temptations of Jesus

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Satan offers Jesus a shortcut to gaining the blessings God has promised him. But idolatry is looking to someone or something other than God to grant us Life.

For each of the temptations, we’ll answer 3 questions:

1. Why is the choice wrong?
2. Why is the choice attractive?
3. How does Jesus respond?

Review

At Jesus’ baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to claim the throne of David amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation.

Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation.

• On the one hand, Jesus has been powerfully confirmed as the Son of God, the Messiah.  On the other hand, God has put him in a place where he is facing great hardship and deprivation. This tension lies behind all these temptations.
• Satan wants to destroy Jesus personally and more importantly he wants to disqualify Jesus to be the Messiah. 
• God is testing Jesus and demonstrating that Jesus is, in fact, worthy to be the Messiah.
• God tests Jesus in a way that echoes the story of Israel’s journey in the wilderness to teach us that Jesus is succeeding where Israel failed. 
• Jesus shows he understands this parallel between his situation and Israel’s by quoting from Moses’ sermon to the nation before they enter the promised land. 

Why is the choice tempting?

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  ⁹And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”  ¹⁰Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”  ¹¹Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.  – Matthew 4:8-11

• Satan is not asking for Jesus’ complete loyalty, but for an act of respect.
• This word translated “bow down” refers to the physical act of prostrating yourself as a gesture of respect, the kind of homage a subject would give a king (e.g. Revelation 3:9; Mark 15:19).
• Satan is asking Jesus to perform the physical act of bowing down before him in exchange for the kingdoms of the world.
• Ruling over the kingdoms of the world is Jesus’ destiny as the Messiah (e.g. Daniel 7:13-14). Jesus must have longed for it insofar as he longs for God’s will.
• God has promised to give Jesus authority over all the earth, but to realize that promise Jesus must suffer and die. 
• Satan is offering to “fulfill” God’s promise to Jesus WITHOUT the suffering.
• Luke 4:6-7 implies that Satan has authority to grant these kingdoms.

Deuteronomy Review

1“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it,  2that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.  3Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.” – Deuteronomy 6:1-3

• The focus in this section is on the future.  Israel is about to cross into the land God promised their fathers.
• Moses reminds the present generation that in the promised land they will face the same temptation their fathers faced in the wilderness:  Will they be faithful to the Lord or not?

4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” – Deuteronomy 6:4-6

• What does it mean that that Lord is one? Compare with Mark 12:28-34.
• The scribe in Mark 12 restates the significance as there is no other besides him.  The Lord alone is God.  The Lord is the one and only God.  Therefore, we must love Him with all our heart, soul and strength.  We can reserve nothing for some other god.
• As they go into the land, the people are to remain faithful to the LORD and the LORD alone.

⁶And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  ⁷You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  ⁸You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  ⁹You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.  ¹⁰And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build,  ¹¹and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, ¹²then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  – Deuteronomy 6:6-12

• Since it’s important they remain faithful to the LORD alone, it’s important that take steps to ensure that they remember His commandments.
• One way of forgetting is to think we accomplished this all on our own. Moses warns them against that. Another way to forget is to start looking to other gods instead of or in addition to the Lord.
• If they forget that the Lord is one, they forget that there is no other god beside Him and start serving the idols of the land that they are entering.
• The first thing Moses tells them in this sermon is you shall have no other Gods (Deuteronomy 5:7-10). Moses repeats the warning in the middle (Deuteronomy 8:17-20; Deuteronomy 11:16-17) and ends with the same warning (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).
• Jesus could have quoted any of these sections because they all make the same point.  But he chose to quote Deuteronomy 6:13. 

¹³“It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.  ¹⁴You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—  ¹⁵for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. – Deuteronomy 6:13-15

• The main point of this sermon is: you shall worship YHWH alone.  You shall not worship other gods.  Your destiny depends on it.
• The word worship means to bow down before or prostrate yourself.
• By bowing down, you communicate your understanding of your relationship to the King. He is your superior and you are dependent on him. You need him to take care of you so that you can live your life in peace.
• Worship is not singing we do on the outside.  Worship is a state of our hearts. 
• Worship is a deep fundamental inner attitude that I recognize who I am in relationship to God.  I acknowledge that He alone is God and that I am utterly dependent on His grace and mercy.  I bow my knee to Him and acknowledge that He is my provider, my creator and my Lord.

Jesus Response

¹⁰Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”  – Matthew 4:10

• Kingdoms are places that are ruled by kings who have dominion and authority over the people.
• Satan is showing Jesus the glory and honor that comes to the one who rules a kingdom.
• As the Messiah, Jesus can expect that ruling over all the kingdoms of earth is his destiny.  Satan is offering to give it to him without going to the cross. 
• God has made it clear that Jesus will have to walk a very hard road before he is given the crown. Satan is offering the “easy way” out.
• For Jesus to bow down would be seeking God’s blessings without walking in the path God called him to walk. 
• In essence, Jesus answers there is only one source of Life and there is only one to whom I will bow my knee.  God is one and there is no one else beside Him.
• Idolatry is looking to anyone or anything other than God to meet your needs.
• Idolatry is not just wrong, it’s foolish.  God and God alone has the power to truly bless you. 
• Satan can only offer a cheap imitation of the promise of God. Satan’s kingdom is corrupted by evil, broken by rebellion and death, populated by sinful, rebellious men.
• The kingdom God will grant the Messiah will be pure, undefiled and filled with people who know and reflect the glory of God.

Summary

• The 3 temptations of Jesus confront us with the relationship between the past, the present, and the future.
• We find good reasons to trust in God in the past.
• We see the hope and the glorious promises He has made awaiting fulfillment in the future.
• But now in the present, we experience suffering, tribulation, tragedy and pain. 
• In the face of this lack and want, we have to decide who we are going to trust.

Please listen to the podcast for more detail and explanation.

Next: 13 Matthew 4:12-25 Jesus’ Early Ministry

Previous: 11 Matthew 4:5-7 The Second Temptation: Jump from the pinnacle

Series: Gospel of Matthew: Behold, the King!

Resources: Matthew Resources

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

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While the temptation to jump to from the top of a high mountain may not appear very enticing at first glance, it’s a temptation we all face today. When life gets hard or overwhelming, like Jesus, we’re very tempted to believe God has ceased to take care of us and we need to take a “leap of faith” to get back in His good graces.

For each of the temptations, we’ll answer 3 questions:

1. Why is the choice wrong?
2. Why is the choice attractive?
3. How does Jesus respond?

Review

At Jesus’ baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to establish his rightful reign. We might expect him to claim the throne of David amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation.

Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation.

• On the one hand, Jesus has been powerfully confirmed as the Son of God, the Messiah.  On the other hand, God has put him in a place where he is facing great hardship and deprivation. This tension lies behind all these temptations.
• Satan wants to destroy Jesus personally and more importantly he wants to disqualify Jesus to be the Messiah. 
• God is testing Jesus and demonstrating that Jesus is, in fact, worthy to be the Messiah.
• God tests Jesus in a way that echoes the story of Israel’s journey in the wilderness to teach us that Jesus is succeeding where Israel failed. 
• Jesus shows he understands this parallel between his situation and Israel’s by quoting from Moses’ sermon to the nation before they enter the promised land. 

Passage

⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple  ⁶and 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.’”  ⁷Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”  – Matthew 4:5-7

Why is the choice attractive?

• The “holy city” is Jerusalem. We’re not told how Satan took Jesus there. The method could have been miraculous or mundane.
• The pinnacle of the temple was on the corner where the outside wall of the temple mount met the outside wall of the city.
• According to archaeologists to have jumped from this spot would be about 1000 foot fall outside the city wall.
• Satan is not creating a public spectacle as a demonstration of God’s power that would advance Jesus’ cause or thwart it if God doesn’t come through. 
• Satan is not challenging the fact that Jesus is the Messiah.
• Satan is asking Jesus to jump as a demonstration of his faith.
• Satan quotes Psalm 91.

⁹Because you have made the LORD your dwelling place– the Most High, who is my refuge– ¹⁰no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. ¹¹For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. ¹²On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. – Psalm 91:9-12

• Psalm 91 describes how God will protect the one who trusts Him (note Psalm 91:1-2).
• The psalmists gives various metaphorical pictures of how God protects those who trust Him. 
• Psalm 91:12 is not a promise that you will never even so much as stub your toe.  It is a metaphorical picture of God’s protection.
• Insofar as Jesus was human, Jesus wanted to be loved and accepted by God.
• Satan suggests God is angry with Jesus (as evidenced by his present hardship) and offers a solution.

Why is the choice wrong?

• Satan is asking Jesus to create a spectacular act of faith which is beyond the call of duty.
• It’s not possible for a child of God to go beyond the call of duty. If it is the right thing to do, then it is your duty to do it (Luke 17:5-10).
• Mature faith is simple, mundane, straightforward, ordinary, everyday obedience — nothing spectacular or magnificent. 
• To jump off the pinnacle of the temple would have been presumptuous and insubordination. It would have been taking initiative where initiative is not appropriate.   
• Jesus would be threatening bodily harm to himself unless his demands for a miracle were met. 
• Throwing ourselves into stupid, dangerous or crazy situations is folly, not an act of faith.  Instead, we go when and where God tells us.

Exodus Review

• When the nation of Israel is suffering in slavery in Egypt, God sends Moses to them with a message of deliverance (Exodus 4:1-31).
• God promises that He will deliver them from their slavery with a striking display of power. He will be their God and they will be His people (Exodus 6:1-130.
• God delivers them through a series of ten miraculous plagues, including the Passover (Exodus 7-13).
• Pharaoh agrees to let them leave, but later pursues them with his army.
• The people panic when Pharaoh’s army approaches (Exodus 14:10-13). But God miraculously saves them by parting the sea (Exodus 14). The people believe God (Exodus 14:31), but their trust does not last.
• When they face hunger, the nation again loses confidence in God (Exodus 16:1-3). But God miraculously provides food for them (Exodus 16).
• All these events happened before the events at Massah (Exodus 17).

¹All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ²Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” ³But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” ⁴So Moses cried to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” ⁵And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. ⁶Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. ⁷And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” – Exodus 17:1-7

• The word massah means testing and the word meribah means quarrel.
• Up to this point, God has proved that He is both able and willing to take care of His people. 
• The people are thirsty. They quarrel with Moses.  Moses is afraid they are going to kill him. 
• At God’s direction, Moses strikes the rock with his staff and water gushes out.  Once again, God shows Himself both able and willing to take care of His people.
• Israel is testing Godm by demanding that He demonstrate His protection immediately by giving them water.
• Compare with Numbers 14:1-23; Exodus 14:10-12; Exodus 15:22-24; Exodus 16:2-3. Notice the consistency in the way Israel responds to each difficulty.
• At Massah, the nation of Israel refused to believe that God was still with them, in spite of copious evidence to the contrary.  They tested Him, by demanding further proof of His protection.

Jesus’ Response

“You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” – Deuteronomy 6:16

• In his sermon, Moses urges the people to remember that God is trustworthy and refrain from demanding proof that He will protect them, no matter what obstacles they face.
• Satan is urging Jesus to test God in just the way Moses warned against.
• God led Jesus to the wilderness. Jesus is waiting for God to come to his aide.  By jumping, Jesus would be demanding spectacular proof that God still cares. 
• By jumping, Jesus would be coercing God into action.  He would be faithlessly demanding that God prove himself, testing God test, just as Israel did at Massah.
• Satan left out a very important point: Jesus has already committed an act of faith by following God into the wilderness and remaining there without food.
• The key difference is Jesus did not create a situation and then expect God to solve it.  He did want he was asked to do. 

Please listen to the podcast for more detail and explanation.

Next: 12 Matthew 4:8-11 3rd Temptation: Bow down

Previous: 10 Matthew 4:1-4 1st Temptation: Stones to bread

Series: Gospel of Matthew: Behold, the King!

Resources: Matthew Resources

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

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In the temptations, Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as the Messiah while God wants to demonstrate that Jesus is worthy to be the Messiah. We’ll look how how Jesus responds when he’s tempted to believe God is no longer taking care of him.

For each of the temptations we’ll answer 3 questions:

1. Why is the choice wrong?
2. Why is the choice attractive?
3. How does Jesus respond?

Review

At Jesus’ baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah.  After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to establish his rightful reign.  We might expect him to claim the throne of David as is his right amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation.  Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation.

Setting

• Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. He is there because God told him to go there (Matt 4:1). 
• God sends Jesus into the wilderness is so that he might be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1).
• The basic meaning of the Greek word for “test” (periazo) is to test something to find out what it’s made of. If you are testing a person with the hope that he fails the test, this word is typically translated “tempted.” If you are testing a person with the hope that he succeeds, this word is often translated “try” or “test.”  God and Satan have two very different purposes for this testing.
• Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as God’s Messiah while God wants demonstrate that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah. 
• God is deliberating creating a parallel between the nation of Israel in the wilderness and Jesus in the wilderness. 
• Jesus appears to understand the parallel by quoting from the sermon Moses gave to Israel reviewing the lessons they were supposed to learn from their journey in the wilderness.
• Jesus succeeds in obeying God where Israel failed. 

Passage

¹Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  ²And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  ³And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”  ₄But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”  – Matthew 4:1-4

• Satan is not asking Jesus to prove that he is the Messiah.
• It is not inherently wrong to turn the stones into bread. Elsewhere Jesus miraculously produces food.
• Satan is trying to convince Jesus that God cannot be trusted and he should take matters into his own hands.
• Satan’s logic: “If God is really good, He would feed you. He’s not feeding you, so God must not be good. If God isn’t good, I can’t trust Him to care for me. And if I can’t trust God to care for me, then I’d better look out for myself.”
• The problem is the premise: God is good and He may not feed you.
• The choice is tempting because Jesus may conclude from his present circumstances that God is no longer taking care of him.
• The choice is wrong because it would be to stop trusting God and take matters into your own hands.

Exodus Review

• When the nation of Israel is suffering in slavery in Egypt, God sends Moses to them with a message of deliverance (Exodus 4:1-31).
• God promises that He will deliver them from their slavery with a striking display of power. He will be their God and they will be His people (Exodus 6:1-130.
• Even though Israel is skeptical, God delivers them through a series of ten miraculous plagues, including the Passover (Exodus 7-13).
• Pharaoh agrees to let them go, but pursues them with his army after they leave.
• The people panic when they see Pharaoh’s army approaching (Exodus 14:10-13). But God miraculously saves them by parting the sea (Exodus 14).
• The people believe God (Exodus 14:31), but their trust does not last.
• When they face hunger, the nation again loses confidence in God (Exodus 16:1-3). But God miraculously provides food for them (Exodus 16).

Jesus’ Response

• The book of Deuteronomy covers the time when the 40 years have ended. Once again, the nation stands at the border of the promised land, ready to enter it. Moses preaches a final sermon to them. 
• In this sermon, Moses reminds the people of the lessons they were supposed to learn in the wilderness
• Jesus quotes from this sermon 3 times.
• The main theme of the sermon is: continue to trust God (Deuteronomy 8:1).   If they continue to trust the Lord, He will bless them in the land with peace and prosperity.

¹“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers.  ²And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.  ³And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. – Deuteronomy 8:1-3

• God put the children of Israel in difficult circumstances to test them, so that who and what they were trusting in would be obvious. 
• Moses reminds them that God put in a place with no food on purpose. What was revealed in that circumstance?  They believed the only way to survive and prosper is to ensure you have enough food. 
• How did God respond? He literally dropped food out of the sky for them.
• God gave them a physical object lesson.  They were not wrong to follow God just because they were in a place with no food. 
• If God says, ‘follow me into the wilderness,’ then that is where you should go even if there is no bread because God is the source of life.
• We do not prosper merely by ensuring we have food to eat.  We prosper by relaying on the promises of God.
• For Jesus to turn the stones into bread is to refuse the path that God has taken him down.  This choice would be no different than Israel saying, ‘there’s no bread here, let’s go back to Egypt.’

Summary

• God is highlighting Jesus’ role as the true Israel. Jesus succeeds where the nation of Israel failed.
• God wants to establish that Jesus is worthy to be the Messiah.
• Jesus is modeling for us what faithfulness in trials looks like.
• The most fundamental issue in this temptation is: where do we find Life?
• God is good and He may not feed us. We may be asked to live with lack to test whether or not we will continue to trust God.
• God is very willing to sacrifice our present comfort in order to increase our faith.  Because faith is where we will ultimately find Life.

Please listen to the podcast for more detail and explanation.

Next: 11 Matthew 4:5-7 2nd Temptation: Jump from the pinnacle

Previous: 09 Matthew 3:13-17 The baptism of Jesus

Series: Gospel of Matthew: Behold, the King!

Resources: Matthew Resources

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash