The Purpose of Temptation; Matthew 4:1-11

On this First Sunday of Lent, we read a very familiar passage of Scripture—the temptations of Jesus. This occurred immediately after the baptism. Mark’s gospel says that Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. It was necessary for Jesus to be tested. The word “tempted” means tested for the purposes of approval. The word “tempt” is used of both the actions of God as well as the actions of the devil. The difference is in the motivations for the temptations. God tests to confirm our identity in Him as well as to strengthen our reliance on Him and to crucify the desires of the flesh in us. God uses testing to bring us closer to Him and to make us more like Jesus. The devil, on the other hand, tests to pull us away from God, to condemn us and to destroy us. God always provides an escape route. God cannot and does not tempt us to do evil. Notice that in Jesus’ temptation, God used the devil—the accuser—as His instrument. God desires spiritual growth in us. This leads to times of testing, which hopefully result in more spiritual growth. The devil has evil motives, to cause spiritual failure, but is still under God’s control. The devil has a certain freedom in the world has no ultimate authority. The word devil, “diabolis”, means “accuser” or “slanderer”. It is used to describe people. Paul uses to describe people. In I Timothy for example, the word “devil” is translated “slanderers” or “malicious gossips.” When you say something to cause hurt to another person or intentionally falsely accuse another, you are literally acting diabolical. You are devilish. When this word has the definite article in front of it, it refers to the Evil One. It had just been made known publicly at Jesus’s baptism that He is the beloved Son of God. Jesus was tempted not to doubt His position, it was something of which He was sure, but whether or not He would use or misuse His divine authority. Was He going to work in conjunction with the Father or would He establish His own will? When we come to realize that we are God’s beloved children, we face the same testing. Are we going to submit to the will of our heavenly Father, or will we assert our own selfish will? Will we try to control the Holy Spirit and try use the Spirit’s power to our advantage, or will we allow the Holy Spirit to control us? We don’t know every temptation that Jesus went through, but these three are given to signify the areas in which we are tempted—the lust of the flesh (bread), which is testing in regard to our physical needs, the lust of the eyes (kingdoms of the world), which is testing in regard to things we want, and the pride of life (jumping off the temple) which is the testing of who we are. The order in Luke has the last two temptations reversed to reflect the order in which Adam and Eve were tempted. Luke is emphasizing Jesus’ role as Son of Man—the Perfect Man who restores our fallen nature. Eve was tempted by the fruit when she saw it was good for food—lust of flesh, a delight to the eyes—the lust of the eyes, and to prove one wise—the pride of life. Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ role as King, so he has the temptation of kingship, ruling the world, as the last temptation. The first temptation was in regard to Jesus’ physical needs. He was hungry! Would He misuse His divine power to provide food for Himself? He did not. He remembers the Scripture, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” You may know, all the Scriptures Jesus quotes come from the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus considers the Law inspired and authoritative as we talked about last week. This quotation comes from chapter 8 where Moses tells the people not to forget God in times of prosperity. He reminds them of the time that they were fed in the wilderness with the manna, which God did to show them that there is more to living life than food. Jesus doesn’t deny His ability to perform the miracle, but He will let God be the one direct His power. Jesus never uses His divine power for His own self-preservation or selfish ambition. Later on, He will multiply food to provide for thousands, although He does not use His power to end world hunger. Jesus suffered hunger to identify with us. On Wednesday night, we were reminded that Lent is a time for us to renew our commitment to obedience in gratitude for Jesus’ obedience to the Father on our behalf. With Jesus’ quote in this first temptation, I couldn’t help but think of the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day the bread that is necessary.” Obedience to what God speaks is necessary for our well-being. Do we believe that God will provide what is necessary for us day by day? In the temptation for Jesus to display His divinity by hurling Himself off the temple, the Evil One quotes Scripture too, using a passage from Psalm 91. While no less authoritative, the verse is ripped from its context. This promise, like many of God’s promises, comes with stipulations—if this, then this. Jesus’ response to this temptation is, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” from Deuteronomy 6:16, in reference the time the Israelites tested the Lord at Massah when they were thirsty and needed water. Moses tells the people that they are to obey God’s commandments, decrees, and statutes. This verse fits this temptation because the context of the promise of deliverance is for the one who relies on God for shelter and safety, not the one who challenges God’s ability. The psalm also says that God guards one in all one’s ways. In other words, God guards a person as one goes about life serving God, not one who takes foolish risks to prove a point. This particular temptation is an attempt to test Jesus’ divine identity—the pride of life. Jesus doesn’t have to prove His position as God’s Son. He knows it. He will be revealed to those whom God wills. We must be careful not to twist Scripture to justify our selfish desires or to misuse our position as God’s children. Sometimes we are guilty of wanting blessings without the stipulations. Or we forget that blessings are exactly that—blessings—and demand them as rights. The televangelists used to say that we ought to be rich because we are King’s kids. Yes, we are King’s kids, and yes, we have the full inheritance of the Son, but it is in the Son that we receive, not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is. We receive our riches in Christ. We don’t simply receive riches. The word “test” in the verse that Jesus quotes is different for the kind of testing that Jesus is going through. The testing of God that is forbidden is trying God out to see if God is really who God claims to be, or does what God claims to do. It is what Gideon did as recorded in the Book of Judges. On 3 different occasions, Gideon tested God. On a fourth occasion, God knowing that Gideon would ask for another sign, told Gideon to go listen to what Gideon’s enemies were saying so that Gideon would have enough courage to do what God said. This shows the greatness of God’s mercy. God knows that we will put God to the test, even though God commands otherwise. God is never obligated to submit to our tests or prove Godself to us, but God forgives and heals our lack of faith. This doesn’t mean we should disregard this commandment or think lightly of it. God forgives us every time we break commandments, but they are all to be taken seriously. And just because God forgives us every time, doesn’t mean that there are no consequences. Instead of using God’s mercy and grace as an excuse to sin, we are called to confess our sin and repent. In our doubts, instead of testing God, ew can pray like the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith!” Jesus sees all the kingdoms of the world throughout time in His mind’s eye in the 3rd temptation. This temptation reflects the “lust of the eyes”. For Jesus, world Kingship was more than a want. It was His rightful position and something He knew that He was supposed to be. But the timing was wrong. Jesus knew that the quick way isn’t necessarily the right way and that the end doesn’t justify the means. The Evil One does have some claim to the world, but is not divine and is not to be worshipped. World kingship actually would have been less than Jesus was meant to be. He is to be glorified as ruler of all creation—the heavens and the earth, the spiritual as well as the physical. Jesus desire to be King over all was not a bad want. In fact, it was who He was meant to be. Our wants aren’t always wrong either. We can want the same things that God wants for us and wants to give us. But we also must remember to wait on God’s timing. Jesus didn’t go beyond the Father’s known will at any given moment. He knew the ultimate ending, but He did not necessarily the steps it would take to get there. We too know the ultimate ending, but not the in between steps. We too ought to live in the known revealed will of God, not pushing ahead until it is time. We are facing some unknowns as a church. We have wants, legitimate wants. The temptation is to try to come up with something to “fix it”. Ultimately we know that God is good and whatever happens is right, but will we trust God’s timing? We know that God has given us work to do in the meantime. Will we be faithful in the work that He has already revealed for us? Or will we worry and fret over those things that have not been revealed? Like Jesus, we go through periods of temptation, times of testing. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God will not lead us inward to temptation, but that God will deliver us from the Evil One. In other words that God will not let us succumb to ourselves, which is the desire of the Evil One, to separate us from God, but that like Jesus, we will come to a deeper understanding of who we are in relation to our heavenly Father, learning to submit more and more to His will. God allows us to be tempted so that we will depend on God, like a dog being trained by his master. First the master places a piece of meat on the floor near the dog and the master says No! Now the dog knows that No means he is not supposed to touch the meat. What happens is, the dog will eventually take his eyes off the meat because the temptation to disobey is far greater when he looks at it. Instead he fixes his eyes on his master’s face. So the lesson of the dog is: Always look at the master’s face.* If we keep our eyes fixed on our Master’s face, we will be able to resist temptation. If we focus on what the Master has showed us, we will experience the victory and closeness to our heavenly Father that Jesus experienced.