Central Christian Church - Lampasas

Temptation presents itself to us as something inviting, attractive and life giving. Yet in reality it's poisonous and toxic.

A. THE SETTING OF THE TEMPTATIONS

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness.

The same Spirit which descended upon Him in bodily form as a dove at his baptism. It was likely the wilderness of Judea, a desolate place.

Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

It appears that this challenge was initiated by the Spirit. Jesus fasted and tempted for forty days.

His fasting is reminiscent of Moses & Elijah.

Luke reveals that temptations occurred over the period of forty days.

Mark mentions wild beasts.

THE CLIMAX OF TEMPTATIONS

At the end of the forty days of temptation we find Satan approaching Jesus for a climax involving three temptations.

The 1st Temptation

Satan's appeal to the lust of the flesh. Challenging Jesus' identity, Satan appeals to His fleshly hunger.

Jesus responds with Scripture.

There is more to life than just fulfilling physical desires; man is dependent upon the Word of God to truly live.

The Second Temptation

Satan appeals to the pride of life. Again Satan challenges Jesus' identity. This time Satan even quotes scriptures.

Jesus responds with Scripture.

While the passage Satan quoted is true, it would be an abuse of it to purposely test God. Satan took it out of context.

The Third Temptation

Satan appeals to the lust of the eyes. Satan offers to give Jesus all the kingdoms if He will worship Satan. Once again Jesus responds with Scripture.

Though offered a shortcut to receiving power over nations, Jesus doesn't take the easy way out. (See also Revelation 2:26-27; 3:21)

THE END OF THE TEMPTATIONS

Angels came and ministered to Jesus

This would not be the last time Satan would seek to tempt Jesus. See Luke 4:13; Matthew 16:21-23.

The New Testament tells of Jesus’ temptations to assure and encourage believers to trust in His salvation and follow His pattern of faithfulness to God. Though sinless, Jesus experienced the moral struggle between the desire to do right and the desire to sin. Temptation is a basic experience all people encounter. For His mission of salvation, Jesus stood in the place of sinful people, suffered the onslaught of temptation, and triumphed by never giving into sin.

The wilderness temptations (Matt 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13) highlight Jesus’ role as the new Adam, and mirror Israel’s 40 years of wilderness wanderings. Like Adam and Eve, Jesus underwent temptation, but where they sinned, Jesus proved faithful.

Jesus’ faithfulness is further seen in Gethsemane, where Jesus asked three times for another way (Matt 26:39, 42, 44), and on the cross, where He experienced the despair of feeling forsaken by God (Matt 27:46).

Jesus’ temptations speak to the authenticity of the incarnation. The temptations also qualify Him for His role as priest, since He is able to identify with His people in their temptations and restore them in relationship to God (Heb 4:14–16). In addition to completing His work as sinless redeemer, Jesus’ temptations and sufferings—and His responses—teach those who follow Him how to overcome temptation and difficulty in their own lives.

Jesus resisted temptation immediately. He did not think about it or imagine how good it would feel to give in to it. As was sin it gets easier and easier to wander from our Lord and allow it to take residence in our lives.

As Jesus demonstrated in the temptation in the wilderness—and through his faithfulness at Gethsemane—the proper response to temptation is to resist with the help of God.

In the wilderness, Jesus showed that God’s Word can be used to counter the lies of temptation. Jesus responded to Satan’s appeals by relying on God’s Word, manifesting the lesson that Israel was supposed to learn in their 40 years of wilderness journeying (Deut 8:2–3). Temptation often presents sin as acceptable and desirable; the antidote is the truth. In Gethsemane, Jesus charged His disciples to pray that they not enter into temptation (Luke 22:40).

Peirázō (from 3984 /peíra, "test, trial") – "originally to test, to try which was its usual meaning in the ancient Greek and in the LXX" (WP, 1, 30). "The word means either test or tempt" (WP, 1, 348). Context alone determines which sense is intended, or if both apply simultaneously.

Christ’s temptations occurred for our sake, as part of His work to save His people. The experience of being tempted “in all ways as we are” (Heb 4:15) reassures believers that Jesus, despite being the eternal God, truly understands the experience of temptation. He endured the strain of temptation from childhood until His final moments on the cross. Jesus experienced the temptation to retaliate when sinned against, to withdraw and protect Himself, to shrink back from God’s mission, and to avoid suffering. His empathy and willingness to help those undergoing temptation originate in His personal experience. Hebrews 4:16 urges Christians to seek Jesus’ help, as He both understands temptation and pain, and possesses the ability to provide the aid necessary to surmount any obstacle.

The proper response to temptation is to resist with the help of God. In the wilderness, Jesus showed that God’s Word can be used to counter the lies of temptation. Jesus responded to Satan’s appeals by relying on God’s Word, manifesting the lesson that Israel was supposed to learn in their 40 years of wilderness journeying (Deut 8:2–3). Temptation often presents sin as acceptable and desirable; the antidote is the truth of God’s Word. In Gethsemane, Jesus charged His disciples to pray that they not enter into temptation (Luke 22:40).

Read a dictionary definition of ''repentance.'' What you'll usually find is a definition which usually includes big words like ''contrition,'' ''remorsefulness,'' etc. As you read the definition, note how flowery and impressive the definition is and how it so impresses you that you're tempted to look up the words they use in the definition.

But Greek word for ''repentance was more basic and less flowery. The Greek word for repentance meant: TURN AROUND. You're going the wrong way. You're following the wrong road, the wrong leader. TURN AROUND.

Ephesians 2:1-41 tells us that at one time we were following the ways of this
world, following the ruler of the kingdom of the air, gratifying the cravings and desires that were destroying us. We were going the wrong way - we needed to repent. To turn around.

Repentance was at the heart of the Apostles' message:

This statement would have made very good sense to the people of Rome, to whom Paul was writing. It would have invoked in them a picture of the slave market. The slave market was a thriving sector of the Roman economy. When a person was a slave, of course, they were completely subject to their master. They had no choice. They had no opportunity for freedom.

So it was with us when we were in sin. We had no choice. We had no opportunity to be free from sin. At that point, we could use the excuse that the temptation to sin was just too much for us.

Believe it or not, in the days of the Roman Empire, there were some good people who didn’t believe in slavery. They knew what kind of life people would live in slavery, and they wanted to do anything possible to alleviate the problem.

Some of these people were rich, so they would go to the slave market and buy slaves for only one purpose: to set them free. Because the price of the slave had been paid, the slave could be set free. The Romans even had a word for this practice, the Greek word “apolutrosis.” That word is the same word that is used in Romans 3:24, and is translated, “redeemed.”

While we were enslaved to sin, we were completely under the control of sin. We were being sold on the open market to the highest bidder. And Jesus came, had compassion on us, and paid the required price, which was his own sinless life’s blood. Because he has paid for us, we are now free. We are no longer under the control of sin. We are no longer naturally compelled to sin.

The problem is that some people do not feel like they are free from sin. They feel like it still has control over them. Because we don’t have slavery, we may not understand that illustration as well as the Romans did. Let me give you a different example to explain this problem.

The good news is that God knows exactly what your breaking point is. And because he is merciful, he promises that he will never let the temptation get beyond that point. If you are being tempted, it must be a temptation that you are strong enough to resist, because otherwise God would not have allowed it to come. As long as we do our part and resist the temptation that does come, God promises that he will ensure that the temptation never gets too strong for us to resist.

The only way for the temptation to get too strong for us is to give in to it. When we succumb to temptation one time, the next time it gets bigger, and then bigger, and then bigger still, until eventually it’s out of control like the four-story-tall snake. But we can hardly blame God for that. He did not allow that to get out of control. We are the ones who allow it to get out of control by giving in to it.

God will allow us to be tempted, because it is withstanding trials that makes us strong, but he will never allow that temptation to become so strong that we cannot handle it.

Trials and temptations are like the winds of our life. It is when we overcome them that we gain strength to stand up. If we never had any trials, we would be weak like the trees in the experiment. We would crumble at the slightest difficulty. But because God knows what’s best for us, he allows the storms to come that we can handle, because they make us stronger.

It may seem unfair when these things happen, but there are two important truths that shed some light on this issue. First, if everything was fair, we would all be immediately struck dead. We are all sinners condemned before a holy God, deserving of instant annihilation. It is only because God is merciful (i.e. unfair) to us that we are even still here. How, then, could we dare to complain about injustice or unfairness to God. I must admit, that while this is true, it doesn’t provide much comfort in the midst of what we think are unfair circumstances. The second observation should make you feel much better. In the end, every wrong will be made right. Every injustice will be paid for. If not by the blood of Jesus then by the Final Judgment. There is not ONE WRONG EVER COMMITTED THAT WILL GO UNPUNISHED!

We see a beautiful example of this promise when we read the rest of the story of Joseph. Joseph spent 14 years in prison, where he had ups and downs, but even in the ups, I’m sure that prison life was never as pleasant as Potiphar’s house. But in the end, his time in prison led to his elevation to the second in command of all of Egypt. This position helped him to save his entire family in a time of famine, not to mention the rest of the known world. Joseph summed it all up when he said to his brothers,