"Jesus' Example in Temptation" Luke 4:1-14
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on March 24, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
So you tell me, are they dismissed?
Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Luke chapter four. Last week we talked about Jesus example and temptation. And we looked at how he is a hundred percent human, that he experienced everything that we experience. And today we’re going to look at who was tempting him, who was he dealing with. Here we’re talking about understanding the enemy.
We’re about talking, not going to be looking so much at the temptations because we’ve covered that in Genesis 3, how Satan tempts us a while ago. You can find that online. And we’re going to briefly talk about the armor of God. But if you want know more about that, Ephesians chapter six is online because recently we’ve been over to that, but today we’re going to be looking at understanding our enemy. Luke chapter 4, verses 1 through 14.
Then Jesus left the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. But Jesus answered him, it is written, man must not live on bread alone. So he took him up and and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
And the devil said to him, I will give you their splendor and all this authority because it has been given over to me and I can give it to anyone I want. If you then will worship me, all will be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him him only. So he took him to Jerusalem, 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 give his angels orders concerning you to protect you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
And Jesus answered him, it is said, do not test the Lord your God. And after the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time. May we pray? Lord, as we look at your word today, we ask that you would help us to have a better understanding of who Satan is, his role in this world and how. He is very real, he is very active.
He is against us as believers in every way, but yet also he is completely limited by your power and by your word. And we take comfort in that today, Father, that we serve you and not him. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. We’re Going to be looking at Satan’s nature to start out today, just what we see here in the text.
There’s a lot more we could learn and, and if you’re interested in more, you can come to Tom’s class on Saturdays that’s going once a month because we’re looking at spiritual warfare there. But we find in verse two that it tells us that Jesus was tempted by the devil. And the first thing I want you to see is that Satan’s nature is that he is a tempter. He’s trying to continually get us to go against what God’s words will is for our lives. He’s continually at work in the world trying to get world leaders, nations, individuals, movements, all in some way to be tempted not to follow the ways of God, but to follow his ways.
So Satan is a tempter. He wants to lead us to sin. He can’t make us to sin. We, like Jesus Christ, have a choice whether we’re going to give in to that temptation or not. But he’s continually against us.
But all temptation doesn’t just come from Satan. We have a nature in us that was passed on to us through Adam and Eve. That temptation comes normally for us and they can come just from ourselves. We read In James chapter 1, verses 13 through 15, no one undergoing a trial should say, I am being tempted by God, since God is not tempted by evil and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire.
Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. So I’m going over this today because Satan does tempt, but we’re going to see later he can only be in one place at one time. He can only tempt one person at a time. And I doubt that any of us are so important here today that Satan is actually here working on any individual.
But certainly there are his demons that are at work among us. But also we don’t need to blame all of our temptations on Satan. There was a TV program that used to have scared when I was a kid. And at the end the person always said something they shouldn’t or they did something they shouldn’t. And the reply was, the devil made me do it.
As if I can just blame everything on him. I don’t have any responsibility in the matter. But what we find here is that our own desires can lead to a conception of sin in our life that grows until we give birth. To that sin in our life. And then that sin will continue to grow until it leads to death, spiritually or even physically.
So the desire can come from our own selves, but it has to like a husband and wife coming together that has to mate together before it can conceive. So when you have a desire, if you put that together with your will it and you start to think, yes, I want to give into that, that’s something I want to do. A conception happens there and that desire plus your will starts to grow. And it may grow over minutes, it may grow over years, it may grow over weeks. But if you continue to think on that and want to do it and start to make a plan, you’re heading towards a time when sin is going to be born in your life.
And that isn’t the end of it. Because like all good babies, it’s going to grow and it’s going to become larger, it’s going to become more demanding in your life. And so it is that Satan does tempt us, but we also have temptations ourselves because basically we all are slaves to someone. If you’re not a believer, you are a slave to Satan. You’re doing his will.
You may have the illusion that you’re making your own choices, but he is directing your path in this life. That’s why our world is headed more and more towards war and destruction and famine, because it follows Satan instead of following the Lord’s will. Serving Satan is, in the end, the serving of a cruel master, because he’s never going to give you everything that he promises. And you’re going to have a lot more that’s added to you by the weight of sin and even eternal destruction and hell. If for some reason you don’t turn to serve the Lord, we have a choice in our life.
We can choose to, instead of being a slave to Satan, we can choose to be a slave to the Lord. And Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the price, to ransom us so that now we can serve him. And some people say, well, I don’t want to be a believer because I don’t want to serve God. I want to do my own thing. If you believe that, you’re following a lie, because if that’s what you think, you’re following Satan.
But Jesus promises us when we are freed now to serve him, he gives us an easy yoke. He gives us a burden that is light that ends in a life of reward in eternity. God wants to free us all by the death of Jesus Christ so that we no longer have to serve Satan. And we now have the strength to overcome our own desires and his temptations. Next thing I want you to see about Satan’s nature is that he is a personal being.
Don’t think that he’s just some evil force or it’s just all the bad things or the bad karma. However you want to explain it, Satan is a personal being. Now he was created as an angel, so he’s a spirit being. He doesn’t have a body like we do, but he still has all the things of personality. He can talk with someone.
And that’s the first thing that we see here in the text over and over. Verse 3, Satan speaks to Jesus and Jesus answers him back. In verse six, Satan speaks to Jesus and Jesus answers him back. He even goes to a place with Jesus. He takes him there.
He has all of the qualities of being a personal being. Mind, will, emotions and thought. And we need to deal with him seeing him as that. If we go back to Genesis chapter three, this is the way it was from the beginning. When Eve talked to Satan, it was if he was a personal being.
She’s not just talking to nothing or having thoughts. Whether it was actually Satan in the form of serpent or he used the body of a serpent. The serpent came and spoke the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord had made. And here again, as he spoke to Jesus, he’s speaking to the woman and he says, did God really say you can’t eat from any tree in the garden? You have to know that Satan is a personal being.
If we go over to Job, chapter one, verses six and seven, here we see it again that Satan is pictured not just as an evil force, but a personal being. One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them. And the Lord asked Satan, where have you come from? And he said, from roaming through the earth. Satan answered him and walking around on it.
Just as a person can talk and have a conversation with us, Satan, like a person, is able to walk around the earth, to go to different places, and even to go into God’s presence in heaven. Satan isn’t just a personal being, but we also need to realize that he is a very powerful being. We don’t need to underestimate what he can do. We also don’t need to overestimate because God is more powerful, but we don’t need to underestimate what he can do in people’s lives. You’ll find in verse five, back in the text that he took Jesus up He showed him all the kingdoms of the world.
In a moment of time. He was able to show them all the kings, all the kingdoms, all the nations, all the people, because he has the the power to do something like that. He even had the power in verse nine to take Jesus physically up to Jerusalem from the wilderness. And he took him to stand on the pinnacle of the temple because Satan has great power. Don’t underestimate what people that are involved in Satanism, people that are involved in Wiccan, they’re involved in different types of worship of Satan.
They he promises them that they will have certain powers in their life that he can give to them. We never should underestimate that. The next thing that we want to see is that Satan is the ruler of this world. Presently he is in charge. And if you read the Daily News, whatever you listen to, just looking at what goes on in Madison and in our state, we can see that God is not the ruler of this world.
Presently we look forward to Jesus return, when that will be that way. But right now, Satan is the ruler of this world and he knows that. Let’s go to verse 9 in the text. When he took Jesus to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, he said to Jesus, I will give you their splendor and all this authority because it has been given over to me and I can give it to anyone I want. Satan knows that he is in charge of this world.
He is able to give any part of his authority that he wants to give to anybody. And in this case, in order to tempt Jesus, he was willing to give all of his authority over to him. But that would have put then Jesus under his control. We have to go back to Genesis chapter one to understand this. When was the authority for this world given to Satan?
Originally? He was not in charge of this world. It was perfect. Everything was good the way that God created it. And God had placed Adam and Eve in the garden so that they would be the rulers of this world.
Let’s read in verse 26. God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. They will rule the fifth fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth. Everything that we see, everything that we know, every place that we can go, was supposed to be under the rulership of Adam and Eve. But when they chose to obey Satan instead of obeying God, he took that rulership away from them, Adam and Eve, and handed over to him what God had given them to have specifically themselves.
The next thing we find is that Satan is a giver of gifts. And again, we go to people that are involved in supernatural worship of Satan. Whatever form that it is, Satan is always offering to them. If you do this, if you make this sacrifice, if you make this offering, if you see, submit more to me. I will give you something in return.
And so it is Satan was telling Jesus if he would just be obedient to him. He said, I will give you their splendor and all this authority because it has been given over to me and I can give it to anyone that I want. Satan gives gifts to people, but not all gifts that we get are good gifts. Did you ever get a bad gift for Christmas? Nobody’s ever gotten a bad gift.
Does somebody ever give you something that you didn’t want and then it ends up costing you a lot of money to take care of it? Or it tears up and you have to keep fixing it and you don’t dare tell them what you gave me really wasn’t that great, you know? Well, Satan is even worse than that because he’s telling people, I’m going to give you this thing and it’s wonderful and you’re going to love it. And you will for a season. Season.
Because there is pleasure in sin and serving Satan. But there’s always baggage that comes with it. There’s the weight on our soul. There are the consequences of it. Satan is able to give people anything that he has authority under, but it’s always going to come with a cost or consequences.
Whereas on the other side, we read in James chapter one that when God gives us things, all the things that God gives us are good. Sometimes the things that God gives us may seem difficult. The things that he lets us experience may be hard in our life, but we can know it’s all for our good and it’s all for his glory. James 1, verses 16 through 17 says, don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
So we have this illusion here that Satan would tell us, well, what God is making you to go through, what God is allowing to happen in your life really isn’t a good thing. And James says, don’t be deceived, because whatever God gives you is a good thing. And he’s also telling us that God isn’t a shifting shadow. He doesn’t go from being good and giving something good to being evil like Satan. Satan does God is always good.
There is no shifting shadow. He is always the light, giving to us what is best for us and for his glory. Ultimately, what is it that Satan wants as a personal being? He wants to be like God. He craves worship.
And so it is he has the audacity to ask Jesus Christ, the son of God here, to worship him. If you then will worship me, then Satan promises this gift that all will be yours. Let’s go back to Isaiah, chapter 14, where we read an allegorical picture of what happened to Satan, what happened in his personal being that led him up to this place where he wanted to be worshiped like God. And we find here that the stars are talking about the angels of heaven. And it’s talking specifically to one star, the shining morning star.
He’s speaking to Satan here. Satan was created wonderful. He was created beautiful. He wasn’t created with anything bad in him. But the angels have a choice, just like we do, as to whether or not we want to serve the Lord.
We read this in Isaiah, shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens. It makes it specific here who this person is. You, destroyer of nations. That’s Satan. You have been cut down to the ground.
And you said to yourself, I will ascend to the heavens. I will set up my throne above the stars of God. You said, I will sit on the mount of of the God’s assembly in the remotest parts of the north. I will ascend above the highest clouds. I will make myself like the most high.
He wanted to be above all the angels. He also wanted to be like God, where he would receive the worship that only needs to go to God. The next thing about Satan is that he knows the Bible. Does that surprise you? He’s had a long time to read it throughout the testing here, he’s quoting scripture.
Now he’s quoting it in the wrong context. There’s always some lie that’s associated with it. But here we find in verse nine, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written he will give his angels orders concerning you to protect you, and they will support you with your hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. He’s quoting from a psalm in the Old Testament, probably not a Bible verse any of y’ all have memorized.
Has anybody memorized this verse? Maybe my wife has. She knows a lot of scripture. Satan knows the Bible from COVID to cover. He knows what God’s word is.
And because he knows it so well, he’s able to twist it and and use it to his advantage to undermine our thoughts, to make us question God just the way that he uses it. It’s all the more reason why we need to spend time in God’s word. We need to study it and we need to know it so that when it’s misused by Satan in times of temptation, we can say, no, Satan, that’s not what God meant. There. There’s a context to that.
You’re trying to use his words in the wrong way. Satan knows scripture. He knows the Bible. Next thing about his nature is praise the Lord. He has limitations.
It comes to a point where he can’t do any more to tempt us. And so it was in verse 13, after the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Jesus for a time until he was going to come back. Our God is all present. He’s omnipresent. He’s everywhere at once.
He knows what I’m saying right now. He knows what’s going on in Russia. He knows what’s going on in China. He knows what’s going on in Africa. God is almighty.
He keeps up with all of those things. Satan is not all present. He can only be in one place at one time. I doubt he’s here today because I don’t think anyone’s that important. But he is somewhere working with someone today, causing them to do his bidding.
He does have demons. And those demons can report to him what they hear and what they see. But he’s not omnipresent. He’s also not all knowing. He doesn’t know everything.
He. He doesn’t know what our thoughts are. Only God knows our thoughts. But he can watch what our eyes look at. He can watch what our hands reach for.
He can watch. Watch the places that we drive by and walk by with our feet. And through that observation, he can pretty much figure out what our interests are and where our possible temptations lie. He’s not all present. He’s not all knowing.
And most importantly for us, he’s not all powerful. Jesus Christ will come one day and he will return and he will place Satan in hell for eternity. Because Satan has limitations. He is not all powerful like God. Let’s go to Job, chapter one and Job, chapter two.
We have this story here where Satan comes to God because he wants to hurt one of God’s servants, Job. And he wants to hurt Job because he wants to hurt God. In essence, he’s telling God, if you’ll just let me strike down your servant, then he won’t worship you anymore. And what we Find here is that Satan is limited in what he can do to those that follow the Lord. The first time when Satan came, he said he wanted to take care or get rid of all of Job’s possessions.
And the Lord said, very well, everything he owns is in your power. However, do not lay a hand on Job himself. So Satan left the Lord’s presence. He had to ask for permission. He had to receive permission from the Lord.
The Lord put limits on what he can do. And when you read the story, he took all of Job’s camels, He took all of his donkeys, he took all of his goats, he took his 10 children, he took all his possessions. Everything was destroyed overnight. But Job still worshiped the Lord. So Satan came again and he told the Lord, you know well, you didn’t let me touch him, but if you let me harm him, he will turn against you.
And again, he has to get the permission of God to do this. And God again limits what Satan is able to do in Job’s life. He’s in your power. You can do whatever you want to his body, but you have to spare his life. And even after this, we find that Job still served the Lord.
God returned everything to him that he had lost. And God’s name was glorified. Satan has limitations. And no matter how difficult our lives are, no matter how hard the temptations are, God sets limits, knowing what we can bear, what will help us the most, and what will glorify his name the most. That’s what we see about Satan’s nature in the text.
But let’s look today at what resources that Christ used in his defense against Satan. We go back to the text. The first thing we see is that Jesus had the Holy Spirit with him and inside of him to help him through this time of temptation. And in the same way we have the Holy Spirit. Jesus left the Jordan and he was full of the Holy Spirit.
We talked about that last week. It’s a daily desire to. To push aside all other things in our life so that only the Spirit fills us. And not only was the Spirit inside of him, but the Spirit was beside him, leading him in the wilderness. He did this for 40 days to be tempted by the devil.
When Jesus went to face Satan, the Holy Spirit was there inside of him. The Holy Spirit was there beside him to help him through this temptation. And so it is that we have the Holy Spirit available to us. First Corinthians 6:19 says, don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God, you are not your own. We don’t have to go to a temple in Jerusalem.
We don’t even have to come to church. We now are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So wherever we are, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, we can worship the Lord there, because we are his temple. But in Romans 8:11, we have a different side. Not only are we the temple of the Holy Spirit, but we’re also a house for Him.
He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life. So through His Spirit, who now lives in you. So we’re supposed to worship God in His holiness. And we can do that wherever we are. But not only is He God Almighty, above us, deserving our worship and our praise, but he also has this personal relationship.
He’s not just a temple in a temple, he’s also in a house. In other words, God lives with us. He’s our friend. Friend. He’s our.
He’s our confidant. He’s with us at all times. And because of this, we have the Holy Spirit walking with us. We have him inside of us to help us to resist the temptations of Satan. The next thing that we want to see in the text is that Jesus had been fasting.
He had eaten nothing during those 40 days. And it doesn’t say that he was spending time in prayer, but that’s what was going on. He was fasting and praying. Those are two things that come together in scripture. You can just pray, but if you’re fasting, you always have prayer associated with it if you’re doing it for spiritual purposes.
Now, if you’re fasting to lose weight, you might be praying that you’re not hungry, but that’s different. We’re talking about fasting so that you can take that time to spend time with the Lord. And so it is that God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us resist temptation and to resist Satan. But God also gives us fasting and prayer so that we can be prepared to resist Satan and his demons. We have an example of this in Matthew chapter 17.
I’m going to read first from verses 14 through 16. When they reached the crowd. This is Jesus and his disciples. A man approached and knelt down before him. Lord, he said, have mercy on my son.
Because he has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire and often into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. This man has seen this child to have a problem that is a medical problem. But what he has that Jesus recognizes, is that this was a demonic satanic problem.
People can have it either way. It can be a medical problem, but sometimes demons do things to our physical bodies. And this demon was causing this boy to try and kill himself by throwing him into the water and into the fire. Jesus recognizes the true problem and he says to him, in verse 18, Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him. And from that moment, the boy was healed.
Now the apostles were wondering, why is this different? We weren’t able to heal this boy. So they approached Jesus privately and they said, why couldn’t we drive it out? What was the difference? Because you drove the demon out.
Jesus tells them in verse 20. Because of your little faith, he told them, for truly, I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting. In this instance, Jesus referring to this demon as if he is a mountain.
It’s seeming that he can’t be moved. We can’t get rid of him. What needs to happen here? And Jesus said that there’s something that they could be doing in their life that would increase their faith so that they could even be able to tell this demon to leave and so to resist Satan. And he says it comes by people spending time in prayer and fasting in advance, that it enables us better to resist the temptations of Satan.
And so it was before Jesus confronted Satan, he Fasted how long? 40 days. And we already talked last week what that meant. He was what, he was hungry, he was tired, all of these things that go with it. But that fasting, his spending time with the Lord, enabled him, as it does for us, to be able to deal with Satan.
Ephesians 6:18. Therefore, we read, pray at all times. That’s one of our resources in the spirit. A second resource. With every prayer and request, stay alert.
With all perseverance and intercession. A type of prayer. Again, for all the saints. Fasting and prayer is a gift that God gives us so that we can resist the devil. He gives us the Holy Spirit.
He gives us fasting and prayer. Lastly, we see that he gives us scripture. The very thing that Satan often throws in our face is what we are to use as we combat him. The best way to resist Satan is not to come up with with our own words, but to speak scripture back to him. Jesus answered him in verse four to the first temptation.
It is written, man must not live on bread alone. And again in verse 8, the second temptation, Jesus quoted Scripture. It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And then in verse 12, with the third temptation, again, Jesus weapon is that he recites scripture and it is said, do not test the Lord your God. Jesus was in the Spirit.
Jesus was with the Spirit. Jesus had spent time in prayer and fasting, and now he uses the third resource, and that is scripture that God has given us. If we go to Ephesians, chapter six, we read about the full armor of God, what he gives us so that we can live in this world and resist the darts of Satan and everything that we have, a helmet, a breastplate, all these things are defensive in nature. But there’s only one piece of equipment that the soldier has that we have that’s offensive, that we can use to fight against Satan, and that’s the word of God. And so it is, we read, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
We only have one weapon to choose. And if we don’t spend time in God’s word, if we don’t learn more of it and we don’t study it, we’re like a soldier going on the battlefield who refuses to carry a gun with him. Or maybe he carries his gun with him, but he’s never learned how to use it because he doesn’t spend time with it. So it is that we only have one weapon against Satan. That’s God’s word.
We need to spend time in it. We need to know how to use it, we need to be familiar with it, we need to be able to fire it in the dark. We need to be able to jump in a moment’s notice out of bed when we’re all shaken and faced with something so that we grab it and we know what to do with it. God gives us the scripture, Ephesians 6, 11, 13. We’re told, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand, stand against the schemes of the devil.
We have to recognize that our struggle, it’s not against flesh and blood. It’s really not against other people. It’s against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. Our real struggle is Satan and his demons that are working behind all these individuals, these nations in our lives that are going against this Lord, our Lord. And it’s for this reason we can’t fight these spiritual forces any other way than to take up not our own Strength but to take up the full armor that God has given us so that we will be able to resist in the evil day.
And having prepared everything, that means you have to have your sword ready, you have to have everything on in advance so that when you need to take your stand, you’re able to do that. I want to just end with three applications today. The first one is to acknowledge Satan. Recognize that he is a personal being, that he is powerful and he can do anything basically that he wants as long as it’s within God’s parameters. Don’t underestimate him, don’t think that he’s something to to laugh about, don’t think that you shouldn’t take him seriously.
But the second thing is don’t fear Satan because our God is all powerful. He’s given us what we need to resist him. And Satan does not have power over us unless God has for some reason granted that to him for our good purposes or for God’s glory. And the third thing is that you need to withstand Satan. When you have a temptation, cut it off, don’t let it mate with your will so that it conceives something that is going to become full grown one day into something that carries baggage and hurt and consequences with it.
Acknowledge Satan, don’t fear Satan. And lastly, withstand Satan. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for your spirit. We thank you for prayer and fasting that you have given us what we need to combat against the temptations of Satan and his demons that they are hurling at us.
And also what we bring up in our own hearts just from the sin that we still have in us and around us. Father, we thank you in Jesus name that he has died on the cross to overpower Satan completely. And we know that that victory is already won. We are just waiting for his triumphal entry to claim his right place. And we look forward to that day with great anticipation.
In his name we pray. Amen. Thank you Pastor. My small group peeps know that one of my favorite scriptures is Romans 2. Do not conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by God.