The First Test—Matthew 4:1-11

After the prophet Samuel anointed David as the next King of Israel and the Holy Spirit filled him, David soon had to face a test. His test was the giant Goliath, the Philistine. The question was: will David be too afraid to fight Goliath? And if he has the courage to fight him, will he fight in his own strength? Or will he fight Goliath because he trusts in the Lord? David passed his first test with flying colors. He filled his bag with stones, went out against the giant, and told him, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the hosts of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hand." And the Lord rewarded David's faith by giving him the victory.

Like David, Jesus Christ had to face a test after he was filled with the Holy Spirit when he was baptized by John. But the test that Jesus faced was less glamorous, more intense, and more deceptive. Jesus faced Satan himself, and he couldn't just hit him in the head with a rock.

Why did Jesus have to be tested? You can see that this test is God's idea: it says that the Spirit himself led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But why would God put his Son through such a trial? Why not shield him from temptation?

As with so many questions we may ask about Jesus, the answer is, "for our sake." For the sake of sinners. God's people have a long history of failing tests. Adam was tested, and he failed. Israel was tested, and they failed. David was tested, and he passed, but later he failed. Jesus was tested, and he passed, and later was tested again, and passed again. This test, in the wilderness, prepared him for that later test, at the cross. And by his obedience in the wilderness and on the cross he won us the eternal life that we and all our leaders failed to win for ourselves. By trusting God enough to obey his word, he proved that he was God's true Son, and won us the blessings that belong to God's true children.

Jesus, by his trust in God, proved that he is God's true Son.

The First Temptation

In the wilderness, Satan tempted Jesus three times. Before the first temptation, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. This is a reminder of Moses, who fasted for forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai, but also of Israel, who went for forty years in the wilderness. It shows us that Jesus, like Moses, was a representative in Israel. And after he fasted forty days and nights, he was hungry. Jesus was God, but he wasn't superman. He was God, but he was man, a man that got tired, and thirsty, and hungry.

And while he was hungry and weak, Satan came and said these words: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."

Notice the way the temptation begins: "If you are the Son of God." Why did Satan show up at this particular moment and say, "If you are the Son of God"? It's because right before this Jesus heard a voice from heaven say, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." As far as we know, Jesus never heard that voice through all his childhood and early manhood. And Satan immediately shows up and casts doubt on what Jesus heard. "Are you really the Son of God? Then prove it."

This is very like the way Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the garden. He told them, when you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then "you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The implication was, "You're not like God yet." But they were like God! Genesis says they were made in the image and likeness of God. The Gospel of Luke says that Adam was a son of God. But Satan hints that the only way they can really be like God is to follow the devil. And likewise, here, he hints that Jesus must not really be God's Son, unless he proves it by obeying the devil's suggestion.

Now, Adam and Eve were tempted in a garden, with plenty of fruits around them that they could eat. They had it easy. Jesus was tempted in a desert, with nothing to eat, and forty days of fasting behind him. It was much harder for him.

And why not command the stones to become loaves of bread? What would be wrong with it? Here's the answer Jesus gives: "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

He was quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3. But what did he mean by it? Obviously he didn't mean that no one should eat bread, or that he would never eat bread again himself. To understand the quotation, we have to know where it comes from. In Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking to the people of Israel who have come to the end of their forty years in the wilderness. And he says, "You shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." In other words, Jesus knew that, just as God led Israel through the wilderness for forty years to test and humble them, he was leading Jesus through the wilderness to test and humble him. And Jesus refused to try to avoid God's test. God's words -- God's promises -- would carry him through, not bread.

Adam ate the fruit, and plunged mankind into bondage. Jesus refused the bread, and brought us one step closer to redemption. But there were more tests to come.

The Second Temptation

For the second temptation, the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, either physically or simply in a vision, and set him on top of the temple. Jesus answered the devil's first temptation with words from Scripture. Now Satan shows that he can play that game as well. "If you are the Son of God," he says, again questioning Jesus' sonship, "throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" The words come from Psalm 91. What is so tricky about this temptation is that Jesus really should be able to claim this Psalm for himself. It is all about God's protection for the one who knows, loves, and trusts the Lord. Who knew and loved and trusted the Lord more than Jesus himself?

Jesus didn't question whether the Psalm had to do with him, but he rejected the devil's use of it. "Again it is written," he said, "'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Jesus interprets Scripture with Scripture. To make sense of Psalm 91, he goes back again to Deuteronomy, this time to chapter 6, verse 16. Why does Deuteronomy say that we should not test God? Because we test people's claims when we don't trust their word. Testing comes from a heart of mistrust of God. Now there is another kind of testing, which the prophet Malachi talks about, which is obeying God in faith in order to see him keep his promises. This is not the kind of testing that the devil proposed and Deuteronomy condemned. What Jesus refused was to do something God had not commanded in order to find out if God could be trusted.

As you may remember, God sent his angels to Joseph to tell him to take Mary and Jesus and run away from Herod. Angels had been guarding Jesus since the day he was born, and Jesus had God's word to say they would keep doing so. He didn't need to run a test.

The Third Temptation

For the third and final temptation, the devil took Jesus up on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. There is no mountain on earth from which all kingdoms can be seen, so Matthew is probably describing what the devil showed Jesus in a vision. And Satan said, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."

No longer does Satan say, "If you are the Son of God." No longer does he quote Scripture. Instead, he makes a point-blank offer to give Jesus exactly what he deserves, exactly what was his by right. And, in a way, Satan could have done it. He was the ruler of this world, as John says. His offer had weight to it. "You can have what you deserve, you can have all things, if only you will do this one thing: fall down and worship me." Yes, Jesus' Father had promised him a kingdom, but the road to the throne was going to be so long and hard: a road of hunger and weariness and suffering and death. Jesus could skip all that, if he would only bow down.

“Be gone, Satan!" Jesus said. And he replied one last time with Scripture, again from the book of Deuteronomy: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." Jesus' heart was all for God his Father. It was pure, and could never be turned away. So Satan left him, to try again another day.

By the way, if, as Jesus said, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," then what were those wise men doing back in chapter 2 when they bowed down and worshiped baby Jesus? Were they misguided pagans, offering a man the worship that belongs to God alone? Or were they on to something: that the one who was conceived of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit must be God himself? So Matthew drops another hint of who Jesus really is.

Now, after the devil left him in the wilderness, "angels came and were ministering to him." See how God keeps the promises of Psalm 91, those promises so abused by the devil. God does "command his angels concerning you."

But what next? If Jesus is the Son of God, then how will he inherit the kingdom of God? If he didn't get it the quick and easy way, how did he get it? He got it by the way of the cross.

As he was tempted in the wilderness for the sake of sinners, for our sake, so he lived a long life of suffering for the sake of sinners, for our sake. And at last he was nailed to a cross for the sake of sinners, for our sake. And there on the cross he heard those very same words he heard before in the wilderness: "If you are the Son of God." This time he heard them from those who passed by on the ground below, from his own people: "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." And that final temptation, which so closely echoed the first temptation, must have been the worst of all. The temptation to prove that he was the Son of God by wrenching the nails from his hands with divine power and bringing swift justice on those who defied him, by keeping his life forever, and never laying it down as a ransom for sinners. If he had proved his sonship by power like that, we would have been lost. But he proved his sonship by entrusting himself one last time to God.

And the way of the cross led to the tomb, and from tomb, with the stone rolled away, he stepped into eternal life and a better inheritance than the devil could ever have given: "All authority in heaven and on earth," he said, "has been given to me" -- not because he fell down and worshiped the devil, but because he obeyed the Lord.

Remember that promise from Psalm 91, "On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone?" I imagine that the angel who rolled back the stone from Jesus' grave and then sat on it may have chuckled at that promise.

Jesus' way to the kingdom was the long, hard way of faith. This is our way too. We too will face tests. When you face temptations, face them the way Jesus did: with the word of God. Quote Scripture at your temptations.

I think that the devil still knows his Bible. And sometimes his slaves will use Scripture to try to lead you astray. If you suspect such foul play, use Scripture to interpret Scripture. God's word is a lamp, and the more light in the room, the less the devil can stand it.

I say this with reverence: What a weak Savior we had! Alone (or seemingly alone) in the desert, consumed by forty days without food, miles from home and years from victory, quoting Bible verses like a kid in Sunday school while the usurping ruler of the world stood over him raining deception. Yet this weakness, which trusted in God, was true strength. Will you follow him, in your own weakness, trusting not in the world's power but in the word of his Father? Trust in his Father, and you too are a child of God.

Pastor Nate Jeffries