True Worship – Luke 4:5-8

“Welcome to the official website of the Church of Satan.”  So reads the homepage of the Church of Satan.  It explains, “Founded on April 30, 1966 c.e. by Anton Szandor LaVey, we are the first above-ground organization in history openly dedicated to the acceptance of Man’s true nature—that of a carnal beast, living in a cosmos that is indifferent to our existence. To us, Satan is the symbol that best suits the nature of we who are carnal by birth—people who feel no battles raging between our thoughts and feelings, we who do not embrace the concept of a soul imprisoned in a body. He represents pride, liberty, and individualism—qualities often defined as Evil by those who worship external deities, who feel there is a war between their minds and emotions.”  And so it depicts worship of Satan as leading to freedom and actually rejects belief in a real devil.  Jesus knew the Devil was real and was offered such “freedom.”

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”  (Luke 4:5-8 ESV)

The second temptation the devil uses on Jesus is the lust for power.  We don’t know how Satan is able to show Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time” nor how honest he is being when he says they have been delivered to him and he can give them to whomever he wills.  We know that Satan wields a control over unbelievers, and even believers at times, with his powerful lies and deceptions about how to make it in life apart from God (2 Timothy 25,26: “Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”).  He is called the “ruler of the kingdom of the air” by Paul in Ephesians 2:2, and John says the “whole world is under the control of the evil one,” (1 John 5:19) but we also know that God is totally sovereign over His creation.

Were Jesus to take this route he would be able to avoid the cross, but he would be king only in a relative sense because the terms Satan offers for the kingdoms is worshiping him.  Satan does not want to worship God, but he wants to be worshiped himself.  We know what it is like to worship Satan and how that ultimately leads to destruction.

Jesus counters once again with a passage from Deuteronomy (6:13) that makes clear that God is the only one we should worship or serve.  No one else but the creator of the universe (and thus Satan’s creator, also) is worthy of worship.  When you visit Yosemite National Park, you don’t worship the park ranger who shows you all the wonderful sights but the one who made the wonderful sights.  God’s word helps Jesus overcome this temptation.