Luke 4:1-13 - Temptation Vs. Truth
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Introduction:
Today we are going to see Satan’s temptations square off against the Truth - namely Jesus Christ who referred to Himself as the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). And we are going to see how Christ uses the truth of the Word of God to combat the temptations laid before Him. At this point in history, the New Testament was yet to be written and so we are going to see Christ combat Satan’s temptations through quoting the Old Testament.
We can learn a lot from the Old Testament. Many people today try to avoid reading the Old Testament as much as possible. But this does them a great disservice. As we will see today, Jesus quotes from the book of Deuteronomy at least three different times during His temptations in the wilderness. The areas that He quotes are directly addressing the sins of Israel. Christ points out the areas that Israel sinned in regards to the temptations that Satan throws at Him. As we go through trials and temptations, God oftentimes uses the Scripture to remind us of a situation similar to the one we might be facing. And the Holy Spirit can guide and direct us in the way that we should go in order to fight against the temptation. This is why the Bible is referred to as the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and uses it as an offensive weapon as we combat the attacks of the evil one.
Join me as we see our Perfect Savior show us how to fight against temptation as we read Luke 4:1-13:
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness
for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ”
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,
and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.
If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ”
And he took him to Jerusalem and 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 will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’
and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Prayer
Today we will see three ways that can stand in the truth while fighting against temptation. The first is…
I. We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Provision (1-4)
I. We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Provision (1-4)
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness
Jesus is stated to be full of the Holy Spirit right after last seeing the Holy Spirit descending on Christ like a dove at His baptism (Luke 3:22). This refers not to Jesus needing to be more God - He was already 100% God and 100% man as we have discussed. But this refers to the fact that He is under the full control and leading of the Holy Spirit - the third Person of the Holy Trinity. In fact, Luke uses the Greek word katabainō (cot-ah-ben-oh) meaning to ‘come upon’ in Luke 3:22 to describe the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus. While Luke uses the Greek word pimplēmi (peem-blay-me) meaning ‘to fill’ to describe people like John, Elizabeth, and Zechariah who are seized by the external power of the Holy Spirit. In essence, we see that Jesus was anointed and led by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit that has just participated in the inauguration of Christ along with the Father in Jesus’s baptism, now leads Jesus from the Jordan River into the wilderness where Jesus will be tempted by Satan.
Isn’t this how life works brothers and sisters? It seems like right after some of the highest moments in our lives, that is when temptation comes. Jesus has just enjoyed the Presence and confirmation of His Father and the Holy Spirit. He, who has been in perfect union with the other two members of the Trinity for all eternity, has enjoyed their intimacy in a mighty way at His baptism. And right after this, trials come.
Church:
Beware after a mountaintop experience.
I’m sure many, if not all, of you have had similar experiences. You share the Gospel and lead someone to Christ and are ecstatic. Nothing could be any better than what you are feeling right now. Someone has went from death to life because of the work of God, and He chose to use you as His mouthpiece in this interaction. You got to witness God saving someone firsthand! Or maybe you just had an amazing spiritual growth moment. You have never felt so close to Christ. You are on cloud 9 and it feels like nothing can bring you down. Whatever the mountaintop experience was, hours later temptation comes. And unlike Christ, you aren’t always successful in defeating it. Maybe you give into that temptation that you have been fighting so well for so long. Maybe you start to waste countless hours online, or spend hours giving into your addiction of gaming, or you start re-posting and sharing that juicy gossip you just saw on Facebook or Twitter, or you continue to ruminate on perverse thoughts that keep coming up. And in a matter of minutes to hours - you went from the mountaintop to the depths of the valley.
Today we are going to see how to fight those temptations. The Scriptures are clear that God gives us a way out of temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can have victory over them. Let’s learn from the Master how we need to handle these.
for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.
Before moving into the first temptation, it is important to note that Satan and his demons oftentimes do not hit us when we are at our best. They like to wait until we are at our worst physically and emotionally. And that is exactly when Satan hits Jesus. Jesus eats nothing for forty days. And all the while, Jesus is being tempted by the devil. We don’t know every temptation Satan brought in those forty days but there were enough that the writer of Hebrews says the following:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Obviously there were countless temptations Christ faced. But Luke only records three of the final ones brought before Christ. Satan saves these big three for the point of Jesus’ maximal human weakness.
Luke 4:3 (ESV)
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
And the first thing that Satan says before even getting to the temptation attacks the very heart of the Trinity. If you are the Son of God. Satan tries to make Jesus doubt the very words of the Father only weeks prior to this. What did the Father say to Jesus at His baptism?
Luke 3:22 (ESV)
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
God the Father had acknowledged Jesus Christ was His Son. And now Satan went to attack the very truth that had just been said to Him.
Satan works that way with us as well. Does God really love you? If He did would He really allow you to go through cancer, or an unfaithful marriage, or a job loss, or fill-in-the-blank.
This has been a temptation of Satan since the beginning.
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
This is where truth is so important. We can’t go on our feelings. We have to remember the truth of God’s Word in order combat falsehood. We must know who we are as the Bible teaches us. We are a new creation. We are loved by the Father. We are adopted as sons and daughters. And we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our salvation if we have truly repented - or turned away from our sins and have believed in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins and rose three days later.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
Satan then gets to his actual temptation later in verse 3. Command this stone to become bread. On the surface level this seems like a pretty harmless temptation doesn’t it? Christ most certainly can do it. He multiplies 5 loaves of bread to feed 5,000 men not including women and children later in His ministry (Matthew 14:13-21).
But what is at the heart of this temptation? Satan is tempting Jesus to distrust God’s provision for Him. Intertwined in this temptation from the outset was to get Jesus to doubt the love of God the Father as well as we already mentioned. Satan has already aimed at damaging the relationship of Christ and His Father by questioning His Sonship and now he hits at this relationship by questioning God’s provision and the Holy Spirit’s leading. As Pastor John MacArthur states, “This was a serious assault not only on the deity and perfection of Jesus Christ, but also on the unity of the Trinity.”
How does Christ respond to this temptation?
And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ”
He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 - man shall not live by bread alone. Wow, there is power in that statement. Christ sees beyond His physical hunger. He sees the depths of this temptation. He doesn’t rationalize the temptation and make excuses for it. He doesn’t blame-shift His situation off onto the Father or on His circumstances or on His hunger and fatigue. He stands firm and uses the Word of God to combat Satan’s temptation.
We might be tempted to doubt God’s love and provision for us as well. We might be tempted to rationalize fudging on our taxes to help us get through a tough time. We might be tempted to jump into a sinful human relationship in order to feel wanted. We might buy more than we can afford to feel more important.
My friends, fight hard against doubting the provision and love of the Lord. Be content in the Lord. He has done so much to show His love to you - namely no greater love can He show than what He showed us on the cross as He died for our sins. His provision has sustained you thus far and it will continue to sustain you for eternity if you are His. Trust Him. His love and provision never fails.
Next we see that…
Scripture References: John 14:6, Ephesians 6:17, Luke 3:22, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Hebrews 4:15, Genesis 3:1, Matthew 14:13-21, Deuteronomy 8:3
II. We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Primacy (5-8)
II. We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Primacy (5-8)
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Seeing his defeat, Satan moves up the ladder a bit on the level of temptation and tempts Christ to worship him. Satan promises Jesus all authority and glory. This is a temptation to take His place as fully gloried before His appointed time. Satan tells a partial truth and partial lie here. Satan does have some authority given to him by God as seen in 1 John 5:19:
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
But we know that God is fully sovereign over even Satan as well. We see this clearly shown in the opening chapters of Job as well as John 16:11:
concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
God already has a plan for Satan. And that plan is the Lake of Fire called Hell.
So this authority that Satan offered was temporal in nature and not really his to give anyway.
The temptation he was placing before Jesus was to forego the suffering of the cross and be given authority and glory with one quick decision. We might call this the easy road. Or the seemingly easy road. However, this easy road is actually leading through the broad gate and down the broad road that leads to destruction.
Jesus had a promise of glory awaiting Him. Philippians 2:5-11 refers to this by speaking of a day where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Yet, in this Christ Hymn of Philippians, as it often called, this promise is prefaced with a reference to Christ humbling Himself to obedience to the Father by dying on the cross.
The devil offered a crossless path that did not truly exist. Christ’s path to glorification goes right through the cross.
Isn’t is so tempting to want to take the easy road though? It is much less work to cheat on a test than to study. It is much less work to have someone else finish your project for you than to do it all on your own. It is much less work to pass someone else’s work off as you own. Yet these seemingly easy roads lead to destruction. Flee from the easy road. It will lead you into thick darkness and leave you empty and alone. Your sin will eventually find you out one way or another.
How does Jesus fight this temptation of taking the easy road and attempting to bypass the cross? He again answers with Scripture by quoting Deuteronomy 6:13.
And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ”
He asserts the primacy of God. The word primacy means foremost. God is the only One worthy of worship.
My friends, our failure against temptation is a actually a worship problem. Yes, there are many types of temptations that come at us. The lusts of the flesh are seemingly innumerable. However, the real issue at stake is the primacy of God.
The real issue is that we have a worship problem.
God has made man a being of worship.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
Some of us are true worshipers of God. Others are worshipers of the things of creation - or idolaters. See Romans 1:25:
because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Church, when we give into temptation, what we are saying is that God is not worthy of our worship. Something or someone else is instead. Something or someone else is being held in higher regard than the God who created us, loves us, and died for us.
We cannot worship God and sin at the same time. We must choose one or the other. And as we just saw above in John 4:23, God calls us to worship in spirit and in truth.
My friends, remember the truth that God is to be held above all. Only God is worthy of our worship.
Finally...
Scripture References: 1 John 5:19, John 16:11, Philippians 2:5-11, Deuteronomy 6:13, John 4:23, Romans 1:25
III. We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Plan (9-13)
III. We Can Fight Against Temptation By Standing in the Truth of God’s Plan (9-13)
And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,
Satan took Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple. It is not clear exactly where this was, but it is clear that it the highest point noted at the temple.
Again, Satan hits at the identity of Jesus. If you are the Son of God.
Satan loves to question our identity my friends. And today we live in a world where he is at work questioning identities left and right. Do you identify as Republican or Democrat? Do you identify as white or black, Asian or Hispanic? Do identify as straight or homosexual? Do you identify as male or female?
People throw around this word, identity, like it is there’s to own. My friends, our identity is found in Christ alone. And Christ’s identity was found in His Father’s words in Luke 3:22 as we said earlier.
Luke 3:22 (ESV)
and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
My friends, our identity must be found in Christ alone as believers. And everything about us after that must be congruent with God’s Word and God’s plan. We have no right to identify as anything contrary to the Word of God because...
We don’t determine our identity - Christ does.
We must stand in the truth of God’s plan for our lives.
Jesus understood His identity well and sought after God’s plan as Satan attacked him in this temptation. Satan continues…
for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Satan has just told Christ to test His identity by proving God’s protective power in His life. If you are really the Christ - throw yourself down from this high place.
Note that Satan is now bringing out the big guns. He has just quoted Psalm 91:11-12. Satan knows the Bible my friends. And he knows just how to twist it around for his own sinful purposes. That is why we must know the whole counsel of Scripture. We can be easily swayed by false teachers to accept false doctrine if we do not know the whole counsel of God. That is also why we need to be saved and have the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Scriptures for us as well. We can know the words of the Scriptures, but we can only understand them rightly through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus knows the Scriptures all too well to fall for this misuse of the Word of God. Listen to His response…
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
Jesus quotes Deuteronomy one last time here (Deuteronomy 6:16). Do not put the Lord to the test.
This temptation is multifaceted. First, there is a self-righteous temptation here. Jesus could have felt as if He was actually showing faith and glorifying God by proving God’s power here. Jesus knew better than this however. He knew that the Father was not His genie to obey His wishes. But instead, Jesus was there to serve and be obedient to the Father.
This is true for us as well. We should not do unwise things in order to see if God comes through for us. To do so is sin.
The next glaring temptation underlying this interchange is that the devil is preaching a false gospel of prosperity and health and wellness here as well.
Theologian John Nolland states:
“According to the Devil’s theory there should be no martyrs.”
John Nolland
Satan is trying to tempt Jesus to get away from the plan of God and instead follow the easy way again. Satan’s temptation seeks to deny God’s sovereignty and instead show that man’s will is what is sovereign. This is right at the heart of the false prosperity and health and wellness gospel.
These satanic and demonic false teachers assert that God doesn’t want you to ever be harmed or sick. God doesn’t ever want you to die. God doesn’t ever want any adversity to befall you. Yet listen to the Word of God in Revelation:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
This is likely the most anti-prosperity and anti-humanistic section of Scripture in the Bible. God has revealed to us that there is a certain number of believers who will be martyred for their faith before God avenges evil.
Satan wants to hit at God’s plan here in his temptation of Jesus.
And Satan wants to hit at God’s plan in your life as well my friends. He wants you to doubt God’s goodness because of the bad things you see and experience in this life. He wants you to doubt God’s goodness because of sickness and trials.
My friends, we might not always understand the plan of God on this side of eternity, but we know His plan for the other side! Listen to a quick description of heaven as given in Revelation:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Brothers and sisters. Like Christ, may we not loose sight of God’s plan. May we not set our hearts on the comforts and blessings on this earth at the expense of our eternity. God’s plan is good. Yes, it comes with trials and tribulations. Yes it comes with times of suffering and persecution. But it also comes with indescribable, eternal blessings!
And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Finally, we see that Satan backs off until an opportune time.
Scripture References: Luke 3:22, Psalm 91:11-12, Deuteronomy 6:16, Revelation 6:9-11, Revelation 21:3-4
Conclusion:
My friends, Jesus has passed the test. He is the true and new and better Adam. He is the true and new and better Israel. He has not given into the temptation of grumbling as Israel did. He has not given into the temptation of doubting God as both Adam and Israel did. And He has remained steadfast in standing in the truth of God’s provision, primacy, and plan.
As we fight temptations, let us remember God’s plan for us is to sanctify us and make us more like His Son. I will leave you with this final quote from Warren Wiersbe:
“Temptation is Satan’s weapon to defeat us, but it can become God’s tool to build us.”
Warren Wiersbe
Prayer