face 3 relentless years of debate and battle with the religious leaders who don’t have a clue who God is.
• He is going to be poor like a fox without a hole and a bird without a nest
• He is going to be overwhelmed with the masses bringing problem after problem to His feet
• And after 3 years it is all going to come to an abrupt halt with Him being brutally crucified
Certainly He needs some motivation to face such hardship.
What is the motivation He looks upon?
HIS REWARD
There is nothing sinful in that,
In fact we are actually commanded to do that.
• We are continually encouraged to have an eternal mindset and a focus on heaven.
• We are told to fix our minds on things above.
• We are told to store up treasure in heaven instead of on earth, because where our treasure is, there will our heart be.
• We are told to contemplate the insurmountable glory that is being produced through our momentary afflictions
• We are told to rejoice in persecution knowing that it only reveals a great treasure waiting in eternity
That is what Jesus is doing.
He has taken a moment to look past the pain and to look at the reward.
That is not sinful.
Jesus is merely looking past the cross to the day when He sits enthroned upon the world as the unquestioned ruler of all creation.
Gabriel told Mary:
Luke 1:32-33 “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”
He is focusing on that promise as a means to prepare Himself
For the hardship He is about to face.
Oh, but Satan is the crafty one.
While Jesus contemplates the reward, Satan sneaks in with an offer.
“I will give You all this domain and its glory”
That is Satan’s way of saying,
“Why wait? And even more than that, why suffer first?”
The temptation here is to claim the prize
Without having to walk through the pain.
THE INTERESTING THING IS THAT
Satan claims to have the authority to make the transaction.
“for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.”
Now let’s PAUSE HERE for a second.
I don’t know if you’ve heard the statement but: “The best lies are 90% truth”.
There is some truth to what Satan says, but at the root, it is a lie.
Let’s look at some of the statements about Satan’s domain:
1 John 5:19 “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
John 12:31 “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”
2 Corinthians 4:4 “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Ephesians 2:2 “in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”
Let me quickly explain what happened.
• When God created the earth, He also created a caretaker for the earth who was meant to rule over the earth.
Genesis 1:27-28 “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
• Now you are also aware of how Satan then came and tempted this man with sin.
• Adam took the bait and Satan usurped.
And what you now have is a world that lies in Satan’s power,
Not because he is the chief authority, or even the chief heir,
But because Adam and all his seed have a fallen nature
That lies in slavery to sin and the devil.
Satan rules, not as a rightful king, but as an interloper; as a usurper.
WHAT THAT MEANS is that while Satan seemingly sits on the throne of this present world; that does not mean that it is his throne.
And therefore it is not actually his to give, although he says that it is.
He can no more give Christ the world than he could give Adam wisdom,
But when it comes to temptation, Satan is not concerned about the little details.
A SECOND THING about Satan’s offer is that after claiming to have ownership of the world he then says, “I give it to whomever I wish.”
I don’t know how well you understand the plans and purposes of the devil,
But let’s make one thing clear: THE DEVIL IS NOT BENEVOLENT.
Don’t get me wrong, he has no problem offering things,
It’s just that he never follows through.
He is not a giver, he is a thief.
He steals, he kills, he destroys.
• The whole reason he was removed from heaven in the first place, is not because he had a desire to “give” but because he had a desire to take. He sought to take God’s glory for himself.
So I think you see that while Satan’s offer sounds good and probably tasted sweet, his offer is not totally accurate.
BUT IN THE SIMPLEST SENSE, WHAT HE IS DOING IS
Offering Christ the kingdom He was promised
Without the pain of having to endure the cross to obtain it.
Satan is again seeking to appeal to Christ’s flesh.
• Do you want to go through pain?
• Do you want to go through humiliation?
• Do you want to have to endure the cross?
• If it’s a kingdom You want, no problem, I’ll give You a kingdom. In fact, I’ll give
You all the kingdoms and I’ll give them to You now.
That is the offer.
He is appealing to that which he thought Jesus craved most.
Now, again I remind you that this was
The same temptation with which Satan toppled the children of Israel.
Only Satan didn’t offer Israel all the kingdoms of the world,
Satan offered Israel an established nation to join.
Remember the story we spoke of last time?
• The children of Israel had left Egypt in search of their own land; a land flowing with milk and honey.
• However, through their own rebellion, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness.
They were hungry…
They were thirsty…
They wanted their country, a place to settle
Satan offered them that.
• All they had to do was go in and join with Balak and the Midianites.
• All they had to do was go in and intermarry with the people of Midian.
You can have your country
You can have your security
And you can have it right now
OF COURSE ACCEPTING THAT OFFER CAME WITH A CATCH
You’re going to have to adopt the Midianite gods.
• The children of Israel took the temptation, married the Midianite women, and began worshiping the Midianite gods.
Numbers 25:1-3 “While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel.”
• The LORD was so angry in fact that He sent a plague and 23,000 were killed in one day.
• The only thing that stopped the plague was when Phinehas went and stabbed that Israelite man and Midianite woman in their tent.
It was the promise of a nation, it resulted in the wrath of God.
NOW DO WE EVER FACE SUCH A TEMPTATION?
Listen to what Jesus says later:
Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
(And next Jesus says it is the false prophets who promise this wide road)
It is the promise that you can achieve all you ever wanted,
Without ever having to sacrifice to get it.
AND THAT IS PRECISELY WHERE JESUS IS.
• Satan is offering Him, not just one kingdom, but every kingdom.
• Rest assured, Satan can no more deliver that promise to Jesus than he could
to the Israelites, but that is the offer none the less.
• Is Jesus interested in claiming His inheritance without having to suffer the
hardship of ministry and death?
• The only catch for Jesus, is the same as it was for Israel – YOU MUST
ABANDON GOD.
(7) “Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”
All you have to do is abandon God.
Once again, Jesus proves Himself faithful were we often falter.
(8) “Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
Again we see Jesus overcome this wicked thought
By passing it through the filter of Scripture.
Jesus is taking every thought captive.
And again, Jesus quotes the perfect response.
TURN TO: DEUTERONOMY 6:10-15
Perhaps you notice Deuteronomy 6 as that great chapter where Moses introduces the SHAMAH (5) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
And the effect of obeying that command can be seen in verses 10-15,
And it is really astounding.
(READ 10-11)
Now after reading that, let me ask you a question.
Between God and Satan, which one is most likely to give you something you did not earn?
Satan may offer things, but he never follows through.
God is the God of Grace! He is the ultimate giver!
Just look at all He is giving Israel.
• “cities which you did not built”
• “houses full of all good things which you did not fill”
• “hewn cisterns which you did not dig”
• “vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant”
And in the midst of this gracious offer God issues a warning.
(READ 12-15)
Watch out that you don’t forget God.
• That you don’t forget that God is the source of all your blessing.
• That you don’t forget that God alone is your provider.
• That you don’t forget that God alone is your deliverer.
Because if you do, then you will incite the anger of God
Who not only requires but demands worship and gratitude.
(15) “for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.”
Certainly we saw God follow through on that promise with the Israelites
Who abandoned Him to worship the Midianite gods.
But what a tremendous passage for Jesus to quote.
Here Satan was literally offering Jesus the world, and yet Jesus understood that there is only One who is truly generous and that is God.
He also understood that the generous God
REQUIRES devotion, gratitude and worship in response to His generosity.
SO HERE IT IS:
Satan tempted Jesus to abandon God.
Jesus overcame by believing that God is gracious and jealous.
First of all: HE IS GRACIOUS
If you can read through the Bible and not come to this conclusion then you aren’t paying attention.
The entire story of creation and redemption is that
God gives unbelievably good things to those who do not deserve it.
Psalms 84:11 “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
James 1:17 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.”
Certainly as we gather here on Christmas eve,
That should be overwhelmingly apparent.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Galatians 4:4 “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,”
God is generous, and if anyone is going to actually give good gifts,
IT IS GOD, NOT SATAN.
Jesus certainly understood that.
Let me ask you, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?
So much of overcoming temptation is rooted in the understanding
That God is good, that He is generous, and that His plan is best.
Last week said that:
SIN IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH GOD.
We can add to that this week and say:
SIN IS WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU DON’T TRUST THAT GOD IS GOOD.
We walk through trials…
We walk through pains…
We face adversity…
And the first thing Satan desires to do is whisper in our ears that
God can’t be trusted and that following Him will not be worth it.
But the Bible says otherwise.
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Or we listen to the writer of Hebrews who reminds us that
Even our pain is a necessary discipline which God is using only for the purpose of cultivating more righteousness.
Hebrews 12:5-6 “and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”
Hebrews 12:10-11 “For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
You must believe that God is good.
You must believe that God is generous.
Otherwise when then you stand in the wilderness facing a difficult road,
The enemy will swoop in and offer relief that is not his to give
And that which he wouldn’t give anyway.
Jesus overcame by believing that God is gracious.
But Jesus also believed that God was JEALOUS.
Deuteronomy 6:15 “for the LORD your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.”
Some think that calling God generous and then jealous is a contradiction.
But that would be call God a contradiction,
For God calls Himself both jealous and gracious.
Well what does “jealous” mean?
It is the Hebrew word QANNA
It is “used of God as not bearing any rival;
The severe anger of departure from Himself.”
That is to say that God does not tolerate someone
Who would give what He deserves to another who does not deserve it.
i.e. idolatrous worship or spiritual adultery
And if you do abandon God, His fierce severity will not tolerate it.
As was written in Deut. “He will wipe you off the face of the earth.”
When you put it together then you understand that
God is certainly gracious and generous and kind,
Even to those who do not deserve it,
but in response for all of that kindness
He does expect devotion and gratitude and worship.
So let’s carry our understanding a little further again.
1) Sin is what you do when you are not satisfied with God.
2) Sin is what you do when you don’t trust that God is good.
3) Sin is what you do when you don’t believe that God is serious.
When Satan tempted Jesus to worship him in exchange for the world,
JESUS OVERCAME
• By knowing that God and not Satan was generous,
• And by knowing that if He abandoned God it would not end well.
That certainly explains why we see a world in utter chaos and why people so easily run into sin.
• They don’t see any severity at all in offending God.
• They largely don’t believe that God will judge the wicked…
• They largely don’t believe in eternal punishment…
They just don’t think there will be any consequences for sin.
And it’s easy to peg the world there, but that also explains why we sin.
Let me ask you:
Do you believe that God is omniscient and knows what you do?
Do you believe that God is holy and disapproves of all sin?
Do you believe that God is powerful and able to punish you for your sin?
Do you believe that God is serious and will most certainly punish for sin?
Do you believe that punishment is severe and totally not worth it?
Well if we chose to sin anyway,
We obviously don’t believe one of those statements.
We either don’t believe God knows
We don’t believe God disapproves
We don’t believe God can
We don’t believe God will
We don’t believe it will be that bad
And of the list can I tell you which one I think we most often fail to believe?
WE DON’T REALLY THINK GOD WILL.
We don’t think He is serious.
We don’t think He is jealous.
And that is why we so quickly run into sin without fear.
Jesus knew better.
• He knew that God was enough and so He didn’t need to turn stones into bread.
• He knew that God was generous and would most certainly give Him the world.
• He knew that God was jealous and would not tolerate apostasy.
And Jesus overcame temptation.
He triumphed where Israel failed.
He triumphed where we fail.
Hebrews 5:8-9 “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,”
As a result of His overcoming sin and temptation
He is qualified to be our all-sufficient Savior.
AND LOOK, while this sermon could be all about resisting temptation
(For that is certainly an important thing and sound advice.)
Luke’s point is really about trusting in Jesus.
Namely because even if you resist every temptation from this day forward,
You’ve already failed at too many of them
And your own personal righteousness is not acceptable to God.
However, there is One who overcame, who proved His righteousness,
And who will impute that righteousness to you
When you place your faith in Him.
THAT IS JESUS.
And that is what Luke wants you to see.
Israel’s history and our history is littered with failure after failure
Thus rendering us under the jealous anger of God,
But Jesus did not fail, He maintained His righteousness,
And through Him we can be redeemed from our sinful state.
That is the good news of the gospel.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
