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The Mush God, Nicholas Van Hoffman. The Mush God has been known to appear to millionaires on golf courses. He appears to politicians at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and to clergymen speaking the invocation on national TV, either Democratic or Republican conventions.
The Mush God has no theology to speak of, being a cream-of-wheat divinity. The Mush God has no particular credo, no tenets of faith, nothing that would make it difficult for believer and non-believer alike to lower one's head when the temporary chairman tells us that the reverend, rabbi, father, and so-and-so will lead us in an innocuous, harmless prayer.
For this God of the public occasion is not a jealous God. God of the rotary, God of the optimists, protector of the buddy system, the Mush God is the Lord of secular ritual, of the necessary but hypocritical forms and formalities that hush the divisive and the derisive.
The Mush God is a serviceable God whose laws are chiseled, not on tablets, but written on sand. Open to amendment, qualification, and erasure. This is a God that will compromise with you, the Mush God.
On the contrary, let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6 and see the only God, the real God, the God of the universe, Jesus Christ, probably the most narrow-minded person that ever lived, and if you agreed with him, you were right, and if you disagreed with him at any point, you were wrong, sometimes eternally wrong.
Here we open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus Christ, eternal God, begotten, not made, as the old statement of faith goes. And we'll see today Jesus Christ in all his glory, not only as he preaches in this passage, but also when we look at the great temptation in Matthew chapter 4.
I don't know about you, but I love to preach, and I love to hear sermons, and I thought to myself, seated right over there, this might be my last sermon I ever preach. This might be the last sermon you ever hear.
And when it comes to worship, I, this morning, with you, want to worship God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Not just singing, not just giving, but preaching and listening. We are now going to worship as we listen to the Word of God, and God in his wondrous wisdom makes us more like Christ when we hear preaching.
But I would encourage you this morning, if you will be active listeners, I will be an active preacher. How's that? If you will try to stay awake and listen and be engaged and say things like, God, thank you for teaching me this.
God, I fall short in this area, but I'm thankful that Christ never fell short in this area. God, I need grace from you so that I might obey. Then I think that is an honoring way to listen to a sermon.
If you'd like to critique my sermon, you can, but I'd rather let my sermon through the Word of God critique you. Right? That's what we're after. If it's a good sermon today, it's all by the grace of God.
If it was a bad sermon today, I'll take full credit for it. But what we do is we come to the Word of God and we say, we are not over this book, but we are under this book. And we are not lords over the book, but we are servants and slaves.
And we are needy people and we want to learn and we want to grow. And so we come to this sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, understanding the backdrop of the Pharisees and the scribes and others who would say, religion is only what you do.
It's only what you say. It's not really internal. And as long as you don't mess with the Pharisees, they were fine. You know, this last week in Connecticut, that chimpanzee, 200 pounds, basically tried to kill that lady, that 55-year-old in Stanford, by tearing her face off and trying to eat her.
And I thought, you know what, that's a picture of the Pharisees than any other kind of self-righteous hypocrite. As long as you don't mess with the Pharisees, as long as you don't try to buck the system, as long as you're just kind of nice to them, they're fine.
But once you try to go counter to that and counter cultural and counter everything, they'll just as soon tear your face off and eat you. Thankfully, Jesus Christ came to rescue us from ourselves and from our own self-righteousness.
And he just has this wonderful sermon. Could there be a better sermon ever preached than Matthew 5, 6, and 7? For its depth, for its comprehensiveness, I just love this sermon from Jesus Christ, the real Prince of Preachers.
Now remember, this is a king speaking. He's not just the buddy, he's not just the friend, although he is a friend of sinners. But here's the king, and the king says, this is what it takes to enter into my kingdom, and this is what it takes to live in my kingdom.
Anne Douglas wrote a book years ago as her Harvard dissertation, The Feminization of American Culture. As far as I know, Anne Douglas isn't even a Christian, but she understands Christianity. And she said in the 18th century, people said, forget truth, let's just jettison truth.
We don't need truth. We, when we hear preaching, we don't care about truth, we'd rather feel good. And so instead of having sermons that had dogma and doctrine and high views of God, right and wrong, black and white truths, congregations wanted to feel.
And so as romance novels of the 19th century would make people feel wonderful, the people started demanding romance novel sermons from the pulpit. And Douglas said, quote, a novel pervades without argument, without labor.
It suggests a credo of leisure. And when you hear this king speak, it is anything but that. It is the king, not this time on Mount Sinai, but this is the king on the mountain giving his message about God.
Now if you look at the prayer, we're up to the Lord's Prayer, of course, as you know. Matthew 6, verses 9 through 13. Jesus said the hypocrites give alms improperly, they fast improperly, but our focus today is again on the Lord's Prayer.
And we've just been taking a week or two on every petition, six petitions. And Jesus said with the skeleton prayer, pray then in this way. This is your template and it all starts off with this great God.
God-honored prayer, God-centered prayer, God-focused prayer. Our Father who is in heaven. Understanding God as Father is crucial as we've seen for many weeks. Petition 1, hallowed be your name. All your attributes, that's what the name is.
Your holiness, your righteousness, your wisdom, your person, your work, your son. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Certainly as a good father would want to provide for the needs of his children, there are needs that we can ask God for too.
It's okay to pray for these things. Give us this day our daily bread, food, shelter, everything that we need. There's nothing wrong to pray that way. Petition number 5, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.
Do fathers forgive their children? Certainly they do. Good fathers do. Perfect fathers do. And then petition number 6, and do not lead us into temptation. Simply put, when we pray that prayer, we say, God, don't let me be put in a situation where I might sin.
I don't want to sin. You've forgiven me of my past sins, and as forgiven people forgive others, forgiven people also don't want to commit sins in the future. So this is the child's cry to a father that says, I'm weak, I'm frail, and I don't want to sin in the future.
Lead me not into this trial or this temptation. I know what sin does. I don't want to do it anymore. You can imagine just taking your fingers with some kind of white cloth. We just got these new white baptismal robes.
After using choir robes for the last 12 years, we finally splurged and got six new white robes. I think it's because the elders didn't like my camouflage, a quicksilver Burton swimsuit or whatever I wore last time.
And just imagine trying to work with pitch and with tar while wearing one of those white gowns. It's the same thing with sin in our life, and you know, I know what it's like to have a sin-filled life.
We don't want that anymore. We want to honor the Lord with righteous living. So last week we looked at some implications of this prayer. Let me just give them quickly in review, and then we'll look at some new ones.
The truth is, we pray to the Father, do not lead us into this trial or this temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, because we don't want to go on sinning. We don't want to say, you know, we've been redeemed from sin, Jesus has been punished for our sin, and now we want to just keep enjoying sin.
That sounds more like Romans 6, doesn't it? Are we to sin that grace might, what, abound? God forbid. So when we learn something, there are implications in our lives. Number one, first implication, as we saw last week, remember to pray for this protection daily.
Do you pray this way? I pray this way a lot more now as I've studied the Lord's Prayer than I did in the past. God, protect me. Protect my family. We are children, and we are needy, and we need this daily protection.
I remember one day, Luke was a little child, and he was in his bed, and he was sick. He was throwing up, and I picked him up. You know, you kind of like do one of these kind of pickups. And I don't know how old he was, but he was very young, kind of a one-piece sleeper thing.
And I remember washing him up and getting him all ready and changing all his stuff. He was crying, his stomach hurt. I remember sitting down by the fireplace, and I just held him really tightly. You know, one of the things about children, when they can't understand your words, you have to communicate nonverbally.
And so I can't say to the kid, you know, Daddy's here, I'll protect you, I'm here to take care of you. They don't understand that. So what I did is I just held him very tightly, like this is the protective arm of Dad.
Daddy will protect you. I'll guard you. I'm here for you. Not too tight, they can't breathe, but just tight enough. Protection. Well, I don't know if I should tell you this, but I guess I do. And I felt something hot and warm down my back.
I go, here we go again. Now it's just not him, but me too. I just remember rocking him and singing a song that I learned from Denny Kinison, Everything's Alright in My Father's House. I remember singing him Victory in Jesus.
Victory in Jesus. And we're not just sick, we are sin sick. And we go to the Father and we say, God, you're going to have to protect me. You're going to have to watch out for me. I can't protect myself.
Martin Luther said we cannot help being exposed to the assaults, but we pray that we may not fall and perish under them. And so Jesus tells his disciples, pray this way. Implication number two, similar to the first, rely on the Lord's spiritual victory through prayer, because we know we can't do it on our own.
There's only victory in Christ. We know we are foolish. We have weaknesses. We stumble. James says we stumble in many ways, even by the way we speak. And so a simple, dependent prayer of a child that says to a father, I'm weak, help me.
Children, true or false, are prone to get themselves into trouble. Yes, that's true. And so we recognize the deceit of our own hearts and we say, God, you're going to have to take care of me because I am weak.
I have to depend on you. And you'll see in your Christian life, maturity will do this in your life. The more you mature in Christ, the less you will trust yourself. The more you grow, the more you'll think, I am a danger to myself.
It's the new Christian who says, you know, I'm spiritual Tarzan kind of person. One man said this, here's how you pray. If I lack Joseph's strength, Lord, keep me from Potiphar's wife. If I'm vulnerable to the flesh like David, keep me from Bathsheba.
If I'm a coward when persecuted, keep me from circumstances like Peter. If I covet riches, Lord, keep me from opportunities like, from Elisha's servant Gehazi, like what he experienced. Implication number three, remember that it's your responsibility to work hard and not yield to temptation.
Isn't it foolish to say, God, lead me out of this trial where I might fall, and then go searching for that trial and go try to run to it. No, we're to try to strangle those things out. I hate to talk about movies very much, and I think I referred to this when it first came out, but a good illustration is in that Fireproof movie, when that man was enslaved to pornography, and he didn't just kind of patty-cake with the computer screen.
What did he do? He destroyed that computer screen. If we say, God, lead me away from temptation, we ought not to run into temptation. Implication number four in review, when you're in the middle of a trial or temptation, you're to ask God to get you out of it.
Look again at your text in Matthew chapter six, It could mean, spare us from, but it also has the added meaning, once you're in, get me out of it. Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 106. That God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or the second part, that God would support and deliver us when we are tempted.
So, God, keep me away from it, and also, God, when I'm in it, help me. Deliver me out of it. As a soldier gets his buddy out of harm's way, that's the idea. There's great peril. God, get me out of this.
And the fifth implication, number five, remember your adversary is strong and powerful. Look at the text, verse 13, and deliver us from, you can translate it different ways, depending on the grammar, but the best way is the evil one.
This particular grammar, by the way, when used, and I won't get into all the details, it always talks of a person, not of some kind of thing. And so the scholars are pretty unanimous when it comes to, God, do we say, deliver me from evil circumstances, from general evil, from generic evil, or deliver me from the evil one, that it's the evil one.
God, deliver me from the evil one. I'm not strong enough to stand up to Satan because he could sift me like wheat. He could fillet me alive. I can't run before Satan and cast him and bind him and put some kind of spell on him.
He is a ferocious adversary, and I need God's rescuing hand, not my own strength and some kind of potion and charm, some kind of talisman to get rid of Satan. Satan wants to destroy. Terry Johnson said, so much so.
I was shocked when I read this. Here's the quote from the commentary from Terry Johnson on the Lord's Prayer, about just how weak we are, how tempted we could be, and how great the enemy is. I know of a minister, who while traveling across country to serve a missions board, fell into an affair with a woman, not his wife.
He's going to go be on a missions board, and then worse, he goes on to say, I know of another who while staying up late to complete a commentary on Mark's Gospel, had an affair with his typist. That's why God has to help us.
We need not just armor from God, but the full armor. Implication number six. The new implication. Everything so far has been kind of review. Implication number six of this petition number six. Remember that trials can break you, but they also can make you.
Remember that trials not only can break you, but they can also make you. It's not directly found in Matthew 6, verse 13, but I think it's an important principle. Trials can present themselves, and we can fail in these trials.
But also God can test, as it were, Abraham to make sure his faith was true. If you're a jeweler, how do you test a diamond? I don't know, but I've been told you put it under what? Water. It's the water test to determine if it's true or not.
How do you test metal to see if it's true? They used to test anchors to see if they were good. They test ships to see if they were good. When you have a trial, it can destroy you if you respond improperly, but it can also test your faith, and then you can know it's sure faith.
1 Peter 1, verse 6. In this you greatly rejoice. Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved what?
Genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. When trials come, we can't just say, you know, this isn't going to be any good. By the way, should you want trials to come?
You're like, I'm going to really learn a lot because I want a lot of trials to come, so God bring the trials. It's kind of like the soccer team or the football team. When there's a close game, the men or the women on the different teams learn a lot, but you don't start the game and say, I just hope it's really close.
You want to blow out is what you want. But when the trials do come, you say, I can learn from these things. Trials accomplish something. Romans chapter 5, we exalt in our trials. Why? Knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.
Perseverance, proven character. Proven character, hope. When trials do come, they could destroy us if we walk according to the flesh, but they can also build up our faith. How do you really know you're a Christian?
God will bring the trials. I talked to Ron Farrar yesterday, and Ron and Cheryl Farrar, many years ago on yesterday, February 19th and February 21st. Lily, one of the twins, born on February 18th. She died on February 19th.
Two days later, February 21st, Tori died. And I was there with the Farrars. And as we had no emotions left, and we thought we had cried all our tears out for Lily, what tears did we have for Tori? I just remember, the sanctuary was flipped around and we had the service there.
And I was in the front row and I remember singing, great is thy faithfulness, just looking down at the Farrars. And they weren't saying, God, I hate you. God, how could you? God, I despise you. God, if this is the God that I worship, I'm running from you.
With tears in their eyes, they were singing, great is thy faithfulness. Trials confirming the faith of the saints. Everything else is stripped away and you think it's just God and myself. There was a man who was a singer and he had to have his tongue removed because he had cancer.
And so the surgeon said to the man, you're never going to be able to sing again. Are you sure I'll never be able to sing again? The surgeon couldn't answer. He just shook his head, no. Here's what the patient said.
Can I sit up for a moment? I've had many good times singing the praises of God and now you tell me I can never sing again. I have one song that will be my last. It will be a song of gratitude and praise to God.
And in that doctor's presence, he softly sang Isaac Watt's hymn. I'll praise my Maker while I have breath. And when my voice is lost in death, praise shall employ my nobler power. My days of praise shall never be past.
While life and thought and being last, our immortality endures. God, we're not praying that You somehow would entice us to sin because James 1 would never allow that. We have a holy God. But when God brings a trial into the life of a person, it's for His glory and it's for our good.
Number seven. This is what I really wanted to get to today. Number seven. Implication number seven. When you're in the middle of a trial or temptation, you ought to remember your Savior, Jesus Christ.
Turn to Matthew 4 with me. Matthew 4. I love this passage because it talks about the temptation. Out of all the temptations in the world and the Bible, nothing short of probably the holy garden of Gethsemane can come close to this, the temptation of Jesus Christ.
I actually believe this is why I probably exist today and why I have breath. It's to talk about how great Jesus is under temptation so we might see what He does and honor Him and praise Him, but also see if there's any truth in this passage that we might learn.
When we're in the middle of a trial and temptation, this is what we ought to lock our mind onto. The temptation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Matthew only has 11 verses. Luke has 13. Mark just has a couple.
We're going to focus in here on Matthew because I want you to see in the context of Matthew how this temptation comes about. Three temptations by Satan, three responses from Jesus, and then we'll learn some lessons as well.
Fascinating passage right here. Matthew 4. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. As Mark likes to say immediately, straight away, Matthew likes to say then, and it's a fast-paced operation.
You show me where Satan's working and I'll show you someplace where Jesus is. Show me where God's working. Satan will be there quickly. One man said, Satan never kicks a dead horse. Why were there so many demonic things going on when Jesus was around?
Answer, Jesus was around. And here he's led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Luke says Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. Will Jesus give allegiance to God the Father or will He bow to Satan?
May I say your eternal destiny is in the balance. Will Jesus do what Israel did and fail? Will Jesus do what Adam did? And he was tempted by Satan and then he fell. What will happen here? Well, we know the answer, but just imagine the first time you were reading this just full of truth and watching Christ's greatness.
The fame of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God, as it were, pushes Jesus into the wilderness. He impels Him. He casts Him into the wilderness. And this was right after what? What had just happened? Well, the baptism of Jesus has just happened.
And God the Father had said to the Son what during the baptism? This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. By the way, I just looked around and I saw a few people with their eyes closed sleeping.
Lean forward. Get your notes out. I can't believe you're sleeping in Mark chapter 4. Maybe you're pretty good dealing with temptation. I think you ought to just buckle up. It's church growth, right? This is seeker sensitive.
Pay attention, congregation. It's like yesterday, you know, some guys in discipleship were saying, I can't get the book. I can't get the Bible verses memorized. Do I really have to find the book? Do I have to drive in the middle of the night to go get the book?
I just wanted to go, if I only had a little bottle with a nipple on it that you could just kind of suck and go... I just set it there in my discipleship class. I thought, this is real seeker sensitive.
Something's in my way. Johanson's back here messing around again. Nothing good just happens. By the grace of God we're engaged and we learn. I don't want you to miss this. The Spirit of God drives. You can almost imagine the kind of terminology in Mark where there's a whip and you would drive cattle out with this whip.
Certainly, the Father, Son, and the Spirit. There was no whip that was needed in the Trinity. But I'm just saying it's a strong word where the Spirit now drives God the Son out into the wilderness and we're going to see, is the Son's Sonship approved or not?
The same Spirit who comes upon Jesus' baptism drives Him out into the wilderness. Of course, it's impossible for Jesus to sin. He's God. But since He's God, He can never give in to the sin. And so the whole temptation comes with brute force.
And out into the wilderness Jesus goes. A place of God's cursing in the Old Testament. Desolated. Lonely. Associated with demonic activity many times. One man said the Spirit of God impels Jesus out into anti-Eden.
And God now is going to use Satan for His sovereign purposes. Is Jesus qualified to be the Messiah? God will use Satan to find out. Of course, God the Father knows. But this is going to be proven valid or invalid.
Is Jesus qualified for His messianic mission? Oh, before I forget, this is only an external temptation. It's only an external temptation. Why? Could Jesus be tempted internally by His sin nature? God forbid.
There's no sin nature there to be tempted. And so it's an external. And you'll see how Satan would come to Him just very soon. It's not going to be Satan come into Him. Satan comes to Him. Just like Adam and Eve, by the way.
Adam, perfect Adam righteousness. Eve, perfect Eve righteousness. And so the temptation by Satan comes from the outside. Except where Adam and Eve failed, certainly Jesus is going to exceed. The question is, will Jesus still be well-pleasing to the Father?
Will Jesus live up to God's perfect plan? And so now Satan sinfully begins to do God's righteous plan. Satan never stops working for God, by the way. One man called him the hardest working servant of God.
Midnight shifts, never tires, three shifts, late shift. Always does the bidding of God. And now God the Father is going to use Satan to tempt Jesus in all points so He might be our great High Priest. Heaven opened.
The gates of Heaven opened with the baptism. And now the gates of Hell are opened. And who might be the company for Christ Jesus? Satan, beasts, out in the wilderness. And he's going to try to tempt Jesus.
He's going to try to entice Him to sin. True or false? To be tempted to sin is sin. False. To be tempted isn't sin. Shakespeare even knew it. It is one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. We need a High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses.
One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Say, well, you know, Jesus, His heart was cold and hard like some icicle out there. He got tired. He got weak physically. He had compassion on people.
He had gratitude. And here comes this external temptation. Oh, notice what the text also doesn't say? Satan sent some lower screw tape kind of henchman to take care of Jesus because it needed to be relegated to a smaller demon.
Satan had other fish to fry. Satan wants to kill God's plan for redemption. Satan wants to DQ Jesus, disqualify Jesus as being the Savior. Prove Jesus as sinless, He can't die. Prove Jesus as sinful, He can't die as a sinless Savior.
This is the same Satan, by the way, that killed babies during Herod's rule during the time of the Incarnation. Jesus tired, Jesus alone. Satan, radiant, beautiful, angel of light. I hope you think Satan is a real being.
I hope you don't think he's some kind of symbol of evil. Question, do you agree strongly? Agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or strongly agree with this statement? The devil or Satan is not a living being but a symbol of evil.
Well, thankfully, we've been taught better than that. But the born-again population replied with 32 agreed strongly, he's a symbol of evil. 11 agreed somewhat, he's just a symbol. 5 did not know.
48 of so-called evangelical born-again Christians didn't know or weren't sure of Jesus, I mean, if Satan was real. He's with the wild beasts, who knows the boars, the wolves, the leopards, foxes. And if you were a Jew, you'd go, I'd be impressed if anybody could live out there for 40 days, let alone having Satan tempt.
Israel fails in the wilderness. I wonder what Jesus will do. Matthew 4, verse 2. After he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry. Moses had fasted like that. I'm not sure about you, but sometimes if I don't eat on a regular basis, I can get very grumpy and on edge if I don't eat for even one meal.
Physical trials can decrease our spiritual stamina. And here comes the first temptation. Three temptations, three responses from Jesus. Let's watch how Jesus deals with temptation, and maybe we can learn from that.
Temptation number one, don't trust the Father. Distrust the Father. Perfect timing by Satan, right after the 40-day fast. And the tempter came and said to him, verse 3, if you're the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
Notice again, he comes to him, not comes into him. This is not some kind of internal deal. Hey, Jesus, you made bread for 4 ,000 men. You made bread for 5 ,000 men. Probably if you put the 15 ,000, if you count women and children, and the 15 ,000, if you count women and children, you can make bread for 30 ,000 people.
Now, Satan doesn't say, if you are, not knowing. Satan is saying this. It's third-class conditional. It's the Greek grammar, and that means this. Since you are, God the Father has just said, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.
The Father's voice signified that at baptism. Jesus, you're the Father's Son, and you don't have any food. What kind of Father does that? You're the Messiah. You're the Son of God. Other kings have sons, and you're not like any of those.
You're hungry. You have no food. This is probably the only clothes you have are on your back. You have no money. This is idiotic. You're the Son of God. You don't look like any Son of God to me, Satan says.
But see how sneaky it is? It's just food. It's harmless. It's no big deal. You're hungry. You eat. I know what I would have done. I know what Adam did. Satan says this, say the word, Jesus. Use your messianic power now.
Go for the glory now, but don't go for the glory through the cross. Take your crown now. You don't need to be this suffering servant that was talked about in Isaiah 40 -53. You don't need that. Just go for it now.
Accepting the Father's path of suffering and pain and shame, you don't need to do that. And here's what he says. You're God's Son and you're hungry. Satan's like, I don't know if that tells me more about how bad the Father is or how stupid you are, Jesus.
God's Son, born in a barn, living in a little village, has no food to eat. And just like the first time when Satan tempts Adam with food, so too he tempts Jesus, the second Adam, with food. I wonder what Jesus would do.
But the will of the Father was to go to Calvary. The will of the Father was not to take the shortcut, the bypass. The Spirit of God impels Jesus into the wilderness to go through the trials, to say no to the temptations.
It's not right to just bypass God's plan and God's will. Satan says this, I'm not asking if you are the Son of God. I'm telling you, you are the Son of God. Think about it. What are the implications of being the Son of God?
Hunger, pain, shame, poverty. You provide for your own needs apart from the Father. You can't trust this Father. You can't have confidence in Him. An earthly sinful Father would provide for the needs of His earthly sinful children better than the Holy Father has provided for you.
You can't be confident in that kind of Father. And if it was Adam, we know he would fall. If it was Noah, he would have fallen. Abraham, fallen. Moses, fallen. Elijah, fallen. Israel, fallen. What does Jesus do?
Response. You tell me not to trust my Father, here's the response. And here it comes, verse 4. But he answered and said, it is written. It stands written. Here's what the Bible says. By the way, what chapter is he quoting from?
What book is he quoting from? If you've got one Old Testament book to take to the desert island of temptation, which book you better take? Deuteronomy. Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
If you think I'm going to act independent of my Father, you've got another thing coming. John 4. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His will. I would rather obey the Father, trust the Father, and suffer.
It is written. It stands written forever and ever and ever and ever. And Jesus quotes Deuteronomy chapter 8, verses 2 and 3 here. As God had allowed Israel to be very hungry so He could teach them to trust in Him by providing them manna.
Now Jesus quotes the exact verse. Let me just read to you Deuteronomy so you get the full context. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years.
And He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you, and He let you be hungry. And He fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
There's a wrong assumption by Satan that food is more important. Life is more important. It would be better to die than to mistrust the Father. God lets Israel be hungry to test them and that He might feed them.
It's about God's will, God's glory. Better to starve to death than satisfy my own desires. I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, Jesus says. Temptation number two. Oh, this is, He is sly, He is crafty, He is an adversary.
Temptation number two, the first one is don't trust the Father. The second one is presume on the Father's care by testing Him. And you can see these logically just flow. Let's work it out. Verse five.
Then the devil took Him into the holy city, and he had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, Oh, so you trust God the Father that much? Let's just see. Oh, sorry. Let me just give you the real verse.
If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will give His angels charge concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Here's what Satan said.
Oh, you're all about the Father's trust, huh? Put your money where your mouth is. You say you trust the Father? Let's just see. You think the Father will provide for you and protect you? Prove it. Prove to me, Satan says.
Show everybody how much you really trust the Father. And Satan takes Him into the holy city to this pinnacle, this wing of the temple. Josephus said this particular spot might have a 450-foot drop. We don't know the exact location.
Tradition says this is the same spot where they threw down Jesus' half-brother to kill Him. According to Eusebius. They say on the porch on the south side of the temple structure was 150 feet high in the building, but the valley below them was more than 700 foot deep.
So Josephus said, you add the 150 to the 700. Here it's 850 feet down. And he said if you look over it, you would become dizzy. And so he says, you think you just live on God's word alone? Something more important than food, God's word?
Let me give you some of what? God's word. You like quoting the Bible, Jesus? I like quoting too. Here's a verse or two for you. And basically he says, here's a couple verses. If you're really God's son, He'll take care of you.
What father wouldn't take care of his son? He's not just going to stop your fall. He's probably going to have some kind of gentle angel's wings floating on some kind of cloud to catch you and gingerly and gently just kind of float you down to the bottom.
And you can imagine how many rocks might be down below or anything else. You know, when I used to read the Bible before I went to Israel, I thought, man, they stone a lot of people. Where do they get all those rocks?
Then you go to Israel and you go, I guess I know where they get all those rocks. Except there is one funny rock story for those of you that need to breathe a breath here before we get back into the text.
We went to the place where David killed Goliath, allegedly. Not alleged killing, but just in the general area where he was killed. And so remember David bent down and he got how many stones did he pick up?
Five stones. So if you were there and you were a visitor, what would you like to probably do if you were in that little river brook? I don't know if you're like me, but I didn't want to get just three stones.
I wanted to get five stones. So the first time I was there, I picked up five smooth stones and thought, these would be perfect to kill some kind of gathite if I ever need one. Well, then I went to Israel several years later with Bethlehem Bible Church and we're at the same site.
And I thought, only one bad thing about this particular day. This was replenish day. And so I hear this noise.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
And it's the truck backing up into the riverbed, dumping the thousands of other five small stones down in the riverbed so all the people who go on tours can take them and say, these are from Jesus' time and Goliath's time.
But you'd still probably take them. And by the way, February 2011, Bethlehem Bible Church, Lord willing is going to go to Israel, so start saving your shekels now. 2011, February. You need about $3 ,000 worth of shekels.
Not that I'm in any competition with my brother. I'd never do that. He's also a pastor, and so far they have 39 people signed up to go. And it's going to be a joint trip. If you're already tired of one Abendroth, you probably don't want to go there because it'll be Dooling Abendroth's trip to Israel.
There's rocks everywhere. We're not sure if there's rocks there, but certainly if God the Father is a good Father, He'll take care of you. You think you want to go for what the Bible says? I'll give you some Bible verses.
Don't trust the Father. Now here's my question, congregation. Did Satan quote Scripture, A, and B, did he quote it accurately? By the way, he gives the same introduction to the Bible that Jesus did. It is written.
It's one Greek word. It stands written. So here's Satan saying to Jesus, The Bible says, chapter and verse, it is written. Let me read you Psalm 91, 11, and 12 so you can hear the full passage. This is the passage that Satan is quoting from.
For he will give his angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands lest you strike your foot against a stone. And so Israel is provided for by God in a wonderful protective way.
And if Israel is certainly God, the Son would be, wouldn't he? The same Son who could call on legions of angels for protection. Satan did two things with God's word, and this is pretty much what all false cults do.
The first thing he did is he omitted a phrase, in all your ways. He omitted the phrase, in all your ways. Basically, God will protect you no matter what you do. You'll just kind of force the issue. You'll presume, you know, if I'm really elect and supposed to keep on living, I'll just drink this poison and God's going to have to heal me.
No matter what you do, presuming on the grace of God, he omits a phrase but he does something worse. Not only does he do that, number two, he twists the meaning. This is what I call, it's a technical word I know, this is called a hermeneutical switcheroo.
Bible interpretation catastrophe. Somehow, now saying here's this verse where God protects, turning it into God is somehow blessing those that push the issue. Presuming on the grace of God. God the Father will do protective things for you no matter what you do.
By the way, tradition does help us a little bit. Tradition says this, if you thought you were the Messiah, you go to this pinnacle of this temple, this little wing, and you do something to prove that you're the Messiah.
What do you do? You jump. That's what tradition said. Tradition said Simon Magnus of Magus of Acts chapter 8 jumped off the temple trying to prove that he was the Messiah. Maybe there's people watching, it's the middle of Jerusalem.
But go for the crown without any agony. You don't need the cross, you just need glory. What did Jesus do? Response number two. Response number two. Presuming on God? No, he quotes from Deuteronomy again, verse 7.
Jesus said to him, on the other hand, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. I'm going to trust the Father. I'm not going to somehow presume on him. I'm not going to try him voluntarily and sinfully jumping just to prove that somehow God can take care of me and somehow aid me when I put myself purposely in a spot of danger.
That's not right. That's not righteous. That's perverted righteousness. Temptation number three. Time is fading. Real temptation number three. Bypass the Father's will. Now the mask is torn off. Any kind of nice, external, cool-looking Satan is gone.
He pulls out his big guns. There's no punches pulled here. He's not disguising any things anymore. It's eternal high-stake games. And now he's playing with a full hand, he thinks. Verse eight. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
You say, was this real? Did Satan have the power to take him on this vision? Was it somehow some kind of in just the minds of these two? Did they really go there geographically? I have some good advice for you from John Calvin.
It is asked, was Jesus actually carried to this elevated spot or was it done in a vision? Calvin said, I choose rather to suspend my judgment than to furnish contentious people with an excuse for a debate.
So what the text says, its text means. Luke 4 says that Satan did this, it was happening in a moment of time. Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia, Jerusalem. And then Satan said, verse nine. Those other two were just smoke screens.
This is what I'm after. I'm after one genuflect. All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me. Power, lordship, go for the crown without the cross. Reminds me of Psalm 2, eight. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.
That's the father to the son though. It's the father's right to grant that to Jesus. Hey Jesus, you know what the magi came and did to you? Falling down in worship? Just give me a little bit of that and we're fine.
You know what Adam did to me basically by bowing his knee to me instead of you? It's okay. Who wants to go for the cross? Who wants to drink the full wrath of the cup of God? And what does Jesus do? When Satan says, go take it now, you're worth it, you deserve it.
Jesus responds in a way that's wonderful. Jesus said to him, verse 10, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Abendroth paraphrased, pack it up, pal.
No wavering, no, oh, let me think about it. Let me make a little kind of Benjamin Franklin T scale, pros, cons. Direct unwaveringly, get away from me, Satan. Be gone. As a matter of fact, it's a command.
Hendrickson said, this shows not only Christ's abhorrence of the devil's proposal, but also his supremacy over him. Christ, who is ever doing what his father wants him to do. For it is written. This bold attack was countered by Jesus' nuclear verse, verse 13 of chapter 6 of Deuteronomy.
You shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by his name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who surrounded you. Israel is maybe, Israel is guilty of doing that.
I'm not guilty of doing that. Right at the heart of the issue, quoting that verse. What happened, verse 11. Then, there's Matthew's equivalent of Mark's immediately. Then the devil left him with his proverbial tail between his legs.
And behold, angels came. They did minister to him, but a lot different way than Satan wanted. And began to minister over, minister to him. Jesus, powerful, sovereign over Satan. And here comes the angels.
Satan uses the verse twistedly about presuming on the grace of God. And yet here, the real father uses these angels in the right biblical way to minister to the son. Adam had disobeyed God. Israel had disobeyed God.
And the last Adam succeeded where the first Adam had failed. The last Adam succeeded where Israel had failed. Don't trust God. I trust him completely. Test God. I never presume on God. Go for the easy way out, the sinful way.
I will carry through temptations. Three takeaways from this for you congregation this morning regarding temptations. Number one, you ought to be like Jesus and trust completely in God and his word. These are very simple applications.
The best way you can learn to trust God more is to read your Bible. To saturate your mind by the Bible, with the Bible. Hang on to it like a life preserver. Because what do the cults do? The cults come and a good cult uses the Bible.
No cult comes to the door. At least they don't come to my door knocking with kind of bicycles and nice clean cut young men and say, By the way, I'm here on a mission and I'd like to damn you and send you all to hell.
They don't do that. They come talking about the Bible and Jesus. For us, we think, you know, I'm in this trial. My father just died. My mother just died. I've got all these issues. Should I really trust this God?
Whether it's Satan or our own sinful flesh that says, you know, you call yourself a child of God. You're adopted by God. You're an elect of God and you're sick and you're poor. You're grieving. You need to know the word of God.
You need to know the word of God that talks about his faithfulness. You need to know the word of God that Satan always promises the best but pays with the worst, as Thomas Brooks says. You need to be reminded that the answer to the question in a trial, does God ever love me, should always be directed to what?
The cross. Number two, not only trusting God completely, you ought not to test God in temptations. You ought not to presume on God's provision of forgiveness. I'll yield to this temptation and I know God will forgive me anyway.
No matter what the ramifications of these sins are that I'm going to commit right now, I know God will bail me out because he's really good at that. He's done it in the past. If God really wants me healthy, I don't need to exercise.
If God wants all the people saved, all the elect will come, I don't need to evangelize. God does all the work, sovereign decree anyway. Why pray? All these are presuming on God's goodness when we say, if God's sovereign, then I'll just do the opposite.
And then lastly, we ought to tarry. You ought to tarry through temptation. You ought to endure through temptation. Just let me read you 1 Corinthians chapter 10. No temptation has overtaken you but such is common to man.
And God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able but with the temptation will provide the particular way of escape that you may be able to endure it. What is the way of escape through temptation?
Paul says the church of Corinth, it's not out of but it's through. I always thought it was interesting when I watched some of these kind of jets, these aircraft carrier jets and these escape hatches. When do you have to actually have the escape to get shot up out of the jet and just let this $5 billion piece of equipment go down to the ground?
You're like, I got to push the escape hatch. We want to get out of our trials and we're like, we got to get out of these. And God says the way out is the way through. I need more endurance. It's the same thing with Jesus.
Don't trust the Father, I trust in Him completely. Test on Father, test the Father, no, I'll submit to Him. Somehow, taking the shortcut, no, I'll go through it. One day, heaven, no temptations, no trials.
But on earth, we've got plenty of them and I leave you with Pilgrim's Progress, a scene between Apollyon the devil and Christian. Then Apollyon, aspiring his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian and wrestling with him gave him a dreadful fall.
And with that, Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now. And with that, he had almost pressed him to death. So that Christian began to despair of life. But as God would have it, but as God would have it, but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching on his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his sword and caught it.
Quoting Deuteronomy, no, I just added that. Saying, rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. And with that, gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back as one that had received his mortal wound.
Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. And with that, Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings and sped away.
That Christian, for a season, saw him no more. Let's pray. Our Father, we would ask that your name might be hallowed. And Father, we'd ask also that you would not lead us into a trial where we might fall into sin.
We are your children and we are needy. And Lord, our adversary is great. Yet we know your greater still. And we are so thankful that where we have failed and will continue to fail on this earth, your son never failed.
Never falling into a sinful temptation. Never presuming on your goodness. Never not trusting in you. And so, Lord, we stand before you in Christ's perfect righteousness. And you see us as never failing, never mistrusting, never forsaking you, never testing you.
Never tearing through the trials, going through the suffering to get to the cross. And so, Lord, we stand before you in the stead of Christ Jesus, the resurrected king. Lord, I pray for those who are here today that are struggling with trials and temptations.
I pray that you would be their all. That you would be their all in all. Lord, we're your slaves and you're our master. That's fine. And we acknowledge your lordship. But today we've thought about your being a good father.
And so, as children, we say, help us. We need your protection. And for those who aren't saved today, Father, I pray that they would bow the knee to Christ Jesus, confessing him as Lord. I pray, as was prayed during the scripture reading, that they would be horrified in their sins.
That you would make them uncomfortable. That you would take away their sleep and their joy, their happiness, their provisions, their family, everything. Whatever it would cost that they might realize that Jesus Christ is Lord, the king of kings.
To your glory. Amen.