January 9, 2023 with Mack Tomlinson on “The Testing & Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness” (Part 1)

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Armisen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Armisen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this ninth day of January 2023.

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I'm thrilled to have back on the program an old friend of mine, Mack Tomlinson, who is an author, a conference speaker, and pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

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And we're actually going to have a Mack Tomlinson two -day marathon. We are going to have

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Mack on today and tomorrow, God willing, to discuss part one and part two of the testing and temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness.

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And Mack Tomlinson is not only the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, but he is also going to be a featured speaker at the upcoming 2023

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Fellowship Conference New York to be held at the church where I was formerly a member before moving to Pennsylvania, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Merrick, Long Island, New York.

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This is going to be a conference sponsored by Christ Fellowship of Patchell, Long Island, who are using the facilities of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Merrick.

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But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my dear friend Mack Tomlinson.

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Hey, Chris, good to be back with you as always. And I want to take this time again to thank you from the bottom of my heart to reaching out to my oldest brother,

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John, who was in the hospital about a year ago,

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I guess it was. He was getting ready to leave this planet and enter into eternity due to critical stage emphysema and cancer and pneumonia.

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And you reached out to my brother and ministered to him. I know that the hospital was not that far from where you live.

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And I believe that God used that ministry to my brother to open up his mind, his heart, his eyes and his ears to the gospel.

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And I have nothing but confidence that he believed in and embraced and trusted in the true

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Christ of Scriptures and the true gospel of the Holy Scriptures before leaving this planet.

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And I believe with the uttermost confidence that he is now in the loving, eternal embrace of our

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Lord, God, Savior, and King for all eternity now. And I want to thank you again for reaching out to him, not only for the fact that I believe

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God used you to bring him to a saving understanding of Christ, but it also gave me an enormous added measure, an infinitely added measure of peace and trust and confidence that my brother is indeed saved.

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Thank you, Chris, very much. And so before we go into the conference,

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Fellowship Conference New York, and also the theme we are addressing today, the testing and temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness.

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Tell our listeners about Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas. I'm sorry, did you ask me to tell you about Providence Chapel in Denton?

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That's exactly what I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're a

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Reformed Baptistic congregation in Denton, which is a university town of about 130 ,000, 30 miles north of Dallas and Fort Worth.

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We've been here 22 years and our congregation loves the

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Word of God, loves the gospel, loves a missions and loves people.

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And I welcome anyone who lives in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, especially north of Dallas and the whole northern part of the

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Metroplex here to check us out. ProvidenceDenton .org

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is our website. That's ProvidenceDenton .org.

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And we hope you'll visit us if you're looking for a church in the North Dallas, North Fort Worth area, or if you're ever visiting in the area, just find us and come and worship with us.

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Praise God. Once again, that's ProvidenceDenton .org. And I hope the next time that God's good providence has me in Denton, Texas, because I've only been in Denton, Texas once, that you are actually there at the time.

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I know that you were traveling on vacation, I believe, when I was at a Bible conference at another church in Denton, and I was hoping to share a time of fellowship with you, but you were out of town.

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So hopefully the next time I get down there,

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God willing, I will be able to share fellowship with you. And today we are going to be discussing not only a fascinating passage of the scripture, but also a controversial one, because some of the details of this historic and biblical event have led

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Christians to disagree on some different areas of doctrine.

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One of them being the peccability of Christ versus the impeccability of Christ.

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But that is not our main theme today. Our main theme today is just the story of which would happen and what we are to glean from that story.

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And first of all, I'd like to read,

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I'm going to pick Luke's version of this temptation, if you don't mind, and I'm going to read the passage that we are discussing today.

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And I'll be reading it from the New American Standard Bible. And this is in chapter 4 of Luke.

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Now, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the

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Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those 40 days, and when they had ended, he was hungry.

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And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.

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And Jesus answered him, It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone. And he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

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And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever

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I want. Therefore, if you worship before me, it shall be yours.

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Jesus replied to him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

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And he brought him into Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him,

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If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He shall give his angels orders concerning you to protect you.

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And on their hands they will lift you up, so that you do not strike your foot against the stone.

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And Jesus answered and said to him, It has been stated, You shall not put the Lord your

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God to the test. And so when the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time.

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That was Luke chapter 4, verses 1 through 13. Tell us initially why it was that this passage means so much to you that you wanted to discuss it for two days on Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio.

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Well, I guess in a very practical sense, this fall, I think it was back in September.

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No, it wasn't. It was October, but that's immaterial really. I spoke on this theme, this passage, which by the way is also found in Matthew 4 and Mark 1.

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And so this account of Christ's temptation is in all three of the

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Synoptic Gospels. But I spoke five messages on this subject this fall in a conference this year.

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And as I studied it, it just came alive to me again. And the reality of Christ having to go through this as a man and really the implications of it, what it means, what it doesn't mean, but especially what it means for believers as a part not only of our redemption, but that Christ as a man is our example in the

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Christian life in dealing with temptation and overcoming temptation. So it's just a wonderful, somewhat neglected truth that I think many

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Christians do not either understand enough or don't appreciate enough. Yes.

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And one of the things that gives rise to a bit of confusion,

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I believe, over the very nature of Christ Jesus, the perfect, sinless, completely righteous, blameless, perfectly obedient God -man, the nature of his temptation, people very often import into that story and that concept a common, at least modern, it may have always been used this way as well, the word temptation or the concept of temptation in at least some way.

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But particularly in our modern thinking, when we hear of somebody being tempted, that normally involves, like for instance, if a woman walks by a man wearing a bikini and he's tempted, he's usually involved in personal sin because he is considering doing something sexually, he's lusting, he may be fantasizing.

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They're all things going on that are imported into that word temptation where the person is considering very seriously and desiring very deeply and passionately to give in to this temptation and to sin in the way that he or she is being tempted.

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But this is not at all the case with Jesus Christ, the perfect God -man, was it? Yeah, you're correct.

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Our temptation as sinful people is not all the same as Christ was tempted because we know that he was a perfect man, but he was truly man, and so scripture clearly says he was tempted at all points like we are, yet without sin.

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The difference between Christ's temptation as a man and ours is, I mean, even

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James says, each one of us is tempted when he's carried away and enticed by his own lust.

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That's James 1 .14. Well, so our temptations often come from within, out of a heart of lust, an evil heart of unbelief.

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But Christ's temptations never came from within because there was nothing in him that was impure.

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But he yet was truly tempted by Satan the enemy with legitimate temptation that came to him from the outside because he was truly human and his temptations were legitimate.

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And we have that promise given to us, a precious promise in Hebrews 4 verse 15 where we have this promise, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

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That last part is the key difference between how Christ was tempted and how we are tempted since we are fallen creatures.

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Since we do, even after our regeneration, even though we're new creatures, we are still dealing with remaining sin while on this earth.

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And we can never say that our temptations are not tainted with sin, but Jesus Christ was never tainted with sin during his temptations.

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Right. And I think because of that, believers know that Jesus Christ was truly

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God and truly man in every way. And therefore there's this confusion because the

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Bible says God cannot tempt men, neither can he be tempted.

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Therefore they think so. Jesus could not have been tempted with evil, but he was tempted in his humanity as being one of us.

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And because of that, he was truly human. And therefore, part of the glory of his becoming our redeemer and his incarnation, when he took on a human nature and a human body in order to redeem us, he not only was able to be tempted humanly, he had to be tempted because he was becoming one of us to be qualified to be our high priest and our redeemer.

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That's a great mystery that believers need to study more. Yeah. And it also qualified him to be a substitute for us.

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Right. But of course, some of these things we're getting away ahead of ourselves and probably we'll get on some of this stuff tomorrow.

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And I would encourage all of you who are listening, if you're able to tune in tomorrow, both programs will cover truth that is important to hear both programs and to think about more.

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Well, it's interesting right off the bat in the very first verse of chapter four of Luke in his account of what occurred in the wilderness when

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Jesus was tempted by Satan. It says, now Jesus, full of the

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Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil.

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That seems to be almost a contradiction in terms there, an oxymoronic event where you have the

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Holy Spirit leading Christ in the wilderness and yet he's constantly being tempted for 40 days.

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Can you explain that? Yes, it is. It does almost sound like contradiction, but it's not because each of the gospel writers,

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Matthew, Mark and Luke, the synoptic gospels, all say that he was led there by the

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Holy Spirit to be tempted. That was immediately after his baptism at the Jordan. And in his baptism, he was obeying the father's direction to be baptized by John.

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And in that, Jesus was submitting to a sinner's baptism, not because he was a sinner, but he was identifying with sinful people by being baptized.

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And so right out of his baptism in water and the Holy Spirit had come upon him, giving him great assurance, the next step before any public ministry, the father had ordained for Christ, the son, to go into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted.

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In fact, Mark 1 .12 uses a stronger word, it says the

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Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness. There was this divine compulsion, this great urgency that Christ felt a strong leading that he was to go into the wilderness.

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And we don't know all that he knew, but he knew that the father was leading him there for a divine purpose.

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And so the father was leading him there to be tested, not to be tempted where he would not to be tempted with evil, because only

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Satan tempts people with sin. God doesn't tempt, but he does allow testing.

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And this really is a great mystery. I'll share on this a little while until you need a break,

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Chris, until you interrupt me. But the reality is

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Christ as a man, Hebrews addresses this. Christ had to be, he had to be tested.

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He had to suffer temptation and testing humanly to pass the test of obedience.

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He had to go through human experience and he had to obey the law of God every day of his life.

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He had to have divine times of testing for his obedience to be worked out and experienced.

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And so Christ as a man to qualify as our redeemer and our high priest, he had to face the reality of passing the test of obedience.

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He must be proven as a man. Even Luke says that Jesus grew in wisdom, stature and favor with God and man.

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That's speaking about his humanity. As God, he can't grow. But as man, as a true man, his humanity had to grow.

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And so the Bible says that Christ learned obedience through the things that he suffered.

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So in one sense, his entire early life was a life of suffering. But his true suffering started officially in a big way in the desert wilderness experience for 40 days as a 30 year old young man.

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And could you tell us if there is or what I should say significance you believe there is in the fact that this was a 40 day temptation, that that number sticks out very glaringly even in the old covenant scriptures, the

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Hebrew scriptures in regard to the Jews wandering in the wilderness. If you could pick up on any significance between that number.

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Well, you know, you're right.

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That number is found in the Old Testament. The number 40,

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Israel was in the wilderness 40 years, Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days, two different times.

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Even Elijah, it mentions him having running in the strength of one meal for 40 days.

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So the number 40 is significant, I think, in symbolism of significant times of testing or proving or deep experience in the

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Old Testament. And it certainly doesn't seem any different with Christ.

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It was a divinely ordained period of almost, of course, almost six weeks, 40 days.

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And it was just the purpose of God for Christ, the son, to experience a full 40 days of significant temptation, not just by demonic powers, but by Satan himself for 40 days.

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And I have heard at least one preacher, a solid preacher,

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Reformed Baptists, teach that he believes that there is significance in the fact, just as Christ is our second

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Adam, you have occurrences in the Old Testament where the

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Israelites, the people of God, failed during a certain season or test by God.

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And whereas in the New Covenant, there is a mirror occurrence or a occurrence that bears a lot of similarity in which

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Christ appears to be going through a very clearly similar season of testing and he is passing with flying colors.

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Do you see that same kind of imagery there? Yes, I think that's right.

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And, you know, this in a way brings up the parallels that are significant with both with Jesus and Adam and Eve and Jesus and in the nation of Israel is really significant in some ways.

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And just briefly think about the parallels between Adam and Christ.

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The first time Satan tempted man was in the garden with Adam and Eve in a perfect paradise.

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And Adam and Eve quickly fell that test in the garden. And Jesus, Adam and Eve were in paradise,

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Satan comes. Jesus is in the wilderness and Satan comes.

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So Satan tempted the first man, Adam, and Adam fell.

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And here in the middle of history, Satan comes to tempt the last man, the last

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Adam, Christ, not in a paradise, but in a wilderness that's dark, wild animals, dangerous animals are around.

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Jesus is alone. Satan comes again. And so there is clearly a a parallel between Adam and Christ, but also

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Israel and Christ. For instance, Israel is called God's son in Exodus 4.

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Christ is the perfect son, the son of God. Israel was led in the wilderness in Deuteronomy 6,

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Deuteronomy 8. The Lord Jesus was led to the wilderness to be tempted.

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Israel was tested in the wilderness. Christ was tested in the wilderness. Israel for 40 years and they failed.

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Christ for 40 days and he passed it. And Chris, it's interesting that in all three of the temptations that are recorded in the

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Gospels. The book that Jesus quoted every time quoted back to Satan was from the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 8,

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Deuteronomy 6. And so this is the book that God gave

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Israel to in the wilderness, the book of Deuteronomy. And that's the book that Jesus quotes

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Satan in his wilderness temptation because Christ said the first temptation,

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Christ answers Satan, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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And there's something significant about Christ saying to Satan, man shall not live by bread alone.

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He's not only directly quoting Deuteronomy, but in a sense, Christ is saying to Satan, I'm facing you here as the last man, as the last

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Adam, as a true man and not just as God. So this was very significant.

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We do have time for one question before we go to our first station break.

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We have Ramon in Metro Manila in the Philippines who has a question.

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And let me get to that. And I was just looking at it a second ago. Here it is. What kind of fast was

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Christ on? Was it a water fast? The Gospels, thank you for the question, by the way, the

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Gospels do not say that he he did not drink water. We don't know.

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It only says that he did not eat and he was hungry. But Matthew, Mark and Luke do not record anything about water, that he fasted from water.

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It says afterward he was hungry and then he ate food. It doesn't say that he fasted from water and he was thirsty.

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Yeah. And the devil's temptation didn't even involve water. It involved turning stone into bread.

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Right. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you, Ramon. And keep listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio and spreading the word about the program in the

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Philippines and beyond. We're going to go to our first station break. And if anybody else has a question for Mack Tomlinson on the temptation and testing of Jesus Christ in the wilderness, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Mack Tomlinson after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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And that's royaldiadem .com, and either purchase the jewelry or start the process of getting your custom designed jewelry created, and always mention

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Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That's royaldiadem .com. We're now back with our guest today,

41:15

Mack Tomlinson, pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas. This is part one of a two -part discussion we are having today and tomorrow on the testing and temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness.

41:29

Our email address, if you have any questions, is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

41:35

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. And Mack, if you could pick up where we left off on other significant things you want us to know about this very important historic and biblical occurrence in the

41:50

Scripture. Mack Tomlinson Yeah, thanks, Chris. You know, I think I also alluded to this a little bit, but, you know,

41:58

God's ways are not our ways, the Bible says. Most people would think just on a surface level, well, surely after Jesus' baptism, when he receives a great anointing of the

42:12

Holy Spirit and he receives his assurance from his Father in heaven, surely isn't that the right time to go right into public ministry?

42:22

But it wasn't what was needed before any public ministry at all, before any miracle, any sermon.

42:30

Christ must go through this wilderness experience to bring a level of human experience in relation to temptation and testing that he had never had before.

42:47

And so as you read those gospel accounts at the end of the temptation, then he comes forth in the power of the

42:58

Holy Spirit to begin his public ministry. So times of testing and suffering are just essential, not only in the life of Jesus, but in the life of every

43:12

Christian. And I'll talk more about that tomorrow. But so I think, you know, it's just good for us to think now about some of the aspects, the major aspects of this temptation experience.

43:33

And the first just has to do really with the timing of the testing. And I've been alluding to that.

43:41

The timing of this is significant because it was right after a glorious time of Jesus' public ministry beginning.

43:51

He comes forth to the Jordan River. So he's leaving home, the carpenter shop as a 30 -year -old, entering into his

44:00

Father's public calling for him. He's baptized by John. He's anointed of the

44:06

Holy Spirit. He receives great assurance. So Jesus goes to this wilderness temptation right out of a time of victory, a time of messianic fulfillment, a time of encouragement and empowering.

44:20

And it was then, after a time of great encouragement, that the devil comes to him to tempt him for 40 days.

44:31

And there's a real spiritual lesson there for any Christian. And this is it, that great times of blessing or encouragement or personal revival or seasons of God doing wonderful things in the

44:47

Christian's life, those good times do not insulate us from times of testing or spiritual warfare.

44:56

Wonderful times of spiritual experience, times of refreshing are no guarantee that we will not soon experience dark times that are hard.

45:11

Hard times can follow wonderful times. And remember, it was after the positive and encouraging things recorded about Job, that he was the most righteous man in the earth.

45:26

He had great wealth. God had greatly blessed him. He had 10 children, a wonderful family.

45:32

And he was the greatest man in the earth. After Job 1 tells us that, it's then that Satan is allowed by God to test and try

45:45

Job. So if we have good seasons and then hard times come, it shouldn't make us doubt that God's with us.

45:58

It shouldn't make us doubt him. It shouldn't make us begin to wonder, is God with me?

46:04

And if he is, why are these hard things happening? Is God punishing me? Surely he's punishing me for my sin somehow, or I wouldn't be going through this.

46:16

And the truth is, the godliest Christians, the obedient Christian, can go through severe times.

46:26

And God is allowing it for their good. And this is important to remember.

46:34

Could it be rightly said that if a Christian is not being tempted, going through a season of trial that involves temptation of the devil, that he is probably not worth that much in the kingdom of God, if indeed he is not experiencing this, because the devil already knows.

46:58

This person is acting upon his own depraved nature enough to sin on his own accord without any of my tempting being necessary.

47:09

Could that rightly be said? Well, I think that certainly has truth in it.

47:16

No question about that. You know, it would do every Christian a lot of good to study in the

47:24

New Testament closely all the passages about temptation and testing and trials and hardships.

47:33

I mean, think of what James 1, 2 -4 says.

47:39

James says to these believers, to the twelve tribes, he says,

47:45

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

47:55

But let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

48:03

So trials and testing and hardships and suffering are a huge truth in the

48:12

New Testament. A lot of the material in the whole New Testament deals with this subject.

48:19

That every believer will go through sufferings and trials and testing and temptation.

48:26

And the Lord Jesus Christ did more than any of us. So if we're going to be made like Christ as a believer, we're going to suffer some of the same things that he did.

48:37

It's certainly true. We have a listener,

48:43

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, I know that Mel Gibson's movie,

48:50

The Passion of the Christ, was a combination of biblical references and sources and those of a

49:00

Roman Catholic mystic. So I know that we have to look at this movie with great suspicion if we look at it at all.

49:10

But I was wondering if you agree with the interpretation that Gibson had in the movie, where the devil was actually infuriated after the death of Christ, because he knew that the payment for the penalty of sin for his people was made.

49:34

That's an interesting question, because we know that the devil is not omniscient.

49:41

But there are certain things he did know and that demons know. We have that reference of Christ and the demoniac where the demoniac says, have you come to torment us before the time?

49:58

There obviously was some kind of eschatological knowledge of that experience.

50:10

So what is your opinion on that? We have almost a suicidal aspect of this on the devil's part, if indeed he knew what

50:22

Christ's death would complete as far as redemption.

50:30

We have a suicidal aspect of it in that Judas himself had a devil enter into him.

50:40

So what do you make of that? Well, the first thing

50:46

I would say is no theology should be built on Mel Gibson's movie,

50:56

The Passion of the Christ at all. And we certainly should not try to think what to believe about Satan's response to the cross from any movie, because we simply can't know what

51:16

Satan's direct response was to Christ's death on the cross. We know he was trying to get

51:23

Christ to sin in the temptation. We know that Satan entered

51:29

Judas Iscariot to get Christ betrayed. So we certainly know that Satan was trying to defeat

51:39

God's purpose. Beyond that, we cannot say. You know,

51:45

Colossians 2 comes to my mind when you think about the death on the cross and Christ disarming the enemy.

51:58

Colossians 2, 14 and 15, Paul says about the work of Christ that the work of Christ cancelled out the debt of certificate of death consisting of degrees against us, which was hostile to us.

52:16

And he's taking it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross when he, that is,

52:23

God and Christ had disarmed the rulers and authorities. He made a public display of them, having trumped over them through the cross.

52:34

So we know the cross definitively and permanently defeated the works of the devil and disarmed principalities and powers and conquered the death of Christ, conquered death totally.

52:52

So we do know the death of the cross conquered Satan and all evil and ultimately destroyed the works of the devil.

53:01

We know the manifestation of that in time and space in history will not come until the second coming.

53:10

But in essence, we should never get our thoughts about Satan or Christ or truth from any movie, strictly from the

53:20

Bible, especially from the New Testament. And we have to go to our midway break right now. Please be patient with us.

53:25

It's a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show so that they can localize geographically

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Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, according to the FCC requirements.

53:42

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials, try to respond to our advertisers as much as possible so that they will more likely renew their advertising contracts, which we need to survive, folks.

53:54

So don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Mack Tomlinson. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia, again for the

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Mack Tomlinson. I know that you have a high regard for Solid Ground Christian Books, Mack. Do you have a couple of words to say about this fine ministry?

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Yeah, Michael Gadosh is a marvelous, godly Christian man. High integrity, loves

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Yes, thank you, Mack. And that's solid -ground -books .com. Purchase frequently from them.

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01:09:28

Before I return to my discussion with Mack Tomlinson, I just have a couple more very important announcements to make.

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click support, then click, click to donate now. Also, folks, if you are not a member of a

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Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, doctrinally solid, theologically sound church like Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, no matter where on the planet earth you live,

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I have extensive lists of biblically faithful churches spanning the globe, and I have helped many people in our audience in all parts of the world find churches sometimes within just a couple of minutes from where they live, and that may be you, too, if you don't have a faithful church home.

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Send me an email address to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Mac Tomlinson, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:13:22

and give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence. And Mac, if you could pick up on some more of these essential truths that you have gleaned from the temptation and testing of Christ in the wilderness.

01:13:38

Thank you, Chris. You know, Mark's Gospel chapter 1 verses 12 and 13 give a summary statement about Christ's temptation.

01:13:49

Matthew's account in Matthew 4 and Luke's account in Luke 4 give a much more extended account.

01:13:55

But Mark 1 13 says that Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan.

01:14:05

So this means Satan himself was the tempter, not just demons.

01:14:11

And so Satan has showed up in the wilderness to teach to tempt

01:14:19

Christ. And he apparently obviously unleashes all of his fiendish wiles and temptations on the

01:14:28

Savior over 40 days. And we know the word Satan is not really a name as much as it is a title.

01:14:39

In fact, it's literally translated the Satan, which means adversary.

01:14:46

The word devil, he's also called devil means accuser or slanderer.

01:14:52

And we also know that the Apostle Paul said that he disguises himself at times as an angel of light.

01:15:00

So Satan himself comes the adversary, the accuser, the slanderer, and even as an angel of light, quoting

01:15:08

Scripture. Why does he come to Jesus in the wilderness? He comes to attack the sonship of Christ.

01:15:16

He says twice, if you are the son of God. So he comes to attack

01:15:22

Christ's sonship. He comes to tempt Christ to not trust his heavenly father or to tempt him to depart from Christ's proper path of obedience.

01:15:36

He tries to deceive him religiously by quoting Scripture. He wants Jesus to presume on the father's goodness by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple.

01:15:48

In other words, Satan wants Jesus to choose the path of self and self -centeredness rather than his father's purpose.

01:16:00

He wants Jesus to use the Apostle John's terms to give into the lust of the world, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

01:16:12

Even though Jesus doesn't have lust within him, Satan wants to tempt him to choose that path.

01:16:20

In essence, Satan's purpose with Christ in the wilderness is the same with us.

01:16:28

He wanted Jesus to sin against God like Adam and Eve had sin in the garden.

01:16:36

Adam and Eve were under divine law. You know, you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

01:16:43

And the day you eat thereof, you will surely die. And Adam and Eve disobeyed that one law to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

01:16:57

So they disobeyed that one law. Jesus, he was the lawgiver himself.

01:17:03

Jesus knew the entire law, so he didn't have just one law to obey. Jesus had come as a man to live under the law perfectly, and he did, and he came to fulfill it.

01:17:17

So Jesus faced severe temptation to disobey

01:17:23

God's law and his will. And the timing of this, as I started out saying, is in the wilderness after Jesus' baptism, before his public ministry was to start.

01:17:39

That was the timing. The second thing, major thing that I would point out is the setting of the temptation.

01:17:48

And I've already alluded a little bit about this somewhat, but I want to go into it more as some have suggested that it was the

01:17:58

Sinai desert down where the children of Israel wandered.

01:18:04

Well, I studied in Israel in 1976, and I remember I traveled down from Jerusalem to Sinai.

01:18:13

It was a six -hour ride by car. And so if Jesus went to the

01:18:19

Sinai, it would have been many days' journey. I mean, that could have been the case that he did that.

01:18:26

Another possible desert wilderness area would have maybe been Jericho, much closer to Nazareth and Jerusalem.

01:18:35

But we don't know which wilderness area it was, and we don't really need to know. What we do need to know is what characterized the wilderness setting.

01:18:46

In any biblical setting of the wilderness, then, there would have been no food or vegetation.

01:18:53

It would have been very isolating. There were no cities. So this would have been a time of Jesus being absolutely alone.

01:19:01

And from the time the sun went down, utterly dark. I mean, the Gospels say there were wild animals there, and these would have been dangerous ones.

01:19:11

We know in the Bible there would have been jackals, hyenas, wolves, bears, lions, probably.

01:19:19

And these animals would have been dangerous ones. That's why the Gospels say that there were wild animals there.

01:19:28

So it would have been a setting that Jesus, as a man, in his human weakness of hunger, he would have felt the horror and danger and the fearfulness of the situation.

01:19:41

He didn't avoid it or run from it. He faced it, and he never gave in to the temptation of being afraid, even though he felt that.

01:19:51

So what does the wilderness represent to us? It represents an hour of severe darkness, an hour that Satan's horrible attack for 40 days was unleashed on the

01:20:09

Savior. Now, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all address this differently. Matthew says

01:20:15

Christ went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

01:20:21

Mark says he was in the wilderness tempted by Satan. Luke says being tempted for 40 days.

01:20:32

So all three writers say the same thing, but they say it in different ways. Now, the question could be asked, was

01:20:40

Satan physically somehow present, or Jesus could see some manifestation of Satan?

01:20:48

Where Satan appeared in some physical form, we don't know. Was it purely a spiritual attack on his mind, his spirit, his emotions?

01:20:57

We don't fully know that. We know it was that, at least a deeply spiritual attack.

01:21:03

But what we do know is this, we don't know how Satan manifested himself. He was truly there.

01:21:10

It was a real wilderness. It was a real alone time for the Savior. It was an extremely prolonged period of fasting.

01:21:21

There was real physical weakness, a real conflict, and real temptations.

01:21:30

So this would have been an incredible supernatural experience, never experienced before by Jesus, and really never experienced afterward until Gethsemane and the cross.

01:21:48

We have an anonymous listener who says, how do you respond to somebody who is going through an arduous, horrific trial in their life, and when they are reminded of this story of which you speak, they say, yeah, but I'm not

01:22:08

Jesus. How do you respond to people like that, who are basically saying that the temptations that Jesus experienced were less horrific and trying because of the fact that he was not only man, but God as well?

01:22:26

Well, that's a great question. But the reality is that when we are tempted as sinful human beings, normally we would give in to temptation before the temptation ever reached its height and its strongest power.

01:22:52

In other words, people give in to temptation often at the beginning of a temptation or midway through.

01:22:59

And so Jesus, rather than not knowing the depth of our temptation, he experienced the power of temptation more than any human being ever did.

01:23:17

And so he doesn't know less of human temptation. He experienced more human temptation than we ever do because he faced the full brunt of every temptation as a true human being, and he felt the temptation, and he never gave in one time.

01:23:38

So Christ fully understands our temptations because he experienced them fully, not just as God.

01:23:49

He wasn't tempted as God, though he was God all of his earthly life.

01:23:55

He experienced full temptation as a human being, which means he suffered under it.

01:24:02

He felt it. The Bible says in Hebrews that Jesus was tempted in every way like we are, at every point he was tempted in life like we are, yet without sin.

01:24:21

So he has faced the severity of temptation more than any of us ever have, and he's faced more temptation in his 33 years on earth than we ever have.

01:24:35

So the fact that Christ understands as a human being, and he's now our sympathizing high priest, when we are tempted, we need to remind ourselves,

01:24:48

Jesus, our great high priest in heaven, understands because he went through it, and therefore he sympathizes with me more than anybody else can.

01:24:59

He understands fully what I'm going through. And another truth that helps us is 1

01:25:06

Corinthians 10, 13. The apostle Paul says, there has no temptation overtaken you, but such as is common to man.

01:25:20

But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but he will with the temptation also provide a way of escape so that you will be able to endure it.

01:25:35

So to the person who asked the question, Jesus was tempted in ways that we never have been as a true human being like us.

01:25:48

So he alone understands our temptations better than anyone, because he's been through them.

01:25:55

Yes, and even when he was tested in the garden of Gethsemane with having a choice before him to have the cup of God's wrath passed away from him, a lot of people don't realize, he was not merely fearing a torturous execution, an execution that countless thousands of ordinary human beings had experienced before and after him.

01:26:36

He was experiencing the dread of having the wrath of his father poured upon him, which no

01:26:47

Christian will ever experience. Am I right? Exactly right. Yes.

01:26:53

And tomorrow, on tomorrow's program, I think we'll get into the nature of temptation and the difference between temptation and being tested.

01:27:05

And we'll talk about Christ's temptation, the impeccability of Christ.

01:27:12

As God, he couldn't have sinned, but as a human being, he could truly be tempted. And what that truly means, and the fact is,

01:27:26

Chris, you referred to Gethsemane and the battle that he had there. When you read the

01:27:32

Gethsemane experience about our Savior, he really did not want to drink that cup the father was going to have him drink.

01:27:40

And he even prayed, Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me.

01:27:46

I don't want to have to drink it. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Christ felt the horror of that as a man.

01:27:55

And he emotionally, psychologically, he didn't want to go through it. He didn't want to have to experience it.

01:28:03

So we can relate to him in ways that are very real, because he is a sympathizing

01:28:11

Savior who's still a human being. He's the God man in heaven. He still is a truly

01:28:18

God and truly man as our heavenly high priest. And he understands. We have another anonymous listener who says,

01:28:28

I am doing battle constantly with liberals who try to explain away supernatural truths in the scriptures.

01:28:39

One of them is the existence of a real devil. I was wondering if you could clarify, once again, what you meant by the statement that you didn't know for certain whether or not the temptation of Christ in the wilderness was an assault upon his psyche.

01:28:58

Obviously, it may have been that or included that, but it was definitely an assault coming from a literal devil.

01:29:06

Yes, that is obviously true. And I know you believe that, Mack. In fact, in Luke's account in chapter 4, verses 13, it says,

01:29:17

And so when the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time, which is an evidence that this was a real being that was doing the tempting.

01:29:30

Right. I certainly wasn't saying that Satan was not a real being. He's a literal being, no doubt.

01:29:38

And he was literally there. What I was trying to say is we aren't told if he had some kind of physical, visible manifestation or if he was there in an invisible way.

01:29:52

We don't know how he came to Jesus in terms of that aspect.

01:30:01

I mean, we don't know how Satan came to Job and afflicted him.

01:30:07

We don't know if he came physically or just invisibly, but we know with Job and we know with the

01:30:14

Lord Jesus, Satan was present. We just don't know what form he manifested himself to Christ in the wilderness.

01:30:23

Now, when you said physically, did you really mean visibly? Because can Satan actually take upon a physical body?

01:30:36

Well, again... I guess he could enter somebody's body. That's true. Yeah, right.

01:30:42

He entered Judas and he can disguise himself as an angel of light.

01:30:51

And so he has some form. We just don't know always how he manifests himself, whether that's some physical form or some appearance in some way physically.

01:31:09

We just don't know. The Bible doesn't give us much insight into that at all.

01:31:15

Yeah, we have to be careful not to interpret as God breathed truth the artwork that we're all familiar with, when we've seen not only in film, but in illustrations and paintings, the story that we're discussing of Jesus being tempted.

01:31:30

There's usually some ominous figure standing there, either in the traditional way with horns or just the cloaked figure, or all kinds of ways that this evil one, the

01:31:45

Prince of Darkness, has been conveyed in various forms of media.

01:31:52

We can't confuse that with what the Bible says. Right. Well, we are going to...

01:32:01

Go ahead, I'm sorry. Another thing I would just point out is that the

01:32:07

Gospels do say that Satan was there for 40 days, but Matthew and Luke give their accounts of the three specific temptations, which we'll probably get into tomorrow.

01:32:26

It would be easy to think that Satan just tempted

01:32:31

Jesus three times in those three ways that Matthew and Luke mention, the turning the stones into bread, and the jumping from the pinnacle of the temple, and the temptation that if Jesus would fall down and worship

01:32:50

Satan, he'd be given all the kingdoms of the world and everything. Those three temptations are mentioned by Matthew and Luke.

01:32:58

It would be easy to think there were just three specific temptations, but that's not the case.

01:33:04

Right. That's an excellent point. It's probably 20 times more than that at least, because he was being tempted by the devil for 40 days.

01:33:12

Right. We just only catch a little glimpse of the horrendous experience, and when we read the

01:33:21

Gospel accounts of the wilderness temptation, we just need to meditate on it and realize what it would have meant for Satan himself, who so hated the

01:33:34

Lord and so wanted to attack him, and Satan would have unleashed all his arsenal against the

01:33:42

Savior. It would have been 40 days of horrendous experience for the

01:33:49

Savior. With that, coupled with the fact that he didn't eat for 40 days, he was left so weak at the end of it, so weak that the angels had to come and strengthen him and minister to him.

01:34:05

That's right. Well, we have to go to our final break. It's going to be more brief than the other breaks. If you have a question, send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:34:13

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com is our email address. First name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

01:34:20

Don't go away. We'll be right back. I'm Dr.

01:34:37

Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

01:34:46

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the

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Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism, titled Authentic Christianity by Dr.

01:35:01

Joseph Moorcraft. It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

01:35:14

Dr. Moorcraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

01:35:25

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

01:35:33

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

01:35:41

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Moorcraft and the

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Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you.

01:36:09

As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

01:36:19

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.

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I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

01:41:04

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

01:41:13

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

01:41:30

Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

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Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

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For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

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1 -800 -NOW -HURT. We are now back with Mack Tomlinson. Mack, before we continue on for some final comments on The Temptation of Christ and Part 1 of that discussion, to remind our listeners we're going to have

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Part 2 continuing tomorrow. Tell us about the Fellowship Conference of New York that's coming up the 23rd through the 25th of February.

01:53:16

If I'm not mistaken, that's a Thursday through Saturday. Yes, thank you,

01:53:22

Chris, for mentioning that. Honestly, I don't have my mind available for the information in front of me, the exact location, the church where the conference is being held.

01:53:34

I have that. That's Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick. That was where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania.

01:53:44

Well, thank you for that. Neither do I have the registration site. I have that as well,

01:53:51

I'llBeHonest .com. I'llBeHonest .com. That's I -L -L -BeHonest .com.

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And the speakers are my guests Mack Tomlinson, Kyle White, and Michael Durham. But if you can continue with anything else you want to say.

01:54:06

Yeah, you know, we had the Fellowship Conference New York there in Long Island several years before 2020 and when

01:54:14

COVID came. In fact, we had it in February of 2020. I was there.

01:54:20

And then the next month COVID broke out widely. And in the last two years, we weren't able to have it, but it's resuming there.

01:54:30

And of course, Chris has attended. And it's been a special time of fellowship for pastors and Christians in general.

01:54:42

And historically, believers from all five boroughs of the greater New York City area came to Long Island for that time.

01:54:51

It's a time of it's not a large conference, but it's rich.

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And it's several days of biblical preaching, six or seven sessions with morning prayer meetings and with meals together, lunch, at least lunch together, and just wonderful fellowship around the gospel and the things of Christ.

01:55:21

So we just encourage you if you live in the greater New York area or the states surrounding

01:55:28

New York, if you could come in for those dates, February 23rd through 25th, please join us.

01:55:37

And if you need more information, you can reach out to Chris or myself. And we just would love to see you in Long Island for the

01:55:46

Fellowship Conference New York again. And I'm going to do my best to be there again. I just have to iron some things out in my schedule because I do have some conflicting conferences that I may be attending that I already had registered for.

01:56:02

So I'm going to see which ones I can move around and that kind of thing. But we'll repeat that information at the close of the program, but just in a few minutes.

01:56:13

But if you could, anybody, by the way, who had been waiting for their question to be asked and answered, we will read those questions to Mac tomorrow.

01:56:21

So don't worry about being left out of today's discussion. And if you could conclude with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners in regard to Part 1 of the

01:56:34

Temptation and Testing of Jesus Christ in the Wilderness. Yeah, I just think it's a greatly neglected area of truth that believers haven't read enough, studied this enough to realize what the temptation experience meant for Christ Himself and how that applies to the

01:56:52

Christian life. That He had to be tested to qualify to be our

01:56:59

Redeemer and our High Priest. But as He was tested as a man and He endured and conquered temptation, the believer can overcome temptation in the

01:57:13

Christian life. And we'll get into that more tomorrow, but I would just encourage believers to study this area of truth more in the future because it's very profitable to the

01:57:27

Christian life. Amen. Amen. And this is just more reasons why

01:57:35

Christ was stamped kosher. He was the spotless lamb stamped kosher for the sacrifice because it further proved that He was perfectly obedient, perfectly sinless, perfectly righteous, and the only worthy substitute for us on Calvary's cross.

01:57:57

And so I hope that you all tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of this very important discussion.

01:58:04

And once again, if you want any more information about the Fellowship Conference New York where Mack is one of three speakers,

01:58:16

Mack Tomlinson will also be joined by Kyle White and Michael Durham. We've already interviewed

01:58:21

Kyle recently to promote this event and we plan on interviewing,

01:58:27

God willing, Michael Durham before the event as well. But go to ILLBEHONEST .COM.

01:58:35

It's I -L -L -B -HONEST. And remember in a website URL there's no apostrophe in the

01:58:41

I -L. So it's I -L -L -B -HONEST .COM. If you want any more information about Mack Tomlinson's church where he is the pastor, that is

01:58:53

Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, go to PROVIDENCEDENTON .ORG.

01:59:02

PROVIDENCEDENTON .ORG. I want to thank you once again, Mack, for doing such a superb job. You have whet my appetite for tomorrow's interview with you.

01:59:11

I'm very excited about it and I'm sure our listeners are as well. And so make sure you tune in, folks, tomorrow.

01:59:20

Set your alarms, put a note on your calendar, put a sticky note on your refrigerator, whatever the case may be that you use to remind yourself, tell

01:59:31

Alexa to remind you. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions today.

01:59:40

That's also one of the things that makes Iron Trumpets Iron Radio a more fascinating program to me is hearing your input because many times you think of questions that never occur to me, so I thank you for that.

01:59:52

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater