Right or wrong, in this third message, we come to the specific attack against the Person of Christ. As I’ve already said, the Bible seems to demand that we spend some time on this. The demand is seen in the fact that this is recorded several times in the Bible. The Gospel of Mark doesn’t add much to what Matthew records, except for one important little word, and one almost inconsequential comment. After describing Jesus’ baptism, Mark says, “And IMMEDIATELY the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.” Mark wants us to know that Jesus’ temptation came, without hesitation, upon the heels of His baptism. As is often the case, problems, trials and testings can come immediately after the most glorious events of our lives. A victory is won at Mt. Carmel, and immediately we are fleeing into Sinai, trying to escape the hatred of an angry woman. A baby is born, and immediately he becomes sick. We’ve had the best crop in years, but when we try to sell it, the market has collapsed. We come back from a wonderful vacation, and find that our source of income has evaporated or our house has been burglarized. The Lord Jesus went from hearing the glorious voice of the Father to the raspy voice of the devil. “And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.” What part, if any, did those “wild beasts” which Mark mentions, have in this temptation? Could that mean that along with not eating a descent meal, Christ didn’t get a descent night’s rest in a month and a half?
The Gospel of Luke also describes the Lord’s temptation. It sounds very much like Matthew’s account, but again there are differences. Is there significance in the fact that the second and third temptations are reversed? Is Matthew telling us that the third is more important than the second, but Luke disagrees? In the concluding verse, Luke leaves something out, but adds an addendum which Matthew doesn’t. “And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.” Luke wants us to realize that just because our last temptation has come to an end, that doesn’t mean that another won’t begin tomorrow or even this afternoon. Don’t think for a moment that Satan gave up the fight to compromise and to defeat our Saviour. But then Luke didn’t mention that when the devil left, the angels of God came to minister to Christ. Both Matthew and Mark want us to take heart whether we are victorious or not, that God’s help and helpers are not very far away. There are a great many things to consider in the other two accounts of Jesus’ temptation. But this morning I want us to focus primarily on Matthew’s account. And I want us to think about the specifics of the temptation, leaving the Lord’s counter attack for later.
I am not an expert in this subject, but sixty years of experience has led me to believe that there are two or three varieties of physical hunger. When I was on deputation as a missionary, I would often go for 24 hours between meals. I found that after 6 or 8 hours I would get really hungry, especially in the days before I established this as my routine. After 8 hours I would be hungry, but after 20 hours the demand for immediate food wasn’t as intense. There is a hunger which is rooted in the stomach, but there is another hungry which is rooted in the brain. Today, 95% of the time, my mind and the clock tell me that I’m hungry, while the rest of my body is silent. There is a stomach hunger, a brain hunger, and then there must be another hunger in which every cell in the body is screaming for food. Forty days of fasting undoubtedly produces this last kind of hunger. Don’t say that the Father sustained him, and Christ was not hungry, because the scripture says that He was.
In this very hungry condition, Satan came to Christ with the little “if” word. “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Remember that even though there are similarities between Christ’s temptations and ours, there are things which must always separate us. For example, Satan may come, causing you to question whether or not you are a child of God. He says, “If you were really a Christian, you wouldn’t have terrible thoughts like those you’ve just had.” He comes proposing doubts and creating problems as a result. “Yea, hath God said, thou shalt surely die?” But when he came to our Lord, did Satan really think that he could get Christ to doubt that He was the Son of God? Was Satan expressing his own doubts? He couldn’t doubt Jesus’ divinity, could he? Satan’s demons could never keep the mouths shut about the true nature of Christ. “And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.”
Sometimes in general conversation, and also in the Word of God, the word “if” doesn’t express doubt. Sometimes is means something like “since.” Paul wasn’t questioning the salvation of the people of Colossi when he wrote – “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.” He was saying, “since you are risen with Christ, act like it.” Satan’s temptation was something like, “Since you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”
Now stop and ask yourself what the sin would have been if Christ had turned stones into food? Give me a single verse from the Law of Moses, which forbade something like this. For example, would this have involved theft? I read of a wise man who prayed that the Lord would keep him from poverty. But it wasn’t greed or lust which the man feared; it was that if he was poor, he might be tempted to steal from people to feed his family. Under these circumstances, any ordinary man might have soon grown weak, and perhaps death was not far off. If there was no sin involved in creating food to eat, wouldn’t it have been sin, not to preserve his life? After all Christ must die on the cross, not out here in the wilderness. What was the sin, if this temptation was so evil?
Apparently the Holy Spirit who led Christ out into that wilderness, also led Him into this forty day fast. Part of that time Jesus’ flesh was telling him that He was hungry and that He needed to find some food. Do you think for a moment it never occurred to Christ to arrange a nice miraculous meal for himself? Or weren’t there any locusts in the area, or ant hills, or bee hives? For six weeks the Lord had successfully refused the dictates of His own flesh. He refused because He knew that it was the will of God that He fast.
Are you aware that our bodies can become tempters, idols and even false gods? “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.” “All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” For forty days Christ had been denying the dictates of His flesh, and He wasn’t going to given in now.
But there was something else – Satan was suggesting that our Saviour do what he was telling him to do. The suggestion was that Christ forsake the will of God and the leadership of the Spirit, to do what the devil was suggesting. It doesn’t matter if that suggestion in itself was relatively innocent, it still came from a Satanic voice, and it was trying to supercede the voice of God the Father. There was the sin, and thus there was the temptation. But Christ refused.
We will come back to this, but it can’t be ignored at this point. Satan has incredible powers, even though he is far from omnipotent. The Devil actually took Christ Jesus from the wilderness to Jerusalem in the blink of an eye. This was not a vision, or a dream or a hunger-induced hallucination; it was a real transportation. I believe that the Lord could have refused, but for the sake of the battle He permitted Satan this power. I suppose that it was similar to the way in which the Holy Spirit carried Philip from Samaria into the Sinai to meet with the Ethiopian.
The Devil took Christ to one of the wings of the temple – a pinnacle of the temple – a corner. And this corner overlooked one of the valleys which surrounded the city. One commentator told me that at least one of the pinnacles was about 120 cubits from the valley floor, but I couldn’t verify that. If that is true then Jesus was looking down 350 feet, which is more than the height as a 30 storey building. Have you ever been to the top of the Space Needle or the Calgary Tower? Despite the security of that thick glass and steel, the height can still make a person’s head spin. That may be twice as high as this pinnacle, but the effect would still be the same.
The temptation and suggestion was that Christ throw himself off that dizzying height. The devil didn’t offer to push him, because that would have changed the nature of the temptation. If Christ had been pushed the Father would have sent angels to save Him, and there wouldn’t have been any sin whatsoever. But if Christ had deliberately jumped it would have been to force God the Father to act.
It is important to notice that Satan attempted to do something which religious frauds have been doing for eons. It doesn’t bother the Devil to deliberately misquote the holy Word of God. Psalm 91 is not exactly a Psalm of prophecy about the Messiah. It is a wonderful Psalm full of promise and praise for – and from – a saint of God. For example, verses 1 and 2 aren’t the words of Christ, but words about Christ. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.” The devil refers to verses 9 through 13 – “Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.” Satan is an expert at twisting the scriptures to suit his purpose. “Since thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down and God will send His angels to catch you.”
What was the gist of this temptation and sin? No one has any business trying to force God into doing things for them. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Just because you misjudged the time, and you are going to be late for church, don’t think that you can drive 90 mph down I-90 and trust God to keep you from getting caught, or keep you from an accident. The Lord didn’t keep David from stubbing his toe over Bathsheba. Abraham, what did you think was going to happen when you returned to Egypt? God would protect you? When the Lord leads you into the wilderness, you can hope for God’s protection – you and even expect it. But when you decide to move into Sodom, it will only be by God’s mercy that you are warned before the fire and brimstone begin to fall. The second temptation was trying to get Christ to force God the Father to do things for Him.
No one can say for sure where Satan took Christ in order to facilitate this temptation. Some say that it was Mount Herman, the highest in that part of the world. Some say that it must have been something even higher like Ararat or Everest. But no mountain is high enough to give someone a view of all the kingdoms of the world. This temptation involved a trip to somewhere like Herman, but then in some Satanic way Christ was given a glimpse of his demonic empire. Luke says that this was done “in a moment of time” – in the blink of an eye.
Did Satan have any right or authority to make such a promise? It probably doesn’t really matter whether he did or didn’t, because he doesn’t care about such trivialities as ownership or authority. But the truth of the matter is, it appears that as the “god of this world,” most of the kingdoms, democracies and dictatorships of earth really do lay under his controlling hand. And I’ll include the country in which we live. He is the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” He is “the god of this world,” and he is in the business of blinding “the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” And of course he would have delighted in blinding the mind of Christ – if that wasn’t impossible.
Is it my imagination, or do I see a progression in Matthew’s account of these temptations? First, yield to the dictates of your flesh. Second, force God to serve you. Third, bow before Satan, giving me the position that only God rightly deserves. I like the way that Matthew Henry rephrased it – The first temptation was to despair of his Father’s goodness. The second was to presume upon his Father’s power. And the third was to alienate his Father’s honour, by giving it to Satan.
This was what it was all about. Isaiah 14 – “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” Satan’s primary goal is to sit upon the throne of God, either the throne of God the Father in heaven or that of God the Son in the earthly kingdom. “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” He wants to be like the most High. When we give place to the devil, and give him the authority in our lives which should only belong to God, that is a tiny step towards his goal. But if he could entice the Son of God to bow before Satan, now that would be a great victory – perhaps all that he would ever need.
Again, why is the account of this temptation given to us in the pages of God’s word? One very high purpose is to elevate the Saviour before our eyes, who soundly defeated Satan. Another purpose is to reveal to us the nature and some of the techniques of the Devil. And third to remind us of our weaknesses an vulnerability.
We are putty under the heat of Satan’s assaults. When we are defeated it casts a shadow across the face of our Saviour. And when the devil touches us, it should prove how imperative it is that we have a Saviour. Do you need to be born again – made spiritually alive by the grace of God? Repent of your sin, put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice which He made on Calvary.