Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture Text: Matthew 4:1-11(NASB)

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

 2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.

3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

4 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.’ ”

 5 Then the devil ~took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,

 6 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.’

”

 7 Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’

”

 8 Again, the devil ~took Him to a very high mountain and ~showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;

 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”

 10 Then Jesus ~said to him, “Go, Satan!

For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’

”

 11 Then the devil ~left Him; and behold, angels came and /began /to minister to Him.

*Introduction*

Children of God McGhee has already told you; you’re in a war.

So I want to show you satan’s sense of urgency to take you out.

So put your finger in Matthew Chapter 4 and then turn with me to the 12th Chapter of Revelations and look at the 12th verse, and it reads: /“Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.

Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!

For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”/

So satan has a sense of urgency to take you out.

His anger increases as each day goes by because he knows his time is shortening.

This would explain the very devilish and sin sick times we are living in today.

We live in a world full of apostasy and idolatry.

Apostasy is a renouncing or turning away of the faith.

In today’s world satan has so many in his hands that have turned away from God.  Right now we can all name someone we know who has turned away from God and fallen into idolatry.

For many of us our focus is off and we focus on the temporal things of this life rather than eternity.

And that causes us to zero in on our financial struggles, so we idolize money.

If causes us to zero in on our emotional struggles, so we idolize alcohol.

It causes us to zero in on our mental struggles so we idolize drugs.

It causes us to zero in on physical struggles, so we idolize sex.

If you ask Hosea he’d tell you that idolatry is spiritual adultery.

Adultery is one of the worse sins that one can commit, not because God grades sins, but because it cripples the husband, it to cripples the wife, it cripples the children, it cripples the family.

Some of you right now know exactly what I’m talking about.

Adultery destroys relationships.

If you read the book of Hosea you’ll find that God told Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman and to have children from her unfaithfulness, because his family would be a sign of the children of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.

They were taking their focus off the true God like we do sometimes and worshiping these idol gods.

gods with little g’s.

So satan wanted Jesus to commit idolatry.

He knew who Jesus was, just like if you are a Christian he know who you are.

He wanted Jesus to fall down and worship him.

And that’s what he wants us to do.

He wants us to fall down.

See because he was cast down from heaven he want us to be cast down to hell.

He wants us to fall down.

And Family anytime you leave the standards of God you have no place to go but down.

Adam and Eve did it and they went down.

Jonah tried to do it and went down.

And anytime you try to leave the standards of God you are going down.

Satan had the nerve to tell Jesus he’d give Him all the kingdoms of the world.

Satan doesn’t own anything.

How can he give what he doesn't own.

He can't do anything that God doesn't allow.

For the records is:  /“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”/

(Psalms 24:1,2)  Satan doesn’t own anything; God is the one who snatched nothing from nowhere and made somewhere.

!

Satan wants us to take shortcuts

As McGhee has already told us over the past two weeks; satan’s plan was to get Jesus to act independently of God.

See satan wanted to see if he could cause Jesus to take shortcuts.

Has the devil ever tried to get you to take shortcuts.

Here God has given you a vision.

He’s put a plan right before your eyes.

But here comes old satan.

And satan whispers in your ear that he knows a better way.

He says he can make it happen faster for you.

He says he knows a shortcut.

And it’s sad to say but some of us have been or are in a world of trouble because we took one of satan’s shortcuts.

But Jesus wasn’t concerned with Satan’s shortcuts.

He knew the plan.

He had thoroughly studied the playbook.

It was now time for Him to execute the plays.

Satan wanted Jesus to by pass God’s plan for salvation which required that Jesus suffer.

And you know church that is some of our problem.

We don’t want to suffer, and because we don’t want to suffer; we take every shortcut the devil gives us.

We lie, cheat, steal all because we don’t want to suffer.

And I got news for you, anyone who can’t ever stand any suffering; anyone who’s all ways got to have the easy way out; really needs to do a Holy Ghost check, because one of the fruits of the spirit is long suffering.

And every now and then in this spiritual battle we’ve got to suffer long.

Israel in their wilderness experience didn’t want to suffer long.

And because so they started to look for other ways to make it through.

Have you ever turned away from God, trying to take shortcuts.

When you take shortcuts you let satan win.

You become defeated.

Tore up, Depressed, Stress out, Feel like nothing is going right in your life.

Feel like everyone has turned their back on you.

You’ve dug yourself so far in a hole with satan’s shortcuts, that you don’t know where to turn.

You have no place to go.

Your family doesn’t have a long enough rope to get you out of this hole that you have dug for yourself, so you feel all alone.

But the record is Jeffery that Jesus told Simon that satan desired to have him and to sift him as wheat, but Jesus said I’ve prayed for you that your faith fail not.

I want you to know today that the master prays for you too.

He intercedes on your behalf.

He does not want you to take one of satan’s shortcuts and get beat all up and end up all broken and ashamed.

Instead the Lord wants you to com to him now; freely broken.

That means humble and wholly surrendered to Him.  Don’t take satan shortcuts.

I know its hard, but you have to be willing to fight.

You have to put up your spiritual defense and 3 things that you must do with your spirit to survive this battle, and that is: Feed it, Fight for it, and Fight with it.

!! Feed It

The first thing you have to do is feed it.

You've got to feed your spirit.

Have you ever heard the expression that a closed mouth won’t get fed.

Some of you are spiritually dying because you won’t open your bible and open your mouth and read.

I don’t understand why we love ignorance.