The Temptation of Jesus — Part One

Father, we sing our prayer to you, acknowledging that our need of you is absolutely total. We thank you that your strength is made perfect in weakness, and therefore, we bring the very weakness of our speech and our hearing; the use of our minds; the response of our hearts, which are so often weak and indifferent; the weakness of our wills—far more prone to run in our own direction, to think our own thoughts, than to think your thoughts after you. We depend upon you for these moments. Take my words and speak through them, take our minds and help us to think through them, and take our lives and bring them into conformity with the truth of your Word, which we come now to study in Christ’s name. Amen.

I invite you to take your Bibles and turn, certainly to Luke chapter 3, but I’d also like, if you would, to have you turn to Hebrews and to a couple of summary statements in Hebrews which will be helpful to us as we look at this matter of the temptation of Christ. I’m referring to Hebrews 2:17–18, where, describing Jesus, the writer says,

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Because he suffered when he was tempted, herein lies the ground of his ability to encourage in the face of temptation, says the writer.

In Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” This Lord Jesus is not somebody who is sitting away up on a high pinnacle somewhere, looking down on humanity, untouched and unaware. But rather, “we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” And the testimony of the Gospels is aptly summarized there in that phrase: he “has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet … without sin.”

Now, you can turn back to Luke chapter 4 as we turn to what Barclay refers to as one of the “most sacred” of all stories in earthly, human Scripture.[1] And certainly, it must be, because we can only imagine that Jesus had occasion at some point in his earthly ministry to inform his disciples of this amazing cosmic struggle which had ensued in his being challenged not only as a man but in being challenged at the same time as the Messiah.

It’s purely conjecture, but I like to think that perhaps one of the disciples—or even the whole shooting match of them—had come a cropper as a result of some temptation, and when they’d managed at the end of the day to build the fire and gather with Christ, they may well have turned to him and said, “Lord Jesus, this temptation thing is absolutely bedeviling us. Have you faced temptation such as we have faced today?” And then Jesus would have pulled back, as it were, the veil of his precious recollection of this striking, moving, meaningful moment and unfolded for them the record of this dramatic event, which was then recorded in Matthew chapter 4 and in Mark chapter 1 and here in Luke chapter 4.

Now, every so often I see things, advertisements for stuff, that says, “This carries a government health warning,” or something like that. I think it’s important for you to know that this message this morning carries a pastoral care warning, in that, as I alluded to earlier, this is not an easy area of Scripture to tackle. Everything in me, up until about seven thirty this morning, was pulling for a very nice, lighthearted Mother’s Day message—which, believe me, I can produce not quite at the drop of a hat but with relative ease. Three points are not difficult to discover, and I have a fund of stories which can make glass eyes weep.

But I stayed my course and determined that I must do that which I have committed to do, and that is to continue to expound this passage. So, it is imperative that you are going to have to think. If you want to simply feel this one, you have probably felt it, and it’s over. But if you want to think, then let’s think together.

Real Man, Real Temptation

The fact of the genealogy, or the family tree, which comes in the second half of chapter 3—which you will be relieved to discover we are not going to deal with in detail, although I thought of reading it all this morning as an exercise, and I thought the exercise would be misunderstood, which would render it obsolete, so I decided not to. But the inclusion of the family tree—“He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,” 3:23—pointing out that the readers know what others did not know… Some thought that Jesus was a mere man, the son of Joseph. Luke is pointing out we know that Joseph was his earthly father, but we also know that he was the Son of God. And then follows this lineage, which is there in Scripture in order to establish the fact of Christ’s true humanity.

It is customary and was customary for people to view Christ as either merely a man and not God and therefore limited in his capacity and power, or to view Christ as being not quite a man—in other words, being so much otherworldly that when we look at him, we’re not really looking at very man. We may be prepared to say he is very God, but somehow or another, we can’t get our heads around the fact that he is very man, that this is “meekness and majesty,” this is “manhood and deity.”[2]

And, of course, it is imperative that in coming to this issue of the temptation of Christ, the writer makes it clear that we are dealing here with someone who is not a phantom, not a ghost or a specter; he has a real human existence just like ours. His journey through life, like ours, is from the womb to the tomb. He has the same physiology; he has the same psychology. He is really a man. And Calvin says, “Those who imagine the Son of God [as being] exempt from human passions do not truly and seriously acknowledge him to be a man.”[3]

Now, there is an anthem that is sometimes sung that I think begins with the line “Love was when God became a man” and “in time and space”[4] came and inhabited this time-space capsule. Michael Wilcock, the commentator, says it may be helpful for us to think about existence in terms of living in a pit. All of us live in this pit. We are trapped in the pit; we can’t extricate ourselves on account of the sin of Adam. No matter how well we can climb up the slopes, we are unable to get to the top and liberate ourselves. Jesus is just like us inasmuch as he has come to inhabit the pit with us. He is not on the perimeter of it shouting down into it; he has come from all of the glory of heaven and eternity down into our exact time-space capsule. He is like us in that respect, and he is unlike us inasmuch as we are in this situation as a result of our disobedience, and he has chosen to be in this situation on account of his obedience. We’re down here because we disobeyed; he is down here because he obeyed. And he determined that he would come in a moment in time and be born and live and die in order that he might identify true humanity in the way that he has done.

Says Wilcock, in coming down into this pit—and I quote him—“he has never let go of the rope which joins him to the world above.”[5] I’m not sure about that imagery, but I’ll let it pass for the moment—the notion of him somehow or another still attached to heaven on the strength of his eternal sonship with the father. And that, of course, is what makes his humanity so distinctive. That is what makes him so unlike us. And that is why it is only in Christ that a man or a woman may be able to be lifted out of the pit. It is only by laying hold upon him who, if you like, is held to eternity in this eternal relationship with the Father that we, who are here because of our disobedience, may be extricated from the predicament that we face.

Now, of course, that’s not a very common notion. It’s certainly not widely accepted in our day. People may be prepared from time to time to acknowledge that their existence is pitiful, or at least pitiable. “I am in a pitiable condition,” they may say. “However, I’ll get myself out. Don’t you worry about me! I think with a little of this and a little of that and a little more education, we may be able to get the whole thing out of here, and we’ll be on to a bright new day.” The Bible says, “You will climb up the slope for as far as you can, but you will go right back down again. But let me tell you, there is one who has come down into your exact existence, and if you will cling to him, he may take you right out.” He lifts up out of the slimy pit and from the miry clay, and he sets our feet upon a rock,[6] and he establishes our going;[7] he puts a new song in our mouths.[8] This is something that Christ does for us. And this Christ is a real man in Luke 4, facing a real temptation.

Now, the reason I underscore this is, first of all, for myself. Because I have to be honest and tell you that throughout the years, there is a sneaking suspicion that creeps across my mind, and it’s very wrong, but I want you to know that it’s there. And that is the suspicion that the temptations of Jesus were somehow less than real.

And the reasons we might think that is because we know that Christ was not himself a sinner and therefore that the devil had no internal leverage with Christ in the way that he does with ordinary humanity. And along with that, we know that as God become man, he could not conceivably have sinned. And those two thoughts bounce around in your head and say to you, “Well then, in what way are we to understand the reality of the temptations that are described for us not only here but in the other Synoptic Gospels?” Well, if you think at all, you can follow along with me.

First of all, we would note, in reading Genesis, that before the fall of man, Adam provides us with a clear case of a sinless human nature being subjected to a temptation that was real. Remember, God makes man. He pronounces everything as good.[9] Man is there in all of his pristine beauty and sinlessness, and temptation comes to him. Was it a real temptation? Of course it was! Real enough to bring man down. So the idea that without the appeal to something inward, temptation is less than real, is refuted not only by the description of Jesus’ temptation here in Luke 4 but is also refuted by our understanding of what was happening in the fall of man in the garden of Eden.

Before the fall of man, Adam provides us with a clear case of a sinless human nature being subjected to a temptation that was real.

When we track the life of Christ—and it is interesting that it is at the age of thirty that he steps upon the stage of history to begin his ministry in this way, having known what it is to be a boy, having known what it is to be an adolescent, having known what it is to deal with cheeky people that came into his carpenter’s workshop, having experienced the realities of family life and the rough and tumble of everything. He didn’t just all of a sudden appear as a teacher, you see. He didn’t just drop down on a rope and start teaching. He came. He was born. He came down a natural birth canal. He came out into the experience of true humanity. He was nurtured and guided, and he learned his alphabet, and he learned the colors of the rainbow, and he learned as he grew. And it was through all of that that God was fashioning and forming the nature and character of this individual, so that when he spoke, he spoke with an authority which was not only the authority that comes from heaven, but it was the authority that is gained by human experience.

And in his childhood and into manhood, he experiences the reality of temptation. He is spotless, he is sinless, and therefore, temptation for Christ could only come from the outside. But as I say to you, because it only comes from the outside, that does not diminish it in any way. If you imagine, for example, an approach to battle where one army manages to put a battalion in behind the enemy lines so that in a moment of vulnerability from the inside they may combine with the challenge of the outside and gain victory—that’s a very good strategy. But the fact that an army, in its onslaught, has been unable to put this battalion behind the enemy lines does not mean for a moment that the onslaught of the attack will be any less successful absent the internal battalion. And indeed, it may be all the more striking.

And what we find in Christ is simply this: that he bore temptation in a way that no one else ever has. Because according to 1 Corinthians 10:13, the temptation which we experience is filtered through God’s protective hand. You can read it at your leisure, but you remember it. God says, “I will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which you are able, but I will with the temptation provide you a way of escape.”[10] So in other words, there is a filtration system whereby God protects us from the ultimate awesomeness of temptation. That filtration system is removed when it comes to Christ.

And what Christ experiences here is the unmitigated onslaught of hell challenging him as a man and challenging him as Messiah and suggesting to him that the way that he is planning on going under the will of God can be circumvented to his benefit and to the well-being of all. And the devil says, “You know, I think this is a far better route for you to take. I really wish that you would sit down for a moment, Jesus, and listen to what I have to say.”

And we as human beings give in to temptation long before it exhausts its force. Only a sinless individual can know the full intensity of temptation. Because the sinful fall over like a pack of cards. Doesn’t take much to tempt us! So the temptation that comes to Christ is known in all of its manifold intensity.

Now, I say all of that simply to take you back to the simple phrase real man, real temptation. If you get that this morning, you’ve really gained a lot.

Into the Wilderness

Now, look at what we are told in the first verse of chapter 4. He’s “full of the Holy Spirit,” and he’s “led by the [Holy] Spirit.” In other words, it was in God’s plan that right at the outset, Jesus should face up to the question of what kind of Messiah he was going to be, that he should face up to the question of what kind of kingdom he was about to usher in. And the cosmic struggle that is identified there in verse 2 is quite unimaginable. “For forty days,” says Luke, “he was tempted by the devil.”

Between the central plateau of Judea, which was inhabited, and the Dead Sea there was a dreadful, horrible wilderness area—thirty-five miles by fifteen miles—known as the Jeshimon, which, translated, is the “Devastation.” Not the kind of place you want to put a holiday home. Nowhere that you want to go for the weekend. In fact, you want to avoid it at all costs. And it was here in this scene of devastation, with sand hills that were built on the flimsiest of foundations, with outcrops of limestone, with bits and pieces of limestone being covered over by sand, and if you squeezed your eyes and looked out over the terrain, you might imagine that there are loaves of bread lying all over this desert plateau—it was there, in this unimaginable place, that Jesus for forty days went without food.

Do you find the sentence that concludes verse 2 of interest? “He ate nothing during those days”—that was forty days—“and at the end of them he was hungry.” Does that strike you in any way? Why did you put “he was hungry”? I mean, it’s like, “Hey, you know, we’re not dumb. You don’t eat for forty days, you’re hungry!”

I was just thinking about it when I read it. I haven’t had time to think about it, but I think it’s probably this: for those who were tempted to say of Christ “He’s not quite human,” they would immediately say, “Oh, he can not eat for forty days or four hundred days. It doesn’t matter, you see, because he’s God.” So they make him so much God, they make him less than man. Luke says, “No, no. Don’t you do that! He didn’t eat for forty days, and he was starving at the end of forty days.” If we had seen him depicted in art form, he would’ve been emaciated, he would have been gray, he would have been gaunt, and he would’ve appeared totally abject and forsaken. And it is in that moment of great weakness that the Evil One steps up, and he says, “I’d like to talk to you about a number of things. In fact,” he says, “let me just say to you: if you are the Son of God, why don’t you just tell this stone to become bread?”

Isn’t it interesting? In Luke 3:22, God’s voice has come from heaven, saying, “You are my Son,” and in 4:3, the devil’s voice comes from hell, saying, “If you are the Son…” It’s always the way. It’s always the way. “Did God really say? Do you think this is really true?”[11] The Scripture affirms it, and we come immediately to doubt it.

Now, think about this in terms of Christ’s humanity. He appears in the Jordan River. He is baptized by John. The little altercation takes place: “I think I should baptize you.” “No,” he says, “let’s go ahead and take care of this. Don’t hold up the queue.”[12] He gets baptized. The Spirit descends upon him “in bodily form [as] a dove.”[13] The heavens part. The voice from heaven says, “You’re my beloved Son, and I’m really pleased with you.”[14] And Jesus must have said to himself, “This is fantastic. This is it. Thirty years of preparation, and here we go. Here we go.” Here we go where? Well, here we go to the wilderness. Whose idea was that? Well, the Spirit of God led him into the wilderness. Just how we don’t know, but he’s out in the wilderness.

The First Temptation

Now he’s in the wilderness, and he’s not eating—doesn’t eat the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day, the seventh day—for one whole week. And for two days shy of the next six weeks, he never eats. And in the midst of all of that, there is this cosmic wrestling and struggling that is taking place in light of the fact that this Christ, who has just heard this voice from heaven say “You are my Son,” prepares for the onslaught that will eventually take him to a Judean hillside and to a Roman cross. If you like, all of his life in earthly ministry is to be the conflict between light and darkness, between truth and error, between heaven and hell. And so God leads him to this amazing struggle at the very portico of this experience.

You can imagine the devil coming to him, can’t you, wearing a smoking jacket with one of those long cigarette holders? “If you are the Son of God… Now, I say ‘if’ purposefully, Jesus, because I know that there is quite a drama down there in the Jordan. I heard about that, and all the voice from heaven and doves and things like that, and I’m perfectly prepared to acknowledge that that happened. I’m not here to question whether it happened. I just want to suggest to you, Jesus, that what you thought happened didn’t really happen. Because after all, if you were really the Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased, don’t you think things would be going a little better than they are? I mean, you come up out of the Jordan, and you’re not a day or two into it, and here you are in this most wretched, miserable place with no food, all by yourself, forsaken by everybody, and the only person you have to talk to is me, and I can tell that you’re not really enjoying the conversation. Seems to me, Jesus, that you’ve been forsaken. And my suggestion is that if you really are the Son of God, you just grab one of these stones down here and turn it into a loaf of bread.”

All of Jesus’ life in earthly ministry is to be the conflict between light and darkness, between truth and error, between heaven and hell.

I don’t know about you, but—and I have to be careful in saying this—but I think I might have turned it into a whole stinkin’ bakery right there and then—just to say, “Listen, smutty-face, you are done, you know. I am gonna deal with you. There is a day coming when I will crush your head.[15] Have you read the book of Genesis lately?” you might’ve said. “I will fix you.”

But for Jesus to have done so would have been to respond to a temptation which was essentially not, as many commentators say, a temptation simply to provide for the physical needs of men and women. I don’t think that has a leg to stand on as an explanation. No, it was a temptation to dissatisfaction. It was a temptation to impatience. It was a temptation to self-will. It was a temptation to doubt that his Father loved him and cared for him when he was in the most devastating of circumstances: forsaken, buffeted, beaten, facing the worst of days—tempted then to say, “Yes, I think I’d better take matters into my own hands.” That’s what the devil was doing. “Why deny yourself?” the devil would have said. “Why submit to the laws of humanity? Why run the risk of starvation? You can take care of these dire conditions, Jesus, with one authoritative word. Go ahead!”

Look at Jesus’ answer in verse 4: “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

Now, this is the first of three quotes from the book of Deuteronomy. You can find them at your leisure; I’ll give you that as part of your homework. I’ll give you a help for this one: it’s in Deuteronomy 8:3; you can find the rest for yourself. And in that context, it is the provision of God for his people in the wilderness wanderings. The manna that he provides, he provides supernaturally, as a reminder that we are not ultimately dependent upon bread, but we are dependent upon God, who is the giver and supporter of life—not dependent upon bread but dependent upon God. I’m not dependent upon one of those little generators that they’re trying to sell me for Y2K. I’m dependent upon God. (Incidentally, I haven’t heard much about the generators lately, have you? Nothing like a Littleton and a Kosovo to point out to any thinking person that Y2K is happening every day for somebody somewhere.)

“Man does not live by bread alone,” says Jesus. “I don’t need to go doing what you say. I’m depending on my Dad. He promised to look after me. He led me in here. I’ll admit that the wilderness here, for six weeks, is a pretty dry, barren, ugly spot. I’m prepared to give you that. But listen, I will not do as you say. Because he knew that I would be foodless. He knew that I would be famished. If I were to do as you suggest, then it would be an act of insubordination. It would be a lack of faith towards my Father.”

Now, if you think about that for just a moment, it’s quite striking in another regard—at least to me, and I hope in part to you. In a relatively short period of time, Jesus will take his disciples and others who are listening aside, and he’ll say to them, “Why do you worry about clothes? Why do you worry about what you eat and what you drink? You don’t need to worry about that,” he says to them. You remember that in Matthew 6 and the Sermon on the Mount? “You don’t have to worry about this.”[16]

Now, let’s suppose for a minute that Jesus in his temptation had succumbed to the invitation of the Evil One to turn stones into bread, or a stone into bread. What would the disciples then have said to Christ when he said, “Listen, I don’t want you to worry about what you have to eat.” They would have legitimately said to him, “Jesus, that’s easy for you to say. Because anytime you want a sandwich, you can pick up a stone, and hey, presto! You’ve got a salami submarine sandwich. That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know, Jesus, what it is to be hungry. Jesus, you don’t know what this situation’s like.” Isn’t that what we’re tempted to say? “Jesus, you don’t know what this is like. I’m on my own on this one.” “No,” says Jesus, “you’re not. Why do you worry about what you eat?” “Well, do you know anything about worrying about what you eat, Jesus?” “I certainly do! I was six weeks, I never had a thing to eat. Nobody came to help me. Nobody gave me a thing.”

This is the Jesus that we meet—the Jesus who stands in the shadows of our lives and reaches out his hands, and he says, “When no one else understands, I understand. If no one else has been there, I have been there. And furthermore, if you will cling hold to me, I will be there with you”—as a result of his unwillingness to succumb to a real temptation, directed to Christ, a real man.

The Second Temptation

Now, we could stop at that point—and some of you are saying, “I wish you would.” But we’ll go for just a few more moments, and then we’ll come back again this evening. Let’s go to the second one, shall we? “[And] the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.”

So, you are reading this to your children. Your first child says, “Where was the place, Dad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“How high up was it, Dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must have been pretty high up, Dad, ’cause it says he could see everything, all the kingdoms in the world.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, that’s what it says, son. Yeah.”

“Is it higher than the Sears Tower, Dad?”

“I don’t know. I think probably.”

“Dad, you’re the pastor of the church. You’re supposed to know this stuff!”

How are we to understand? How are we to interpret this? Did the devil assume a physical body, and the two of them went skiving through the wilderness and eventually found a big mountain on the outskirts of Jerusalem or somewhere in the Judean hillside, and they went up it? Which mountain do you think it was? Or are we to assume that they actually went gliding smoothly through the sky, and they went gliding all the way to Mount Everest, and they were on the top of Mount Everest? But if they were on the top of Mount Everest, it would require another miracle for the devil to be able to show all of the splendor and all of the glory of all of the kingdoms of the world.

Some of your ears are going [imitates ears perking up]: “Is our pastor really asking this question? Does he not believe what the Bible says? ‘The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.’” I believe it absolutely! What I’m asking is not, Is it believable? I’m asking, How do we interpret it? How do we understand it? Did they go to outer space? Or is it a vision? “A vision? It sounds like you don’t believe it.”

No, this is not a question of believing the Bible or not believing the Bible. It’s simply a question of how do you interpret what you fully accept? And what we fully accept is that this was a real event in real time, somehow. Now, how do we interpret it?

Now, when I get myself jammed in a corner like this, which happens frequently, I go a number of places. One is to Calvin’s [commentaries]. This is what Calvin said:

It is asked, was [Jesus] actually carried to this elevated spot, or was it done in a vision? … What is … added, that all the kingdoms of the world were [exposed to Christ’s view in one moment] … agrees better with the idea of a vision, than with any other [theory]. In a matter that is doubtful, and where ignorance brings no risk, I choose rather to suspend my judgment, than to furnish contentious people with an [excuse for a] debate.[17]

So in other words, he hedges his bets. He’s very careful to make it clear that he favors the vision idea; but on the other hand, he doesn’t want to press it, in the interest of those who may stumble over such a view; and certainly he doesn’t want to use it to negate another reasonable explanation. And when it all comes down to it, he says: “Well, we have to understand it in some way, and when we finally get to heaven, we’ll understand exactly how it took place.”

In saying what I’m saying, do not misunderstand me. The possibility of this being a visionary encounter, akin to what you have in Isaiah 6 or in certain other passages of Ezekiel, that should not be confused with the idea that this temptation was of a merely subjective nature. You understand? There are those who say that there was no actual direct encounter between the Evil One and Christ, but all of this sort of happened in the mind of Christ; it happened subjectively in his own experience. No, not for a moment. We reject that out of hand. “If it was in a vision that the Lord was urged to do these things”—and I quote—“we may be sure that what occurred in the vision was as real to his mind as if there had been no vision at all, and everything had taken place with strict literality.”[18]

So, the devil proposes that Jesus should found his messianic kingdom by making a compromise with him. “Why don’t you bow down with me, and we’ll go into partnership, Jesus, and we’ll be able to achieve this kingdom without all the struggle and without all the suffering?” And so he appears, the Evil One, in his true colors: as the archdeceiver and as one aspiring to the power and glory which belong only to God.

Christ’s Temptation and Ours

Our time is virtually over, but let me introduce this, and we can return to it. There’s a further difficulty in this. When the devil in verse 6 says, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to,” does he speak the truth? Has all of the authority, all of the splendor, all of the power of the kingdoms of the world been given to devil? And can he give it to anyone he wants to?

Now, this would be a very good question for a classroom setting. I’d like to have you write it down. I’d take all the answers in—all the yeses and all the nos—and tally them up and see what we say. And I would imagine that some of your papers would come back, they would say “Yes” scored out, and then “No,” and then “No” scored out, and then “Yes,” and “No,” and “Yes,” “No,” “Yes,” “No,” “Yes,” “No.” And eventually, you look like the poor soul on Jeopardy who, when the screen finally goes up, it’s like [imitates game show noises], and he goes, “Oh, sorry, Brenda, you didn’t have a clue what was going on. That’s right. Yes. Oh well, never mind. We have some lovely parting gifts for you, you know—Kraft cheese and some horrible tumble dryer that nobody wants. But get out of here, and try better next time.”

Well, I sense that that may be where some of us end up. Because you go to Ephesians 2, and he’s “the prince of the power of the air.”[19] In Ephesians 6, he controls the forces of evil and the wicked in the heavenly places.[20] In 1 John 5:19, “the whole world” lies in the power “of the evil one.” And in John 12:31, he’s described by Jesus as the prince of the power of this world.

You say, “Well, that sounds pretty conclusive to me. He owns the whole shooting match, and he can give it to anyone he wants to.” Not so fast! ’Cause now you’ve got to go back, and you’ve got to read Genesis chapter 3, Psalm 2, Matthew 11, Matthew 28, Romans 16, Ephesians 1, Colossians 2, Revelation 12, Revelation 20. And what do you discover there? You discover there that anything that the devil enjoys and anything that the devil experiences is only on account of the fact that God in Christ lets it out to him on a string; that he has no power to tempt Job except by the permission of God; that he has no ability to tempt Christ beyond the point where Christ sends him away.

And at the end of the temptation, Jesus says to him—in one of the Synoptics—he says, “Okay, get out of here!”[21] And it says, “[And] the devil left him.”[22] Why did he leave? Because Jesus said, “Buzz off!” and he buzzed off. Why was he there? Because Jesus in his manifold wisdom was prepared to allow him to think for a moment that he really was the king of the hill and that he really was in charge and that he did own the minds of everybody. He doesn’t! “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.”[23] “All the power and the might and the majesty, all of the glory, all of the power, belong to you.”[24]

And so he spoke partial truth, which is his style. “This stuff had been given to me,” he says. Well, in a sense, it had. “I can give it to anyone I want.” No, you can’t. Throughout Christ’s ministry, Satan could only do what God allowed him, on the long rope, to do. And what is the temptation here? It is this: “Jesus, why don’t you just usher in your kingdom without enduring a cross, without going through the struggle? Why don’t you just give it up that way?”

Now, loved ones, we know that Jesus understood this struggle. He says later on in Luke, “I have a baptism to undergo, and I am distressed until it is accomplished.”[25] In the very garden of Gethsemane, within hours of his death and his vanquishing of hell and the Evil One, what does he say? “Father, if it is remotely possible for this cup to pass from me, let’s go that way.”[26]

Maybe in that moment he remembered the voice of the Evil One: “Why don’t you just accept this kingdom from me? Why don’t you just look out here and form a partnership with me? We can have this kingdom without all this cross stuff, without all this suffering stuff, without all this narrow road, without the bloodied face and the broken back and the scar-faced crown of thorns.”

Jesus says to him, “You’d better just worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” And that is exactly what he did. He went the route of self-denying love. He went the way of sacrificial death. He went down the narrow road. If he had sought food or power along an illegitimate path or if he had sought food or power with impure motives, he would have been succumbing to Satan’s advances. But he rebuts them. He chooses the way of utter conflict. And he enters in to this phenomenal maelstrom of battle with the forces of evil.

The same temptation comes our way. The devil comes, says, “You know, you don’t have to believe this stuff about the narrow road. You don’t have to get into the ‘taking up your cross every day and following Christ.’ Don’t do that! I’ve got a whole way of doing it. It’s a much nicer way. It’s an easier way. Don’t worry about Faithful; don’t worry about Pilgrim with the big thing on his back, going up the hill. He’s a weirdo, man. He left his wife. His left his kids. A few guys that started out with him, they’ve gone back. They went back within a couple of days. They said, ‘You know, we’re not getting covered in the Slough of Despond. We’re not going in Doubters’ Castle. We’re not fighting Apollyon. We are not up for that stuff. We want to go a nice, broad, easy way.’” Well, go ahead.

That was the temptation. And Christ endured it. “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you [and I, in turn,] will not grow weary and lose heart.”[27]

Let me say this in closing. We’ll come back to the third of these tonight and try and make some points of application. There are many children here this morning, and they’re going, “Oh, please finish it. Please, hurry up. Finish, please.” And I’ve got good news for you: it’s over. It’s over, all right? And I just want to say to you, I’m so glad that you were here. I don’t imagine that you got a tremendous amount from this. I don’t think you got beyond 7 percent of what I said. But I’m so glad that you were here for the 7 percent. I’m so glad that your moms and dads brought you here, that you could get that, that you remembered one thing, or two things. And I want to tell you, as a product of the 7-percent strategy, that those marginal percentages build up over time. And one day, you will be amazed at all that God did on those Sunday services where you were saying, “Oh, is it done yet?”

Let me give you a little chorus to take away with you. It goes like this:

I met Jesus at the crossroads,
Where the two ways meet,
And Satan, too, was standing there,
And he said, “Come this way,
Lots and lots of pleasures
I will give to you today.”

But I said, “No!
There’s Jesus here.
Just see what he’s done for me:
Down here, my sins forgiven,
And up there, a home in heaven.
Praise God, that’s the way for me!”

Is that the way for you, Mr. Businessman, Miss Successful? Or do you want to follow the bright lights, the broad road, and succumb to these very clever insinuations?

Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you that we have a Bible to read and minds to think. Sort out from all of my words that which is pleasing to you and helpful to each of us, and grant that in considering these matters, we may be drawn to trust in Christ, who established the pattern by trusting unreservedly in you as his heavenly Father, despite the fact that all hell was unleashed against him. We recognize that it is not an easy road we’re traveling to glory, and we are annoyed by people who suggest that it is.

So through these “many dangers, toils, and snares,”[28] bring us safely home, we pray. May your grace and your mercy and your peace from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—triune God—rest upon each one, today and forevermore. Amen.

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[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, rev. ed., The Daily Study Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 42.

[2] Graham Kendrick, “Meekness and Majesty” (1986).

[3] John Calvin, quoted in Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 1982), 125.

[4] John E. Walvoord, “Love Was When God Became a Man” (1970).

[5] Michael Wilcock, The Message of Luke: The Saviour of the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1979), 58.

[6] See Psalm 40:2.

[7] See Psalm 121:8.

[8] See Psalm 40:3.

[9] See Genesis 1:26–31.

[10] 1 Corinthians 10:13 (paraphrased).

[11] See, e.g., Genesis 3:1.

[12] Matthew 3:14–15 (paraphrased).

[13] Luke 3:22 (NIV 1984).

[14] Luke 3:22 (paraphrased).

[15] See Genesis 3:15.

[16] Matthew 6:25–34 (paraphrased).

[17] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, trans. William Pringle (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 1:217.

[18] William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 235.

[19] Ephesians 2:2 (KJV).

[20] See Ephesians 6:12.

[21] Matthew 4:10 (paraphrased).

[22] Matthew 4:11 (NIV 1984).

[23] Psalm 24:1 (KJV).

[24] See 1 Chronicles 29:11.

[25] Luke 12:50 (paraphrased).

[26] Matthew 26:39 (paraphrased). See also Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42.

[27] Hebrews 12:3 (NIV 1984).

[28] John Newton, “Amazing Grace” (1779).