Ephesians 6:17; Sword of the Spirit: how Jesus meets the temptations of the devil.

Class Outline:

Thursday June 30, 2022

 

Devil (Greek) accuser or slanderer. Satan (vs. 10; Hebrew) adversary or opponent.

 

He is given the title “tempter” (from a Greek verb “to test”), so we could better look at him as a “tester”.

 

God has purposely allowed some of His creatures to oppose Him. Both terms “purposely” and “allowed” have parts to them that the finite mind cannot comprehend. What we do know is that evil is lies, accusations, tests, oppositions, sins, murders, of death and it hungers to bring everything into darkness and thus destroy them, which in the end destroys itself and so it also contains stupidity.

 

We also know that evil can threaten the believer with things that the natural man is afraid of. Privation, loss of people’s affection, loss of resources, loss of personal freedom, emotional and physical pain, and death. Jesus told us not to fear them. They would do all of this and more to Him. We naturally fear them, but we must rise above the natural into what we are in Christ Jesus.

 

MAT 5:10-12

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me. 12 Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

 

MAT 4:1-4

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." 4 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'"

 

Jesus was led by the Spirit to be tested. Satan must operate under the umbrella of God’s sovereignty. There always exists the tension between the total hostility of the devil against God and His people which he has to do under the ultimate sovereignty of God.

 

How Jesus met the temptation.

 

Each Scripture that Jesus uses in the three temptations are from Deuteronomy 6 and 8. Deu is given to Israel as they camp on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, poised to cross and begin a whole new chapter in their nation’s short history. This first part of Deu exhorts Israel not to forget the forty years of wilderness experience before they enter the Promised Land and to never forget the Lord God who gave them that land and everything else. They failed. Jesus, forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil and tested by God, overcame and remained faithful to the timing and manner of the plan of the Father.

 

The story of the testing in the wilderness is thus a presentation of Jesus as Himself being the true Israel, the “Son of God” through whom God’s redemptive purpose for His people is now at last to reach its fulfillment through God as a temptable Man who overcomes the devil, and later, sin and death for us.

 

How does Jesus meet the temptation?

By an appeal to Scripture. In dark moments we cannot trust our own thoughts, for temptation is sophisticated.

 

Under pressure we are very prone to the usurpation of emotions that will taint our thinking. Under pressure we are far more prone to self-pity, self-absorption, depression, chemical anesthetics, and other things that cloud thought and judgment. It is all the more important to grab on to a part of the word of God that applies to the situation, and hold on to it like an anchor in a storm.

 

This is why churches must offer a full Scriptural education to its members. The word of God must be taught in all its scope, Old and New Testaments, all theology, all doctrines, so that the people are fully equipped. Churches that only pay lip service to Scripture send their people into battle knowing that God loves them and with promises that everything will be alright somehow. But they lack weapons that are designed for particular attacks, like certain drugs are designed to fight certain diseases. It’s like trying to treat every ill only with aspirin. Certain Scriptures concentrate the sword of the Spirit to the exact place where the temptation has a flaw and quickly destroys it. The more of the word of God we know the more temptations we can quickly weaken.

 

[How did Jesus meet the temptation?]

By imparting a new current of thought - putting aside the desire, He fed on the Word of God that particularly fed His issue.

 

The gospel tells us that, “He then became hungry,” so we know that hunger was forefront on His mind. Jesus has to stop thinking about His hunger and think with focus on the Scripture. As long as He keeps thinking about His hunger the temptation to make bread out of stone will be more and more inviting. He recalls the word of God and with great force of will, and leaves His hunger out of His conscious thought as much as He can.

 

For Christ, this is a question of priority. “You cannot serve God and mammon,” He said.

 

MAT 6:24-25

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 25 For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing?”

 

Obedience to God’s will takes priority over self-gratification, even over the apparently essential provision of food. God will provide food when He is ready (vs. 11). Jesus’ use of DEU 8:3 whows that He understood His experience of hunger as God’s will for Him at the time, and therefore not to be evaded by a self-indulgent use of His resources. If He did that, He would have been calling into question God’s priorities, and to set Himself at odds with God’s plan.

 

It is Jesus’ trust as a Son that is under examination, not His Messianic agenda. And that means that we can very much identify with this temptation.

 

Changing our thought, in the midst of temptation, from desire to Scripture takes great effort. We do by faith; the HS provides ability.

 

How did He know which scripture to use? He had prepared Himself for this over years and years of learning the written word of God, and that enabled the proper scripture to flash into His mind. The Holy Spirit cannot bring to your remembrance something that is not in there. The whole realm of truth must be learned many times and known.

 

[How did Jesus meet the temptation?]

By consideration of the dignity of man - he is made to glorify God.

 

The suggestion of the tempter is degrading. Christ rises above it by considering the true greatness of man. This is not a method which he only can follow, because it is not only the dignity of the Son of God, but the dignity of man, that he thinks of. Every man may avail himself of the same bracing thought. There is a higher life than that of the body. There is more to mankind than the gratification of the immediate self. Man is more than a feeding animal. In his true self he is not wholly dependent on bread.

 

The modern man, at least as seen by the left, is an autonomous animal, only beholden to self and claiming good as what is good for self at any given time. Certain powerful portions of our society have made mankind an ugly, selfish, animal. The results of this ideology are clearly seen throughout history, and in our current society where the highest parts of life are described as foolish and the lowest parts of our nature are extoled and revered.