The Crisis of Temptation
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 24 February 2013
There's never been an era of man's history when temptation was not a problem. Man has always struggled with temptation. The only refuge from temptation is the grave. We know it from the Old Testament; we know it from the New Testament. The greatest of the saints realized the reality of temptation that faces every believer and the battle rages today.
But God has given us a wonderful plan for victory. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "There is no temptation that has taken you but such as is common to man,” We have all have experienced it, "But God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that you are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."
Temptation is going to happen. God allows it as a test; but Satan wants to turn it into an illicit temptation. Maybe it's a financial setback, or maybe it's a problem in your family, maybe it's a good financial deal that tempts you to do what is wrong. Maybe it's a persecution or a deprivation or an occasion to go along with sinful people, or a person who attracts your base nature, or maybe it's somebody who has something you wish you had.
Our life is just full of testing grounds and as we endure them as a test, and as we find the way of escape that God has provided we go through victoriously, but as Satan twists it to a temptation, and we succumb to the temptation we fall to sin, we then loose the victory.
If you want to know how to handle temptation, you have to learn from Christ, because He is the only one who ever lived on earth who was able to take temptation right to its limit and never internalize it, never let it kindle lust, never let it become sin.
Jesus knows how to handle every category of temptation. He is the only one who shows us victory, He is the only one who can give that victory to us. Let us learn how He did it and how it can be applied to how we must face temptation.
There are two reasons to present the temptation of Christ, and the first is to demonstrate that Jesus is the King of all other kings by showing that He can defeat the only other great ruler in the universe, Satan himself. Matthew shows that Satan is a creature, subject to Christ's power and authority. And secondly, it is in the Word of God as proof that victory over sin is possible, and to show how the believer should resist temptation.
Now, there are three things that we should look at here, the preparation, the temptation, and the triumph. We saw the preparation in Matthew 4:1-3. Immediately after His baptism, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil." Of course the test was from God, the temptation part was from the devil. "And when he had fasted forty days and f 6rty nights, he was afterward hungry. And when the tempter came to him.”
It was immediately after Jesus’ baptism that He was tempted. Remember and pay attention to this spiritual principle, immediately after a victory in our life, Satan sometimes hits us with the greatest attacks. And the principle is from 1 Corinthians 10:12, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” It is when we feel the most secure that we become the most vulnerable. When we realize we are weak and ask for God’s help we are strong.
So what was Satan’s purpose? He wanted to try to have Christ commit sin. And if he could get Christ to commit an act of sin, he would then thwart the entire plan of God, right? He would destroy it all, because the world needed a sinless Savior.
The place was the wilderness. Difficult circumstances, a barren, lonely area inhabited by wild beasts. The devil’s plan was to attack Christ at the point of His strength. Christ did have the ability to make stones into bread, and He did have a right to eat, after all He was the Son of God. But even though He had that right, He would be acting against the will of God the Father.
We will see that in each case, Satan tempted Christ with a right that He had and a power that He had. He always tempts us where we feel our strengths are where it is possible to fall and that's the subtlety of his attack.
Now let's see how Satan approached Him. Matthew 4:3, “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Notice the word “if”? The first word Satan said, if, the doubt. This is the way he tempted Eve, so also he tempted Christ, and so he will tempts us. The devil always begins by trying to create doubt about the reality of the divine standard of God
Maybe he tempts us with whispering doubt into our souls, doubts about who we are in Christ, doubts about the truth of God's revelation, doubts about God's power, doubts about God's love, doubts about our conversion becoming a child of God. He always plants doubts about our abilities and doubts about our strengths.
He knew Jesus was God's Son, and Jesus knew who He was but that didn't stop Satan from starting with the word if. Now look at the temptation itself, make stones into bread. Now what was wrong if Jesus made bread out of stones to satisfy His hunger? Can God’s own Son not do a miracle when He is hungry?
The point of the temptation was not in feeding His hunger but in the suggestion that His hunger was incompatible with His being the Son of God. In other word Satan was saying, God is not fulfilling His part of the deal. Satan was urging for Jesus to sweep aside every human need by a divine act. The temptation was to really exercise personal selfish authority to satisfy His own wants and not to do the will of His Father in denying Himself and suffering for us.
The crowd said the same thing at the cross, if You're the Son of God, get off that cross, if You're the Son of God what are You doing up there? Remember that? Can you hear the voice of Satan, hey you're a Christian, you deserve better than this, get it your way. Don't wait for God, He hasn't delivered what He promised.
It was a wicked attempt to cause the last Adam to fail where the first Adam had failed because of food. You see the first Adam failed with the apple, and Satan wanted the last Adam to blow it with the bread. But the temptation was far beyond that. The point of Satan was to try to destroy the Son's confidence in the Father.
Listen, in Hebrews 10:9 the words of Jesus are written, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God." To succumb to Satan's temptation would have been to do Satan’s will. And when Jesus finally was victorious He said, "Not My will but Your will be done.” Jesus had given Himself to the Father's will; He said it again and again in His life. And it was the basis of that absolute trust that Satan was trying to break.
Jesus shows His attitude in Matthew 4:4, "But he answered and said, it is written," an you're going to find that every time. Jesus says to obey God and to depend on God and to wait for God's sustenance rather than to seek satisfaction in this world. And He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
That text pictures Moses who is reminding Israel of God's tender care for His people during the wilderness journeys. And what Moses is saying is also what Jesus is saying to us right now. You don't need to complain, God is going to take care of you, you don't need to be worrying about getting your satisfaction. If you live by God's Word, God will honor your obedience and take care of your needs.
Jesus says, Satan you teach falsely that for a man to appease his hunger and to stay alive he has to have bread; but that is totally wrong. Jesus declares that it is not bread, but it is the creative, energizing, sustaining power of God that is the only real source of a man’s existence, right?
James 4:14 says, you cannot say today I'll do this and tomorrow I'll do that, since you don't know what tomorrow brings, your life is like a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away, you could be dead in the morning. The only thing that keeps you alive is the sustaining power of God, not your bread.
The overall motive of my life and your life should be to do only the will of God and believe Him for all the benefits. Matthew 6:33 says, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Why would you worry about food or clothing? If God takes care of the grass and the birds, isn’t He going to take care of you?
It's easy when you're in business to fall into this, you say I need this for my business if I just cheat a little bit on this deal, I'll close this deal and I’ll be rich. You know what you've just done? You have lived by bread alone, and you've just forfeited the blessing of God who alone grants life and existence and blessing. And who owns everything in the world anyway, God.
Now comes the issue of obedience. Matthew 4:5-6, “Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him 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 shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
The devil is now quoting Psalm 91:11-12. But he misquotes the verse for his own needs. The devil said, “here is something God said, try it and prove it. You want to trust God? Here's a great opportunity, do a swan dive off the pinnacle of the temple, see if His angels will catch You and gives You a nice soft landing.”
Now this is the opposite of the first temptation, instead of doing it Himself against God's will, now the devil is asking Jesus to let God do it all, all right God I depend on You, I'm testing You. The sin is now imposing on God. In the first temptation a peril existed, in the second one Jesus creates the peril. And Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16, "it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” (Matthew 4:7)
Did God expect His Messiah to do some fantastic miracle? Isaiah 53 says, “2He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.3 He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” “7He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.”
It says in John 1:11, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Had He fallen to this temptation He would have perverted His reason for coming. He would have destroyed the whole plan of God. You are not to tempt God with your own plans. So Jesus refused.
People go down the road of temptation, and almost in some sin and they ask, please God, get me out of this! Or else later on they blame God, right? You know when the Lord confronted Adam who he blamed? God says to him, Adam, why did you eat that apple? And Adam said in Genesis 3:12, "The woman you gave me, she gave me that fruit." See, he was blaming God, and not his wife.
I have heard people in church ministry say, well we don't have the money, but we are going into this great new building program. And we're putting God to the test, to see if He will prove Himself faithful. That is leading many to a dead end. It is a bad thing to test God. Trust the Father, Jesus says, He has proven Himself.
For example, the guy who is a deadbeat says, well, why should I work if God is going to provide? See now you're testing God. Because God has said in His Word, if you don't work, you don't eat. One way God provides is through you working. So you can't bypass the means of grace and then expect God to be put to the test, that's a sin.
And now the devil tries one final attempt to achieve his goal. The third temptation, Matthew 4:8-9, “Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly 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 will fall down and worship me.”
Now here the devil shows his real intentions. He finally says, what I really want is for Jesus to worship me!! This was a legitimate test because the devil was given dominion over the earth for a while and it would have meant an opportunity for Christ to bypass the cross, the death that had been pictured in His baptism. The devil could just have turned it all over to Jesus, but He would have to sell His soul to Satan.
Instead of the long bitter road to the throne He could rule at once, no shame, no glory, no hatred, no persecution, no animosity, no bitterness, no, no buffeting spitting, crucifying, none of that, He could have it. Just like what Satan told Eve, "You shall be as God."
But once more our Lord gave a quick and decisive answer from Deuteronomy. The Son of God makes no deals with Satan. And at the end of Matthew 4:10 He says, "It is written, you shall worship the Lord, your God, and Him only shall you serve." Jesus would never ever compromise the single most important reality in all the universe, that God and God alone is to be worshiped.
Satan comes at us like that; he suggests that in the world of commerce, the world of society, the world of politics. We can get what we want, we can fulfill our lusts, we can have our pride, all we have to do is compromise the truth and just go the world’s way, and seek to be popular on their terms, and go along with their sins and we will go down the wide road leading to destruction together.
And we forget that in the kingdom that Jesus has prepared for His people that the whole world will be ours. And in the eternal state of the new heavens and the new earth all of the possession of the universe will be ours. If you want happiness let it come from God, don't seek it in an immoral love affair. If you want comfort, let God give you true comfort forever.
Well, let's look at His triumph. Matthew 4:10, “Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan!” But he is not defeated yet; he just leaves to come back later, again and again, and is finally defeated at the cross. Even as Satan tempts you, we know that he has been defeated and will be punished in due time.
And look what happened in Matthew 4: 11, "Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to Him.” These angels brought food, and they worshipped Him. And they rein- forced the fact that Jesus was an obedient Son in whom the Father was well pleased and that one day that which He had been promised by Satan would be His.
Angels have spent time with Jesus, they were there at His birth, all during His earthly life they protected Him, He said He could have called twelve legions of them if He wanted to. They were there at His resurrection announcing it, they will be there at His second coming, and here they are taking care of Him.
So in conclusion, watch for temptation at the high points of your spiritual life, or when you just embark on the beginning of a new ministry. Be careful of times of weakness and times when you are in evil surroundings. Jesus was in the wilderness and when He was weak Satan came. Watch for when you feel strong, for that is when Satan likes to push you into sin. Watch for the subtlety of his temptation. Finally know the Word of God. The Word is your sword, Amen?