We're gonna talk a little bit about the sovereignty of God in the next three months. And this first sermon is about how not to respond to the sovereignty of God, and hopefully in March we'll talk about the fact, the reality of God's sovereignty, and then April, how to. one way to positively respond. Obviously, the sovereignty of God is a huge subject. One could spend weeks talking about it. We're just going to touch on some simple ideas here in the next few weeks, Lord willing. So with that in mind, if you would please stand for the reading of God's Word in reverence for that Word. This morning we're going to look at a familiar passage, Luke chapter 4, verses 1 through 13. As you hear the word, remember that this is the very word of the very living God, Luke chapter four. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. And Jesus answered him, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, to you, I will give all this authority and their glory for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are 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, lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered him, it is said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. So ends the reading of God's infallible, inerrant, and holy word. May he write it upon our hearts and may it bear fruit in our lives. Please be seated. Let me pray for us as we come before the word. Father in heaven, Again, we ask that you would speak to us now. This is your word, and you have made a promise that when it goes out, it does not return to you empty, but instead accomplishes all that you purpose for it. May that be true here this morning. And so for ourselves, we ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us to open our ears, to hear in our eyes, to see the things that you would have us see and hear from your word. Do make it, we ask, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, that we might walk according to your word. We ask it in Christ's name again. Amen. Well, to begin with this morning, I want to ask you to do something just a little bit different, maybe more difficult for the adults than for the kids, because I want you to imagine. I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that we're not sitting here in this building, but that instead, we're all gathered together in a huge medieval cathedral. One of those great stone structures rising high to the sky and going back, back, back, that can seat thousands of people. That's where we are, and it's packed. It's absolutely packed. More than that, it's packed because it's Easter Sunday. This is one of the high holy days of the church, and so the church is packed with worshipers. They're dressed nicely. They're dressed nicely because it's 1950, and people still dress nicely in 1950. This isn't an actual event that I'm getting to. It's 1950, and it isn't just any cathedral. It isn't just any worship service. This is the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. And not only is the cathedral packed, not only is it this famous and well-known cathedral, not only is it Easter Sunday, but there's this newfangled thing called television. And the worship service is being broadcast live to the whole nation. This is where we are. This is what we're experiencing. And then something happens. And this did happen, Easter 1950. An extremist group invaded the cathedral, rousing, rabble-rousing, causing trouble, shouting at the congregation, God is dead. God is dead. Dieu et mort. God is dead. Their leader, accusing the church, alleging hatred and wickedness pervasive in the Roman Catholic Church, proclaimed just one thing, j'accuse in French, I accuse you. Now that's a phrase that may not be as well-known today as it used to be. But j'accuse was the title of an essay published in 1898 protesting something or other I don't remember and it doesn't matter, but it was a phrase that was taken up around the world in all sorts of literature. You'd hear someone standing up to make testimony in a court hearing or a public hearing of some kind and they'd be angry about what someone was doing and all they had to do was say j'accuse and everybody knew what they meant. It even made it into TV shows and movies and whatnot. I think I even saw it in a comic strip or two growing up. Jacuzzi, I accuse you. I accuse you because you are guilty. Imagine that going on in the middle of a worship service broadcast on national TV. Imagine how you would feel as that was going on, the experience of that, how disrespectful it is, how shameful. We want to talk about accusations here this morning. Let me get there through a couple of different paths. We heard this right this morning in our adult Sunday school in Ephesians. Paul in chapter four warns against the craftiness of deceitful schemes. And then in chapter six, He commends to us the whole armor of God to protect us in part from the schemes of the devil. Now, Satan's name can be translated variously, most commonly either as the opponent or the accuser. Either one works, either one is appropriate depending on the situation. We read in Revelation 12 that he is called the accuser of the brethren. And there is great joy that the accuser of the brethren has been defeated. And we often think of Satan this way. He's the one who accuses us. He's the one who tries to convince us that we're guilty. We don't deserve the salvation that we have. Now, Luther has a great answer to this, as he always did. A repeated answer that you find in his writing. I didn't have to look very far in his commentary to Galatians. I knew it was in there. Chapter one, verse four. His commentary on Galatians 1 chapter four. Let me read what he says in part. Luther, let us equip ourselves against the accusations of Satan with this and similar passages of Holy Scripture. If he says thou shalt be damned, you tell him no. For I fly to Christ who gave himself for my sins. In accusing me of being a damnable sinner, You are cutting your own throat, Satan. You are reminding me of God's fatherly goodness toward me, that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In calling me a sinner, Satan, you really comfort me above measure. With such heavenly cunning, we are to meet the devil's craft. and put from us the memory of sin. So Martin Luther's advice, it's pretty good advice. You wanna accuse me of being a sinner, Satan? You're right, I am guilty, but I have a savior who paid for that sin. Every time you remind me of my sin, you remind me of my savior. Thank you, appreciate it. That's Martin Luther, likable guy. Yet the reality is Satan remains crafty. And there's another kind of accusation that he can make, and that's the one I want to get to this morning. It's been on my mind quite a bit lately. It's a form of accusation that I don't think we pay a whole lot of attention to. And yet we should, because it's easy to get caught up in this particular form of our opponent's craftiness. It's illustrated in this passage before us this morning. Satan is not accusing us in Luke 4, but I want to show that he's accusing God very subtly. but very wrongly. And I think it's important for us to know how to effectively respond to these kinds of unjust accusations, not just against us, but against God himself, so that we don't get caught up in the same kind of accusations ourselves. So what I wanna do this morning is approach this story from just a little bit of a different perspective, hopefully so that we might become just a little bit wiser, just a little bit more aware of Satan and his schemes, and to be prepared to better defend ourselves so that we don't unwittingly get caught up in and participate in them. Just focusing on two ideas then this morning, how Satan accuses God, and how we can get caught up in that, And then the second thing, what's our defense? How Satan accuses God, how we get caught up in that, and then how do we defend against that? We're gonna primarily look at Luke, but I wanna start a couple other places to build in to Luke. Now, one thing we should keep in mind, always keep in mind, when Satan, or us, when Satan accuses God, God is not harmed. Satan can't hurt God. The devil's accusations do not weaken God, they don't hurt God, they don't harm God. But the funny thing is, they can impact us. And impacting us is probably Satan's real goal anyway. I wanna show you a couple places in Scripture before Jesus is testing in the wilderness where this happens. Look at these briefly, and then we'll get into Luke 4. The first is a well-known story, Genesis 3, the fall, right? Satan as the crafty beast who comes to tempt Eve and through her, Adam. What I want to point out here is the key claim that the serpent makes to Eve concerning the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here's what he says in Genesis 3-5, God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Did you catch that? God knows that when you do this, you will become like Him, knowing good and evil. Do you see what he's saying? Do you see what he's saying about God? In essence, he's accusing God of withholding something good, something desirable. and of preventing Adam and Eve from becoming like God themselves. Satan's saying, in effect, God's trying to keep you in the dark. Keep your eyes closed. Eat and your eyes will be opened. Eat and you'll be like God. And God's the one preventing this. Do you see how wicked that is? How nefarious, and yet how crafty? This is the craftiest of the beasts. And what happened? Adam and Eve bought it. They got lured in. And eating the fruit, they joined in effect in this accusation against God. What did Eve, how would she describe? She saw that the fruit was desirable and good for eating. She's agreeing with Satan at that point. She's in effect saying, God, you're withholding something from me that's good and desirable. In essence, they're raising a clenched fist to God and accusing him of keeping something good from them. And they weren't gonna pass up the opportunity to have something good, to have something that he had told them that they couldn't have. The sentence of death is completely forgotten, and the desire for something I want that's being withheld from me. So far, Adam and Eve. Another well-known story, the story of Job. We see Satan again accusing God in chapters one and two, a well-known story. In Genesis, I think Satan is accusing God pretty directly or indirectly. In Job, it's quite direct. Satan comes in with the other servants of God to report on his activities. God says, hey, consider Job my servant. And in Job chapter one, verses nine and following, what I see going on there is Satan basically accusing God of running a divine protection racket. In other words, Job, you worship me, I'll keep you safe. Satan says to God, you've put a hedge around him. You have blessed the work of his hands. Touch it and he will curse you. In other words, what Satan is accusing God of is you're not worthy of Job's worship because you bought it. You bought it with your protection and with your blessing. Take those things away and Job will prove God your unworthiness by cursing you to your face. There's a very similar interaction in Job chapter two, verses four to six. Now what happens in the story? Job does not immediately, nor does he ever really in the story, accuse God directly. But by the time we get to the end of the book and all those speeches by Job's friends, by the latter part of the book, Job himself is calling upon God to give an account for what's happening to him. I deserve an answer for this. I followed your laws. I served you. I'm a righteous man. I don't deserve this. Explain yourself, God. Why are you repaying my worship and my service with punishment?" God, of course, famously answers, out of the whirlwind, and Job wisely repents. But in the meantime, he's effectively agreed with Satan. God's love, God's protection is a quid pro quo. You give me this, I'll give you that. I serve you, you protect me. You protect me, I serve you. It's like God is some sort of divine mafioso. Again, how despicable is that? How treacherous? How wicked? So now we come to Luke chapter four. And we shouldn't be surprised at what Satan is doing here with Jesus in the wilderness. Satan is accusing God in these temptations. Now, we see this as we look at the temptations in turn. Let's just walk through them here quickly. The first temptation is a very simple one, hunger. The text even says, the simplicity of Luke here is quite remarkable, even slightly amusing. Forty days, when they're ended, it says, he was hungry. You think? 40 days of fasting. He was hungry. Yes, he was hungry. It was visceral. Have you ever been really, really hungry? Do you remember that feeling? The urge, the need to satisfy it? Jesus was hungry. So this is not just some esoteric kind of temptation. It strikes at the very heart of the physical nature of this trial, this ordeal that Jesus went through in the desert. Note how Satan words his temptation. This is where we see the craftiness of it. If you are the son of God. Again, did you catch that in the reading? If you are the son of God. This is subtle, this is crafty. Because this if isn't kind of an if then logical thing. If you drive the speed limit, you will not get a ticket. Nor is it a rhetorical if, where we say if this and we assume it to be true. This is an accusatory if. If you're really that smart, we say to people, prove it. If you're really that clever, prove it. If you're really that great an athlete, prove it. If you're really that this or that, prove it. This is what Satan is saying to Jesus. If you're really the son of God, prove it. How? By turning stone to bread. It's an accusation. I'm not really sure you are the son of God. If you are, prove it to me. Turn the stone to bread. It's an accusation directed at the Son of God, and it's an insult. It's an insult because he's not just accusing Jesus of not being God, but he's also accusing the Holy Spirit and the Father who led Jesus out in the wilderness for this time of testing. Accusing Him of being unkind in doing this to Him, of depriving the Son of food, of withholding again something good, something physically necessary. It's an accusation. Now let's take a step back and think about ourselves. Brothers and sisters, how often do we do something similar? In effect, complaining about our present circumstances, when we think God hasn't given us something that is good or that we believe is necessary or that we deserve. Our lack of contentment, that 10th commandment that kind of encompasses the first nine, our lack of contentment with what God has given us in life, it's not just a violation of that commandment, but it's an accusation against God and his goodness, his providence, his love, his care for his people. I know better, God, what I need than what you're giving me. It's an accusation. Subtle. Something we need to guard against. The second temptation is a temptation to power. The first temptation was physical. This is about ambition, if you will. The if here doesn't contain that same sort of veiled accusation of God as the first one, but it's just slightly different. In verses five and following, we read that the devil took Jesus up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment and offers them to Jesus and says they're mine to give to whomever I want. But here's the condition. You have to worship me. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. This isn't just about kingdoms. It's not just about the power to rule and have those kingdoms. This is about worship and who we worship and why we worship. Satan is tempting Jesus to this false, idolatrous worship. But the basis of that, underlying that temptation, is an accusation against the Father, isn't there? Worship me, says Satan, because I can give you what the Father can't or won't. In effect, Satan is saying that the Father's promises to the Son are all lies. And we know those promises, just a couple examples from Psalm 2, verse 8. Ask of me, says the Father to the Son, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. Revelation 11, verse 15, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever. Satan's saying, worship me, and I'll give you what the Father's not giving you. It's just idolatry. John Calvin famously said that our hearts are idol factories, and that is certainly true. But think about what we're doing when we create those false gods in our hearts. Or God forbid, carve them or paint them or something like that. Every false god we worship is a statement saying, in effect, this idol can give me what God cannot or will not. Pleasure, satisfaction, power, wealth, health, whatever it might be. Fill a hole, meet a need that we don't think God can fill or meet or won't fill or meet. Every time we create an idol, we become accusers of God. Think about the Israelites around Mount Sinai. How often they accused God of not giving them good things. And they built that nice golden calf. This is what idolatry does. We become accusers of God in some way, shape, or form. In our hearts, if not outwardly, we disbelieve God's promises to care for us. to provide for us all that we need, both body and soul, and that He is with us even in the deepest trials, even in the darkest and most difficult struggles of life, that He walks with us. He's with us in those deep, dark valleys. Create an idol and you're accusing God of not being worthy of your worship and of your service because He doesn't keep those promises for His servants. Satan is tempting Jesus here, but we're too ready to do the same kind of thing. Worship something, value something, elevate something above God because it satisfies a desire, a need in our heart. The third temptation is a temptation of safety or of protection. It again has that accusatory if to start it out. If you are the son of God, prove it. This time not by satisfying a physical need, but showing, well, showing that you're really God. Prove you're really God by making God save you. And in saving you, prove that you're his son. So in verses nine and following, Satan is taking Jesus up to the top of the temple. Estimates range from that being 100 to 120 feet off the ground. You jump from there, you will die. And now Satan's trying to use God's word against Jesus, the incarnate word. God has promised to protect you, says Satan. So prove you're God's son by throwing yourself down and we'll see the angels guarding you and protecting you. And here Satan's accusation really gets to the heart of things. You, Jesus, are not really God. But if you are, the angels will protect you. So here's your chance. Prove it. Prove who you are. Throw yourself down. Let's see. Again, this is very subtle. It's nefarious. It's crafty. It's wickedly evil. Again, basically, God isn't who he says he is. But if he is, he'll show himself in some way that we approve of. See what that is? It's a test of God. It's a test of God of our own devising. In other words, for God to be God, he must show it by meeting my standards for who God is and what he should be, how he should act, what he should say. And how often do we hear this? How often do we hear this from those around us? God forbid, from us ourselves. How often do we think it ourselves? How often do we hear people say, if God is love, the Bible says God is love, then he'll get rid of all evil or poverty or get rid of all war. If God is really love, he would accept everybody for who they are because he made them that way, right? He's the creator. You guys say he's the creator. If God is love, he'll accept them the way they are. He wouldn't judge. God is really love, he wouldn't judge. So we pick and we choose what we want God to be like, twisting scripture, in the end making false idols in our own image so that we can worship them instead of the true God. Never mind the contradictions, right? You ever think about the contradictions inherent in some of these things that people say? I want God to be loving. I want him to be powerful enough to get rid of evil, but I don't want him to judge. Does that work? How does he identify and get rid of evil if he doesn't judge it? God has to be God. He has to be all of himself. He has to be all of his attributes, all of his characteristics, all of who he says he is. But even worse, if God doesn't live up to our standards, we judge Him. We test whether He will or will not do what we think He should or should not do. And in so doing, we accuse Him. We judge Him not to be God, not to be worthy of our worship, not to be good, not to be a keeper of His promises. If you can imagine how disruptive it would be for a crowd of people to walk into a French cathedral on national TV and start shouting accusations against God, if that bothers you, it should bother you when you do it yourself. It should bother me when I do it. Because it's just as bad. It's just not on national TV. Thank the Lord. So what's the antidote to all this? What's the prescription? Well, Jesus uses it here in these temptations, doesn't he? It's the word, it's the word of God. When Satan comes to test us and to tempt us, to accuse God, how do we respond? We have to do it the same way Jesus did, with the Word. Every temptation, every accusation of Satan, Jesus responds to with the Word of God. That means something, doesn't it, for us? We have to know that Word. We have to know what it says. We have to know what it teaches. We need to know how to apply it. We need to know how to live it. But especially when it comes to these accusations against God, we need to know what the Word says about God. Who He is? What are His attributes? How does He behave? What does He tell us? What does He expect for us and how we live? How are we His ambassadors to those around us? What's true for Jesus is true for us. We need to get the word right. We have to have the right doctrine and we have to apply it the right way. True for the church as a whole, true for us as individuals in the church. To resist Satan, and his accusations, whether against us or against God himself, we need to know God's word and we need to know how to apply it. We need to be students of that word and understand the implications of that word for how we live, for how we think. And yet, as we gather here together this morning, this is one area where the church, corporately and individually, is tremendously weak at the moment. You can read survey after survey of Bible knowledge among Christians. It's pathetic. But look at the challenges facing the church and how we're responding. And by the church, I mean the broader company of the church, the most prominent of which we prayed for a pastor in Alabama this morning, this idea of gender or same-sex marriage and same-sex attraction. The slogans now are appearing all over the place. This is how the world is speaking to us. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's God's word, right? But what do they mean? Accept them for who they are, don't judge. Be nice to them. This command to love in the world's idea of love transcends all others. Be nice, let them do what they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else, don't limit their liberties, civic or otherwise. If they love one another, if it's genuine, if it's a commitment, then who are we to judge? Who are you to judge, Christians? Now, we can scoff at this, we can be surprised at it, yet it's common, and it's growing, and it's growing in places that call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ. Christians continue to use and increasingly adopt this kind of language and reasoning that reflects that we do not know God's Word and we do not know how to apply it. And this is sad. We've adopted Satan's crafty scheme and we've accused God You know, we read about the story of temptation in Luke chapter four, and we cheer Jesus for his use of scripture to combat Satan, and then we don't do the same thing. It's kind of pathetic. So what should we be doing? Well, get into the word. Get into it deep. Excuse me. Get into the Word, the reading of it, the devotion to it, the study of it. Learn how to apply it in your lives. Do it in your own study. Do it with others. Do it as a group. Do it as a church. And then second, I believe this deeply and wholeheartedly. We have got to get back to the Gospel as the church, especially in America. Folks, we have lost the culture wars. We probably lost them 40 years ago. And we've been fighting it with the tools and weapons of man. Social programs, political this, political that. It's not working. We are losing. Now I commend Pastor Reed for going before the state legislature. He should. We need to speak truth when it's our opportunity to do so. But no politician is going to help the church. Because what changes hearts and minds And this is the tactic that church has not been using as we should in recent years. What changes hearts and minds is the precious good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the word made flesh. If the events and times and trends and things going on in the culture around you trouble you, then get passionate about the gospel. Only the Gospel, only the Holy Spirit can change lives. And He does change lives. Whether it's Weston's friend, whether it's Monty's son, whether it's anybody that we know who needs that Gospel, it changes lives. It changes thoughts. It changes desires. And it does so in a beautiful, wonderful, glorious way. So we need to get passionate about the gospel, about sharing it with others, or just inviting people to church, or give them good pamphlets, or books to read, or point them to a good website, or something, a podcast to listen to, that will teach them and expose them to the news of salvation in and through Jesus Christ. Satan doesn't want us to go there. He'd rather have us accuse God. But see, God sent His Son. Luther wrote it, and he wrote it right. God sent His Son to die, His only begotten Son, so that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ the Son lived and died and rose again, not to feed His hunger, not to win the kingdoms of the world, not to prove Himself God, but to save sinners like you and me. Men, women, and children from the power of sin. And this power of God brings new life. This power of God creates new hearts. This power of God renews minds. And along with that, couldn't hurt to just get on our knees and pray for revival, that God would have mercy on his church, that God would have mercy on this land, that God would have mercy on the world, whether it's the Bahamas or any other nation we prayed for. Send the Holy Spirit with power to convict many and to bring many to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. In the meantime, brothers and sisters, be prepared for temptation. Be prepared for trial. The world is turning against us. It's always been against us, but now it's doing so more openly and viscerally. And it accuses God relentlessly. Don't get caught up in those accusations. Depend upon the Word of God because it has the answers that the world is looking for. In those accusations, is a desire for something good and right. They've got the wrong prescription. We've got the right one. We have the Word. We have the Word made flesh. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. That's the only hope for a world not just lost in, but also apparently in love with darkness. But the opportunities are there. Again, in those accusations, there's a hunger for the things of God. The appetites are warped, the solutions are warped, but every one of us here has the ability to lead them to better food. The world's hungry. Your friends, your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, your fellow students, whoever they are, they're hungry. What do you feed them with? Feed them with this word. Feed them with Jesus. Let's pray. Lord God, we do thank you for your word, especially we thank you for Jesus Christ, the word made flesh and all that he did for us, that he was not susceptible to the temptations, the crafty schemes of the evil one, but overcame them with your word. May we be students of your word. May we learn to apply it in our lives. May we be effective ambassadors to those around us. May we see the hunger and may we have the opportunity to satisfy that hunger with the word made flesh. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.