Sermon Tone Analysis

BY PASTOR GLENN PEASE

Art Linkletter tells of how when he was 10 years old he was offered a job of tempting people to buy ice cream cones.

The ice cream stand owner noticed the dramatic way in which he licked an ice cream cone, and so he offered him ten cents an afternoon if he would wonder through the nearby park licking cones.

He writes, "I used such a seductive curling action with my tongue that passers-by couldn't resist and the stands business began to soar."

He was demonstrating the power of temptation.

That is what advertising is all about.

It is a lure to motivate you to buy something by creating in you a hunger for it.

Satan specializes in creating hungers for that which is out of God's will, and he is good at it.

He created in Adam and Eve a hunger for the forbidden fruit, and thereby, brought about the fall of man.

And now ever since the fall he has succeeded in making every person hunger for the forbidden.

All, that is, except one.

The great exception is the Lord Jesus.

He was the one exception who did not sin, but there are no exceptions to temptation.

Every man, including Jesus has to face the universal experience of temptation.

If Satan could have succeeded in creating in him a hunger for the forbidden, he would have won his greatest victory, and would have defeated the plan of God for mans salvation.

The temptation of Jesus was not only his testing, but the testing of Satan, for his whole destiny rides on whether or not he can succeed.

Thus, again we see this seemingly minor incident in the life of our Lord as the hinge on which the door of destiny swings for Jesus, for Satan, and for all mankind.

What is going to transpire on this desolate mountain called Quarantania just West of ancient Jericho is going to alter all of history.

Either Jesus or Satan will experience what nearby Jericho experienced when the walls of the city came tumbling down.

The walls of one of their kingdoms will fall, and lead to their ultimate defeat.

Thus, we have hear the conflict of the kings of the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down.

Now we see Jesus the new Joshua facing the formidable wall of the kingdom of darkness.

The only way he can invade that kingdom and set the captives free is by defeating its king.

In the temptation of Jesus, who has just been by His baptism anointed the Messiah and King, we see the conflict of the two greatest kings in history.

It is a duel that will determine which kingdom will ultimately rule this earth.

Jesus said in Mark 3:27, "In fact, no one can enter a strong mans house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man.

Then he can rob his house."

Jesus could not begin His public ministry of healing and casting out demons and setting people free from Satan's bondage until He first defeated Satan.

That is why His temptation comes before His ministry.

Much ado is made about the heavy weight championship of the world boxing match.

Millions go into it, but the outcome makes no difference as far as the destiny of the world, but here in the wilderness is an isolated encounter that nobody on earth is even aware of, and yet on its outcome hangs the eternal destiny of all mankind.

This morning we want to take a ring-side seat, and examine in detail this conflict of the kings.

The first thing we see is-

I. THE TIMING OF THE TEMPTATION.

Notice verse 12 begins with the words at once.

The Holy Spirit came upon Jesus in His baptism, and immediately without delay the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert to be tempted.

This timing confirms all that we said about the importance of the baptism of Jesus.

It was this event that made Jesus the Messiah and the second Adam.

He was the representative man who would have to reverse the defeat of the first Adam for man to have a chance.

Satan has been champion for centuries, but now another challenger has come to try and take that title away.

No doubt, Jesus faced temptation before this.

This is hard to imagine living 30 years without some battles with Satan, but until His baptism and anointing with the Holy Spirit, Jesus was not the official representative of the kingdom of light.

As soon as He received these credentials He was ready for the official encounter.

The Holy Spirit was now His manager, and the first thing He did after the baptism was to drive Jesus to the scene of battle, where the duel of the ages could take place.

The Holy Spirit was saying that not since Adam I have we had a contender to face Satan with any hope of victory.

Now Adam II was ready, and the Holy Spirit after all these centuries of waiting, wasted no more time before He deployed this new weapon of spiritual warfare.

Like our atomic weapons, this Adamic weapon was tested in the desolate desert.

The second thing we see is-

II.

THE TARGET OF TEMPTATION.

Satan was being lured in his defeat in this temptation, but Jesus was the target.

He was deliberately set up to be a tempting target for satanic attack.

He was driven into the God-forsaken wasteland giving Satan the home court advantage.

The conflict would take place on his own turf.

On top of this, the Messiah would fast for 40 days and thereby weaken His resistance.

He was made more vulnerable to physical, mental, and spiritual hunger.

Jesus was made such a tempting target for Satan, he could not resist the challenge even though he knew this was the Son of God.

If he lost, it would be his first failure in history, and would spell the beginning of his doom.

But, on the other hand, if he could succeed it would mean he would do what he had always longed to do: Defeat God, and become superior to God.

He could win in this conflict the prize he lusted for: undisputed authority over the earth and mankind.

It was Satan's dream, and here was the target right in front of him luring him into battle.

How could he lose with a man as filled with hunger as Jesus was?

He looked like a sitting duck to Satan, and so he went for the bait.

Jesus was the target of temptation, but He was also the bait that lured Satan into a conflict where he would meet his Waterloo, and begin to lose his grip on humanity.

Adam 1 was a snap to bring down, and he had paradise and all any man could ask for.

How can I fail with Adam 2, who is starving in a God-forsaken desert?

Such must have been the thinking of Satan as he accepts the challenge for the heavy weight championship of the world to determine who will have the right to decide the destiny of all mankind.

As the target, Jesus had to play the hero's role, and let the bad guy shoot first.

I always admired Sheriff Dillon in Gunsmoke, but it always bothered me when he would let the bad guy get off the first shot.

The idea is, the good guy never starts the battle.

He is not the aggressor, but rather, the defender, and so acts in self-defense.

This is the Christian view of warfare.

The Christian ought never to start a war, but if he is attacked he has the right of self-defense, and should end the war as soon as possible by victory over the offender.

So Jesus plays the role of the hero, and does not attack but repels the arrows of the tempter and defends his stand of loyalty to the plan of God.

As the target, he felt the power of Satan's darts.

In His humanity it would be appealing to satisfy His hunger for food, for fame, and for power, by listening to the tempter.

If Jesus did not feel any lure to Satan's offers, then there would be little to be impressed about in His victory.

If someone comes to me and says leap up to the moon and grabs some green cheese and I'll give you fifty bucks a pound for all you can get, you are not going to be impressed when I tell you I took my stand against stealing and refused the offer.

You know that offer could not move me in any way because it asked of me what I could not give.

I am not tempted to do the impossible, but only the possible.

Temptation is an appeal to do what you could do if you just chose to do it and not worry about whether it is right or wrong.

It is the reality of what Jesus endured that makes Him such a sympathetic intercessor for us.

Heb.

2:18 says, "Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted."

Remember, when you are tempted, the biggest target Satan ever had was our Lord, but he could not bring Him down.

He stood for God, but also for us.

Had He yielded we would be sunk.

But because He stood, we can also win the battle.

As the target, Jesus took the shots, but it was the hunter that was most severely wounded.

Jesus had a wounded heel, but He crushed the head of the serpent.

The target triumphed over the tempter.

The trickster was out-tricked.

The third thing we see is

III.

THE TEMPERING OF THE TEMPTATION.

Matt.. joins Mark in telling us about the comfort of the angels after His temptation.

But Mark only tells us about the detail that throughout it all Jesus had the companionship of wild animals.

What a delightful detail.

After all, the first Adam had the companionship of the animal kingdom.