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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/scott-macleod/the-temptation-of-jesus/
Now let's turn in our Bibles to Psalm number 78, please. Psalm number 78. Nice to see everyone today. Thank you for coming. A few words on the Lord Jesus. I've been enjoying the temptation of the Lord Jesus.
And we'll just look first in Psalm 78. Look at verse number 18. You might not see the obvious connection with this being with a temptation, but we'll try to explain it in a minute. Psalm number 78 and verse 18.
This is a lovely summary of the children of Israel in the wilderness, verse 18. And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God. They said, can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Behold, he smote the rock and the waters gushed out and the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his people? So it's pretty obvious that they tempted God in relation to God's provision is what we discover in those verses.
Now look at verse 40. The title that you could put over these next couple of verses would be God's protection. Look at verse number 40. How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness and grieve him in the desert?
Yea, they turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not his hand. Think of that hand of Jehovah that guided them out of Egypt. And now they're sort of questioning it.
Nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy, how he had wrought his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the field of Zion and so on. Go down to verse number 54. This little section can be summarized, they would question God's purpose.
You'll discover in verse 54 that, and he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, right to the land of Canaan, even to this mountain which his right hand had purchased. He cast out the heathen also before them and divided them in inheritance by line and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
Yea, they tempted and provoked the Most High God and kept not his testimonies and turned back and dealt on faithfully like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow for they provoked him to anger with their high places and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.
So when it came to God's provision and God's protection and God's purpose, we can see that the nation completely failed. And not a wonder they wandered for 40 years in the desert and you can go through their history and discover that God on one point would say, at least 10 times they provoked me to anger.
So it's kind of a sad, sad thing to have to write over the nation of Israel that God redeemed out of Egypt. Now let's go to Matthew chapter four into the New Testament and we'll read the gospel's account of the temptation of the Lord Jesus.
Matthew chapter four, of course we all know that the Lord Jesus comes from the nation of Israel and where the nation, the reason we read Psalm 78 because where the nation failed, the Lord Jesus is not going to fail.
And we all know that the Lord Jesus was tempted three different times. That is recorded for us. And those three that we're gonna look at, they will touch on God's provision, God's protection and God's purpose.
So where the nation failed, the Lord Jesus excelled, which is beautiful. Matthew chapter four in verse number one, and here's what we read. And just notice the lovely title, Jesus. Then was Jesus led up of the spirit.
I want you to notice that, led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward a hungered. That's incredible. After 40 days and 40 nights of not eating, he was hungered.
Not during it. That's amazing. Verse three, and when the tempter, the devil, came to him, he said, if thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Quotation from Deuteronomy. Verse five, then the devil taketh him up into the holy city. Now that would be Jerusalem. And saideth him on a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
It's amazing that the devil did not read the next verse. That's homework for you. Because the next verse talks about the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, treading on the head of the serpent. The devil didn't want to quote that part.
Anyway, the devil is never so deceitful when he's quoting the word of God. Desperate deceitful. Verse seven, Jesus said unto him, it is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Once again, from Deuteronomy.
Verse eight, again the devil taketh them up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and said unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou will fall down and worship me.
Then said Jesus unto him, get thee hence Satan. Now that's a command. Get thee hence. It's interesting that that's when the devil leaves. What I find interesting about this attempt, I'll get a little ahead of myself, but that's okay.
This temptation did not initiate with the devil. It was of the spirit of God. And the spirit of God took the Lord Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. But what I love about this little part is this, it didn't end when the devil was done.
It ended when the Lord Jesus ended it. That is beautiful. Get thee hence Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Now just go to Mark chapter one. Keep your finger in Matthew, because we'll come right back to this in a minute. Mark chapter one only has a couple of verses. Mark is gonna give us the servant. Matthew presents us the king of Israel, king of the Jews.
Mark presents us the servant of Jehovah. Another number of interesting expressions that we have here. Mark chapter one and verse 12. Actually, I'd like to pick up at verse number nine, because the temptation follows right after the baptism of the Lord Jesus.
Verse nine, and it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized of John in Jordan, and straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens open, and the spirit like a dove descending upon him, and there came a voice from heaven saying, now notice, thou art my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased.
And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness 40 days tempted of Satan and was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered unto him. Now go to Luke chapter four.
Luke chapter four, the gospel of Luke chapter four. I know this is a very common event in the life of the Lord Jesus. But it's nice to spend a few minutes just meditating upon it. Luke chapter four. Luke is going to present us the son of man.
His humanity is going to come before us quite a bit. And it's interesting, the different words that are even in different thoughts that are brought before us. Luke four, verse one, only Luke is going to tell us this.
And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost. Now I can guarantee you that there's not one of us in this building understand what that means. We cannot relate to that. I was thinking of it as I was going over this.
We're all familiar with graphs. You go and you get your heart tested and you see that thing moving. I thought if God put something on me to measure just how full Scott McCloud is of the spirit of God.
Oh, I had the spirit of God. But how in control is the spirit of God of every part of me? I don't know how high the needle would move off the bottom of the page. I'm hoping there might be one or two little beep.
But I can be used to the spirit of God one minute and five minutes down the road, I'm in the flesh. But this is something so unique. This is the only man that ever walked upon the face of this earth that the spirit of God had complete access to every part, body, soul and spirit.
It's amazing to think. Getting ahead of myself here. Let's finish reading. Getting a little excited up here. And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led. Notice that, was led by the spirit into the wilderness.
Being 40 days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing. And when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, if thou be the son of God, command this stone. It's interesting that Matthew is looking at the plural stones and the plural bread, where Luke is just one stone, one loaf.
That's kind of, I don't really know the answer to that. I shouldn't say I don't really know the answer. I don't know the answer to that. If someone does have an answer, help me. Command this stone that it be made bread.
And Jesus answered him saying, it is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil take him up into a high mountain. Now, the reason I'm reading all of the accounts is, you'll notice that Luke is reversing the order that we have in the Gospel of Matthew.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the high mountain comes at the end. It's number three, we would say. But here it's number two. So we have to find out just which is the proper order. Matthew five, sorry, verse five of Matthew four.
And the devil take them up into a high mountain and showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me.
And to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou therefore will worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
And he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down from hence, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee.
And in their hands, they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, it is said, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, notice temptation in the singular, not temptations.
I always used to think that we are looking at temptations of the Lord Jesus, but this is a singular. The whole 40 days was looked upon as one temptation. He departed from him for a season. Here's something unique to Luke, verse 14.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. Now we will look to the Lord to give help with what we have upon our mind.
Now, let's just start very simply to help with the order. Matthew is gonna take us from the desert to the city of Jerusalem and into the high mountain. Luke is gonna take us and reverse two and three.
So which is the proper order? Well, that's why I read in Psalm 78, because I think Psalm 78 gives us the order and I believe Matthew picks it up. So I think Luke has given us a moral, there's something, there's some spiritual teaching that he's given us for reversing two and three, but I think the chronological order lines up with how the children of Israel failed.
And that's brought before us in Psalm 78. But I want you to come to this for a minute, the temptation of the Lord Jesus. Now the devil twice, I want you to get this, is gonna say, if thou be the son of God.
Now in our English language, we use if in two different ways the same as they do in Greek. If possibility or if of since, we do the same thing. Well, if he's gonna do that, I'm gonna do that. It's since.
The devil heard the word from heaven. This is my beloved son. So when you're reading this little account, just replace the word if with, since thou be the son of God. The devil knew who he was dealing with.
And that almost makes it more amazing to think that the devil would have the audacity to try to tempt the son of God. That is hard for my mind to understand. I want you to come with me on the Jordan, the baptism.
People were coming out to be baptized by John the Baptist, to be linked with the coming king. And the first thing they did before they were baptized is they were confessing their sins that you will read.
Now here's something very unique about the Lord Jesus. He comes to be baptized, no sin to be confessed. The people saw that. The devil saw that. And into the waters he goes. And instead of him confessing, now heaven confesses the father.
This is my beloved son in whom I'm well-pleased. Then we go to the gospel of Mark. Immediately, the spirit driveth him. A strong word. Into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Why would Mark use that?
The gospel of Matthew is gonna use the idea that the spirit of God led him up. Mark says the spirit driveth him. Luke says he was led of the spirit. Do you know what I was enjoying about that little expression in the gospel of Mark?
The spirit driveth him. Mark is presenting to us the perfect servant of Jehovah. We all know that. Do you wanna know how instantaneously Christ as a servant would respond to the spirit of God? Immediately.
And therefore the spirit could drive him. There was no resistance. There was no hesitation. Like let's just use ourselves for an example. And this is amazing to think of. I often know the Lord's will by hindsight.
I'm looking back going, oh, that kind of worked out well. Thank you, Lord. Well, I'll admit to you that I'm not too confident a lot of the times going forward. And when something is being impressed upon me, I trust by God, by the spirit of God.
Do you know what I end up doing a lot of times? I'm hesitant. I'm wondering. Well, okay, okay, it seems to be lining up Lord. Okay, I need a little more, a little more encouragement. And I might take, let me be generous.
I might take a week to try to figure out is this what God wants me to do? But here is the man Christ Jesus so controlled by the spirit of God, so in touch with his heavenly father that the spirit of God in a moment of time could just drive him and automatically, instantaneously, the human will would respond to that direction of the spirit of God.
Listen, it delights the heart of God when we obey his voice. It delights the spirit of God when the spirit of God is able to move us to do something for God. I was trying to think of it. What delight must have filled the heart of the spirit to have such control over such a person?
Just instantaneous being able to direct him. Not a ripple of hesitation in his mind, the Lord Jesus, in his heart, or in his feet, or his hands. This is God's son that we're looking at. This is wonderful dear child of God.
This is the sinless son of God. Now, come over to the gospel of Matthew. Why would the gospel of Matthew use this very, it doesn't seem right, the spirit of God led up, led him up to be tempted. A temptation to me is being led down.
But such was the delight of the spirit of God that he could lead him up to higher ground to be tempted. Knowing the outcome of the temptation, there was no question as to how this temptation was gonna end up.
This was only going to not refine the Lord Jesus, no. This was only gonna bring to the surface the refinement. Naturally, if I use that word, naturally there. Essentially his. Amazing to think of that.
If, listen, listen, I'm gonna be honest with you. I do not believe that the spirit of God could lead me to a temptation. Because I don't even know how I'm gonna turn out. I pray and I hope that I'll be given help and grace and I'll do the right thing in the moment.
But here's the spirit of God, not only driving him and him just responding automatically. Now the spirit's perspective is, this is gonna be a good thing. This is gonna thrill the heart of God. Then you come to the gospel of Luke, you got the idea he was led, he was following.
My, how he followed the spirit of God. Wonderful to be driven, but then to be following the spirit of God is an amazing thing. Now, I wanna talk for a minute just on something that we need to firmly grasp a hold of.
The sinless perfection of the Lord Jesus. This is paramount today. There are people, and I've heard them say this, the Lord Jesus could have sinned, but he chose not to sin. Utter blasphemy, utter blasphemy.
If that is the case, you would have to say, the Lord Jesus in heaven could sin right now, but he chooses not to sin. Absolutely impossible for the Lord Jesus to commit sin. Absolutely impossible. Thank God he did not sin, but thank God he could not sin.
We are dealing with God manifested in the flesh. So do not try to work backwards from your temptation and try to figure out how did he respond. We are looking at someone totally unique. Now, here's another thing that needs to be firmly grasped.
The humanity of the Lord Jesus is sinless, and it wasn't sinless because of his deity. You say, why is that important? Because then you're given a reason for the sinless perfection of the humanity of Christ.
It's because of deity. Word of God never does that. The Word of God will give us examples all through the Old Testament, trying to emphasize for us the absolute sinless purity of the Son of God. It's amazing when you go through the offerings, you'll notice if you have a Newberry Bible, water, the animals were killed and they were washed with water.
But it's not just water. You'll notice it has three little bars by it. Waters, doesn't even make sense in English. There was something that God was trying to convey. Water's the idea of cleansing, purification.
And here's this innocent animal affected by sin. And God is making sure you put all kinds of water on that thing. Why? Because coming down the road would be one that would be above sin. Absolutely not even tainted by sin.
Now here's another thing to get a hold of. Please, brethren, when you pray, do not say that the Lord Jesus is innocent. He's not innocent. Adam was innocent. Innocent humanity. Innocence is the idea of someone who's naive.
Someone who is capable of falling. Go through the word of God, you'll find three distinct types of human nature. Innocent humanity, sinless humanity, sinless humanity in Christ. Those words, I have betrayed the innocent blood, came from the mouth of an apostate that's in hell today.
That was as high as he could get, thinking upon the Lord Jesus. He's just innocent. My and your salvation rests on the absolute truth that Christ is sinless. Absolutely. If he's only innocent, we're still in our sins, going to hell.
Get a hold of that. So important to get a hold of that. So I'm looking at this temptation, and I'm just thinking to myself, 40 days without food. Think of it. Now, my wife did a fast a number of years ago.
She wanted to try a 10-day fast. I don't really know why anybody would want to do that, but anyway, whatever. Fill your boots. If that's what floats your boat, go ahead. She said, you know, Scott, what the hardest day was?
Day number three. The longing to eat. Now, she's just on a juice fast, you know. The longing to have solid food in your mouth and in your belly. The hardest day was day number three. And then after day three, it's almost like her whole metabolism just slowed right down, and then she just leveled out.
There's no problem after that. But now we're talking 40 days. 40 days. That's the word of God trying to position for us. But this is what we assume. But the word of God never does this. It only tells us he was hungered, but it doesn't tell us he was weak.
I've heard so many people. Well, the reason, I'm coming ahead now. The reason that they had to ask that man to help the Lord carry the cross is because he was weak. Word of God never positions or frames the Lord Jesus as being weak.
We almost, like you said, we're working backwards. Well, they beat him. They laid his back open like a plowed field. They, all sorts of stuff. Wouldn't he naturally be weak? But isn't it amazing how the spirit of God guards the person of the Lord Jesus?
Why am I emphasizing that? Listen, young Christian, get a hold of this. When you're thinking about Christ, when you're praying, when you're giving ministry, use the words of scripture. Don't go beyond it.
Don't go adding in your logic sense of thinking, trying to understand the Lord Jesus. Take what has been recorded for us. After all, we're dealing with God's beloved son. We don't want to make a mistake here.
We want to handle him very carefully, okay? So just remember, 40 days of not eating. Then it says he's hungered. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you the little simple thought I was enjoying from that. We are looking at a man that is unaffected by sin.
Mind, heart, and body. You and I have no idea the capability, the strength of this human frame unaffected by sin.
Because we are affected by sin. And as we age, do we not feel it? We're getting weaker.
Our minds are getting duller. We just can't do the things that we used to do. But this is a man that was never affected by sin. What does that mean? Never was he sick. Think of it. His body was always running at 100 capacity.
His mind. Like I said, we are looking at something so unique here. What a pleasure he is to God. What a pleasure he is to us, just to be able to think upon. So here he is, driven of the spirit, led up of the spirit, led of the spirit.
Into the wilderness he goes, 40 days without food. There's the first temptation, bread. You know why the devil started there? Because the devil could go back maybe nearly 4 ,000 years ago, and there was a man and a woman fresh from the hand of God.
And you know what the very first temptation was? That fruit's good to eat. He peeled to the appetite. The body. Now I don't know about you, but I can guarantee you, if I was 40 days without food, and I had the power to turn a rock into bread, I wouldn't even wait for it to turn into bread.
I'd follow on and try to eat it. I'd be so hungry. Isn't it amazing, the Lord Jesus, do you know what filled his mind? Remember what Luke said? Full of the Holy Spirit. I was sick of those 40 days. He went into the temptation full.
Luke tells us he came out of the temptation under the power of the Spirit of God. And you could take those two points, and there was never a dip in the control of the Spirit of God. It was just one straight line.
He couldn't be any fuller of the Spirit of God. Couldn't be any more controlled. And the Lord Jesus just dips back into Deuteronomy. No, man is to live by every word of God. But I thought, how little I am personally thrown off reading.
Can we all just sort of stop for a minute and say, what really is my personal desire to the Word of God? If I was in the middle of enjoying an amazing study, and my wife called me for dinner, would I say, oh, just put it on a plate, I'll get it later.
I'm being fed so marvelously here, I don't wanna leave it. Would we do that? I thought just anything, how easily I'm throwing off of the food that is right here in this marvelous book. I was thinking of the Father watching His Son in that desert.
No other eye saw Him. Do you know what the Father enjoyed for those 40 days? What He enjoyed from all of eternity?
Just thrilled His heart. That's something. Just look at that, look at it. Look at my Son.
Tremendous to thank, dear child of God. So much delight. You know, I wanna move quickly. The devil takes Him up to the pinnacle of a hill. You know what he does? He shows Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Amazing to think, you know this from the Gospel of Luke, the devil said to the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, God manifests in the flesh, all this has been given to me. And the Lord Jesus never argued with him.
He never said, no, you're not right. Do you know what the devil was referring to? Way back in the book of Genesis, when Adam, who was the federal head given by God, decided to listen to the devil. And when he partook of that fruit, you know what Adam did?
He literally figuratively took the keys of the dominion of this world, and he literally handed them over to the devil. And the devil from that day has been the federal head of this fallen world. And the devil does, you can go through the Old Testament and you can see his activities in the different kingdoms of the world, and he can raise people up.
Now we understand God is over all, we understand that, but there's a tremendous amount of latitude that is given to the devil to give. But here's what I was thinking about. To the devil, it was glory and power.
That's what you read. He showed him all the kingdoms, the power and the glory of it. Would you like to know the effect it had on the Son of God? It just broke his heart. What the devil thought would be appealing, the Lord Jesus looked, and in his mind, I can see him as he just allows it go in a moment.
I didn't create this to be this way.
Look at the sin, look at the death.
I was thinking, there's a Christian brother I often stay with when I go to a certain place, and he has a home, nice home up in the mountain, Bradbury, California, and you go and sit at night in the living room, and it just, you look out through the view of two mountains, and you look at the Bradbury city below you, and the lights are twinkling, and to me, it's beautiful.
But if I had an ear that could hear the agony, the groan of sin in that city, I wouldn't think it'd be too beautiful what I'm looking at. And I thought, here's the devil thinking, oh, this is gonna get him, this is gonna appeal to him.
And once again, the Lord Jesus just quotes from the book of Deuteronomy. You know that all the quotations come from Deuteronomy. There's five books in the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy is one of them. My mind was going to little David.
He went down to that brook and he picked up five stones, but he only used one of them. And we might wonder, why did he pick the, well, what's with the other four? Well, you read ahead in the Old Testament, you'll discover that Goliath had four brothers.
And King David, he ended up taking out those four brothers. It's just, all these things have to have significance for a reason. What a thing it was, eh? After the whole temptations were over, Mark tells us he was with, while the temptations were going on, he was with the wild beasts.
Even they acknowledged their creator. I found it interesting that in the temptation, I was looking at it this way, God actually gave him something that would comfort him. Not only the word of God, but here were creatures that he had made.
And there was a fellowshiping, an enjoyment of one another. But then after it's all done, the devil leaves him. I was thinking of it from the angel's perspective. Here they are coming to their creator and they're ministering to him.
I wonder what they did. I wonder what they said. I'm sure they quoted parts of the Bible. You see, when we come to this for a minute, here's what I want to summarize with. What was wrong with the Lord Jesus turning a stone into bread?
He was hungry. What was wrong with it? Timing. The Lord Jesus was willing to wait for his father to give the needed bread. It wasn't going to be on my time. And I think that's one of the things the angels did when they came to minister to him.
They gave him bread, food. What's wrong with the other temptations? Well, let's take the one on the, for instance, let's take the one, I didn't touch the one in the city, the pinnacle, way up to the top of the pinnacle.
Go back and look at the context, all about the Messiah coming to Jerusalem to reign and being protected by God. What would be wrong with, well, the Bible says if you throw yourself down and you hurt, you're going to be picked up.
Do you know what the Lord Jesus didn't want to do? Get a hold of this. God does not have to be proven in order to be trusted. Do we ever get there? Okay, God, I know you're over all, I know. But could you just give me like a little sign, just a little indicator that I can trust you.
You know what the Lord Jesus said? I don't have to test him. I can have full confidence in the word of my God. Full confidence. What's wrong with the third temptation? Is the Lord Jesus not to be the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords?
Are not all the dominions? Listen, there was a cross that would be before glory. Now, let me ask you a question. If you and I had a choice, would we choose a path of suffering to get the glory or would I bypass it?
I'd be looking for a bypass right away. But here is the Lord Jesus as a perfect man. Willing, I am going to suffer and bring honor to my father before my father gives me the kingdoms of this world. Amazing to think, eh?
Isn't he a lovely person? Dear child of God, take time to meditate upon your savior. Think upon him. Put yourself right there in the wilderness with him and allow the spirit of God just to roll these things over your mind and you will go away with worship in your heart for such a perfect person.