The Man Christ Jesus (part 3)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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I'd like to start for just a moment, because I've been thinking a lot about this. I mean, if we think about the humanity of Jesus and all of its impacts,

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I mean, when you think about this, why do you suppose, let me just start with a question and then we'll look at James 1, but why do you suppose it was that, if you recall after Jesus was born and Herod decides he's going to kill all the infants, and then

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Joseph is warned in a dream to leave and to flee to Egypt? Now, just think about this.

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Why do you suppose that Joseph had to leave and go to Egypt? Now, there are some really cool observations that you could make, but this is a really obvious one.

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They were killing the infants, and Jesus was an infant who could actually be killed.

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You know, I mean, somehow, and maybe it's just my thinking, but somehow

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I think, or maybe it's Hollywood, we tend to think of Jesus as being, until he goes to the cross, that he could not have suffered, he could not have died, he could not, you know, nothing could have, well, we know that from the divine side that's true, but from the human side, he could have been killed.

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And so we have to think about those things and consider them, but I was thinking this week, as I really would invite you to open your

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Bibles to James 1, and looking, beginning at verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted,

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I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

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But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

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Now, just think, thinking for a moment about the humanity of Jesus, how does this, or what would this, how would we apply this to the humanity of Jesus?

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That concept, or what's taught here in James chapter 1. How would you look at that and say, okay, now

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I understand how Jesus resisted temptation, Charlie.

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Okay, his human nature could be tempted, so then why didn't he sin? Okay, he had divine mastery over sin, that would be one answer, but what does that then lend itself toward, right?

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If I say Jesus was God in the flesh, and therefore, temptation came upon him, and he said, you know,

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I'm Superman, those bullets bounce off me. That means nothing to me. I'm tempted, but I feel nothing.

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Brian. Okay, I think that's really close to exactly what

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I'm looking for. He had a desire to obey the Father that superseded anything. No sin nature, very key.

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Okay, again, I think that's right. He had a desire to serve God and to be focused on, but again, looking at this passage,

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Becky, did you have? Okay, and I think this is right.

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This is what happens to us. A temptation comes along and what do we do? We consider the pluses and minuses.

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We think about it, we go, well, I kind of like to. Look at what it says in verse 14, but each is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire, and I think you said something that was right on the mark, you know, in terms of the sin nature, but I think more than that, it's just this consideration of sin.

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Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit, and we looked at the fruits of the

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Spirit last week, Galatians 5. What happens? He's focused on honoring the

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Father. These things are all true, but ultimately this temptation comes to him, and does he mull it over in his mind?

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Does he think about it? Does he consider it? No. No. Why?

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Because it has no lure for him. It's not something that he goes, you know what? This might be something

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I would want to do. It's not something he wants to do because it would take him, well, first of all, if he sinned, there'd be a major problem, but secondly, this is, he has a singular focus, and that is on honoring the

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Lord, as Brad said, and that's honoring his Father, obeying him, but there's not even a consideration for him.

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He's not going to allow, he's not going to, you know, mull it over, and I think that's really, it's a good example for us.

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Why? Because sometimes we want to, I mean, I've read where people say they want to get as close to sinning as they can without sinning.

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Well, they're probably already in sin. The idea would be to stay as far away from sin as possible, and for the

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Lord, I think it's plain as we even look, let's just look at Mark chapter 4.

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Pastor can go over this part here this morning. Again, as we consider the humanity of Jesus, I'm sorry,

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I meant Matthew chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, then

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Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

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Well, yeah, for me, you know, 40 hours would be a long time, for a teenager is 40 minutes.

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And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

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But he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

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Then the devil took him to the holy city and sat him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the

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Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will give his command, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

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Now, as we read that, I mean, obviously it's not really, we don't have a sense of the time.

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Oh, and I wanted to keep going a little bit here to the point, well, let's just keep reading in verse 7.

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Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

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And he said to him, all these I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, be gone,

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Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

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Then the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

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Now, when you see that last phrase, angels came and were ministering to him, what do you think? Well, let me put it another way.

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If Jesus in his deity, in his Godhood, if he's standing there and Satan comes up and says, these are the things

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I'm going to offer you. And so these are, you know, to use a crude analogy, these are bullets coming against Superman.

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These do not trouble him. You know, you see the movie or the comic portrayals of Superman and what does he do?

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He is kind of saying he doesn't duck or cower. Why would he? The bullets can't hurt him.

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So he just stands there and you know, and then he takes the guns away, breaks them in half, whatever. If Jesus is standing there as God, well, as God and temptations come along, then what?

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They mean absolutely nothing to him. He's impervious to them. He feels nothing.

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But if we look at the end there, angels came and were ministering to him.

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Well, in his humanity, how do you think it was? It was stressful. He was in the presence of Satan.

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I'm sure there was some pull. If only, you know, the idea, if I follow him in my humanity, if I follow him theoretically, then

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I get out of what lies in front of me. That thought may have popped into his head. We don't know.

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It's not here. But what we know for sure is it was hard. He was weak, 40 days, no food.

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I don't think it was simple, you know, just be gone, done, easy, five minutes worth of temptation.

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It was over. I think there was a struggle here. And not because he actually could have fallen, but because he actually was tempted.

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It was difficult. But I think it's just interesting to think about this is not, this is not someone who is impervious, who is immune, who has absolutely no thought of these things, but this is somebody who is spirit filled and thus is able to resist these temptations.

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Let's just kind of go back to where we have been. Just talking about the importance of the

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Holy Spirit in the work and the ministry of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Ware asked this on page 31.

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He says, how did Jesus live his life of obedience, resisting temptation and carrying out perfectly the will of the

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Father? And the typical evangelical answer he said was because he was

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God. And I'll move quickly through this, but Ware said, we read this last week, if Jesus was perfectly obedient because he was perfectly

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God, then how can we, his followers, be called to live like him, to imitate

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Christ, to follow in his footsteps? We are not God and therefore it's not even fair.

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And I remember, if you recall, I talked about how when Ware was a young man and he heard this, a boy even, and he heard this and he just thought, well, it's not fair.

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Jesus is God. Of course these things were easy for him, but they weren't easy.

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Otherwise we would not have an empathetic high priest, one who understands our struggles, even our failures.

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Hebrews 4 .15 says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

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He didn't consider these things long enough or, you know, fail in any way to reject them.

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Nevertheless, he did feel the tug of them. And we said last week, or we asked the question, what could the

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Holy Spirit do for the deity of Christ? In other words, can

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God come alongside God and strengthen him, undergird him?

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No. God comes alongside man, the man Christ Jesus, and gives him supernatural power.

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We read Isaiah 11, Luke 4 last week, and just finally in review when

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Ware's talking about Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 61. He says, so when you put these two texts from Isaiah together, you realize that the role of the

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Spirit on the coming Messiah will be to empower his inner life and character, to fill his mind with knowledge and wisdom, but also to empower his ministry.

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Both inward character and outward conduct then are tied to the empowering work that the

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Holy Spirit will perform on the coming anointed one of God. Thoughts or questions before we move on?

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Brian? Well, I think that's true. I mean, if, you know, do we consider, to just repeat for the purpose of the tape, do we consider, you know, what sin is in the we contemplate sinning and when we actually fall into sin?

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I think that's a good thought. And I would go, I would take it a slightly different way, though, just in keeping of thinking of Jesus as being empowered by the

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Spirit when the Spirit comes upon him at the beginning of his ministry when he's baptized. Here's what

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I say, you know, sin is for the Christian because we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, yes?

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So how is it that people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit can then go on in sin, sometimes in very grievous and serious ways?

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How do we do that? And I, please, don't want any examples. How do we do that?

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Okay, so I would summarize that because I want to summarize it this way, by saying that we're not completely surrendered to the

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Spirit, which I think is, you know, the bottom line of that, yes, I think that's true. We have the presence of the

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Holy Spirit, but here's what I, the way I like to phrase it, to kind of flip it around, is that we like to, when we sin, what we're really doing is basically saying instead of, depart from me,

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Satan, how about this, depart from me, Holy Spirit. I have something that I want to do that's not

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God's will, stay away from me. To be kind of stupidly funny about it,

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I say that I send the Holy Spirit on a vacation because if I'm Spirit -filled, then what does

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Galatians 5 say? It describes my life in a way that sometimes I would not recognize.

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I'd have to go up to the verses right above that to see the parts that I don't want to see.

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But when I'm controlled by the Holy Spirit, when I'm thinking rightly, when my mind is filled with the

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Word of God, then I don't sin. Why? Because I'm focused on the things of the

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Lord, I'm focused on His will, I'm focused on the Spirit that indwells me. So, yeah,

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I think those things are correct and I think it's just a matter of,

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Brian's question again, or your comment.

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I want to make sure we, and I think that's a good question because here's what

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I want to do is, I don't want to make, Jesus is not of two minds in the sense that He has a line drawn down the brain where, not

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His physical brain, but His mind, His control center as it were, where part of it is deity, part of it is humanity, and it's like a shoulder,

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He has a shoulder where He has the angel and the devil on. Oh, you really want to do that? No, you don't because it's not like that.

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So, I think we want to avoid saying that He could see this as, these temptations as in His deity, but He responded to them in His humanity or something like that.

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He is one whole person, but I think it's important again to stress the kenosis, which is the self -emptying where He lays aside the exercise of His power, not just His privilege but of His power as God.

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He's not walking around as God, He suffers as a man, He experiences life as a human being, fully as we do.

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So, I think, here's what I would say, like in these temptations here in Matthew chapter 4, perhaps somebody wants to debate this, but wouldn't you say that it is right to think that Jesus is surrendered to the

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Holy Spirit here? The Holy Spirit is in control so that when these temptations come, even though in His humanity there is a tug, there is a pull, you know, yes,

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I'm hungry, yes, you know, some of these things have some attraction to me, but being filled with the

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Holy Spirit, you know, thus answering from Scripture and thinking rightly about things,

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He rejects them, but not, He doesn't reject them as God per se, but as man.

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And it's important that He experiences those things as a man. He's tempted in all ways as we are,

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Charlie. Well, I think you're letting

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Adam off the hook actually. I mean, you know, for sometimes, let's just think about this comparison because I think it is an apt comparison,

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Jesus and Adam and, you know, calling Jesus Adam 2 .0 I think is right, right?

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He's the second Adam. So, as Adam was tempted in the garden, you know, standing next to Eve and what happens, you know,

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Satan comes along in Genesis chapter 3 and does what? Presents the Word of God, but presents part of the

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Word of God, you know, twisted. Plays a little Scripture twist, you know, he was the first bad teacher.

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And Eve swallows hook, line, and sinker. Now, they had, I like to say, you know, there are only three people in the

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Bible who have free will meaning they have no sin nature, none. It's Adam, Eve, and Jesus and they have no sin nature because Adam and Eve, you know, are before the fall.

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So, it was after that that they had a sin nature, but they have the capacity and the reason why it's hard, you know, sometimes it's hard to even feel sorry for them, sorry, because they had perfect fellowship with God.

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Perfect fellowship with God. They knew exactly who He was. There was no mystery. They'd heard the words of God.

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It wasn't like they, you know, they studied the Bible and went home on a Sunday afternoon and just thought, you know, I don't really know what it means.

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They heard Him say it and then they sinned anyway. They rebelled anyway.

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So, I think your comparison is apt, but what I want to stress here is I don't think

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Jesus is tempted by Satan in Matthew chapter 4 in His deity.

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I don't think He's, you know, and that's the point of this whole thing is in Philippians chapter 2,

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He lays aside the exercise, the privileges, the power, and He lives life as a man, but without a sin nature, but with the

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Holy Spirit. And why is He our example? Because even though we do have a sin nature, we also have what?

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The Holy Spirit. So, if we are, and I'll go back to Galatians chapter 5, if we are living in a

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Spirit -controlled way, then we exhibit the fruits of the Spirit. We're self -controlled. We have all these other things going on.

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So, temptation comes, you know, when, you know, it's almost like you want to say, I wish

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I had big muscles and I could flex them, but you want to say, I resisted that temptation. Well, if you did, you know, you just succumbed to the temptation of pride, so good and bad.

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But, if you resisted temptation, well why was that? It was the

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Holy Spirit. You know, Jesus experienced everything as we do, yet without sin.

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Well, how was that possible? Well, if He, and this is, again, the point of this book, if He did it as God, then it's, you know, the bread and the person with celiac disease, you know, example, well, it didn't really appeal to Him in the first place, and so, you know, what's the big deal?

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God is, it cannot be tempted, James 1 says. So, God cannot be tempted.

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Well, then that temptation was not real. It was real. It wore Him out. It was hard, but He resisted, and how did

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He resist? He resisted by the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit, by the way, in Matthew chapter 4 that sent

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Him out into the wilderness in the first place, let Him out. I think other interpretations, other translations will say impelled, pushed

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Him out in the wilderness. You know, Jesus, it's time to go out in the spirit, or out in the wilderness, you know, let's go.

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And, you know, then Satan kind of gets to take over and do what he does, but the point is, yeah,

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He's the second, the second Adam, but one who perfectly obeys, but if He is

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God there, then if He's acting as God, as with all of His powers, then does that really accrue the righteousness that we need?

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You know, that 33 years of living a spotless, sinless life so that when He goes to the cross,

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He can be our substitute because He did live, even as we do, but without sin.

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Does that make sense? Okay. Yes. Right.

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Yeah, I think that's a good point because, you know, we know that Jesus, even though He was tempted, and even though those were real temptations, and even though He really felt the pull of them,

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He never desired to sin. He never thought to Himself, boy, wish I could sin. No, because why did

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He come? You know, we've read this. Why did He come? To do the will of the Father, to obey the

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Father perfectly, to do exactly what God had designed, but it was not easy. You know,

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I mean, I guess coming from my background and maybe some of your backgrounds, you know, we tend to think, well, that life was pretty much a piece of cake for Him, that He just came down and, you know,

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He did what God does. He never sinned. Of course He never sinned. It wasn't like that.

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Now, let's go to Matthew chapter 12, and I want to ask this question, you know, because it is, we see this,

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I mean, even as I've just been thinking about this, and you read the Gospels, and over and over and over again, we see the

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Holy Spirit. I mean, it's amazing to me, because I always thought, you know, the Holy Spirit was kind of like, other than Pentecost, was

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He really that involved with a lot of the Bible? And, yeah, I think He really is. Matthew chapter 12, and I'm going to read a rather long passage here, starting in verse 9,

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He went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand.

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And they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him? He said to them, which one of you has a sheep, which one of you has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the

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Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep?

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So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

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And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him.

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Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make it known.

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This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, behold, my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.

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I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

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A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory.

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And in his name the Gentiles will hope. Now verse 22, then a demon -oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.

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And all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.

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Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

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And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

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And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?

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Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

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Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?

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Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

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Verse 31, therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but, except, underline, underscore, the blasphemy against the

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Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

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Now why is he pronouncing that curse upon people who speak against the Holy Spirit?

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Oh, ye bold theologians. Brian, they're attributing the work of God, who is the

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Holy Spirit, to Satan. And how does he do that, he says, by the

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Spirit of God. In fact, I have a few notes here. Do the words of Jesus in verse 17 sound familiar?

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They come from Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and the Lord God is upon me, and he read that in a passage we read last week.

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But Jesus says their sins cannot be forgiven because their sin is against the Holy Spirit. And look at verse 28 when he says, if, if I cast this out, this demon out by the power of the

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Spirit, it's not a possibility, if, you know, it's not that kind of if. No one disputes that Jesus delivered this man from possession.

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There's no argument about that. The issue is, by what power, right? So let's think about this, the two choices that Jesus presents.

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One is Satan, or, you know, this is what they accuse him of, Satan or the

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Spirit of God. If it is Satan, Jesus says, well, then he works against himself, which is stupid.

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Why would Jesus or why would Satan cast out Satan? He says a house divided against itself, you know, cannot stand.

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If it is the Holy Spirit, however, he says they have sinned against him, against the

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Holy Spirit. So it's pretty simple. If one answer is obviously foolish, the other one is correct.

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So the opponents of Jesus have a few problems here. First of all, the Old Testament has many prophecies of a

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Messiah who brings in or ushers the kingdom of God and the Messiah would do exactly this kind of work, setting the captives of Satan free from their bondage.

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Regarding the kingdom of God, just a brief note in the MacArthur Study Bible, it says, you know, if I've done this by the power of the

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Spirit, then the kingdom of God is upon you. MacArthur says that was precisely true.

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The power, he showed it by demonstrating his ability to bind Satan and his demons.

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Now MacArthur's correct, but there are two questions here. Number one, was the power of Jesus, Son of God on display or that of the

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Spirit? Well, he already told us it was by the Spirit of God. And secondly, in what sense was the kingdom present?

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And as we'll see either today or next week, if it was the total fulfillment of the kingdom, then we've got a few issues.

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But we'll table that here for the moment. And let's move on to Acts chapter 10 because I want to look at how the

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Apostles saw the man, Christ Jesus, and his ministry after the resurrection, post -resurrection

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Jesus. How did they look at him? What did they say? Acts chapter 10, beginning in verse 24.

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And on the following day, they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called them, or had called together his relatives and close friends.

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When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him.

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But Peter lifted him up saying, stand up, I too am a man. And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered.

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And he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation.

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But God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when

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I was sent for, I came without objection. I asked then why you sent for me? And Cornelius said four days ago about this hour,

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I was praying in my house at the ninth hour. And behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing and said,

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Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God.

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Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon a tanner by the sea.

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So I sent for you at once and you have been kind enough to come. Now, therefore, we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the

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Lord. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation who fears him and does what is right or every sorry, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

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As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is

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Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed, how

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God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him.

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And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

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They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear.

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Now, first of all, did Peter just preach the gospel? Yes. I'm going to give it a hearty amen.

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He went to Caesarea to preach to Cornelius and other Gentiles. He understood that Jesus was

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God. Remember, he worshipped him, but he also even refers to him here as Lord of all, clearly understands that he's

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God, but he doesn't really stress the deity of Christ here. He mentions it.

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He certainly gets to that, but he talks about his ministry. And it's interesting, if he wanted to just stress the deity of Christ, would he say something like in verse 38, how

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God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power?

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I think he's really stressing his humanity. He wants them to understand that he was a man. He had a place that he was from.

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He was a historical figure. And then he was anointed by the Holy Spirit and empowered for ministry.

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Kistemacher says, Peter presents his gospel account in chronological order. For at the baptism of Jesus, the

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Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove. God anointed Jesus with the spirit and with power to enable him to fulfill the messianic prophecy.

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That is, God equipped Jesus for the special task of preaching and healing. The term power points to the work that Jesus was able to do through the indwelling spirit.

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Jesus withstood Satan, cast out demons, healed the crippled and the sick, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead, and proclaimed the gospel.

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How did he do that? Peter says it was by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Questions or comments?

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We probably ought not to just go to the next section. Yes, Marie? Yeah, this was the first example of meals for someone.

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No, sorry. I don't really know. I mean, I didn't look up the

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Greek word to see what all it might entail with regard to ministering to him, but, you know,

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I would not rule out food. So, excuse me,

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I don't know exactly in what sense they ministered to him, but I think it's certain that, you know, after 40 days of fasting,

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I don't think he, you know, would not be right for us to think of him as physically strong because he'd be weak from the lack of food.

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And I think, you know, psychologically, mentally, this would be taxing, draining.

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So, I think if you put together the physical weakness, I'd just say it's oppressive, you know, to be in the presence of Satan and, you know, to have the kind of, to experience that as a man and to feel kind of the tug and the pull.

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And, you know, here's the thing we need to think about Satan for just a moment. If we think about him, you know, in the

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Garden of Eden, he's a snake. Well, I don't know. It doesn't say exactly in what sense he appeared to Jesus.

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But if you wanted to appeal to his humanity, my guess is he probably appeared as an angel of light, something appealing.

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He doesn't show up, you know, with horns and a tail and, you know, spewing fire and stuff like that and going, let me tell you something,

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I'd like to help you out. You know, this isn't, I just had the picture of Michael Keaton burst in my,

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I mean, he's not some kind of demonic, evil -looking, you know, being.

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Again, he's going to be, portray himself in the best possible way to try to lure

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Jesus into falling. Because Satan, in his own mind, he's not thinking, I'm going to lose this.

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He's thinking, I'm going to convince Jesus to fall. Charlie? I think that's a great point.

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I mean, if you're going to compare the two, and we are, you know, we're going to talk about Adam and Eve and Jesus.

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I mean, Jesus is out in the wilderness, right? I mean, this is like the gunfight kind of scenario, you know, he's in the dusty old west.

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I mean, this is not a great place to be. Adam and Eve are in a place of perfect, all their needs are met.

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There is no, you know, they're living under the canopy, not to get too Genesis 1 on you, but they're in a perfect environment.

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There is, you know, not only no sin, no illness, you know, no animals killing each other.

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There's nothing going on. Everything is wonderful. You know, this is, if we say Edenic, we'd be exactly right.

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I mean, this is paradise. There are no bills to pay. There are no pressures.

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There are no Romans oppressing your people. There's nothing going on like that. They've got an idyllic, perfect environment, and yet they fall.

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Jesus has, as we read, you know, 40 days of no food. He's got a lot of other things to consider.

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They're about to start his ministry and he's under, you know, all the tugs and all the invitations and all the kind of, every trick that Satan has,

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I'm sure was displayed here because he wants Jesus to fall. He wants to short circuit the thing.

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You know, why did Satan try to kill baby Jesus through Herod? To stop the whole plan of salvation.

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Why does he try to tempt Jesus here to stop the plan of salvation? Why does he do everything along the line? Because he's trying to thwart

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God and ultimately win out. And here, getting back to your question, you know, in what sense or in what way did they minister to him?

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Well, I think Charlie's right. I mean, I'm certain that they came around him. Did they bring food? I don't know, but I'm certain that whatever they did, you know, it could be just as the spirit impelled him out into the wilderness, that the angels helped him back, you know, from the wilderness because it's not like he had attendants out there, you know, or took a horse or anything like that.

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I mean, he just went out there. So, you know, maybe they gave him the strength he needed to get back. It doesn't really say.

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It just says that they ministered to him. So, I mean, that would be supposition.

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All right. We need to close in prayer, but we'll pick this up next week. Father, we thank you for the perfect life of your son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, who came to earth, suffered, was tempted, tried, lived exactly as we do, saw all of the suffering, all the difficulty of life, and yet sinned in no way, was perfect every moment of every day.

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Father, by your spirit, would you teach us to rely on you, to be focused on you, to let us better emulate the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We will never attain perfection in this life, but Father, by your grace, by your spirit, by your word, would you form in us

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Jesus Christ that we might be more resistant to the temptations that are common to our daily lives.