A Study of Matthew: The Devil Went Down to Jordan
A Study of Matthew • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him 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, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus said to him, “Again 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 I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
We are continuing our study of the book of Matthew. Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience to show them that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah that had been prophesied about throughout the Old Testament. He listed Jesus’ genealogy, showing that he was from the lineage of King David. Matthew wrote about Jesus’ miraculous virgin birth, and how he was delivered from Herod’s attempt to kill him as a baby, all of which was foretold by the prophets.
Last week, we looked at Jesus’ baptism, and how it demonstrated his submission to God the Father and established the course for his ministry.
Today, we look at Matthew chapter 4. As soon as Jesus is baptized, he heads into the nearby wilderness alone to pray and fast. After 40 days of fasting, the devil shows up.
The devil offers three temptations. The first is an appeal to the flesh. Turn the stones to bread and don’t be hungry anymore. It sounds simple enough. What’s wrong with eating?
The second temptation is to have Jesus show off his divinity. “Jump off the top of the temple, and let the angels catch you.” Jesus is just beginning his earthly ministry. He’s going to do all kinds of miracles anyway. So why not just do this stunt, and reveal himself as the Messiah at the very beginning? Then EVERYONE would follow him.
The third temptation deals with the divine plan. “You want mankind back? Simple. Just bow down to me. I’ll give them all back.” That would mean Jesus wouldn’t have to go to the cross.
These temptations the devil throws out sound good. Temptation always SOUNDS good. But I want to also look at the additional bait the devil throws out. The first two temptations start with, “If you ARE the Son of God, then do this.” The devil tries to make Jesus doubt his relationship with God, his Father.
Isn’t it funny that this comes immediately after Jesus’ baptism, when the Holy Spirit manifested like a dove resting on Jesus’s shoulder and God spoke out, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”!
Remember in the garden of Eden when the serpent tempted Eve?
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’?”
Do you see what he did there? His first words were a challenge to what God had already said. And he didn’t just challenge, he intentionally changed Gods’ words, just a little, so that it sounded like the truth.
So here in the wilderness, the devil is challenging what God had spoken at Jesus’ baptism. “I know God said that back there, but is it really true?”
The devil wants us to doubt God’s promises to us. He’s always whispering things to us like, “you’re on your own here”, “God’s abandoned you”, and “you’ve messed up to much this time”. He wants us to doubt what God has promised us:
And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
So the devil tries to bait Jesus into doubting his relationship with God. But Jesus doesn’t even address that. Jesus simply addresses the challenges.
Turn the stones to bread. Jesus’ response?
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
We usually take this to mean that we need to read the Bible more. But Jesus didn’t have a Bible in the wilderness. What was he out there doing? Praying and fasting—for 40 days! He was out there spending time with his father. His desire to be close to God was greater than the need for food. When Jesus went to John to be baptized, and John resisted, what did Jesus tell him? “Let it be so now, for thus is it fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus got baptized, not because he needed to repent, but because he was acting in submission to his father. Jesus had been out in the elements for over a month, submitting his own desire for comfort to the greater need of getting even closer to God so that he could hear God’s voice clearly. Our greatest freedom comes when we are fully submitted to God. Jesus knew that.
Challenge 2: I’ve taken you to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem. Jump off, and let the people be amazed as angels appear to rescue you. Jesus’ response?
“Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Satan was trying to get Jesus to force God into a situation. And he was doing so by taking scripture out of context. The verse Satan was twisting was from Psalm 91. But the passage is all about serving God fearlessly. It basically says that if you put your trust in the Lord and obey him completely, then God will defend you. When the enemy tries to keep you from obeying God, God will be there to overcome the situation. Satan tried to make it sound like the opposite, that God is somehow obligated to protect you from your own stupidity. We cannot manipulate scripture to force God to do our bidding. He’s the master. We’re the servant.
Challenge 3: “Just bow down to me, and I will give you back everything I took from you.” Forget whatever complicated plan you and God concocted to save mankind. I’ll give them to you right now. Just bow down and ask nicely. Jesus’ response?
“It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and only him shall you serve.’”
The devil had gained control of the earth when he convinced Adam and Eve to disobey God. That was not disputed by Jesus. Now, the devil is offering Jesus apparent opportunity to get it all back. The problem is, Jesus would have to submit himself to the devil. In doing so, Jesus would be separating himself from God. Even if the devil kept his word and gave mankind to Jesus, Jesus would belong to the devil. So nothing would have changed for us, and our last hope for salvation would have been gone forever.
Do any of you remember the story about the little boy whose mother kept telling him to sit down. Finally, she forces him to sit, but he tells her, “I’m standing on the INSIDE.” So, in the same way, Jesus could have possibly thought, “I can bow down, and pretend to submit to Satan, but it doesn’t mean I really am doing it.” There are lots of people who do that sort of thing. Tell people what they want to hear. Do a thing that looks like you are part of that group without actually committing. “I just said that to get them off my back.”
The problem with that line of thinking is that it’s lying. If Jesus had bent the knee to Satan, he would have either meant it, submitting himself to Satan and therefore eternally separating himself from God, or he would have been faking it, which would have made Jesus a liar who would be unworthy to take on the sins of the world.
If we are to learn anything about the life of Jesus, it is the importance of being COMPLETELY devoted to our heavenly father.
Jesus was able to send the devil away because he could see through the devil’s lies. The devil tried to get Jesus to question his relationship with God, his ability to do what God had called him to do, and to doubt the plan God had established to redeem mankind. Jesus saw through the lies because he knew the mind of his father, and he was confident in his own identity as the Son of God.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a challenge. Satan showed up when Jesus was physically at his weakest. I mean, 40 days of camping with no food—only some water to drink from some river or spring. Who knows if he even had a tent or some kind of mat to lay down on the ground under the shade of a rock. I’m cranky if I miss lunch.
Jesus was physically the ultimate of discomfort and starvation. But spiritually, he was strong from spending 40 days in the constant presence of his father. That is how he was able to overcome Satan’s temptations and ultimately send the tempter away.
And what does scripture say happened then?
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
That shows us that Jesus, the Son of God who just put the devil in his place, still needed help. It proves that Jesus did not overcome the world because he was God, but he came into this world living in the capacity of an ordinary man. His power came from his relationship with his father. His authority came from his complete submission to his father.
How do we succeed in this world? In the same way Jesus did. We prioritize spending real time with our heavenly father. We read the Bible, not just spending a certain amount of time each day looking at words, but taking time to study it and understand what God is saying through it.
Jesus prayed all the time. He fasted a lot. He learned how to subject the desires of his flesh to the will of the father. He submitted himself to God and sought to glorify God rather than himself, and God, in turn, honored and glorified Jesus.
In the same way, when our only desire is to lift up the name of Jesus, Jesus will take care of us. We don’t need to worry about our earthly reputation; all that matters is being totally surrendered and submitted to God, and understanding who we are in him.
So who are you? Who does God say you are? If you cannot answer these questions with certainty, today’s the day to change that. We have been singing the song, I am Who You Say I Am. Let’s look at the words from the chorus and bridge.
Whom the Son sets free is free indeed
I’m a child of God, yes I am
In my Father’s house, there’s a place for me
I’m a child of God, yes I am
I am chosen, not forsaken
I am who You say I am
You are for me, not against me
I am who You say I am