The Temptations of Jesus - A Portrait of True Freedom Part 3 - Luke 4:1-14

1:08One thing the Bible makes very clear is that we do not have an ignorant God. Hebrews 4:15 says, We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find Grace to help in time of need. We have a God who understands humanity from the inside out because he became flesh and dwelt among us. But in all of these temptations, in Matthew or Luke 4, the devil tries to lure Jesus by means of what, by any means that would draw him away from the Father's plan or the Father's will. And as we look at the temptations of Christ, it's important to note that there is no temptation here to gross immorality. Jesus had no inward principle of sin to draw on, so he wasn't drawn to gross immorality like we would define it. But he was tempted in every way as we are. As the scripture says, he was tempted according to the flesh and all the passions and desires of what it means to be in the flesh, though he had no inward principle of sin to draw on. Well, as we've already looked at this temptation, look at verse 1. We'll just walk our way through by way of review. The stage is set for the temptation. In verse 1, Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness. For 40 days, he being tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing during those days. And when they had ended, he became hungry. So you have this picture. Of two masters going head to head, the master of sin and the master of slavery and the master of everything profane and antagonistic to God, and the master of every false teacher on the one side, and then you have the master of righteousness, the portrait of true freedom, one who is not enslaved at all, but totally free, as the Bible defines freedom. And he is the master of all truth and every true minister of the gospel. So as we walk through this, there were three things that I wanted you to see that Jesus refused, so that you would refuse them too. So that you and I both, as we look at Christ and see what he refused in this temptation or in these temptations, that we would learn from him and that we would say no to the things that he said no to. And the first thing we looked at a couple of weeks ago is that Jesus said no to fleshly desire. He said no to fleshly desire. Look at verse 2. He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, he became hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, or on bread alone. In other words, the highest principle that Jesus was going to live by was not going to be the dictates or the desires of his flesh. And even in hunger, as being a legitimate need, it is certainly what Jesus experienced here captures the most intense and the most strong desires of the flesh, and that is to eat, legitimate though it may be.

4:47In this context, he said no, because he is going to follow a greater principle. Second thing Jesus said no to is fleshly glory. Jesus said no to fleshly glory. Look at verse 5. And he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship before me, it shall all be yours. And Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Jesus said, The highest principle isn't going to be the highest bidder or the greatest glory that I can get out of by fleshly means.

5:37You think about a fishing net operation. Some of these commercial fishermen, they have several nets. They have a very coarse net that first goes through, catches some of the big fish. Then they have a medium-sized net that comes through and they will separate and kind of get the smaller fish or the medium-sized fish. Another net that's a very fine net that will get basically everything else that they want. And that way they are able to catch all sizes without tearing up the little nets with the big fish. But that's kind of the way Satan works. Though Jesus had broken through the coarse and the medium nets, there's another net to come. And that is the temptation that Satan brings next. But it's, again, an intention to trap him. And in many ways, this is one of the most subtle and one of the most deadly traps that he faced and that you and I will face. So Jesus said no to fleshly desire. He said no to fleshly glory. And then he said no to fleshly proof. He said no to fleshly proof. And that's where we want to pick up this morning and look at this third temptation. Verse 9. And he led him to Jerusalem and had him stand 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 will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

7:30And Jesus answered and said to him, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. So here's the setting for temptation number three. And he led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, verse 9. So this takes place in the temple or at the temple in Jerusalem. So somehow the devil took Jesus there, whether bodily or whether in some sort of satanic rapture or evil vision, like the last time. Either way, it doesn't change the meaning of the text or the emphasis of the text or diminish the power of the temptation. He was there, and this temptation was real. The pinnacle point that's probably referred to is may very well have been the roof of the royal portico, which overlooked the ravine of the Kidron Valley. And there's about a, in that day, there's about a 450-foot drop right off the edge there. And Josephus talked about this and said, if anyone looked down from this point, he would grow dizzy, not being able to reach so vast a depth. So it's at this point, at this moment, that he issues this temptation. And he said in verse 9, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written. He will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

9:11So he's saying, if God is really with you, prove it. If God is really with you, if you really believe God is with you, prove it. Prove it to yourself and prove it to me by throwing yourself down from this height. Wouldn't he, certainly, if he's with you, wouldn't God protect you from such a fall? You remember in the second temptation, Jesus made it clear that he trusted God's way over the devils, even if it meant suffering and the cross. He trusted God's ways. So here it's kind of like here's Satan saying, okay, well, if you trust God so much, fling yourself off this pinnacle.

9:56Demonstrate that trust. I mean, if you can't trust him to do that here, how in the world are you going to expect him to save you at the cross? That kind of thing. Show it. Prove it. But notice what happens here. Satan makes an appeal to what? Scripture. Scripture. It is written. You see that? For it is written, verse 10. You know, in verse 3, he comes to him and he says, he just spoke to him. He said to him, he doesn't quote scripture, if you're the son of man. Man, son of God, tell this stone to be bread. And then in verse 6, again, he comes to him, and the devil said to him, And then each time Jesus replies, It is written, it is written. So Satan says, Okay, I got to get in the game here. I've got to go to Scripture here because this guy's not going to listen to anything but Scripture. So now I'm going to quote Scripture to him. It is written, says the devil, first time. And what scripture is he referring to? Well, he's referring to Psalm 91, 1 through 12, or actually 10 through 12, or 11 through 12. But let me just read that to you. You can turn there if you would like. If not, you can listen. I'll read, but I want to walk through this text a little bit in Psalm 91, just so you can understand the context and what the devil is pulling on here to throw in Jesus' face. Psalm 91, 1, probably may very well have been written in the wilderness. And certainly it's a person going through wilderness time in life, and could very well have been in the actual wilderness experience of Israel. But in Psalm 91, 1, opening line says, He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the mighty, of the Almighty. So if any, and by the way, if anyone had ever dwelled in the shelter of the Most High, it would have been. The sun.

12:01Verse 2, I will say to the Lord, My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. If anyone has ever said this, it would have been the sun. Okay? Verse 3, for it is he who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you may seek refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a bulwark. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day, or of the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked. For you have made the Lord my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near to your tent. Context, safety, dwelling. And then here's the portion that the devil uses. For he will give his angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. That's the text he uses. Although he makes one little, he leaves one little part out, if you're following along in verse 11 of 91, for he will give his angels charge of you to guard you. In all your ways, well, let's just strike that out. So it reads, To guard you, they will bear you up in their hands, that you will not strike your foot against the stone. That's the omission. He leaves out, they guard you in all your ways. But basically, what the devil does is he cites the portion he wants, he twists the meaning of the rest so that he can completely misapply the whole message of Psalm 91. This is what I call satanic hermeneutics.

14:03That's exactly what he does. He's the master of false teachers. That's what they do: cite the portion you want, twist the meaning of it just enough to completely misapply it. You see, one of the main messages of Psalm 91 is the protection of those who confidently trust in the Lord. That's what the psalm is about. And the devil appears to recognize this. But what he does is he subtly redirects the application. It's like he's saying, you're the Son of God, right? You trust in God, right? Therefore, demonstrate this trust by throwing yourself off this dizzying height, and God will demonstrate his love for you by protecting you. So the devil purposefully twists and misapplies the message of the Psalm. He makes the Psalm say something like this: Has not God promised to protect the righteous?

15:00No matter what they do, it's a little different message. That's not the message of Psalm. Psalm 91 is not saying, God will protect you no matter what you do. That's not the message. But that is how the devil has turned it and is now using it. Psalm 91, the message is very simple. When God leads people into the wildernesses of life, he is with his people. And they can confidently trust in him. When God leads us into the wildernesses of life, we can be confident that he is with us and that we can trust in him and we can rest in him no matter what our eyes and ears may tell us.

15:50You see, the message of Psalm 91 is to trust God in the wildernesses of life, not test God or tempt God in the wildernesses of life. And that's exactly how the devil is approaching Jesus. He's using this text and he's saying, it is saying for you to test God at this moment. But it's not the path. You know, such wilderness times, you know, the message to trust God, he has a purpose for us in wildernesses, and he's not going to abandon us. Sometimes it's in those wilderness times that we begin to question if God is really with us.

16:36It's in these wilderness times that perhaps one of the greatest temptations comes to us. God, are you really with us? Are you really in this? I mean, let's face it, there are times when God just doesn't conform to our standards of goodness, does he? And in such times, we find ourselves going down a path that we didn't choose. And some of these can be some of the most difficult times, some of the most discouraging times, some of the most disheartening times.

17:13And we ask ourselves, is God really among us? It's like Christ can, it's a lot easier to know, God, I can face anything if I know you're with me. But the moment my confidence starts being eroded that you are with me, that leaves a soul very barren. And at such times, we're tempted to doubt God. We're tempted to doubt his ways, his purpose, and even his commitment to us. God, are you really with us? God, is the Lord among us or not? That's the idea. Can we really call him Emmanuel? So let's go back from Psalm 91 back to the temple. Back to this pinnacle and to Jesus' temptation. So, what may be off right off the bat may look like a great act of faith, throw yourself off this pinnacle, show your trust, would actually be an act of unbelief. If you know God is with you, you don't have to throw yourself off the temple.

18:27You see, the temple was understood as a place where God dwells. So, if God was going to save anywhere, it would be at the temple, because that's where He dwells. And the Son of God, He had a uniquely close relationship to the Father. So, if God would rescue anyone from such a fall, it would be the Son at the temple, if anywhere. So, prove it to yourself, prove it to me, prove it to yourself that God is going to protect you no matter what you do. Now, there are some commentators that like to suggest that this is about Him putting His power on display. The only problem I have before a watching world, the only problem I have with that is that there is no crowd mentioned in the text, that this seems to be certainly a very private temptation. I don't think crowds are in view at all. This is just the temptation that he is facing internally and with the devil there.

19:31But you can think about it like this: it would be like us saying to God, God, I want you to prove that you are with me, and I want you to do it on my fleshly terms. You ever been tempted to do that? God, I want you to do this, this, and this, and demonstrate that you are with me. That's the idea. And this net has caught a lot of people that have even broken through some of the other ones.

20:03Well, such fleshly proofs are actually statements of unbelief. But more than that, they are attempts to measure God by our tests of goodness. Recently, I took my kids to a show where these horses jump through these big fiery rings, these hoops. I'm watching these horses, and they light these rings on fire, and these horses, and I can tell these horses are scared to death, and they've got all these hoops, and they're all on fire, and these horses just run through. And I'm like, man, that looks fierce. If I was that horse, what I'd do is I'd run right up to the edge and say, look, if you want to go through these hoops, I'm stopping. You go through these hoops. But that's exactly what happens. It's like saying to God, God, you jump through my hoops and my tests of goodness. God, I'm going to test your goodness. Here's the hoop you jump through. And when you jump through it, then I can say you are good.

21:09That's the temptation. Make God conform to your tests of goodness. And that is satanic. God, you conform to my tests of goodness. That's what's going on here. Make God prove himself to you. Right? How often we fall into that one. Let's look at Jesus' refusal. It's glorious. Verse 12, and Jesus said to him, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Now, what's interesting, and Jesus does not say, It is written this time. It's kind of fascinating. He certainly quotes that which is written, but this time he doesn't actually say it is written. If you look back, what does he say? It is said.

22:06Perfect passive verb. It is said. It's completed. What is he saying? He went merely beyond citing a text, but declaring its meaning. A lesson for hermeneutics. The authority is in the meaning of the text, not just in. Sabral, not just mere citing a text. And what Jesus' mind does is it goes to Deuteronomy 6:16 and he exposes the devil's game, and what I will add exposes the devil's sin. This is what the devil does: subject God to his tests of goodness and get as many people to believe his criteria for God's goodness. And many of us listen to those lies over and over and over. And that's why Jesus says, be careful who you listen to, be careful who you listen to, be careful of what you listen to.

23:17Well, Jesus does not pit Scripture against Scripture. He just cites an appropriate scripture and applies it correctly. Psalm 91 is definitely a comforting text in the wildernesses of life, but not the way the devil was using it. But what Jesus does is he cites the perfect text and perfectly applied it to the devil's temptation. Perfectly relays the meaning of Deuteronomy 6:16. But Deuteronomy 16 is even a reference to what took place in Exodus 17. So I'm going to read to you a little bit about it. Little bit of that historical event. What was taking place in Exodus 17? You remember that happens right after Exodus 16. You with me? Pretty profound. 17 comes after 16. What happened in 16? Remember, the people were complaining and grumbling because they were out of food. And so they were saying, God, you have brought us out here. Or basically, Moses, God, you have brought us out here to kill us. Oh, that we had died in Egypt by the pots of meat. That was the idea. That's what happens in 16. Well, now here we are in 17. Now they've eaten. And now, guess what? They're thirsty.

24:43Verse 17, or chapter 17, verse 1. Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from there to the wilderness of Zin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidium, and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? It's interesting. They should have known he fed them. He wasn't going to. Verse 3, but the people thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against Moses and said, Why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do to this people? A little more, and they will stone me. So they're ready to kill Moses over this one, even after God had provided the manna.

25:44Verse 5, Then the Lord said to Moses, Pass before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Masa and Meribah, because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?

26:23So here's the devil's temptation on this nation in the wilderness. Is the Lord with you or not? Obviously, the Lord is not with you because you don't have any water. And I'll tell you what the Lord has done is he's brought you out here. Don't worry about the manna. He gave that to you just to fatten you up for the slaughter as he kills you by thirst. That's the idea. And there's a note of hostility here. Obviously, they're ready to stone Moses. But it's important that you don't just see Israel here. This is humanity being. Tested by the devil. You need to see us. If we were a congregation, these are some of the same temptations we would all face had we been there, but certainly as we face routinely, because it's the same tempter.

27:18It's the very same thing that he comes and tempts Jesus with. Just as the devil tempted Israel, so he tempted Jesus. But Jesus doesn't give in. In the spirit of Psalm 91:2, Jesus didn't need for God's angels to bear him up because he trusted completely in God. He didn't need to subject himself to some reckless feat to prove that God was with him. He knew God was with him. He knew who he was simply trusting in God's word. I mean, he certainly knew what was written about him.

28:02And he also had heard the voice, of course, at the baptism, which had just taken place, chapter 3. Of course, that was not given for his benefit. It was given for our benefit. He knew who he was. And Jesus also knew the kind of heart that seeks such fleshly proofs. He said so in Matthew 16:4. An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. An evil and adulterous generation. Generation needs fleshly proofs, not those who are of the household of faith.

28:38Jesus didn't let the devil draw him into some kind of identity crisis. Is God with you or not? It's as though Jesus was saying, I know that God is with me, and I do not have to throw myself down to prove it to you or to anyone else or to myself. Furthermore, I'm not going to put God to some silly, reckless, sinful test. I know that he is good, and I know that he is with me, simply trusting in what he has said.

29:17So, as with the other temptations, Jesus' response was short, authoritative, and it ended the discussion. Look at verse 13. And when the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time. Of course, we see that show up again on the cross. There's the thief in Luke 23, 39 that says, If you are the Christ, save yourself and save us. There's a passerby wagging their heads, if you are the Christ, come down, now we will believe you. Same thing, all the temptations, more opportune time.

30:00But there are some lessons here for us, just as we reflect on these teachings and Christ's temptation. First of all, we need to beware of satanic hermeneutics, right? The mere recital of Scripture does not or may not convey God's will. The authority is in what it means. And people, you can expect, will use Scripture all the time. They quote it out of context, leave portions out, and they end up justifying oftentimes the very opposite of what it says. Beware of that.

30:35Also, beware of faithless recklessness. And it's the idea that God will protect those who are His, so go ahead and jump. Be reckless. You are invincible, so go live dangerously. Beware of that. To put yourself in an unnecessary situation that demands miraculous protection is not faith, it's sin. It's the sin of unbelief. It's the sin of refusal to just simply rest upon his promises. So beware of faithless recklessness, but also beware of self-will. Self-will often masquerades as faith. Sometimes the villain in the play looks like the good guy, right?

31:26The same is true. Self-will often puts on a mask of faith. Faith. And what may have looked like in Christ's way, the perfection of trust by throwing himself down off this huge height, was really distrust. It was really self-will in the mask of devotion. So beware of your self-will. Beware of trying to force God into providing for you some fleshly proof of his goodness on your fleshly terms. Don't go through life saying, God, if you're with me, do this for me.

32:07Be careful. Beware of that. How do we do this? We could spend all days talking about how we do this, but I think oftentimes we do this, we test the Lord, we pray for health, but then we'll neglect the disciplines of health. Sometimes we'll pray for the welfare of our children, but then we'll refuse to bring them up in the ways that they should go. Sometimes I think we pray to God to get harmful images out of our minds, and then yet we will go and be entertained and take in and drink in the world's profane images. Sometimes we'll pray for God to save, but then we will neglect the means of grace, the reading of his word, the fellowship among believers, the service. Others. We will deny the means of grace, but then we will ask Him to save us. All this boils down to testing God as opposed to having faith in Him.

33:15But there's another thing that we need to be closely or be aware of, and it's closely related to this self-will. It's beware of spiritual pride. Spiritual pride tests God. When you test God, that's your spiritual pride welling up again in you. And it seeks to make God to extend His promises to your self-chosen path. And that's what pride will do. God, this is what I'm going to do. You bless this path. Jesus is totally different. He followed the leadership of the Holy Spirit. He didn't chart His own course and ask God to bless it. And I can tell you what the Spirit of God is going to do in your life. He's going to teach you to say no to fleshly desire, no to fleshly glory, and no to fleshly proofs. That's what the Spirit of God did in Christ. That's what you can expect. It's going to be His work in you. That's what He does.

34:18Well, God has certainly promised to protect those who walk in His ways. He promises to protect you in the way that He has appointed for you to walk. However, to expect God to fulfill such promises to your self-designed path is to test God. And we are to turn from that. I think McLaren said it well. An old divine, not the new reprobate. But he said this: We trust God when we look to him to deliver us in perils met in humble acceptance of his will. We tempt him when we expect him to save us from those encountered on roads that we have picked out for ourselves. Spiritual pride, the belief that we may venture into dangers either to our natural or to our religious life, where no call of duty takes us, the thrusting ourselves unbidden into circumstances where nothing but a miracle can save us, these are the snares which Satan lays for souls that have broken his coarser nets.

35:31See, many who have overcome fleshly desires and fleshly glory get caught up here. And the further and further you drift away from the simple belief in God's word, the more you will be tempted to seek and even demand fleshly proofs from God, and that on your fleshly terms. And this is not faith. This is not faith at all. Well, over the past few weeks, I wanted you to see three things that Jesus refused so that you would learn to do the same and to recognize what the Spirit of God is doing in you. Jesus said no to fleshly desire. Jesus said no to fleshly glory. Jesus said no to fleshly proof.

36:26And then the devil had left him. Verse 14, and Jesus returned to Galilee in power of the Spirit, and news about him spread throughout the surrounding district. So now at this point in the Gospel of Luke, now the kind of person that Jesus is is settled. Now the story of the power of God in his ministry is about to unfold. And if you think about the context of Luke here, in chapter 3, the whole ministry of John the Baptist, what did it do? It pointed to one who is greater.

37:04John was saying, there is one coming who is greater than I. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He would breathe life. John said, there is one coming who will breathe life into the soul of man. And he would create the basis to do so by going to the cross. The Lamb who would take away the sin of the world will also be the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Spirit. And then, if you look at John and 3, or Luke 3, he goes into the genealogy of Jesus through Mary, taking him all the way through Adam to the Son of God, tying Jesus to all of humanity. So here is the one coming who is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit, and he is tied to all of humanity. And then having gone through this temptation, this string of temptations, then he speaks in the power of the Spirit in verse 18 of chapter 3, or of chapter 4. Read this. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.

38:31That's what he set out to do. So the question boils down to us. What will the supreme principle be in your life? Will the supreme principle be the wants of your flesh? Well, know this. Jesus said no to those fleshly desires. And the Spirit of God is going to teach you and grow you in that area. Will the supreme principle guiding you be the glory of man? Do you hold God in 1 Peter? Place. Well, I can, if a greater offer came along, would you worship another? Well, the Holy Spirit is going to also teach you to say no to fleshly glory.

39:12Will the supreme principle guiding you be sign proofs? Do you believe that God is with you simply because His Word says so? When He says He is near to all who are calling upon Him? Or will you create your own satanic tests for God to jump through? I can assure you, the work of the Holy Spirit is going to teach you to say no to fleshly proofs. But the good news of verse 14 is that the wilderness times come to an end.

39:47And what a blessing it is for those who come through victoriously. Jesus shows us this. He was the one who was anointed by the Spirit in chapter 3 and verse 22. He was the one full of the Spirit and led by the Spirit in chapter 4 and verse 1. And now he is described as the one empowered by the Spirit. And we know the rest of the gospel, right? He never buckled to temptation. He died, he rose, he ascended, and in Acts, he breathed forth his spirit.

40:28And that spirit. makes us like him. So by virtue of these three temptations, Luke shows us three things that Jesus despised and three things that he loved. The first temptation, Jesus loved the Father's will and he despised any notion of distrusting it. The second temptation, Jesus loved the Father's authority and despised any notion of challenging it. And the third temptation, Jesus loved the Father's abiding presence and despised any notion of testing it. If you are one here who calls upon the name of the Lord, know this, that he is with you. And if you have never called upon him, the promises extended to you today. Call upon him and he will save you.

41:27But understand this, that his work in your life, he's going to teach you to say no to fleshly desire, no to fleshly glory, and no to fleshly proof. Heavenly Father, we thank you for just this vivid picture of how your spirit led Jesus to be tested, Father, and that through this testing we could see what is truly in him, what he loved, and what he hated. And Father, it gives us light as to know what you are, by your same Spirit, doing in our lives. Father, help us more each day to yield more completely to your control. And Father, if there is any here today who do not know you, I pray that you would awaken. Father, that they would hear this divine truth that has been spoken. Father, and that they would turn their hearts to you, understand, and call out upon you, for you are near. And we thank you in Jesus' name.