Matthew 4:1-11 Temptation
Matthew: 4:1-11
Temptation
Last week we discussed a passage which I described as having this “Otherworldly“ feel to it. Maybe today`s passage is even more so. We are no strangers to the concept of evil. We see it on our television screens and hear about it in the news broadcasts. Dictators, child trafficking, environmental abuse etc. , we all would agree are forms of evil in our world. But we are not used to hearing about evil in the form of a person that talks and tempts as it’s sketched in this passage.
And yet, we are intrigued by the few accounts we do get about demonic possession and activity. The movie the Exorcist which tells the story of the exorcism of a girl possessed by a demon is one of the most well-known and well watched horror movies and legend has it that it is based on a true story. Paranormal and plain scary accounts of haunted houses and strange happenings fill the content of many popular television shows.
Now to get all tied up in arguments about the nature of evil or the devil when reading this passage, would be to miss the point and waste our energy. Some prefer to see evil as an impersonal force at work in the world. Others like to understand that a person, the devil, is behind all the evil we hear of in the same way God is behind all the good we come across. It does seem that overall, the Bible also sees and describe the Devil as a person. But what would be more worthwhile than this knowledge would be to get to learn the Devil`s (or Evil`s) strategy.
The devil has often been called “The Temptor“. One of the most descriptive words on evil would be “tempt“. So what is temptation and how does the Devil tempt us? I think this passage can answer these questions in quite a life giving way…
Temptation is an attack on your identity
I used to be a minister in the little town of Bloemfontein, smack dab in the middle of South Africa. On Saturday in December, I was on my way back from a wedding that I officiated. It was 2pm and it was excruciatingly hot. As I entered the town I saw a man in his late seventies walking on the sidewalk. He was dressed in a bottle green suit and he had a bouquet pinned on his lapel. I saw that he was sweating profusely, so I pulled off and walked up to him. “Good day!”, I said. He greeted but looked confused. “Where are you going?, I asked. “I do not know”, he replied. “Where do you live”, I asked, a little worried now. “I do not know”, he replied. There was a long pause as I tried to make sense of the situation and then I asked him: “Who are you, what is your name?” I asked. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he replied: “I do not know who I am”. It turned out that the man was suffering from dementia and somehow escaped his old age home down the road.
What stuck with me from this incident was this: Not knowing where you are heading is not ideal, but it happens to all of us sometimes and you’ll be ok if you do not know where you are heading from time to time. Not knowing where your home is even more serious but still you will even be fairly ok if you get lost in this way. But not knowing who you are, that is fatal. If you do not know who you are it will be very difficult to figure out where you are going, and it will be very difficult to find home.
Every single temptation we read about in Matthew 4 was an attack on Jesus’s identity…”If you are the Son of God” we read in the first two temptations. And in the third the devil shows him kingdoms, knowing that a core element of Jesus’s identity was that He was a King. And it is remarkably interesting to note how Jesus replies to these attacks on his identity. His reply is not about who He is but about Who God the Father is. God the Father is the one in whose words there is life. God the Father is the one who should not be tested. God the Father is one who should be worshipped above all else, Jesus replies each time. Jesus was able to remain faithful to who He was in the face of an attack on his identity by clinging to whose He was. And so can you and I.
We remain who we are by clinging to who Jesus is. We belong to Him no matter what. “How can you call yourself a Christian if you have that revengeful or lustful thought?“, you will hear the Accuser whisper to your spirit. If you reply by reciting how many beautiful thoughts, you had that day you will enter an argument you cannot win. You will end up all confused about who you are. But if you reply by stating to yourself and to the accuser what the Bible says, you will have a much better response. Your response will be something like this: “What makes me a Christian is not my own performance sheet, but Christ’s sacrifice and love for me” or “Jesus has defeated even this sin I just committed, it will have no lasting power over me.“ The more we know the word and the more we know Jesus the better we get to know our true selves. Next time when you get tempted, try reflecting on who Jesus is and your self-doubt might slip away more easily. You are a child of God and because you were made a child of God by what Jesus did for you, nothing you do can change that.
Temptation distorts passions
For some reason we picture evil personified as a very scary creature that comes to you and forces stuff you hate down your throat. As someone that takes you only to places that you do not like. Had he been such a creature, he would have been easier to identify and resist. But take note, in this passage the devil doesn’t take Jesus to places He hates, he takes him to places he loves, and he tempts him with things He loves…
In the first temptation Jesus is taken from the desert to a place with bread. Jesus loved having a meal. The gospels are overflowing with stories of Jesus sharing a meal with His loved ones. He chose bread to become together with wine one of the most important reminders of His work on earth. He takes Jesus to the temple a place of worship and reflection on God. Jesus loved the temple so much that at the age of twelve he defied his parents and stayed behind at the temple to teach. We read that Jesus was in the habit of attending the temple and synagogue services on the Sabbath. And lastly Jesus is taken to a high mountain and in last week’s sermon I explained how great affinity Jesus had for mountains.
So why does the devil and how does the devil tempt Jesus with stuff He loves? Was it wrong of Jesus to love food, religion and mountains? Certainly not! But you see most sins we commit is not about having wrong passions. It is about loving good things in the wrong order. And the devil being very sly has a deadly plan. He does not ask Jesus to stop loving what He loves. He asks Him to love those things in the wrong priority. He asks Jesus to love them more than God and his plan.
And Jesus was able to resist because not only did he know that the Father will provide bread and protection and glory but also because He trusted that the time and place when and where God the Father will provide it will be much better than the devil’s right-here-right-now offer.
Isn’t “right-here-right-now” and “as-much-as-you-want” the mantra of our time? Not everything we can get as quickly as a Tim Hortons coffee is good for us, you know. We must trust God’s timing and we must love God more than his gifts. Times of scarcity might be times of temptation, but they can also be times of recalibration, times where God becomes the first passion of our lives once more enabling us to love the other things we love in the right order and appreciating them anew as gifts from God.
Temptations are aimed at stealing life
If Jesus turned the stones into bread, His biological life might have gotten a boost, but his life’s purpose would have tanked. If Jesus jumped from the temple, He might have experienced angel’s protection, but His Life’s message would have been distorted. If Jesus bowed down to the devil, He might have enjoyed power of earthly kings but at the cost of becoming king of heaven and earth and uniting them as one.
Evil is not only after stealing joy, its after stealing life. And it is usually disguised as something that seems to enhance life rather than steal it. Accepting the promotion with added responsibility might lift a financial burden or two but if it also steals your relationship with your spouse and kids, it will steal your life. Drinking that final shot of whiskey might make life a little easier in the moment but it might also steal it in the long run. Buying a bigger house might give you a few more extra friends but would they be the live-giving kind?
So, to resist temptation we must define life in the right way. The Bible helps with that. It is kind of hard to narrow the Bible’s definition of life down to one sentence but maybe it would be close enough if we say that the Bible defines true life as loving God above all else and your neighbour as yourself. Maybe it really is that simple. Jesus in his resistance to evil was let by this commandment written in His heart and He came out the winner because of that. Will the choices I make, the ways I spend my time, the way I spend my money in the long run increase my love for God and others? What will look different if I apply this principle rather than the one where I ask myself if I feel like it or not?
Close
Matthew 4 is not a “How-to-resist-temptation-in-3-easy steps”. If my sermon made it sound like that, I humbly apologise. Matthew 4 is a reflection on the nature of sin and temptation, and it is a passage in which Jesus did that what we were never able to achieve on our own. He resisted evil and it’s temptation and later on He defeated it on the cross. So, the good news today is not that “I should and I can”. It is that “Jesus did and I can through Him”. The good news is that He that is in us is truly stronger than him that is in the world. In Him we share in the victory over evil in this world.
May God through the grace of Jesus remain the number one passion of our hearts!
AMEN