Luke 4 (Part 1)

Luke chapter 4. We're going to start here in verse 1. Follow along with me as I read.

Stop there. Let's pray. We thank You, Father God, for giving us yet another opportunity to dig into the Word. We thank You ahead of time, knowing Lord, that it is in Your Word that we gain a heart of understanding, and that through the ministry of your Holy Spirit we are enabled to receive what this has to say. We pray also, Father God, for the courage to not just hear, but to do, according to the Word that we might gain a life of stability. We thank You Lord for this time. We pray that our hearts would be open and that our spiritual ears would be listening. We ask it in Jesus name, amen. I wish I could stand up here today and tell you that the devil is not real. I really do. I wish that I could tell you that he was a figment of someone's dark imagination. A fantasy written by some work of fiction, but I can't do that. And the reason I can't is because the Scripture bears out the reality of Satan, who was once Lucifer, according to the Scriptures. An incredibly beautiful and powerful angel who rebelled against God and was eventually cast out of the presence of the Lord. And there are passages scattered throughout the course of the Bible, which help us to put that all together. I don't have time to go through it all with you this morning because I want to take the time that this passage deserves to break it down and present it here today, this passage related to the temptations of Jesus. By the way, Matthew and Luke are the ones who give us the details of this particular event, the encounter that Jesus had with Satan. And it's interesting that this event which really heralds the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, has its counterpart in the Old Testament, and that counterpart is an event that took place when Satan cast temptations into the life of the first Adam in the Garden of Eden. Not only did Adam and Jesus both encounter temptations at the hand of the devil, but they both encountered the same kind of temptations. And you might be wondering what I'm talking about. You might be thinking to yourself, gee, pastor, I don't recall Adam ever being tempted to turn a rock into a loaf of bread, and that is true. But I want to explain to you here this morning, what I mean when I say that they encountered the same kind of temptations, and in order to do that we need to go back and actually look at those temptations as they were presented by the enemy in the Garden of Eden. I'll put it on the screen for you. From Genesis chapter 3 it says,

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All right, so we read this passage, we see how the enemy tempted Eve, and then of course, by virtue of that temptation also Adam, related to the tree of life in the center of the Garden of Eden, and we see the temptations that are laid out there. Let me highlight these on this passage for you. There they are highlighted in yellow. And if we pull those out and make them into bullet points we're going to see that they essentially look like this. Broken down they are, that it was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise.

Temptations broken down  good for food  a delight to the eyes  desired to make one wise Now I want you to hold onto those, right? Hold onto those three. Good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise. And then I want you to also take note of this passage from 1 John, chapter 2. I quoted it out of the New King James. I like it here. It says,

Now, in this passage, the apostle John outlines 3 categories of sin, and once again as we look at them, they are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Temptations  good for food  a delight to the eyes  desired to make one wise Now, as we go back to the temptations that Satan brought in the Garden of Eden, and we look at those, good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable, or desired, to make one wise, we're going to see that these line up exactly with what the apostle John said because what was the first thing? The first thing that the tree was good for food, right, and that lines up with John's mention of the lust of the flesh. Next is the fact that the fruit of the tree was delightful to the eyes, and that's pretty simple. That lines up with the lust of the eyes.

And then finally, the last element that they were tempted with was the fruit of the tree was desirable to make them wise, and this is simple. It's the pride of life. So there you have the connecting point that both John gives, and that is shown us in the Book of Genesis, and by the way, all of Satan's temptations fall under these 3 categories. He's got nothing new. He finds new ways to dish them out according to what you may find tempting in your life or what you may be tempted by, but everything falls under these three categories that are laid out for us in the Word. Now we're going to leave these up on the screen there for a bit, and we're going to read again how Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Follow along with me beginning at verse 3.

All right, pause there for just a moment if you would. We're told here in this section that Satan came to Jesus and tempted Him to turn stones into loaves of bread. And by the way I'm told that the rocks in that area of the wilderness near the Jordan actually look like loaves of bread. Probably been washed over by the water in such a way that they've become rounded, and if you squint your eyes just right it's like, wow that looks like a loaf of bread. Here's the big question though, that we have to ask. When did Jesus bring this temptation? Excuse me, when did Satan bring this temptation to Jesus? Was it right after Jesus got up from a big meal? No. If you look with me in the very second part of verse 2, it says,

Probably somewhat understated, I would say. The fact of the matter is, after 40 days of fasting, He wasn't just hungry, He needed food now. His body needed nourishment in order to go on. You get to the point of 40 days without food, and there is a point where you better take care of getting some calories into your body, or some serious things are about to happen. It would, suffice it to say Jesus was in a desperate sort of a situation. He needed food.

And what's important to see here is that it was at a time of intense hunger that Satan came, and said to Jesus what he said. See those rocks over there? They even look like loaves of bread. Well, you have the ability as the Son of God to turn it into a loaf of bread. Just go for it. And what he does there is he tempts Jesus to use His deity to conjure up a quick solution to His problem, and the reason that's important for you and I to see is that's part of Satan's M.O. He attacks us when we're weak. He's not going to attack you in an area where you're strong. If you don't have any temptations in a particular area, Satan's not going to waste his time. He does not have unlimited resources. He is a limited being. Powerful, albeit, but limited and so he's not going to waste his time throwing out temptations in your life where there's no chance of you falling, but he will come to you in those areas where you are weak. You can bet on it. But the next question that we really need to ask here is why did Satan present Jesus with this temptation? I mean, what's the big deal? What if Jesus had taken him up on the thing and said, yeah, good idea, poof, rock loaf of bread, just like that and sat down and started to have some lunch. Why would it, why would that have been so bad? You look at it and you think, I mean is that really a serious temptation? Well, you see, that's the point. Satan comes along when we have a need, and he suggests to us that there are ways to meet our need apart from trusting God. You see, what Satan was trying to do is he was trying to get Jesus to step out in His own power and to do this even though He came to live our life. He came to live the life of every believer to trust in the Lord with all of His heart, to wait upon the Lord for his provision, and see once again I share this because this is Satan's M.O. He wants to get you to act, apart from God's provision. But the way he does that is he waits until there's a need in your life that is crying out to be fulfilled, and then he comes to you and he suggests to you that this is the greatest need of your life. And we know what happens when, if I'm hungry for example, and I've never been that hungry, but when I'm hungry and if somebody comes along and starts talking to me about how hungry I am, I'm going to become more aware of my hunger. My awareness of my need becomes elevated, right? And if I start looking at pictures or driving past billboards, with a big fat juicy burger, I'm going to be even more so made aware of my hunger.

Well, and that might be comical for you and I to think of, but when the enemy comes along and begins to plant suggestions or ideas about just how hungry you are and just how great this need is, he knows that if he will do it relentlessly over a period of time, eventually you and I are going to become so fixated, so focused on my need that I'm going to begin to actually become fearful and panicky about this thing not getting met. And once I begin to panic and once fear begins to set in I'll do just about anything in order to meet my need, and that means stepping out and doing what I feel like needs to be done. Whatever that may be. And essentially what that means is I basically say to God slide over, I'm getting in the driver's seat, you just sit there and be quiet, I'm driving this thing from here on out because this is a desperate situation, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Here we go. How many of us have done that? Of course, of course, all of us, but that's what Satan's attempting to get us to do. Focus on your need. Focus on your need. Focus on your need, and that is, and he'll say it is the greatest need. This is your number one need in life, and again, you and I have probably never been tempted to turn a rock into bread. I can safely say that's never happened in my life, but there have been plenty of times in my life when I have been presented with a need and the enemy has rushed in at that time of my weakness and successfully suggested to me, that this is the greatest need in my life and if this isn't taken care of, I may die. And at the same time, he loves to whisper and accuse God to us in such a way as to say, I'm not absolutely sure that God is all that concerned with meeting your need. I think you're going to have to take this one up in your own strength and you need to take care of it, and you need to do it now, and I have fallen to that so many times in my life, and I'm willing to bet you probably have to because it has become amplified in our lives. So, Satan comes along. Jesus is famished. What is Jesus' response into this satanic attempt to get Him to focus on this thing, His hunger? Look at verse 4. Jesus answered,

That's a great response. It's a great response because see with this one simple response Jesus shifts the focus off this hunger thing going on in His life and he basically says to Satan it is not my greatest need. You are getting, you are attempting to get me to look at this thing going on in my life as the absolute number one greatest need in my life. It is not, and I will not allow you to do that. I will not allow you to shift my focus off what is truly my greatest need. Now, all Jesus says to him is, “man does not live by bread alone.” But if you and I knew the passage from which Jesus is quoting right there, we would understand the depth of what He is actually conveying to the enemy. It's actually quoted out of Deuteronomy. Let me show you the whole thing right up on the screen. It says, Deuteronomy 8:3 (ESV)

And he (God) humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, (well how does man live?) but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. See, that's what Jesus was saying to Satan when He quoted the passage from Deuteronomy chapter 8. Satan, you're trying to tell me this is my greatest need. It is not. The greatest need in my life is to hang on every word that comes from the mouth of my God. That is my greatest need, and that is your greatest need as well. That is our greatest need, to hang on every word from the Father. Even though Satan comes along and tells you, this is the big one. This is the one that's going to take you down, and you better take control, you better grab the joystick and you better run from here and control this thing from this point on or you're going down. And we have to have the courage, even in the face like Jesus did fasting for 40 days and again, His body needed nourishment and He knew that, and you look at your own needs and you know that you need what it is that you have, but you need to have the courage to say, but that is not my greatest need and I will not succumb to the voice of the enemy who attempts me to believe otherwise. My greatest need is to hang on every word that comes from my heavenly Father. It’s a pretty powerful thing that is being presented here. Jesus is responding in the most powerful way. All right, let's put our temptation categories back up on the screen here and we'll keep reading verse 5. “And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and

--- their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘

” All right, stop there. To understand which temptation is being leveled at Jesus in our category of things, we have to just take note of the words in verse 5, that Satan showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, right? That's the lust of the eyes. So, Jesus was shown the glory of all the kingdoms of the world, the glory that you and I probably can't even really see. Must have been pretty wonderful though to be a temptation as it was, and Satan offered it all to Jesus basically this can be yours. One simple requirement. You need to worship me, and I'll give it to You. There's a lot of things in this world that are beautiful. We look at them and we see their beauty, Satan comes along to suggest to us that we can possess those things if you want it bad enough. All you have to do is worship me. And you might think, well, now wait a minute, pastor Paul, what are you talking about? I've never been tempted to worship the devil. I would never do something that stupid. Yeah, yeah I get that. But you have to understand something. When you run after the things of this world, when you desire them, when you put your focus totally on the things of this world, and you begin to live for the things of this world, you are essentially bowing down to those things. You are essentially giving yourself to those things. You're offering yourself to those things, and that is the definition of worship. What does it mean to worship God? When we offer ourselves to Him. Isn’t that what Paul said? “Offer yourselves as living sacrifices (he says) which is your spiritual worship.” So, whatever you offer yourself to, that is your God, that is the thing that you worship. And so we see things in this life and we want them, we want to possess them and we run after them, and at that point we essentially begin to bow at the feet of Satan. So what's the answer to this temptation? Well, it's pretty simple. Verse 8. Look with me in your Bible. “

” And I'm really glad that they added that in there. That word, serve because worship to you and I can be, like I tried to explain worship here just a moment ago, and I'm so glad the apostle Paul explains it in the Word. But when you and I hear the word worship, we don't always think of what it means. We don't always think about that idea of giving ourselves to something and that's why I really liked the inclusion of the word, serve here. ---

Worship the Lord and serve Him only because isn't that what we do when we run after the things of the world, we begin to serve them. We become literally in bondage to those things. I want that, and I'm going to give myself to the possessing of that, and what we do is we begin to serve that end of going after and having, right? Instead of serving the Lord, which is running after Him, having Him in our lives, we're serving things instead, and so the response is, “worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” We, listen, what you love, you're going to serve, right? Isn't that what Jesus said? Wherever your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. But there are a couple other things before we move on to the last temptation. A couple other quick things that we need to probably make note of here because Satan makes a pretty startling statement in this conversation with Jesus. You'll notice that he said concerning all of the things that Jesus saw, the glory and the authority of all the kingdoms. You remember what Satan said? He said, “it has been delivered to me,” and then secondly, he said, “and I give it to whom I will.” Wow. You know, it's funny, when we read in the Scriptures that man sinned in the garden, we're not told all of the ramifications till much later. We find out by reading other Scriptures, all the far-reaching implications of our sin, and we learn one here. The man and the woman were placed in the garden, and they were given dominion. Dominion. When they sinned and when they responded to Satan's temptations the way they did, that dominion was abdicated. It was given over. Satan then received that same dominion, temporary, though it may be, and the Bible bears out these, this idea that Satan has become something significant in the world in which we live. Let me show you these on the screen. Three statements related to Satan. “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31) “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) From John 12, he is referred to by Jesus as the ruler of this world. God calls him the god of this world, small g, but still, god in 2 Corinthians 4:4 not the eternal God, not the creator God, but certainly the ruler, temporarily, of this world. And then in Ephesians 2:2, he's called, “the prince of the power of the air.”

Once again, we see that the Bible corroborates this idea, and you'll notice that Jesus doesn't dispute with the devil when he makes these claims. “It's been given to me, I can give it to whom I will.” Now, the good news is, even though we're living in a kingdom within a kingdom, you understand that, right. This world in which we live is part of the world that belongs to the god of this world, small g. It's his kingdom. It's man's kingdom essentially, but Satan rules it. But you and I have been birthed into a new kingdom, the kingdom of our God, and that kingdom begins in our hearts, and it grows outward from there. So, we're living in a kingdom within a kingdom. But we know that there is coming a day in the future when Jesus will be handed back all the kingdoms of man, and it's given to us in the book of Revelation. Let me show it to you. Chapter 11, verse 15, Revelation 11:15 (ESV) Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, (look at this) “The kingdom of the world (the one we were just talking about, the one that's currently under the rulership of the enemy) has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” And if you have a song going through your head, you probably know the music of the Messiah. Beautiful prophecy, wonderful passage, but it's handed back. It was handed to the enemy by a man, the first Adam. It took a man, the last Adam to win it back. And that he did for us through his conquering of death and overturning the curse of the enemy. All right, we'll put our temptation categories once again up on the screen and begin reading with me at verse 9. “And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” 12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Well, since we only have one area of temptation left or one category, it's pretty easy to figure out which one we're talking about here. It has to be the pride of life. However, you might look at this or read this temptation and ask yourself the question, how exactly would jumping off the pinnacle of the temple appeal to Jesus' pride? It sounds like just a dumb thing to do, at least without a bungee cord. But, you have to agree that if Jesus leapt off the pinnacle of the temple, and as Satan said, according to his quotation of the Word, that God would guard him and catch him up in the hands of the angels and lower him slowly to the ground, you got to admit that would be a pretty amazing sort of a site. I mean, talk about a grand entrance, right? The people, they wouldn't spend their time arguing, debating, and even fighting over who this Jesus of Nazareth character is. They would have known right from the beginning, He is the Messiah. I mean, who else could do something like that? And I have no doubt that the Jews expected Messiah to have an entrance just about like that, and the reason I think that is because there's this interesting statement in the prophecy of Malachi that goes like this, let me show it to you from Malachi chapter 3.

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple… Oh, I can just imagine, in the imagination of the Jews, they probably conjured up all these crazy ways He was going to suddenly come to his temple. And I'm sure that there were some imaginative rabbi somewhere along the line who said, He's going to just float down from the sky right in the midst of the temple, and there He will light and begin to teach us the things of God, and He will conquer the enemies of the Lord and it'll be grand. I have no doubt. Here Satan comes along and he says, all right, here's the deal. Why don't you just jump off? Well, you got to admit, again if Jesus had done that it's sort of this instant gratification of just having the adoration of all the people right there. So, that was the opportunity that Satan presented, and we know from Jesus’ response that He, once again, quoted the Word and said, “no, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test,” and so it's another temptation of the enemy to get us avoid the difficulties that sometimes stand in our way. Because you see, Jesus will, He will be recognized universally as the Messiah one day. He is not today, and He was not even by his own people, the Jews. Well, there was a small group of them, but then the Gentiles came in and started to take things over, and here we are.

How much time it would have saved if it just would have started off with just the instant reception of all the people. You are the Messiah. You see, what Satan is doing is he's basically giving a shortcut, and really, in these last two temptations, you see that. I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world. Hey, Jesus is going to get all the kingdoms of the world anyway. What was Satan's temptation, essentially? Do it my way, and you can bypass all that hurt. All that suffering, that death. The cross isn't necessary. I can give it to anyone I want, I'll give it to you if you'll just worship me. Jesus is going to receive the adoration of all people. The Bible says, “every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father,” one day. Why wait till one day? Get it now. Just float down from the temple and get it now. Why wait? Oh man, if I had a dollar for every time I've been tempted to jump through the enemy's hoops and not have to wait and go through the difficulties. But you know what? I've learned in my walk with the Lord that it is those various difficulties through which God often teaches me the most vital lessons. I had a situation come up in the last year, as a matter of fact, where I was facing a situation that frightened me, and when I recognized my situation, the enemy came in and did just what we talked about here. He made me believe that it was my greatest need in the world, and so I set apart or I set out rather, to avoid that difficulty as best I could and I played every card in my hand and I failed. And I mean, I was really shook. I was really shook. And when I played my last card, and I knew it was my last card, and when I lost, I expected that I was going to freak out. I really did because I had been just really upset and bothered and scared. I played my last card and I failed, and as soon as I played it, as soon as I realized I lost that hand, lost the game, the most incredible sense of peace flooded my heart, like I can't even begin to explain, and I said immediately to the Lord, what are you doing here? And the Lord just has His wonderful way of speaking to my heart, and it was like well, I was just waiting for you to play all your cards so I could show you My hand, so I could show you what I want to do. I'm not going to let you avoid this difficulty, Paul, but I'll be with you. I'll walk through it with you and I'll see you to the other side.

But I had to let you exhaust every avenue and every attempt to try to fix it in your own power before I would step in and be the God that you've called upon me to be. Here I am 61 years old. I've been pastoring for 35 years and I'm still such an idiot. I mean, I just, I've been preaching these things for a long time, but walking them out is hard, and I forget the things I preach. I do. Sometimes I go back and listen to myself on YouTube, and I go, did I say that? I go, wow, that's encouraging. I should probably put that into practice. And then I begin to see that the Scripture says something about the difficulties that Jesus went through, and I think to myself, wow, if He had to go through difficulties why do I think I'm exempt? Let me show you a passage from Hebrews chapter 5.

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. (Look at this last line) 8 Although he was a son, (and you and I know he was the Son, and still is) he learned obedience through what he suffered. Ugh! I keep trying to convince the Lord that I'm willing to learn those things without suffering. But you know when I do that, I'm exalting myself above Christ, because He learned things through His human suffering, and that's pretty powerful stuff, isn't it? I don't know when the last time you've thought about that was, but it's pretty amazing. And I want to end here this morning by reminding you of something from this passage here in Luke chapter 4 that I think you already know, and that is that in each and every temptation that the enemy leveled against Jesus in each and every one He responded with the Word. With the Scripture, and that is so important because we've seen here today the enemy's M.O. and we've seen that he's an opportunist, and that opportunity is our weakness, and we give him plenty of opportunities. In fact, it's interesting how it even says here in the ESV that after the temptations were over, it says, and Satan left him until when? An opportune time. He's an opportunist. And since we give him plenty of targets, in the way of our own weaknesses, and lots of opportunities. We need to know also what our response to those attacks needs to be, and it has to be the Word of God. You and I have to learn to wield the Sword of the Spirit and do it in a way that Jesus showed us in this example in Luke chapter 4. So incredibly important. So important because the Word of God, the power of the Spirit, that is the means by which you and I are going to stand against the temptations of the enemy. That's what He's given us to stand, and if we're not walking in the Spirit, we're not taking up the Sword of the Spirit. Guess what? We're going to fall. It's as simple as that. I can't stand against the temptations of the enemy in my own power. Not even close. Listen, Satan's been doing this thing a whole lot longer than I have. He knows what he's doing, he's very effective at what he does, and I can't stand against him. Not in Paul, the power of Paul. There's no, I say, the power of Paul. It's an oxymoron. There is no power in Paul. None. The only power is in Jesus Christ, right? He has given us, the Bible says, everything we need for godliness, and that means when temptations arise, He's given us the ability to stand against them. Look at this promise from 1 Corinthians. You guys know this.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. (But he says) God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he (God) will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. What is the way of escape? Sword of the Spirit. Power of the Spirit. That's how He's given us the ability to escape the temptations of the enemy Spiritual attacks come, spiritual attacks go. We better be ready and take the example that Jesus gave us here. Don't let Satan convince you that this need in your life is the biggest need of your life, because the more you focus on your need the bigger it gets. When the nation of Israel sent those spies into the land and they came back and said, there's giants in the land, what happened?

They gave this bad report and all the people just sat and focused on the giants and it was all Joshua and Caleb could do to try to convince them otherwise, but they couldn't do it because everybody was focusing on the problem, the giants, the giants, the giants, and the more they talked about it the bigger those giants got. And that's the same thing with the problems you're going through in your life. The more you focus on them, the more the enemy gets you to fixate on them, the bigger they become, the more overwhelming they become, and you become panicky and fearful, and you step out and you try to fix it on your own. And isn't that fun? I don't know about you, but every time I step out on my own, I screw it up, and it becomes worse. But every time I take God at His word, when He says, trust in me with all of your heart. All of your heart, Paul, and lean not on your own understanding. I'll direct your paths. I'll see you through this thing. Trust me.