Okay, so tonight we're going to look at the temptations of Christ, which occurred right after he was baptized and right before he began his public ministry. So, how many of you have heard a message on these temptations before? Raise your hand. Everybody, right? And if you're like me, you've probably heard many messages on the temptations of Christ. And probably, I'm guessing, if your experience has been anything like mine, a lot of those messages have made comparisons or significant references to 1 John 2.15-17.

I feel like almost every message or sermon that I've heard about the temptations of Christ have drawn parallels between the temptations that he went through and the descriptions of sin that John talks about in 1 John 2.15-17, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Or maybe you've heard it taught in reference to Genesis 3 and the temptations that Satan gave to Adam and Eve. That's another popular way to look at that passage. Or maybe the main point that you've been given as a takeaway is that the Old Testament is still relevant for us because Jesus quoted the Old Testament three times as he rebuked Satan.

And I just wanna tell you, none of that's coming tonight. All of those are very valid ways to teach that passage, of course, but that's not what I wanna focus on. What I wanna focus on is something that I think can be underappreciated in this section of scripture, if not overlooked, probably underappreciated. And that is that Jesus overcame Satan's temptations and was perfectly obedient to the law and he kept himself faithful because he was obedient by faith.

So I'm going to start by reading the passage, Luke 4, 1 through 13, and then we'll start going through it. So Luke chapter 4, starting in verse 1. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. But Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, All this authority I will give you, and their glory, for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours.' And Jesus answered and said to him, Get behind me, Satan. For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve.

Then he brought him to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you to keep you, and in their hand they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, it has been said, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Now, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Okay. The first thing I want you to notice about this passage is the same thing everybody who teaches this passage wants you to notice about it. And that is that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. But again, I want to highlight something that can be overlooked as we read this passage. At least in my experience, I know I have overlooked it in the past. And I think it happens partly because we're used to looking at this passage from the account in Matthew's gospel and not from Luke. And Matthew does not include a detail that Luke does, and that's that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. Matthew includes that he was led by the Spirit into the desert, but Luke says he was filled with the Spirit and the Spirit led him into the wilderness.

And it wasn't, so it wasn't like, it wasn't like the Holy Spirit was acting like Google Maps, right? Or he's like, okay, at this stone up here, take a hard right, and then you're just gonna walk, continue on your path until you overcome temptation, and then we'll be done, right? No, Jesus was being led by the Spirit. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, just... full stop. So he physically walked by the Spirit into the desert because he was being spiritually led by the Spirit. He was walking by the Spirit. He had committed himself to a life of obedience to the Father. And it's important that he was committed to a life of obedience to his Father.

He didn't view God, he didn't obey God as a condemning judge, as somebody who was looking over his shoulder waiting to condemn him, but as a father who loved him and a father whom he loved. At Jesus' baptism, which was right before this, the father announced that Jesus was his beloved son in whom he was well pleased. The Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove and empowered him for the ministry that he was to have over the next three years, including his death. Jesus' obedience as a human being, therefore, was in the context of the Father's love for Him and of His love for the Father, and it was empowered by the Holy Spirit.

This is key for us to understand because our obedience should be the same. So from the outset, Jesus was filled with the spirit, was walking by the spirit, was being led by the spirit. And it was because of that, that he was able to be obedient in the face of temptation. And that's not just true of Christ, it's also true of us. Something we've studied very recently here in Bible study, Galatians 5.16 says, probably some of you could quote it at me. I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Or Romans 8. Verses 13 and 14 say, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Ephesians five, eight and 10. Eight through 10, not eight and 10. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord."

And then finally, Titus chapter three. Well, not finally, there's many others, but this is the last of the ones I'll give you. Titus chapter three, verses four through eight. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly. that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. So our obedience, especially in the face of temptation, is made possible because of God's love for us and because in his love, he empowers us to obey when we walk by the Spirit. If we don't keep this in mind, we become especially vulnerable to Satan's temptations to misuse the law, as we'll see in the third temptation of Christ when we get to it.

But even more, I think when we forget that God loves us and is well pleased with us because we are in Christ, his beloved son, we find that obedience becomes burdensome and maybe not even worth the struggle. And so we don't fight temptation as hard as we could, or we just give in. So in other words, it's important for us to let our obedience flow from our faith. Apart from faith, we cannot obey God's law.

So I'm really, really glad that Luke included the detail that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and not just driven into the desert to check overcome temptation off the salvation to-do list, right? It's encouraging that even in this, we can follow Jesus' example, that we can follow in his footsteps, that we too can be empowered for the life of obedience and faith. So this account shows us that we obey through the power of the Holy Spirit by being filled with him. And it also shows us that being filled with the Spirit means being saturated in God's word. Jesus hid God's word in his heart so that he would not sin against him.

We know from Ephesians 5.18 and Galatians 3.16 that Paul compared or paralleled being filled with the spirit to letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. So hiding God's word in our hearts means a lot more than just memorizing it. Of course, it includes memorizing it, but it's more than that. We also need to meditate on scripture. We need to ask, what does it mean? We need to ask, how does it apply to me? We need to ask, what does this teach me about God? What does it teach me about how he deals with his people or how he deals with his creation and what I should do in response to that?

So when we combine those two things, memorization and meditation, the Holy Spirit's able to bring to our minds the things that we've hidden in our hearts. in the literal words of God to our minds to help us face temptation and to defeat it. That's how he gives us the wisdom to appropriately apply the truths we've learned to the situations we find ourselves in in the moment that we find them. We're always curious about what God's will is. We want to do the things that please him or that he has purposed for us to do. Deuteronomy 29, 29 says that the secret things belong to God, but the things that are written in scripture for us are for us to do and for us to obey. Knowing what to do in order to be obedient is obviously a lot easier. if we have that word hidden in our hearts, when we've spent time pondering it and applying it to our lives.

So God gives us wisdom, but he doesn't do it apart from his word. If we want to be wise, if we want to know how to escape the snares of the evil one, if we want to overcome our sin and live in a way that pleases God and glorifies him, we have to be women of the word.

Okay, that's the background. I'll take a look at the first temptation. I'll read Luke 1-4 again. Luke 4, 1-4. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command the stone to become bread. But Jesus answered him saying, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. 

All right. Jesus was in the desert for 40 days. And Luke tells us that he ate nothing during that time. So as you would expect at the end of that 40 days, Jesus was hungry. It's a completely normal thing for him to be hungry. And it's what you would expect for any human being who had gone that long without food. I think in my own life, going without a meal or even being late to a meal causes me discomfort. I don't find it fun, right? But Christ went for almost six weeks. If you think about like 40 days, okay, that doesn't sound, six weeks, almost six weeks without food. And so it was at this point as he's coming to the end of that six weeks, when he would have most keenly felt his hunger that Satan struck. And he, he's sneaky. He's sneaky. He starts off by saying, if you're the son of God, if you're the son of God, there's a couple of ways to look at that. 

Um, the first way is that, um, you know, if you're the, if you're the son of God, do you, do you have to be weak? You've, you've been starving for 40 days. When you just get a little bit hungry, you stop thinking clearly. You become more emotional. Maybe men are not quite as prone to that, although I think they are. And at the end of six weeks, they certainly would be, right? He would have been very easily overwhelmed emotionally, not thinking clearly. It would be easy to start doubting the things that you know to be true. So Satan starts casting doubt on God's Word. Did God really say what you think he said six weeks ago when you were baptized? Did he really mean that you're his son and that he's well pleased with you? Would he have sent you into the desert and let you starve for 40 days if he was happy with you? So that's one way that phrase could attack Christ. 

There's another way. It's just as insidious as the first way. If you're the son of God, it could also appeal to Jesus' pride. And you are the son of God. You're the creator of all things. All things exist to serve you. All things exist and belong to you. You have the right to do with them anything, and you know, any way, anything that you want to do with them. You can satisfy yourself with them. You shouldn't have to limit yourself in any way. In the end, both of those ways to hear that phrase, if you are the son of God, are an appeal to Jesus' pride. On the one hand, the temptation leads to a pride that resents God for not really being good or truthful with him. Or on the other hand, it leads to a pride that acts independently of the father to satisfy his needs. 

The second part of the temptation is what Satan encouraged Jesus to actually do, command this stone to become bread. It's pretty obvious why Satan would have picked that one right off the bat to focus on. Jesus was hungry. He was more than hungry. He was in dire need of food. It was his most pressing concern at the moment. He was reaching the limit of how long a human being could live without food. He was in danger of dying. So Satan uses this very real, this very immediate need of Christ to tempt him. Food is necessary for life. And Jesus, as the son of God, had the means and had the power to provide himself food. As the creator, he could even turn the stones into the food that he needed. He had the right to do so, to use his creation for his own ends. He could even justify doing so by saying that, well, the Father doesn't want me to die here, now, at this point. That's not what He has planned for me. I have to live in order to carry out His will for me.

But that's not what Jesus did. Instead, he answered Satan by quoting scripture, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. If any of you are using the NASB or maybe another translation, it might not include that last phrase. It may just end at man does not live by bread alone. But as we're going to see very shortly here, by every word of God is included in the verse that Jesus was quoting. So I think we can be confident that he had that in his mind as he answered Satan, even if he didn't actually say those words.

So the scripture that Christ had hidden in his heart and which he used to not sin in the midst of this first temptation is from Deuteronomy chapter eight. We're gonna be in Deuteronomy four. second if you want to turn there, Deuteronomy and Exodus. Deuteronomy chapter 8 verses 1 through 3. It says, Every commandment which I command you today, you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you. You shall know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

So in the book of Deuteronomy, which Christ quotes all three times that he answers Satan during his temptations, Moses is reviewing Israel's history with them before they head into the promised land. And he is reminding them and exhorting them to keep the covenant which they had made with the Lord.

And in this passage specifically, Deuteronomy 8, he is exhorting them to keep the law in order to obtain the blessing of the land that the Lord had promised them. And he gave them a reason for their obedience. He didn't just say, you have to do this because God said, he gave them a reason. The Lord had faithfully provided for them for the last 40 years by giving them a food that they didn't know, by giving them a food that they didn't grow and had no control over. For 40 years, he did that every day as he promised he would do. He made that promise to them shortly after they went into the wilderness after fleeing Egypt. And that account is found in Exodus chapter 16.

So I'll read some selections from there, Exodus 16. Starting in verse one, Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in. And it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.

Then dropping down to verse 11, and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them saying at twilight, you shall eat meat. And in the morning you shall be filled with bread. and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

So it was that quail came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground. 

So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, this is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man gather it according to each one's need, 1 Omer for each person, according to the number of persons, let every man take for those who were in his tent. 

Then the children of Israel did so and gathered, some more, some less. So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack. Every man had gathered according to each one's need. 

Verse 22. And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses, Then he said to them, this is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today and boil what you will boil and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning. 

So they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, eat that today for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. 

And then finally, verse 35, And the children of Israel ate manna 40 years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. That was what the Lord did for them every day for 40 years until they came to the promised land. 

Mano was his daily provision for the whole nation to keep them from starving to death as they wandered in the wilderness. Each man, each woman, each child, hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, was given exactly what they needed to sustain their life for that day, every day, by God directly. 

And the point of the daily gift of manna, the point of the double portion on the sixth day to carry them over on the Sabbath day, was to teach them that they lived not because they ate bread, but because they were depending on the Lord to provide for their needs. Because the Lord was faithful to them to keep the promise that he made to them. A promise that he kept every day for 40 years, as I've been saying, regardless of their sin, regardless of their complaining, regardless of their faithlessness to him. He was faithful to the promise that he made them. 

Every day he provided each one with exactly what they needed to live to the next day. So thousands of years later, Jesus drew on that lesson in order to stand up to the temptation that Satan was making. Just as Israel had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, so he had wandered in the wilderness for 40 days. But the parallel stops there, because God gave the Israelites food every day, but Jesus had no food. He had nothing. Yet in all of that, he relied on the Father's promise to take care of his people, of whom Jesus, in his human form, was one. So the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, not to bring him harm, not to make him fail or fall, not to cause him to die like the Israelites had accused the Lord of doing so many years before, but to teach him obedience by suffering. Hebrews 5.8 tells us that. Jesus learned obedience. He learned to trust God and to depend on his father's promises by starving for 40 days.

So at the moment of his greatest need, when he was in danger of death, he refused Satan's temptation to provide for himself because he had learned to depend on and to trust his father's promises. And I do say promises, not just the promise that he would give him what he needed to sustain his life. That certainly applied here. But there were many promises given to Christ in the Old Testament. There's a multitude of them. And some of them might not even be ones that you think of off the top of your head.

But what about promises like Isaiah 53? 53 verses 11 and 12, which say, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul into death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. That was a promise that the Lord had that he could trust in and depend on in the face of this temptation to provide food for himself when he was in danger of dying.

This was not the moment of his death. The Lord had promised what his death was going to be like and what it would accomplish. Promises like the ones that we find in Psalm 110, which it's a fairly short Psalm. I might read the whole thing. Like this, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, so I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion, rule in the midst of your enemies. Christ hadn't done that yet. It was a promise he had to rely on, that he had to trust in, that the Lord would bring about.

So all of these promises, and there are many, many others that we could look at, but all of these promises were given, sometimes like the one to Israel to provide manna for them to specific people. Others were given to David. Others were given to the nation as a whole. But regardless, Jesus was able to take those, meditate on them, learn the lessons from them, and then apply them in this moment when he had to place his trust in the God who made them.

So Jesus was able to respond righteously and obediently when he was faced with this first temptation because he believed the promises of God. He obeyed because he walked by faith.

Back to Luke chapter four, verses five through eight, the second temptation. Then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, all this authority I will give you, and their glory, for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours. And Jesus answered and said to him, get behind me, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve.

So again, this is not the order that we're used to with looking at these temptations. Again, I think because we usually look at it from Matthew 4. But I think the chronological order, which is what Luke does here, he does the chronological order, has lessons for us too. Otherwise, it wouldn't be included. So the second temptation that Satan presented to Christ is actually this one. this one to take ownership of the kingdoms of the earth in return for worshiping him. And this isn't a negligible offer, right? Satan is the prince of this world. He wasn't promising something he couldn't deliver. He has the authority and the power over the sons of disobedience, which is most of the world.

And you think about all the kingdoms of this world, the ones that we read about in the Old Testament especially, in Daniel, like Babylon, and the Medes in Persians, and Greece, and Rome. You think about the superpowers that we have in our own time, of which our nation is one, at least currently. Think about the ten kingdoms that are going to rule, at least during the beginning of the Tribulation, and the worldwide kingdom of the Antichrist. Satan is offering all of that, all of that power over all of those kingdoms to Christ in this moment. He's willing to turn over all that authority and all the glory that comes with it to Jesus if Jesus will just worship him.

And this is a temptation, again, like the first one, because it is a right that Jesus actually has. Just as he had the right as the creator to do with his creation what he wanted, he has the right to rule over the earth, to be the king of all the earth. He's the promised seed of David, the rightful king of the nation of Israel. And he's the promised Messiah who would also reign over all the nations of the earth. Psalm 2, seven through eight talks about that. So Satan wasn't offering Jesus something that wasn't already his by promise.

In return for getting that throne now instead of later, all they had to do was just offer worship, just one time offer worship to Satan. But of course, that's not the only thing. Satan isn't just offering immediate gratification of taking his throne now rather than later. It's that he's offering him the crown without the cross. No more wandering in the desert, being made to hunger. No more sleeping wherever he could find a spot to lay his head. No more putting up with 12 men who argued and squabbled and didn't get a word that Jesus was trying to teach them. No more crowds that wanted all the blessings he could give them and all the miracles he could do without any cost to themselves. No more persecution from the Pharisees and the Sadducees. No more death by crucifixion. No more bearing the wrath of God for sin that he hadn't committed. All of it gone. None of that. He wouldn't have to deal with any of that. Well, he gained everything that God had promised him. That was a temptation. Who wouldn't be tempted by that? to get what you want, to get what is rightfully yours without any pain and suffering.

But once again, Jesus faced temptation and he overcame it by relying on God's word. Deuteronomy chapter six. I should have left a bookmark there. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse 13. You shall fear the name of the Lord your God and serve him and shall take oaths in his name. And then also this command is repeated again in chapter 10 in verses 11 and 12. Uh, excuse me, wrong reference, 1020. You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him, and to him you shall hold fast and take oaths in his name. So, that's the command that he fell back on to rebuke Satan. But I want to show you from both of these chapters, Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 10, the context again that that command is given. So, it's preceded by commands to love God. So, Deuteronomy 6, Verse 4, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. A command to love the Lord. And then in chapter 10, in verse 12, And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul? and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command you today for your good."

And they're also preceded by some of the blessings that God gives to his people. So Deuteronomy 6 verses 10 and 11. So it shall be when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities, which you did not build, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn out wells, which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees, which you did not plant, when you have eaten and are full. So blessings that the Lord would give them. Then he goes on to command in verse 13, fear the Lord your God and serve him and take oaths in his name. In chapter 10 verses 14 and 15, indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God. Also the earth with all that is in it. The Lord delighted only in your fathers to love them and he chose their descendants after them. You above all peoples as it is this day. So the Lord has set his special love on, um, on the Israelites.

So God is the creator of all things and he's worthy of worship for that reason alone. But that's not what Jesus went back to. God wants his people to worship him because they love him. And his people love God because of who he is, because he is a loving God, because he is a good God, because he is a God who provides for them. His people love God because of who he is, because of his character, because he delights in blessing, because he's faithful to keep his promises, because he never changes, all of these attributes that we could we could list because of everything that he is, because his character is demonstrated in the ways that he deals abundantly with his people and acts to bring about their good.

So love for God motivates worship for God and motivates true service and obedience to him. Jesus loves his father and therefore he refused to offer worship to anyone else. He would not tolerate any other God before his father because he loved his father. He would not serve any other God. He would not offer obedience to anyone else because he loved the Father.

And that meant, in addition to obedience, that he refused to take what had been promised to him by any means other than what the Father had ordained. He willingly served God by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. And therefore, we know God has promised that he will be highly exalted and given a name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess in heaven and in earth and under the earth, that Jesus Christ is Lord. He will have all that authority. He will have all that glory.

But he was not willing to take the Father's blessing apart from the Father's means. Worshipping the Lord means serving Him by the means that He ordains, and it means receiving His blessings by the means that He ordains. It means not just obeying Him, but it means submitting to his providential will as well as his revealed will. It means not taking the promises of God into your own hands and trying to make them happen for yourself, not trying to take shortcuts to the blessings and not being willing to wait for God to bring them about in his perfect way and in his perfect time.

Serving God alone and worshiping him alone means being willing to suffer in order to become a better servant. So Jesus resisted Satan's second temptation by devoting himself to God and to God's will. He loved the Father above all else, even his own life and even the blessings the Father had promised him.

Okay, third temptation. Luke four, nine through 13. And Jesus answered and said to, sorry, nine. Then he brought him to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you. And in their hands, they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, it has been said, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. I'll end it there.

So of all the temptations that Satan made to Christ, this is the one that always struck me as rather strange. I mean, this just sort of... That's my reaction to it almost every time that I read it. The first temptation makes sense. Jesus had been without food for 40 days. He needed to eat in order to survive. So it makes sense that Satan would tempt him in that way. The second one also makes sense. Satan was offering a shortcut to the blessings of God.

This one made me spend a lot of time thinking about it and why this one comes last. why this was Satan's final attempt at getting Christ to sin. And as with the other temptations, I think there's more going on with this temptation than you see at just a surface level or a casual reading of it. And that shouldn't surprise us. Satan is a master manipulator. He's a liar. He's a deceiver. He's willing to do whatever it takes to make us fall into sin. He lays traps for us that we aren't even aware of.

So the first thing that strikes me about this temptation is how much it mirrors the first. He was casting doubt on Jesus' relationship to the Father. If you are the son of God, are you really the son of God? Is he really pleased with you? The first temptation asked Jesus to provide for his needs apart from the Father. to not depend on the Father's love and care for him. But this one asked him to test the Father's love for him. Make God prove it. Make him prove that you are his well-beloved son.

The second thing that strikes me is that he took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. And in my mind, I've always pictured this up until this week as I was studying for this. I've always pictured this as sort of like, you know, they were there. They were there in spirit, like Paul was snatched up into heaven and had a vision. He just sort of had a vision of being at the pinnacle of the temple, and there's nobody else around, and he's just telling him, throw yourself down. But I don't think that's right. He brought him to the highest point of the temple, which is a very busy place. And the highest point of the temple is probably the most visible part of the temple. From no matter where you were on the temple mount, or even looking up to the temple mount, you probably could have seen the top of the temple. So he's in the most visible spot in the most public religious space, in the place which would very shortly become the center of opposition to Christ's ministry. 

So in addition to tempting Jesus to demand that the Father prove his love for him, Satan also is tempting Jesus to proclaim that he is the Messiah, that he is God's chosen one, and the promised King of Israel in such a way that nobody who sees it could deny who he is. Again, he's tempting Jesus to take a shortcut. Declare who you are by publicly demonstrating God's special care for you. 

So I think in a lot of ways, this third temptation is the most insidious and it's the strongest one. The one that we would have the hardest time overcoming ourselves. It's the most subtle one. Because Satan doesn't just say, hey, throw yourself down from the temple. He couches this in the language of faith, right? He quotes Psalm 91 to Jesus. 

And that Psalm, we're going to read it in a second, in its entirety is a hymn of praise to the Lord for his faithfulness to protect those who love him. So Psalm 91 says, 

He who dwells 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 I will trust. Surely he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord who is my refuge even the most high your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you. Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He shall call upon 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. 

Well, this is a very convoluted, this is a very convoluted temptation. Satan first cast out on the Father's care for Jesus and then he turns around and he cast out on Jesus' faith in the Father to provide for him or to care for him. So he's saying to Jesus, do you see what God promised you here? Do you believe that? Do you trust him? Prove that you trust Him. Throw yourself down from this pinnacle of the temple and let Him save you. Let Him declare to everyone that you are His beloved, that He loves you, and that He has a special plan for you. 

But I don't know if you caught this as I was reading Psalm 91. Satan misrepresented what the Lord actually says in Psalm 91.11. So Satan quoted, he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you, but he left out in all your ways. to keep you in all your ways. And it's a significant omission because the promise that Psalm 91 gives to the people of the Lord is not given to those who do not trust God. The one that the Lord preserves is the one who trusts in him in all his ways, who walks according to his truth. It's not a promise that no harm or suffering will come to the one that trusts in the Lord, but it's a promise that he will not let the one who trusts in him come to ruin or destruction. 

Jesus, for the third time, answers this temptation from Satan with the word that he has hidden in his heart. You shall not tempt, or perhaps a better way to say that would be you shall not test the Lord your God. And that is from Deuteronomy 6.16. You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted him in Massa. Very simple command, right? So in this verse, Moses, Deuteronomy 6, 16, Moses is giving a command, this command specifically as a warning against what the Israelites had done earlier in their history. 

So at Massa, the Israelites complained that they had no water. And you find that account in Exodus 17. And that episode immediately followed the Lord's provision of manna for them in the wilderness. They had the promise that he would daily provide what they needed in order to survive each day. And they had seen him keep that promise, um, at least for a few days for the time that it took them to march from where they had camped to this new camp at Massa. I don't know how long that was, whether it was a few days or a few weeks or a few months, but regardless, they had seen the Lord provide for them daily. 

So they make one camp where they don't have any water and they immediately begin complaining and grumbling against the Lord. Exodus 17, 17 says, is that right? There's no 17, 17, 17, seven, excuse me. All right, so he called the place, the name of the place Massa and Meribah because of the contention of the children of Israel and because they tempted or tested the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not? So the Israelites were testing the Lord, demanding that he fulfill his promise to them in the way that they wanted and in the way that they expected him to. So in other words, they weren't willing to walk by faith. They wanted to walk by sight. They didn't want to trust in the Lord's promise to take care of them. They just wanted immediate gratification of their desires. 

So at the heart of it, that is what Satan's temptation, this third temptation of Christ is about. He tempted Jesus to walk by sight, to not trust that his father would do what he had promised he would do. He told Jesus not to wait on God, but to make God do what Jesus wanted, what he thought was best for himself. But those who, excuse me, who trust in the Lord, who make God their dwelling place, as Psalm 91 puts it, walk by faith. In all their ways, they acknowledge him, to reference Proverbs. They trust him to direct their paths and to be their strength and shield. 

Trusting God does mean claiming his promises for yourself, yes, but it doesn't mean using God's promises to you as a weapon against him, to force him to submit to your will. But Jesus refused to test the Father. He didn't presume to place His will above God's will. He refused to question the Father's love for Him, or the Father's goodness to Him, or the Father's wisdom in directing His steps. He trusted that the Father's way to proclaim that Jesus was His Son was not just the best way, but the only way. 

It's interesting to me that this last temptation of Christ, this third temptation is echoed again at the end of Jesus' life. Luke chapter 22. Remember Jesus is being brought to, or Jesus was brought to the pinnacle of the temple and tempted to proclaim that he was God by demonstrating that God would save him. 

Luke 22, starting in verse 33. No, that is not right. 23, sorry. Luke 23. Luke 23, 33. 2333. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. And they divided his garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, he saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ, the chosen of God. The soldiers also mocked him, coming and offering him sour wine and saying, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. And an inscription was also written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. 

Then one of the criminals who were, who was hanged, blasphemed him saying, if you are the Christ, save yourself and us.

And then dropping down to 44, Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last.

" So yet again, at the end of his life, Jesus is in a public place in the presence of his enemies. He is tempted again to save himself or to call on God to save him in order to prove that he is the Messiah, that he really is the Christ and the King of the Jews. And yet again, he refuses to test God, but instead commits his life to him. He commits himself into the father's care, even as he was dying a horrible, cruel death for sins that he hadn't even committed. 

Jesus did not tempt or test the father, but he committed himself to the father's care his entire ministry from this temptation to the end of his life. He trusted himself to the steps and to the path that the Father had laid out for him, even when it was hard, even when it cost him his life. And he did that because he knew the love that the Father had for him. He knew that he was the Father's beloved son. 

So we have three temptations following 40 days of starvation. Three temptations that struck at the heart of Jesus' relationship to the Father. Three temptations that promised the blessings of God apart from suffering and without waiting. Jesus resisted them all because he trusted in God in who he was and he trusted in the promises the Father had given to him. He was able to resist them because he was filled with the Spirit and he was empowered by the Spirit to serve and obey. He was able to resist because he filled his heart with God's Word and he had diligently applied that same Word to his own life and his ministry. 

We face the same kinds of temptations ourselves. We're tempted to to find our own provision when we are in need. We're tempted to doubt our relationship to the Father. We're tempted to obtain the blessings of the Lord apart from the means that the Lord has ordained and in our own time. But we should be like Jesus. The way that he responded should be the way that we respond. And I don't know all of the trials and the temptations that each one of you is facing. And I know, I do know that none of us here has wandered in the desert for 40 days, starving. None of us are likely to ever wander in a literal desert for 40 days. But we do experience our own metaphorical deserts, don't we? we've experienced them in the past, maybe we're experiencing them right now, maybe we'll experience them in the future. 

One, you know, an experience where not even it seems like our most basic needs are being met or we're in danger of our lives, but Jesus shows that it's possible even then to walk by faith, to obey, to live righteously in spite of the trials and the tribulations that we find ourselves in. 

So we're called to obedience by faith. And I hope that you can see that, that obedience by faith in Jesus' response to his temptations. I hope you see how it was possible for him to do it and how it's possible for you to follow his example. 

Jesus knew how to obey because he knew God's word. He knew the commands and more importantly, he knew the heart of the father who had given those commands. And of course, we have the gospel. We have Jesus' work also to point to the heart of the Father. 

Overcoming temptation and defeating sin is not just a matter of memorizing all the do's and don'ts of scriptures. of not just sort of mechanically saying, well, this is what I'm supposed to do in this situation, therefore I'm going to do it. It's important to do that. It's important to just memorize scripture in that way and know how and when to apply the commands of scripture to our lives and to our circumstances is important. 

But we need to learn from Jesus that we can't do this apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And we can't do it apart from the love of the Father and relying on that love. And I mean both His love for us and our love for Him. 

So we resist sin when we believe God's love for us, when we trust the promises that He has given us because He loves us, and we resist sin because we love Him and we worship Him. and desire to serve Him in all His glory. 

Our obedience to God, especially in the midst of temptation when it's the hardest, fits the character of God. It's the appropriate response of faith. It matches who God is when we obey Him. Obedience is how we demonstrate that we trust God. It's how we show that we believe He loves us and is pleased with us, which He is. He does love us and He is pleased with us because we're in Jesus Christ. 

Our obedience is the appropriate response of hope because we believe the promises of God regarding our sanctification and our glorification. Those promises are certain. And our obedience is the appropriate response of love because we love Him for who He is and desire to bring Him glory in all that we do. 

And finally, since our obedience involves not just our outward actions, but our hearts and our minds, it means that we willingly submit to every aspect of God's will for our lives. It means trusting in His timing. It means trusting that His ways are best, especially when He leads us through suffering. Obedience means choosing to believe God's promises rather than relying on our own wisdom and strength to obtain the blessings that He's promised to us. 

So I want to close with Hebrews chapter 12 verses one and two. Therefore, we also. since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I just thank you so much that you sent your son to save us and that you have recorded not just his death and resurrection for us, but you've recorded his life for us so that we could see that indeed he was tempted in all ways that we are. 

We could see that he suffered in all the ways that we suffer, Lord, and yet he was without sin. So Lord, I ask for each one of us here that we would go from this place tonight encouraged by his example, that we would learn to walk in his footsteps, that we would learn to obey you by faith because we love you and because you have promised, you have promised us many things and we know that you will bring them to pass because you are good and because you delight to bless those who trust in you. 

In Jesus name I pray. Amen.