Luke 4:1-13
1. Where are you being lead?
2. The Word is food.
3. Do you want a big kingdom?
4. Temptation lasts for a time, not a lifetime.
1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit [a]into the wilderness, 2 being [b]tempted for forty days by the devil.
And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
1. Where are you being lead?
Jesus the hero of time, the Hero and Godman was being filled with the Spirit.
Filled with the Spirit,
not just receiving the baptism of water but the Filling of the Spirit of God.
Jesus goes out into the Wilderness.
He doesn’t go the town
He doesn’t go the Synagogue
He’s not lead into city,
He’s lead into the wilderness.
The wild, if you will. Not the call of the wild, jack London version, the wilderness in Israel.
The definition of wilderness is said to be:
1. a desert, wilderness
2. deserted places, lonely regions
3. an uncultivated region fit for pasturage
maybe a region or area similar to us.
A dry, maybe hot place.
So being filled…the Spirit lead him not to eat for 40 days.
Wow, 40 days.
That’s a long time not to eat.
You’re in a place that’s wild-
Can you imagine the amount of feelings the Lord Jesus must have been feeling?
Hey feelings, are great, but they are not truth.
Side bar
One religious sect believes that they need to have the feeling of a burning bosom in order to know that they’re a part of that religious group.
Back on the topic. Jesus was led to an unsafe place of lions and tigers and bears and there’s no food or he chooses not to eat. That’s another question.
The Spirit led him into this place.
The Spirit led him to not eat.
Prayer and fasting are a great thing to do in the body of Christ and in the realm of Christianity. Sometimes, denying ourselves can lead to understanding more about who we are and it allows for the inner Spiritual man to be awakened and challenged.
Jesus was lead to a desert.
Jesus was taken to a place being reinforced in His calling; some would argue.
Think with me about the wilderness times in your life
Do you have any?
Do you have wilderness trips in the Lord Jesus?
Did you feel full one day and dry the next?
Did you think you were doing well and then, BOOM, you were in a desert?
Were there any differences?
I can recall many times in my life in what I thought was a wilderness experience.
Wilderness experiences and the wild needs to happen to all of us in the Lord Jesus.
One could call these seasons wilderness experiences
Have any of you thought of this season as weird?
Anyone other than me?
Can we be honest?
Maybe this pandemic is one of your wilderness experiences?
Isn’t it weird? Off, crazy, not normal.
Do you think that Jesus, after not eating 40 days could have been feeling weird, crazy, not normal?
I believe the answer is, yes.
Let’s marvel together the way the Lord Jesus Christ now handles being led into temptation
3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
4 But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, [c]but by every word of God.’ ”
2. The Word is Food
Scene 2 is being shown to us. We turn the page knowing that this is going to happen now
As it says in verse 2, the devil is tempting the Lord Jesus Christ… here we go.
No symbols crashing or high winds in the back ground
No Lightning bolts and thundering echo.
Just a hungry man led by the Spirit to meet our greatest adversary and to deal with him.
Jesus wasn’t only dealing with satan,
He was dealing with his hunger, no doubt, and any other HUMAN emotion you can imagine.
Please make sure to capture this picture understanding that Jesus was a MAN.
The way Jesus responds is how we are to respond in all trials and attacks.
The devil’s first word:
“If”, (If you are the Son of God)…the greatest doubt question,
The devil is the greatest questioner with the word “IF”.
What did he say in the Garden to Eve?
“Has God said”, Another Question supposing like an IF question.,
Questions are okay my brothers and sisters, but what do questions really do?
They plant seeds of doubt,
they insight feelings sometimes,
Feelings are okay but it is how we deal with them that could be a sin.
We fight against the world, the flesh and our inner man.
We also need to deal with our feelings.
I heard a pastor tell me one time, that my best feelings were given up when I came out of my amazing mom.
Men, our feelings conduit needs to be open, but we are not to be led by them.
Likewise, for women.
Let’s take this a step further, LOVE is a choice, not a feeling! If that were the case, we would ALL get divorced. We need to take our feelings into consideration for sure, but it is what you do with those feelings that we will be judged for.
We see Jesus as a great teacher for our feelings when we see how hungry He was and how He was tempted by the devil and yet He overcomes his feelings with the help of the Holy Spirit.
So back to this incredible scene, the devil has been watching the God man, King Jesus; he has seen he’s been fasting and not eating and praying.
He sees, that from his face and probably his overall appearance that he’s becoming outwardly, physically weak.
So, he poses the question, “you’re hungry, are you not? So if you’re hungry, and you can show your magical powers by making a rock become bread”. You could make your own food and fix it.
Isn’t it just like us, and just like the devil to suggest a quick remedy to the situation?
Quick remedies exist, right?
You have a headache; you take a pill
You have pain; take a pill
You’re hungry; you eat?
You have a question; you google it.
The devil knows that if he can get Jesus to react in His Flesh to his earthly desires,
Then he could get Jesus do whatever he wants.
The devil spoke, Jesus heard, and he gives the adversary the truth that rings out for eternity.
IT IS WRITTEN. Why start there?
Because truth manifests itself as truth when you realize it’s truth.
For us, Truth is manifest by God’s Word.
God’s Word is truth.
It is written for us to deal with all of life’s opportunities and trials
A truth that we have been holding onto during this season is found in…
Philippian’s 2:3
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
This is a covid-19 verse for us and for the truth.
The church is the people not the building.
No one wants to get back to our blessed new building more than me and the leadership of the church, but that’s not the right thing to do.
We need to be looking out for the good of others.
As it is written.
Do you memorize scripture??
Jesus did right here.
He quoted back to the devil just in case he forgot or did not know.
He quoted him the last part of Deuteronomy 8:3
But let’s read the whole part that Jesus is saying found in Deuteronomy 8 verse 1-3
8 “Every commandment which I command you today you must [a]be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply,[b] and go in and possess the land of which the Lord [c]swore to your fathers. 2 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, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 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.
The commands were written.
How are we doing in following the written word of God in our lives?
Don’t become a legalist, but how are you doing regarding what you do know?
How are you following that?
The scene continues on in Luke,
5 [d]Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 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. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
8 And Jesus answered and said to him, [e]“Get behind Me, Satan! [f]For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
3. Do you want a big kingdom?
The devil is not easily giving up on his task to cause Jesus to stumble and fumble.
Baseball analogy
He comes back at our Savior to see if he can’t get him to hit the fast ball low and away, it did not work. Jesus see the pitches that the Devil is throwing
So now he starts to throw him a curve ball. A lollipop that he thinks he can get Jesus to take a big swing at.
This is how I see the devil working it out in his head,
If I can’t appeal to feelings of being hungry. (lust of the flesh) then I will throw him the curve ball to see if he has any desires of being King without his Dad. (lust of the eyes).
Isn’t it true of us all?
We see so much material stuff, we acquire it and we like it.
Jesus at that time, sees all this stuff that the devil was able to do
a Matrix time warp
into and a high point to see if he would be like,
look at all this stuff,
you can rule it.
I find it kind of humorous actually,
the devil has not been in heaven for a while
or he absolutely forgot what it looked like to tell Jesus this.
Devil, we use gold for asphalt. Have you seen the stars?
They are my in my bedroom in heaven.
The devil’s take on what he can do is silly sometimes,
But this question needed to be asked,
The reason?
Maybe to show us not to become proud when God increases and/or blesses us.
Our kingdom is not of this world.
And if God blesses you, then good for you, but don’t forget to give.
If God gives to you, he can also take it away from you.
Quick story about giving and tithing I heard from Pastor John Courson.
John Tells the story of farmer who was able to give 10% of crops during a bad season to the church.
He had only 10 acres, to him it was not a lot but he was able to give even when times were bad.
The farmer continued on when he was able to give when he had 1000 acres and 10000 acres
However, when he had 100,000 acres, he came to PASTOR JOHN and said, john I can’t give the 10% anymore, I have so many people, so many machines, so much land tax and so many other things that I just can’t do it.
JOHN tells him, Lord let this man remember what I was like to let him give when he only had 10 acres and if so, take him back to that place.
The man realized that he built this kingdom and saw all the stuff he had and repented and sold stuff.
He realized that God blessed him, but he forgot about God when he saw all the stuff he had.
Same thing here, Jesus was shown, he did not move.
He then again quoted the Word of God
Deuteronomy 6:13
13 You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you 15 (for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.
He tried to get Jesus to break a commandment.
Speak the Word back to yourself and to your desires.
9 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. 10 For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,’11 and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
12 And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not [g]tempt the Lord your God.’ ”
13 Now when the devil had ended every [h]temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.
4.Temptation lasts for a time, not a lifetime.
THE DEVIL KNOWS SCRIPTURE AND HOW TO TWIST IT!
We can do it also.
Let’s; see what the Word really says
Psalm 91:11-12
11 For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. 12 In their hands they shall [a]bear you up, Lest you [b]dash your foot against a stone.
“In all your ways” or as we see here “to guard you” is what it is really saying here.
The devil wants Jesus to rely on special, divine protection and in so doing to "test" the Lord's promise to protect. Satan twists Scripture from trusting God to testing God!
THOUGHT - The devil knows Scripture but he does not obey Scripture. Beloved, be careful if you think that just knowing Scripture is sufficient.
We need to obey the Scriptures we know or we will surely stumble and STEP into sin (not fall).
We need to know Scripture and obey Scripture so that we are not just smarter sinners but by the Spirit are transformed from glory to glory more like our Savior.
So, knowing this…
Jesus hits him in the mouth.
He says, “you shall not tempt the Lord your God”.
2-fold answer,
the misquoting of scripture to get Jesus to rely on Himself
also HE CALLING HIMSELF God
and you should not tempt one part of the Trinity.
The Devil could not catch or get our LORD TO STUMBLE.
But it notes that he would be coming back. Ugh.
Our Advisory the devil knows our weak points and doesn’t relent in wanting to get us to stumble.
He knows the chinks in our armor.
The struggle is real my brothers and sisters
But in Christ, we have victory in Jesus just as he did.
So, in review…
1. Where are you being lead? (Are you in a desert? Are you in an oasis?)
2. The Word is food. (know it, live it, and don’t be tempted by half-truths when you know the whole truth)
3. Do you want a big kingdom? (Are you being tempted by all that this world has to offer? More money? More stuff?)
4. Temptation lasts for a time, not a lifetime. (If you are in a season of dryness and temptation, reach out. Pastors are here to pray with and for you. You don’t have to face your struggles alone)
Don’t forget in Christ
Every test is testimony
Every mess in our life is message.
We are called to walk in Christ and realize that we have the tools to have victory over the Devil and it is the Word of God.
The word of God is the weapon we use to come against temptation. Temptation, desires to fulfill our feelings to sin and do things that are not good for us and that lead us away from Jesus.