Temptation of the Lord

Matthew 4:1–11 NASB95

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 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.’ ” Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand 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, So that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, 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 things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

1st Sermon in “Peculiar People” Sunday School Class December 1, 2019

Fathom Boyd Kimes

Please turn with me to:

Matthew 4:1-11

This is the Word of God

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.”

10Then Jesus *said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ”

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

Let us pray.........

Our Father..........

Before I get into the text, I’m like to give a quick introduction of the book and put our passage into context.

The Gospel of Matthew is largely considered to be written by the Apostle Matthew around 60 or 70 AD. Matthew is considered one of the three synoptic Gospels, because of the similarity of the first 3 Gospels, that is Matthew , Mark and Luke. Because of the format in which the book was written, Matthew’s account is the clearest of all four of the Gospels. It has a huge link with the Old Testament. The Gospel of Matthew quotes the Old Testament some 60 times. Fourteen different prophecies pointing to Christ from the Old Testament are recorded in Matthew as being fulfilled by Christ.

Now, lets get into our text:

Chapter 4 begins with the word “then”....”THEN” Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The word “Then” is an adverb that connects what is about to be said with what was just previously mentioned, so looking back at the end of chapter 3 we can see why this word “then” is placed here. Starting with verse 13, we read:

13 Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.

14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”

15 But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he permitted Him.

16 After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him,

17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “ This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”

Isn’t this amazing?! This was a beautiful moment between God the Father and His beloved Son. The Father here proclaiming Jesus, this carpenter from Galilee, as His son, and then furthers His proclamation by saying of Him, “in whom I am well pleased.”

(Put this in own words) This makes me think of the many times that I have intimate fellowship with God, or times that I talk with someone about God, it seems right after to be followed by some kind of temptation.

Calvin Put it this way:

“When he was leading a private life at home, we do not read that he was tempted; but when he was about to discharge the office of Redeemer, he then entered the field in the name of his whole church. But if Christ was tempted as the public representative of all believers, let us learn, that the temptations which befall us are not accidental, or regulated by the will of Satan, without God’s permission; but that the Spirit of God presides over our contests as an exercise of our faith. This will aid us in cherishing the assured hope, that God, who is the supreme judge and disposer of the combat, will not be unmindful of us, but will fortify us against those distresses, which he sees that we are unable to meet.”

So we see here 1 way that the enemy likes to destroy our fellowship with God, by putting an end to it before it gets begins, or immediately after walking closely in obedience with God through a trying period, or after rejoicing with God because of a great victory He has accomplished in your life, the devil comes to snatch it away. A second, is what we see in the following 2 verses, Starting at verse 2, “And after He (speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ) had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.

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

First notice, that Satan loves to find us when we are weak. When we are in vulnerable circumstances, this is often a prime time for the enemy to come and sieze his opportunity to destroy us. He uses this time to try and sew doubt into our minds, the doubt of, is God who he really says He is, and the doubt of, if we can truly trust Him at His Word.

You can see this by how he starts his conversation with the Lord.....He begins with the word “IF”, “IF” you are the son of God”..... There are two important deceptions going on in the simple but cunning way the enemy speaks here. First, he is questioning who Jesus is, trying to put doubt into the mind of our Lord, and doing so by trying to get Him to prove who He is by doing a miracle, of course, the first part of this temptation only works when we as believers are tempted by satan, there was never a doubt in Jesus mind who He was, nor could there have bee... Jesus knew this and satan knew this as well.

The second was, questioning who the Father is. God has just literally said at the end of chapter 3, with a voice coming from out of the heavens, “this is My beloved Son”.

Now here we have the devil casting doubt that God is who He says He is, which is the Father of Jesus.

This seems to be a common thing that the enemy does even today, he loves to try and sew doubt about who WE ARE in Christ and sew doubt in our trust in WHO GOD is....If He is who He says He is, if His word is accurate and true, and if we can trust Him at His word.

In verse 4, Jesus responds, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ”. Jesus here is rebuking the devil by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.

But now, notice the difference in the way that Satan speaks with our Lord.... Previously, in verse 3, satan just point blank tells the Lord to prove that He is in fact the son of God, show me a sign, show me a miracle, and do it now, seems to be the way in which the devil was taunting the Lord Jesus. But now look at verses 5 and 6, look at the approach, the subtle but crafty way he seeks to manipulate the Lord....... ”Then the devil *took Him into the holy city and had Him stand 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,

So that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’ ”

First, we must notice where this temptation is taking place....satan takes our Lord to the holy city, that is, Jerusalem, and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple.

Now, we don’t know exactly where the pinnacle of the temple was, but the most often place is said to have been in the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount. This corner is where Solomon’s porch and the Royal Portico would have met and it overlooked the Kidron (Kid drone) Valley. The height was anywhere between 450 and 700 feet from the ground.

Wherever the specific place was, the important fact is that Jesus was taken to where He would later proclaim during His ministry, as recorded in Matthew 21:13

“It is written, ‘aMy house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.” This is where satan took the Lord in order to rob Him of His trust in His Father, this is where he took Him in order to rob Him of His ministry, he took Him to His Father’s House, and it was here, at His Father’s house, where He tried to use Scripture, actual Scripture to bring Christ down.

The context in which satan speaks is incorrect. He is using Scripture, but he is using it outside of the context of the rest of Scripture.

This is stunning to me! I mean we know that the devil bends the Word of God, or gives half truths, such was the case in the Garden in Genesis chapter 3. You can turn there with me if you would like....

But first, for context, ,lets take a look back in Genesis 2, where God is actually speaking. Many of us are aware of these verses, as recorded in Genesis Chapter 2 verses 15 through 17

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;

but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Now lets read what Satan says to Eve as he is “supposedly” quoting God’s word.

To do so, just skip accross the page to Genesis 3:1-5

 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

2. The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;

but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!

“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

We can see here that the devil is clearly manipulating and currupting God’s words. But this was not the case in Matthew.

In Matthew, he starts off by saying “it is written”. Notice when he first spoke with the Lord Jesus in Matthew Chapter 4 verse 4, he did not say this, because He wasn’t quoting Scripture, but after Jesus rebukes him using the term “it is written”, followed by a quotation from the Word of God, the devil tries to reply in the same manner...

So he says in verse 6:

“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.’ ”

Now these come directly from Scripture...

In the book of Psalms, Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12, the Psalmist writes: “For He will give (in the Hebrew this term “give”, means to give an order or to command), For He will GIVE...... angels charge concerning you,

To guard you in all your ways.

They will bear you up in their hands,

That you do not strike your foot against a stone.

There it is. Now some will say that because he did not quote the part in the middle of the Psalm, “to guard you in all your ways”, that this makes the quote innaccurate but that is just simply not true.

In fact, the quotes that Jesus says to Satan in today’s message are all 3 either re-worded or fragments of the Old Testament Scripture being cited. Also, In the book of Hebrews, the Old Testament is quoted over 50 times with only around half of them being direct quotes, such is true with the devil‘s quote here.

The purpose here was not for the devil to manipulate the Word of God, he knew that though he (the devil) himself knew the word of God, he also knew that Jesus knew it better, so he HAD to use the actual Text.....

His deception was in the context.

When Satan quotes these verses he is leaving out the context, which is that the Father DOES always make true on His Word, but it is done His way and in His timing. That is to say, we are not to purposely try to do something to see if God will keep His promise. He will provide...... but that doesn’t mean we should go buy a 1.5 million dollar house and expect God to provide the money for it (give example of an expensive house), He will protect (give an example of jumping off of a high rise building).

God does say that He is our provider, and that He will always watch over us and that He is the protector of the weak, but in no way does that mean we can act outside of His will and expect Him to do these things according to our will or our way.

Context is of the upmost importance when reading and discerning Scripture. One should never say “this is what the Scripture means to me”, or “that might be true for you, but not for me.” Scripture was intended for a specific purpose and it is meant to be interpreted in the way that it was written, not how you “want to understand it.” We cannot make Scripture fit into our lives and allow us to live how we want because of the way we want to read and interpret Scripture (which is almost always for our benefit, power and glory)

This is exactly how cults get started..... They don’t stand there and say that they are God, or completely blaspheme the Holy Scriptures, at least not typically, rather they use a single verse or a few verses of Scripture, and they take them out of context, and they create and use the idea, in which they created by how THEY WANTED to interpret the Scriptures, to lead the simple minded astray. This is the hardest type of deception to discern. It is much easier to recognize a wolf, dressed as a wolf, but when you put a beautiful white fluffy coat around it, it becomes harder to discern between a wolf and a sheep.

I agree with what Dr. S. Lewis Johnson had to say in regards to this:

“as you ponder the ways in which men have attacked the faith, that when they are guided by satan they do not as a general rule, attack point blank the revelation that is found in the word of God. They usually come with some kind of question that suggests doubt concerning the Scriptures.” Then he goes on to say, “IF the subject is the deity of the Lord Jesus, the man who disbelieves in the deity but is a “Christian minister” supposedly, does not stand in the pulpit and say, “Now we must abandon the idea that the Lord Jesus is truly God and truly man, (which is what the church has believed down through the centuries), we must believe that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, they say. We must avoid the expressions that the Bible does not use, because Jesus never says the words, “I AM GOD”. But it does say that He was the Son of God. He does say that He is the Messiah, so we must use those terms and avoid any predication of the Lord Jesus of deity.” Close quote

Now back to the text in verse 7, Jesus declares:

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

See, Jesus’s Scriptural rebuttal on the other hand was in proper context. He was using the perfect Scripture at the perfect time. It was the Biblical answer, the perfect answer.

This is exactly the reason Jesus counters satan with the Scripture that He did, not only was satan putting Jesus to the test, but in doing so, Jesus would have been putting His Father to the test, this would have been as I mentioned just a second ago, NOT in God’s timing, nor for the glory of God, but rather to prove something to the devil.

Continuing on in Matthew chapter 4 verses 8 and 9

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 things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”

This is interesting to me because isn’t this exactly what Jesus offers to His elect. Through Jesus we as believers are offered a kingdom, The Heavenly kingdom, and we obtain it by the only means available, and that is through the Lord jesus Christ, but here, satan is saying through himself that he will give all of the kingdoms of the world to Jesus. The devil, as we know from 2 Corinthians 11, disguises himself as an angel of light......He always tries to conterfeit the Lord Jesus Christ and attempts to counterfeit God’s promises.

But we know the counterfeit is just that, a counterfeit. And here satan is offering a counterfeit kingdom. On the outside it looked as though Jesus assume His rightful position as the King of the world, and obtain it without having to go down the hard road......the road to the cross. But what He really would have receieved is a terrible Kingdom, a sinful Kingdom.

This makes me wonder.........How often are we offered something similar to what God has promised us right before God is planning to give it to us? It often looks and sounds just like the promise of God but we know in our hearts that it is not actually from the Father. It is usually the easier road and it is always colorful and beautiful on the outside but bitter in our insides. )Talk about relationships..............jobs

Continuing in verse 9:

satan offers this counterfeit kingdom at a price, he goes on to say “all these things I will give to you, if you fall down and worship me.”

I mean, wouldn’t this be much easier than dying on a cross? Just simply give your obedience to me, do it your way and not God’s way, this way is much easier and the payoff is instant. There is no need to take the long and hard path..... and wait, have it your way and have it to the full. (this is what he also says to us about relationships........jobs)

By this point Jesus is done hearing anything else the devil has to say to Him so “Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ”

Here, once again Jesus rebukes satan using the Word of God, this time He does it with an order......For satan to “GO”!, and having no authority over the God of the universe to reply to a direct command, satan is immediately gone.

After His time of temptation, In verse we read that angels came and ministered to Him. The word ministered in the Greek means to serve, or take care of, or attend to. Some scholars believe they fed Him because by this time He was famished. Whatever is here meant by the angels ministering to Him, the bottom line is that is was the response to the victory He had just achieved by being tempted in all ways, but without sin.

I want to leave you with 5 points to consider:

Number 1. Do not believe everyone who can quote Scripture.

Number 2. Read and understand (to the best of your ability) the entire Bible, to be able to properly discern whether what you are hearing fits with the rest of Scripture. Number 3. Ask yourself, does it contradict something else that you have read in Scripture or that you have heard from a reliable source.

Number 4. Seek guidance from trusted men and women of the faith about what you are reading and or being told.

Number 5. Ensure that you are in continual prayer as you seek truth, for He draws near to those who draw near to Him.

I’m going to end with a quote from Dr. S. Lewis Johnson:

“I have seen Christians 25 years old in the Lord who have never learned this simple principle, Scripture is to be interpreted by Scripture. And I have often seen, I’m sure that you have had the same experience, I’ve often seen sincere Christians, who have not learned this lesson led astray, by the quotation of holy Scripture by heretical men.”

“It is of the greatest significance to study the Word of God. If you are not willing to study the Word of God, if you are not willing to make this Scripture, which is before us today, your meat and your drink, you will be at the mercy of the satanic emissaries of heresy.”

Let us pray...........