Resist the Devil
Matthew 4:1-11
Be careful what you read and how you read it. Words are important and they can often be misunderstood. Nothing demonstrates this better than some humorous headlines from 2005. These are serious headlines that somehow made it past the editor’s table. Read them literally to see what I mean.
1. Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
2. Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
3. Miners Refuse to Work after Death
4. Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
5. War Dims Hope for Peace
6. If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile
7. Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
8. Enfield Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
9. Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
10. Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge
11. New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
12. Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
13. Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
14. Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
15. Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
16. Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
It is absolutely essential that we know the Word of God and apply the Word of God accurately. Too many people have misused the Word to excuse their behavior and fallen victim to the attacks of Satan. Young people, it is essential that you know God’s Word, that you hide it in your heart. Many of you are preparing to head off into college, where the vast majority of educators make a mockery of Christianity. They scoff at our beliefs and at our principles and values. They will challenge what you believe at every juncture, so you must know what you believe and why you believe it.
The best example of preparedness is Jesus Christ. Jesus was the Son of God, and yet as a man He studied the Word. When faced with times of discouragement, despair and the deceit of the enemy, Jesus always turned to the written Word of God.
In Matthew 4 we have one of the greatest exchanges ever recorded. It was a classic battle between the devil and the Messiah. Jesus had just come from one of the high points in his lifetime. He had been baptized, and at His baptism His Heavenly Father had declared His Love for Jesus and Jesus had been anointed by the Spirit of God. Often wonderful spiritual experiences are followed by times of tremendous temptation. Have you ever noticed that Sunday mornings and afternoons can be times of great temptation and attack. The devil lies to us and tries to deceive us into staying away from church, or if we do go to church to distract us, and when we leave church arguments can occur in the family, or there can be all kinds of emotional and spiritual attacks.
He is addressed by several names in this passage: devil, Satan, and tempter. He is the deceiver, the slanderer and the father of lies. He will accuse you and condemn you and cause all manners of doubts and anxieties in your life. And he most often comes to us when we are vulnerable.
Notice that it is the Spirit of God that leads Jesus into the wilderness. God does not tempt us. We are tempted by the enemy of our souls who roams the earth seeking to devour us and keep us away from Christ. And we are tempted by our own lusts and fleshly nature that wars within us. John had written a warning that we are not to love the world.
‘For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.” (I John 2:16)
God does not tempt us, but He will from time to time lead us into a situation, a trial or difficulty where we are tested, so that our faith may be strengthened and proved genuine.
It is in those week moments that Satan whispers His lies. He tries to get us to doubt, or to take matters into our own hands, or to walk away from the Lord. In this passage we see how Jesus resisted the devil and the devil fled from Him.
It begins with knowing God’s Word and fortifying our lives with His Word.
The Great Wall of China is so massive it can be seen from outer space. It was meant to keep the enemy out. But it failed? How? The enemy could bribe a gatekeeper to let them in. The Gatekeeper of our hearts must be faithful to the Word of God or the wall of restraint will do no good.
Let’s look at this encounter between Jesus and His accurate handling of the Word of God, and Satan and His lying and deceptive use of God’s Word.
Read Matthew 4:1-11
1. We are tempted to doubt God’s provision and to feed the appetites of the flesh!
Look with me at the first temptation.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Notice that Matthew explains that this temptation occurred after the 40 days of fasting. This does not mean that Satan did not battle with Jesus the first 39 days of this fast, but now at the conclusion of the fast, the battle raged more intensely.
Jesus, like Moses and Elijah before Him who had also fasted for 40 days, had spent an extended time of prayer and meditation. He was preparing Himself for the next three years of ministry. Throughout this period of time He had been so intensely seeking God that He did not miss food, but as the 40 days were ending his hunger grew intense.
I’ve read that when a person fasts for a long period of time, after the first few days of intense hunger, your body adapts to the lack of food. You really don’t feel the hunger, and the thought of food almost makes you nauseous. But, I’ve also read that at about 40 days the body begins to so intensely crave food that you almost feel like you are dying.
And so Satan waits until Jesus is at His most weak point physically and most vulnerable point spiritually.
Notice that He begins as He always does with the intention of creating doubt. “If” is the first word He speaks to Jesus. But the tense of these Greek verbs indicate that Satan was not calling into question Jesus’ deity. He assumes Jesus’ deity. The emphasis is more on proving His deity. The sentence should be read like this: ‘If you are the Son of God, and most certainly you are, then why are you suffering so much with hunger? Just command that these rocks become bread and your hunger will cease?”
What Satan is saying is this:
- Jesus, take care of Your self. Meet your own needs. Why all this needless fasting and prayer? You have power, use it! God helps those who help themselves. Give God a hand. Stop wasting your time on this hunger strike of yours.
Notice what is true in these statements?
- Jesus is the Son of God.
- Jesus can make stones into bread. The One who sent Manna down upon the wandering Israelites in the wilderness, can certainly provide food in anyway He desires. He would multiply the loaves for the 5,000 during His ministry. He would feed others, why not Himself?
- Satan loves to twist truth to his ends. He told Eve to question what God had said about the tree in the Garden, and then to cast doubt on the outcome that God had warned them about. His tactics are still the same.
Notice, how Jesus responds:
- It is written. Not I say, or my Father says, but the Word of God says. If the Son of God would appeal to God’s Word should we do any less?
- “Man” Jesus responds as a man, in His humanity. He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin.
- Bread, physical food serves a function but there is another food that is far more important. Bread for the soul comes first. Feed your soul, feed your spirit and the rest will be taken care of.
- God is the one who provides what I need. I don’t need to worry about food and clothing. God knows I need these things. I will seek His provision and trust in Him.
These are words spoken to us by the Bread of Life. He is the one who sustains and nourishes our souls. We are to feed on Him, the living Word of God.
It is a mistake to live our lives driven by our fleshly appetites. Too often we can miss out on the blessings of God because we focus completely on meeting our own needs. This can lead us to make all kinds of foolish claims about what we do and why we do it.
You probably heard about the guy who was trying to lose weight, but came to the office with two dozen donuts. When his co-workers asked him why he bought donuts if he is trying to lose weight, he replied: “Well, as I came to the corner where the donut shop was, I prayed and asked God that if He wanted me to buy some donuts He should give me a parking spot right outside the front door. And lo and behold, on my 8th time around the block, there it was.”
God calls us to obedience, obedience to His Word. Jesus could have made bread for Himself. After all He had fasted for 40 days. Didn’t he deserve a little happiness? Didn’t He deserve to spoil Himself a little? But God had not called Jesus to serve Himself. He had called Him to seek and to save lost sheep.
Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus came for us. He became a servant for us. In Mark Jesus declared that the Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus would have been usurping the Father’s will for His life. He was not to serve Himself and take care of number 1 first. He was to come and serve us. To use His power for Himself would have destroyed our ability to relate to Him. After all, when we are hungry we just can’t make rocks into bread.
Satan will try to ensnare you into living for yourself. Put your needs first. Take care of yourself. You don’t need God. He won’t take care of you. Worry. Fret. Work hard for number 1.
Now I am not saying to be passive and do nothing. The bible says if a man won’t work he shouldn’t eat. God expects us to work hard. God expects us to provide for our families. But when we chase after the appetites of this world to the neglect of the Word of God and the things of the Spirit then we have placed our lives out of balance and into the hands of the enemy.
An eagle in early spring was soaring high above a river valley when he spotted a small rodent trapped in a piece of ice, floating down the stream. Sensing an easy fix, he swooped down on the mouse and began to eat it. While he was feasting on the mouse, the block of ice began to approach a waterfall. The eagle saw the danger, but believed he had plenty of time. It wouldn’t hurt to indulge himself, just this once. But as he finished the meal and prepared to take flight, what he didn’t notice was that the warmth of his paw had caused his foot to get stuck in the block of ice. He tried to dislodge it, but the weight was too great and he crashed over the waterfall to his death.
Satan will entice you with things of this world that look good. They are things you think you should have. Everyone else around you seems to be enjoying them. Why not you? And he will get you to nibble a little, and then bite, and then you are hooked.
He will get you to doubt that God will provide what you need. He will get you to believe that you should take matters into your own hands.
Why wait until your married to have sex? Have it now? Why wait for that mansion in heaven? You can have it now? Don’t give your money to the poor and to missions, keep it for a rainy day. And on and on His lies continue.
Are we prepared like Jesus to resist the devil with the truth of the Word of God? Don’t doubt God’s provision. Don’t satisfy the lusts of the flesh. Seek Him first. Trust in God to provide what you need and when you need it.
2. We are tempted to doubt God’s plan and forge our own future
Look at the 2nd temptation found in verses 5-7
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
The wording of these verses indicates the devil took Jesus whether physically, or in some mental vision forcibly to the highest pinnacle of the Temple. Daniel 9:27 speaks of this point in the temple as the place where the Abomination will be set up. It has been speculated that this is the spot where heathen sacrifices had been made to the sun god.
Some histories of the early Christian Church also describe this as the exact spot where James, the brother of Jesus was martyred by being thrown off the roof the Temple.
What is Satan tempting Jesus with here?
- His tone has changed from the generality of doing a miracle for selfish reasons by turning rocks into bread, into more of a mocking tone.
- “If you really are the Son of God, then you can get people to acknowledge you right away. You don’t have to go any further. Just do a miracle here and now. Jump off this temple and God will send angels to protect you. All the people gathered in the courtyard will see this miracle and will believe in you as the Messiah.”
- Satan uses God’s Word incorrectly. He leaves out a very important phrase in Psalm 91:11
“For He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”
Why did he leave this phrase out?
- Because Satan did not want Jesus to consider His ways. He wanted Jesus to act impulsively without any thought to the correct ways, the ways of the Lord.
- Jesus only did what the Father asked Him to do. The Father had sent Jesus to this earth to die for our sins on the cross. Satan was tempting Jesus to usurp the plan of the Father and choose a different way or path and avoid the cross.
How does this relate to us? In what similar ways are we tempted by Satan?
- Sometimes we are tempted to do things for God that God never asks us to do. We act on presumption or out of impulse or self-will. Many people make claims that God asked them to do something when really they did it for their own motives and reasons.
- Sometimes we are tempted to take matters into our own hands and not wait for the will of the Lord. Abraham and Sarah rushed God on the promise of a child and the conflict between Israel and Ishmael continues to this day.
- Angels do not protect those who chose to follow their own foolish path or who in self-righteousness or pride act foolishly.
- We can’t choose our own way and when we get into trouble think God will magically bail us out. There are consequences.
- For example: Marriage is to be honored. Don’t think as individuals or as a nation we can dishonor marriage with same sex unions, or affairs, or pre-marital sex and think that we will somehow be spared the consequences whether on the personal level or on the national level.
- People often misquote scripture to fit what they want to do. But the warning to us is to realize that we are to accurately handle the word of God and that the rule of interpretation is ‘scripture interprets scripture’.
- We can tempt God with our actions and attitudes.
Jesus responded: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” What was He saying?
- Don’t think God will make everything OK in the end and just keep on living your own plan.
- Don’t tempt God by putting yourself in danger or by going somewhere He hasn’t called you, or doing something He hasn’t asked you to do.
- To trust God is faith. To test God is presumption.
- Don’t have the attitude: “I’ll do this now, and somehow God will fix it later.”
Satan tried to get Jesus to go outside of God’s will. He was tempting Him to rush God’s timing and to circumvent God’s method.
I had a very similar experience in some ways to this as a new believer. When I accepted Jesus as a student at West Chester University I was full of joy. I would talk to God for hours. One night I was returning home from a weekend with my parents and driving on 202 South toward the West Chester campus for a new week of school. I was praying (don’t think Satan can’t get to you when you are serving the Lord) and as I was driving this thought came into my head, almost like another voice. The voice said: “You love the Lord so much. Isn’t heaven going to be a wonderful place? You could go to heaven right now. Why don’t you just drive off of this bridge? You’ll die right away, and Jesus will take you home to be with him.”
The temptation and the voice were so real my hands began to shake as I drove over the bridge where 202 crosses Route 30. Imagine if I had followed Satan and taken matters into my own hands that night. Imagine all that would have been forever lost.
Satan’s ways are not always so obvious. Sometimes they are deceptively subtle. He woos us into doing something we shouldn’t do, telling us all the time that it’s OK. God would even want it to be this way.
There was a car accident with two cars involved, one driven by a man and the other driven by a woman. Both drivers are unhurt and when they step out of their cars they began to talk. The woman said:
“WOW, just look at these cars. It’s amazing that neither of us was hurt. God must have been watching out for us. Maybe He brought us together for a reason. You are a man, and I’m a woman. This could be a sign from God! And look, here’s another miracle. My car is completely demolished, but this bottle of wine I had in my front seat is still in tact. Why don’t we celebrate this wonderful gift from God?
So she hands the bottle to the man, he nods in agreement and takes a big gulp of wine to calm his nerves. After having enough, he passes the bottle back to the woman. She wipes it off, and puts the cap back on, and hands it back to the man. The man asks:
“Aren’t you having any? To which she replies: “No, I just think I’ll wait for the police.”
Know God’s plan for you life? How? Know His Word inside and out. Be a student of what God says of life. And keep your guard up against the enemy who will try to cause you to doubt God’s plan and will nudge you to forge your own future instead of waiting upon the Lord and following His plan for your life. Seek Him first.
3. We are tempted to doubt God’s position of authority in our lives and follow the evil one!
The 3rd and final temptation occurs in verses 8 -11
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give to you,” he said, “If you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Once again Satan tries to lure Jesus into denying who He is and what He has been called to do. He lures him with the ‘easy solution’. No cross necessary. Just bow down and worship me.
Before we gloss over this, imagine the thoughts that were planted into Jesus’ mind by this temptation. Thoughts are not evil. Temptations are not sin.
Perhaps Satan showed Jesus the potential of life with Him ruling on this earth. Imagine the good Jesus could do. He could put a end to diseases, hunger and suffering. He could stop all wars. He could rule with an iron fist and get rid of all other evil rulers. All it would take would be one brief sin, one quick moment of weakness. If Jesus would just bow down and worship Satan, then the cross would be avoided completely, and He could rule in the earth now rather than thousands of years from now at the end of days.
This is the deception of the ‘end justifies the means’. Do evil for a brief moment so that good can come in the long run. Go ahead and lie on that resume’. Think of all the good you can do if you get that job. Cheat on that SAT. If you get into the right school you can serve the Lord for the rest of your life in a position of power and authority.
But there are several lies of Satan here. First of all, it wasn’t his world to give to Jesus. Only God had the true authority to give it or to take it away. Secondly, God can never worship Satan. The creator cannot worship the creature.
Notice how Jesus addressed this third and most blatant attack by Satan. He calls a spade a spade. It is OK to call evil, evil and to resist the evil one with truth. He will flee from truth.
- For the first time, Jesus addresses him by his name: Satan (deceiver, liar, adversary, evil one!) Get thee behind me! Get away from me! I will listen to no more of your lies!
- It is written: Only God will be worshipped! You are not God. You are evil. You are a creature of the night. You are bound for hell. God is your Lord. You will bow down before Him. Serve Him. (not mankind, not self, not good – serve GOD!)
The result is that Satan flees from this kind of honest confrontation, and Jesus is fed by the angels. God provides for His every need.
Beneath all the lies and deceptions of Satan is his desire to get you to question God and to shift your allegiance from God. But this is done almost unknowingly. Jesus told the Pharisees and Sadducees that they were of the father the devil. They didn’t even see how their religion had corrupted their hearts from pure and undivided devotion to the Lord.
During the height of the cold war, a former FBI agent wrote a book about Soviet spies working in Washington and how the KGB would solicit workers in the FBI and CIA to work for them. The KGB would never start by approaching an American and asking him or her to steal ‘top secret’ documents. Instead, they would start with something simple, something that was public information, like a telephone number. It was no big deal. The KGB could get this information from the phone book. Why not sell it to them for a little extra cash. Then like a fish on a hook, the KGB would ask for a little more information, and a little more, all the time increasing the ‘sensitivity’ of the information sought. By the time the American was steeped in betraying their government, they didn’t know how they had been sucked in by the enemy.
Temptation is like that. Satan will try to use whatever door He can to suck you into doing his bidding.
- He wants you to doubt God’s provision. Take matters into your own hands. Take care of yourself first. Serve Self. TRUST INSTEAD
- He wants you to doubt God’s plan. You can’t trust God to guide you and to take care of you. Look out for number 1. Why not help the Lord out in His work? You are doing it for a good reason after all?
SEEK AND FOLLOW INSTEAD.
- He wants you to doubt God’s position. Be your own boss. You don’t have to worship and serve God. You have the final say. WORSHIP AND SERVE GOD ALONE INSTEAD!
Real victory comes when we identify his schemes, and we prepare for the spiritual battle we all face in our lives. Are you prepared? Do you have God’s Word hidden in your heart? Do you know how to resist the evil one?
It’s time to get busy and get right with God!
