Have you ever forgotten who you were?
I don’t mean amnesia, which is extremely rare, by the way, if you have ever tried to use that one as an excuse. And I’m talking about some other physical condition which could cause you lose actually your memory.
Instead, I’m taking about those times when we’ve been somewhere, doing something, and suddenly wondered “what am I doing here? why am I a part of this?
In other words, I’m asking have you ever been somewhere, doing something, and THEN suddenly remembered who you were…What am I doing here…I’m a follower of Jesus Christ?
Truth is…we have all, from time to time, gone along with the crowd, or have been enticed into something seemingly very pleasant, pleasurable, or rewarding, only to realize during or after….this is not who I am. This is not what I should be doing.
Sometimes, this manifests itself as…. “morning after” remorse. The night before with the music, and the wine, and the convincing words, it all sounded so good….but in the morning, you are there, alone with yourself, feeling terrible, with even more consequences possibly on their way.
And when you find yourself in this situation, what drew you in….something that was just not you, not Jesus…something so plainly “wrong”?
Maybe you were just in a vulnerable state. Maybe you were feeling bad about yourself, and could use a boost of self-esteem. Maybe you were just a little deluded and confused.
Maybe all these things. But in end, you succumbed to something you rightfully now feel very guilty about, and wish you could take back.
In the end, you succumbed to temptation.
In Matthew Chapter 4, the devil thought he just might be able to get Jesus to forget who he was. If he could use the right words, he might lure Jesus into something that would take him off his game.
After all, Jesus had just spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. 40 days and 40 nights, alone, out in the desert, out in the wild, away from civilization.
He was certainly hungry and thirsty, and tired, and weary….and if there every a time to come at Jesus, that was it. He was quite possibly vulnerable to attack.
And that’s when Satan takes his shot.
Was he successful? Let’s find out.
Matthew 4 :1-11 [from the NLT – New Living Translation]
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. 2 For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.
3 During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”
4 But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,
‘ People do not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, 6 and said, “If you are the Son of God, jump off! For the Scriptures say,
‘ He will order his angels to protect you.
And they will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.’”
7 Jesus responded, “The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the L ord your God.’”
8 Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.”
10 “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say,
‘ You must worship the L ord your God
and serve only him.’”
11 Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus.
So the question was….Was the devil successful?
No, he wasn’t.
I’m sure you guessed that answer even before we read it…. so since the devil wasn’t successful, the real question is…why not?
Now, the obvious answer that people will immediately shout out is that Jesus was God. And you can’t tempt God. And that is very true. He certainly had that advantage, and in the end angels came and took care of Him. We know He was God and could at any point command the heavens to open up and all the angels would head his voice.
But the truth is, to you and I, this triumph over temptation meant nothing, really, if Jesus wasn’t subject to the real pull of temptation just like all of us.
And He was. He freely and willingly put down his heavenly place to be just like us. To be sarx “in the flesh”.
So, the temptation had to be real. This couldn’t just be a demonstration. The devil had to believe he must just get Jesus to turn.
Like I said, He knew Jesus, in the wilderness, would be at a weak point, because any man would be. The text says Jesus was “very hungry”. God never gets hungry, let alone very hungry. But God and Man, incarnate, does. And this hunger is a very human thing that we all share. So like us, Jesus was weak and hungry and quite possibly vulnerable.
Don’t you feel that that is just when temptation strikes at you? When you are weak and hungry and vulnerable.
One pastor online speculated that it would be even easier today for the devil because if you and I were in the wilderness for 40 says and 40 night, we’d probably we vulnerable even if we had plenty to eat and drink. In today’s world, we’d likely be vulnerable simply due to our extreme boredom.
People today find themselves getting into plenty of bad situations just because they are bored.
And they are bored in the midst of a lot of busyness.
If you think about it, even in a small town, modern people live pretty event filled lives….: meals, television, work, chores, getting the mail, reading the newspaper, checking your facebook, brushing your teeth, taking a shower, getting a prescription filled, getting gas, listening to the radio, going to the store, cleaning the house, going to a medical appointment, paying your bills, working on your car, checking your email, going to a meeting, exercising, checking your facebook again…
Compared to times past, that’s a pretty busy daily schedule even without a farm or a career or a family to raise…..yet…how many of us still find ourselves at loose ends to find something to do…
But then imagine if you are out in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and you don’t have any of those things to fill your time….what would you do? Most of us would go stir crazy. It’s tough for many people today to just sit and do nothing for ten minutes, let alone 40 days just sitting in the sun hoping to find a bug to eat.
We think we spend ten minutes doing “nothing” but we’re not really. The TV is on, or someone is talking to us, or near us and we are listening, or we’re looking at a magazine.
Even when we are wasting time, we are still doing something, but we’re still bored.
And there he is…the devil…I’ve got you. You’re bored, so what can I tempt you with.
And just like with Jesus, the temptations start out small.
Oh come on, one tiny little stone into a loaf of bread. Who is that going to bother? God doesn’t care about such trivial matters, does he?
Oh come on, just call up a friend, and talk trash about a neighbor. Fudge the numbers on your tax return a little. Keep the extra ten dollar bill you were given in change at the grocery store.
Who’s gonna know? God doesn’t care about that.
And if you think about it… maybe, in truth, the stone to bread thing wasn’t a big deal. Like we talked about last a couple weeks ago, He’d done the water to wine thing. What’s the difference, right?
Rationalize it away ….”It probably doesn’t matter, this little thing. Even if it was wrong my Father would forgive me…right….I am VERY HUNGRY. How could God blame me for slipping up?”
And that part’s true. God forgives us when we slip up….when we ask for forgiveness, he forgives. It’s a promise.
So maybe the devils got a pretty good idea. It’s just One little loaf of bread.
No, it isn’t.
And Jesus recognizes this temptation for what it was: one tiny little step in the wrong direction.
Maybe it’s not even a step that crosses the line, but it does get us a little closer to the line that should not be crossed, so Jesus wanted nothing to do with it.
Jesus could have said “what the heck!” but he doesn’t. He knew the situation.
The devil was trying to put him on the slippery slope to even worse things. And he’d have nothing of it.
And then, of course, comes another temptation……”If you are the Son of God, jump off!
In other words, “The angels will save you. YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS! You are the Son of God, and this whole mission of yours doesn’t have to happen.”
These are the very same words that were hurled at Jesus on the cross.
From Matthew 27:
42 “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him!
And in Luke 23:
39 One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself-and us, too, while you’re at it!”
It’s a temptation that we can all relate to…..
Jesus could have said to the devil or the crowd or the other theif….”I’ll show you!’
and he could have. He knew he could have.
But his mission was to subject himself to humility.
It reminds me of the schoolyard taunt….”so, little boy, are you gonna throw that tomato….or are you “chicken”?
Throwing the tomato is the wrong thing. Yes, you can do. Yes, you may get away with it. But it’s the wrong thing.
And the devil is tempting us by using our pride.
” If I don’t throw this tomato, people will think I’m afraid, that I’m a chicken. I’ll be humiliated.”
It’s probably true. The people will laugh. But you can still have pride. If we are to boast at all, it is in the Lord Jesus, and we can have pride knowing that we did that which made God happy instead of what made the crowd cheer. That we obeyed God’s will, rather than public pressure.
And besides, Jesus told the devil we should not test God.
Ultimately that means he was talking about submission.
Certainly he didn’t really relish the idea of hanging on a cross and dying slowly. And like in this situation up on the temple, he could have leaped off that cross at any point, and showed all those people trying to humiliate Him. But instead he submitted to God’s will, rather than public pressure.
Just because you can do a thing, doesn’t make it right. Jesus says, do not test the Lord.
So, so far ..no bread from a stone, no prideful demostrations….
What about….having all the kingdoms of the world bow before you.
The devil says “You can have POWER! YOU can be IN CHARGE. You can CONTROL events, and people, and resources! Most importantly, you can do it the EASY way! This one the devil uses on every last one of us.
There’s a funny song that came out a number of years ago call “If I had $1,000,000″.
And it goes on to tell all the things that the singers would buy…but the hook was….
If I had $1,000,000 I’d BUY YOUR LOVE.
With money, I’d have power, and influence, and I’d get what I want. And the devil is telling Jesus he can have it all.
Now you have had this same thought, by my first instinct in reading this was Satan really didn’t control this things he was promising.
But in 2 Corinthians 4:4 we read ” Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.”
And from Job 1:7: “Where have you come from?” the Lord asked Satan. Satan answered the Lord, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
And although Satan needed to ask permission, God gives it…. “Do as you will!” God says.
So….Control of things worldly HAS BEEN given over to Satan, and he’s telling Jesus, I’ll give it all back to you. You have a big job ahead of you, it a long and very hard painful road, and there is an easier way.
This whole thing can be all done in an instant. If you bow to me.
That’s all the devil really wants. He knows he can’t ultimately be victorious. He knows the conclusion has already been written.
So the devil is saying here, I just want my little victory, if you will bow down for just one moment.
Jesus, you don’t have to go to the cross. I’ll give you the world back, in exchange for just one little bow. Tip your hat to me. Let me win, just this time.
Every single day we have thing in each of our lives. Just bow to me, turn to the ways of the world, embrace the darkness without you, submit to temptation, and I’ll give you whatever you want in this life.
The devil does have the ability to make a lot of promises. And he has the power to follow through on a lot of them.
But do you know the big problem with all this?
And let me make this as clear as humanly possible.
The devil is a bold faced LIAR.
You bow down to the devil, and no matter what he’s promised you, even if he could give it to you, it doesn’t matter. He is in the business of deceit and deception, and regardless how you feel about it…it’s too bad for you. He got you to bow down, and that’s all that matters.
Jesus had an answer to this, and there is only one answer. No matter what sweet deal the devil offers, the answer is this:
Get way from me, Satan! Get out of here. Get behind me. Be gone.
There is no deal with you that holds any truth.
That’s just how it is.
But there’s another reality. He’ll keep coming. He’ll keep trying.
The devil kept coming back taking another shot at Jesus for a reason. That’s what the devil does with us.
He thinks that maybe, just for a moment, you’ll forget who you are, forget you belong to Jesus, and fall into his trap.
He’ll put you on the slippery slope with little temptations, he play on your pride and your ego, and eventually, when all else fails, just like with Jesus, he’ll offer you the world. But he’s a liar, and he won’t follow through and you will have sold you soul for nothing.
Jesus remembered that. Jesus remembered who He was. It was never in question.
He knew the Word of God. In each of his temptations he quoted from scripture, and it stopped the devil cold.
And he knew that there was nothing of value the devil could give him. It was all a trap that led to nowhere. And despite his hunger and temptation, the angels took care of Him.
When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we ask God to “lead us not into temptation.” And I think we long for God to lead us away from temptation because temptation comes at us from so many directions and it comes in many different forms.
We want away from it, we do, but the Bible tells us that we will face temptation. Just as Jesus himself faced temptation.
So the real issue is not whether temptation will come, it will. But rather when temptation comes, will you forget who you are?
Or with the full armor of God, and his protection to face temptation down, will you be confident and say “Come on, Satan, Get out of here. I know who I am. I follow Jesus Christ”.
Amen.
© 2011 Timothy Henry