At the church where I serve, we are in the middle of a
sermon series entitled Tempted. We are spending our time in this series asking
and answering four questions when it comes to temptation. We are going to ask
and answer the questions “What is temptation?”, “Where does temptation come
from?”, “What are the core temptations that we all face?”, and “How do we
overcome temptation?” And during this series our hope and our prayer is that
God would move in our heads, our hearts, and our hands as we answer these
questions in a way that results in us living a life that consistently says no
to temptation and yes to a life that reveals and reflects the obedience of
Jesus in the face of temptation.
Last week, we looked on at an
event from history involving a timeless temptation and Jesus response to that
temptation and discovered a timeless principle that enables us to overcome that
temptation in that we are able to overcome the temptation towards autonomy when
we invest in close community.
However, while Jesus provided us a timeless example of
how to overcome the temptation towards autonomy, the Devil was not finished
when it came to his attempts to entice Jesus toward evil and away from God. And
this week, we will see the Devil reveal another timeless temptation that we all
face as we live out our life here on earth, along with a
timeless principle that enables us to overcome temptation. So let’s jump back
into this event from history, together, beginning in Matthew 4:5-6:
Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the
pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son
of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING
YOU'; and 'ON their HANDS THEY
WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'"
As we
jump back into this event from history, Matthew explains that the Devil took
Jesus to the city of Jerusalem and had Jesus stand on the pinnacle of the
Temple. Now the Temple in Jerusalem was the only church at this time in history
and was where the Jewish people would come to worship God and offer sacrifices
to atone, or cover for, the acts of selfishness and rebellion that they had committed
against God and others. When Matthew refers to the pinnacle of the Temple here,
this would have been the summit, or the highest point on the Temple.
By
standing on this location, Jesus would have been visible to everyone who was
within eyeshot of the Temple. And since the Temple was located at the highest
point in the city of Jerusalem, Jesus would be visible to not only those who
were at the Temple; Jesus would be visible to people who were outside the
Temple area but could see the Temple area.
Now a
natural question that could arise here is “Well Dave, did the Devil really take
Jesus and have Jesus physically stand on the summit of the Temple, or was this
just a vision that Jesus had?” Most likely, based on the temptation that we
will look at this Friday during our Good Friday gathering, this transportation
was visual, not physical. In other words, the Devil transported Jesus in a
vision to the Temple and had Jesus stand on the highest point on the
Temple.
Once
Jesus was positioned on the highest point of the Temple, the devil then
attempted to entice Jesus towards evil and away from God with the following
temptation: "If You are
the Son of God, throw Yourself down;” In other words, The Devil basically says
to Jesus “Hey Jesus, if you are really God, if you are so closely associated
with God that you are identified as God, why don’t you prove it by jumping off
top of the Temple in front of everyone.
After making his enticement
known to Jesus, the Devil then attempted to support the enticement by quoting
from a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament in the
Bible called the book of Psalms. In
Psalm 91:11-12 the Psalmist proclaimed that the Lord will protect those who
follow the Lord. So the Devil is basically saying to Jesus “If you are really
the Messiah, why don’t you demonstrate the fact that You are the Messiah by
jumping off the top of the Temple, because God has promised to protect you. And
after God does something so spectacular to protect You, You will have
demonstrated and provided the proof of the privileges you have as Messiah".
You
see, by calling Jesus to jump off the
highest point of the Temple, the Devil was enticing Jesus to do the
spectacular. The Devil was enticing Jesus to do something to satisfy a desire
to win applause and be popular. The
Devil was enticing Jesus to do something that would set Him apart as someone
who was radically different than everyone else and who was radically above
everyone else. The Devil was enticing Jesus to express His radical individuality
in a way that would win Him applause and popularity.
Now here is a question to consider: Is this not the exact
same temptation that we can face? Are we not tempted to do the spectacular in
order to garner the approval and applause of others? Are we not enticed by a
desire to do something that will win us applause? Are we not tempted by the
desire to be popular, to set ourselves as radically different than everyone
else and as radically above everyone else? Are we not enticed by the desire to
demonstrate our radical individuality in a way that would win us applause and
popularity?
Now, if you do not think that this is a temptation that
we all face, let me ask you a couple of questions: What is the most popular
picture that is posted of Facebook? The most popular picture is a selfie. How
many selfies have you posted on snap chat this week?
When you post a selfie, do you post a picture of you
looking all jacked up when you first wake up in the morning? No you don’t do
that; instead we do that selfie pose. I mean, you can always tell when people
are posting a selfie on social media because they make the selfie face. You
know that pose where you go like this right before you take the picture. Or
that picture you take while you are driving? Do we post our lowlights on social
media? No we post our highlights.
You see, we are all enticed to attempt to garner the
approval and applause of others. We are all enticed with a desire to set
ourselves apart as individuals, to be spectacular, to be popular. We are all
tempted to compare ourselves with others and to live as individuals in a way
that we are viewed as popular.
However, the timeless reality is that there is no win in
comparison. You see, when we live a life of comparison, we can only end up in
one of two places. When we live a life of comparison, we end up in either pride
or despair. When we compare our lives with the lives of other portrayed in
social media, we often end up comparing our worst day with everyone else’s best
day.
And when we live a life of comparison with others, we are
also comparing ourselves with the wrong standard. You see, instead of comparing
ourselves with others in a way that leads us to either pride or despair, we are
to compare ourselves with the life that Jesus calls us to, the life that is
revealed by the life of Jesus and by the message and teachings of Jesus.
However, the Devil will often entice us towards evil and
away from God by misrepresenting what the message and teachings of Jesus
actually say. So often, the Devil will use our partial knowledge of what the
letters that make up the Bible say to get us to do something that the letters
that make up the Bible say we are not supposed to be doing.
You see, when we do not take the time to fully understand
what the letters that make up the Bible say about an issue, we can be enticed
into thinking that the letters that make up the Bible say something that they
do not say about an issue. This is exactly what the Devil attempts to do to
Jesus here. First, notice how the Devil quotes Psalm 91:11-12 here in Matthew
4:6:
for it is written, 'HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING
YOU'; and 'ON their HANDS THEY
WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'
However, here is what Psalm 91:11-12 actually says:
For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your
ways. 12 They will bear you up in their hands, That you do not
strike your foot against a stone.
Did you notice that the Devil did not quote all of Psalm
91:11-12? Did you notice that the Devil left out the phrase “To guard you in
all your ways”? The Devil intentionally misquoted Psalm 91 by leaving out a
part of the verse, which, by the way, is the most important part of the verse.
Not that we would ever leave out part of the letters of the Bible so that we
could justify doing something that we know we should not be doing. The Devil
will often use our ignorance of the message and teachings of Jesus to drag us
away from the message and teachings of Jesus and Jesus and toward evil.
Temptation
will not only entice us to say "I
know that Bible says, but". Temptation will not only entice us to say
"I know what would Jesus do, but I don't want to do what would Jesus
do". Temptation will also entice us to say
“Well I am not sure what the Bible really says about that, I only know one
verse that kind of talks about that, but I am not going to take the time to
make sure that I know what the Bible says when it comes to that”. Temptation
will entice us to say “Well I am pretty sure that the Bible is not okay with
what I am about to do, but I am going to take this verse and make it mean
something that will make me feel okay with what I am about to do”.
You see, the point that the Psalmist is making in Psalm
91 is God's response of protection is to the one who obediently trusts in and
loves the Lord. Psalm 91 is not a call to test the Lord. Instead Psalm 91 is
about the Lord’s response to those who obediently trust in and follow the Lord
and the message and teaching of the Lord, which is why Jesus responded the way
that He did in Matthew 4:7.
Tomorrow, we will look at Jesus response…
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