Matthew 4:1-11
Welcome!
Today we continue our series into the book of Matthew, picking up the story in
Chapter 4. Last week, we looked at Chapter 3, which focused on the baptism of
Jesus. The chapter ended with the following:
As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of
the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of
God descending like a dove and alighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is My Son, whom I
love; with Him I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:16-17
This
amazing miracle marked the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. What happened prior to
this moment? Apart from the birth story, the escape into Egypt, and the return,
we know very little. We do have one account, in Luke chapter 2. In this
passage, Jesus is 12 years old and accompanies His parents to Jerusalem for the
Passover. After the ceremony was over, His parents began their return to
Nazareth, thinking Jesus was somewhere with the group of relatives and friends
that were traveling together, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. When the
parents realized this, they went back to Jerusalem to look for Him. They
searched for Him for three days! When at last they found Him, He was sitting
amongst the teachers of the law, asking them questions and listening to them.
The passage says that everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding
and His answers. Upon finding Him, His mother asked Him why He had treated them
like this. Then, as now, such behavior would normally be considered as
disobedient, inconsiderate, and totally inappropriate, hardly “honoring your
mother and father.” Jesus replied that He had to be about His Father’s
business, and Luke writes that His parents didn’t understand at all what Jesus
meant by this.
I
bring up this passage to point out that, despite the miracles at Jesus’ birth,
despite the visit and gifts from the magi, and despite the angelic visitations
surrounding the escape to and return from Egypt, the idea that Jesus was the
Messiah, or prophesied one, seems to have been, well, put on the back burner.
It may
well be out of fear that Jesus’ parents kept a low profile after coming back
from Egypt. They did not want another ruler to sense a threat to his throne and
seek out Jesus to kill Him. It’s not clear what Jesus’ parents even told Jesus
about who He was prophesied to be.
What
about the days and years following this event? Luke tells us that Jesus was
obedient to His parents and went with them back to Nazareth. It may seem like
things went back to behaving as if Jesus was just a normal person, and I
suspect many members of Jesus’ extended family began to doubt whether the
prophesies were maybe just wishful thinking, or not really from God. But Luke
tells us that Mary did not think so – she treasured up all of these things in
her heart.
Jesus
was baptized at around the age of 30, a good 18 years or so after the events in
Jerusalem! So for all those years, Jesus did not live as if He were anything
but a normal person. Luke tells us He grew in wisdom and stature and in favor
with God and man, but this was as a man, presumably in the trade of His father,
living a humble life.
John
the Baptist knew who He was. And He protested at first to baptizing Jesus,
because baptism was a symbol of repentance, and Jesus had nothing to repent of.
And John knew He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John,
in comparison, was not only unfit to baptize Jesus, He was unfit even to car y
His sandals. But Jesus asked Him to baptize Him “to fulfill all righteousness.”
And
upon coming out of the water, we sense that, after 30 or so years, at last,
something is going to happen. What was for so long hidden about Jesus is now on
public display, as the heavens open, the Spirit descends and alights on Him
like a dove, and God the Father proclaims that Jesus is in fact His Son, in
whom He is well-pleased. Those who saw these events were no doubt terrified but
also excited. Nothing like this had ever happened before! So what happened
next?
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. –
Matthew 4:1-2
The reader of this gospel back at the time of the early church
probably expected Jesus to go somewhere and announce who He was. I suspect
those who saw the baptism expected the same. Instead, Jesus goes into
seclusion! Notice that passage says that the Spirit led Him there.
What was the wilderness like? The following short video shows the
likely area where Jesus was. It is almost as desolate today as it was 2000
years ago.
Why did the Spirit lead Jesus into the desert wilderness? We
aren’t given a direct answer in Scripture. But there are a few things we can
observe. First, Jesus’ experiences, including His hunger, show us that Jesus,
despite being the Son of God, and despite His miraculous birth, is yet still
fully man. He did not become an immaterial spirit or an angel or anything like
this. He still needed food. He still experienced hunger. He still felt the
effects of the 40 days of isolation and His yet-to-be-described temptations by
the devil were real temptations for Him. So I think we can say that He went
through these things for us, so we could see who He really was. This is
important to understand, because His eventually substitutionary death for us on
the cross really is a substitution – it really does pay for our sin. Jesus was
without sin, but He experienced real temptation.
Second, God has used the historical events of the Old Testament as
a kind of foreshadowing of Jesus. We see this here in the 40 days in the
desert. Apart from the frequent occurrence of the number 40 in Scripture, we
specifically see Moses spending 40 years in the desert before leading the
Israelites out of Egypt. We also see the Israelites spending 40 years in the
desert before finally entering the Promised Land. Some other examples: Goliath
taunted (or tested) the Israelites for 40 days before David defeated him. Moses
separated from his people and went up Mount Sinai for 40 days three times –
first receiving the tablets with the commandments on them, then pleading with
God to forgive the people for their sin – recall the golden calf and how Moses
smashed the tablets – and, third, getting the second set of tablets. And Elijah
traveled for 40 days in the wilderness after fleeing for his life, ending up at
what was very likely the same mountain – Horeb is believed by most scholars to
be Sinai. Symbolically, 40 seems to signify a number representing testing or a
trial. For Jesus, these 40 days without food and without company (except for
the presence of Satan at the end) is most definitely both a testing and a
trial. Interestingly, there are also 40 days from the resurrection to the
ascension of Jesus.
I believe there is a third important reason, but I will reveal
this one later in the message, after going through the rest of the passage.
You may wonder if a 40-day fast is even possible. The answer is
yes. But a fast of this length in which you only have water should not be done
without medical supervision. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for
Christ (now Cru) undertook multiple 40-day fasts, but he included juices in his
fasts. The fast that Jesus undertook appears to be one in which He had water,
and water only. It would be a miracle of God to survive without water, and the
passage makes no mention of this. It also only says He was hungry, not
thirsty.
The tempter came to Him and said, “If You
are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” – Matthew 4:3
The tempter is the devil, the serpent in
Genesis 3, who tempted Eve, who gave in and then convinced Adam to likewise
chose to disbelieve and disobey God. There are similarities in Satan’s approach.
To Eve, he began by saying, “Did God really say…” getting Eve to doubt what she
had previously understood. To Jesus, Satan does something similar: He starts
with “If You are the son of God.” It is interesting that Satan uses the
same description of Jesus that God used 40 days earlier at the baptism: “This
is My Son,” that is, the Son of God. I presume that Satan was there at the
baptism. He heard God use those words, and so he uses them to attempt to sow
doubt in Jesus much like how he sowed doubt in Eve.
It is important for us to understand that Satan
is absolutely a deceiver. Satan knew exactly what God told Eve. His getting her
to doubt the truth was the definition of evil. He probably came across as if he
was concerned that maybe Eve mis-heard or misunderstood what God had said, as
if he actually cared about Eve, but nothing could be further from this – his
only goal was to get her to fail, to fall, and in fact he detested her and he
detested Adam. In the same way, Satan had nothing but contempt for Jesus.
Let’s look more closely at the nature of the
temptation. Jesus has fasted for 40 days. He is very hungry. He is likely weak
both physically and mentally. Satan tells Jesus that there is no reason for
this fasting to continue; as the Son of God (if indeed He is the Son, he adds
sneeringly), He reminds Jesus that He has unlimited power. He can satisfy His
hunger in a moment. He can truly turn these stones into bread. He could do far
more than that – He could order up an instantaneous 21-course meal with
delicacies that even kings could only dream of – but Satan does not go this
far, because – and this is important – Satan normally tempts people in small
ways, knowing that once they give in in small things, he can move them up into
bigger and bigger things. If Satan tempted you to kill your brother or sister,
you would of course reject this immediately. So he instead tempts you to harbor
a slight grudge against him or her, to not forgive him or her, to keep a little
record of the wrong in the forefront of your mind. It’s far easier for him to
get you to do this. He’ll make more of it later. This is how Satan works.
In the same way, Satan only asks Jesus to make
some humble bread. A small rock-sized loaf – what could be the harm in that?
We should talk about this – is there
harm in Jesus making some bread? Yes. Jesus does have unlimited power, but He
is not to use it, indeed, He is not to do anything, apart from the
Father’s will. As Jesus says in John 6:38, For I have come down from heaven not to do My will but to do the
will of Him who sent Me. It is ironic that
Jesus says these words shortly after feeding the 5000, that is, after doing the
very thing Satan is trying to get Him to do, to make food miraculously appear.
So clearly it is not a sin for Jesus to make food miraculously; instead, the
sin is for Jesus to disobey at any moment the will of the Father.
How does Jesus respond?
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every
word that comes from the mouth of God.’” – Matthew 4:4
Jesus responds to Satan by quoting Scripture.
This is a lesson for us as well – we too should be “people of the Book.” As
Satan tempts us in various ways, it is tremendously helpful to not only have a
vague sense that something is wrong but to know, from Scripture, why it
is wrong, what principle or rule is being violated. In the example of holding a
grudge against your brother or sister, there are many passages that are
relevant, but one example is Ephesians 4:31-32: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander,
along with every form of malice. Be kind and
compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God
forgave you. Holding a grudge
is to harbor bitterness, no more and no less.
So let’s look at Jesus’
response a little more closely. It comes from Deuteronomy 8. Let me quote the passage
surrounding the specific verse so we understand its context:
Be careful to follow every command
I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and
possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these
forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your
heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with
manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you
that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from
the mouth of the Lord. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during
these forty years. Know then in your heart that as
a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your
God disciplines you. – Deuteronomy 8:1-5
This is a wonderful passage. God caused not only a miracle, but a
never-before-seen miracle, to feed His people. Yes, He allowed them to be
hungry for a time, but He took care of them. Jesus’ choice of this passage is
perfect. He too is hungry, but by choosing to follow God’s leading, He is
certain that God the Father will also take care of Him.
To choose to follow Satan’s suggestion of turning stones into
bread would be to choose not to trust in God. It is essentially the same sin
that Adam and Eve committed. But Jesus does not succumb. He remains faithful to
God. He continues to trust Him.
Jesus’ response is helpful for us in two ways: It shows us how to
defeat Satan’s temptations with Scripture. But it also reveals to us a powerful
truth about dealing with temptation in the Scripture itself that Jesus uses.
There are times we will be tempted to do something we know is wrong because the
situation seems difficult or dire. But man does not live on bread alone, but on
every word that comes from the mouth of God. We need to trust Him even in our
hunger, even in our troubles, even when an expedient but ungodly solution
tempts us.
Was the devil done? No.
Then the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand on
the highest point of the temple. “If
you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their
hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” – Matthew 4:5-6
Satan continues his temptation by again saying
‘If you are the Son of God.” It is important for us to note that Satan does
this. If Satan cannot get you to yield immediately, he will try to wear you
down. Jesus allows Satan to do this because He is continuing to follow the will
of God. But we don’t need to do this. When we are tempted, it is wise to change
our situation so that the temptation does not continue, because, otherwise,
Satan will indeed try to wear us down.
In this second temptation, Satan ups his game
by quoting Scripture himself. The passage is from Psalm 91. Let’s look at it in
context:
If you say, “The Lord is my
refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake
you, no disaster will come near your tent. For He will command His
angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they
will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against
a stone. You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great
lion and the serpent. “Because he loves Me,” says
the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges My
name. He will call on Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I
will satisfy him and show him My salvation.” – Psalm 91:9-16
What is the message of this passage? That those
who take refuge in the Lord, who love the Lord, who choose to follow Him, will
be protected and saved by the Lord. It does not imply that you can just
choose to put yourself purposely in peril for no reason and that the Lord will
then use His angels to save you! This is true whether the person is the Son of
God or not! This is Scripture twisting, plain and simple.
What does the devil hope to gain by getting Jesus to throw Himself
down? Either God will not save Him, which means that Jesus will die –
which is a “win” for Satan – or God will intervene, but Jesus will have
sinned, because to throw Himself down was not in God’s will – also a “win” for
Satan!
Why would this ploy tempt Jesus at all? If he didn’t deeply understand
Scripture, and if He were becoming annoyed at Satan’s repeated use of “If You
are the Son of God”, He might choose to do what Satan says just to “prove” Him
wrong.
I think there is a lesson for us here as well. We need to
understand that we are more likely to give in to temptation when we lose
patience, when we are irritated, and so on. Jesus’ being weak with hunger also
exacerbated the temptation. The same is true for us. We need to understand our
vulnerability when we are hungry, in pain, tired, and so on. We need to keep a
sober understanding of our weakness, our frailty – that emotional or physical
strain makes us even more vulnerable. In such a state, we should be extra
vigilant, extra quick to pray, and we should seek to get rest, or food, or
whatever it is we need. We need to understand that Satan is in fact most likely
to tempt us when we are at our weakest.
How did Jesus respond?
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
– Matthew 4:7
I love this response. The Scripture is from
Deuteronomy 6. Here it is in context:
Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only and take your
oaths in His name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lord your God, who is among
you, is a jealous God and His anger will burn against you, and He will destroy
you from the face of the land. Do not put
the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. – Deuteronomy
6:13-16
For Jesus to throw Himself
down from the Temple would be to put the Lord to the test not only in the
physical sense of seeing whether He would rescue Him, but also it would be a
matter of following Satan (who wanted to be God) rather than God. By citing this
passage, Jesus was not only saying to Satan that He would not throw Himself
down, but that He would not do anything Satan suggested if it is was not
in the will of God.
Again, there is a lesson for
us here. How can we follow other gods? How can we put the Lord our God to the
test? These are huge questions – we could do an entire series on these
questions. There can be a tendency to think we don’t follow idols anymore, at
least those of us in the West – followers of Hinduism are another story. But I
think this is wrong. We too absolutely follow idols. A good book that deals
with this is Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller.
Because our time is limited, I
just want to point out a few passages about idols that you might think do not
apply to us, but I think they do, and do so powerfully. The first is from Psalm
135:
The idols of the
nations are silver and gold, made by human
hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have
ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make
them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. – Psalm 135:15-18
This passage looks like it is
only talking about physical idols made from silver and gold but think about the
last sentence. How do you know if someone is worshiping idols/false gods? By
whether their senses are dulled to the truths of God. Idol worship involves
placing something, even a belief, on a platform that should be God’s alone. As
a result, when values involving the idol are demonstrated to conflict with Biblical
principles, idol worshipers choose to not listen to the truths of the Bible.
This can happen to believers! We put the Lord our God to the test when we
choose to listen to our idols over listening to God, and then we act
accordingly. Don’t do this!
The second is from Jonah 2,
part of Jonah’s prayer inside the fish:
Those who cling to worthless
idols turn away from God’s love for them. – Jonah 2:8
If you feel like your walk
with Christ is struggling, if you feel distant from God, if you have a hard
time worshiping God, you may be struggling with idolatry. If this is the case,
it is not enough to just resolve to love God more; you should ask God to
show you your idolatry, what you are putting above Him. And when He shows it to
you, you need to renounce it.
Again, we could say so much
more about this topic, but we need to continue our passage. Jesus has now
thoroughly refuted Satan’s second great temptation. Do not put the Lord your
God to the test. Was Satan done? No. He had one more temptation:
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him
all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give You,” he said, “if You will bow down and
worship me.” – Matthew 4:8-9
It is
interesting that Satan skips the “If you are the Son of God” taunt this time.
He also doesn’t attempt to prove his point by misusing Scripture. He just gets
to the point. “The world is mine,” he says, in effect. And he was not wrong,
although there are limits to his dominion. John 14:30 calls him “the ruler of
this world,” and 2 Cor. 4:4 calls him “the god of this age.”
But Satan
was never more than a steward. And now that Christ has died and risen from the
dead, Satan’s time is limited. Jesus has already won. He is the King – the King
of kings. When He returns, He will ultimately take complete ownership of the
kingdom, and Satan will ultimately be deposed forever.
This is a
good place to remind you that Matthew’s gospel is in fact all about the kingdom
of God. This moment is a battle of kings over the kingdom. The current “king”
is asking for the submission of the One-to-be-king, for His worship, and
in exchange Satan will let Him rule the kingdom under him!
This may
not seem like much of a temptation for Jesus, but I think it is huge. What
Satan is offering is potentially an alternate pathway to becoming king.
I believe that Jesus already knows what is in store for Him – that He will
ultimately need to give up His life, even to experience torture and death on
the cross, because that is the path God the Father has laid out for Him.
Satan’s alternate pathway is a lot easier. Just a bit of worship to a
false god, and, seemingly, He gets the same result.
But of
course it is not the same result! Far from it! Under God’s plan, people
will be saved from their sin – Jesus’ sacrifice will bring salvation and
freedom to all who turn to Christ, all who repent and believe and trust in Him.
In contrast, Satan’s plan will leave all people in bondage, to ultimately be
condemned by God, to die in their sins and to be judged in the eternality that
is to come. Under Satan’s plan, Jesus will be king – in a fashion – but he will
be king of hell! Only under God’s plan will Jesus be King of heaven, king of
love.
So how does
Jesus respond?
Jesus said to him, “Away from Me,
Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him
only.’” – Matthew 4:10
I love this response! Short and sweet! And again, straight from
Scripture, Deuteronomy 6:13, the first verse of the longer passage we looked at that
included Jesus’ response to the second temptation.
Despite the fact that this temptation encourages Jesus to find an
easier path to His life, He soundly rejects it with this short verse. He is not
going to worship Satan under any circumstances. He would rather die first.
And He will.
Then the devil left Him, and angels came and attended Him. –
Matthew 4:11
Temptation is not forever. Remember that we are to resist the
devil and he will flee from us (James 4:7). And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond
what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a
way out so that you can endure it (I Cor. 10:13).
And this leads to the third reason why God led Jesus into the
wilderness – as an example for and encouragement to us. Jesus has experienced
temptation far beyond anything we will ever experience. It is important to note
that the devil’s third and most powerful temptation remained with Jesus for the
rest of His life up to and including the crucifixion – especially at the
crucifixion. In the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly before the trials and
crucifixion took place, the temptation was perhaps strongest of all. Jesus
always knew that He didn’t have to go throw with it; a quick agreement
to Satan, and it would all be prevented. He could live a life without going
through these terrible things. Perhaps, even though the world would remain
under the dominion of Satan, with Jesus’ unlimited power He could still make
the world a good place, a place of love, after a fashion. After all, Satan
would leave Him to do what He wanted with the world. He would be estranged from
His Father, but how could the Father really expect Him to go through such an
awful thing?
I word things this way so that you can better see the nature of
this temptation. We know that the Father loved His Son, but He also loved His
other children (us), and He loved His other children so much that He gave His
Son (up to experience these awful things), so that whoever believes in Him
would not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
We too will be tempted in various ways – but in our temptations we
can turn to Jesus, because not only does He love us, but He has experienced and
overcome temptation. This means that He doesn’t condemn us for being tempted,
but He sympathizes with us – He understands. And this also means that He can
help strengthen us and help us to overcome temptation, just as He has overcome
temptation.
These ideas are wonderfully explored in the book of Hebrews. Here is
a key passage to consider:
In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that
God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer
of their salvation perfect through what He suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made
holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers
and sisters. He says, “I will declare Your name to
my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing Your praises.” And again, “I will put my trust in Him.” And
again He says, “Here am I, and the children God has given Me.” – Hebrews
2:10-13
The passage
continues:
Since the children have flesh and
blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might
break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and
free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of
death. For surely it is not angels He helps, but
Abraham’s descendants. For this reason He had to
be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become
a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that
He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help
those who are being tempted. – Hebrews 2:14-18
In Christ we can be overcomers just as Jesus
was an overcomer. Let us take sin seriously. Let us see temptation as it really
is – an opportunity to know and love Jesus better, an opportunity to know
intimately the love and power of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment