Matthew 4:5-11 | "When God Was Tempted"

Good morning and welcome.

Glad to have you with us this morning to worship our great high priest together.

It's wonderful to be able to do that corporately as a fellowship of believers coming together.

This morning we have a few extra with us this morning.

This is our fifth Sunday.

That's what we know it as here as a staff.

The fifth Sundays we don't have our older children's church classes.

We give those teachers a little bit of a break, but it also enables us to introduce some of our children to Big Church.

So, kids, welcome.

We're glad to have you with us this morning.

And I need your help, kids.

I need your help to help me be encouraged and to help you follow along.

So here's what I'd like you to do.

And older kids can do this too.

Even the oldest kids that are about 80 or 90 if you want, if it helps you follow along.

I'd like you to draw a picture.

We're going to be looking this morning at the temptations of the Lord Jesus.

So I'd like you to draw me a picture of what you hear.

Or if you'd rather do something different, you can think of a time when you were tempted.

Maybe you were tempted when you were walk doing some shopping with mom and dad, and you were tempted by something you saw on a shelf.

Mom and Dad said no, or maybe you were tempted in some other way.

Draw me a picture of that.

I'd like to see it afterwards.

And if you need some paper, there's some paper by each of the entrances back here, and Usher can help you with that.

Would you take your Bible, please, and open it to Matthew chapter 4?

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 4, last time we were together, we looked at the first section of this part of Scripture, and I'd like to look at the second part this morning, but to remind us of the whole context, we'll read from Matthew chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, all the way through verse eleven.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Again that's Matthew 4, beginning in verse 1.

Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recorded for us that 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.

Amen.

This passage is not about you.

It has application to your life, and it has implications for your life, but it is not about you.

However, we've all been in this kind of situation.

While our details are all different, we have all faced these temptations, what other scriptures refer to as the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

We, each of us, like a revolving door, have faced the tempter and given in to temptation again and again and again and again.

But this is not about us.

It is about Jesus.

Before you ever see yourself through the lens of this text, you must first see Jesus.

Hebrews 4 reminds us, since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.

Jesus, the Son of God.

Let us hold fast our confession.

Why?

Because we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but we have a high priest who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Jesus was in this place for you.

He stood in your stead.

For you, he became the tempted before the tempter.

Jesus stood where you and I failed.

He stood at the place we crashed and burned.

Now, if you are not a Christian, I want you to know this morning that Jesus is standing in your place here as the second Adam.

The first Adam failed.

When presented with the opportunity to live by every word that came from the mouth of God, instead he chose to live with some fruit.

We, you and I, do the same.

We continually fail to trust in the word of God, and instead we put ourselves in God's place.

Jesus stood here in the place of Adam as a new Adam.

And if he successfully stands firm against temptation, he then will provide the opportunity for all of us to have a new beginning in him.

If you are a Christian, Jesus stood in your place as the second Adam, but also as the Son of God.

Adam, the first son of God, failed.

Israel, also called the Son of God, failed.

You and I, as sons and daughters of the living God, fail.

We fail to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Israel failed to live by every word that came from the mouth of God.

They lived for 40 years in the desert, demanding bread and meat during their 40 years of wandering.

You and I demand that God meet our needs, that God do what we want Him to do.

Instead of living on His promises, we live on our demands.

Jesus stands in our place.

Adam was unable to stand firm before the tempter.

Israel was unable to stand firm before the tempter.

And you and I, as sons and daughters of God, fail to.

And now the beloved son of God takes his stand.

Weakened by hunger in his humanity, he received the best that the tempter could wield against him.

This is not about you or me, but it is for us.

Why is it for us?

Because the only one who can truly be tempted like us is one who is fully man.

But only the one who is truly God can never sin in the face of temptation.

Therefore, we stand or fall for all of eternity with Jesus.

He is our last and only hope in the face of sin and Satan.

Jesus cannot sin in this situation or in any situation if you and I are to have any hope of a right standing with God in eternity.

If you have any hope of empowerment in standing against the tempter yourself in this life, Jesus cannot fail.

Jesus' baptism at the end of chapter 3 ended with the heavenly declaration This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

It's God the Father speaking.

And the tempter latched onto that twice, coming at Jesus with the statement, If you are the Son of God.

Now the sense of those statements is more along the lines of since than if.

It's as if Satan comes to Jesus saying, I heard that.

Prove it.

Prove it.

God would not leave his son to starve to death.

Turn these stones into bread.

Meet your need.

In the modern language version of Shakespeare's Measure by Measure, it says, Oh, the devil's a cunning enemy.

The most dangerous temptation is the one that uses our love of goodness to draw us into sin.

Hebrews 6.5 speaks of the goodness of the Word of God.

It is perfect and it is perfectly true.

It is good, so good that it is vital to our survival.

We must not live by physical sustenance alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And the Lord Jesus is so reliant on that goodness, on the word of God, that he turns aside the tempter's snare with that good word of God.

Is scripture that good to you?

The devil is cunning.

So he begins to use that very goodness as the means of temptation.

If Jesus is going to rely on Scripture, then Satan will use Scripture to lure him in.

Temptation almost always appears as something good, doesn't it?

That's why we give in.

We see something in front of us as a greater pleasure, as a greater fulfillment than what we currently possess.

And Satan uses good things.

God's created good things to lead us into sin.

And so food, which is a good created thing, leads to gluttony.

Rest can lead to laziness.

Desire for sexual fulfillment leads to a distortion of God's design for that fulfillment.

Relying on God's provision and care for us can lead to expecting and even demanding that God supply according to our terms.

Even more, every temptation boils down to whether or not we will live on every word from the mouth of God.

Every temptation will be a form of the question from the Garden of Eden.

Has God really said?

Has God really, really promised that to you?

Can you really take God at His word?

Is God really really good?

If what you're going through is from God, is that is He really good?

Is God better than this temptation?

If you leave with nothing else this morning, please leave with this truth.

Your only hope for successfully enduring the onslaught of temptation is the Word of God.

Both the written word and the incarnate word, the person of Christ Himself.

There's a surefire method to failing temptation.

Surefire method every time.

Resist the incarnate word and reject the written word.

Christians must love the Word of God.

That's what draws us to Christ, the incarnate word.

But even you and I, as believers in Christ, can reject the word at times, can't we?

Fail to know Christ, the incarnate word, and fail to understand the written word, and you will fail in the face of temptation.

Do you see then why it is so important for us as a fellowship of believers to declare the word of God and to disciple toward maturity in Christ?

We don't want to fail.

If you are a Christian, you must not only know the word, but know how to understand it and employ it.

Satan tempted our Lord Jesus along those same lines.

Using Scripture, which is a good thing, a vital thing, he sought to lead Christ astray.

Look at it.

Verse 4.

Jesus answers, it is written.

Leading into a scripture quotation.

Verse 6, Satan says, It is written.

Leading into a scripture quotation.

Pause for a moment and note the audacity in Satan to do that.

Think of it.

Satan has the audacity to use the written word to tempt the incarnate word.

Does that make any sense?

Oh, he knows it works.

And that is what you are up against.

If he desired to trip Jesus up with twisted scripture, then you can guarantee that he will try it with you.

One of the most dangerous places that we can be in is the place where we assume that we know Scripture and know what it means without the diligent labor to read it and to understand it.

Then the devil took him to the Holy City, that's Jerusalem.

Set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said, If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down.

An early tradition in the history of the church claims that the Apostle James was martyred by being tossed over the side of the temple facing the Mount of Olives.

If true, that drop would have been over 400 feet to the rocks below.

Now, wherever this pinnacle of the temple was, the idea is that Satan is putting the Lord Jesus in a position that is potentially life-threatening.

Now the temptation is to force the Father's hand to protect his beloved son.

Because leaping from such a place would clearly be life-threatening.

The promise of God, the tempter proclaimed, was to protect the Son by sending his angels for him.

Verse 6.

They wouldn't let him be injured.

Do you see how Jesus, Jesus' own defense tactic was used against him?

Satan will attempt to use what sounds like a good use of scripture to lead us astray.

Satan quoted Psalm 91.

Psalm 91.

Look at that for a moment.

Very, very interesting passage of scripture.

Psalm 91 begins by telling us who it's directed towards.

Psalm 91, verse 1.

Psalms 91:1

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to Yahweh, you are my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.

So we see at the very beginning that this psalm is directed toward the one who dwells in the shelter of the Most High.

And the psalmist goes on to talk about being in the protective care of God.

The whole psalm is an illustration of God's protective nature towards those who make him their dwelling place.

That's what verse 9 says.

It talks about God being the one who protects and who is a refuge for those whom he holds fast to himself.

Look at verse 14.

Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him.

But ultimately, the last sentence shows in verse 16.

Ultimately points to eternity and God's work of salvation.

God protects his own for eternity.

No matter what this life brings, God's salvation is sure.

Now, obviously, dwelling in the shelter of the Most High would apply to Jesus more than any other person, right?

John chapter 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.

John 1 · chapter mention

The word was God.

But it may be that the tempter in Matthew 4 is seeking to interpret the shelter of the Most High as the temple, adding perhaps even more pressure to the situation, telling Jesus, here we are, we're at the pinnacle of the temple.

This is the shelter of the Most High.

You, the Son of God, dwell in this shadow of the Most High.

Therefore, Satan said, God promised to not let you stub your toe.

So, since you are the Son of God, throw yourself off.

Show that the Father's word is true.

Since you have committed to live by it, show it.

What's wrong with that?

You said that you're going to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, so let's just demonstrate it.

One of the most difficult actions to take in the midst of temptation is to stop and think.

Strong temptation tends to overrule our sensibilities with emotion and fleshly desire.

You know what I'm talking about.

But we can stop and think about this right here, right now.

If what Satan says is true, if what he says about Psalm 91 is true, then there should never be any martyrs.

If the tempter's understanding of Psalm 91 is accurate, Joseph should have never endured the chains of prison.

Jeremiah should have never been thrown into a pit.

Prophets should have never been sawn in two and had to hide in caves.

If the tempter's understanding is accurate, no genuine believer should ever be hurt, much less die.

And if they do, then God proves to be fake and faithless.

His word becomes worthless.

Satan is so adept and skillful at using scripture that we don't stop and think about how he's using it sometimes.

We simply accept it.

You know, if somebody quotes scripture, well, hey, what can be wrong with that, right?

There are multitudes of false teachers, false preachers, and false speakers today who are believed, just accepted if they use Scripture to support their point, no matter how they're using Scripture.

The vast majority of Scripture quotations that float around social media today are not much different than what Satan does here.

Passages are taken out of context and forced into personal circumstance to fuel personal connection.

Even if that connection is an improper use of scripture.

Now, if we look at this psalm, we see that it is a psalm of trust.

It's expressing the psalmist's heart saying, I am going to trust in the God who cares for me.

Because his care is everlasting.

You might say that Psalm 91 is the Romans eight of the Old Testament.

You know.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation?

No.

Distress?

No.

Persecution?

No.

Famine?

No.

Nakedness?

No.

Danger?

No.

Sword?

No.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That's Psalm 91.

Now see, see how the tempter presents this situation.

Jesus.

You know that Scripture is true and God is faithful.

He promised to care for you.

Jump off and let the Father demonstrate His care.

Remember that Jesus is still hungry.

He's weak, he's tired, drained in his humanity.

How easily.

How easily we would be would be tempted to doubt God's care.

And how wonderful the sight and the sense of God's provision might sound to us in those moments of our greatest weakness.

Especially with the support of Scripture.

Do you recall how Satan said to Eve?

God knows.

God knows that when you eat of the fruit, your eyes are going to be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Remember that?

Satan said to Eve, there's knowledge just waiting for you.

God's care is just waiting to be released to you.

Eat the fruit.

Jump off the temple.

Let him show you that he cares.

In moments of weakness, almost truth sounds so good.

But Jesus knows that scripture cannot contradict itself.

Every word is true, and he will be faithful to his word.

And what Satan has just asked Jesus to do based on Psalm 91 is contradictory to what God wrote in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16.

Deuteronomy 6:16

You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

Now a little digging beyond the surface helps us see what a Jewish person might automatically know about that quotation that you and I might not instantly understand.

Jesus left off the last few words of what God wrote in Deuteronomy 6.

In that verse, God said to Israel, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massah.

At Masa.

Masa takes us back to Exodus 17.

Israel had recently left Egypt by the power of God.

You remember all of the plagues in Egypt demonstrating the powerful hand of God.

He led them out of Egypt.

He separated the Red Sea, powerfully leading them across on dry land.

They had been fed with manna, the bread of heaven.

God repeatedly told them and repeatedly demonstrated to his people that he would care for them.

But they came to a place where there was no water.

They got thirsty.

Exodus 17, verse 2 says, Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink.

Exodus 17:2

Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me?

Why do you test the Lord?

Well, God would provide water for his people from a rock.

And Exodus 17, 7 says, and he called the name of the place Masah and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, listen to this, is the Lord among us or not?

We're thirsty, Moses.

We've been wandering in this hot desert without water.

We're thirsty.

Does God care?

Does God care about what I'm going through?

Does God care what I'm enduring?

Is God even present with us?

Israel's grumbling and demanding of water was a testing of God's presence and care for them.

Therefore, forty years later, Moses would warn the people do not test the goodness and faithful care of your God as you did at Masah.

Don't do that.

And then the tempter came to our Lord after forty days in the wilderness without food.

Tired, hungry, and weak.

How can you be sure that God still cares for you?

Jesus, Son of God.

Let's see if God is still here.

Let's see if he really loves you.

And Jesus responded with The Scripture says that we are not to doubt the presence and the care of God in the midst of trial by purposely testing him.

Even if Satan was correct that God wouldn't let his people be hurt, which he wasn't correct, what Satan was suggesting was sin, using Scripture to justify another sinful action, as it would be testing the goodness of God.

The same temptation would come at Jesus three years later.

As he hung on a cross, his own people said, Yeah, he trusts in God.

Let God deliver him now if he desires him.

For he said, I'm the Son of God.

Let's see if see if God cares for him.

Brothers and sisters, we should be so grateful, eternally grateful, that Jesus never doubted the goodness and care of the Father in the midst of his trials.

Instead of testing the Father, he trusted.

He believed the word instead of doubting.

He stood where we failed.

And he did not fail.

Again, verse 7, it is written, that is, in the same way.

Verse 8, again the devil took him to a very high mountain.

The same way, Jesus was tempted further.

This time he was shown in some way all of the earthly glory of the kingdoms of men.

And Satan says, All of these, everything that you see here, I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

In Genesis 3, the serpent sought to convince Eve of the inherent goodness of the forbidden fruit.

You remember what he said?

Moses recorded for us so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, she took it and ate.

That serpent, the deceiver, tried a similar tactic with the Lord Jesus by appealing to his sense of sight and the natural desire of human beings to possess.

Satan convinced Eve to desire what God had not given Adam and Eve.

Knowledge of evil.

But with the Lord Jesus, the tempter sought to make him crave what God had promised, but not yet given.

Listen to Psalm 2.

I will tell of the decree.

The Lord said to me, You are my son.

Today I have begotten you.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

Jesus' baptism was a reaffirmation of the promise of Psalm 2 with that declaration of sonship.

This is my son.

But much pain and suffering lay before the Lord Jesus, before the realization of God's promise.

If only, if only the Son of God would bow in worship to the very being he created, all of that suffering and pain could be bypassed.

Jesus could be king of kings immediately.

Hope you understand that if Jesus bows to Satan, what position that puts Satan in?

Through Isaiah, God declared of Emmanuel, of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.

At the announcement of his birth, the angel said to Mary, The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

So Satan argues, Jesus, take what God has promised.

Take matters into your own hands, because apparently God's not doing anything, and everything can be yours now.

Why wait?

No suffering, no cross, no death.

It can all be yours.

Take the easy way.

Isn't that what he says to all of us?

I love this next statement.

Be gone, Satan.

That's not an invitation.

It's a command.

Get out of here.

I'm done.

For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

For the third time, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy to dispel temptation.

When was the last time you used Deuteronomy to dispel temptation?

It's useful and needed, isn't it?

All Scripture is God breathed and effective.

Before, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6.16, pointing to the account behind the quotation, going back to Exodus.

This time Jesus quotes from the same chapter of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 6, but a few verses earlier in verse 13.

And this time he points to the context of the verse.

Deuteronomy 6.13 says, It is Yahweh your God you shall fear.

Him you shall serve, and by his name you shall swear.

That's what Jesus quotes.

Now notice that he does that with an accurate understanding of the context of that verse.

Let me read from Deuteronomy 6, beginning in verse 10.

Spoken to Israel.

And when Yahweh your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to you, and he does so, giving you great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all the good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

It is Yahweh your God you shall fear, him you shall serve, and by his name you shall swear.

You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the people who are around you, for Yahweh your God is in your midst and is a jealous God.

God promised to bless Israel in the place that he promised to give them.

You heard it, he promised to give them great cities, great and good cities, houses filled with good things.

He promised to bless them abundantly, and then God warned them not to forget him, the giver of all good things.

Blessing and honor and riches tend to move people from worshiping the giver of the blessing to worshiping the blessing itself.

And that's idolatry.

Therefore, God told Israel before the blessing was received, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

Do you see that that is exactly how Satan tempted Jesus?

Here's God's promise, Jesus.

God has promised to give you all of the nations, all the kingdoms of the world in the future, and after much suffering, he will give it to you.

But I will give it to you now.

I will give it to you now.

You only have to worship me, the creation, instead of the creator.

Israel, as we all do, failed to remember her God.

Jesus stood in Adam and Eve's place.

He stood in Israel's place.

He stood in my place.

And he stood in your place.

He stood facing the temptations by which each and every one of us have been lured into the tempter's snare.

But Jesus, Jesus, the beloved Son, would not be caught.

We are not like our Lord.

For we too often give in to our heart's desire.

Jeremiah the prophet wrote, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

My friends, when tempted to go with your heart, run.

Run away from the temptation to the Word of God.

Your heart is sick and will deceive you.

Trust what God has said instead.

Jesus is the one who, when hungry and weak and in the position to take what God had promised before God's intended time, said, No.

I will not do what my heart desires.

I will not give in to what I see.

I will not give in to the temptation.

I will trust the Father's word.

He stood in your place and he conquered by the living word of God.

To rule as King of kings and Lord of Lords is his right.

But he refused to worship the blessing of God instead of the giver of the blessing.

Temptation comes at us so fast.

The tempter shoves good things in our face in order to motivate us to take the good things of God in ways that God did not intend.

God has promised to give us so much good.

After speaking of the things that the world pursues, Jesus said in Luke 12, all the nations of the world seek after these things.

He said, The world chases after all of these things that God provides.

And your father knows that you, his children, need them.

He knows that Adam and Eve need food.

He knows that the children of Israel need water.

He knows what I need.

Your father knows that you need these things, but don't run after them.

Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

Why should we seek his kingdom?

Because he says, Fear not, little flock.

Fear not, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Let that sink in.

Jesus will one day return as King of kings and Lord of Lords.

Having crushed the tempter.

And as your father is a good pleasure to have you come with him.

Refuse to give in to the tempter's snare.

To obtain what God has promised before God's promised time.

If you love and follow Christ, you will face these temptations to forego the cross of following Jesus, to take the quick and easy way, the way that God did not intend.

It's not worth it.

God has promised us great and precious promises.

Trust Him to care for you.

Trust Him to meet your needs.

Trust Him to bring all of His promises to fulfillment.

Take up your cross daily, dying to yourself, dying to your own desires, dying to your own needs, and bringing Him to the forefront.

Seeing Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, take up your cross and follow him.

Trust him to care for you, to bring all of his word to fulfillment.

Know and understand and love and trust the incarnate word of God and the written word of God.

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

That's not just an oh by the way sort of statement.

Do you remember what Satan was trying to do in the second temptation?

He was trying to get the angels to come right now.

So Jesus, just jump off and the angels will come.

Jesus said, No, I'm gonna wait for the Father's time.

Jesus waited for the Father's time.

And the Father kept his promise.

Sin is all about saying, I want my way.

And I want my way now.

And the Father's way is.

Trust what I've told you.

Trust what I've told you.

Agur the wise was correct when he wrote in Proverbs 30.

Every word of God proves true.

He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

If you commit to know the incarnate word, and if you commit to know the written word, you will be well armed to withstand the tempter's snare.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we come and we bow.

Knowing that we are so like Adam and Eve, the Son of God.

We are so like children of Israel, the Son of God.

And it feels so often that we are so unlike you, the beloved Son.

And yet, in your good pleasure, you have chosen us to be sons and daughters of the living God.

We confess our continual failure to trust and obey.

But we come and we throw ourselves down at the feet of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who crushed the serpent's head, who withstood the serpent's snare, and whose righteousness is now our own.

We relish in the truth that when we stand before the Father, we will not stand before Him in our failings, but in the success of the beloved Son in whom we trust.

Lord Jesus, to you belongs all of our thanks, all of our praise.

Instill within us a love for you, and a love for your word.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature development from the Lords of Jesus.