Jesus was taken into the wild for the test. The devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the test by fasting forty days and forty nights. That left him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger, which the devil took advantage of in the first test: “Since you are God’s Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loafs of bread.”
Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”
What is the core of the first temptation? There is certainly nothing wrong with getting something to eat when you are hungry. Jesus got hungry. You get hungry. I get hungry. So how can it be a temptation to get some bread, whether by miracle or by money?
The temptation is to put the bread first and God second, to put the need for bread at the center of our lives and our need for God at the edge.
Jesus said he wouldn’t do it. He said his need for God preceded his need for bread. He said that the Word of God was basic to his life; that bread was also necessary, but secondary. He said He would attend to God first and bread second.
For the second test the devil took Him to the Holy city. He sat Him on top of the Temple and said, “Since you are God’s Son, jump.” The devil goaded Him by quoting Psalm 91: “He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone.”
Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: “Don’t you dare test the Lord your God.”
What is the core of the second temptation? There is certainly nothing wrong with letting God perform a miracle on your behalf. How can it be a temptation to stage a little excitement for the bystanders and show how wonderful things are with Jesus?
The temptation is to put excitement first and God second. The temptation is to think of our lives as humdrum and ordinary, and God as the One who will make them exciting. The temptation is to look at God as entertainment.
Jesus said He wouldn’t do it. He said He wouldn’t use God to make His life interesting. He said He would patiently let God make Him His instrument.
For the third test, the devil took Him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, “They’re yours – lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.”
Jesus’ refusal was curt: “Beat it, satan!” He backed His rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and only Him. Serve Him with absolute single heartedness.”
The test was over. The devil left. And in his place, angels! Angels came and took care of Jesus’ needs.
Now we come to the third temptation. At that moment Jesus found himself on the peak of a huge mountain. Spread out beneath him were glorious but godless civilizations, full of injustice, inequity, poverty, and crime. And the devil tempted Him: “Worship me and I will give you all these kingdoms. Rule them as you see fit, establish your justice and peace and love in every government on the face of the earth. Make me your god and I will make you effective in the world.”
What is at the core of the temptation? The temptation is to bypass God in order to do something good. The temptation is to be so obsessed with doing the right thing that we are willing to get rid of God in order to do it. The temptation is to be impatient with God’s ways – those quiet, suffering, sacrificial, loving, patient ways that never violate human dignity. God works silently and often secretly in society. The moment we want to make things better in the world and do it efficiently and effectively, God becomes the bottleneck. Bypass God and establish law and order, peace and justice immediately.
Jesus said He wouldn’t do it. He said He wouldn’t get rid of God in order to do God’s will more efficiently.
All the time, subtle temptations like these are being introduced into our lives. They don’t seem like temptations – they aren’t temptations of violence or sexual promiscuity or cheating. They are temptations to be sensible about life and take care of our own basic needs, and then after we have taken care of them, to do something about God. They are temptations to treat God as the entertainment in our lives, putting excitement into the drone of our existence and interpreting everything that is ordinary and routine as the absence of God. They are temptations to make the world a little better on our own but eliminate God for the sake of efficiency.
If Jesus had said yes to any one of these temptations, He wouldn’t be our Saviour. And if we say yes to any one of these temptations, we diminish God in our lives. And in diminishing Him, we diminish ourselves.
Jim’s Personal Notes:
The first temptation speaks to me of our – my – preoccupation with work. Working to get bread. Bread signifies our sustenance. It represents the very staple for survival. We will expend much energy and time to get it. Specifically where it concerns meeting needs. So I work to meet my needs. Oops, did I say that out loud?
At first it doesn’t sound so bad. Supporting my family. Working to pay bills. To pay for stuff. Working to acquire stuff. Working on my own projects. Meeting needs. I can be really busy about meeting the needs. This begs the question what are my needs? My real needs? Well if I don’t work I can’t pay my mortgage. They’ll soon shut of my utilities. We wouldn’t be able to buy groceries. And what about our hobbies? Shouldn’t we be able to enjoy life at least a little?
It’s not that we shouldn’t work; the bible makes it clear if a man won’t work he won’t eat. (2 Thess. 3:10). It’s the emphasis we put on it over God. I’m too busy looking after the needs of my family to really get to know God. Sure I believe church and the bible are important, but isn’t that why we pay a pastor to preach on Sunday? To tell us what the bible says. And I’m a faithful attendee. This is so reminiscent of Israel post Egypt. ’Moses you go see Him and then come back and tell us what He wants.’ (Deuteronomy 5:22-31 & Psalm 103:7 paraphrased). What happened to the good old days where I was actually pumped about spending time with the Lord? Where His word was like honey to me and His Presence better than anything else. When I delighted in Him. Where I saw Him as my supply rather then myself as the supplier. Yes, what happened?
I think I happened. Somewhere my interests and agendas changed and became more important to me. And perhaps I decided I wanted to manage these a little closer to the chest. Either way - whether we have exchanged management responsibilities or whether we have just been sucked into the world’s whirlwind of chasing lifeless and pointless fancies, one thing is true; we are too busy for God. And we justify it by saying we are working to meet legitimate needs. What happened to “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on… if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you O you of little faith?” Are we failing to believe God will supply our needs or are we concerned what He deems as our needs and what we deem, won’t agree? Even this is skirting the real issue; that we have exchanged treasures. We have put more value on our material needs than our spiritual needs. We have compromised our heart and pushed God out; exchanging our once delight in the Lord with worry, lust and pleasure. Too busy for God is an upside down excuse. How can we afford to not have Him as our treasure? Why labor so hard for what will burn? The real treasure is in knowing God and His Son Jesus. The real sign of wealth, pomp and beauty is found in reflecting His character; displaying His nature. These are not quick investments. They are life long ones. Maybe that is why we fail to invest. Jesus is our treasure in earthen jars of clay; 2 Corinthians 4:7. At the Bema Seat we won’t be rewarded for supplying the needs of our family, etc., it will be for how we invested in Christ and in His Kingdom purposes. It is no wonder why Jesus left us with instruction in verse 33 of Matthew 6, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” He was declaring Himself to be the only fountain of life. If your life endeavors and interests were represented in some kind of life investment portfolio, how much eternal and truly valuable stock would you have? When they say you can’t take it with you, well this is the only stock that you can. This temptation of Christ then affords to us a glimpse of the insidious plan of the enemy to lure us away from the true treasure and buy us off with what is comparably nothing more than cheap trinkets. To alienate your affections from the greatest love one can know. Too busy for God, Peter got it right. "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” John 6:68 ESV.
The second temptation screams of how so often we expect God to follow our agendas. To act on our whims. We assume so often that God thinks like us, rather then us learning to think like Him through the sanctification process. So often we assume He comes to the same conclusions as us, because of course we see the whole story… or so we think. Can’t we expect God to do miracles? Well yes… but we must remember, miracles issue forth from Him and for Him. They are not play toys conjured up to bring some razzle-dazzle into our life and impress people into following Jesus. God doesn’t exist to impress anyone. He doesn’t primarily want our admiration; He wants our repentance (our transformation). I can be impressed with someone and still retain my independent attitudes. Miracles are to direct people to three truths: God is God and there is none beside Him, God is good, abounding in mercy and grace and God is to be revered; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This temptation to Jesus is all turned around. He’s not being directed to display faith issuing forth from a revelation of God’s heart and passion. It is not an expression of God’s merciful, compassionate heart that He is being asked to tap into. It is chiefly a temptation to manipulate God by self-imposed maneuvering. Does God exist for my pleasure or is it the other way around. Maybe I want this to bring recognition to me. Maybe I am just bored in my Christian walk. Everything we can expect God to do will be purposeful and an expression of His holy goodness. After all He isn’t to be treated like Santa Claus; giving our list to Him and throwing a cookie His way. Being on our best behavior just to get something from Him while we ignore Him the rest of the year. There are certainly many miracles to be both given and received. But the best gift is one exchanged in love. Yes miracles are gifts not to pander to our lust for excitement, but in my opinion, to edify and empower our worship. We don’t ask for miracles to test Him, to see if He is there or to find out if He is still faithful and loving. We ask for miracles because we already know He is. Out of our personal discovery. Out of a convergence between my heart with His. Out of our faith and worship.
The third and final temptation is to make a huge assumption, in fact a very prideful and egotistical one at that. I like what Peterson writes; “The temptation is to bypass God in order to do something good. The temptation is to be so obsessed with doing the right thing that we are willing to get rid of God in order to do it. The temptation is to be impatient with God’s ways”. What is the assumption? We assume that we, of ourselves, know what is good and that good can be found outside of God Himself. We begin to assume the position of some kind of 'goodness vigilante". Jesus attributed all goodness as originating out of the Father. John 10:32 and Luke 18:19 (ESV)“And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Here Jesus is challenging the man’s concept and definition of goodness). Finally we assume that we can actually do good apart from God. I suppose in many ways we can perform good deeds and have good intentions but goodness or doing good as God defines goodness, emanates from a pure and holy heart, it is an exact extension of His character, a mirror of His Person, and as such will and can only produce good fruit. Luke 6:43,44 (ESV) "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit... The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good…” Our hearts are mixed; selfish motives amidst good intentions, while His is pure. Acts of goodness do not make us good; faith in God’s goodness does. God’s goodness made manifest is Jesus, (Hebrews 1:3; “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being…”), and our faith in Him puts us in Him. Romans 4:1-3; “For if Abraham was justified (established as just by acquittal from guilt) by good works [that he did, then] he has grounds for boasting. But not before God! For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed in (trusted in) God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness (right living and right standing with God).” AMP. Jesus was keenly aware of the implications behind the term goodness. He knew you could never separate God and goodness; they are one in the same. Any true good accomplished proceeds out of God, through those who are found in Him. John 15:5 (AMP); “I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.” To act independent of God is to sever ourselves from the power to really do good. There in lies the real ploy of the enemy. He already knows this truth. If you won’t do it through God than you shouldn’t do it. End of story. We’ve been here before and it didn’t turn out so good. Remember the garden? Everyone walks and aligns himself or herself under some kind of authority, under Gods’ or the evil one. There really is no such thing as independence, only independent attitudes, which are themselves a deception.
These are my thoughts, which are open for discussion and scrutiny. My hope is this has blessed you.
"Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered..." Revelations 5:5
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