Temptation – Matthew 4:1-11

How do you deal with temptation? The easiest way, it seems, is to give in to it, but that leads to the saddest of lives. God uses our conscience to help us say no to temptation to sin. Adam said yes, and it made for all the sadness we experience today. Jesus said no, and it led to our greatest happiness.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,

   “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

   “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’

and

   “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

   “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. (Matthew 4:1-11 ESV)

Adam had to be tested for obedience and love, and he failed the test for himself and all his offspring.  If there was to be a new humanity it had to have a new “father” from its own kind who could pass the test and be the sinless head of a new mankind.  Jesus, the last Adam, passed the test, a most severe test, another face-to-face with Satan but even more intense than what Adam faced.

Satan first tempted Jesus to utilize his deity to deal with his physical need for food.  “Since you are the Son of God and not just a human,” he offered, “just tell these stones with your creative power to become bread and satisfy your hunger.”  But Jesus recounted the words of Deuteronomy 8:2 spoken by Moses to Israel after their 40 year journey in the wilderness that God’s word is our first food and source of life.  We either trust God to provide for us or we don’t.  Jesus didn’t need to manufacture his own deliverance but could trust in his loving Father to do that.

Satan’s second try is a temptation for Jesus to avoid the cross by Jesus proving God’s special care of him by delivering him from a fatal fall from the temple.  And as Satan twisted God’s word to Adam about not dying if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so here he tries to counter Jesus’ dependence on God’s own word by quoting Psalm 91.  But Jesus retorts with Deuteronomy 4:10, which is more to the point in this situation.  You don’t presume upon God as to how He will deliver you.  Jesus knew he had to go to the cross to procure our redemption.  This silly test wasn’t the pathway to our salvation.

The last attempt is a bold bid to again avoid the cross on the way to the crown, but it meant that Jesus’ sovereignty would come under Satan’s sovereignty.  Jesus seems positively mad at this offer and once again resorts to the right passage from Deuteronomy 6:13 and requires Satan to leave.  I believe Jesus had been studying Deuteronomy while there these 40 days in the wilderness.  The power of a daily time in God’s Word is undisputed and prepared Jesus to face temptation.  What are we doing to be so prepared?

God then ministered to Jesus through angels, meeting his needs the right way.  We can depend on the Lord to take care of us and not yield to Satan’s temptations as we take God at His word and find help through prayer to pass the test.

[You can see my take on Jesus’ temptation all 40 days in my novel, Temptation.]