Jesus' second temptation in the desert
- Tim Cain
- Jan 16, 2010
- Series: Topical
Kaleo Church El Cajon
January 16th 2010
Matthew 4:5-6
Tim Cain
This week I have been thinking about one of the key differences between the way the world offers to satisfy us and the satisfaction that our God offers us. As I thought about it I think there are a few major differences. One, the world offers to satisfy us with stuff that is temporal, stuff that will not last, stuff that ultimately at the end of the day will only leave us wanting more while our God offers to satisfy us with himself. The satisfaction he offers is eternal, it is complete, it lacks nothings, and it cannot be taken away. This is what we talked about last week. We talked about how Jesus was hungry, he had fasted for 40 days and he was really hungry and his body called out with a passionate physical desire to be satisfied with food but Jesus knew that the food he ate would not ultimately satisfy him. He knew that even after he ate he knew he would just get hungry again. He knew that the gnawing hunger he felt could ultimately only be satisfied in his God. That is why he responded to Satan’s temptation, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which comes from the mouth of God.”
But this isn’t the only difference between the satisfaction the world offers and the satisfaction that God offers. The only difference is not that one will satisfy and the other won’t. If that were the only difference then it would seem to be pretty easy to choose God. If the only difference between what God offered and what the world offered was that God’s way is more satisfying than we would always choose God’s way. Think about it when you are offered two options both the same price and one is clearly more satisfying than the other you will always choose the more satisfying one. If you have the choice between a McDonalds hamburger and an outback steak both for the same price you will always take the stake.
However, there is another difference. The satisfaction that the world offers though incomplete is immediate. It takes place now and you can see it, you can taste it, you can touch it. It is concrete, it is right out there within your grasp. However, the satisfaction that God offers us is received and enjoyed now primarily by faith. The satisfaction that God offers us is based on faith because it has been given to us through promises. We can’t always touch and taste and experience the ultimate satisfaction that God promises us right now. It is not immediate and it is not in and of itself physical so we can’t grasp it. It is a satisfaction that is now tasted and experienced through faith whereas the world offers us a satisfaction that requires no faith even though it also never ultimately satisfies. Do you see what I am saying? That is one of the reasons it is so hard to choose God. It is hard to choose God because we have been deceived by the world into thinking that we need to be satisfied now. That life is about meeting our own immediate desires for pleasure and that waiting is absolutely foolish. And of course the world says that because the world is living for today. They have no hope of another life, they are living for today and if you are living for today than your best bet is seek to get as much satisfaction as you possibly can as fast as you can. That is why their motto is eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
This is the trap that we fall into. You see we hear that God is better. That he is better than the pleasures that this world offers us. Better than a companion, better than good kids, better than a job, better than alcohol, better than our need to be liked, our desire to be respected, our passion to be right. He is better. However, when we do hold out and actually forsake an immediate pleasure in order to wait for God what do we expect? We expect God to show up. We expect him to justify us making the choice we made. When we give up a relationship in order to look only to Jesus we expect him to actually fill us the same way a relationship would have filled us. When we give up arguing and justifying ourselves and allow others to think we are wrong when we know we were right we expect Jesus to come and to fill us with the same joy in the same way that proving we were right would have filled us. When we give up drinking and say I am going to stop relying on alcohol and actually believe that Jesus is big enough to fill me and satisfy me we expect God to come and satisfy us in the same way the alcohol did.
In other words we think that the difference between the way God will satisfy us and the way some other idol will satisfy us is that God will do it only without the negative side effects. And so we give up something and then we look to God to fill us and sometimes he doesn’t seem to fill us the way that we expected. He doesn’t seem to satisfy us in the same way that the things the world offers us would satisfy us. So, what do we do? What do we do when we look to God to satisfy us and we feel like he has let us down? We feel like he has not filled us up like we feel we need to be filled up. Maybe we have this huge desire for something and we think “If only I had _____ I would be happy.” But then we choose God. And we deny ourselves that one thing and we say I am going to rest in God; I am going to seek my satisfaction in God and not in this thing. And we think that as soon as we do that God should satisfy us. He should be happy with us and take away our desire for other things. But that is not always what our God does. And so we find ourselves wondering, how do I respond? What do I do when I don’t really feel the satisfaction in God that I thought I would feel when I turned to him? What if I still desire this other thing after I have said no to it and chosen God? What do I do then? And often we will feel let down. You see often it is after our greatest sacrifices for God, after our greatest commitment to him that we find ourselves most susceptible to temptation because we expect God to respond to our commitment in a certain way and he doesn’t always seem to do it. That is what we are going to talk about today.
You see this is the situation that I believe Jesus finds himself in here in Mt. 4:5-7. Here is what has happened. Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and he is hungry. His body is calling out for food. He longs to be satisfied physically by food. However, when Satan tempts him he does not give in. Instead he says, “No, my God is better.” I know my God is better than food. And the way he knows his God is better than food is because the Bible tells him that his God is better than food. Notice that. Jesus was basing his choice on the word of God. Not on how he was feeling. If you asked his body if God was better than food it would say, I don’t know, I have been out here praying for 40 days and I am still pretty hungry so, I would probably prefer some food right now. But Jesus, by faith, quotes the Scripture and declares that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God.” He proclaims the promises of God are better than food. They are more satisfying than food. This was a huge decision. He had been tempted by the devil himself and had stood up to him and declared that God was better than food. Certainly this was a big deal. This was a beautiful thing. And if Jesus was anything like us he was probably hoping that God would satisfy him soon in the same way that food would satisfy him. After choosing God over food he probably hoped that he would have a special experience of God’s nearness. A special demonstration of God’s love for him. Remember God had just told him that he was his beloved son in whom he was well pleased. And now Jesus had demonstrated his faithfulness to God and was longing to see a physical demonstration of God’s love for him.
It seems like this is what the Devil is keying off on these longings in his second temptation. The Devil takes Jesus to the top of the temple. To his father’s house. The Father who just told Jesus how much he loved him. And then the Devil quotes the Scripture. Look at how deceptive the devil is. What has Jesus just said, “Man shall not live off bread alone but off of every word which comes from the mouth of God.” So the devil comes to him with words from the mouth of God. He comes to him and quotes Ps. 91 which speaks of how God shows his love toward those who trust him. The devil goes to Ps. 91, which says, “Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—the most high, who is your refuge-- no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you… On their hands they will bear you up lest you strike you foot against a stone.” Do you see what the Devil is saying to Jesus. He is saying, “You have chosen God over food and now he should show you that he is pleased with you.” You have chosen God over food he should demonstrate to you his love so that you can experientially feel it. He comes and says, “If you think that God is so much better than food I bet you would love to experience his nearness right now wouldn’t you?” Well, if you want to know the nearness of God. If you want to know his presence, to really feel his love, “Throw yourself off the temple” and God will protect you and you will feel his love. You will experience his faithfulness.
You see Jesus is trusting the promises of God and he is choosing to reject food by faith that God is really better than the satisfactions that this world offers and now after making such a hard choice Satan comes and says, “Don’t you want God to prove his faithfulness.” Don’t you want to experience his nearness? Look, throw yourself down and you will know the presence of God. Throw yourself down and his angels will come and minister to you. Do you see what the temptation is?
The temptation is to demand that God demonstrate his presence and his love immediately in a way that Jesus could physically experience. You see the longing that Jesus feels to experience the presence and love of God is a good thing. In fact it is even better than food. Jesus desire to experience the presence of God is an even better desire than his desire to eat food and Satan is playing off of this great desire. What is wrong with desiring to feel the presence of God? Nothing, nothing is wrong with that desire, what a great desire and Jesus clearly has this desire. So Satan takes Scripture and tries to get Jesus to jump off the temple in order to force God’s hand. In order to force God to show his presence. Satan says, “If you want to feel God’s presence so bad I know how you can get it.”
But Jesus refuses to give in to the temptation. Yes he wants to experience the presence of his Father but he knows that his Father is good, his Father is in control, his Father is near him and his Father loves him even when he doesn’t experience it physically. Jesus refuses to equate his experience of God’s presence with God’s presence. His God is there when he sees him and when he doesn’t and “the Just shall live by faith.” Again it comes down to whether or not Jesus will trust that his Father knows what is best. It comes down to whether Jesus will trust that his Father will take care of him and give him what he needs in his own time when it is best. This temptation is harder than the first because Jesus would prefer to experience the presence of God over eating food any day, however, Jesus refuses to think that he knows best and instead consents to trusting his God. He responds by quoting Deut. 6:16 which says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” He is saying I will not force God’s hand. If God wanted to send angels to minister to me he could do it. He could do it whenever he wanted and I don’t have to jump off of a building and be rescued by angels to know my God loves me and that he is near. I know my God is good and that he is near and that he loves me when I feel it and when I don’t and though I love to feel it, I know that my God worthy to be trusted even when I don’t feel his presence.
Jesus refuses to demand a sign from God. He refuses to demand that God satisfy him the way he wants to be satisfied, but instead chooses to wait, to wait knowing that his Father knows best. You see Jesus temptation is to believe that God was withholding something good from him. Something that he could pry away from God if he jumped. The temptation was to believe that there was something that would be good for him that his Father was not planning on giving him. But Jesus knew that this was not true. Not only will God give us everything that is ultimately good for us, he will give it to us at the best possible time for us. And we don’t know when that time is. God knows, and so we wait for him. We do not put him to the test. The verse that Jesus quotes from Deut. 6:16 actually goes on to say, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massah.”
In order to really understand what Jesus is saying we need to go back to Exodus 17 and see how the children of Israel put God to the test. As we look at this passage we will find out what it looks like to put God to the test and I believe we will see that this is something we all do at different times. So, the Israelites are in the dessert. They grew hungry and complained and God gave them bread from heaven. So, every morning they would wake up and find bread out on the ground just like Dew and they would gather it up and eat it each day. Each day they lived in genuine dependence upon God for their food and each day he came through. At the end of chapter 16 Moses took some of this manna and he put it in a jar to save it. And he saved it so that throughout all time the people might remember the faithfulness of God. And then the very next thing that happens is the people begin to complain and grumble against Moses because they had no water. Even though that morning they had collected Manna from heaven still by the time the sun came up they were complaining and wishing they were back in Egypt. And so God tells Moses to go and to take his staff and to strike a rock. A Rock that was in their midst. And out of the Rock water came gushing out. And they named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Do you see how they tested God? They put God to the test by saying “is the Lord among us or not?” Why did they ask that question? What could possibly have lead the people to ask that question? They asked the question when what God had given them was not what they thought they needed or deserved. They asked the question when they felt that God failed to give them what they needed or deserved. And you see God answers the question in a sweet way. He answers it by having Moses hit a rock that had been right there, right there in their midst the whole time. I Corinthians tells us that the Rock was Christ and I think what Exodus is trying to say is “Yes God was in their midst. Yes God was among them. He was among them even before he gave them water.” Do you see that? He was among them before he gave them water. He didn’t leave and then when they complained enough he consented to come back and give them what they needed. He was around them the whole time. He was in their midst even when they didn’t feel or sense his presence. He was there. He would not have let them die of thirst. He would not have let them perish in the wilderness; he would have taken care of them. But they refused to wait for him. They didn’t trust him. The moment they no longer saw him they refused to believe in him.
Guys so many of us are like this. We believe in God when he takes care of us. We believe in God when things are going well. We believe in him when our devotional life is going well, we believe in him when things with community or the church are going amazing, we believe in him when community all likes us and says nice things to us we believe in him when our prayer life feels sweet, we believe in him when work and family life is going well. However, when things start heading south. When life gets tough. When things are not the way that we wish they were we begin to struggle. And maybe, maybe like Jesus we overcome the first temptation. Things begin to go bad and we say, “In the good and the bad I will believe that God is good.” We say that. And we expect that because we say that, because we have shown that we are treasuring Jesus more than stuff that he will prove his worth to us. That he will take away our old desires, that he will satisfy us with a physical demonstration of his love. We expect something tangible, something we can see, and that is what we are longing for. But what happens when we don’t get it. What do we do when we have chosen to rely upon God and it doesn’t seem like he is coming through like we wanted. What do we do? Do you get depressed? Do we give up? Do we complain? Here we see that the way they put God to the test was they complained. They said, “Prove that you are there and prove it the way we ask you to prove it. Prove that you are there and we will believe you. That’s what we sometimes do isn’t it? We threaten. If God wants me to believe in him he will have to show me that he is real. If God wants me to trust him he will have to satisfy me (now). If God wants me to believe that this is actually good for me then explain how. How is this good for me? How is this possibly good? Explain it. Somebody tell me how God is going to turn this into good and then I will believe in him. That is what so many do. We want to put God in a box, to demand that he prove himself the way that we want to see it and if he doesn’t we refuse to believe.
Now for most of us our unbelief is not going to be verbal and its not going to be exhaustive. We are not going to say. If God doesn’t satisfy me with himself today and prove that he is enough than I am never going to pray again and I am walking away from the church. That is not what most of us do. Most of us would never even verbalize it. However, we demonstrate our disbelief by sinning. We demonstrate that we no longer believe that God is really present and that his love for us is really enough by going out and trying to supplement his love with other things. This is what we do every time we sin. Every time we yell at our kids or mistreat our spouses. Every time we run back to some addiction or neglect time with God for something seemingly more enjoyable. Every time we complain we put our God to the test. We put him to the test because we basically say, if you want me to stop complaining and praise you, then fix this. When you complain about traffic you are basically saying, “For me to truly believe that God loves me and is for my good he needs to clear this traffic up.” Every time we complain about our spouses we are saying, “If God truly wants us to have a good marriage and wants us to be able to glorify him he needs to fix this problem.” That is what complaining does.
Complaining is demanding that God satisfy us when and how we want to be satisfied. Faith says, “you are hear and you love me even though I have no idea how what is happening to me could possibly be loving?” Faith says, “When my way and God’s way disagree I submit to my God because I know he knows best.” That is what faith says. Faith says not only do I know you love me, but you love me more than I even love myself and your way is better than my way.
You see the problem with putting God to the test and thinking we know best is we don’t see the whole picture. We don’t understand all that God is doing. We don’t have a proper grasp on eternity and how God is in the process of restoring all things to himself. We get caught up in our own little worlds with our own agendas and we don’t see all that God is doing and how he is working all things together for his glory and the good of his people.
Let me just show you in the Scripture a time when the Pharisees put Jesus to test and proved they didn’t understand. They proved they didn’t get it at all. In Mt. 27:39-44. Look at what they say, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross… later they say, “He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him.” Look at what they are doing. They are putting Jesus to the test. They are questioning his identity as the Son of God and saying, “If you are truly the son of God come down from the cross.” That is what they are saying. You see they wanted Jesus to prove himself according to their standards. They made up the test. The test is “Come down from the cross and we will believe.” They didn’t want to believe by faith. They didn’t want to believe the Scriptures which spoke of the suffering servant and how he would give his life as a ransom for many. They didn’t want to believe those things. They wanted an experience; they wanted to believe their senses. They wanted to make the test and see Jesus pass their test. Do you see how foolish they were? Do you see how foolish they were? Do you hear what they were saying “Come down from the cross and we will believe in you.” NO! No! What if Jesus would have listened to them? What if Jesus would have come down from the cross would that have been good for them? No. NO, you see what proved that Jesus was the son of God was the fact that he stayed on the cross. What has drawn millions and millions to give up everything to believe upon him is not the fact that he listened to the Pharisees and came down from the cross but the fact that he listened to his God and stayed on the cross. That is what makes him so beautiful. In the face of a bunch of punks thinking they knew best Jesus stayed on the cross and with his sacrifice bought men and women from every tribe nation and tongue. Jesus stayed on the cross and many of us today know him and love him and have found forgiveness in him because he stayed.
Guys we are like the Pharisees all the time. We think we know best. We look around and can’t possibly fathom how God could be in control and how he could work this out for our good. The Pharisees could not fathom how Jesus could be God’s beloved son and still be dying on the cross. They took his death for proof that he was a fraud and yet his death is what proved he was God’s faithful, obedient, perfect Son. God’s way is best. Even when it doesn’t make sense our God knows best. He knows best and he calls upon us to trust him. To stop demanding a sign, stop demanding proof, stop demanding that he give us an experience of his presence and instead trust him. Now, I know that is asking a lot right. It is asking a lot to trust him. All of us have been let down so many times that as soon as it seems like God is letting us down we immediately believe that he is just like everyone else.
Maybe we trust him for a little while but when things begin to fall apart, when things don’t go according to our plan we find faith so hard. We find faith so hard because we have been let down and hurt so often. But our God is not like everyone else. Our God sent his only son, the son that he loved with all of his being down to earth. He allowed him to be persecuted, to suffer, to bear temptation after temptation and finally to go to the cross. Finally to go and to give his life on the cross and he did it for his people. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son for all who would believe on him. Anyone who will trust him will find he is worthy. Everyone who will trust him will find that he will come through for them. He has already given his Son. OK.
What kind of sign are you looking for? What things do we allow us to put God to the test? If God would only give us an experience of himself we would believe him, if God would only help me find a companion then I would trust him, if God would only get me a job then I would trust him. If God would only get me off of the streets I would trust him. What is bigger? What is bigger, a Job or the son of God dying on a cross to forgive your sins. Which is bigger? Guys we feel like we need so many things and often we feel like we just are not getting what we need but we forget that all we really need is to be forgiven of our sins and have God’s wrath satisfied so that we can once again know and love and live eternally with our God. The great chasm that sin has ripped between us and God needs to be bridged. That is what we need and God has given us that. He has given us all we need in his son. And he is present. He is present when we feel it and when we don’t, when we experience it and when we don’t. Our God does not have to satisfy us now the same way the world offers satisfaction, instead he has promised us that he will satisfy us eternally if we will trust him. If we will wait upon him. If we will believe that he is near even when we don’t see him. That is what God is calling us to do. I peter 1:8 says, “Though you have not seen Jesus, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory…” Do you see that? When we don’t see him we don’t say, “Show us your presents and we will worship you.” No, we say, “We believe in you, we love you, we will wait for you.” You have given your life on the cross for us we will trust you. When we don’t see Jesus we will believe in him. That is our call. Our call is to trust our God because he has proven himself faithful on the cross. Our God has passed the test; there is no greater proof than he has already shown us on the cross. The only question is will we trust him. Will we trust him to forgive us for our failures and will we rest in him and find him to be enough when this world tempts us to find our satisfaction in them.
I want you to see that if you will trust that God is a good God, a kind master as Jesus did, you will find that he will never disappoint. Look at Jesus. Look at him. He refuses to jump and be saved by angels because he knows that in God’s time God will provide everything he needs. And only a few verses later we find that in God’s time he sends his angels. In God’s time he provides for Jesus exactly what he needed. And at the cross. At the cross where Jesus was tempted to come down and everyone would believe on him. At the cross Jesus refused to give in to temptation. He refused to put God to the test. He refused to make God prove his loving presence to him by saving him from the cross. Instead he waited. Instead he endured the cross waiting and trusting that his God would make it all up to him. That soon his God would make it worth it. And what do we find but three days later God raises him up from the dead. And God has given him a name above every name and at his name every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the father. None of us will ever bear the suffering that our savior suffered, and yet even as great as his suffering was God proved himself faithful, he proved that he was worth it. And if God can prove that he is worth all of the immense suffering that Jesus suffered then he can certainly prove that he is worth any suffering we might have to endure on this earth.
Guys, our God is worth it. Wait for him. Don’t put him to the test. Wait for him. He gave his only son on the cross in order to bless his people he will not mistreat us now. He is a good Father and his way is best. Wait for him. Long to experience his presence but when you don’t wait. Lamentations reminds us, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” Seek the Lord. Seek him with all your heart and when you find him, when that day finally comes and you see him face to face the joy that you will feel in his presence will be beyond anything you could ever ask or imagine. Our God is worthy.
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