Matthew 4

Matthew chapter 4.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we get into Your Word this morning, always, Lord, we humbly come before You and seek wisdom, insight, and understanding. And pray, Father, for that spiritual connection to be able to communicate with You as You speak to our hearts. Be with us, Father, we pray in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Let me start by giving you a road map on the screen for this this chapter. It's really divided into four sections. Beginning with,

Roadmap for Matthew 4  The Temptation of Jesus  Jesus Begins Preaching in Galilee  Jesus Calls the First Disciples  Jesus Ministers to the Crowds The temptation of Jesus, the beginning of His preaching ministry that started in Galilee. The calling of those first 4 disciples to follow Him. And then finally, His ministry as the crowds began to swell and gather, and bring those who needed healing. The temptation narrative covers the first 10 verses of the chapter. It begins by telling us that “Jesus was led (into the wilderness) …by the Spirit” which is an interesting statement. And there we're told that He was “tempted by the devil,” but the temptation didn't start right away. What began first was a period of 40 days of fasting and prayer. 40 days! I don't know if you've ever fasted for any length of time. I struggle fasting for 40 minutes, let alone 40 hours, or 40 days. I can't even imagine. I don't know if you've ever done any kind of lengthy fasting, but you can only imagine if you have, just how hungry a body would be after a 40 days. So this statement that, “he was hungry,” is probably one of the greatest understatements in all of the Bible, I would imagine. But verse 2 is really super important for us to take note of. It says that, “after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him,…” Why am I emphasizing that? Well, I wanted you to take note of when the tempter came. When did the tempter come? Did he come after 5 days? After 10 days? No, it was after a full 40 days. Jesus was hungry. He was not only hungry, you have to imagine there was probably a physical weakness that had really set in by this time. And that is when the tempter came. And the reason that's so important is because we have to be careful to understand that the enemy is always going to attack our greatest vulnerability. The enemy is not without, or I should say it this way. He doesn't have absolute resources. He's not unlimited in his ability to make your life miserable and that's good news. And so he has to attack where the attack is going to do the most good. And he's not, if you don't have a weakness in a particular area, he's not going to attack that area because it's a waste of energy, a waste of time.

The temptation would come to you at a time like that, and you go, big deal. And there are things that we don't struggle with, but there are things we do. And we have to know the things that we do because the attacks of the enemy are not random, they're very calculated to do the most harm. And that's why they're always aimed at your vulnerabilities. I'm going to put a question to you that I put to a room full of pastors last week up at the ranch. Do you know where your vulnerabilities exist? My topic sharing with the pastors at the retreat was, finishing well and the things that keep us from finishing well as pastors. And again, I was talking to a room full of men who want very much to finish well, but I shared with them, and reminded them that's not a guarantee. It's not a guarantee that a man pastoring a church is going to finish well. And so I asked them the same question I'm asking you, do you know where your vulnerabilities lie? And if you do, then you know where the enemy is most likely to attack. And most likely you've experienced that already in your life. And you can then be prepared to heed the exhortations that are given to us in the Word of God. One of which I love in Paul's letter to the Romans. Romans 13 on the screen, he says.

…make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. This is frankly, one of the most important verses in the Bible, I believe as it relates to being prepared for the attacks of the enemy to those areas of your greatest vulnerability. This Scripture is basically saying that you must make adjustments to reduce the freedom that your flesh might otherwise have in those areas of vulnerability. Okay. If there's a vulnerability in your life to something, then you're a fool if you don't restrain that area of your life in some way, shape, or form to keep your flesh from just having the freedom to just dance all over that particular topic. If somebody has a drinking problem, I would say, don't go near a bar. That's called not going to play around the edge of the cliff. Why? Because you have a propensity, you have a weakness in that area, and it's not going to take much for the enemy to just push you off the edge.

So what do you do? You play it safe. You create a buffer zone between you and those areas of your vulnerability. And that buffer zone is so incredibly important. That's why Paul says, “make no provision.” Give no freedom. Make no area of… whatever area your flesh struggles with. Don't give it any rope. How many more ways can I say it? It's, really, really, important. And so by the way, this first temptation that is being leveled that Jesus here, which is all about hunger. I mean, He's hungry after 40 days. And the enemy comes along and says, hey, those rocks over there, if you squint a little bit like that, they even look a little bit like loaves of bread. So why don't You just go ahead and turn it into one, and have a little bread, and you can take care of this issue of hunger. Well, this is called the lust of the flesh, biblically. The lust of the flesh. And there are many lusts of our flesh that we have. Not all of them are bad. I mean, hunger itself is not bad, right? I mean, Satan wasn't tempting Jesus to do something that was bad by just eating. That wasn't the point. The point here in what he was attempting to do is really kind of seen in Jesus' response. Look at verse 4. Jesus response is, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,” In other words, taking care of our personal bodily hungers is not the biggest need of the day. Now, again, when you've been fasting for 40 days, you would probably think, if somebody asked you, what is your biggest need right now? You'd probably say I don't know, going to Hardee's or just getting something to eat. Right. You would probably think that. But Jesus puts this whole thing into perspective by saying, you're trying to get Me to fixate on what you perceive according to My flesh is My biggest need, but that's actually not My biggest need. My biggest need is to lay hold of and consume the Word of God. That is my biggest need. Regardless of what's going on in My body right now. Regardless of what's going on in My mind, in My heart, and all the other things. And it's important to see that the enemy was trying to get Jesus to essentially strike out on His own and take care of His own needs. And you might think, well, what's the big deal? In fact, you might have even read this passage in the past and said, what would have been the harm if Jesus simply would have turned to a stone on the ground, and turned it into bread, and eaten? What would have been the big deal?

Well, you have to remember something. Jesus came, God became a man to show us how to live. And we don't go around just looking at rocks and turning them into food, and so neither was He going to. He came to do what we're being asked to do, and that is to lean on God to meet all of our needs. Right. And He could have turned a stone into bread as God, He could have done that. But He came to live like you because He wanted to show you how to live. And how we are to live is in utter dependence upon God to take care of us. He's going to go on and talk about that later on in this book when He starts dealing with the birds of the air and how they are fed by the Lord. He's going to on and emphasize those sorts of things in the next chapter. Jesus came to trust in His Father. This is by the way, something that really messes with people's minds. And I don't really know why, but I get so many questions about, if Jesus is God, and they always start that way. If Jesus is God, then why did He have to depend on the Father? Don't you get it? He came to not just be the Son of God. He came to be the Son of man. And He came to show you and me the way, to show us how to live. And if He went around just using the prerogatives of deity, how would that help you and me? How would that help us to understand how to live our lives? It wouldn't. Well, next we're told in verse 5, “…the devil took him to the holy city and… (had) him (stand) on the (highest point) …of the temple. And once again, that statement, “If you are the Son of God.” And by the way, in the Greek, that's not questioning. It sounds like it is today. And somebody might actually say that to you. They'd say, well, if Jesus is the Son of God, and they're questioning it. Satan actually wasn't questioning His deity. The Greek literally means, since you are the Son of God. Right? Satan knows, he knew exactly who Jesus was, and all the demons did too. Anytime Jesus came around and there was a demoniac, they would just start freaking out, and so they always knew. So that's what it is. He says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,…” And then he begins to quote some passages from the Psalms. “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” And so on. And so on. And so on. And you stop and think about this, and say, okay, what, now what is this all about? Climb up on top. Here we are, on top of the temple, just jump. And, You're going to just, You'll just, You'll float gently down to the ground. Once again, wouldn't this have just been amazing for some people to see the Messiah show up just that way? And I have no doubt about the fact that some yahoo out there probably thought that's what was going to happen. I bet you He's going to just be up, I bet He's going to float down from the top of the temple. I'll bet you anything. Wouldn't that have been just. And the people would have just, oh!!!, He's here. Messiah has arrived. We all saw Him float down from the top of the temple. They would have been so amazed. By the way, this temptation is what we biblically call the pride of life. And it's called that because the enemy knows when it comes to human beings, we all want to be liked. We all want to be admired. We all want to be accepted. And this temptation is typically one that in our lives is quite effective because we often, Jesus didn't fall to this temptation, but we do often, very often because we want to be liked. We want to be accepted. And Jesus probably would have been, I think the temptation here was that Jesus would have been universally accepted as Messiah. I mean, it's pretty tough to argue with somebody who floats down from the top of the temple. But Jesus responded in verse 7 by saying, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, this is another quote from Deuteronomy, just like the first response was. And Jesus made it clear that He's not going to resort to some foolish test just to be sensational, or just to draw attention to Himself. The coming of Messiah was not intended to draw attention in that way. In fact, Jesus usually shunned attention. When He would heal someone, He would often say to them, don't tell anybody what happened. Of course, they always did. But He, usually when the crowds got big, Jesus would take off by Himself and go to a place in the wilderness and spend some time alone. But anyway. This is a really important passage because in this temptation we see that Satan quotes the Bible. And that's important to see because you need to know that Satan will use whatever means necessary to draw you off course. And he's certainly not above using the Bible when it serves his purpose. There's been a lot of commentary about how he quoted the Psalms in that passage and left a few words out. It doesn't really matter. He quoted the Scriptures. And for you and me, that's usually enough to draw us away. When somebody comes along in the work of the enemy, quoting the Bible, sometimes we Christians are just a little too gullible when people start talking about Bible terms. Or using Bible terms. Or quoting the Bible. Well, in the Bible, it says… Doesn't mean that person's on the up and up. It certainly didn't, for Satan and it doesn't for other people sometimes as well. You have to be discerning. Finally, it says in verse 8, “the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Obviously there's a spiritual dynamic to this vision that Jesus is being allowed to see. And here's what Satan said. “…he said…, “All these I will give you,…” In one of the other Gospel accounts, it says, for their mine to give. And Jesus didn't dispute that. And the reason Satan had that ability to say, their mine to give, is because man abdicated his dominion over the earth to the enemy in the garden. Man was given that dominion, but by falling to the enemy, he abdicated. Anyway, he says, all these I will give to you, but there's this condition. You have to “fall down and worship me.” And really this final temptation is aimed at what is biblically called, the lust of the eyes. And it says that Satan showed him all of the kingdoms of the world, but not their messes. He showed them in their glory. And so essentially the enemy presented Jesus with an opportunity to have dominion over the kingdoms of the earth without having to endure the cross, or without having to endure the rejection of men, which is hard to take too. So what is His response? Verse 10, “Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Then Jesus said, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” And then it says, “11 …the devil left him, and…, angels came and were ministering to him.” And in this final temptation, Satan lays his cards on the table in such a way as to expose his real intention, which is he wants to be worshiped. Satan has always wanted the place of God, always. And he wants to be worshiped and he thought maybe he could perhaps get it from the Son of God. But we are commanded, and by the way, he wants your worship too. but we are commanded to worship the Lord our God and to serve Him alone. Right? Now, all of these areas of temptation are actually outlined for us in John's first letter, let me show you this on the screen from 1 John chapter 2, it says,

For all that is in the world— (and then he mentions them) the desires of the flesh (and that’s the lust of the flesh) and the desires of the eyes (that’s the lust of the eyes) and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And so John mentions these three areas because they pertain to all temptations. We've mentioned this many times before, that all temptations fall under one of these three categories. Every one. Every way that the enemy could potentially tempt you is either going to be something related to a desire of your flesh, a desire of your eyes, and the lust thereof, or the pride of life. And so we know how the enemy attacks. Here's the real question. Why would God lead Jesus into the wilderness to experience these temptations? I mean, was it like the Father didn't know how He was going to respond? I mean, God, the Father knows everything. And for that matter, God, the Son knows everything, but what's the deal? What was what was the point? Why was it all necessary? Well, we get a hint of why it was necessary that Jesus would endure these temptations in a statement that Paul made in his letter to the Romans. Let me show you this. Romans chapter 5, verse 19.

For as by the one man’s disobedience (he's talking about Adam) the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience (there he's talking about Jesus) the many will be made righteous... You'll notice that he's contrasting the work, first of all, the disobedience of Adam with the obedience of Jesus. And he's telling you and me that there's a correlation between one man's disobedience and the other man, yeah, obedience. And the reason this temptation was necessary is because it demonstrated the Lord's readiness and ability to come and be the representative we needed Adam to be in the first place, but who failed. Adam came as our corporate representative, the corporate representative for mankind, and he failed, and we all reaped his failure. Some people will say, well, that doesn't seem very fair. You'd have done the same. Trust me. He had perfect circumstances. I mean, he was innocent. He was in the garden of God. Everything was in his favor. He had no reason to distrust God and he had no reason to go with the enemy's temptations. And they fell and you would have too. Anyway, so Adam's our corporate representative and he was the one who disqualified himself in that role as the one who would have dominion. And so the second man came as our next representative, and He endured temptations far beyond what Adam endured. And He even endured those after 40 days of fasting and prayer, where He had no food and so forth, and He still emerged victorious. And so He showed Himself capable. He showed himself able to be our representative and to represent us in a way that would have positive consequences rather than the negative. He proved frankly His ability to be our Savior. The next section is verses 12 through 17. This is where John is arrested, Jesus hears of it, so He withdraws to Galilee. And it says that he left his hometown of Nazareth, and He went for a while and lived in Capernaum. Which is right there by the Sea of Galilee. And this is the territory that originally was part of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. And then Matthew reminds us that Isaiah, 700 years earlier had made a prophetic statement about how a great light shone in those areas that were otherwise put down, if you will. And that's the quote, by the way, in case you're taking notes from Isaiah chapter 9. Anyway, we're told in verse 17 that, “From that time Jesus began to preach,…” And I'm going to have you focus on that word, preach for a moment, I'll come back to it. You'll notice the message is exactly what we saw John was preaching in the last chapter. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Basically what Jesus did is He took up John's message. John had been arrested, so Jesus, said He's going to carry on. And we know that Jesus and His disciples actually were baptizing people as well, much like John did. Jesus himself didn't, but the whole statement, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” is really just, like we talked last week. It was a message to ready for the people to ready themselves for this new work of God that was going to be happening in their midst.

--- By the way, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” People ask all the time, is there any difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God? And the answer is no, there's none. It's the same thing. Same term. Verse 18 says that, “While walking by the Sea of Galilee,…. (Jesus came upon)Simon (who… (was) called Peter) and Andrew his brother,…” But what you're not told in this particular passage, this isn't the first time. This isn't the first time Jesus met with these two young men. John tells us of an earlier meeting where He called them to a place, really, of understanding who He really was. But this meeting is when Jesus calls them to a place of servanthood. He calls them to that place, literally, and it tells us that they immediately left their boats and they and they came in and followed Him. And then going on from there, verse 21, He comes upon the sons of thunder. I have to believe there's some little bit of humor in that name that He gave to James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They too, notice, immediately after being called by the Lord, it says they immediately left their boat and their dad. There you go, dad and they followed Him. So there's an immediate readiness. I like that. And then the final section of Matthew concerns the drawing of large crowds and what went on as the ministry of Jesus morphed a little bit here. It says in verse 23 that, “And he went throughout all Galilee,…” And I want you to notice what it says here. It says, “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom…” Now, would you please take note. You might even circle in your Bible the word, teaching, and then the word, proclaiming. These are the two key words I want to focus on for just a moment because first of all, the word, proclaiming is the exact same Greek word that is translated, preaching. You see, and the reason why they just use proclaiming here is because that's what it means. To preach is to proclaim, okay? To proclaim, that means to speak a truth, okay? That's what preaching is. But I want you to notice that it also says, that He also was teaching in their synagogues. This is a completely different Greek word altogether. This is the Greek word, didaskō. And it means to instruct. Alright? So you've got proclaiming or preaching on the one hand, and instructing on the other hand. And some people don't know the difference. Now you do. I even told somebody one time that preaching and teaching were two different things. And he went, agree to disagree. I was like, well, you haven't looked into it. Because they're completely different Greek words that mean different things. ---

And we talk about… You talk to a somebody who got up and speak, hey, thank you. It was good preaching, pastor or something like that. Well, maybe he didn't preach. Maybe he did. Maybe he just got up to teach, which is to instruct. Actually, there should be both. Pretty much like all the time because you have to proclaim and then teaching it in that instruction phase is laying things out for application purposes, right? So they're both really, really important. There was a third thing though that Jesus was doing beyond preaching and teaching and that was in verse 23 or at the end of verse 23. It says, “…healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” In other words, no matter what the disease was, there wasn't something that Jesus ever saw that he couldn't heal. We read in the Gospels that some of them were kind of stinky. Some of them were kind of tough. There's a story about Jesus healing a blind man, He touches his eyes first and at first the guy doesn't see very well. He's like, people look like trees walking around. And so He had to, He did it again. But eventually, these people were healed. And we know that some of the afflictions that are mentioned here at the end of verse 23 involved demonic possession. By the way, you might've noticed in verse 24, the ESV uses the term, “oppressed by demons.” Do you know that it's really, that's the only major English translation that uses that phrase. All the rest of them just say, demonic possession. New American Standard, New King James, NIV. They all say, demonic possession or possessed by demons. Because that's really what it's talking about. It's talking about those who are inhabited by a demonic spirit. And so what Jesus was doing is He was casting out demonic spirits that had taken up habitation inside of a human being. Interestingly enough, this is the very first reference in the New Testament to demonic possession. The very first one. And the subject of demonic possession is one that has dominated people's thoughts and minds. It's sometimes, even a rather hot button topic. It continues to be so today. And there's a lot of misunderstanding among believers. And the reason there's misunderstanding is because there's been a lot of bad teaching as it relates to demonic possession, particularly in the lives of believers. And I don't know if you've ever been part of a Pentecostal church or you have some Pentecostal friends or relatives, you probably already know this. But it is generally assumed in Pentecostal circles that believers may need, at times, to be relieved of a demonic spirit in order to be set free from some sinful behavior or to relieve some sickness. In other words many, and I won't say all, but I will say many Pentecostals are taught that a believer in Jesus can be inhabited with a demonic spirit. And although I believe very strongly that demons are real, I mean, that it's a genuine sort of thing, and they can inhabit people. I need to tell you in all clarity that there is not one single word in the Bible that would even suggest that a born again believer can be inhabited by a demonic spirit. Not one. And you need to know that. Oppressed by a demonic spirit? Oh yeah. Harassed? Most certainly. Possessed? No. No, no, not possessed. When the New Testament writers are addressing sinful behavior, when they're addressing any other difficulty that may arise in your life, they never once suggest that possibly demon possession could be at the root of the problem. They never say that. Never once do they even suggest it. What does go on in the letters that are written to born again believers is quite the opposite. Now when it comes to spiritual attacks and what we must do in the midst of spiritual attacks, those are very real, and we must respond in the power of the Holy Spirit, and according to the Word of God. Not in the fear of some sort of demonic possession, but just in order that we might stand our ground. And this is what Paul talks about in that wonderful passage in Ephesians chapter 6. Up on the screen. Where he says,

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. (so does the schemes of the devil come to believers? Sure they do, he says in fact) For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but (we are wrestling) against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (and so he says) Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

He's talking about battling external forces here. He's not talking about casting out internal forces. When somebody is possessed by a demon, they need help from somebody from without. He's talking here about a completely, he's talking about warfare, battling. And here's what James says. I love this concerning spiritual warfare. James chapter 4, verse 7,

Submit yourselves therefore to God. (he says) Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Now that's what believers are told. You think somebody who is invested with a demon can just simply resist the devil and he'll flee? No. No, but when he's harassing you, you can resist him. And that means to put pressure back and say, no, in the name of Jesus Christ and the power that I have been given through that name, I stand opposed, right, to this situation. And I want you to see what John says. 1 John, chapter 5. He says,

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. Now, why did I bring that one up? The reason I do that is because you'll notice that John is contrasting the difference between children of God and children of the world. And what he says is, we who are believers, we're children of God, right? The world, now that refers to unbelievers. He says, we know that they have no choice but to just be under the influence of the enemy. And that doesn't mean that demons are speaking to them personally. It just means that all of the popular ideologies and things like that of the world are ultimately demonically inspired. And so there is a management of the evil one that is going on in the world. It's not all man's work of being evil. We're plenty evil on our own, but there's a lot of stuff going on in the background. And, once again, not once do any of these men come close to suggesting that you could have a demon or that you need demonic deliverance in order to be set

--- free. Because whenever someone comes to Christ, the language of the Bible is always very clear about the victory and the freedom that we have in Him. There's a clarity of that. There's never any doubt. Let me just show you quickly, just 3 passages out of Corinthians. First from 1 Corinthians chapter 6, he says, 1 Corinthians 6:18 (ESV) …do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? …do you not know (first of all) that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? This is one of the most important passages. Guys, as a believer, do you not know that you're, the Holy spirit's living within you? You think He's going to share that with a demon? I mean, get real. Secondly, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17 says,

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So the Holy Spirit's living in you and there's freedom in that place, not slavery or bondage. And then finally, from 2 Corinthians 5:17, I love this verse, one of my faves. He says,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! He doesn't talk anything about, if anybody is in Christ, there might be a demon lurking under there somewhere. He doesn't say that. They never say that. They always talk about freedom. They always talk about life. New creation. Hope and all the other wonderful things that go with it, amen? ---