The Temptation of Jesus – Part 4
Luke 4:1-13 (9-13)
December 31, 2017

Well this morning we’re going to finish up
This powerful section on the temptation of Jesus.

It is nothing short of remarkable
How our Lord prevailed in the face of such temptation.

It has certainly proven to us over and over that
Jesus is in fact the sinless righteous one.

And because of that sinless perfection He is easily seen as the fulfillment of those gospel promises that we hold so dear.

Like:
Hebrews 4:14-16 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Or:
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.”

Jesus is that sinless one whose righteousness is imputed to us
When we are united in Him by faith.

Jesus is that One who proved His perfection
Even in the midst of every temptation.

Where Israel failed, and where we fail, Jesus has triumphed.
That is the very essence of our hope for salvation.

This morning we conclude this section on His temptation, but first, let’s quickly recap.
#1 THE TEMPTATION TO IGNORE GOD
Luke 4:3-4

• Of course this temptation came on the heels of Jesus having eaten nothing in 40 days and Satan swooped in to challenge God’s provision.

Just as Satan had done with Korah in the Old Testament,
He whispered in Jesus’ ear that God had done a rotten job of providing and therefore Jesus should take matters into His own hands
For after all, He certainly deserved better.

Just “tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus however, took that thought captive in obedience to God’s word and quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 “Man shall not live on bread alone.”

Jesus quoted from the passage in Deuteronomy
• Where God explained why He allowed the children of Israel to go for periods of
hunger during their wilderness wanderings.

• God did not do it because He planned to starve them but because He was
teaching them that He was more important than bread.

• They could live without bread, but they could not live without Him and allowing
the bread to be scarce served as a test of their faithfulness to God.

Of course Israel failed miserably, they actually tried to overthrow Moses and Aaron until God intervened and killed over 14,000 of them.

Israel failed, but Jesus triumphed.
He chose not to ignore God instead Jesus overcame
BY BELIEVING THAT GOD WAS ENOUGH.

And we said that sin is what we do when we are not satisfied with God.
• But Jesus never reached that point.
• To Him, God was enough.
• He never doubted God’s provision.

So where we fail in our temptation to ignore God,
Jesus overcame and proved Himself a perfect savior.

Last week we saw the second temptation
#2 THE TEMPTATION TO ABANDON GOD
Luke 4:5-8

Here Satan showed Jesus
“all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.”
And as we also said, that is not a necessarily strange thing for Jesus to think of since all of those things were His rightful inheritance.

The temptation came later:
“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.”

It is certainly God’s plan to give all of this to Christ,
But Satan was offering it now without the suffering of the cross.

We did note that Satan was stretching the truth here a bit.
• While he is the “god of this world” by reason of his control over sinful humanity,
• It is a stretch to say that it had been handed to him.
• It was also a stretch to say that he could or even would give it to anyone.

Satan is not generous, he is a thief.
If he is offering something you can bet it’s because
The payoff he plans to receive is twice as big.

And of course this was the temptation he used on the children of Israel with the Midianites.

• They were a people who wanted a nation.
• They wanted a land, they wanted secure borders.
• God had promised it, but it wasn’t coming as quickly as they had hoped so
Satan offered them a nation here and now.

Just go in to the Midianites, intermarry with them, worship their gods,
And you will have your nation.

Israel failed there at that temptation
And God killed 23,000 of them by reason of a plague.

We fail there often too.
How quickly we will abandon the commands of God if it means gaining what we want quicker or easier.

But where Israel failed and where we fail, Jesus triumphed.
He overcame by believing
First that GOD IS GOOD and second that GOD IS JEALOUS.

He quoted from Deuteronomy 6 “You shall worship the LORD your God and serve Him only.”

He knew that
• It was God (not Satan) who generously gave to people who did not deserve it
• And that this generous God did not tolerate the worship of any other gods but Himself.
• He is both gracious and jealous and Jesus believed it so much that He resisted the temptation.

So again, where we fail, Jesus triumphed
And proved Himself an effective savior.

This morning let’s look at the 3rd temptation Luke highlights.
#3 THE TEMPTATION TO TEST GOD
Luke 4:9-13

Up until now you’ve had the devil testing the faith of Jesus.
• Are You content without bread?
• Are you willing to suffer for Your kingdom?

And each time Jesus rifled back with a passage
Stating His contentment and trust in God.
Each time Jesus revealed that God was worth more.

Well Satan seizes upon that.
It’s like Satan is pulling and pulling and pulling against you on a rope and just when he has you pulling with all of your might, he stops pulling and gives a shove just to see if you’ll fly in the other direction.
He doesn’t care if you fall off to the right or to the left, so long as you fall off.

So now, after having witnessed Jesus resolute faith in God,
Satan determines to see if this God is really worthy
Of all of that faith which Jesus is giving Him.

After testing Jesus twice only to see Jesus pass with flying colors,
This time Satan tries to get Jesus to do the testing.
He wants Jesus to force God to show the same commitment to Him.

So here comes a very sly and dangerous temptation.
(9-11) “And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, thrown Yourself down from here; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,’ and, ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’”

Again, let’s see if we can’t understand this a little better.

TO START just let me mention the TRICKY NATURE OF TEMPTATION.

There have been no small group of people who have wondered
Why Jesus would have followed Satan’s advice to venture into Jerusalem or to stand “on the pinnacle of the temple” in the first place?

I mean, most would assume that
You should never do anything the devil insinuates.

So let’s discuss this for a moment.
First of all, going to Jerusalem and standing on the pinnacle is not a sin.
• There is place there (so I’m told) that you can stand on one of the portions of the temple wall and it is a 450 drop to the bottom.
• Church tradition teaches that this is where James (Jesus half-brother) was thrown off and martyred.

It’s certainly not sinful to go there or stand there.

Secondly I’d like to remind you again of the reality of temptation.
• This was not Satan coming up to Jesus and saying, “Follow me” and Jesus saying, “Ok”.
• This was a mental temptation.
• This was a thought.

And you can say that temptation isn’t strong,
But here we have Jesus standing on the pinnacle of the temple.
This is a real issue and a real moment.

And here comes the thought that is placed, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here;”

NOW LET’S STOP THERE FOR AGAIN.
What a ridiculous thought for Jesus to have right?

• We can understand the thought to turn stones into bread when you’re hungry…
• We can understand Him contemplating all the kingdoms of the world which
would be His inheritance…
• But why would He even have such a thought?

Part of that stems from common Jewish expectation.
There were many Jews who expected that the Messiah
Would actually ascend down from heaven into the temple.

It was gleaned from a loose understanding of Malachi 3:1
Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts.”

Jewish legend even held that the Messiah
Might reveal Himself with an act just like this.

In fact again, tradition teaches that later Simon Magnus attempted to claim to be the Messiah by doing this very thing.

And it seems that this is the thought that has entered the mind of Christ.

Satan is telling Him that
A good way to burst onto the scene as the Messiah
Would be if He were to jump off the temple
And then when God delivers You, all the world will know.

I suppose there is some rationale behind it.

TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE,
This time Satan even has Scripture to validate his claims.

(10-11) for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,’ and, ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'”

Where did that come from?

It came from Psalms 91:11-12 which was a Messianic Psalm.
Psalms 91:11-12 “For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, That you do not strike your foot against a stone.”

And that is precisely the verse that Satan brings to Jesus
As grounds for throwing Himself off the temple.
It’s as if Satan says, “Well, if You’re so interested in Scripture, I’ve got one for You. Read Psalms 91:11-12.”

So now, not only does Satan provide Jesus with a plan,
But also seemingly provides Him with permission.

John MacArthur wrote:
“With that subtle and clever twist, the tempter thought he had backed Jesus into a corner. If Jesus lived only by the Word of God, then He would be confronted by something from the Word of God. “You claim to be God’s Son and You claim to trust His Word,” Satan was saying. “If so, why don’t You demonstrate Your Sonship and prove the truth of God’s word by putting Him to a test – a scriptural test? If You won’t use your own divine power to help Yourself, let Your Father use His divine power to help You. If You won’t act independently of the Father, let the Father act. Give Your Father a chance to fulfill the Scripture I just quoted to You.’”
(MacArthur, John [The MacArthur New Testament Commentary; Matthew 1-7; Moody Publishers, Chicago, Ill, 1985] pg. 93)

He is trying to get Jesus to force God to prove
He is worthy of all the devotion that Jesus has shown Him.

I mean, after all, as the modern day charismatic preachers would claim, “God is contractually obligated to respond to your faith” right?

Now here is something important.
You would probably love it if I could take you back to Psalms 91
And show you that Satan was taking this whole passage out of context.

You’d expect that we can look at Psalms 91 and see that
This isn’t what God was talking about and Satan is just twisting the verses
To say something that God didn’t mean.

The problem with that expectation is,
If you go back and read Psalms 91 you’ll find out that
It IS a Psalm all about God’s promise of deliverance for His anointed.

It was a Messianic Psalm about how God will in fact deliver His anointed
And set Him securely on High and will let him see salvation.

SO WHAT GIVES?
The manipulation of Satan here
Is not found in his interpretation of Scripture,
But in his application of it.

Are there times when he lies? Of course
Are there times when he twists the truth? You bet
Are there times when he takes Scripture out of context? Yes indeed

We are all familiar with the work of his false prophets
And the horrible twisting they do to God’s word.

But that isn’t the only way Satan maligns the word of God.
Here we find that he will also twist the application of God’s word.
He tells Jesus to force God to honor that promise
And to honor it right now.

“throw Yourself down from here; for it is written…”

NOW IF YOU’RE WILLING TO SEE IT,
This is exactly the mindset that Satan placed in the minds of the Israelites.

Remember I told you that these temptation correlate to the big failures of Israel in the wilderness?

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.”

The one we’re talking about here is the second one Paul mentions when Israel tried the Lord and it resulted in the serpents coming up out of the sand.

Now the story of the serpents is recorded in Numbers 21,
But the story really starts long before then.
It’s just that THE PUNISHMENT doesn’t show up until Numbers 21.

But the issue of trying the Lord started long before.
TURN TO: EXODUS 17:1-7

You remember this as
One of the first times when Israel took issue with God’s provision.

They assembled together and demanded that God honor His word.
(2) “Give us water that we may drink.”

That is to say that they saw themselves as sovereign
And God as the servant and sought to force Him
To respond according to their desires.

In fact you see down in verse 7 that this whole thing was a TEST.
(7) “He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us, or not?”

That is to say that Israel was on the verge of going on strike.
They were trying to discern if they thought God was still worth following.

If God will jump through the hoop and give us what we demand, then sure, we’ll keep following, but if not, maybe it’s time to return to Egypt and her gods.

Now you notice that in Exodus 7
God complies without really any word of punishment.
He tells Moses to strike the rock and water came out.

Now that was the beginning.
But it wouldn’t be long before this attitude would emerge again.
TURN TO: NUMBERS 20:1-13
• There again that selfish attitude emerges and the Israelites demand for God to jump through their hoop again.

And this time they again escape the anger of God,
In fact the only ones who do receive God’s anger is Moses and Aaron for failing to obey according to God’s command and to treat Him as holy in the sight of the people.

It is the third time they try it that God breaks forth with the punishment.
TURN TO: NUMBERS 21:4-9

What you see then is that Paul referenced that last one
Because it was the culmination of the 3.
But it is a punishment in reference to
All the times in which Israel tested God.

In fact, the Psalmist relates to us how much God despised this attitude.
Psalms 95:8-11 “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, “When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. “For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. “Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”

The problem was that
• The promises of God were not enough for them.
• They did not trust God even on His impeccable resume.
• They demanded Him to act when they wanted Him to act.
• They wanted God to prove it at their demand.

Of course we don’t see that attitude change any in the New Testament.
Luke 11:29-32 “As the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah. “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. “The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

Israel is still a nation that demands God jump through their hoops
Every time they expect Him to prove Himself.

And can we honestly say that anything has changed?
Oh sure we have those far-out examples of strychnine drinkers or serpent handlers who seek to force God to deliver them from their own arrogant stupidity.

But they are far from all who test God.
I’m sure you are aware by now of the “Word-Faith” movement,
Which is really nothing more than NewAge mysticism.

It is people who speak their demands into existence…
Who basically seek to force God to move at their own declarations…

Go this afternoon and post on facebook a prayer request and see if someone doesn’t come back with a comment like, “I command this sickness to leave in Jesus name”

What are they saying, but that they are demanding Jesus to take care of it, because they certainly can’t?

Ultimately it is a shift that says,
“I am sovereign, and my will is sovereign,
And God is the servant which must grant what I desire.”

And many of them even have verses of Scripture in their hip pocket
About God being healer or provider or deliverer and they wave those in God’s face as though He now must do exactly as they proclaim.

It totally ignores the mysterious will of God
And the ways that God uses things
Like suffering and loss and pain and tragedy and delay.

I’ll tell you, I’m convinced this is why Jesus wept at Lazarus tomb.
You remember the story.
• Jesus received word that Lazarus was sick
• Because Jesus loved him He purposely waited 2 days longer
• Once Jesus knew Lazarus was dead, then He went

Do you remember the response of everyone?

Martha is mad that Jesus didn’t jump up and come heal him when she called:
John 11:21 “Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary is disillusioned that Jesus didn’t jump through her hoops and come as well:
John 11:32 “Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

The crowd is disillusioned that Jesus didn’t come immediately at their beck and call:
John 11:37 “But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”

To that entire scene John says that Jesus was
“deeply moved in spirit and was trouble” (11:33)

The Greek word there is EMBRIMAOMAI,
It is an onomatopoetic word that means “to snort like a horse”

And two verses later Jesus wept.
Why? Because Lazarus was dead?
• Hardly, Jesus purposely waited for that.
• Beyond that Jesus, knew what He was about to do.

No, His weeping was out of frustration
And the realization that all of these had put Him to the test,
And according to them, He had failed.

They are all wondering if they were wrong to follow Him
Just because He didn’t jump through their hoop.

And that is what people still do with God.
They face affliction or hardship and the first thing they demand is for God to jump at their beck and call and prove Himself worthy of trust.

As though God were on trial and we were the judge.

What God wants is for His people to trust
That He will provide and deliver according to His perfect plan
And at His perfect timing and to trust Him to do so.

AND THAT IS WHERE WE FIND JESUS.
Again, where we often fail, Jesus triumphs.

Satan wants Jesus to jump so that God will be forced to prove Him as the Messiah.
(12) “And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TET.’”

It’s my goal to not jump across gospel accounts too much,
But I really like how Matthew’s gospel states this reply.

Matthew 4:7 “Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'”

I like the use of the words “On the other hand”.

It reveals a very important hermeneutical principle.
• No Scripture stands alone.
• Certainly we interpret Scripture by its context,
• But we also interpret Scripture by Scripture.

If vs. A seems to contradict vs. B then you are misinterpreting one of them

• Certainly a case could be made by Satan that Jesus was justified according to
Psalms 91 for jumping off of that temple.

• However, Satan’s argument loses all weight when interpreted in light of
Deuteronomy 6:16 which Jesus quotes here.

Jesus could fulfill Psalms 91:11-12 by jumping off of that temple,
But He could not jump and obey Deuteronomy 6:16.

For presuming upon the promise of God would be to put God to the test.

• God did not have to prove His devotion to Jesus.
• God did not have to show Him to the world.
• God did not have to prove that He loved His only begotten Son.
• And Jesus would not put those things to the test.

Instead Jesus chose to believe that
God would reveal Him as the Messiah in His way and in His time.

SO HERE IT IS:
Satan tempted Jesus to test God:
Jesus overcame by believing that God is SOVEREIGN

That is to say, God is not here to serve our purposes, we are here to serve His.

Certainly He is gracious, certainly He is our provider and healer and protector, but He is so according to His sovereign purposes, not our selfish demands.

Jesus understood that.
And He understood that throughout His ministry.

Remember the garden?
Matthew 26:39 “And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

Or perhaps in a few moments when Peter draws a sword and removes the ear of one of the arresting soldiers.
Matthew 26:52-54 “Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. “Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? “How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?”

Do you realize that those twelve legions of angels He said He could call
Was also in reference to Psalms 91?

Even then, while being arrested, Jesus still knew that
It was not His job to test God’s plan, but to submit to God’s will.

The temptation here was NOT to wrongly interpret a verse,
But rather TO wrongly apply one.

God’s promises are contained so that we will TRUST HIM,
Not so that we will TEST HIM.

So, we have already learned that:
• Sin is what we do when we are not satisfied with God
• Sin is what we do when we do not believe that God is good
• Sin is what we do when we do not believe that God is jealous

This morning I would add that:
• Sin is what we do when we do not trust God.

We sin because we desire to force God to do what we want
And when He doesn’t come through as we expected
We get angry at Him.

We come to Him like Martha or Mary or the crowd and wonder “What in the world are You doing?”
• Didn’t You not get my letter?
• Didn’t You not hear my prayer?
• Then why didn’t You come?

And in essence we tell God that He failed the test.

And THE SIN WAS not just that we got angry at Him for failing,
But THAT WE TESTED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

That is the temptation Jesus resisted.
I’m not going to throw Myself off of this temple, instead I’m going to allow God to reveal Me as the Messiah in whatever way He sees fit.

And incidentally, God did have a plan for revealing Jesus as the Messiah
And it wasn’t (at least initially) by fulfilling Psalms 91.

Do you know what Psalm God was going to use to prove Jesus as the Messiah?
Psalms 16:7-11 “I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

That was the Psalm most preached about Jesus by the apostles and the early church, it was about the resurrection.

Aren’t you glad Jesus chose to trust God instead of testing Him?

And that again has been our point.
• While you can learn a lot about temptation from this passage.
• While Jesus is a great example about how to overcome temptation.
• This passage is not really a “How To” course about temptation.

This passage is to show you that Jesus overcame it.

In fact Luke makes his STRONGEST POINT in the last verse of the section.
(13) “When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.”

That’s the point.
JESUS NEVER STUMBLED
His righteousness is perfect
His righteousness has been fully tested and still stands

And His perfect righteousness is available to all who will let go of their own futile attempts and will place their faith in Him.

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,”

And now having concluded this section
From Luke’s perspective you should be CONVINCED OF ONE THING.
JESUS IS RIGHTEOUS.

It was declared at His baptism.
It was demonstrated during His temptation.

And this is essential to the gospel
Since it is His righteousness that is imputed to us.

God is pleased with us because God is pleased with Christ
And we are clothed in His righteousness.

A pure and perfect righteousness that never stumbled,
Even at the most intense temptation.

The Fulfillment
Luke 4:14-21
December 25, 2017

Well this morning I can promise you that
I’m going to be uncharacteristically brief.

Really my only objective this morning is to sort of
Give you a concept to ponder and process throughout the day.

Of course in a couple of weeks we’ll be in this passage that we’ve read this morning and will certainly cover it in more detail then,
But all I really want to do is make you aware of 1 main point.

And that point is FULFILLMENT

WE READ IN LUKE’S GOSPEL
• After Jesus is tempted He sort of embarks on a preaching mission throughout the synagogues of Galilee.

• And eventually He comes back to His own hometown of Nazareth and also enters the synagogue there “and stood up to read”

• And when He did, “the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him.”

(Now I don’t know if He had any say in the matter regarding what book was handed to Him, but I do know even that wouldn’t have mattered because regardless of the book, He could have read a passage that talked about Him.)

Either way, on this day, Isaiah was given to Him.

“And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

Jesus is here reading Isaiah 61:1-2a and one line from Isaiah 58:6

It was a passage by Isaiah given in the middle of
A very harsh section revealing the horrific condition of Israel.
(Those in our Sunday School class have been covering it – Isaiah is speaking of the separation between God and Israel and why it has occurred)

Some of this horrific condition can be seen in:
Isaiah 59:9-14 “Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us; We hope for light, but behold, darkness, For brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men, We grope like those who have no eyes; We stumble at midday as in the twilight, Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men. All of us growl like bears, And moan sadly like doves; We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And we know our iniquities: Transgressing and denying the LORD, And turning away from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words. Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, And uprightness cannot enter.”

You can see there that the current state is harsh and drastic
And the main reason is because of the unrighteousness of God’s people.

And as a ray of hope to a people in such drastic and pathetic condition, Isaiah says:

Isaiah 61:1-3 “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

It was a promise that the current state of affliction
Would not be the permanent state.

Isaiah himself preached of a coming redemption; a coming deliverance.
It was a very positive and hopeful passage.

AND THAT IS THE ONE JESUS READ.

• Now, after reading the passage we read (20) “And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him.”

Simply put, they were waiting for the sermon.

• After reading the text, it would have been customary for Him as a visiting Rabbi to now preach on that text.

• And so the people simply waited for Jesus to do what they had often heard done; they waited for Him to give them an encouraging word of insight regarding the coming Messiah.

• And certainly in Nazareth, a city that felt the sting of Roman oppression perhaps even more than other parts of Israel was eager to hear this uplifting sermon of how God promised to one day deliver those who were in bondage.

The shocking part is that the total exposition of this passage
Is done by Jesus IN JUST 9 WORDS.

“Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

That is to say, Jesus just told them that He is the One that is referred to.

And we realize that Jesus was not quoting Isaiah here,
Rather Jesus just revealed that Isaiah had been quoting Him.

“Those verses aren’t about Isaiah’s ministry,
Those verses are about My ministry.”

• I’m the One who is anointed with God’s Spirit to “preach the gospel to the poor.”
• I’m the One whom God has sent “to proclaim release to captives.”
• I’m the One whom God has sent to proclaim “recovery of sight to the blind”
• I’m the One whom God has sent to “set free those who are oppressed”
• I’m the One whom God has sent “to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Jesus said, “When you are looking at Me, you are looking at God’s faithfulness to that promise.”

BUT IT IS EVEN MORE THAN YOU MAY IMMEDIATELY REALIZE
Someone could very easily read that passage in Isaiah
And clearly see that it is all about
The proclamation of good news, release, recovery, freedom and favor.

And when Jesus says this passage is fulfilled,
He is NOT just saying “I am that preacher”,
What He IS saying is that “I am that deliverance”

Jesus is saying, “My arrival is God keeping that promise”
“I am how God is doing that”

What I am saying is this.
• Jesus is NOT here saying “I have come to fulfill that promise”
• What Jesus is saying is “I am the fulfillment of that promise”

• More than just a preacher of the gospel
• JESUS IS THE GOSPEL
• More than just a preacher of sight and freedom
• JESUS IS SIGHT AND FREEDOM
• More than just a preacher of God’s favor
• JESUS IS GOD’S FAVOR

I’ve really PONDERED THIS REALITY A LOT RECENTLY
As I have been studying through the Psalms.

Repeatedly throughout the Psalms
You have these very black and white and even dividing statements
Regarding the righteous and the wicked.

I mean, it starts right in Psalms 1

Psalms 1 “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.”

And that is really a theme carried throughout.
You continually read about how the righteous will be blessed
And the wicked will be judged.

Psalms 5:4-6 “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.”

Or
Psalms 7:9 “O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; For the righteous God tries the hearts and minds.”

Or
Psalms 9:7-8 “But the LORD abides forever; He has established His throne for judgment, And He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity.”

And as I read that there is a continual problem that arises.
MAN IS NOT RIGHTEOUS.

In fact, you get to Psalm 14 and you read:
Psalms 14:1-3 “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good. The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.”

And of course the temptation is to say, “Well certainly that isn’t me”
I’m one of the righteous who will receive God’s favor. (We all like to think that way)

The problem of course is that in Romans 3
Paul takes Psalms 14 and applies it to all of humanity.

While we could read numerous more Psalms, I think you get my point.
Throughout Scripture there is this continual contrast
Between the righteous and the wicked.

And the righteous are said to be those who will receive God’s favor and the wicked are those who will receive God’s wrath.

The problem is that “there is none righteous, not even one”
And that leaves us in a very poor predicament.

In fact, it was the predicament that Isaiah spelled out
In the passage Jesus quotes in Luke 4.

DID YOU CATCH HOW HUMANITY WAS DESCRIBED?
“poor…captives…blind…oppressed”

“poor” there is an interesting word.
It is PTOCHOS which comes from a root word that means “to cringe”
It speaks of a beggar cowering in the shadows.

It speaks of a people who are in such danger and such oppression
That they are afraid to even peak their head out.

And trust me, if we truly understood
The righteousness of God and our wretched state,
We would all be cowering in the shadows.

All of those words speak of a people
Who have been UNSUCCESSFUL in their attempts
To claim God’s favor and blessing in their lives.

Despite their efforts
• They are spiritual beggars, they are poor.
• They are still held captive to their sin
• They are still blind to spiritual things
• They are still oppressed by their lack of righteousness

All they can do is sit back and wait for God to come and do what He said,
• Which is to give those poor people good news
• To release those captives from their sin
• To give spiritual eyes to those blind men
• To set free those who are oppressed, so that they might enjoy a year of God’s favor.

They are a people in pitiful condition just waiting for God
To do what Isaiah said He would do and free those people.

And here we have Jesus, reading that very passage,
And more than just saying “I am preaching those same things” JESUS IS ACTUALLY SAYING,
“I’m the One who came to set you free.

He sent Me to release captives
He sent Me to recover sight for the blind
He sent Me to set free the oppressed

AND HOW IS THAT?
BECAUSE HE IS THE FULFILLMENT.

When you read those Psalms
And you read about the blessings on the righteous,
Those blessings are all for Christ and Christ alone.

He alone is righteous.
He is the only one who had earned them.

Every other honest human must consent to the fact that
When the Psalms separate between the righteous and the wicked;
I am the wicked, and Christ is the righteous.

But Jesus came to fulfill this promise by being our righteousness.
When we are “in Him” then all of those realities become our realities.

• We are the righteousness of God in Him.
• We are the delivered poor in Him.
• We are released captives in Him
• We are recovered blind men in Him
• We are freed from oppression in Him

This Jesus who is standing in this synagogue
Is announcing to the world that He is the fulfillment.

He has come to live a sinless life
He has come to die an atoning death
He has come to rise in victorious perfection

And through that He offers us that
In Him we can have freedom and deliverance.

This morning my one goal is ask you to ponder today
What it means that Jesus came to fulfill.

He came to be our righteousness
He came to be our deliverance
He came to be our sight
He came to be our freedom

Today is bigger than just a celebration of a birthday.
It is a celebration of the reality that
WE CAN NOW BE ALL THAT GOD INTENDED FOR US TO BE
And that we can now be transferred into God’s kingdom and be counted among the righteous and be recipients of the blessings of God.

Colossians 1:13-14 “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Today, and every day,
Learn to appreciate what it means that Jesus is the fulfillment.

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.”

The Temptation of Jesus – Part 2
Luke 4:1-13 (3-4)
December 17, 2017

Last week we introduced this new section in Luke’s gospel
Which details for us THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS.

We looked at some of the basic principles of temptation that are apparent here and we looked at how Jesus overcame them.

This morning we’re going to begin looking at
The specifics of that temptation.

There are, however, two more things that I think need to be said
In a somewhat introductory sense.

Last week we mentioned some of the purposes behind this temptation.
• We said that it was God’s purpose to reveal the righteousness of Christ.
• We said that it was Satan’s purpose to ruin the righteousness of Christ.

We understand that Christ’s righteousness if of the utmost importance to the work of the gospel, and so proving that is primary to Luke’s point.

And we also understand that since Christ’s righteousness is so important that Satan would certainly seek to ruin it.

There is however one more very important purpose that we need to be aware of as to why God subjected Christ to such temptation.

The writer of Hebrews explains this to us:
Hebrews 5:7-10 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. 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, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”

It has been a reoccurring issue of debate that the writer of Hebrews
Insinuates that Jesus “learned”.
“He learned obedience from the things which He suffered”

• Was there actually something that Jesus didn’t know?
• Was there actually some piece of information that Jesus had to travel to earth to find?

The answer has to be YES.
But not in a factual sense, rather in an experiential one.

Jesus didn’t come to learn theology or facts or doctrine or truth,
He came to learn what it was like to be human.
He came to sympathize with humanity.
He came to “walk a mile in our shoes” that He might be better able to minister to us as a “merciful and faithful high priest”

That is a very big part of what is occurring here.
Jesus is obtaining His priesthood training.

Hebrews 4:15-16 “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

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.”

You need to understand that as you look at His temptation.
• He is facing what you face
• He is overcoming what you fail at
• He is equipping Himself to help you succeed next time

NOW ON THAT NOTE, this reality becomes even more vivid to us
When we understand the history of Israel
And that Christ ultimately came to redeem them.

When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt,
We are aware that they were continually a rebellious people.

Because of their disobedience, God ultimately confined them
To wander in the wilderness for a period of 40 years.

If you read the book of Numbers (which I know you love to do)
You are aware that that period was fraught with temptation and failure.

In fact, in the New Testament there are 3 main points of failure
During that time period that are highlighted.

TURN TO: 1 CORINTHIANS 10:6-13 (read it)
• You probably most quickly recognize that passage as the famous teaching on temptation.

As examples you will notice that Paul lists 4 monumental failures of Israel.
• Now the first is found in verses 6&7 and it speaks of the golden calf incident which occurred before the wilderness wanderings.

• But the last 3 speak of the 3 big temptations, failures, and judgments that fell upon Israel during that 40 year period of wandering in the wilderness.

Let me refresh your memory on those.

(8) “Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.”

Numbers 25:1-9 “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 said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor.” Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. Those who died by the plague were 24,000.”

Numbers 31:16 indicates that this plan of Midian was actually devised by Balaam.

The plan was to seduce the Israelites with the women of Midian
To pull them away from devotion to God
And to draw them into the worship of Midianite gods.

And it worked.
• Israel succumbed to the temptation, they worshiped other gods, and God’s wrath fell on Israel by means of a plague that killed 24,000 people.

Another major failure Paul mentions in verse 9
(9) “Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents.”

Numbers 21:4-9 “Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”

At that place Paul said the people TRIED THE LORD.
They sought to force God to give them the food they demanded.

They sought to make their own desires sovereign
And God’s powers at their disposal.

• The result of their testing God was serpents that arose from the sand which bit and killed many until they looked upon the bronze serpent and were healed.

The last major failure of Israel which Paul mentions is
(10) “Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”

The grumbling began with men named Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
Who perceived that God and Moses were doing a pretty pathetic job providing for the people and they wanted new management.

Numbers 16:3 “They assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

Moses confronted these men, and Dathan’s response is especially telling.
Numbers 16:12-14 “Then Moses sent a summons to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab; but they said, “We will not come up. “Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, but you would also lord it over us? “Indeed, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor have you given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Would you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up!”

If you remember the story you know that God opened up the ground
And swallowed those men alive along with their families.

But that wasn’t the issue Paul refers to.
The issue Paul refers to is
The response of the people to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram’s death.

Numbers 16:41-49 “But on the next day all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You are the ones who have caused the death of the LORD’S people.” It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly.” Then they fell on their faces. Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put in it fire from the altar, and lay incense on it; then bring it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone forth from the LORD, the plague has begun!” Then Aaron took it as Moses had spoken, and ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold, the plague had begun among the people. So he put on the incense and made atonement for the people. He took his stand between the dead and the living, so that the plague was checked. But those who died by the plague were 14,700, besides those who died on account of Korah.”

The issue was dissatisfaction with God’s leadership and provision
Which caused them to try and take matters into their own hands
By supplanting Moses and fixing the problem themselves.

And even when God killed Korah that did not stop the people from grumbling which incited the glory of the Lord to start killing people.

14,700 died before Moses and Aaron were able to make atonement for the people.

Those are Israel’s big failures as they wandered 40 years in the wilderness
• They worshiped other gods
• They put God to the test
• They grumbled about God’s provision
Now we see that Jesus will spend 40 days in the wilderness
Where He will face the same temptation.

Luke records that Jesus will face “every temptation”
• But perhaps now you know why Luke chose to highlight these 3.

The 3 temptations listed here correlate to the 3 big failures of Israel.

Just as Israel was:
• Jesus will be tempted to worship other gods
• Jesus will be tempted to test God
• Jesus will be tempted to be dissatisfied with God’s provision

The difference?
Where Israel stumbled, Jesus will prevail.

And so you understand what the writer of Hebrews said:
Hebrews 5:8-9 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. 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,”

He is going to succeed where they failed.
He is going to maintain righteousness where they forfeited it.

And because He remains perfect,
He will be qualified to make His righteousness available to them.
“the source of eternal salvation”

So do you see how this all fits with the plan of the gospel?

Now I know that has been a large amount of preliminary information regarding this temptation, so let’s begin looking at.

There are 3 main temptations which are highlighted, so let’s look at them.
#1 THE TEMPTATION TO IGNORE GOD
Luke 4:3-4

“And the devil said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.”

Of course you realize where the temptation is coming from.
Luke says, “the devil said to Him”

“devil” translates DIABOLOS
Which means “slanderer”

He is one who delights in slandering and gossiping against others.
We read of him in the Revelation as “the accuser of the brethren…who accuses them before our God day and night.”

• He was the one who accused Job of only serving God because of God’s immense blessing in his life.
• He is the one who stood beside the High Priest Joshua in Zechariah 3 pointing out his filthy garments (unrighteous character)

And here he shows up again,
Only this time to accuse God of doing a lousy job of provision.

It is the same temptation which he whispered
In Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram’s ears.

He told those men to look at the desolate state of the wilderness where Moses had led them.
• He pointed out that there was limited water
• He pointed out that there was limited food
• He pointed out that they were not in the Promised Land
• He pointed out that the land did not flow with milk and honey

And he whispered that they should take matters into their own hands,
Overthrow Moses, ignore God’s instruction and fix the issue themselves.

THEY TOOK THE BAIT AND IT RESULTED IN THEIR DEATH
AND THE DEATH OF NEARLY 15,000 ISRAELITES.

Satan is pulling that temptation out of his bag again
And throwing it Jesus.

“If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

A better translation is “SINCE You are the Son of God”

Satan is not doubting who Jesus is,
Rather Satan in insinuating that as the Son of God
He should not be subjected to such deprivation.

Was that not the issue with Korah and the Israelites?

Let me read Korah’s initial statement to Moses again:
Numbers 16:3 “They assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

Do you hear how flattering they are regarding the nation of Israel?
“all the congregation are holy, every one of them”

They have a very high view of their own self-worth and value.
I wonder who put that thought in their head?

Can’t you just hear the devil whisper to Korah, “Since you are the holy chosen people of God, I don’t think it’s right that you should live in such harsh conditions”?

That is what the devil is now doing to Jesus.
I don’t think it’s right that the Son of God be subject to such harsh conditions.
• You did after all leave heaven…
• You were born in a barn…
• You have lived as a perfect human for 30 years…
• Looks like to me that the least God could do is give you a piece of bread…

Satan was seeking to appeal to His selfishness.

Of course the problem for the devil is that JESUS, although human,
Does not possess the fallen nature of Adam and IS NOT SELFISH.

And so when this temptation hits the mind of Jesus,
He instantly overcomes it by turning to the truth of God’s word.

(4) “And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.’”

I absolutely love this!
Jesus takes His thoughts and evaluates them
Through the filter of God’s perfect word.

Paul spoke of this:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.”

What a great statement: “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”

That is to say, we force every thought or idea or speculation
Through the filter of God’s word to test it.

That is what Jesus did.
The verse which steered Him forward was: Deuteronomy 8:3

Now, let’s look at this for a second,
Because it helps us better understand the issue.
TURN TO: DEUTERONOMY 8:1-6

Did you catch what Moses said?
• Not only did God lead you into the wilderness, but He did so to test you.
• He even let you get hungry as part of that test.
• And when God did feed you, He fed you through unconventional means

And the reason was this:
(3b) “that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”

What was the point of God allowing the trial?
What was the point of God feeding them unconventionally?

God was trying to teach them this:
YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT BREAD, YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT ME
God is to be sought over and above the things of the world.

And that is what Jesus quotes here in the wilderness.
“I can live without bread, I cannot live without God”

The Devil was tempting Jesus to
Ignore God and take matters into His own hands,
Jesus saw that as a foolish decision.

SO HERE IT IS:
• Satan tempted Jesus to ignore God.
• Jesus overcame by believing that God is SATISFYING

Jesus overcame by believing that having God without bread
Was better than having bread without God.

Do you understand that?
This is actually KEY FOR US:

John Piper said, “Sin is what you do when you are not satisfied with God.”

• We are not satisfied with where God has us…
• We are not satisfied with how God has provided…
• So we usurp God’s plan and step outside His bounds to seek to seek satisfaction outside of Him.

It is to actually worship the things of the world, instead of God.

John Calvin wrote:
“Though we are convinced, that all our support, and aid, and comfort, depend on the blessing of God, yet our senses allure and draw us away, to seek assistance from Satan, as if God alone were not enough. A considerable portion of mankind disbelieve the power and authority of God over the world, and imagine that every thing good is bestowed by Satan. For how comes it, that almost all resort to wicked contrivances, to robbery and to fraud, but because they ascribe to Satan what belongs to God, the power of enriching whom he pleases by his blessing? True, indeed, with the mouth they ask that God will give them daily bread, but it is only with the mouth; for they make Satan the distributor of all the riches in the world.”
(Calvin, John [Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke; Volume First; Baker Books; Grand Rapids, MI; 2005] pg. 220)

That is to say,
• We have a population of men who say that God provides and God blesses, and even ask God to do so.
• However, their quick willingness to resort to sinful behavior to obtain those blessings only reveals that while they say God is their provider, they really think Satan does it better.
• For they are quicker to do the things of Satan than the things of God if it provides what they want.

Is that not the temptation?

Now, let me tell you WHY THIS OCCURS SO EASILY in our lives.

This occurs when we are accustomed to
Only seeking God’s hand instead of God’s face.

It happens to us so easily because we are really more interested in what we can get from God than we are in simply enjoying God.

There was a sermon entitled “Ten Shekels and a Shirt” by Paris Reidhead
In which he asks this main question: “Is God an end or is God a means?”

Do you see God as the One whom you seek?
Or do you see God as the One who can simply provide what you seek?

AND THIS IS THE ISSUE BEHIND THIS TEMPTATION.

ISRAEL DIDN’T SEEK GOD,
They sought comfort, they sought a land flowing with milk and honey,
They sought water and bread, and peace and safety.

They followed God because
They saw Him as the One capable of supplying all of that.
So God purposely let them get hungry as a test of their devotion.

Do they want Me or do they just want bread?
WHAT DID WE LEARN?

God was not an end for Israel, God was a means.
And the second God failed to perform up their expectations,
They were ready to cast Him aside and do it themselves.

We certainly saw this throughout the Old Testament with Israel.
But do you realize that the same mentality was alive and well even in the days of Jesus?

They didn’t want Jesus, what did they want?
“A Sign”

Luke 11:29 “As the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”

They didn’t want Jesus, they just wanted what Jesus could provide.

You’re going to see that again in a few weeks when Jesus enters His hometown.
• He will flat out tell them that He is the Messiah who has come to preach the
gospel, (READ LUKE 4:17-21)
• And look at their response: (LUKE 4:22) they were all excited!
• But Jesus knew why they were excited (LUKE 4:23) They didn’t want Him,
they just want miracles.

But there is one story in the New Testament
That emphasizes this like no other.
TURN TO: JOHN 6:26-36

For a backdrop you should know that John 6 begins with Jesus feeding the 5,000.
And trust me, in Jesus’ day hunger was the big issue.
The equivalent today would be like Jesus clearing out a cancer hospital.

Hunger was their biggest burden and their greatest concern,
And yet Jesus so easily handles it.

That explains why in 6:15
They want to take Him by force and make Him king.
However Jesus leaves
Actually walks on water to the other side of the lake

The next day, He encounters a new crowd, and the old crowd
Which He had fed travels around the lake looking for Him.

This is a big crowd all seeking Jesus, but notice what Jesus reveals.

THE REBUKE (26-27) – That was Jesus in effect quoting Deuteronomy 8:3; don’t seek bread, seek Me!

THE SELFISH ANSWER (28) – They don’t get it. “Well fine, if You’re not going to give us bread, then show us how we can do it ourselves.”

THE SECOND REBUKE (29) – Quit focusing on bread, and focus on Me!

ANOTHER SELFISH ANSWER (30-31) – What a statement, “Well before we can seek You, we’re gonna need a sign, like say, You giving us bread from heaven like Moses did!”

THE THIRD REBUKE (32-33) – I am the bread! Seek Me!

AND YET ANOTHER SELFISH RESPONSE (34) – It’s still all about the bread.

THE FOURTH REBUKE (35-36) – You refuse to get it.

Do you see their sin?
Do you understand the problem?

Jesus wasn’t enough, they only wanted what Jesus could offer.
They didn’t seek to enjoy Jesus, they sought to use Jesus
To satisfy their own selfish and worldly desires.

If Jesus would continue to give what they wanted, they’d gladly follow.
• They’d follow around the lake…
• They’d make Him king…
• They’d hail Him with palm branches in Jerusalem…

But if He wasn’t going to satisfy their desires
Then they really had no use for Him
And would just as soon see Him crucified.

Do you understand the temptation?
Do you understand the failure?

You need to because Satan is using this temptation all over America.
We call it THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL

Radio and Television and Internet are saturated with this age-old whisper. (The same thing Satan whispered to Korah and to Jesus)

• God should give you bread!
• God should give you water!
• God should give you a promotion!
• God should give you a prosperity!

Satan is using these preachers in bucket loads
To convince people that they have the power to turn stones into bread
And they should not hesitate to use it!

It is a doctrine dedicated to getting people
To focus on the hand of God instead of His face.

It is produces people who actually worship the things of this world
And they congregate to God because
They see Him as a means of acquiring it.

BUT LISTEN FRIEND,
If all you are seeking God for is because He can accomplish for you,
Then you have made God and idol and you are ripe for the picking.

GOD IS THE END, NOT THE MEANS

Listen to the David
Psalms 27:4 “One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.”

Listen to the sons of Korah
Psalms 84:1-2, 10 “How lovely are Your dwelling places, O LORD of hosts! My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God…For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

Remember Asaph in Psalm 73?
• He was angry at God because God didn’t give him all the prosperity that the wicked enjoyed.
• But when God showed him the end of all that earthly prosperity, we remember well what
Asaph said:
Psalms 73:25-28 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.”

Listen to the Apostle Paul:
Philippians 3:7-11 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

And we could go on and on and on here.
Jesus is that treasure in the field, Jesus is that pear of great value.

The reason we fall into temptation is because we are not satisfied with God alone.
• Our flesh is our master, and we are really only interested in satisfying it.
• If God will help, then sure, I’ll follow God.
• But if God walks me through the wilderness, then forget it.

Israel failed there and 15,000 were killed.
Jesus however overcame, because to Jesus God was enough.

And according to the writer of Hebrews, because He overcame “He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.”

• He now has untainted righteousness available for all of us who have so
miserably failed.
• We place our faith in Him, and His perfect righteousness is credited to us.

And then, as we seek to live this life, He also knows how to come to our aid, “since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”

That’s good news isn’t!