‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
104th teaching
3.23.2015
“the Temptations of
Christ”
Luke 3:23-4:13
“Now
Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was
supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of
Heli…Matthat…Levi…Melchi…Janna…Joseph…Mattathiah…Amos…Nahum…Esli…
Naggai…Maath…Mattathiah…Semei…Joseph…Judah…Joannas…Rhesa…Zerubbabel…
Shealtiel…Neri…Melchi…Addi…Cosam…Elmodam…Er…Jose…Eliezer…Jorim…Matthat…Levi…Simeon…Judah…Joseph…Jonan…Eliakim…Melea…Menan…Mattathah…
Nathan…David…Jesse…Obed…Boaz…Salmon…Nahshon…Amminadab…Ram…Hezron…Perez…Judah…Jacob…Isaac…Abraham…Terah…Nahor…Serug…Reu…Releg…Eber…Shelah…Cainan…Arphaxad…Shem…Noah…Lamech…Methuselah…Enoch…Jared…Mahalalel...Cainan…Enosh…Seth…the
son of Adam, the son of God.
4 “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by
the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended
He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, command
this stone to become bread.’ But Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’
“Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the
kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘All this
authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me,
and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all
will be Yours.’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! For
it is written, You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall
serve.’
Then
he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to
Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is
written: He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you, and, In their
hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ And
Jesus answered and said to him, ‘It has been said, You shall not tempt the LORD
your God.’ Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him
until an opportune time.”
So Jesus has just been baptized, He
has just been announced by John as the ‘Lamb of God that takes away the sins of
the world’, and this all signals the beginning of His ministry on earth, the
new change in His lifestyle from private life to public life. But notice the
very first thing that occurs after His baptism, right after. The devil comes to
tempt Him, to try to get Him to surrender to His flesh, to give in to the lust
of power, to cast doubt on His Father.
Therefore, we’re calling our study
tonight: “the Temptations of Christ”.
Pastor Mike couldn’t have been more
correct this past Sunday when he mentioned that spiritual warfare is a
necessary part of joining the ministry, that often times spiritual attacks
coincide with joining a ministry or starting a new ministry. Why? Because the
smartest thing the devil could do is use his resources to keep the church from
functioning, to keep ministry from happening. Satan would rather Christians
wallow in self-pity or guilt, sleep through life, chase after other things, be
pre-occupied or frightened, anything rather than serve God. That was also true
for our Lord. No sooner had He risen from the waters of the Jordan and begun
His new life of public ministry than the time of temptations came.
But before we get into all that,
here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for v.23… the genealogy. Mmm. Mmm! Delicious.
Now first, we’re told that Jesus began
His ministry at about thirty years old. In the Old Testament, priests were
allowed to serve as priests between the ages of 30 and 50 (see Numbers 4:47). What a coincidence, that
Jesus began His own ministry at the same age as the ancient priests. He was
going to be ministering to the people and serving God and fulfilling the law
and atoning for the sins of the people just like priests did.
You’ll remember that the book of Hebrews describes Jesus as our great high
priest. It’s one of the rarer concepts presented in the New Testament, but Hebrews 4:14-16 reads “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest
who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our
confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our
weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us
therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need.”
This is far from a purely doctrinal,
purely intellectual concept, here. This is meant to be an incredibly practical
concept. Look how the writer of Hebrews links the priesthood of Christ
(currently what Jesus is doing right now in heaven) to how we should live right now on earth. We should live
knowing that Jesus can sympathize with our weaknesses. We should live knowing
that our Lord understands what we go through. We should live knowing that we
can come to Him, even boldly, to obtain mercy and grace when we need it, when we
mess up. The priesthood of Christ means that God is not some cold and distant
tyrant who can’t understand why we mess up so much. No, He became a Man and
understood human weakness, the weakness of hunger and thirst, of temptation,
and so on. The priesthood of Christ means His sympathy, His empathy, His
understanding and compassion, and it means a fountain of mercy and grace for
you and I.
As Christians, you never have the
right to say: “Nobody understands me” and get all depressed about it. Going
down that line of thinking will only cause you to isolate yourself and lead you
down a road of dealing with your feelings in harmful ways, with all kinds of
disorders, with addictions, with cutting yourself. Jesus became human and
understands what it is like to be human.
I used to get hung up on that, though.
I used to think, “well He never dealt with 21st century temptations.
He never understood what internet pornography is like for example.” But do you
really think that’s the case? It says in that passage in Hebrews that He was
tempted in “all points” like we are.
There were comparable temptations in the ancient world, and Jesus experienced
the draw of them all. We’ll see some of that in a moment.
But first, ah yes, the genealogy.
What follows is a gallery of portraits.
Some of these names will of course stand out to us. There are major players of
the Old Testament, names like David the king of Israel; Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob the patriarchs; Enoch who walked with God and was not for God took him; even
Adam the head of the human race is here. The genealogy traces Jesus all the way
back to the first man. But other names here are obscure and we don’t know much
about them, if anything at all. Like who the heck is Jose? A Mexican-Hebrew
(Hebrexican?) ancestor of Jesus? Or who is Mattathah? Or Peleg? Or Arphaxad?
Let’s start off with this thought: the
genealogies of the Bible are here and they’re here for a reason. They’re
important. You’ll find them all throughout Scripture. That doesn’t mean you
have to like them. Doesn’t mean you have to force yourself through them when
doing you’re devotions. There’s no practical sense in pretending its spiritual
by reading a bunch of difficult names in a devotional way when that’s not
really what they’re here for. Now one of the sermons I’ll always remember was
when an old, posh Englishman preached out of a genealogy and gave little
inspiring snippets on of the life-stories of the men that are listed, but
that’s not really what these are here for. But generally, the genealogies are
boring. They’re not meant to be exciting. They’re information. Valuable
information.
The purpose of the biblical genealogy
is this: to trace and establish the lineage claims of Christ, or in other
words, to prove that Christ is qualified to be Who He claims to be. Ever notice
that the last genealogy in the Bible is the one that we’re looking at here in
Luke three? Why? Because once we’ve reached Jesus and traced His lineage, we’ve
reached the fulfilled purpose of the biblical genealogies. There’s no more need for genealogies after Luke chapter
three, because all the genealogies are here for are to ultimately trace the
lineage of Christ.
The genealogy of Christ traces Him
back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which means that He is of Jewish lineage and
therefore entitled to all the prophecies and promises that pertain to that
people. The genealogy of Christ traces Him back to Adam, in fact this genealogy
begins with Christ and ends with Adam, begins with the head of a new creation
and ends with the head of the old creation, reminding us also that Jesus was
fully human, a descendant of Adam like everyone else. The genealogy of Christ
traces Him back to David the king, which makes Him eligible to fulfill the
promise that God made that a descendant of David would occupy David’s throne.
You can find the promise God made to
David if you turn to II Samuel 7:8-16.
The words of God here reestablish the promise of the land that God swore to
Abraham, and then He promises that David’s son would build the House of the
God, the Temple (which was fulfilled by Solomon) and then finally He goes
beyond David and beyond Solomon and promises that David’s kingdom and throne
would be established forever. That was the expectation of the Jews for the
Messiah. They expected the Savior to establish His earthly kingdom during the
time of Christ. Jesus’ disciples asked this very question in Acts 1:6, when He would restore the
kingdom to Israel.
Since this was the expectation
surrounding the Messiah, the genealogies of the gospels make it clear that
Jesus is indeed the Son of David, a direct descendant, and thus qualifies as
One who can fulfill this promise that God made to David, that His kingdom would
be established forever. Further, I would even say that Jesus fulfills the
promise to David in another way, in a current way, right now. The LORD had told
David that His descendant would built God a physical house, the Temple. But
there is another descendant, Jesus the Son of David, who is building a spiritual house for God.
What? I Peter 2:5 “…you also, as
living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 6:19 “…do you not know that your body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are
not your own?” Jesus once said to Peter “I will build My church”. You are a part of the spiritual house that
He is building, today. This means that Jesus fulfills the Davidic covenant, the
promises to David, as both the One who will someday setup the everlasting
kingdom on earth, AND as the One who is currently building the house of God.
Now if you’re a bible student (which I
hope you are) you might realize that this genealogy of Christ in Luke differs
from the genealogy of Christ in Matthew. Matthew’s is shorting, tracing Jesus
to Abraham. Luke’s is longer, tracing Jesus to Adam. Considering this chart,
you can see that the two genealogies split at the descendants of David.
Matthew traces the line through
David’s son Solomon, but Luke traces the line through David’s son Nathan.
What’s more, Matthew lists Joseph’s father (Jesus’ grandfather) as Jacob,
whereas Luke names Joseph’s father as Heli. What’s with the differences?
Now these can be reconciled by a
couple facts. Note that we’re looking at a Paternal line and a Maternal line,
in other words a genealogy that traces the lineage of Jesus’ earthly father
Joseph and a genealogy that traces the lineage of Jesus’ mother Mary. Matthew
says “Jacob begot Joseph”, meaning
literally that Jacob was Joseph’s father and Jesus’ adoptive grandfather. But
Luke says that Jesus “was supposed”,
adopted, thought to be the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, or more properly the
son-in-law of Heli. The Jews had no word specifically for son-in-law. What
we’re really looking at in Luke is Mary’s lineage through her own father Heli,
the father-in-law of Joseph.
And this is fascinating: Why would we
need two genealogies? Why trace the lineage of Jesus first through Joseph and
then through Mary? Why have a paternal and a maternal line?
Consider that Joseph, in Matthew’s
genealogy, was a direct descendant of David specifically through Solomon, the son of David that inherited the
throne, and thus the legal right to the throne of David is in Matthew through
Joseph. Jesus being the adopted son of Joseph could then inherit the legal
right to the throne of David. Ah, but here’s a problem.
Jesus wasn’t the actual descendant of
Joseph. He was “adopted” and born to Mary as a virgin. He didn’t have Joseph’s
genes or Joseph’s blood. And thus, a skeptic or unbeliever could argue in His
day and in our day that Jesus could not really inherit the throne of David,
could not really be the Messiah, because He didn’t have David’s blood. That’s
what’s solved in Luke’s maternal genealogy. Mary was a direct descendant of
David, though not through Solomon and not eligible for the inheritance of the
promises, but a descendant through Solomon’s brother Nathan. That means that
Matthew establishes that Jesus has the legal right to the throne of David and
the kingdom of Israel through Joseph, Luke establishes that Jesus has the blood right to the David through Mary,
something that Matthew’s genealogy lacks. Thus with the two together Jesus is
the legal inheritor of David AND also the blood descendant of David, firmly
establishing His credentials as the Messiah.
That’s far from devotional, but again
this is valuable information. Jesus could not be the Messiah if He did not meet
these prerequisites.
*Alright that’s quite enough of the
genealogies, on to chapter four and out of academia.
CHAPTER FOUR
v.1-2
What I want you to notice is that
Jesus was first led by the Spirit before He was tempted by the devil. The
Spirit did what He does by leading and guiding, while the devil what He always
does. He did the tempting. Jesus was taken by the Spirit to such a place of
weakness and isolation where the devil came in for the attack.
And we might be tempted to get it the
other way around, to get the proverbial cart before the horse. In other words,
we might think that it is God who does the tempting when we go through some
intense temptations, we might think it’s God being hard on us in order that we
might “learn” something. But don’t be mistaken. God tempts no one. The devil does
the tempting. And while God may lead you to a place in life where you are
allowed to be attacked spiritually or tested or tempted, realize that the
spiritual assault does not come from God Himself but from the Enemy.
James
1:13 “Let no one say when he is
tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He
Himself tempt anyone. But each one is drawn away by his own desires and
enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when
it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
As usual, Charles Spurgeon has an
excellent quote on this: “Satan tempts: God tries. But the same trial may be
both a temptation and a trial; and it may be a trial from God's side, and a
temptation from Satan's side, just as Job suffered from Satan, and it was a
temptation; but he also suffered from God through Satan, and so it was a trial
to him.”
Though God allows temptation, He does
not entice us to do evil, only He allows it that our faith may be tested. By
God’s very nature, He cannot have anything to do with sin and therefore He
cannot tempt someone to sin. Thus whatever valley or hardship or test you’re
going through, realize that God may have allowed it but He is not the one
attacking you or causing you to be tempted. That’s the job of your flesh and
the devil.
Ah, and now we’re on the subject of
the devil. Far as I can remember we haven’t really addressed the biblical
teachings of who the devil is and what he is like with any kind of
exhaustiveness and certainly, who the heck would want to do that. As the Enemy
of God and the Adversary of God’s people, Satan does not deserve the respect of
our time. However, there is some value in knowing your enemy. Note, not to the
extent that some Christian groups throughout history have been pre-occupied and
obsessed with battling possessions, exorcisms and all-around blaming everything
on the devil.
The beloved author C.S. Lewis wrote in
his book the Screwtape Letters: “There
are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the
devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and
to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are
equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the
same delight.”
He points out there are really two
extremes in approaching the subject of the devil. Both extremes are wrong.
There’s the first extreme that sees the devil in everything, the devil in bad
omens, the devil in bad luck, the devil in something somebody said that hurt
your feelings, the devil in your sickness you got recently, the devil in your
circumstances, the devil out to get you everywhere. Sometimes we may be giving
the devil too much credit to say that all misfortunes you experience are due to
his malevolent methods. That’s what caused the Salem witch trials, for crying
out loud. That’s what plagued the dark ages, violent superstition that saw the
devil in everything from the forest and crows and cats to your morning oatmeal.
But the other extreme is just as harmful,
and we modern-folk may be more susceptible to this extreme: it is the extreme
that says there is no devil at all. Rather than seeing the devil everywhere,
it’s seeing the devil nowhere. Often you’ll hear this from people today “c’mon,
you don’t really believe in all that devil-stuff? You can’t really believe
there’s a dark force of evil in the world? You don’t really believe in a real
hell, with all the fire and brimstone? You don’t really think there’s a little
red man with horns and pitchfork and a tail running around out there? Well, do
you?” And so this extreme belittles the concept of the fallen one and reduces
it to nonsense, and then says “how can anyone believe this?” Today the devil is
a part of American entertainment, a plot device of the film industry, and
hardly anyone takes what they see in a movie seriously if they recognize it is
merely entertainment.
Let me warn you against either
extreme. The devil would love nothing more than for your to be so
over-concerned with superstitiously seeing Him everywhere that you forget about
Christ, just as the church has done in centuries past; or he would love nothing
more than for you to think that he doesn’t exist at all, to treat the thought
of him as childish, as entertainment. We’re in a war.
Imagine if in World War II the Allied
forces merely thought of the Germans in terms of the cartoons and propaganda
the Allies produced. Disney produced an anti-Nazi cartoon starring Donald Duck,
but what if the Americans that watched it really thought of Hitler only as a
joke, some kind of animated caricature and not a real threat to the world? They
would have found themselves fighting an uphill battle against morale and
determination, if they could find themselves willing to fight at all, because
why fight against something so harmlessly silly. But what was harmless or silly
about Hitler? And what is harmless or silly about Satan? The Bible makes no
jokes.
Allow me to echo the opening words of
the excellent book the Strategy of Satan
by Warren Wiersbe. This is from the introduction: “Satan enjoys seeing
Christians get a head knowledge of victory without a heart experience, because
this lulls believers into a false security, and Satan finds them an easy prey.
It is not the reading of truth, or
even the enjoying of truth that
brings the blessing. It is the doing
of the truth. Therefore, determine with the Spirit’s help to put these truths
into practice.”
He may have been talking about the
truths of that book, but clearly the same holds true for the truths of the Bible.
Therefore, what we’re about to study in terms of this passage on the
Temptations of Christ is something that we must read, yes, but something we
must also learn from and practice. Don’t underestimate the seriousness of the
situation: this is spiritual warfare and there is a holocaust of human bodies
and souls happening all around us because of this Accuser here who tempted our
Lord
There are three temptations that the
devil attacked the Savior with.
v.2-4
The first temptation had to do with
hunger. Jesus had been out in the wilderness for more than a month, fasting and
praying no doubt, when the devil came and said “If you are the Son of God…”
That was the devil’s chorus for all three of these temptations. Remember the
context: Jesus had just been baptized and had just heard the voice from heaven
saying “You are My beloved Son; in You I
am well pleased.” The devil was undermining that statement and casting
doubt on the word of God. There’s a key strategy he always uses right there.
The devil will cast doubt on the word of God. He tried to get Jesus to think
“Am I really the Son of God? Did I only imagine that voice from heaven? Am I
actually crazy?”
The temptation involved, then,
enticing Jesus to use His divine power to turn a rock into bread, change
inedible to edible. Well, what’s the harm in that? The harm in that is that
Jesus Christ did not come to serve Himself. He came to serve others. He came to
give His life. He did not come to misuse His powers to satisfy and serve
Himself. And what’s more, He was being tested. The temptation was to end the
test. The temptation was to end the hunger and give in to the flesh and the
needs of the body.
Note that Satan will often appeal to a
real desire. He’s going to come to someone with all of the excuses: You’re
hungry so why not eat? This is how temptation works. The desire is there and
the devil maybe gives a little push in the wrong direction. Heck, I think more
often than not it’s our own flesh that pushes us in the wrong direction. Note
eating is what got Adam the son of God in trouble, so maybe try it out on Jesus
the only begotten Son of God?
But Jesus fought back like a Man. He
fought back with something accessible to us. He could have fought back with His
divine abilities, but He chose to provide us an example we can all follow. He
fought back with the word of God.
I found this quote online: “We
effectively resist temptation in the same way Jesus did: by countering Satan’s
seductive lies by shining the light of God’s truth upon them. If we are ignorant
of God’s truth, we are poorly armed in the fight against temptation.”
The solution for every temptation is
found here, in this Book of books. If the devil tempts you, like he did with
Jesus, to abuse or misuse your powers or position, or to satisfy yourself
rather than seek to serve others, fight back with Scripture. We all face
temptation and it’s an encouragement to know that Jesus was not too proud to
undergo temptation Himself. He became a Man and can sympathize with our
weaknesses. He understands what being tempted is like now, experientially.
You might think how you can resist
temptation. Jesus gave us the example. He used the word of God to fight back
the traps of the devil. And you might think “Well, that was Jesus, I’m not
God!” And you’re absolutely right. You’re not God. I wouldn’t be a Christian if
you were God. But, hey, you have God living in you, don’t you? Do you not know
that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit? Do you not abide in Jesus? He is
nearer than you think. Remember that when the devil comes your way.
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