Recently, in church, we talked about Matthew 4:1-11 (just hover over a scripture link to read) – when Satan tempts Jesus. To summarize: First, Satan tempts Jesus by daring Him to turn stones into bread in an effort to cause Jesus to fill an immediate and fleshly desire – His hunger (remember, He had been alone in the desert without food for 40 days!) Second, Satan tempts Jesus by asking Him to prove God’s faithfulness by jumping off the temple and forcing God to save Him. And finally, Satan tempted Jesus by offering the most lucrative offer yet – to be the king of this world by bowing down and worshipping the Evil One.
We know that Christ did not fall into these temptations (Hebrews 4:15), but how did He do it?
Here are a few things that we can learn from how Jesus handled the temptations from Satan:
(1) His accurate use of scripture. He not only memorized it like the Bible tells us to do (Ps. 119:11), but He also knew when and how to apply it. With each temptation, Jesus refuted each offer with accurate scripture. In the first temptation, where Satan calls for Jesus to preform a miracle of turning stones to bread, Jesus immediately refers to scripture from the Old Testament, “…man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.” (Deuteronomy 8:3b) Jesus knew that God had fully provided for 40 years room, board, and shoes for the Israelites. Jesus knew this, and knew that God always keeps his promises, and protects his own. He knew that if God provided for the Israelites even with all their failures, he surely would provide strength for His own Son in the desert. We can know that if Jesus trusted God to protect him, then we can know that God will protect us.
In the second temptation, Satan misuses scripture (Matthew 4:6 vs. Psalms 91:11-12). Satan is attempting to quote Psalms, yet leaves out an important limitation in that promise from God, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” God does protect His people – when we are in “His ways” and does not mean that we should attempt to test that promise. Interesting fact: Satan tried this trick one other time on Eve (Genesis 2:16-17 vs. Genesis 3:1-3 - she misquoted, too!)
Ok, back to something serious… We should also take note of the fact that Satan himself knew the Bible. Sadly, Satan knows the Bible better than most Christians, although he manipulates it or takes it out of context – like some “christians” and “churches” do today, we should study God’s Word and apply it the way God intended. Jesus exemplifies this perfectly again by quoting Old Testament scripture from Deuteronomy, “Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God,”
And in the final temptation, Jesus uses the shield of faith to quench the arguably most lucrative temptation of all – to hush all the naysayers, to give mankind the “king” they were looking for and to be ruler of this world. But Jesus responded, “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” (Ephesians 6:16) Jesus was able to stop the darts of temptation by His faith – and so can we!
(2) Jesus had to “reverse the curse” that Adam had caused all those who came after him to have. Ponder this: when Satan tempted Adam and Eve he did not tempt them like he did with Jesus; Christ had it even harder -
- Adam was in the Garden of Eden and Jesus was in the desert
- Adam was with God and Eve, everything around him was perfect, he had all the food needed to survive and Jesus was starving and surrounded by adversity in the barren desert.
- Adam had dominion over his kingdom at the time, and for Jesus it was still on the horizon.
- However, Adam sinned and lost his kingdom and Christ survived His temptations and regained what Adam had lost.
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD." John 16:33
Related articles
- The “Superhero” Temptation (thesurrendersecret.wordpress.com)
- Exam Time! (carolynpriesterjones.org)
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