The Mt. of Proving

All right, good morning, Matthew.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Chapter 4 is where we're going to be this morning.

And I wanted to review just for a second what we've been through

so far. We are on our 4th mountain this

morning. Remember, we're in a series on

the mountains and valleys in the Bible and somebody, you don't

have to say it in the exact words that I did, but somebody

tell me what is the point of looking at the mountains in this

series? Does anybody remember why are we

looking at these mountains? We'll try the valleys.

Anybody remember why we're looking at valleys?

We haven't done those yet. Miss Taijuana.

Yes, so, so we said we're going to look at the valleys, to look

at them as a place of instruction, right?

So perfect. But the mountains, we are

looking at these as a, as a, the whole point of them is to look

at them as a place of inspiration or encouragement for

us in our Christian lives. So remember the first, the first

one we looked at was Mount Moriah, the mountain of promise,

right? And we, and those, these are

positives. These mountains are, are

positives things that we can take in our lives and, and build

on them. The second one was the mountain

of precepts, which was the where the law was given right.

Last week we looked at mount the mount of prayer in Mount Carmel

with, with Elijah. And this morning we're going to

look at another mountain. It's not a specific mountain

because the Bible never actually tells us what mountain it is.

But we're going to look at the story of Matthew chapter 4 with

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Jesus being tempted and and Satan takes him up on a high

mountain and shows him the the kingdoms of the world.

And so that is the mountain. We're going to call it the

mountain of proving this morning.

But we're going to talk about temptation a little bit.

And this one will this this lesson will be a little bit

different than maybe last week where we're it's very much

teaching and and encouraging. This is AI wouldn't say

preaching, but this is something we all deal with.

I think there are things that sometimes the pastor will preach

on and you say I've, I mean, I'm not perfect there, but I've got

that pretty much taken care of, whether it's doctrine or, or

certain things, you know, eternal security and some of

those things where you're like, yes, I believe that.

And I have no doubt that that that is settled in my mind.

But this temptation, you can have it settled, you can have it

conquered. And then the next day you're

going to fight it again and you're going to fight it again.

So this is something we all need, this temptation, this

lesson on temptation. So John, I would like you also

to turn to 1st John chapter 2. And this is a very familiar

John 2 · chapter mention

passage, but we're going to read just one verse here in a second,

and then we'll be done with first John chapter 2 for the

1 John 2 · chapter mention

rest of the lesson. But I want to take a quick look

at a verse there as it correlates to Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

So I'm going to read Matthew chapter 4 verses one through 11

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

and then we will get into this lesson.

So Matthew chapter 4, just hold your finger in first John

Matthew 4 · chapter mention 1 John 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 and we'll start in verse 1 of chapter 4.

Then was Jesus LED up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be

tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days

and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered.

And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the son

of God, command that these stones be made bread.

Now this is after 40 days of not eating.

If you're the Son of God, command that these stones be

made bread. But he answered and said, It is

written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word

that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth

him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be

the Son of God, cast thyself down.

For it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning

thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any

time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

As a quick reference, does anybody know what he's referring

to there? Psalm 91.

Very good, all right #7 Jesus said unto him, It is written

again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,

and this is where we get our mountain from.

Doesn't tell us where it is. And show with him all the

kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and saith unto

him, All these things will I give thee, if thou will fall

down and worship me, then say Jesus unto him, get thee.

Hence Satan. For it is written, Thou shalt

worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and

ministered unto him. What we're going to look at this

morning is not so much that we are going to look at this, this

temptation of Jesus, but more so how he gave us an example of how

to conquer this temptation and how to conquer Satan in a time

of temptation, and what exactly Jesus did.

And also a little bit of the fact that I don't want to get

ahead of myself, but temptation is not a bad thing that that is

not the sin. Jesus was tempted and we know he

was without sin. So the temptation is not the

sin. Falling to the temptation is

sin. So when, when I think sometimes

we get really discouraged, why am I constantly facing this

temptation? That's not the, that's not the

problem. That's part of humanity.

The problem is when we fall to this, to that sin.

And I'll, and I'll explain a little bit more of that here in

a second. But these three temptations, we

have three very specific temptations here, but you got to

you got to see in chapter 4 verse one, Jesus was led up of

the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And then he fasts for 40 days. Mark actually tells us that he

was tempted for those 40 days. These last three are just a

culmination of the temptation. But for 40 days Satan was in the

wilderness with him tempting him all forty of those days.

And so, but these last three flip to John first John chapter

1 John 2 · chapter mention

2 and in verse 16 we see that exactly what we are told here in

first John about the love of the world and temptation.

Jesus faces all three of them in in Matthew chapter 4 and

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

conquers all three of them. And and therefore is a perfect

example of to us of how to conquer any temptation we come

across, but also that that it is possible.

Yes, Jesus was God, but he was also 100% man.

And so when he is fighting these temptations, he's not doing it

as God with all power. He's doing it as a man who just

went 40 days without eating and then is tempted of Satan and is

still able to overcome them. And the key here is Matthew

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4 was led up of the Spirit.

He's in the spirit when he's doing this.

That's key. And we'll look at that here in

just a second. But first, John chapter 2 and

John 2 · chapter mention

verse 15 says love not the world, neither the things that

are in the world. If any man love the world, the

love of the Father is not in him.

And what is in the world for all that is in the world, the lust

of the flesh. And we see that with Jesus being

tempted to make those stones turn into bread.

That's the very fleshly temptation when you've gone 40

days without eating. So he, he's tempted with the

lust of the flesh and he overcomes that.

Then second one, the lust of the eyes.

He's taken up into this high mountain and shown the kingdoms

of the world and, and his eyes, he sees it as a man and he

overcomes that temptation to the lust of the eyes.

And then third, the pride of life.

He's taken up onto the pinnacle of the temple and and said,

basically, you know, prove, prove that you're God by

throwing yourself down and your angels will catch you.

And he overcomes that temptation as well.

So I wanted to take a quick look at that is, you know, any

temptation we come across, we can kind of categorize it into

first John chapter 2 and say it's the lust of the eyes, that

1 John 2 · chapter mention

the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

And Jesus faced exactly those same things and then overcame

them. And Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15

Hebrews 4:15

tells us that he was in all points tempted like as we are,

yet without sin. And so he, he overcame all these

temptations that we are going to face in our lives.

And we have this example of Jesus Christ doing it and I

overcoming them. And I think that's really the

reason God puts him in this position.

Same thing with the baptism of Jesus Christ, which we see 1

chapter before. And in chapter 3, he is baptized

and then the Holy Spirit comes on him.

But it's a, it's an example of, of what we are supposed to do in

our Christian lives. So let's pray and then we'll get

right into God this lesson. Father, thank you for this day

you've given us. Thank you for another

opportunity we have to open your word.

God, I pray as we look at this lesson this morning.

God, this is something that every one of us deals with every

single day, the temptation of Satan.

He's hard at work 24 hours a day tempting your people.

And God, I just pray that we would learn through your example

of of your son here with in Matthew chapter 4 that we can't

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

overcome it, but we must do it your way.

We must do it as we LED of the Holy Spirit and filled with the

Holy Spirit and God. We can't overcome these things.

And I pray that you'd just encourage us with this this

morning in Jesus name, I pray, Amen.

All right, so first of all, we're going to look at the two

people involved in this temptation.

First one is obviously the Son of God, but look at Matthew

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 here. You should be right there in

verse 16, probably the same page.

Well, we have the Son of God is the first person involved in

this temptation, Jesus Christ himself.

But when he gets ready to be a part of this temptation or, or

or be faced with this temptation, look in verse 16 of

chapter 3. And Jesus when he was baptized,

went up straight way out of the water and lo, the heavens were

opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a

dove and light lighting upon him.

He was filled with the Spirit of God before he faces this

temptation. And you know, I, I think often

we, we go out into our day. In fact, I know we do this

because I do this. We go out into our day ready to

face Satan and the world with without the power of the Holy

Spirit in our lives. Now we have the Holy Spirit

living in us, but we go without the power of the Holy Spirit and

we try to face Satan ourselves and it's impossible.

And and that's a whole every one of these is lessons that we

could expound on a lot, but it's impossible to go without them.

We must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

But the second thing I want to look at is is in chapter 4 and

let's see is it verse one. Yes, Jesus was led up of the

Spirit into the wilderness for what purpose to be tempted of

the devil. This was a divine appointment.

Jesus was was getting ready to go have with Satan to be tempted

and the Holy Spirit led him into that.

And that's why I what I just started a few minutes ago with

saying the temptation is not the problem.

God uses temptation to strengthen us.

God uses and by temptation I don't mean trials, I mean

temptation to strengthen us. You know, when you go to the

gym, you don't start with £400 on the bench press, right?

You won't even be able to push it off the, off the, off the bar

or off the, the stand. But if you start with lighter

weights, your muscles grow accustomed to that, to that

weight being pushed up and they get strengthened.

It's the same way in our spiritual life.

We we the Holy Spirit leads us into temptation that he knows we

are strong enough to win so that we build our strength and and

maybe build our confidence a little bit in the fact that we

can actually overcome Satan here and there.

But the Holy Spirit leads us. He says that very, very clearly

in verse one that Jesus was led up of the Spirit to be tempted

of the devil. So he sends him into this

temptation. So that's the first person we

see. And then we see secondly, the

the that Satan was the second person involved in this

temptation. And you know, we have Matthew

and Luke record this story and they call him the devil in verse

one there to be tempted of the devil, but Mark actually says to

be tempted of Satan. And so same exact story, same

exact scenario. But I think it's important

because we have the two meanings there.

Satan is our adversary. That's what that's what Mark is

saying. And Mark and Luke tell us that

the devil, which it's the devil, which means accuser.

So neither one of them is good, but it's just saying that Satan

is a he's a slanderer. He's an accuser of the brethren.

He is our adversary. I heard a story one time guy had

just gotten saved and I think my grandpa was telling me this and

him and this other guy had gotten saved at similar times.

And they heard a heard a message that had just been preached

within the last week or so that Satan is our adversary.

And the preacher just preached and preached.

And this, this guy came walking in the next service and he said,

my grandpa's name is Joe, Brother Joe.

Satan is my advocate and he's a adversary.

Anyway, Satan is our adversary. And I hope that we hate Satan

with the, with the hatred that he deserves.

And I hope we teach our children to hate Satan with the hatred

that he deserves. You know, movies and things like

that. They, I don't know what the

right word is, but they, they, they desensitize us to the fact

of who Satan actually is. You know, even with, with, and

me and brother Matt have talked about some of this, but video

games and things like that where you know, the, the killing and

just the wicked, the evil is, is we desensitize to it because

it's so normalized. I hope we would ever forget how

evil Satan actually is. He is here tempting the very Son

of God to try to take him down. And that leads us into our next

point, the place actually I'm going to go to.

Yeah, we'll go to the place of the temptation.

But, but I think it's, it goes without saying, we'll get with

get to this in a second that Satan is tempting the very Son

of God. And it had some massive

implications. Had the Son of God fall into

this temptation, he could not have been the savior of the

world. That would have been the end of

that. So he's going after God himself.

How much more do you think he'll go after us?

You know, we yeah, absolutely. We we are much easier targets

for one. But for two, God has work for us

to do. He has people for us to lead to

Christ. He has children for us to raise

for Christ. He has, you know, ministries for

us to be a part of. And if he can get us to fall and

be, I wouldn't say useless, but but very much hinder our use for

Christ, then he's going to do that.

That is his job. His purpose is to accuse the

brethren, to slam to the brethren and to and to make us

fall. So the place of this temptation

then first I want to look here in, in, in, in verse 1 of

chapter 4. I keep turning the page and then

I lose my spot, verse 1 of chapter 4.

But the first place of temptation is that it was, it

was a remote place. And this is where this is where

I'm talking about. We're going to talk a little bit

about temptation more than we are going to talk about.

This is more more teaching or, or preaching than it was just a

lesson like last week talking about Mount Carmel.

Because temptation will occur when we are alone and isolated.

And, and he says that in verse 2.

And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward

and hungered. And when the tempter came to

him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these

stones be made bread. Jesus is out in the wilderness

here. He's alone.

He'd been alone for 40 days and 40 nights and he's alone.

He's isolated. And here comes Satan.

And you know, while I was studying for this, not only will

he get us when we're alone, you know, in our home alone or

whatever else, but he also gets us when we're, when we're

mentally alone. Remember, remember Elijah last

week said I'm the only prophet of God left.

So in his mind, he is, he's yes, he's got people around, but he's

isolated in his and mentally in his stand for God.

And I think that's also when Satan comes to us, You know, we

hear things preached in, in this church here that we go out and

maybe see other churches or see, you know, other Christians and

we go, are we the only one still taking a stand on this?

And then Satan says, exactly why are you still taking that stand?

Nobody else is. What's the point?

And that's a temptation of Satan when we when we think we're

isolated as as far as walking with God and taking a stand for

God, he comes after us. And that's a whole we could talk

more about that. But he was in a remote place.

He was also in a religious place.

And I think this goes without saying, but in verse, let's see

verse 5. Then the devil taketh him up

into the holy city, and setting him on the pinnacle of the

temple, and say unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast

thyself down. For it is written, he shall give

his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they

shall bear thee up less than any time thou dash thy foot against

a stone. But he takes him into the on to

the pinnacle of the temple, and tempts him there.

And this, this is a good point as well, though.

But Satan will tempt us right in a religious place.

He doesn't care. In fact, I think we let our

guard downs when we're at church, we let our guard downs

guards down. When we're in Bible college, we

let our guard down. We're in a Christian School and

Satan goes perfect. Now I can get them.

They're guards down. They think they're protected by

everything around them. And, and you know, for one,

religion won't protect us. So the fact of just being on the

temple was not going to be any kind of protection for, for the

Son of God. And just being in church doesn't

protect us. And, and I think this is where

I'm saying every one of us deals with, with temptation every

single day. There's nobody here that can

say, I don't know who he's talking to there.

But they need it. We all need this because just

about the time we think we've got it taken care of, Satan

comes after us. That's where he wants us when

our guard is down, you know, when we're at church, when we're

in in college, when we're at a Christian camp, that's when

often Satan will attack there. He doesn't care when he takes

you down as long as he does. And that's his goal.

And again, I hope that we understand.

I hope not understand. I hope that we hate Satan with

with just AI wouldn't even say a righteous hatred.

I don't think there's anything wrong with really truly hating

Satan because of what he for one, what he tried to do to

Jesus Christ to destroy that plan that God had for us, but

also what he wants to do in our lives.

But thirdly, it was a resplendent place.

And these aren't my points. So they're all alliterated.

But but he takes him into this high mountain.

And I mean, this is a beautiful scene that that Christ is

looking at the kingdoms of the world are before his eyes.

And but you got to remember the first, the very first temptation

from Satan happened in the Garden of Eden with two perfect

people. And so we have to be aware and

careful that when we're on on the hive, on a mountain

spiritually, or where when we, when things seem to be going

very well, Satan, that's when Satan attacks because our guard

is down. All right.

So those are the places of temptation.

And now I want to look quickly at the period or the timing of

this temptation. It was logical timing.

Matthew chapter 3, turn the page back.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 3. I'm going to read verses 13.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Through 17 because what happened here is Satan and we kind of

just touched on it, but Satan attacks Christ at a very logical

time. He has just had a great blessing

in his life. He's just had the whole he's

been baptized, and had the Holy Spirit descend like a dove on

him for the work of his earthly ministry to begin.

And so verse 13 Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan

unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I

have need to be baptized of thee, and cometh out of me.

And Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for

thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized,

went up straight way out of the water and lo, the heavens were

opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a

dove and lighting upon him. And and so Jesus has this very

high spiritual moment high in his life.

And then here comes Satan, the next verse to to attack him.

Now it also goes, it needs to be pointed out here that not only

when we're when we've had a spiritual, a high spiritual

moment in our life, but when we're about to do something for

God. What, what, what more motivation

does Satan have than when somebody is really starting to,

to walk with God and really starting to grow to knock the

knock their legs out from under them.

He's got to stop them. And that's what happens here.

Jesus is getting ready. He just got, has the Holy Spirit

descend on him and he's getting ready to start his earthly

ministry and Satan comes after him.

And so it's, it's something for us to be reminded of.

He's going to try to detour us in our service and the best way

he can do that is getting us to fall and again, first John

1 John 2:16

chapter 2 verse 16 through through our eyes, through our

flesh, through our pride. You know, I don't think and it's

not my place to say, but I don't know that we we preach on pride

enough. I think that well, first of all,

these six scenes of the Lord hate ye 7 are abomination unto

him. What's the first one?

Proud. Look, he hates pride, but we we

don't talk about it. And I think that is probably

most of our downfall. That's the reason we don't

listen when we're instructed. That's the reason we can't be.

We don't change. That's the reason we hide our

children when they're having problems instead of taking them

to where they they can get help because of our pride.

It's the reason that we don't read our Bibles.

I know better. It's the reason we don't pray.

I'm fine. We're proud and I'm preaching to

myself or talking to myself. We are proud and Satan wants to,

to, to take that pride and help us fall with that pride.

But then it was a it was a lengthy time and we see in in

Luke chapter 4. I told you that you don't have

Luke 4 · chapter mention

to turn there, but I'll read it. Luke chapter 4, verse 2.

Luke 4:2

This is a is a direct comparison to this story.

He says being 40 days tempted of the devil, and in those days did

he eat nothing, and when they were ended he afterward

hungered. So Matthew tells us that he was

in the wilderness 40 days. Luke tells us he was tempted for

all forty of those days in in the wilderness by Satan.

And the point here is that Satan will over and over and over and

over bring the same temptation, the same temptation.

You may win, you may win, you may win.

And he's going to keep on bringing it, bringing it because

he wears us down with that temptation.

And that's what happened with Christ here was he he tempted

him for a long time. And but fourthly, I want to talk

about this. This is the exciting part, is

the purpose of this temptation. And the first purpose was a very

satanic, satanic purpose. And we see that in in verse.

Well, in the first part of that, and I won't read it because

we've already read it a few times, but if Satan could get

Jesus Christ to fall, the salvation of mankind would have

been finished. Remember, and I've said this

before, but I used to, you know, sometimes in, in sharing the

Gospel, we will say, you know, man was created in the garden.

There's Adam and Eve, and then and then they fall and then God

said, wow, I've got to do something to, you know, to

redeem them. That is not the case.

Before the foundations of the world, this plan was in place.

There is no Plan B. This is the plan.

And so if Satan can get Christ to fall, I mean, I don't think,

you know, we read through this story and it's, you know, it's

a, it's a well known story. We learned it in Sunday school

and everything else. But I don't think we realized

the, the impact of falling to this temptation.

If Christ had fallen, salvation of mankind was finished.

It is a satanic purpose here in this temptation, but it was also

a sovereign purpose. Remember in verse one, Jesus was

led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the

devil. I think it's very interesting

that what we see in verse 11 of chapter 4, then after he, he,

he, he, he is victorious in this temptation.

He uses God's word to to defeat Satan.

And then he says, then the devil left him and behold, his angels

came and administered unto him. But God himself, the Holy Spirit

leads Christ into this temptation.

He defeats Satan and Satan leaves.

There's a sovereign purpose here.

I think that I don't, I don't think I know because the Bible

says that Jesus Christ had to overcome this temptation to, to

prove that he was the sinless Son of God.

What's the point in saying he's sinless if you never face

temptation? Well, of course you're sinless.

You never had a problem. You know it.

It's kind of like a, a, you know, a kid that grows up with a

silver spoon in his mouth and says, yeah, look at it.

Look at all the wealth I have. Well, there's you were given

that you didn't do anything to get that.

It'd be the same way if Christ was Yep, I'm he was sinless, but

never faced A temptation. This was important that he faced

this temptation to prove that he was the sinless son of God who

became man and had power over the wicked one.

Even as a man, he was sinless. So it's a, it was a sovereign

purpose here as well, even though Satan was trying to

destroy our salvation and our redemption, it needed it needed

to happen. And then lastly, and we've got

just a few minutes left, but I want to this is where we can

apply this really practically to our own lives.

And that is Christ's prevailing in this temptation.

And Matthew chapter 4, verses 8 and 9 is, is where this is

Matthew 4:8

important. And again, the devil taketh

verse 8, taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and

showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.

This is what this is where I want.

And we, we know these things. This is not a this is not new,

but it's a great reminder that so often through our eyes, Satan

destroys our life. Think about think about this in,

in, in examples we have in the Bible, Eve Bible says Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and I'll just read a few of these verses.

Genesis chapter 3 verse 6 when the woman saw the fruit.

Genesis 3:6

And then we have akin Joshua Chapter 7, verse 21.

Joshua 7:21

And you can probably think of many more examples.

I was thinking about this as I was driving this morning and,

and I have thought of many more examples.

You have Samson when he saw all the women of of of all I can

think of is the Philippines, the Philistines when he saw the

women that were of the Philistines.

His his eyes are what made him fall.

But we do have akin Joshua Chapter 7, verse 21.

Joshua 7:21

When I saw the goodly Babylonish garment, I couldn't help myself.

I had David in second Samuel Chapter 11.

2 Samuel 11 · chapter mention

He saw a woman and actually that's what it says with Sam

Samson when he saw a woman of Timnath.

Our eyes are are a really a door to to temptation and our eyes

are a great thing. I'm not saying you know, the

Bible does say if your eye offends you, plug it out.

It's better to go into heaven with one eye than that.

Then it makes you fall. And I think he was making a

point there of be careful what your eyes are seeing.

And, you know, I think sometimes we really, we really get on our

kids. You make sure you're careful

what you're looking at. But we don't do it to our our

own selves. You know, when, especially when

we're when we're by ourselves or whatever.

And this goes for men and women because the lust of the flesh is

not just, you know, lusting after another woman or whatever

else. Sometimes we lust after things.

I got to have that. I will do whatever it takes to

to get that. I will, you know, and I hate to

harp on this, but I will. I'll forsake my, my ministries.

I'll forsake my raising my kids. I've got to have that because we

see with our eyes things that we must have.

And that's the that's the the lust of the eyes.

And Satan uses that. He is not foolish with what

draws men. He he knows what makes men fall.

And he better than anybody else, knows the pride that's in our

hearts. That's what kicked him out, got

him kicked out of heaven. Pride.

I will be like the most high and think about what we do in in our

own life. Sometimes I'll decide what I'm

going to do. I've said that to Emma before,

you know, So, Dad, we should, I'll decide.

I'll decide what we do. It's kind of as a joke, but we

do it for real in our lives. You know, God leads us towards

something. I'll decide I don't want to do

that. That's the pride in our hearts

and Satan capitalizes on that every time he he's wise, he's

not all knowing, but he's wise. He's been at it a long time.

But lastly, we got to just a couple minutes the triumphing of

Jesus Christ in this temptation. And this is the exciting part.

And verse 11. Then the devil leave him,

leaveth him and behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

How did how did Christ, how was he victorious in this

temptation? How, what did he do that made

him victorious? Just resist, resist.

Bible says that in Ephesians, have you resisted unto blood the

word of God. That's what he that's what he

went to. You see that three times and and

who knows how many times he did it in the 40 days in the

wilderness. Probably every time he was

tempted because that's what we see here.

But in verse verse 4, he says, turn these stones into bread.

But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by

bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth

of God. Then the devil takes him into

the holy city on the pinnacle of the temple, and he says, if thou

be the son of the Son of God cast out, which is interesting

that Satan knows the word of God too.

He quotes Psalm 91, it's written, they'll catch you.

But Jesus uses the word of God. Again, verse 7, Jesus said unto

him, it is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil takes him into exceeding high mountain and

Jesus says, get the hint, Satan. Third time it is written, thou

shalt worship the Lord thy God in him alone.

Him only shalt thou serve. And I think the important point

here is you cannot remember. The Holy Spirit has a couple

jobs, but one of his jobs is to bring to to remembrance the

things we've learned, right? You can't bring to remembrance

something that you haven't read, that you haven't memorized, that

you haven't studied. There's nothing to bring to

membrance remembrance. I'm, I'm, I'm shorthanding there

in, in my speech to remembrance. He can't bring it if you haven't

learned it. And you know, it's like in

school, the teacher, you know, we never went over this.

Yeah. You weren't listening.

We went over it. If you, you have the word of

God, if you don't read it, you don't study it, you don't

memorize it. And then you get into

temptation. You've got nothing to fight

Satan with. You're not going to fight him

with your own flesh. We see how that goes.

You have to have the word of God in your hearts, in our hearts to

fight Satan with. That is the thing that we can

fight with. We have the sword of the Spirit

and we have the word of God and that's what we fight with.

Without those things, we are in in serious, serious trouble.

And thank God that that Jesus knew knew his word.

It is written, it is written, it is written.

You know, it even says that Michael, when he rebukes, he, he

rebukes him in the name of the Lord.

He doesn't rebuke him on his own because Satan is we, he's

powerful and I don't think we respect him for the power that

he has. It's not all powerful, but he's

powerful, he's wise, he's knowing.

And and we we play with him like he's some kind of, you know,

little little kid. You know, when that little kids

trying to beat you up and you just, you know, hold them by

their face or whatever, get off of me, That's not Satan.

Satan is powerful. In fact, he can almost do that

to us. Thankfully we have God on our

side to fight for us, but we fight with the word of God.

I'm going to close with this with this paragraph.

This is a quote. I don't have who it's from, but

I liked it. And they will be finished.

The battle was over, but the campaign would continue.

Satan never yields an inch of battleground until he must.

When utterly defeated, the Christian should pray.

When oppressed on all sides, he should pray even more.

But when conscious of glorious triumph, triumph, the Saints

should pray most of all, for then his danger is greatest.

It is well to remember that Satan's vacations are always

short. We see that in verse 11.

Then the devil leaves him, and behold, the angels came and

ministered unto him. You think in his whole next 3

1/2 years of ministry he was never tempted again.

Oh, Satan was back. He was back.

I mean, even in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We see if he can, if this cup can pass from me, please let it

nevertheless not my will. That's a temptation from Satan

on Christ. He, he wanted this temptation or

this, this, this pain and this agony of separation from the

Father that he was about to go through.

Let it pass if you can. Satan was tempting him even at

that hour for the salvation of all of mankind to to not happen

if if it's possible. And anyways, it is well to

remember when you have a victory that Satan's vacations are

always short. And I hope we see lots of

victories. I hope we see a lot of those in

our lives. But remember, he'll be back

tomorrow or later today. He'll be back.

And so remember this Matthew chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

We've got to go back to the word of God to fight Satan and we can

win, but we've got to constantly be on guard and constantly

fighting and when we lose, get back up.

When we win, be ready for the next one.

All right, let's pray and we'll be finished.

Father, I thank you for this day you've given us thank you for

your people that I thank you for everyone here in this that's

here today. God, I just pray that you'd help

us to really hate Satan the way that he should be hated that he

he tried to take away the salvation that you gave to us.

That I pray that we would never dabble with with the sin that he

presents. Pray that you'd help us to

protect our eyes, protect our hearts, protect our our minds.

And God, I pray that we would just crush pride at every chance

we get. As hard as that is God, I, I

believe we're made-up of pride. That's, that's what we are not.

But I pray that we would crush it when we can and rely on you

and your Holy Spirit and the word of God to help us in this

in times of temptation. Pray that you bless this next

hour. Be with pastor as he preaches.

Fill him with your, your power and the words that you need us

to hear in Jesus name, I pray, Amen.

And we're dismissed.