and invite you with me to Luke. We've arrived at Luke chapter 4. And we'll be reading together verses 1 through 13. If you wonder why I'm not reading the genealogy there in the end of chapter 3, we looked at that already back in November when we looked at the whole big picture. of the book of Luke, the message of Luke. So now we pick up at chapter 4 verses 1 through 13 as we consider, face the temptations of life's journey with Jesus. Let's hear the Lord's Word. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they had ended, he became hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, It is written, Man should not live on bread alone. And he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory for it has been handed over to me and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship before me, it shall all be yours. Jesus answered him, it is written. You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And he led him to Jerusalem, and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you're the son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. When the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time. Thus far God's word, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but this the word of our Lord does endure forever. Let's seek his blessing in prayer. Lord, we pray that by your Holy Spirit, same spirit that breathed into the writers of your word to give us this truth. We pray that you, by your spirit, would open our hearts, our lives, our understanding that we might face our temptations, our trials, our burdens, our challenges this week with Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. In the days of the wooden sailing ships, sailing ships would gather in the harbor in San Diego, California, and it would be sunny. And yet there in that calm bay in the beautiful San Diego weather, you'd see the sailors beginning to get their mittens ready. you'd see them getting tar and putting the tar on their coats. And then they would take wool and they would sew wool lining into their shirts and into their coats. Why? You know, it's a nice harbor, sunny skies. They were getting ready to go south around Cape Horn, around the tip of South America. And there they would face icy waters. They would face storms and cold weather. And they were getting ready for what they were facing down there. They were putting their mittens on. They were putting the tar on. They were putting on the wool to prepare them for the future storms. Maybe you're in a nice sunny harbor in life's journey right now, but what will the future hold? Are you going to be ready for whatever storm you may be facing. Are we going to be ready for whatever storm you or I may face? Jesus is in a sunny harbor. He's at the beginning of His ministry. He has just been filled with the Holy Spirit of God. He's just heard the voice of His Father come down at His baptism saying, You're my Son. You're the Son I love. I'm pleased with you. And if that isn't basking in sunshine of your father's favor, I don't know what is. I love you. I'm pleased with you. And then, full of the Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. He goes from the sunshiny bay. He goes right into the storm of the wilderness and temptation by the devil himself. Just because we are children of God, just because we belong to Jesus and are filled with the Spirit of God, it doesn't mean we always have smooth sailing, does it? Just after Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit to accomplish His public ministry, just after He's filled with the Spirit and hears His Father's voice of pleasure, there's a clash of two titans. Two great representatives, Jesus, the king of kings, representing the kingdom of God, and the devil, the prince of darkness, representing the kingdom of darkness. And here comes the devil, the prince of darkness, trying to knock Jesus down, to trip Him up, to trap Him, to get Him to sin. The devil is real. And you and I must not minimize him. We must not underestimate his schemes, his desires to get us to fall. He goes about, he and his other fallen angels go about like a roaring lion, seeking somebody that they can chew up and spit out. But God is in control here. Satan is a lion on a leash. Jesus said, you have no authority even to do evil to me unless it's given to you from above. The devil had no authority over Job that God did not let him have. He was a lion on a leash and the devil has no authority over Jesus unless the Lord God Almighty permits him on that leash to tempt. So God is in control here. God is in control. And God will use the temptation of Jesus to show us that Jesus, the second Adam, the second great representative of the human race, will conquer and be victorious and succeed where the first Adam failed. And he uses our temptations as an opportunity for us to grow stronger as we exercise our faith to resist. You ever go to the weight room? You take weights. Why? You take up those weights to make your arms stronger, to make your legs stronger, right? And the Lord's saying, okay. In James chapter one, he says, now, when temptations and trials come, what is God doing? He's giving you an opportunity to exercise your faith, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. The testing of your faith produces staying power. When you lift those weights, it makes you stronger. You're going against a force, against a force to make you stronger. And the Lord says now, When you face temptation and you exercise faith in the midst of temptation, it produces strength, it produces endurance, and it produces staying power. You resist temptation, what are we saying? Each victory will help you some other to win. So it's not sinful to be tempted. Right? Jesus was tempted. That didn't make him a sinner. It's not sinful to be tempted, but we sin when we give in to that temptation. But if you and I are going to exercise faith and resist temptation, we need to resist it and take the way out of temptation that Christ himself did. Paul writes it this way in 1 Corinthians 10. He says, no temptation has overtaken you, but such is common to man. Sometimes we like to think, mine's unique, that's why I can give in. God's word says, you and I have not received unique temptations. 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 are able. And you say, Lord, this is too much for me. And he says, well, I've got a way of escape that is greater than the temptation which you're facing. With the temptation, He will provide the way of escape also that you will be able to endure it, bear up under it, resist that temptation. So there's the promise of God. God provides a way of escape. And we need to take the same way of escape as the Lord Jesus did. And one of the first things we need to realize as our way of escape is that when is it? What is the devil's scheme? What's his tactic? Well, the devil's tactic is he likes to get at you when you're down. He comes after you when you're tired, when you're sick, when you're lonely, when you're emotionally upset, when you're hungry. That's when he gets at Jesus. Jesus was there in the wilderness. He had nothing to eat for 40 days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. He's vulnerable. And the devil came to him and said, if you're the son of God, tell this stone to become bread. If you're the son of God, you're hungry. You're miserable, Jesus? Are you sure that your Father is really pleased with you and that He loves you? Because you're hungry here, you're hurting here. If you're hungry, make some bread and eat it. If it feels good, do it, Jesus. Even if it's not what your father wants you to do, if it feels good, do it. If you lust, well, go ahead and satisfy the lust. If you're tired, snap at your wife, snap at your kids or grandkids. Do what makes you happy in the moment now. You're only a body. You're just a body. So do what satisfies the urges of your body at the moment. And Jesus answers him and says, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone. Man needs more than bread for his body. You know, it's interesting that Jesus didn't zap the devil with magic, did he? He didn't just say zip. He answers him with the Word of God. He quotes from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. And he says, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone. You look at Deuteronomy 8.3, you get the whole verse. Just like he was in the wilderness, Jesus was. Well, it was written at a time when Israel was in the wilderness. And Moses says, God humbled you. and let you be hungry, He was testing you there. He took you out of Egypt but then He deliberately let you be hungry there. He was testing you to see whether you would trust Him and obey His commandments or not. So you were vulnerable but He was testing you And then He fed you with manna from heaven, which you had never heard of before, nor did your fathers ever hear of, so that He might make you understand that man does not live on bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." So this is referring back to a time when Israel was in the wilderness like Jesus was now in the wilderness. And Israel in the wilderness, what they wanted to do is they wanted to turn back and go back to Egypt. They said, we're hungry, and so we want to go back. It is better there. We had more onions and we had better food back there in Egypt. And the Lord says, I took you to a place where there was no E&S grocery. I took you to a place where there were no grocery stores. I put you into the wilderness so that you might learn in the wilderness that I will provide for your needs. He was trying to teach them that they needed to trust Him for provision both for their body and their souls. They needed His provision for all that they were. And if the Lord could provide manna for them from heaven and meet their needs and be their Lord who would lead them safely through the wilderness into the promised land. They can trust Him for every need of body and of soul." But Satan doesn't give up. He tempts you to take the easy way out. He wants you to avoid all pain and take shortcuts to get what y'all want. Verse 5-7, Satan then led them up and showed them all the kingdoms of the world in a split second of time. And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory, for it's been given over to me, and I give it to whomever I want to. Therefore, if you worship me, it will be yours. You ever think about how this is kind of the same tactic as the devil used in the Garden of Eden? Remember what he said to Eve? If you obey me, Eve, it'll be a shortcut to wisdom, and you'll know good and evil. You'll be so much better off, Eve. And now he says to Jesus, if you obey me, it'll be a shortcut to all the kingdoms of the world. He comes to you. And he says, you can have glory right now. You can have popularity, success, you can have all the more stuff right now. If you only cheat a little, lie a little, put the Lord on the back burner a little, put yourself on the throne a little more, then you can have it. So let your mind run wild, Jesus. You know, whatever you want, whatever you want, the kingdoms, the peoples of the world, all you say what you want most is that at every knee, every knee would bow to you and call you Lord. Jesus, you can have that too. Just bow down to me, the accuser, the devil. You can do it, Jesus, without pain. You don't have to go to the cross to get the kingdom. You don't have to get the cross to get a people. You don't have to have the pain of suffering on the cross to get a people for yourself who will be with you forever. No, Jesus, you can have that without pain, without suffering. Just come on, Jesus, just bow down to me. I'll give it all. Give it all to you without all that suffering. Jesus doesn't dilly-dally, does he? He answers this direct challenge with a very direct answer, and he says, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. You want me to bow down to you? No. Deuteronomy says, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Jesus didn't indulge himself in self-pity over that hard road to the cross. He rejects the way of painless convenience and He sacrifices His immediate short-term comfort out of obedience to His Father's will and out of love for you. I'm not going to avoid the cross because I love the people for whom I'm going to lay down my life to save. It's a pretty powerful temptation, isn't it? Lord, your ways seem hard. There's this person in my family where it's hard for me to be a Valentine to, sometimes. It's hard, Lord. And all this pressure I've got, Lord, you don't want me to lose my sanity under pressure, do you? So I'll give in, right? Because you want me to keep my head straight. When Satan whispers and says, God's word is going to be hard, you might suffer. It might be painful. You might even die if you do what God wants you to do. The Lord, through Moses, in Deuteronomy 6.13 still says, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Painful to go to the cross, my son, my Jesus? You shall worship and serve the Lord your God only. Hard? You shall worship and serve the Lord your God only. But Satan, Still doesn't give up. You know, he says, well, you can quote the Bible. I can too. You can quote the Bible to me, Jesus. Well, you know, I'll quote the Bible back to you. So Satan led Jesus to Jerusalem and had him stand up on the high part of the temple and the temple was over the Kidron Valley. And so there's this big gap between the high point of the temple and then you're looking down at the valley below. And He said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, from this dizzying height, for it is written." I'm going to quote the Bible to you now, Jesus. It's written, He will command His angels concerning you to guard you. And on their hands, they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. That's Psalm 91, Jesus. So go ahead and jump. Go ahead and jump. Go ahead and jump. God will take care of you. He says he's going to send his angels to take care of you. Go ahead and play with fire. You won't get burned if you play with fire. Go ahead and surf the internet for porn. Just go ahead. God will take care of you. Do whatever you feel like doing. Do it. And he'll give his angels charge concerning you. He'll protect you no matter what you do. And Jesus says, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Catch that? He's trying to get Jesus to jump. And Jesus says, I'm the Lord. Got that? I'm the Lord. You should not put me, the Lord God, to the test. And back in Deuteronomy, when that was first written, it was talking about Jehovah God. And Jesus is saying, I am Jehovah God. It is said. And that word there in the Greek, the grammar is, it's a perfect tense, which means it was said. And God's still saying it. It was said in the past, and it still has just as much impact in the present. It is said, it was said, and it's being said, and it's always being said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. You shall not. Same word for tempt as test. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Now, Jesus could have added, hey, you old devil, you're misquoting the Bible. You're taking it out of context. You missed a major part there of Psalm 91. The promise actually reads, devil, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, to guard you in all your ways as you love the Lord, as you abide in the Lord, as you stay in the Lord, as you trust in the Lord, as you love him. He'll guard you in all your ways. You're the one who loves and trusts and stays in him. So have you been testing God? Lord, for us men, Lord, Lord, I haven't been praying for my wife or with my wife or reading God's word with her. I haven't been praying for her and with her as I should, but Lord, Bless her. Make her holy and happy and fruitful, Lord. Or you fill in the blank. Lord, I know it's wrong to... Whatever you're thinking. I know it's wrong to... But if I go ahead and do what I know is wrong, I know God will forgive me afterwards. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. You shall not put Him to the test. A member of a certain church was warned that he needed to flee. He needed to run away from media that was filled with lusts. And he did anyway, and the A fellow church member came to him with concern about what he'd done. And he said, well, you know, yes, I admit that I did. I went to that X-rated, I watched that X-rated thing. But all the time I was saying, Lord, please keep my eyes from beholding vanity. Well, let me get as close to sin as I can, God, but deliver me from evil. Don't expect God to rescue you when you say, Father, I'm going to listen to the devil, but please keep me safe. Don't think God promises to keep you safe in the storms of life if you refuse the mittens. Don't think God's going to keep us safe in the storms of life if we refuse the armor that he has provided for us. Don't think he's going to keep us safe if we neglect the Word of God. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Now, you know, you might say, Jesus, that was easy for you. You're the Son of God. I'm just weak old me. Well, it was not easy for Jesus. He felt the full force of temptation, the full strength of temptation, and didn't give in. You know, we're tempted, we're tempted this far, and we give in. Jesus was tempted this far, and this far, and then this far, and the double-capped trine, stronger, and stronger, and stronger. And so Jesus felt the full force of that temptation, and yet He did not yield. As the writer of the Hebrews puts it, in Hebrews chapter 4, he says, Jesus was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace where Jesus lives to pray for us so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. He's been through it. He understands it. He invites us to go to him. And Jesus help his grace and we go to him in our time of need. His help and His grace shows you, shows me, shows us that the way of escape from temptation is to use the very resources that Jesus Himself used. Remember, He didn't use His divine powers to zap the devil with lightning when He tempted him. What did He use? He used the Word of God. It is written. He uses the word of God, and through the word of God, he answers the devil, and he's victorious. And the Lord is saying to you, he says, when you use the same resources which Christ himself used, you, yeah, you, yes, you can be victorious over temptation. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It's not just other people that we're wrestling with, right? But we wrestle against the devil. We wrestle against principalities and powers and the world forces of his darkness. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 6. We wrestle against the world forces of this darkness. So what does he say? Put on the full armor of God. And what does he say that armor includes? Three times he says it's the word of God. He says put on the belt of truth, truth instead of lies. Put on truth, the truth of the word of God. Put on the belt of truth as your protection. Put on the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. You can go on the offense. God says this. You say this, God says this. You put on the word of God, and then you have a message for others. It's the good news. It's the word of God, the good news of the gospel of peace. So you put on the belt of the word. You put on the sword of the word. You put on the good news of the word of God. And then when the devil comes to me and he comes to you and he says, ah, but you failed here. Ah, but you yielded here. Then we put on the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness because Jesus did not yield when he was tempted he was the sinless one and so because he was the sinless one he was able to go to the cross and he was able to pay the penalty for my sin because he had no penalty for his own sin for which to pay he went to the cross to pay for my sin to lay down his life for me as the sinless one who was victorious over the devil and and because he was the sinless one He has a perfect record which He can transfer into my debit account. So I put on the breastplate of righteousness. I put on the breastplate of righteousness when the devil says, ah, but you gave in here, you yielded here. You say, but ah, my righteous Savior laid down His life for me and has washed away all my sin. My righteous Savior, the sinless one, He represents me. And he has said, you see that debit account? I've canceled that debit account and taken all the debts of my son, my daughter upon myself and I died for them on the cross. And then instead of debit, I put all my righteousness and I credited them with my righteousness so that they stand before the father covered with the breastplate of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And the father says to them, ah, you're my son, you're my daughter. I'm well pleased with you because you belong to my son, and you're covered with his blood. You're covered with his righteousness, and I love you. I accept you, my child. You see, the weapon of the word of God is given to us as our means for escape. You have a way of escape. It is going to Christ himself as savior, mediator, and going to his word, the Bible. You may have heard me tell the true story before of the son who had Christian parents and he himself rebelled. turned away from the Lord, went into the service, was deployed, came back home, and went to church with his mom and dad. And he saw a beautiful young lady there in the worship service. And he went to her after the service and said, would you go out with me? She said, no, no, you've turned away from the Lord. You haven't confessed him as Savior and Lord, so no, I can't go out with you. A few weeks later, the young soldier went forward, confessed Christ, got baptized, and he went back to this lovely, beautiful young girl. Said, would you go out with me? She said, yeah, well, yeah, I'll go out with you. So they went out on a date, and he wanted to get familiar with her body. And they were in the car, he was trying to get familiar with her body, and she turned on the light, took a Bible out of her purse, said, I have something I want to read to you. I don't know what she read. Maybe it was Genesis 2, where a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will be one flesh. And maybe she said, this kind of touching is for marriage. Or maybe she read something like 1 Corinthians 6. Glorify God with your body. I want to glorify God with my body. Or maybe it was 1 Timothy. Flee youthful lusts. Run away from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, and love with a pure heart. Or maybe it was that passage which says, young men, treat the young women as sisters in all purity. I don't know what she read to the young man, but she'd been reading the word of God, right? And since she was reading the Word of God, when the time of temptation came, she had an answer from the Word of God. Three times, our dear Lord was tempted. And three times, He says, it is written in the Word. It's written in the Word. It says it, and it still has impact today. What the Word says. I'm gonna do what the Word says, not what you say, you old devil. If the devil wants the Bible out of our schools, he wants biblical sermons canceled off of YouTube. If he wants the Bible out of our families, Don't you think God's strategy is that we do everything to get the word of God back into our lives, back into our families? And isn't that why you teach your children God's word at home? Isn't that why you're here this morning to hear the preaching of the word of God? Isn't that why we have a Christian education time where we discuss God's Word? Isn't that why you memorize the Word of God? If Jesus did not fight the Bible, if Jesus, the Son of God, didn't fight the devil without a knowledge of the Bible, if He didn't fight the devil without that weapon of the Word of God, Who do we think we are to try to fight temptation and doubt and fear without that same word? Here it is, my friends. Here it is, brothers and sisters. It's the word that Christ himself used. Who knows what storms what challenges, what temptations, what trials you're going to face. But when they come, oh, when they come, you take the word of God, and you say, oh, devil, put this in your mouth, and you choke him with thus says You resist the devil and he will flee. Let's pray. Oh, Lord God, we are weak. We are inadequate. You are adequate. You are true. Your word is true. You have sent us into the world. And sometimes it's a pretty rough place here, Lord. You've sent us into the world and yet you haven't left us defenseless. We thank you, Lord, for your armor. We thank you for your saving mercy. We thank you for your truth. Oh Lord in heaven. Equip us this week. Help us to stand this week, this day, tomorrow. Oh Lord, grant that we might take your way of escape and know victory and union with our victorious Redeemer. We might serve you and praise you. Oh, Lord, in heaven, we pray that you would hear our prayer. And you would bless each life, each person, each family represented here this morning as we seek together to stand on your word. In Jesus' precious name, we pray this. Amen.