Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. We're going to be looking at
the first 13 verses of Luke chapter 4, and the subject is the temptation
of Christ. In order to accomplish the redemptive
will of God, our representative must live
in perfect obedience to God. He cannot accomplish God's redemptive
will any other way except by his obedience and that perfect
unbroken from the cradle to the cross. And while he was living such
a life, he experienced all the things
we do. Heat, work, pain, he experienced
all these things. While he was living such a life,
he must endure on top of that all the consequences of our sin. And he must triumph over Satan,
and he must endure the wrath of God to the full satisfaction
of God's justice. Now that makes living your life
hard. You know, we have some little interruption in our life,
we just fall apart, don't we? Remind me of when I was little
and I just fell down on the floor and sat down. I didn't know what
else to do. That's the way we do. We just
learned to hide it a little bit. But he lived this with all of
these other things on top of it, on top of that. And to be a perfect savior, he
must be tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin. He must not only experience these
temptations, but he must resist them to be a faithful high priest
for us in things pertaining to God. He must resist these things. So let's read these verses together
with these things in mind. Luke chapter four, beginning
with verse one. And Jesus, being full of the
Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the spirit into
the wilderness, being 40 days tempted of the devil. And in
those days, he did eat nothing. And when they were ended, he
afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him,
if thou be the son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him saying,
it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word of God. And the devil taking him up into
a high mountain showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world
in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him,
all this power will I give thee and the glory of them, for that's
delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou therefore
wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered him
and said unto him, get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written
thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou
serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem,
that is the devil, brought him to Jerusalem and sat him on a
pinnacle of the temple and said unto him, if thou be the son
of God, cast thyself down from hence, for it is written he shall
give his angels charge over thee to keep thee. And in their hands they shall
bear thee up lest at any time thou dashed thy foot against
a stone. And Jesus answering said unto
him, it is said thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended
all the temptation, he departed from him for a season, for a
season. I have four or five things that
I think I'd like for us to to think about and to consider as
we look at these temptations of Christ. And the first thing
is the reason for it. It's the reason for it. As I
look at this, I see three reasons for his temptation stated here
in these verses. First of all, because it is the
will of God. Temptations as they came to Christ
were not an accident, they were not circumstantial, they didn't
blindside him. It was the will of God. It was
the will of God. And as our federal head and representative,
he must live a life in perfect obedience to God and being led
of the spirit, he gave no resistance to it. Do you notice that in
verse one? When he returned from Jordan,
that's talking about his baptism, immediately he was led of the
Spirit into the wilderness. He didn't just happen on the
wilderness, he was led there. He was led there. And being led there of the Spirit,
he gave no resistance to it. He willfully, lovingly complied
to the will of God. You know, he tells us this over
in Hebrews 10, nine, and we always apply that directly to his sacrifice,
and rightly so. But it's inclusive of everything
in his life. I come to do thy will, O God,
in the volume of the book it's written to me. I come to do thy
will, O God. So he went into the wilderness
in full compliance to the will of God. And then the second reason
for his temptation was to be made a perfect Savior. You say, Pastor, he was perfect
when he come into this world. He was perfect in his nature.
He was perfect in his character. But he wasn't the perfect Savior.
Listen to these verses, Hebrews 2, verse 10. For it became him for whom are
all things. and by whom are all things, in
bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all one. Now listen, for which
cause he's not ashamed called them his brethren. He's one with
us. He's one with us. We didn't become
one with him when he died. We didn't become one with him
when he was born. We become one with him when God
put us into an eternal union with him before the world was.
And he came as our head and representative, our federal head. He came. He
was representing us in these things. He was already perfect in his
nature. He was God and man and one glorious person. This being
made perfect is not talking about him being made holy or righteous. It's talking about him being
made a perfect Savior. And to be made a perfect Savior,
he must be made a perfect high priest. He must be tempted in
all things like as we are. When we pray to the Lord Jesus
Christ, The scripture tells us to know
this, that he knows, by his own experience, he knows what you're
suffering. Because he suffered. He suffered. Did you suffer loss? Not so. What kind of loss did he suffer? He had nowhere to lay his head. He must be a perfect high priest,
and to be a perfect high priest, he must be tempted in all points,
like as we are. And then thirdly, he must be
tempted of Satan in order to fulfill all righteousness. Christ is our righteousness.
And as our righteousness, there are no exceptions to his obedience
to God. So these are the reasons for
his temptation. And we're told here that he was
led by the Spirit. This is the second thing I want
us to think about. He was led by the Spirit into
the wilderness and to this temptation of Satan. In verse one, we're
told that he was filled with the Spirit of God. John said
he received not the Spirit by measure, but he received him
completely, fully, wholly, the Spirit of God. He was filled
with the Spirit. So where you going with that?
What's that mean? He was filled with the Spirit.
It means that nothing can prevent the temptation of Satan except
the will of God. This man, oh, you were tempted
because you weren't filled with the Spirit. Oh my soul, I beg
to differ. I beg to differ. This man had
the fullness of the Spirit of God in him, and he still was
tempted. Nothing can prevent the temptation
of Satan but the will of God. You remember when Satan approached
God about Job? Well, he said, I can't do nothing to
him. You got a hedge built about him. And he does. He does. But if he lowers that hedge,
I don't care if you're Job, you're gonna be tempted. And Satan is a master of exploitation. He can and does exploit everything. Any weakness, any flaw, any ignorance,
any mistake. But when he came to Christ, he
found nothing in him to exploit. There was nothing in him. There
was no sin in him. There was no weakness in him. I know Satan considered this
is a man, flesh and blood, bone of our bones. And here he is,
and he hadn't eaten anything in 40 days. And I can tempt him. But he was weak in his body,
but he wasn't weak. He wasn't weak by any means. But we are. And he finds those
weaknesses, and he exploits them. And generally, he moves in the,
well, I'm not gonna say generally, all the time, he moves in the
realm of religion. This was a religious thing. If
he could knock off the head, he won the day. If he could stop
the Savior, he accomplished his purpose. But he couldn't. He came to Christ, he found nothing
in him. Why would God lead his son into
the wilderness and expose him to such a one as Satan? Why would
he do that? I believe he did that to prove
to us that these things being accomplished by Jesus Christ
were indeed the work of God. That's what he does with our
faith by the same things. We go through these trials and
God's gonna prove to everyone that this faith that you have
is his work. His work. And as it proves that
work in us to be of him through trials, even so, that work being
done for us, he's gonna prove the same thing. And then the
third thing I want us to consider is when he was tempted. Christ
was tempted immediately upon the heels of his baptism. Baptism
is a public confession of faith. And if you read carefully 1 Corinthians
15, you'll notice in there a verse that talks about being baptized
for the dead. That's not talking about being
baptized in proxy for a dead man or one who's already died. What that's talking about is
marking you out for public martyrdom. That's what that's talking about.
When you went and were baptized, man, you might as well held a
sign up. Those people were sitting there watching for this public
confession through baptism. And as soon as they were baptized,
they took them out and killed them. They marked out for martyrdom. I'm gonna tell you something.
You're not gonna be baptized unless it's real. if it means
martyrdom, are you? Huh? That's right. Everybody ain't gonna run down
the aisle, I wanna be baptized. No, no, no, no, because they're
gonna put the chains on you and they're gonna take you out there
and feed you to the hogs. So you ain't gonna be in no big
hurry. public confession, profession,
whatever you want to call it, Christ was tempted immediately
on the heels of his baptism. And baptism is a public confession
of faith and it's a declaration that you are chosen of God and
predestinated to the adoption of children. That you believe
that Jesus is the Christ and that he alone is all your salvation. And as Jesus Christ was baptized
and filled with the spirit of the living God, his very next
act was to be tempted of Satan. He's gonna prove the work. He's
gonna prove the work. And then think about this. His
victory over Satan during this temptation is in his weakest
hour. It was in our Lord's weakest
hour, Winston, he still overcome that serpent in his weakest hour. Our Lord's victory over Satan
in his weakest hour. And then fourthly, how was he
tempted? Well, he was tempted in the realm of religion. That's
where he was tempted. Notice here, there's nothing
about stealing, drunkenness, sex, nothing mentioned here about
any of those things. Satan said this, if you be the
son of God, boy, I'd like to know how many times he told me
that, if you were a true believer. You ever whispered that in your
ear? You wouldn't have said that. You wouldn't have done that.
How many times? That's what he's telling Christ.
If, you don't put an if on Christ. This is God come into the flesh,
but Satan did. If you be the son of God. If you be the son of God. Command
this stone that it be made bread. He knew he was hungry and he
knew that he could do what he was tempting him to do. Don't
you ever get the idea that you can't sin? Our Lord has left us his witness. And in this book, he listed men
like David, who's a man after God's own heart. And what's this
man doing? He's a saved man. He's a writer
of scripture. He's the King of Israel. And
here he is in his chamber. and he's figuring out how he
can murder his best friend to cover up his adultery with his
wife. Don't you ever get the idea you
can't sin? And don't you ever get the idea,
well, I'm saved, so I'm not gonna do anything real bad. When a man thinks he stands,
beware, beware. He's getting ready to fall. We
stand in Him. We stand in Him. And our Lord
said, it's written, man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God. And there's two things here I
want you to see. And the first is this, we walk by faith, and
the word of God is the foundation of our faith. I don't, if you
come and talk to me, don't come and say, well, you know, it seems
to me, well, who are you? Who am I? We don't know anything
about God. The only thing I know about God
is what he's written in this book. No man has seen him at
any time. Well, the Lord appeared to him.
No, he didn't. No, that's Satan. He's making
that picture. He's showing you these kingdoms.
He's doing this. He's giving you some gifts. We don't, I don't know anything
about God except what he's written in this book. We're built, the
scripture says, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
New Testament and Old Testament, and Christ stands on the corner
so you can see both directions at the same time through him.
You can understand these Old Testament prophecies and at the
same time you can understand these New Testament declarations
from that chief cornerstone, Christ. And then secondly, we have no
other information on God. Natural man is without God in
the world. He has no idea who God is. He
has a God, but it's not the living God. And he don't even submit
to his God. His ideas and inclinations about
God are just products of his imagination. They're bits and
pieces of tradition, ideas, bits and pieces of scripture. And then the devil takes him
up into a high mountain, and he shows him all the kingdoms
of the world in a moment of time, and he tells him, all this power
will I give thee. Huh? If you fall down worse than
me. I'm gonna give you all the, yeah,
it was already his, wasn't it? Satan's a liar. Now just get
that in your head. When you're reading about what,
when Satan says something, he's a liar. I don't know how many
times our Lord said that to the people in the book of John. He
just keeps telling them. He's a liar. He's the father
of lies. But you swallowed them. I did. I did, I swallowed them. Swallowed
them whole. Come down an aisle, that's what the Bible teaches.
That's a lie. Bible don't teach that. Ain't
nobody walking down no aisles. I'm gonna give you all this power.
He had no power to give. He was cast out. And here's what the Lord told
him. Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God. Him only shalt thou serve. To worship him is to worship
him talking about Satan. in whatever form he reveals himself. You know those Jews, they had
the law of God. They had these things. They had
them in a, they were sealed in the Ark of the Covenant. They
had the law of God, and they had all these evidences. Now
all of this stuff was all in the Ark, and they carried that
Ark about. They knew that law. They could
quote that law to you. They knew the Old Testament.
And they knew the law of God, forward and backward, all 371
statutes. You thought it was just 10, didn't
you? It's not. They knew this thing forward
and backward, and they were convinced that as they taught these things,
they were teaching people to be moral, they were teaching
people to be righteous, they were teaching people to be good
citizens, they were convinced that they were of God. And our Lord said this. He said,
you walk after the lust of your father, the devil. They were
worshiping the devil as he revealed himself to them and following
that law and preaching self-righteousness and legalism and all of those
things. They were serving the devil. It'd be like walking in First
Baptist Church down here and telling them they're devil worshipers.
Man, it'd be a riot. But that's the truth. To worship him is to worship
him, talking about Satan in whatever form he reveals himself. And
that's how the Jews did it. They said, we have God as our
father. He said, if God was your father, you'd love me. I came
forth from God. You're looking at God, God in
the flesh, and you despise me. God's not your father. Those
who worship God worship him in spirit and truth. We worship
him as he's revealed in the scripture and as the Holy Spirit reveals
him to us. And then Satan brings him up
to Jerusalem and he sets him on the pinnacle of the temple.
And he said, go ahead, cast yourself down, it's written. You're throwing
it's written at me, now I'm gonna throw it at you. It's written,
you cast yourself down. His angels have charge over you.
They're not even gonna let you stumble on the path and dash
your foot against the stone. They're gonna catch you, they're
gonna catch you, just throw yourself off. Throw yourself off. That's to tempt God. That's to
tempt God. The Lord said, thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God. And believers are sons of God.
They're immortal till God takes them out of this world. He created
a race of beings just for their protection, to minister to those
who shall be heirs of salvation. But I'm not gonna step out in
front of a train to prove it to you. That's tempting God. I'm not gonna stand out in the
yard with a steel pole in my hand in the middle of a thunderstorm
to prove to you that I'm a believer. He's promised to give me everything
I have need of, but I'm not gonna burn everything I have to prove
it. That's tempting God. Every day of your life and my
life is just full of evil. He said, take no thought for
your life, what you're gonna eat or what you're gonna drink,
nor yet for your body, what you should put on it. The life is more than meat, isn't
it? And the body more than raiment. He said, take no thought for
tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take thought of the things of
itself, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Believers
believe God, and they use the means to communicate that faith
that God has ordained. We're led of the Spirit as He
was. We trust Him. We rest in Him.
We believe Him. We don't do foolish things to
prove it. Tempting God is drinking poison. You know there's religions in
this world who drink poison to prove that they're believers. That's tempting God. There are
people handle venomous snakes in their worship of God. That's
tempting God. I was building a house years
ago for a foreman in the coal mines up in West Virginia and
there was a snake handling church just about a quarter of a mile
from where I was building that house and that evening that guy
had a big old copperhead in his hand and he was dancing around
and singing and that thing bit him right between the eyes and
he died. Attempting God. It's tempting
God. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. And another thing, refusing medical
attention. I'm a believer, I don't need
no medical attention. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord
thy God. And Lord, we pray as you've taught
us that you lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil. You know what that sentence is
talking about, deliver us from evil? Deliver us from the evil
one. That's what they're talking about.
Don't lead us into temptation. Deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever. Amen. Thank you.