Temptation in the Wilderness

If you have a Bible with you, tonight we are going to be in Mark 1:12-13. In my years of working with students, I have found that one of the main reasons as to why teenagers reject the Bible and reject Jesus is because they feel that they cannot relate to it. They tend to feel one of two ways about Jesus and the first is that they don’t relate to Him because He was physically on the earth 2,000 years ago and the times have changed and it seems we have very little in common with Him. The second way is that if He is who the Bible claims Him to be, He is far too holy, far too righteous, far too high and lifted up to be able to relate to us in any way. You don’t have to raise your hand but have any of you ever thought of that? We may even think that there is far too big of a gap between Christ’s humanity and His deity and we struggle with who He really is. We talked last week about how Jesus relates to us in His baptism but just how much can we relate to Him? As we are going to see today, we can relate to Him quite a lot. The author of Hebrews says of Jesus in Hebrews 2:17–18 “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” Do you hear that last verse there? Jesus has been made like us so that He can be our merciful and faithful high priest. Not only has he been made like us, with a physical body, He Himself was tempted with the very sins that we are tempted with and He suffered just as we too suffer. I want us to talk about that temptation that Jesus faced and we are going to do that by looking in 2 places. The first place is in Mark 1:12-13 and then we will look at the expanded account of Matthew 4:1-11. Mark 1:12–13 says. “Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.” What happened in that wilderness? Mark gives us the skeleton but let’s add meat to the bones by looking now at Matthew 4:1-11

Matthew 4:1–11 NASB95

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ” Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand 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, So that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, 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 things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

So there’s really only two things that I want us to look at tonight and that is what Satan tempts Christ with and then some practical help on how we can avoid temptation. Let’s pray and then we’ll dive in.

The Temptation

As we look at Mark’s account of the event, he uses his favorite word, “immediately” to show that right after Christ’s baptism, the very Spirit that came upon Him in the form of a dove now leads Him into the desert, into the wilderness. You see that word is incredibly important for our time together tonight and we need to be mindful of what we read last week in Mark 1:9-11. What happened last week? Christ was baptised and after He came out of the water, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him and we hear the voice of God the Father say, “You are my beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.” Do you see what Mark is doing with the word immediately? Tim Keller mentioned this but in a span of just 4 verses we see spiritual baptism and spiritual battle. We hear a voice from Heaven and then a voice from Hell. There is comfort and then conflict, there is strength and then there is weakness. There is water and then there is a desert. There is refreshment and fullness and then their is dryness and hunger. One of the overarching principles of this text is a reminder to us that when we are baptized with the Spirit then there is spiritual battle. Let me put it in maybe simpler terms: if your life is totally devoted to God, if your greatest desire in life is to live a life that is totally pleasing to God, it is then when you will experience true conflict. If you are trying to live like that, you are going to experience inward temptations that you never thought possible before and you will experience outward opposition from the world that you never expected. This is the marks of carrying the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, I am willing to say that it is not until you become a Christian that you will feel the full weight of temptation. Why would I say that? Because if you are not a Christian, you are not a child of God, you are a child of the devil and the devil has no need to tempt you to sin because you lovingly do it anyway. He certainly will continue to hold temptations before you so your sinful, dead self can keep trying to latch onto it, but he will likely not tempt you to the full degree that he tempts those that are seeking God. It’s like this: a murderer does not need to kill someone that is already dead. Because what does that accomplish? Nothing at all! If you are dead in sin, you are as spiritually dead as dead can be and to quote my favorite Disney movie, “He ain’t getting any deader!” So, tell me why would Satan use his precious devices on someone who is already living a life of sin and is already spiritually dead? If you want to experience true conflict in the world, become a Christian. You will be more maligned and hated by the world and more targeted by the forces of Hell than any other person in the world. Now you may hear that and you might think, “Who can stand? If the forces of hell are against me, what chance do I have?” You may even come to embrace the statement that Satan makes in John Milton’s poem, Paradise Lost, and think, “It is better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.” Here is how I would encourage you: Look at your Great Commander. Look at Christ as He runs to take on the enemy and look at the weapons that He uses to fight this battle. The very weapons by which Jesus fights this battle are the very weapons that we have the capacity to use. Let’s quickly look at the three temptations that Satan tempts Jesus with in Matthew 4.

If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread

What is the first temptation that Satan brings before Jesus? We read in Matthew 4:3 “And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”” Now you might think, “that seems silly. Why would Jesus be tempted by this?” Remember what we read just one verse before: Jesus has been in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights and during those forty days and nights, He has been fasting. He hasn’t eaten anything and Matthew makes the point of emphasizing that Jesus was hungry so Satan is tempting Christ through a weak point. In this one temptation, Satan hits Jesus with a 2 question attack: He attacks him on His humanity by being hungry but perhaps even more importantly, Satan attacks Him on His divine identity. Notice that last week in Mark 1:11 that God the father says, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” Then what is the first thing that Satan says, “IF you are the Son of God...” Do you see what Satan is doing there? He is saying, “If you are the Son of God, prove it. If you are the Son of God, it should be easy for you to do something as simple as turn stones into bread.” Satan knows exactly who Jesus is. We would be foolish to think that Satan did not keep an eye on Jesus the entire 33 and a half years that our Lord walked the earth. He knew what happened at Christ’s baptism and he knew who Jesus was from the moment that Satan was created. Not only is Satan trying to make Christ question His identity, Satan is trying to make Him question God the Father’s goodness. It’s as if Satan is saying, “I know what He said at your baptism but that doesn’t seem to be lining up with what I see now. If you are really His beloved Son, why are you in this situation? If you are really God’s Son, He would never cause you to suffer in such a way and have you practically starve to death surround by wild beasts in this wilderness! Shouldn’t He be taking care of you?” Satan does not come to Christ with the appearance of a dreaded foe but he comes to Him like a concerned friend. Satan will do the very same thing to us. But Jesus sees through this and He responds to Satan with the words of Deuteronomy 8:3 by saying, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Jesus is armed for the conflict not with swords or guns but with the Word of God and we will talk more about this later. Jesus quotes this verse because it is a reminder that God allows hunger so that man would be reminded that God alone is the one that provides for them. Something that is more important than our physical need is our spiritual need because our spiritual needs stretch into eternity rather than our physical needs that are only temporal.

If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written...

What is the next temptation that Satan brings to Christ? Satan brings Him into Jerusalem and stands Him at the top of the temple and says, “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, so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.’” Satan notices that Christ will not flinch on His identity but maybe He will flinch when it comes to Scripture. Notice what Satan does here. He is basically saying, “If you want to use Scripture for the battle, let’s use Scripture! You have a Scripture to quote and so do I!” We should not be surprised that Satan uses Scripture but he never uses it correctly. He twists it so that we don’t trust it. Satan is saying that if we trust the Bible to be true, here is this promise so put it to the test! One of the most dangerous tactics that Satan uses is how he twists things to be close to the truth but is actually nowhere near the truth. I’m not sure how much you have studied other religions but if you look at Islam and the Quran, if you look at the Latter Day Saints and Jehovah’s Witness movement, if you look at false religions and other cults like that, Satan uses so much of the Bible within them but it is all wrong! The same people in Scripture, even the same words that are found in Scripture are tied and twisted to give the appearance of godliness but voiding it of its saving power. If you look at the Quran, it even states that what is recorded in the Old and New Testament is to be trusted but salvation is not found by faith in Christ. Is that just a coincidence? Or does Satan have a direct influence on that? Absolutely he does and we know this because Satan does not appear with horns and a pitchfork, he almost always comes disguised as an angel of light as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 11:14. He comes with the very message that he tempted Adam and Eve with, “Did God really say?” This is surely what he does to Christ at this point and I would argue that this is the temptation that Satan most often uses! He does all that he can to question whether what God has said is what He really said and if what God has said is really true. So, what does Jesus do in this moment? He quotes Scripture again and says, “It is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

If you fall down and worship me

We have to keep moving because we are almost out of time so what is the third temptation that Satan throws at Jesus? Gone is the fancy word play and gone is the appearance of a concerned onlooker and Satan throws his true intention right in Christ’s face. He takes Christ to a very high mountain and he shows Him all the kingdoms of the World and their glory and he says to Him, “All these things I will give You, if you fall down and worship me.” Satan is saying, “I know what you are here for. I know where you are heading. I can give you the world, void of the cross, if you only worship me. I can give you everything and all it will cost you is your soul.” In a sense, Satan is only offering to Christ what is already His but He is offering it according to his terms and those terms involve rebelling against God the Father. We cannot cash in on the world if it costs us our eternal standing with our Heavenly Father. C.S. Lewis in his book The Screwtape Letters writes from the perspective of two demons that are writing letters to each other and Screwtape is writing to his nephew Wormwood about all the ways that Wormwood can try to tempt a person to sin and there is one point where Screwtape writes, “Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more ‘religious’ (on those terms) the more securely ours.” Why do I bring this up? Because we often can look at the things of this world as the greatest thing that we can obtain and faith as just the path by which we get there, rather than making faith that which is ultimate in our lives. Screwtape is saying, “Once the eye is solely on the world and what it offers, it really doesn’t matter what is most important as long as the eyes of faith are off of God Himself. As long as worldliness is that which is most important, it does not matter exactly how that is brought about.” Like Satan is saying, “You can have it all and all you have to do is make God move slightly off the center pedestal.” But Jesus will not have this and I pray that you will not have this. Jesus says, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.” At this, the devil leaves and the Son of God and Son of Man stands victorious. So, with the few minutes that we have left, what can we learn from Christ’s battle with temptation and how can we implement that into our own lives? We know that if we are going to claim to be Christians that the devil has his sights on us so what can we do?

Fleeing Temptation

Where do we go from here? What practical advice can I offer to teenagers that I know are being tempted on every side? Perhaps one of the most important things that I can tell you is this: You have to recognize that spiritual warfare is real and it is personal. Your life takes place upon a spiritual battlefield for your soul. I think that it is sometimes easy for us to forget that the devil and hell is real. We forget that Satan is the ruler of this world and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. I think that the world is quick to dismiss this fact but if we take one look at the world and see how easily it accepts sin and how quick it is to dismiss God, Christ, and the Bible, it should become pretty clear to us that this world is totally under the influence and power of Satan. He does not have sovereign power and ultimately God is still on the throne but Satan’s impact is still felt in this fallen world. We need to recognize that spiritual warfare is real and that spiritual battles should be expected. We also need to recognize that the world itself is not who we are necessarily battling against, man himself is not the one that we need to stand against, it is Satan and sin that we need to stand against. How then do we fight those battles? Paul writes in Ephesians 6:11–12 “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the forces of the devil. How can we stand against that? 2 things and there are certainly more that we could talk about but for time’s sake, here are 2 things: Our sword and shield in the fight is faith in the living God and our weapon is the Word of God. Our shield of faith in Jesus Christ reminds us that where our Savior is, we too shall be also. Our faith reminds us of what Christ said to Peter in Luke 22:31–32 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” This is the prayer I believe that Christ has for all of His people. For Christ to pray that our faith will not fail means that there is ultimately nothing that can tear us away from Him. This is one of Paul’s key points in Romans 8. Satan can ultimately not remove us from our Heavenly Father’s love but he can make us question it, twist it, and minimize it. Martin Luther gives us a great reminder when he said, “So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!” The next thing we need to know is that we need to know the Bible. We need to dive deeply into God’s Word and love His Word to us. We need to be studying this Word and living in this Word. We know this because Christ Himself fought off Satan’s attacks with just the words of Scripture. J.C. Ryle writes, “Let us learn from this single fact, if we learn nothing else from this wondrous history, the high authority of the Bible, and the immense value of a knowledge of its contents. Let us read it, search into it, pray over it, diligently, perseveringly, unweariedly. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with its pages, that its texts may abide in our memories, and stand ready at our right hand in the day of need. Let us be able to appeal from every perversion and false interpretation of its meaning, to those thousand plain passages, which are written as it were a sunbeam. The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well, if we would use it with effect.” Look if you want to live for God but you want to run out onto the battlefield without your weapon, go for it and see what happens. All I know is that our King has given us the weapons that we need to win the day and we are fools if we think that we can thrive without the weapon that He gave us. I wish we had more time to dive into this because there is just so much gold in these mines and there is so much that I wish I could convey to you about just how important it is to be in the Word of God and to flee temptation. I think that one of the reasons we often fall to temptations is because we aren’t actively running from it. We think that we can bait the shark and swim in open oceans and be fine but then how surprised we are when the shark shows up and bites our arm off! As we wrap up, I’m hoping that you see that Jesus is more like us than we think. He was tempted, as we all are, but where we fall short, He wins. If you think about it, while He is God’s Son and faced certain temptations that we may not, the temptations that we see in Matthew 4 are temptations that we have all faced. We all have been tempted to do things when our spirits are weak, we all have been tempted to question what Scripture has said and what it has meant, and we all have been tempted to do things our way or Satan’s way instead of God’s perfect way. Our Savior is like us because He has lived like we have lived but He has also won where we have so often lost. Paul encourages us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” The Lord has given us a way and He has given us an example. May we all strive to enter through the narrow gate and be true to what the Spirit has entrusted to us. The devil is raging around us like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. May we not give him the satisfaction and may we cling to our Savior and to His Word. Let’s pray.