I want to invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 4. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 11. It is that well-known account of our Lord Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by the devil. Matthew 4 verses 1 to 11. Before we read God's Word, let's pray and ask His blessing on the 30 or so minutes that we'll have together this morning. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have given us a Word that is true, a Word that is right, a Word by which we are saved, a Word by which you bring us from death to life. And Lord Jesus, you have said that your words are life and they are spirit. And so we come this morning trembling at that Word and the power of that Word, something of your saving work in our souls. We would have our souls softened, broken, that you would remove the deceitfulness of sin, the hardness of unbelief, that you would remove from each one of us an unbelieving heart, an evil and unbelieving heart, that we would give heed to your voice, that we would not be like Israel who heard and did not believe and whose bodies fell in the wilderness. Father, we pray that we would enter into that everlasting rest that You have prepared for us, that Christ has secured for us. We pray that You would give us serious attention to Your Word. We pray that Christ would be exalted, that You would show us His glory, Father, that You would declare His greatness and His name and His person and His finished work to us this morning. We pray that You would establish us by grace. Establish our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name. Matthew 4, beginning in verse 1, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word. And literally there it is, sustaining utterance that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up on the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him again, It is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, All these things I will give you. if you fall down and worship me. And Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. This ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word to us this morning. It's almost a given that when God wants to use a minister greatly, he will give him a very difficult first test. I've known many, many friends and I myself have known the difficulties of ministry, the trials that God brings in order to make men into the ministers that he wants them to be. And I think that's important because when we look at the life of Jesus, who is God over all, who is God blessed forever, who is the Lord Jehovah. When we look at his life, there's something unexpected at the beginning. There's something that really doesn't seem fitting, and that is his temptation by the devil in the wilderness. go into each and every detail and then tell you how to avoid temptation. That's not what I'm going to do. I'm going to preach this text as I believe the Holy Spirit has intended it to be preached, as it relates to Jesus and His messianic ministry and His saving work and then the implications For of that for us, so we're going to see three things this morning just as there are three temptations We're going to see three things first. We're going to see the circumstances of Christ's temptation in the wilderness Then we're going to see the nature of his temptation in the wilderness and finally the implications of his temptations and obedience Well, first you'll see there that Matthew in verse 1 opens by saying, Now it's important for us to remember that Matthew is writing this in connection with everything that he's just written, and the very last thing that he's just written is that Jesus was baptized, that he was baptized by John in the Jordan River. That was not, first and foremost, an example for you and how you're to be baptized. That was an identification. Jesus, as the sinless one, was undergoing a baptism of repentance for sins. One who had no sin, undergoing something that said he needed sins cleansed. And the question is, why? Why was Jesus undergoing a baptism of repentance? for you and me, for sinners that He was coming to represent. He was coming to fulfill all righteousness. He was coming to keep God's law. He was coming to die for your sin and my sin. And He was representing us and He was identifying with us. And as He went through the waters of baptism there in the most magnificent way, The Trinity, for the first time in human history, appeared in all of its fullness. God the Father speaking out of heaven, the Son in the waters, and the Spirit hovering over the Son. In that great beginning of Jesus' messianic ministry at 30 years of age, this glorious, monumental, grand, soul-pleasing sight of the triune God in the person of Jesus. And Jesus going through the waters, You would think that that would be a climactic event in a glorious life, yet it was the only climactic event he would have until the Transfiguration, and he would go from the waters of baptism to the fires of trial and testing in the wilderness. He would go from the heights of glory to the depths of testing and suffering in the wilderness. And it's interesting because there at the baptism, the father had given something to Jesus. He had given something to him to hold on to for his ministry. He had said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Now that voice, that voice is for you to know who he is. Certainly it was for John and those around to know the identification of Jesus. But that word was to the son. You are my beloved son. You are the Messiah. You are the everlasting Christ. You are my eternal son. I am pleased with you. And notice that the same spirit that came down on Jesus at the baptism now drives him into the wilderness. And that same word that the Father says over the Son, this is my beloved Son, it's the same word that Satan tempts him with, if you are the Son. If you are the Son. if you are the Son. And so you see how these two things circumstantially are connected, the baptism of Jesus and the temptation of Jesus. Well, notice Matthew tells us also about the circumstances that it was after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights. Now, let me say here, this is not for you to go home and say, I'm going to fast for 40 days and 40 nights. That's not the point of this. Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights up in the mountain. Elijah fasted 40 days. Our Lord fasted 40 days. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are to fast 40 days. Jesus was fasting. He was fasting because as the Messiah, His soul was preparing for the messianic ministry of redemption that His Father wanted Him to have. He was fulfilling all things. He was the true and greater Israel. Now, I want you to listen carefully. I want you to listen carefully because what Jesus is doing is He is recapitulating. all of Old Covenant history. He is the son of Abraham. He is the true Israel. He goes down into Egypt. He comes out of Egypt, Matthew 2. He goes through the waters and into the wilderness, just like Israel went through the waters and into the wilderness. And here, the true Israel in the wilderness is going to be tempted by the devil, and the Spirit of God has led him there. He has led him there so that in every way that Israel failed and in every way that Adam failed, The first Son of God, Adam, Luke tells us was the Son of God in Israel, was called God's Son. In the same way, Jesus, the Son of God, is being driven out into the wilderness to be tempted, to be tried. to overcome, to merit the blessings that Adam and Israel had failed in their testings. Remember, Adam had turned the garden into a wilderness. Adam had failed in that one test in which he should have obeyed and inherited the blessings. Adam was tempted in the garden. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Israel was tempted in the wilderness. Jesus is now being tempted in the wilderness. The true Israel, the second Adam, and He is fasting 40 days and 40 nights because he is the greater Moses. He is the greater Moses in the wilderness, representing his people. He is about to go up on the mountain in Matthew 5 and re-give the law just like Moses did. All of this is the circumstance of our Lord's ministry. He had come to fulfill everything that you read about in your Old Testament. Now, the nature of the temptations. Notice first, verse 3. that we're told the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. Now, there's something you don't want to miss. There's something you don't want to miss about all that's going on. The tempter, the tempter, that language taking you back to Genesis chapter two and three when they're in the garden. in the perfection of holiness, in the splendor of the new created world that God has just created with His image bearer there in the garden. And the tempter comes in, and he brings all of his malice and hatred for God in his image, and he brings all of his disdain for God's image bearer. Just as a king would set up an image in a land that he had conquered, God put His image, a living, breathing image, in the garden. And the tempter came in to destroy and mar and to corrupt everything that God had done. And now, now, the seed of the woman, Genesis 3.15, the one who had been promised to come and crush the head of the serpent, the one that immediately after Adam had failed was said that he would come and he would have his heel bruised and he would crush the head of the serpent, that one is now in enemy occupied territory. The Spirit has taken him out there, not to make war with the devil, but to let the devil make war on him. And it's fitting that at the beginning of Jesus's ministry, that the seed of the woman and the serpent would come head to head in the wilderness. And he would be tempted and he would let loose on the second Adam, as it were. He would let loose all of his tempting power. And you see something, you see something of how subtle, how subtle Satan's temptations are. And let me say here, let's not forget that Satan is tempting a perfect man. He's tempting a perfect man. He's tempting a man who knew no sin, and yet a man who has made sin for us. He's tempting a man who, as God and man, couldn't sin in his divine nature, and yet as man, like Adam, had choices to make. He had a will. He had a human soul. He was commanded to obey his father. And Satan brings all of his forces and all of his tempting power. And notice, notice what he says. In verse three, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. There's obviously an allusion there to the manna in the wilderness, obviously an allusion to Israel's desire for bread in the wilderness. But there, Satan is tempting Jesus because he knows he's hungry. He knows that he's weak. He knows that he's been trusting his father and he has supernaturally been sustained by his father. And it would be a small thing. It would be a small thing for Jesus to turn stones into bread. That would be a very insignificant miracle. Jesus did many miracles much more significant than that. It would be a small thing. And so Satan comes very strategically at that moment of human frailty in the Savior, at that moment of weariness in the Savior, at that moment when the Savior would be most susceptible. Satan comes and he says, look, you're hungry. You're the son. Show off your power a little bit. Turn these stones into bread. It would be a small thing for you. You sent, if you are the son, you were the one that sent bread from heaven. Can you not turn the stones into bread? And our Lord says to Satan, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Here he is not speaking about scripture per se, speaking about that sustaining word. He is trusting his father. You see, Satan is in each of these temptations that we'll look at. Satan is asking Jesus to bypass the cross, to bypass what he came to do, and to show off his power just a little bit on his way to do it. He's asking Jesus to stop trusting his father just a little bit and to use the power that he has as the Messiah for just a moment and bypass that difficult route that the father had called him to endure. And just for a moment to use what was his by right to get something that in itself is not sinful. Bread, a little bread. It wasn't sinful for Jesus to eat bread. And so you see the subtleties of the Satan you see in combat. The trust of the son will notice next the second temptation. The devil took him up on the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written. He will command his angels concerning you. Now, this may seem like a strange temptation. You may say, well, why? Why would he take him up on the temple? Why would he tell Jesus to throw himself down? Well, first, I would say he would take him up on the temple because the temple was the place where God's well. And here's the son of God. Here's the one who for thousands of years came down and dwelt in that most holy place with his father and his spirit over the Ark of the Covenant. Here's the one who dwelt with the people, the very glory and presence of God. And now the devil takes him up onto the pinnacle of the temple. And in a sense, says, Jesus, just show off a little bit, just show off a little bit what your father has kept for you and Satan. Satan, and you'll all know this, I'm sure, Satan very strategically uses Scripture. I think this is one of the greatest proof texts of why we need to know the Scriptures carefully. I think this is one of the greatest biblical proofs of why it's not okay for us to say, well, they interpret it one way and we interpret it another. And why can't we all just kind of agree to disagree? Because Satan quotes Psalm 91 and he quotes it accurately. and he quotes it masterfully, but he misapplies it to the circumstance. He tells Jesus, listen, essentially, if you just do what I'm asking you to do and just for just a second, just stop trusting your Father and just show off for the people so that they'll see that you are the Son of God. If just for a second, because God has said He'll give His angels charge concerning you. That was about the Messiah. That was a promise that the angels would come. You're going to see at the end of this passage, look at verse 11, the angels did come and they did minister to Him. That was That was written for Jesus. That was written about Him. And the devil is saying, listen, just for a second, just stop trusting your Father and show off so the people will know you are the Son of God. They'll see the angels come. Everyone will then praise you, Jesus, and you'll get the glory that you're due. And so let me say again, this is why. This is why the apostles are constantly warning against twisting scripture. This is why we care about doctrine. This is why we ought never say it doesn't matter. They have their interpretation. We have ours. That's actually satanic to say that. Let me say that as emphatically, clearly, and non-winsomely as possible. It is satanic to say it doesn't matter how we interpret scripture. And Satan, Satan loves to use the Bible. And so in that second temptation, there's, in a sense, there's an incremental increase in the difficulty. First, turn these stones to bread. Then he takes him up on the pinnacle of the temple and says, throw yourself down because God has said. And of course, Jesus battling back with scripture. We'll come to that in a moment. But then thirdly, the third test, he takes him up even higher from the desert to the temple, to a high mountain. And notice, verse eight, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Now, this is by far the most sophisticated, advanced, powerful, subtle and cunning temptation that Satan could have ever put to the Savior. Because the Father had told the Son in Psalm 2, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance. The Father had told the Son. that the Son was coming to redeem the nations. He was coming to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He was coming to be King of all the kingdoms of the world. He was coming to gather a people out of every tongue, tribe, nation, and language. He was coming to redeem a world that had been handed over to Satan by our first Father. He had come precisely for this, and now Satan's showing him all the glory of the world, what it must have looked like, all the culture and the art and the kingdoms and the music and the food and the dancing and everything. about all the glory of all the armies and all the power and all the might and all the pomp of all of the nations. And Satan says, I will give it all to you if you just bow down. And in that, again, in that, he is saying, if you will just bypass the cross, if you will just bypass the cross, if you will just take an easier route. Notice in all three temptations, Satan's really doing that, isn't he? If you just stop trusting your Father and turn some stones to bread, if you just bypass the difficulties for which you came to suffer to be the great Savior of the world, if you just throw yourself off the temple, everybody will know that you're the Savior. The Father had said, if you go to the cross, they'll know. If you go to Calvary, they'll know. If you hang there on the tree, they will know that you are the Son of God. If you just throw yourself off the temple and then if you will just bow down, I will give you all the kingdoms in the world. If you will just take the easy route. And yet our Savior said, Get behind me, Satan. Be gone, Satan. For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve. Now, let me say just a few things. I could tell you, and I will tell you in a minute, but I could tell you, you need to fight temptations using the Bible. When you're tempted, you need to know the Scriptures, and you need to fight temptation using the Bible. And that's true. But each of these verses comes out of the book of Deuteronomy. Each of these verses were given to Israel in the Old Covenant. Each of these verses were specifically directed to temptations that Israel was being tempted with, exactly like the temptations Jesus was. Grumbling over the manna. complaining over wanting glory for themselves and idolatry. And all of these temptations, again, going back to the garden, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The lust of the flesh, turn these stones to bread. The lust of the eyes, all the kingdoms of the world, and the pride of life, throw yourself off and show who you are. You see, Satan and his temptations and his temptations toward Jesus is not doing anything really new. These are timeless. These are timeless. And Jesus is obeying everywhere that we have failed to obey. He is obeying for you. You see, listen, Jesus didn't start representing you at the cross. Jesus did not start representing you at the cross. That's, I think, how a lot of people think about Jesus. Christ somehow began to represent you at Calvary. He began representing you in eternity when we were chosen in Him before the foundations of the world. He represented us every step He took from the manger to the grave. He represented us. Everything He did was in our place, for us. And that means His obedience as the second Adam, as the true Israel, was for you. And that's huge. That's huge, because when you start seeing Jesus as the great representative in every way, you start being drawn to Him in ways that you maybe have never been drawn to Him before. And when you see Jesus as just the Savior on the cross, not in His temptation, not in His obedience, not in His perfection, then we really devalue something about His person. I think Matthew is telling us this, not to give us just a theology of temptation, he's telling us this to give us a theology of Jesus, a theology of Christ, a theology of the Messiah, who he is, what he did, his complete and perfect obedience to God. His overcoming was for you. It's interesting that Jesus will go on from here and start casting out demons. And what Matthew will tell us is that Jesus says himself he had to first enter the strong man's house. That's Satan. Destroy him and plunder his goods. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing. That's exactly what he's doing. Now, this is not the last time Jesus was tempted. Notice verse 11. Then the devil left him, Luke says, for an opportune time. And behold, angels came and ministered to him. I think the Gospels give us three temptations of Jesus. Three times Satan was tempting him. The first is here. The second is at Caesarea Philippi when Peter makes that confession and then turns around and says, Jesus, you're not going to go to the cross. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. The same get behind me that he says here. He says again, Satan is now seeking an opportune time through Simon Peter and again, the same temptation to keep him from going to the cross. And the third time is when he's on the cross and the scribes and the Pharisees who Jesus called the seed of vipers, the seed of serpents. They belong to the father of the devil, he said. As he hung there, they said, if you are the Christ, if you are the son of God, the same temptation Satan's doing in the wilderness. And, you know, our Lord Jesus was obedient, Paul says, even to the point of death. That's the point. Why have a Christian narrative at the beginning of Jesus's life? Why not just have it at the very end? Because he was obedient his entire messianic ministry. What we're getting from the temptation in the wilderness to the cross is three years of messianic ministry of perfect perpetual obedience. And all through there, he never lusted. He never stole. He never lied. He never committed adultery. He never murdered. He never envied. He never coveted. He never dishonored his father and mother. Children, I want you to hear this carefully. Jesus never dishonored his parents. And he did that for us. And he fulfilled the legal demands of God's law. And he became a curse at the cross. And he received the blessing. And he gives those blessings to you based on his obedience and his atoning death. So that in him, we have everything. In him, we have life and righteousness and peace and joy and redemption. And we don't add to his finished work. We live out of it. And so thirdly, I want to say the implications of Christ's temptation, I've already obviously set some forth. I think we need to be settled in our minds about the representative obedience of Christ. I think it's actually hard to believe. what I'm telling you. I think it flies against our natural inclination to believe this. Ah, did he really do that? I mean, doesn't that mean I can just kind of live any way I want? I mean, is it that easy? It's that good. It's that good. It's not that easy. It's that good. It's that good. And so, settle in your minds and hearts that the obedience of Jesus was for you. Turn to Romans 5. Let me let Paul settle it in your mind. Romans 5. This is the great chapter where Jesus is called the second man, the second Adam. Let me just read this to us without commentary. beginning of verse 12. Therefore, justice sin came into the world through one man and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sin for sin was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass, for if many died through one man's trespass, much more the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded to many. For the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If because of one man's trespass death reigns through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness, with all of the obedience that came behind it, one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. By the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. And so first, we're to settle in our minds that Jesus Christ really did obey for us. And then secondly, I want to say that we are called to obey in him. I don't think that this temptation account says that. I think the Bible says that. I think it's interesting that in 1 Corinthians 10, where Paul is warning the Christian church, don't fall after the same example of disobedience as Israel did in the wilderness, interestingly. And he lists off several ways they sin, sexual immorality, tempting Christ, complaining and grumbling, all of the ways that Israel manifested their disobedience. He says, don't fall after that example. No sin is overtaking you, except as is common to man. But God is faithful, who with it will provide a way of escape. And the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus was tempted in all points, even as you are, yet without sin, so that he might sympathize with you in your weakness. Now, I don't know where you're at in your Christian life. I don't know if you're a Christian, but I know that each of us are tempted by the devil. And let me say, if the devil would tempt the perfect son of God, he will tempt the best saint on the face of the earth. So don't think you're so holy that you're not going to get tempted. And he will keep tempting the most careless saint on the face of the earth. And we learn from this temptation account of his subtleties. And we learn from our Savior how to battle. Yes, it is with the scriptures. Yes, it is through prayer. Yes, it is by knowing we have a high priest who sympathizes with us. Yes, it is by imitating our Savior who went there before us, the captain of our salvation, who led the way. He's a perfect general. He's a perfect captain. He goes before us. He does it perfectly. He does it for us. He wins the victory. And he says, follow me. If you're with me, you'll be safe. If you are like me, you will overcome. And we overcome by faith in him and by giving heed to the things that are written in his word. I want to know more victory in my own life over temptation. I hope you do. I think that starts by resting in who the Savior is. I think it also means knowing the subtleties of Satan. I think it means knowing the scriptures carefully, not letting yourself be led astray by people that twist the scriptures, even in our circles, however broad we want to make that. But I want you to know that Jesus Christ has obeyed for you. He has merited the blessings for you. He has done that for his people. And you know what? Here's the most amazing thing. He commands you to believe that. You're commanded to believe that. I, as a minister of the gospel, can tell you, you are commanded to believe that Jesus obeyed for you. As good as that sounds, as unbelievable as that may sound, it is a dishonor to Jesus if we don't believe that. I hope that this will be an encouragement to you as you think about him, as you meditate on these things, as you dig into the temptation narrative and consider all that Jesus is, all that he endured, all that he did to conquer the one who conquered man for us and for our salvation. Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church. Let me pray for us. Our Father, we thank you for the obedience of the one man. Lord, we know that that is actually a hard truth to believe. Father, I know that. We somehow want to try to cram our own merits into what he has accomplished. Don't let us. Father, unite us to your Son by faith and faith alone. cause us to rest in His salvation. If there are any here today, Father, that don't know You, that they would fall on the Savior and be broken, that they would come to know Him, that they would cry out for His blood and His righteousness, that, Father, You would cover us with the righteousness of Your Son, that You would build us up in Him, that You would cause us to fight valiantly against the wiles of the devil. Father, lift up a standard against Him. Give us that same spirit that Christ had that we might fight. Make us to know the Scriptures carefully. that we would take up the sword of the Spirit and make war against the evil one. We thank you for our union with Christ, Father. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are our Savior and that you have finished the work of redemption. We pray that you would accomplish your purposes in us. We pray these things in your name. Amen.