Immediately following Jesus’ baptism, in preparation for the start of His
ministry, Jesus goes into the wilderness area to fast and pray for forty days. At the very end of this period of fasting and prayer,
Satan appears and tries to tempt Jesus.
Then Jesus returned from the
Jordan, full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness
for 40 days to be tempted by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and
when they were over, He was hungry. The
Devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become
bread." But Jesus answered him, "It is written: Man must not live on
bread alone." So he took Him up and
showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. The Devil said to Him, "I will give You
their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me,
and I can give it to anyone I want. If
You, then, will worship me, all will be Yours." And Jesus answered him, "It is written:
Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." So he took Him to Jerusalem, had Him stand
on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of
God, throw Yourself down from here. For
it is written: He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you,
and they will support you with their hands, so that you will not strike your
foot against a stone." And Jesus
answered him, "It is said: Do not test the Lord your God." After the Devil had finished every
temptation, he departed from Him for a time.
Luke 4:1-13
Satan first tried to tempt Jesus by appealing to His physical needs. After forty days of fasting, Jesus is
hungry. Satan tempts Jesus to turn stone
into bread in order to satisfy this most basic need. Jesus, who was present at creation and is the creator of
everything in existence (Col. 1:15-16) could have done this Himself very
easily. However, He does not give in to
the deceiver’s temptation and instead responds to Satan with scripture. The verse that Jesus quotes from is
Deuteronomy 8:3. In Deuteronomy, Moses
is going over the commandments and the laws given by God to the Children of Israel. Moses is reminding them of their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, where God provided manna each day for the
Israelites to eat. But Moses uses this
verse to remind them that they are not to live on bread (manna) alone, but on
every word that comes from the mouth of God.
A very fitting response from Jesus, the Word of God Himself, who has
just spent forty days in the wilderness being sustained by God. Just as the law and commandments were given
to the Israelites by God, so too Jesus is preparing to give Himself in order to
fulfill the Law of Moses and become the Bread of Life (Jn 6:35).
Satan
next tried to tempt Jesus by appealing to what Satan perceived as Jesus' true desire...the desire for power and authority. Satan took Jesus to the
top of a tall mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of this world in one
moment of time. Satan promised Jesus all
their splendor and authority if He would only bow down and worship him. It is true that Satan has the right to hand over their splendor and authority to Him because I John 5:19 tells us that Satan has been given temporary power over this world. Satan attempts to appeal to Jesus' desire for power and authority, not fully comprehending that the desire for power and authority is his desire and the reason for his own fall from God's presence, and not in any way Jesus' desire. Jesus again replies with scripture from
Deuteronomy chapter 6 (6:13-15) and counters that you are to worship only God and none other. Moses,
proclaiming the laws and commandments of the Lord God, reminds the Israelites that God
delivered them from Egyptian slavery.
Israel had been slaves, with nothing at all, and were delivered by God
out of bondage. They were brought to a
promised land flowing with milk and honey, and given great abundance. Moses was reminding them not to fall prey to
temptation and return to worshiping the other gods that surrounded them. Moses reminded them that God was a jealous
God, and would not tolerate their worship of other false gods. Likewise, Jesus was being tempted by the
ultimate false god, Satan, to bow down and worship him in return for splendor
and authority of earthly kingdoms, when Jesus already had eternal splendor and
authority over everything.
Lastly,
Satan tries to tempt Jesus by appealing to His pride, the “original sin” itself (Is. 14:12-15). Satan transports Jesus to the top of the
Temple in Jerusalem. The Deceiver challenges
Jesus to throw Himself down to the ground, proclaiming that if He is indeed the
Son of God, angels will be given orders to protect Him and not let even His
foot strike the stone (Ps. 91:11-12). Satan accurately quotes scripture from Psalms 91 regarding the protection of those who place their trust in God. This takes place at the Temple in Jerusalem, a place where the Jewish religious leaders would have seen with their own eyes Jesus perform a miraculous feat, proving beyond doubt that Jesus is the Son of God to all those present who witnessed that miracle. Satan is attempting to appeal to Jesus' prideful nature, which of course Jesus does not have, which would have allowed Jesus to proclaim Himself the one true Messiah sent from God. This miracle would have allowed Jesus to forego the rejection by Israel of Him as their Messiah, avoid the crucifixion on the cross, and firmly established his kingdom on this earth. But, Jesus replies again with scripture from Deuteronomy chapter 6 (6:16),
admonishing Satan that you must not test God.
The scripture that Jesus quotes is again where Moses is speaking to the
Israelites and reminds them not to test the Lord as they had done at
Massah. At Massah, the Children of
Israel had no water, and not trusting in the Lord once again to provide, cried
out to Moses and Aaron asking “why did you bring us all the way out here in the
wilderness just to die?” Moses went to
God and was told to speak to a rock, and water for all the people would pour
forth. Instead, Moses gathers the people
at the rock and strikes it twice with his staff, disobeying God’s instructions (Numbers
20:1-13; Ex. 17:1-7). It is for this reason that both Aaron and Moses die in the wilderness and are not allowed to
enter into the promised land (Deut. 32:48-52). Satan used scripture, quoting directly from
the Psalms. However, he manipulated it
in an attempt to cause Jesus to act contrary to God’s will. Jesus could have thrown Himself off the top
of the Temple, and God’s angels would have protected Jesus from harm just as
the scripture proclaimed. But, this was
not within God’s will, and was simply testing God and His provision and
protection. Likewise, Moses had carried
out God’s providing of water for the Children of Israel, but did so in a way
that God had not directed, against His will. Moses had acted in a way contrary to God's specific direction, instead acting out of his own anger.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever. I John 2:15-17
John in his letter admonishes believers to not love the world or the things of this world. He then summarizes these things as "the lust of the flesh", "the lust of the eyes", and "the boastful pride of life." This is exactly the three ways in which Satan tried to tempt Jesus, and by which he tries to tempt us daily. By tempting us with the lust of the flesh, those things that are basic wants and needs of this fleshly earthly body, that give us temporary satisfaction and fulfillment. By tempting us with the lust of the eyes, those things which appeal to us, that we desire, that we think we want or need to make us happy. And lastly, by tempting us with the pride of life, that innate desire in all of us to sit on our own throne, to be our own god, not having anyone exert authority or control over us. It is the same pattern of temptation that Satan utilized in the garden of Eden when he first tried to tempt Adam and Eve.
Now the serpent was the most
cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the
woman, "Did God really say, 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden'?
" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit from the trees
in the garden. But about the fruit of
the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You must not eat it or touch
it, or you will die.' " "No! You will not die," the serpent said
to the woman. "In fact, God knows
that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil." Then the woman saw
that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was
desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she
also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Genesis 3:1-6
Satan
attempts to deceive and tempt all of us.
He has done so from the very beginning of creation, where as the Serpent
he tempted and deceived Adam and Eve.
Interestingly, Satan used the same method of tempting on the Lord Jesus as
he had on Adam and Eve. Satan tempted
Adam and Eve by manipulating and twisting the word of God. He tempted them by appealing to their physical needs, appealing to their desires, and to their pridefulness and their desire to be "like God." Satan
appealed to their physical needs by questioning why they could not eat from the
tree of knowledge of good and evil. The
Bible says that Eve saw that the tree was “good for food.” Satan appealed to their desires for what they saw. The Bible says
that Eve saw the fruit was delightful to look at. It appealed to her in more than just a hunger satisfying way, it was something she coveted to have. Finally, Satan
tempted Adam and Eve by appealing to their innate pridefulness. Satan promised them that their eyes would be opened, and they would become like God knowing good and evil. Satan questions what trees they are allowed
to eat from in the garden. He mixes
truth with lie, telling them that they will not die (a lie), and that their
eyes will be opened and they will know good and evil (the truth). The Bible says that they saw the fruit of the tree was desirable for obtaining knowledge. Satan appealed to their desire to be like God Himself, knowing both good and evil.
The result was man and woman not obeying
God’s rules, and deviating from God’s will for them. This resulted in the fall of mankind, and the
sin that entered into this world separating us from God. Only the perfect man, Jesus, could lead a
sinless life and act as the perfect sacrifice for all our sins, once again
providing a way for us to have a relationship with God (Romans 5:12-21). Remember Satan's ways of trying to tempt us. Be prepared for the deceiver. Jesus was able to defeat Satan by rightly quoting scripture which countered Satan's manipulating and twisting of scripture.
