Sermon Tone Analysis

1.

Straight after this wonderful baptism where Heaven opens and the Spirit descends upon Jesus and a voice is heard saying: This is my beloved Son, and then, being filled with the Holy Spirit, He was immediately led into the desert.

Mark says it more forcefully, that He was driven into the desert.

Surely this cannot be right, can it?

He leads us into pastures green, besides still waters, into blessings.

I don’t think that there was anyone as filled with the Spirit as Jesus so being led by the Spirit may actually lead to some real hardship.

Prosperity gospel preachers will make you think that the way of the Spirit is always rosy; that there should never be ill health; that you should always have money in your pocket for God wants to bless you.

Their focus always seems to be upon you and them and not upon God.

God does want to bless you, to give you hope and a future, to make you fruitful for Him but the path to that may actually lead through the desert.

This Gospel was written for Jews and they would immediately have recognised that indeed Israel was called out of Egypt just as Jesus was called out of Egypt, that both are called sons of God and that they were both led into the desert by God.

The 40 days and nights are like the 40 years that Israel spent in the desert and the temptations that Israel failed Jesus did not but came out victorious redeeming them from their evil time.

It is also in verse 1 we find that this is the purpose for this leading into the desert; He was to be tempted by the slanderer, the devil.

You really know the devil is at work when there is slander.

What is slander?

It is lies about people.

The newspapers are full of it, of course, especially the more tabloid versions but, don’t let the broadsheets deceive you either for they are full of lies too.

I am very cautious when people are spoken of in the media especially concerning those in power for there are other agendas at work and the root of slander is the devil.

We are warned not to testify falsely against others.

I always thought that this 9th commandment was an unlikely one to be committed by Christians but experience has told me otherwise.

Christians are continually testifying falsely and slandering their fellow brothers and sisters.

We have to be careful for it is insidious and when doing this we are under the influence of the devil who wants to bring division in the Church and very often the root of this is bitterness and jealousy.

There is also the internal battle within ourselves of accusations made by the devil that affect our thoughts and brings us down.

Some of the accusations are absolutely true.

But some are absolutely not.

As I said, slander is lies about people and it can be lies we tell against ourselves.

Either way, in Christ Jesus, we are free, we have been forgiven of the worst things we have ever committed and we are accepted in the beloved.

We have to know what and who we are in Christ to combat these fiery darts of the evil one for the most liberating thing is to know you are forgiven.

And the devil has no answer to that.

2.

Then we come to one of the most obvious statements in all of Scripture, after Jesus had not eaten for 40 days: He was hungry.

I am hungry if I do not eat in the morning let alone a whole day or 40 days.

I do not suggest anyone here fasts for this long unless you are truly being led by the Spirit but I do know some who have though I suspect there was mixed motives and had something to do with their weight as well as spiritual but I cannot judge someone else’s heart.

Anyway, after 40 days the tempter came to Jesus:

· In verses 1 to 11 Matthew relates the story of Jesus’ temptation by the slanderer, otherwise known as the devil, who tested him for forty days but to no avail.

Jesus rejected Satan by using Scripture in a right way, that is, like : ‘I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you’ (NIV 2011).

If you are the Son of God.

English is very strange.

We translate from the Greek into English but sometimes it does not come over as well as it really should.

One of the first sermons I ever preached was to explain the four ‘ifs’ of Greek in what became known as my ‘ify’ sermon!

I will explain 3 of them right now for it is necessary for us to understand what is going on in this passage and in some others:

‘if and maybe it is true and maybe it isn’t’: this is the most common usage of ‘if’: if you are going to the shops could you buy some coffee

‘if and its not true’: if I were you I would not go to North Korea

1. Then Jesus was led into the desert by the spirit to be tempted by the slanderer.

‘if and it is true: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it is a… Instead of ‘if’ it should say ‘as’ or ‘since’

So, back to the passage today: if you are the Son of God is the third ‘if’ - it is true, He is the Son of God.

The devil was not trying to make Jesus doubt He was the Son of God, He was saying: as you are the Son of God turn these stones into bread.

The devil and the demons knew who Jesus was.

What the devil was saying was; You have the power and authority, the ability since you are God’s Son to do anything…and since you are hungry make some bread out of stones.

Israel, when in the desert, cried out for and demanded bread and meat but they were never satisfied even when given manna from Heaven and fresh meat overabundantly.

The devil really believed Jesus could turn stones into bread for what is the point of a temptation that you cannot be tempted to do? No, the devil wanted Jesus to misuse His power for selfish gain.

It is God who provides for us and we will not be satisfied with anything less.

Our lives are in His hands, so says;

4.

4.

So, Jesus answered him with what?

With Scripture.

And with each temptation this is what Jesus did for He said: It is written.

We, too, need to understand and know Scripture for sometimes we might not even realise we are being tempted.

Jesus was living out what the Psalmist wrote:

Man does not live on bread alone, which is a quote from , simply means that God is the One who provides all that we need for life, our breath, our heartbeats and our food.

5-7

The second temptation is where Jesus is taken to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem where the devil quotes Scripture from .

Throw yourself down…You’ll be alright for you are God’s Son, He won’t allow any harm to come to You.

Well, first, Satan was trying to get Him to commit suicide deceitfully and second, to do something God had not commanded Him to do which is presumption.

It’s OK, I’ll do it and God will sort out the consequences.

Actually, God will but if we have not gone to God beforehand to seek His will then God may just let us fail.

But if we acknowledge the Lord in all our ways God will direct our paths.

We cannot presume God to do anything for us and certainly not OK to test God to see if He will come through for us.

The Israelites, though, in the desert tested and tested God saying where is He, doubting, even after all that He had done, that He was even with them but Jesus had no such doubts and did not need to take things into His own hands to prove that God was present.

4. But he answered and said: “It is written: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds through God’s mouth.””

8-10

5. Then the devil takes him along into the holy city and puts him on the apex of the temple

6.

And says to him: “As you are2 the son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written:

“The angels of him he commands concerning you

The third temptation was to take Jesus to a mountain like Everest to show all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

Satan obviously does have an awful lot of power to do the things he did.

He was saying that the world belonged to him and he was able to give to Jesus everything he had been shown.

And then he showed his true colours, the thing he desires about all else, to take away the pre-eminence of God and have it for himself.

Fall down and worship me!

and in their hands they will lift you up,

so that at no time you strike your foot against a stone.””

Jesus saw through the trickery and lies of the devil and told him where to go.

Only God is worthy of worship and He is the only one you should serve and certainly not one that is created.

If only the Israelites had remembered all that God had done they would not have gone after other gods and worshipped a gold calf.

Jesus, in these three temptations, reverses their unfaithfulness for Jesus saw through the trickery and lies of the devil and told him where to go.

Only God is worthy of worship and He is the only one you should serve and certainly not one that is created such as you.

7. Jesus said to him: “Again it is written; do not put the lord your God to the test.”

8. Again the devil takes him into a very high mountain and showed to him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them

You have to wonder if Jesus was really tempted at all but I believe He must have been.

He was tempted in every way but without sin.

These sins are the things we all have committed: a desire to force situations in our favour, to test the limits of God and the desire for possessions and power and the devil’s own passion for fame and worship.

One day the devil will get his wish for the whole world will worship him:

9.

And he said to him: “These all I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.”

How can this be?

Well, the worship of the devil is on the rise even in the opening ceremonies in EU institutions, and we should have no part with them in that.

But even though the devil will convince all who are on the earth to worship him it will be a short-lived reign.

10.

Then Jesus says to him: “Go away, Satan!

For it is written; you shall worship the lord your God and him only will you serve.”

The temptations of the devil are based on self-satisfaction, lust for power, a lack of contentedness but above all it was about independence from God.

That phrase ‘God helps those who help themselves’ is not from Scripture but something Benjamin Franklin made popular despite it being untrue for it teaches self-reliance apart from God.

All these temptations in the Garden of Eden and John encapsulates these things in:

1 John

The only way shown in this passage to deal with these temptations is to know God’s Word thoroughly and authoritatively.

This is how Jesus did it, how Jesus overcame.

He knew the Old Testament well and He used with it with authority: It is written.

In the Garden of Eden the devil asked: Did God say...? Casting doubt on God’s Word.