"Satan's Handiwork - Temptation"

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13

Today begins Lent – a time to begin refocusing our lives on the truths of faith. A couple of weeks ago, I attended our District Workshops, and one in particular caught my attention. Our District Lay Leader presented a session on “Trans-formational Leadership”. In the presentation, he offered a video from YouTube, entitled “Know Your Why”. The point of the video is that all too often, we focus our lives on “what” or “how” we live our lives – the things we do, and the way we do them. The truth of it, though, is that our first consideration must always be the “why”.

When we know our “why” for living, and let that drive our “what’s” and “how’s”, we begin to have purpose.
When we finally understand the “why” for all that we do, that is when we begin to live a live that honors Jesus.
He knew his “why”, and that guided him in every encounter that he had with the people during his 33 years among us.

Read Luke 4:1-2

Jesus had just been baptized by John (Luke 3:21-22), and his Messiahship had now been established. This should have been enough for all of Israel, but it didn’t even come close for most. Israel was focused more on the “what” and “who” and “how” of Messiah, and completely missed out on the “why”. Jesus had come to redeem Israel from the penalty of their sin, namely death, and this would determine the “how” and “what” of his ministry. But instead of beginning the salvation part immediately, he promptly journeyed out to the wilderness to fast and to submit to Satan’s temptations.

Israel expected Messiah to be mighty – he was to be a warrior king who would destroy the enemies who had oppressed them for so long. But he wasn’t that kind of king.
They expected that he would be of the royal family. He was, but not, primarily, of the one they had in mind.
They expected that he would be focused and intent on his one and only purpose – that of their rescue. This he was, but, again, not in the way that they hoped for.

Jesus was mighty in Spirit; he was focused in purpose; he was dedicated to Israel and their eternal welfare in a way that no one before him had ever been. So why would the Lord need to fast, and even more importantly, why would he even allow Satan to place all those temptations in his way? Jesus was establishing his identity with Israel, and actually, with all of humanity. He was about to undergo all that humanity is subjected to, and even more. After all, Jesus was human, too!

Satan, once the most beautiful of all God’s angels, is the one and only challenge to the reign of God throughout creation. (Luke 8:12-14) Satan’s deceit is our greatest downfall, and he succeeds all the time – there is none of us who can stand against his attacks consistently. But Jesus would never fail, and he offers us the very means to defeat the power of Satan in our lives – and that is by trust in the word of God.

Read Luke 4:3-4

“IF” you are the Son of God … the challenge is against the “why” that brought Jesus to earth. Satan wanted Jesus to begin caring for his own earthly needs, and if God’s creation doesn’t satisfy some particular momentary need, then why not just change it!! The temptation was to put his own needs first, and to relegate the Father’s plan to a distant second.

And Jesus counters Satan’s attempt to make him stumble with the thought that there are far more important things in this life than food. He quotes a portion of Deuteronomy 8:1-3, in which God proclaims to Israel that if they will but submit to his word and his way, that he will provide for more needs than they could ever imagine.

Jesus 1, Satan 0! So Satan moves on to his next challenge of Jesus’ “why”.

Read Luke 4:5-8

Satan offers Jesus the opportunity for power immediately, if he will only compromise his relationship with the Father. God’s plan is that one day, Jesus will, indeed, have authority over all of creation, but Satan offers to give it to him right now, IF only ….!
Jesus already had authority – he taught with authority (Matthew 7:28-29), he had authority over Satan’s demons (Mark 5:1-13), and he had the authority to forgive sin (Luke 5:17-26). If he had accepted Satan’s offer, he would not only have lost all of this, he would have lost his relationship with the Father, and his “why” would have been rendered meaningless.

And in addition, Satan is actually claiming an authority that he doesn’t possess – he can, if you will pardon the expression, “raise all kinds of hell” here on earth, but he has no authority to give any power to anyone. He can only raise doubts, he can only offer unholy alternatives,
- he can only make promises he can never keep, and, in general, his intent is to lead the people of God away from their promised glory!
Grant authority? Hardly!

And Jesus responds with Deuteronomy 6:4-13 – that the only One who is worthy of our allegiance and worship is the Almighty. There is only one authority, one power, one hope, one truth, one Light, and there is absolutely nothing like God’s gifts in all of the darkness that Satan wishes to envelop us in.

Jesus 2, Satan 0 - but even though he has lost another round, the “darkness” isn’t about to give up just yet.

Read Luke 4:9-12

Jesus has been effectively responding to Satan’s temptations with scripture, so the Tempter decides to use scripture against the Lord. He quotes verses 11 & 12 from Psalm 91, but he conveniently leaves out the verses that won’t fit his purpose! He omits the previous 2 (9-10) – “If you make the Most High your dwelling – even the Lord, who is my refuge – then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.” Did you catch that? IF you remain in the Lord … that is the key phrase in this passage, and Satan seems to have missed it!

This is the tactic that the world employs – to take the word of God out of context, and they do this time and time again. Some years ago, a Christian brother of mine confessed that over the years, he had, figuratively, torn out many pages of his Bible because he didn’t believe them. But over time, he told me, he had replaced “most” of them, and was working on getting the rest restored. I believe that by now he has, indeed, put every single one back in its proper place. But I know, and suspect that you do, too, many others who haven’t even begun to put anything back!

Satan uses scripture, or at least a portion of it, to tempt Jesus, but Jesus uses another passage to counter the lie. Deuteronomy 6:16-19 calls us to never test the Lord, but to simply trust him, and keep the commandments and rulings that he hands us! When I was growing up, there were a number of times that my parents would tell me to either do something that I didn’t want to, or wouldn’t allow me to do something that I did. I know that my being a “rebellious child” may surprise most of you (!!!), and when I protested with “But WHY?”, I was almost always told “Because I said so!”. And as I look back on those formative years, I realize that my Mom and Dad never made any decision to harm me – as a matter of fact, their decisions were all intended to protect me, or grow me, or to make me a better person.

And that is how we are to see the Lord’s laws for our lives.
Jesus 3, Satan 0. He’s out!

Read Luke 4:13

Satan challenges the Lord Jesus in the same ways that he attacks us. First, he wants us to put ourselves first, to consider our own desires ahead of the way of the Lord. Second, he wants us to buy into his false promise of personal authority, that we might make all of our own decisions, to make our own way in this life, and even beyond. And third, he wants us to doubt that God has our best at heart when he offers up his word and his law, and that we can read scripture in any way that will justify our own self-centered beliefs.
So he gives up his attacks on Jesus for the time being. But he would be back at a time when he thinks that Jesus has become more vulnerable.

But Satan’s work against our lives will never end. He wants us to doubt the “whys” of Jesus, and once we succumb to that, the Lord’s “what’s” and “how’s” will easily fall away. During this Lenten season, set the temptations of Satan – his lies, his doubts, his deceits – put them all aside, and let the way of the Lord prevail. Why? Because that is when his best can become our best.

Praise the Lord!