again there Matthew chapter 4
our daughter got married last Friday night and after the wedding
we were having a dinner together with with friends and family
and And there was a lady sitting next to me who was a friend of
my daughter's who was a professor at a college there in Orlando,
University of Central Florida. And she taught marketing. And
she and I were talking about the psychology behind marketing. And of course she's got it, you
know, fine-tuned into many different categories. And I'm not sure
if she appreciated what I had to say to her or not, but she
took it in. And she had to conclude that
what I told her was true. I said to her, I said, well,
I said, in promoting a product, all you have to do is appeal
to man's pleasure, appeal to his need for popularity, or appeal
to his need for power. because that's what drives the
human race. Pleasure, popularity, and power. The lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eyes, and that's not what you're looking at, that's your
need to have other people look at you. And the pride of life. It goes all the way back to the
garden. When Eve saw the fruit, she said it was pleasing to the
taste, pleasure. It was good to the eyes, popularity,
and it was able to make one wise. Power. When our Lord was tempted
by the devil in the wilderness in Matthew chapter 4, right after
his baptism, the scripture says the Spirit of God drove him into
the wilderness. The Lord tells us that there
were three temptations that Satan gave to our Lord. And if you
think about them, they are the temptation for pleasure, turn
these stones into bread, and gratify the need of your flesh. Popularity. took him up on the
pinnacle of the temple, which wasn't a steeple like we would
have on our buildings. It was the southeast corner of
the temple wall that overlooked the Kidron Valley, which is where
the markets were and all the people were. And what did Satan
say? Cast yourself down off this temple,
off this wall, into that crowd. And you've got the promise of
God that the angels will catch you. And you'll not dash your
foot against a stone. You want popularity? You want
to convince these men that you are who you say you are? You
do that. And then he took him up on a very high mountain. He
said, bow down and worship me and I'll give you all these kingdoms.
Power, control. Now unlike you and I, our Lord
defeated Satan in all three temptations. That's what he came to do. He
came to destroy the works of the devil. You and I have never
been able to sufficiently resist the temptation of any of those
things. We're just... There was a time when I thought
I might be able to stand in a pulpit like this and preach the gospel
without any concern whatsoever for what other people thought
about me. And I longed for that day. And I thought, well, surely
this could be. And now I've come to realize
it's just not possible. Not for me, maybe for somebody
else, but it's not for me. I can't get out of my own way. And here's my hope. I have an
advocate with the Father. I've got one who was never influenced
by the opinions of men. Never. He lived his life perfect
before the Father, pleasing God Almighty, and he is my priest
who bears the iniquity of my holy things before God. Several
weeks ago, we had someone break into our church, and we've got
an offering box on the wall, and they broke open the offering
box looking for money. And I would ask, would such an
unconscionable act be an offense to God? Would it be something
that a man would have to be forgiven for? And everybody would say,
even that guy that did it, whoever it was would say, yeah, this
is wrong. Well, you know what the truth of the matter is that
when you and I put an offering in the box, we need to be forgiven. Everything we do, everything
we do. We just can't do it. And the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only one. He's the only one who stood
before God Almighty with pure motives. He trusted God perfectly. His faith was perfect. Right
up to his dying breath when he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's
cross and said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. He trusted God perfectly. All the temptations for pleasure. He was. Well, let's let's look
at let's look at our text. You understand why? Our Lord
had to be wounded in his hands after hearing the message last
night. When he said to Thomas, Thomas,
take your hand and put it into the wounds of my hand. That's
where our defilement is. It's in our hands, isn't it?
You understand why he had to be wounded in his feet. Our feet
are swift to shed blood. You understand why he had to
be wounded on his head. The scripture says the head is
sick. We can't have a holy thought.
Everything we think, everything that goes through our mind. And
our Lord had to be wounded there in order to put away our sin. And then in the very end, where
was his final wound? Where was his final wound? When
that Roman soldier took that spear and pierced it into the
heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because the heart is desperately
wicked. Who can know it? And all the
wounds that our Lord suffered on Calvary's cross were pointing
to the problems that we have with our sin. He's the sinless
one. He's holy and undefiled, perfect
before God. He did for us what we could not
do for ourselves. He stood up against the devil. He was made in the likeness of
sinful flesh. And, uh, but, but he was without
sin made of a woman made under the law to redeem those who were
cursed by the law. He's God's perfect man. And he's
man's perfect God. And there's no way for Satan
to be defeated in your life or my life. Everything we do has
some degree of pleasure, popularity, and power in it. Look at chapter 4 of Matthew
at verse 1, and then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And that's where you and
I live. We live in a wilderness, don't
we? We live in a dry and thirsty land. Satan is the power of the
air here. I mean, God has given him such. And the Lord has told us, when
you pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation. Why? Because my experience has been
that when I'm tempted, I sin. I can't handle temptation. And yet, even in my temptations,
I'm sinning. You know, people think that sin
is nothing more than a behavioral problem. Oh, it goes so much
deeper than that. Sin's not what we do. We commit
acts of sin because we're sinners. Sin is what we are. Sin is at
the core of our nature. We can't have a thought. We can't have a motive. We can't
perform a deed. We can't make an offering. I
can't preach a sermon. You can't pray a prayer. without
there being sin involved in it. We're in need of a savior. The
Lord told Moses when he described the ministry of Aaron, he said,
you put a mitre on his head and across the front of that mitre
you say, holiness to the Lord. And Aaron will go before you
and he will bear the iniquity of the holy things. We can't
worship God perfectly. And that's what God requires.
He requires perfection. You know, people, I asked somebody
recently, I said, you know, what do you think God demands of you?
And they said, well, to keep the commandments. to keep the
commandments. And I said, well, how are you
doing with that? And here's what she said. I've
had this, I've had people tell me this over and over again.
I'm doing my best. I'm doing my best. Your best
is not good enough. This is my beloved son. In him,
I'm well pleased. He's the one that's without sin. God's not impressed with our
best effort, is he? Our best effort falls short so
far. Here's the best definition and
the simplest definition that I know of in the Word of God
for sin. All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. Ask yourself this simple question,
what in your life In your thoughts, in your words, in your actions,
in your motives, what in your life falls short of the glory
of God? Everything. Everything. If the Lord's made you to be
a sinner, you know that's true, don't you? Everything does. Whatever is not of faith is sin. So, well, I can be sinless if
I have faith. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Not in your experience, but through
faith. Faith is the evidence of things
hoped for. Faith is not some sort of stalwart character of
strength. You know, we talk about, oh,
look it, he's a great man of faith. And in religion, everybody
competes to see who's got more faith than the other. Faith's
just the opposite of that. Faith is, lest you become as
a little child, you should not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Faith is my admission and my confession of my total dependence
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. It's looking unto Him as the
author and the finisher of my faith. It's relying upon Him
for all my righteousness before God. It's bowing before Him. God's pleased with that. And only the faith that God gives
a person would look outside of themselves. That's what we're
doing. We're looking completely outside of ourselves to another
for all our righteousness and all our justification before
God, for He's God's perfect man. And He's man's perfect God. What
a glorious Savior. He went into the wilderness,
the same wilderness you and I live in. And he was tempted of the
devil. Tried and tempted in all ways,
even as we are yet without sin. Without sin, even in his temptations,
he was without sin. That's what God requires from
you and me, sinless perfection. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ came to do. And in these three temptations,
he proves to us that he's able to resist the devil in the temptation
of pleasure, in the temptation of popularity, and in the temptation
of power, something you and I have never been able to do. And when he had fasted 40 days
and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered in his weakest physical,
in his weakest time. Isn't that when it's easiest
for you to be tempted to sin? When you're distressed or worried
or discouraged or something, you know, you just, in our weakness,
Satan knows. And here comes Satan in our Lord's
physical weakness. And when the tempter came to
him, he said, if thou be the son of God, command these stones
to be made bread. I know you're hungry. You've
been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. You, you and our Lord. In the likeness of sinful flesh,
he suffered hunger, he suffered weariness, he had a body made
of a woman, made under the law. And yet, he was able to perform,
as the scripture tells us in Isaiah chapter 90, the zeal of
the Lord of hosts shall perform this. I can remember back in the military
having performance evaluations. Maybe you work on a job where
you have to endure that once a year or however often, a performance
evaluation. And you either pass or fail. You either get a promotion or
not, depending all on your performance. If God Almighty was to stand
you in His presence for a performance evaluation, how would you do?
How would you do? And yet people think, well, I
can do that. I've had people say to me, I
can justify myself before. I've done my best. I've prayed
the prayer. It's all about something they've
done. The Lord Jesus Christ is the zeal of the Lord and he's
the only one that performed what God required. But he answered and said, verse
four, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now
that's perfect faith. Perfect faith is believing God
with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul all the
time. And that's what God requires.
And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. And even the hunger
of His flesh could not divert His attention away from the Father. As I said to his dying breath,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. The work of redemption
was finished and he trusted that God would raise him from the
dead because he was convinced that he had performed what God
had required. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I want
to live off the Word of God. I want to believe God's Word,
but I'm not looking to my faith, my performance, for the hope
of my salvation. He's the one who did it. Then the devil taketh him into
holy city, and sitteth him on the pinnacle of the temple. Oh,
aren't you glad we have a high priest who is touched with the
feelings of our infirmities? That's what I need. I need a
God who understands that I've been made of flesh. He remembers
that I've made of dust and he has pity on me. He pities me. He was in all points tempted,
even as we are. yet without sin. He condemned sin in the flesh
that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. Cast thyself down. For it is written, he shall give
his angels charge over you and you'll not dash your foot against
a stone. That was the temptation. Look at all those people down
there. You want them to see you as the Messiah? Just do that. Oh, the lust of the eyes. Isn't it? It's strong, isn't
it? We just can't get away from what other people think about
us. We love the praise of men, don't
we? And it's with us all the time. We
pray the Lord will. And you know, the people that
say, I don't care what other people think. I'll be my own
man. I'll do my own thing. I don't care. You watch them,
and you get behind what's really going on, and they're more influence
than anybody else. You know, the narcissist and
the bully and, you know, they're really scared little boys inside
and pretending to be bravado when really their motivation
behind their actions is the fear of man. It's the fear of man. It's the lust of the eyes. If thou be the Son of God, cast
thyself down, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge
concerning thee. In their hands they shall bear
thee up, lest at any time thou dash thou foot against stone.
Now, Satan said, okay, you want to quote scripture to me, man
should not live by bread alone, I'll quote scripture back to
you. Boy, he's a, he's an angel of light, the scripture
says. You know, he's a minister of
righteousness. The devil's not dressed up with pitchfork and
horns and going around, you know, trying to scare people. The devil's
standing in pulpits like this and presenting himself as a preacher
of righteousness and leading men back to the law. He's lying on God. He's telling
men that there's something that they can do to make what Jesus
did work for them. But in the end of the day, it's
all up to you. It's a prayer that you pray. It's a commitment
that you make. It's a decision you make. It's some work that you perform. It's the evidence of your salvation
that gives the work of Christ Makes it work for you. In other
words, preachers are going to give men something to do. Something
to do. Oh, it's all been done. It's
all been done. It's done by the one who was
never ever influenced by man. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. And then in verse eight and again,
the devil take them up to an exceeding high mountain and showed
him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and said
unto him, all these things which I give thee, if that will fall
down and worship me. Then said Jesus unto him, Get
thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the
Lord thy God, and him only shalt thy serve. Then the devil left
him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. This
woman I was talking to the other day, who was a professor at college
on, what was the subject? A marketing professor. She said,
well, what about when, you know, people want to buy, like, say,
some safety protection for their children? And I said, well, that's
power. Control in your circumstances.
That, you know, that, you know, I'm going to do everything in
my power to keep myself safe and my children safe. Man is
eat up with it, isn't he? He's always trying to control
his circumstances. Now here's the truth. If you
and I had the power of God, we would change pretty much everything
in our lives. Everything. You'd tweak everything. If you were omnipotent, you had
all power, you could do anything you wanted, you'd change pretty
much everything in your life and everything in the world. And if you had the wisdom of
God, you'd change nothing. You'd change nothing. If you
had the wisdom of God, you would know that everything is exactly
where it's supposed to be. Everything's on schedule. Everything's
working according to His will and purpose. He's ordained all
things for our good and for His glory, and all things work together
for good for them that love God, and those that are called according
to His purpose. He has done whatsoever He wills with the armies of heaven
and the inhabitants of the earth, and no man can stay His hand
or say unto Him, what doest thou? Everything is right on schedule. But we don't believe that, do
we? Not really. I mean, we do in
faith, and God says it, and yes, I know that's true, and yet we
leave here and we go trying to change everything, don't we?
Why? Because we're eat up with a need for power, control. The Lord Jesus Christ had all
power. He wasn't tempted to try to change
anything, because He was the one who was making everything
as it was. He can't be tempted for power.
He already possesses all power. And everything happens according
to his will. When Satan said, come up here
on this mountain, I'll give you these kingdoms, they're already
my kingdom. You can't tempt me to give me
something that already belongs to me. I already have power over
all this. He possesses perfect power. In the huge things of the world
and in the microcosm of your life and my life, He's controlling
everything. He defeated Satan. Pleasure, popularity, and power. The very things that are at the
root of every sin in your life and in my life. It's what drives
our flesh. Turn with me to 1 John, 1 John chapter 3. Well, let's look at verse, at, Chapter
2, verse 16. For all that is in the world. And here's what God says about
the world and everything that's in the world, the lust of the
flesh. Oh, it was pleasing to the taste,
that fruit that Eve took from the tree, wasn't it? Pleasing
to the taste. The lust of the flesh. Make these
stones bread. No, I'm going to live by the
word of God. The lust of the eyes. All that. That fruit was beautiful to her
eyes. And the popularity of that. And the pride of life. That's
power. Pride. Control. It's not of the Father. It's
of the world. And the world passed away. And
the loss thereof. But he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever. Now what's that mean? What does
it mean to do the will of God? Does that mean that, okay, I've
got to figure out a way to perform my life in such a way that it's
going to please the will of God in that I'm not going to be influenced
anymore by pleasure or by popularity or by power? No. This is the will of God that
you believe on him whom he has sent. That's the will of God. Oh, Lord, diminish the strength
of pleasure, popularity, and power in my life. I don't want
to live my life a slave to it. But Paul said, the law is holy,
but I am carnal, sold under sin. And you know what that means?
Paul said, Romans chapter 7, I'm a slave to it. I can't not
sin. Everything I do is infected with
it. When I would do good, evil is ever present with me. I would if I could, is what he
goes on to say, but I can't. To will is present with me, but
how to perform that which is good, I find not. Who shall deliver me from this
body of death? Thanks be to God through Christ
Jesus I am free so that now there is no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. He's my only hope. I can't get
out of my own way. I can't not sin. So when the
Lord says these things are of the world, they're not of God.
How are we going to be delivered from the world? Believe on the
world passed away and the lust thereof, and your flesh is going
to pass away. My flesh is going to pass away.
There's going to come a day real soon where they're going to put
our bodies in the ground. The lust of the flesh is going
to pass away and the corruptible is going to be made incorruptible
and the mortal is going to be made immortal and we're going
to see him as he is and be made like him. Oh, what a glorious
day that's going to be to not be influenced by these things
anymore. Anymore. No more sin. Absolute
sinless perfection. That's what I long for. Look at chapter three. At verse five, and you know. That he was manifested, he came
into the world to take away our sin and in him is no sin. He was never influenced by the
pleasures of his flesh to sin against God. He lived by the
word of God. The eyes of men never influenced
him. He worshiped God and God only. And the lust for power and control,
he already had it. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not. Does that mean that pleasure,
popularity, and power no more? No, if I'm in Christ, I've got
no sin. I'm found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness,
which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. He is the faithful
one. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. How am I going to be righteous
before God? God made him sin who knew no sin. God imputed to him when he hung
on Calvary's cross, God charged him with all the sins of pleasure,
popularity, and power that you and I have ever committed. Put them on Christ. He shed his
precious blood as a covering for those sins and presented
himself before God almighty for our righteousness, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. What is it to do
righteousness? It's to trust Christ. It's to
look to Him. Little children, verse eight,
he that committed sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth
from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of
God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Satan had no power over him. That's what those temptations
in the wilderness were all about. Destroying the works of the devil.
Doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Resisting temptation
and never sinning. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. Isn't that glorious? If you're born of God, you're
perfect. You're perfect. Sinless. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot
sin because he's born of God. Now, the only way to understand
that If you know anything about yourself, you know anything about
sin, the only way to understand that is to understand it by virtue
of my union with Christ. Looking to the Lord Jesus Christ,
I'm without sin. Whatever is not of faith is sin.
My hope, my faith, my trust is wholly placed on the Lord Jesus
Christ for all my righteousness. He's the only one that was able
to stand up against the devil and never be influenced by the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. What a glorious Savior we have.
What great hope. Sinless before God. All right, let's take a break.