The Temptation of Christ (Luke 4:1-13)

***Semper Fidelis*** · #1 (**permalink**) 01-11-2009, 10:08 PM

I taught on this at Evening Worship today:
The Temptation of Christ (Luke 4:1-13) | SoliDeoGloria.com

Audio Listen: http://www.solideogloria.com/sermons...2009-01-11.m3u
Download: http://www.solideogloria.com/sermons...2009-01-11.mp3

Quote:

"See what the Scriptures say," reasoned Satan, "God promises that His angels will not only break your fall, they will do more. Very tenderly they will bear you up lest you, wearing only sandals, should hurt yourself by striking your foot against one of the sharp stones."

Have you noticed Satan is actually providing a bit of truth here. He's correctly quoted the Scriptures and is "proof-texting" the Scriptures.

But Satan can only ape Truth. He has no wisdom. He's a fool. He has no spiritual discernment and so he mishandles Scripture like a clumsy, foolish teenager who just read some Richard Dawkins book. How often, beloved, have you seen Atheists collect verses in a haphazard manner in a facile attempt to demonstrate that God contradicts Himself? I believe this is a grave sin of infantile exegesis. It is not the path of wisdom. It is the way of heretics and unstable men. Every heretic in Church history has claimed that they're simply teaching what the Scriptures teach and I would caution you to closely examine a man and not simply follow him because he can vainly quote a few Scriptures.

If you look at this temptation, basically what Satan is telling Christ to do is to experiment with God's promises. He had to distrust God in order to do an experiment and, then, if it works out, God's promise is true.

Christ responds by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, which calls to mind the rebellion of the Israelites in Exodus 17:1-7 at a place called Massah and Meribah where they put God on trial and rebelled against Moses because they were thirsty. They accused God before Moses of cruelly bringing out their families and livestock only to die in the desert and provocatively challenged God by saying: "Is Jehovah among us or not?!" The Israelites in the desert are pictured as unbelieving and rebellious throughout the Old Testament and, especially in Book of Hebrews, we are warned not to be distrustful and faithless as they.

Christ knows that Satan's proposal has nothing to do with humbly trusting in the protecting care promised in Psalm 91 and so He answers that God is not to be tempted.

Life gives us plenty of examples of the kind of false confidence that is similar to what Satan urged on Jesus. People will pray to God for the blessings of health and then be gluttons with food or drink. A man will pray to God to save his soul but will neglect the very means of grace that God has given him: study of the Scripture, church attendance, the Sacraments, and living to the glory of God. Someone will plead with the Lord for the spiritual well-being of his children but will never take the time to pray with them, to catechize them, to discipline them, or to display a repentant spirit before them. A man was once admonished for going into a peep show and defended himself by saying: "I do not deny that I went in there but, all the while, I was constantly praying: "Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity!"

You shall not put the Lord thy God to the test!

Quote:

Now, the thing that really concerns me about such a passage is what I said before: how you view this passage determines whether you understand the Gospel. Is Christ merely the ultimate example for Godly living for you? Did you strap on your What Would Jesus Do? bracelet as you were listening to this and vow that you would be "on fire" for God and overcome evil by trusting in God's Word?

I remember listening to a Sermon on the Gospel once in horror as the Preacher proclaimed that he was going to get back to the basics of the Gospel and this was the Gospel he proclaimed: Jesus came to be an example to us about how to live for God.

Beloved, if you believe that Christ is merely your example for holiness, then I fear you do not know the Gospel at all. If Christ is just someone you aspire to be like then I fear you may be dead in your sins and trespasses. The real question for you in this passage is not "What would Jesus do?" but "What has Jesus done?!"

Presbyterian Deacon · #2 (**permalink**) 01-11-2009, 10:29 PM

Quote:

But Satan can only ape Truth. He has no wisdom. He's a fool. He has no spiritual discernment and so he mishandles Scripture like a clumsy, foolish teenager who just read some Richard Dawkins book.

Excellent! Made me think of these other quotes!

"Satan is God's ape." --Stephen Charnock

"The devil is a great student in divinity." --William Gurnall

Re4mdant · #3 (**permalink**) 01-12-2009, 10:26 AM

Luther has a quote that says "Satan is Gods devil"