Jesus Defeats Satan's Temptations for Us

Luke 4:1-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

It is fitting as we enter the season of Lent and focus our attention on the suffering of Jesus that we also take some time to talk about the perfection of Jesus. It is fitting because if Jesus had not resisted temptation and remained perfect his suffering would have been meaningless to us. If Jesus had sinned even just once, then he would have had to suffer for his own sin, and could not have suffered for ours.

The temptation of Jesus reminds us that Jesus resisted the temptations of devil and kept the law perfectly in our place. It also helps us to recognize how the devil tempts us and how we can defeat those temptations.

We are told that, almost immediately after the baptism of Jesus, which signaled the beginning of his public ministry, the Holy Spirit led him to the wilderness where he was tempted for by the devil for forty days. We aren’t told every temptation that Satan brought against Jesus during those forty days, but we are told about three that came at the end of the forty days of fasting and temptation.

Jesus is the second Adam. Like the first Adam, he was born without sin. Like the first Adam, he had the ability to continue in his sinless state, or to choose to sin. Satan must have thought that what worked so well in the garden against Adam and Eve would work in the wilderness against Jesus because the approach that Satan takes is very similar.

At the end of Jesus’ forty days of fasting, when his hunger must have been almost unbearable, Satan came to Jesus and said, if you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. “Go ahead, Jesus, you have the power to do it. You can simply speak a word and it will happen, just like you did at the beginning when you said, “Let there be,” and there was. What would be so bad? What would be so wrong if you used your power to satisfy your hunger? Certainly, the Father wouldn’t want you to starve to death?”

In Eden, Satan had asked, did God really say, “you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” “What about that tree in the middle of the garden, what would be so bad about satisfying your hunger and eating from that tree. Why wouldn’t God want you to enjoy everything he has created?”

We have invented a word for this temptation of Satan today. We call it “instant gratification.” Through commercials and the media Satan says, “satisfy your desires, you deserve it, you’ve worked hard, never mind if it means going into debt, never mind if it means breaking a commandment or two. God wants you to be happy and enjoy life, doesn’t he?” Just as he did with Jesus, he watches for a weak point—thirst, sexual desire, hunger—then he tempts us to satisfy our desires in ways that are contrary to God’s will, abusing alcohol, breaking the sixth commandment, overeating. We know all too well that very often we listen to Satan’s temptations and satisfy our sinful desires instead of listening to God and his word.

When Jesus was tempted with instant gratification, he resisted. He did what we often don’t do. He did what Adam and Eve failed to do. He told Satan, Man does not live by bread alone. Satisfying our physical desires isn’t the most important thing in life. Knowing that God’s word gives life, that’s the most important thing. Listening to what God says about how we may satisfy the desires he gave us in a way that is pleasing to him, that’s the most important thing. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Jesus didn’t give in to the temptation of instant gratification, but Satan wasn’t finished with Jesus yet. Even Eve had resisted Satan’s first temptation, but Satan didn’t give up and she eventually succumbed. He hoped Jesus would too.

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours." You don’t have to suffer and die to have riches and splendor and glory, Jesus, just bow down and worship me and you can be the richest, most powerful man on earth. In the garden, Satan told Adam and Eve that if they would eat of the forbidden fruit, they would have wisdom, power, and glory like God.

Satan still speaks with his forked tongue today. He still uses the desire for power and riches to try to lure us away from God. “Why should you work so hard to earn a living, just buy a bunch of lottery tickets or go to the casino and get rich off of other people. Why work so hard to write your own paper when you can get one off the internet, or have AI write it for you? If people are foolish enough to pay you to do their homework for them, why not make a few bucks? A little cheating and stealing, if that’s what it takes to get rich, so what, everyone does it. The end justifies the means, doesn’t it?”

Unlike Adam and Eve, unlike us, Jesus saw through Satan’s half-truths. He recognized that making compromises in order to get power or money or grades was making those things into an idol. Again Jesus quoted Scripture. It is written: “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” Jesus didn’t allow the lure of power or riches to get him to compromise his faith. He kept the first commandment for us. He trusted the Father’s promise that he would put everything under his feet and cause every knee to bow before him at the proper time.

In the garden, when Eve quoted God’s word Satan contradicted it. Eve knew what God said, “if you eat of the forbidden fruit you will die.” Satan said, “no you won’t die.” Jesus had been quoting scripture to Satan as he resisted each of his temptations. Now Satan quotes scripture back at him. He tells Jesus, “you can throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple and you won’t die. After all, God has promised to give his angels charge over you.”

Could Jesus have jumped off and had the angels catch him? Sure. He could have just floated down and landed in the temple courts and had everyone ooh-ing and ah-ing. When he was arrested and taken off to be crucified, he could have called ten thousand angels to come to his rescue. He could have escaped as he had escaped from the mob in Nazareth that wanted to throw him off the cliff. But none of those things would have been in line with the Father’s will. He didn’t come to the earth to make a name for himself, he came to do the Father’s will. He came to be about his father’s business, to carry out God’s plan of salvation for all, and jumping off the temple wasn’t a part of the plan. In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus would pray, “not my will, but thine be done.” Again, Jesus defeats Satan’s temptation. Again he quotes Scripture, It says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Satan may not take us to the top of a tall building, or one of those nearby wind turbines and tell us to jump off because God has promised to send his angels to catch us, but he still tempts us to misuse God’s promises. He tries to get us to build a tower of little sins. He keeps telling us it’s no big deal. It’s not like we are committing murder, and God has promised to forgive us anyway. Satan keeps working until the tower of our sin is so high that he begins to change his tune and tell us, “now you’ve done it, Jesus can never forgive all those sins.” Or until we are so calloused to sin we are willing to lie, cheat, steal, even murder to cover up all those little sins. He keeps at us, trying to get us to believe that we are too far gone for God to forgive. Satan wants us to put God to the test, to use God’s promise of forgiveness as an excuse for sin rather than a reason to live for God.

As we study the way Satan tempted Jesus we see a pattern. The tactics he used against Jesus are very similar to the tactics he used against Adam and Eve. Encouraging instant gratification, greed for money and power, testing instead of trusting God’s promises worked on Adam and Eve. It works all too often on us, even when we are aware of what Satan is trying to do. But it didn’t work on Jesus. He defeated each one of Satan’s temptations in the desert. But Luke reminds us that Satan still didn’t give up. He left him for a more opportune time.

In the movie “The Passion of the Christ” Mel Gibson does a good job of illustrating some of those more opportune times as he has Satan tempting Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane saying things like, “It’s too hard. No one can do what God is asking of you. No one can bear the sins of the world. It’s not fair. Why should you pay for sins you didn’t commit? Why don’t you just give up. Why don’t you just forget about being the savior?” But, as a snake slithers out toward Jesus, he gets up off the ground and smashes the serpent’s head with his foot.

Jesus was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he remained without sin. Because he did, as we study his passion during this Lenten Season, we can be assured that he is suffering for us. Because he has no sins of his own to pay for he is able to pay for ours. The reason the Son of Man came was to destroy the devil’s work. Because he did, you and I are forgiven. Wielding the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, you and I can resist him in faith, and Satan must flee.