As you know, God deals with all
people through two representatives, Adam and Christ. Adam is called
the first man because in creation he was the first to appear on
earth, obviously. And in the garden, Adam fell. He represented the whole human
race and he was tempted. He was tempted to rebel against
God And though he wasn't deceived, as we're told in 1 Timothy 2,
he failed when he tested, when he was tempted. He fell into
the state of sin and death and depravity and brought the whole
human race into that state of sin, death, and depravity. And of course, I've got in your
lesson here, you can read about that in Genesis 3. You all know
where that's at. You've seen it a lot of times. So the whole human race plunged
into that state. Romans chapter five and verse
12 teaches us that. That is by one man's sin entered
into the world and death by sin. So Adam failed. Now of course
we know that was all well within the purpose and plan of Almighty
God. Because before there was a fall, there was a redeemer
set up before time began. That's the way God works, in
his wisdom and his power. But Christ, who's called the
last Adam, He represents those whom the Father gave to him before
the foundation of the world, the election of grace. And he
came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, live a
perfect life, as I said here in the lesson, and to go to the
cross to die for our sins that were imputed to him. And the
scripture, I mean, that's what the scripture's all about, when
you see how Christ, all that the Father gave to him, he represented
in his obedience unto death. And so, here's our hope and our
assurance that when he was tempted, and we're gonna see here in the
first temptation here, or time of temptation, in Matthew 4,
He didn't fail like Adam failed. He was successful. And there's
several reasons for that. And we'll look at those. In fact,
I've got two passages of scripture that I want to look at that I
didn't put in your lesson. And after I was studying it,
just going over it last night, I said, why did I put these in
there? Because we always talk about these. But this is right
after his baptism, which was the beginning of his public ministry. And it says, look at verse one
of Matthew four, then was Jesus led up of the Spirit. The Holy
Spirit led him up. I'll put in your lesson that
Mark uses a little stronger word in Mark chapter one. He says
the Spirit driveth him. And that's not to say that he
had to drive him against his will or anything else, but he
was driven to all these episodes in his life for the glory of
the Father. and the salvation of his people.
That's what drove Christ. It wasn't like us. We are driven
against our will a lot of times, like our warfare of the flesh
and the spirit. We're driven to do things that
according to the glory of God that the flesh just does not
want us to do. But now Christ wasn't like that.
His flesh, his humanity was sinlessly perfect in every way. So but
Mark says he was driven, some translations say cast him forth
into the wilderness. And I look at that, I say well
that's where we are, we're in the wilderness, aren't we? The
wilderness of sin and depravity and all that. So he was led of
the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And
you know the devil is the accuser of the brethren, the devil is
the adversary, all those things. The devil was the one who appeared
to Eve in the form of a serpent back in Genesis chapter three
and tempted Eve and deceived her. And then Adam was tempted
after that by his wife and he gave in to her. He chose his
wife over the glory of God. So here Christ is. in being led into the wilderness
to be tempted. And the Bible says that he was
tempted and really tested. This is not a fake. Somebody,
and I wanna make that clear. In your lesson, I've got the
Lord's earthly life as to his humanity was guided by the Spirit
just as ours. Of course, he had the Spirit
without measure. And him being the second person of the Trinity,
the Son of God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, But
he, as to his humanity, he was filled with the Spirit and led
by the Spirit. And his temptations are going
to show us at least three things. Number one, shows that he was
and he is truly human because as the Bible says in Hebrews
chapter four, he was in all points tempted like as we are. And here's
something that we always have to remember. He was tempted in
all points like as we are, yet without sin. And that's important. Because when we're tempted, it's
different. Because we have a sinful human
nature within us. And I want you to look at James
chapter one. Now this is one of the passages
I didn't cite in your lesson, but if you wanna write it down
there, look at James chapter one in verse 12. And I always
remember, I heard a man one time say, he said this, he said, it's
not a sin for us to be tempted, but it's only a sin if we give
in. Well, that's not true in our case. It's not true at all,
and here's why. Look at James 1 in verse 12. It says, blessed is the man that
endureth temptation. Now, if we endure temptation,
if we don't give in, it's a blessing from God, and it's by the power
of God. It's God who worketh in us, you
see. it says for when he's tried when
he's tested that's what a temptation is it's a test and I've got in
your lesson that you know both God and the devil tempt test
God for his glory to prove our faith the devil because he wants
us to fall. So, and it says, blessed is the
man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall
receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them
that love him. And that's not because we earn
it by enduring the temptation, it's because that's an evidence
of our salvation by God's grace through Christ who earned all
that we have by promise. But look at verse 13, he says,
let no man say when he's tempted, I'm tempted of God. Now, we know
that God brings us testings and temptings in the way of chastisements
and all of that. But James is talking about something
specific and he explains it. For God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth he any man. When God tests us, it's
not for evil. That's what James is talking
about, that God never does. And he says, but every man, now
verse 14, but every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own
lust and enticed. Now what does that tell us? It
tells us is that when the devil tempts us, he has an ally within
us, and that's the sinful flesh that would line up with him and
deny God to please self And that's our problem. That's why we have
to fight the flesh. That's why we fight the warfare
of the spirit in the flesh. We have an ally with him. We
have a sinful human nature, the flesh, that continually seeks
to draw us away with sinful desires, selfish desires, self-righteousness,
self-love. so that's what James is saying
in verse 15 he says then when lust hath conceived it bringeth
forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death
and when I read that I always think about Christ he made an
end of sin and what he's saying here is this sin when it's finished
if sin reaches its goal it'll be our eternal damnation And
thank God that Christ said, it's finished. When sin was imputed
to him and he was on that cross and he was getting ready to give
up the ghost, he said, it's finished. He finished the transgression.
He made an end of sin. Well, turn over to John chapter
14. Now here's the difference between us and Christ in his
sinless humanity. And it says in John 14, look
at verse 28. He's talking to his disciples.
He says, you have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come
again unto you. If you love me, you would rejoice
because I said, I go to the father and my father is greater than
I. Now that's covenant language. When he says my father's greater
than I, he's equal with the father in every attribute of deity.
but he's subservient to the father as the savior and redeemer and
surety and substitute of his people for our salvation. So he says in verse 29, and now
I have told you before it come to pass that when it come to
pass, you might believe. Hereafter, I will not talk much
with you for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing
in me. In other words, the devil has
no ally. in Christ, in the humanity of
Christ, certainly in the deity of Christ. But in the humanity
of Christ, the devil has no ally. He has no partner like he does
with us. So when the Bible says over in Hebrews 4 verse 15 that
he was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin,
there's some people who try to use that to say that Christ was
not impeccable. that he was capable of sinning,
but he just didn't. And that's not right. Christ
is impeccable. That means he is incapable of
sinning because he's God manifest in the flesh. Isn't that enough
to convince us of that? God manifest in the flesh, could
you imagine that? Him being able to sin? It's bad
enough to talk about, did he sin? No. Was he able to sin? No. So how was he tempted as
we are? Well, what the writer of Hebrews
is talking about in Hebrews 4.15 is the sinless infirmities of
the flesh. Just being human. Example. We all get hungry. and we want to eat. That's a
natural infirmity of the flesh. It's not sinful for us to be
hungry. But I'll tell you what is sinful.
It's sinful if we desire or have any thought, let's put it that
way, have any thought of filling that hunger in a way that dishonors
God. Christ, he's gonna be up on this
mountain 40 days and nights. Could you imagine you being up
on a mountain 40 days a night and not eating? How hungry do
you think you would be? Well, he was just as hungry as
we would be in his humanity. But the difference between him
and us is we have an ally in Satan. We would think about,
we would at least consider, it would cross our minds to fill
that hunger in a way that dishonors God. But Christ had no such thought
in that way. And so we learn from these temptations
that Christ was really, actually human, God-man, human yet sinless. The second thing we learn is
it shows us, his people, the right way to deal with temptation.
And how is that right way? Use the word of God. The sword of the spirit. And
that's what Christ did. Each time Satan came after him,
he used the word of God. And that's what we're to do.
Just like in putting on the whole armor of God, everything about
that, to defend ourselves, to be a soldier of Christ, is using
the word of God. Become skillful in the word of
righteousness. That's what that's all about.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. All of that,
use the word of God. Whenever we talk to people about
their religion, about the gospel, let's stay as close to the word
of God as we can. Hold their feet to the fire that
way. Don't use philosophy, experience,
human rationalizations. You know, when I talk to somebody
and they say, well, they believe that Christ died for everybody,
the first thing I say to them is, the Word of God does not
teach that. And they'll say, yes it is, and they'll quote
a verse, and then I'll take them to that verse, show them where
they're wrong. What does God's Word say? That's
what it meant, that's what's important. What I say and what
you say, if it's not the Word of God, what does it do? So that's what we, and then the
third thing that we learn is by his resistance to temptation,
in each case here, Christ's perfection was established, proving that
he's qualified to be our savior. I love it, the way that Peter
puts it when he calls him the lamb without blemish and without
spot. The Lamb of God. And it's true
that he was made sin. Now people get all confused about
this thing now. Second Corinthians 521, he was
made sin. That's true. But not by being
corrupted with sin. Not by having sin imparted or
entering into him. His mind, his affections, his
will were pure and perfect. He had no contamination. He had
no corruption of sin within him. He was made sin by imputation. And that's why this is so important.
That's why that's so important. Whenever we speak of our Savior
in the glory of his person and the power of his finished work,
we've got to maintain scripturally that which God's word says of
him. He was tempted. He was tested. He sorrowed. He got hungry. Had to fill that hunger. All
of those things that are the infirmities of the flesh, yet
without sin. So how could God justly punish
such a person? Only by the legal imputation
of our sins to him. That's how God was just in punishing
his holy, harmless, undefiled, sinless son for the sins of his
sheep. How can God bring sinners like
us into his fellowship and accept us? Because we're so sinful,
only by Christ's righteousness imputed to us. So understand
that. Now look at verse two, it says,
and when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward
and hungry. Well that's, of course, in his
humanity. He was hungry, just like I said,
just as hungry as you and I would be. And in your lesson, Luke,
in his version, and you might, Take a moment sometime and read
Mark's version and Luke's version, that they're not contradictory
at all, but they are complementary. And Luke seems to indicate that
Christ was tempted by the devil throughout the whole 40 days.
I wouldn't swear to that, I don't know what was, it's not recorded. What's recorded here in Matthew
is what happened on the 40th day. And that's what he says
when he says, 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and
hungry. And then Satan, the tempter, came to him. So these three temptations
took place on the 40th day. But what he was going through
all that time, it must have been a real trial in his humanity. And yet he didn't fail. And that's
our hope. This is part and parcel of what
he was talking about in his baptism when he said, suffer it to be
so that for us to fulfill all righteousness. This is part of
it. And of course you know, back
in Genesis chapter three and verse 15, one of Satan's goals
in tempting the Lord, I believe, was to keep him from going to
the cross. I really believe that because Satan knew that Christ
going to the cross would be the crushing of the serpent's head
that was prophesied back in Genesis 3 15. So he tried to keep, you
remember when Peter came to Christ and when Christ was telling the
disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and be killed? And
Peter said, oh no, Lord, no. We're not allowed that to happen.
Remember what Christ said to him? Get thee behind me, Satan. So understand that. Look at verse
three. It says, and when the tempter
came to him, he said, now here's the first temptation. If thou
be the son of God, command these stones to be made bread. Satan
here is going to the weakness or infirmity of the flesh to
try to get Christ to deny his total dependence and faith in
the Father, to care for him. God the Father cared for the
Son. The Spirit filled the Son. The devil was trying to get him
to deny that. You know, we talk about this,
and I'm gonna talk about it in the message, the faithfulness
of Christ. Now we have faith in Christ by
God-given faith, but there's not a whole lot in religion today
that's spoken of as the faithfulness of Christ. He was and is faithful
in all things. He never had a moment of unbelief
or doubt. I know people go to the Garden
of Gethsemane and say, well, he was doubting. No, he wasn't
doubting there. He was making a point that all of this was
the will of the Father. When he said, let this cup pass
from me, he's speaking out of the infirmities of the flesh,
not doubting the Father, because he followed it up right with
it. He said, nevertheless, thy will be done. He was suffering,
even in that garden of Gethsemane, sweating great drops of blood. And this is something he'd never
experienced before. That's what the Bible means in
Hebrews chapter two when it says he learned obedience by his suffering. It's not that he was learning
knowledge like sitting in a school room, it's he was experiencing
something that he had never experienced before. And that's that suffering
of the flesh. And he's going through that.
So Satan's goal here was to destroy Christ's confidence in the Father's
provision and bring him to distrust the Father, to bring him to unbelief. Christ never disbelieved the
Father. And he continually spoke of his
dependence upon the Father. And I've got several scriptures
there. We won't turn to these, all these,
but you look them up. John 5, 19 and 30. You remember
when Christ, he said, I came not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me. He's not denying his deity there.
He's showing his subservience to the Father as the Son of God
incarnate and the servant of the covenant for the salvation
of his people. And he continually spoke of that.
Our salvation is the work of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, and that's the greater glory of the Godhead, for in
him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Well,
look at verse four. Here's how Christ answered, but
he answered and said, it is written. See, he's going to the scripture,
he's going to Deuteronomy. Chapter eight, I've got it listed
there, verse eight. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The
word of God. The word of God is our meat,
our bread, it's our weapon, it's our defense, everything that
we need. And so Christ demonstrated here
his perfect dependence and faithfulness upon the Father to do what he
was sent to do. And he didn't back up. One scripture
says he set his face like a flint. To do what? To fulfill all righteousness. He said, I didn't come to break
the law, I came to fulfill it, and he fulfilled it every jot
and tittle. Can you imagine that? Think about
that. Every way we turn around, we
fall short, don't we? That's why we need his righteousness.
But he never fell short. He fulfilled it. He never distrusted
his father. We do. We get into the why me
syndrome and all of that and we get bitter and all of that. And all of that's the sin of
unbelief. It really is. It all can be traced
back to that. But he never did that at all. His faithfulness
to do the Father's will, even unto the death of the cross.
That's the very righteousness by which we're justified before
God. That's the imputed righteousness of Christ. Aren't you thankful? Aren't you glad? Look at verse
five, here's the next temptation. It says, then the devil taketh
him up into the holy city and setteth him on a pinnacle of
the temple. Now Satan is given the power
to transport the Lord from the mountain to Jerusalem. And it's
given to him. Is there any doubt that this
is well within God's plan and purpose? This is the Lord's doing,
see. And so Satan, he's transporting
him, and it says in verse six, he said unto him, if thou be
the son of God. Now some translations say it
this way, since thou art the son of God. You know, Satan knew
who Christ was. The Bible says the devils in
hell recognize who Christ is. It even says this, they believe
and tremble. Do you or I ever doubt that Christ
is the Son of God? Well, the devils don't even do
that. And so he knew, and he said, if you be the Son of God,
or since you are the Son of God, cast yourself down, cast thyself
down, for it is written. Now, look at this. Satan, the
deceiver, uses scripture, and he quotes from Psalm 91. It's
written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and their
hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy
foot against a stone. Now what Satan is doing here
is he's trying to presume upon God's providence. Now think about
that. God is sovereign in all things. God has determined all things
from the very beginning. The Bible speaks of God as one
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
And you know, when unbelievers hear that, many times, what do
they do? Well, it doesn't matter what
I do then. I can go out and, you know, I'll go out there and
stand in the middle of Slappy Boulevard. And if it's my time
to go, I'll, you know, a truck might hit me or not. That is
awful presumption. God's sovereignty is never revealed
to give us an excuse to sin or to act ignorantly or insanely
or irrationally. The secret things belong to God,
the revealed things belong to us. God's given us a mind and
we're to use it rationally. And so what Satan is doing here,
he's trying to get the Lord himself to presume upon the sovereignty
of God, and to test God. Well, God says that he's appointed
the day of my death, or even the day of my salvation. Well,
I'm just gonna put him to the test. That's awful, that's unbelief,
that's rebellious. You and I are never to test God. And so, when the Lord comes back
at him, listen, he says in verse seven, Jesus said in him, it
is written again, here he goes back to the scriptures now, and
he quotes from Deuteronomy chapter six, thou shalt not tempt the
Lord thy God. Think about this. Creatures tempting the creator. Is there any more, Awful act
of rebellion? That's unbelief, isn't it? That's
pride. Well, if God has determined this,
then I don't have to seek him, I don't have to believe all that.
See, that's stuff, that's challenging God's wisdom, God's ways, his
providence, his goodness, his care. And that's bad. Satan, he quoted scripture right,
but he misapplied it. But now, what does the Bible
tell us about Satan and his ministers? That they will appear to be ministers
of righteousness? And they'll preach it for a while? You see, they can quote scripture. I'll bet Satan can quote more
scripture than most people who claim to be Christian. but he
misapplies it. And that's what the natural man
does with the scripture. That's why false gospels are
so prevalent. It's due to a misapplication
of scripture, and it becomes deceptive. Well, Christ put him
down, and he said, it's written, you shall not tempt the Lord
thy God. And that's the way it is. Well,
look at verse eight. It says, again, the devil taketh
him up into an exceeding high mountain, showed him all the
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and he saith unto
him, all these things will I give thee if thou will fall down and
worship me. Now what's the first thing you
notice about that? The devil's claiming to be able to give away
something that he'd unknown. Kingdoms of this world are not
his now. I know as The great deceiver he's called the god
of this world in some places the prince of this But that's
big. That's just because that's not
because he owns it. He didn't create it. He doesn't
own it It's because he's the deceiver and and the world has
gone after him the whole world life in the wicked one the scripture
says and that's talking about the world of unbelievers and
And so he, and what he's doing here, he's seeking to take a
place that he doesn't have. God is the creator of this universe,
God is the owner, he's the governor, and the devil wanted Christ to
bow down to him under the guise of being rewarded with the kingdoms
of this world, which he doesn't give. Now that's, I think about
that in the line of false gospels, because it's Satan and his ministers
promising something salvation and blessings that they don't
have, that only God has. Only God is able to bless us
and save us by his grace through Christ. And so in verse 10, Christ
comes back at him with scripture. Thus then saith Jesus unto him,
get thee hence Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And here he's
quoting from Deuteronomy 6 again. Christ was bent on glorifying
his father. I think about John 17 in his
high priestly prayer. Father, glorify thou me with
the glory which we had before the world began, that the son
may glorify thee. And so, he puts him down again
with scripture and it says in verse 11, then the devil leaveth
him and behold, angels came and ministered to him. I believe
that means they ministered to his spirit, his soul, and to
his body, fed him when he's hungry, and all that. But notice the
main thing here, the devil leaveth him. The devil failed. Christ was victorious. That's
our salvation. Okay.