All right, so we have been cranking right through the chronology of the gospel. We are already up to Jesus being 30 years old. Man, we're flying. Today we're going to look at Jesus' baptism and his temptation in the wilderness. It's an interesting section of scripture because Once again, it's something that the three major gospels, or synoptic gospels, talk about. Mark talks about it. He basically does this really short little blurb on it. Luke tells us a little bit more, and Matthew tells us a little bit more, and so we have that. John actually takes a different approach, and that is that he talks about the testimony of John the Baptist after Jesus returns from the wilderness. I don't know if we'll get into that today or not, But we'll see how far we get. But we're going to start in Mark chapter one. And as we said, most of us believe that Mark was the first gospel that was written. It's definitely the shortest. It's the one that has the least amount of detail, which would actually make some sense that the other gospels writers would use his as sort of an outline. And that certainly seems to be the case. Of course, in the very first chapter, he talks about the preaching of John the Baptist, and then gets into the baptism of Jesus in verse 9, when he says, And it came about in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately, coming up out of the water, The word immediately there is an interesting word because in some Bibles it'll say low, in other Bibles it'll say straight away, some Bibles will say immediately. All of those are really good translations, frankly, but the idea here is that It's straightaway. He came up out of the water and then boom, this is what happened. So straightaway or immediately coming out of the water, he saw the heavens opening. Now, it's interesting because the he there is kind of questioned because who is it that saw the heavens opening? Was it John the Baptist? Was it Jesus? Not real sure really, but I would think that he was talking about Jesus looking up and seeing the heavens opening, but it could very well be John the Baptist as well. Different people interpret that a little differently. So, he saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately, same word, the Spirit implored him to go out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan and he was with the wild beasts and the angels were ministering to him. So Mark takes a very short, sweet version here of what was going on. He doesn't tell us about how Jesus was in fact tempted. We're going to see that in in Matthew and also in Luke. He doesn't tell us a whole lot of detail, other than the fact that it was in those days that John the Baptist was in fact baptizing, that Jesus came from Nazareth. So, what we see here is something very important, and that is that Jesus spent the better part of the first 30 years of His life in Nazareth. He didn't do anything remarkable. in those first 30 years of his life. There's nothing to indicate that he was out there doing all sorts of miracles or this, that, and the other thing. He was working. He was doing very secular things. He was living with his parents. He, in all indication, certainly never left living with his mother. His father most likely had passed away. There's no mention of Joseph, much beyond Egypt. So, pretty good chance that he was there taking care of the oldest child, Wood, his mother, until such time as he comes to this point. So, here he is, 30 years old. Yes, sir? Is there any indication of science in Scripture? He was not known by anybody. Yeah, and that really was just sort of an incidental thing that, you know, that obviously was brought up by Luke. But this is an interesting issue. Because there's nothing of any renown about, that's the point. There's nothing of any renown. There's nobody out there going, man, we got this 30-year-old. Because by the time a man was 30 years old in those days, he would have already been established in some sort of a business. He would have been established as being somebody, especially if he was a rabbi. By the time he was 30, he would be super involved with somebody or something, sitting under someone's teaching, and so forth. He probably would have been married, probably would have had multiple children by that point. Certainly would have been betrothed by that point. And that's not the case with Jesus. Jesus is just this sort of ordinary guy. And yet, When he gets baptized, the heavens open and the Lord says, this is my huos agapos, which means my son that I love. My son that I love. And it says in whom I am well pleased. Now think about this for a second. He hasn't done anything remarkable. Why would God say that? Why would God say, this is my son in whom I am well pleased? It's not saying, you know, I'm going to be pleased or that I'm looking forward to him pleasing me. No, no. It's saying, this already happened. I'm already well pleased. And what I think is remarkable about this is the manhood of Jesus is represented in that verse in probably the most incredible way. because he did what ordinary people did and it pleased God. It pleased God that he helped his mother. It pleased God that he worked in his father's shop once his father was gone and was the carpenter. I believe it's Mark chapter 6. We see that, you know, the people say, well, isn't this just that carpenter? Isn't this the carpenter? What's up with that? This guy's not some rabbi, he's just a carpenter. In other words, he was just ordinary. He was just a regular dude. And yet it says God was well pleased in him. And I think sometimes we miss this point. That God is pleased when you do what you're supposed to do. No matter how secular. No matter how mundane it might seem. I remember when I first became a believer and one of the first questions that was asked to me early on was, and it wasn't really asked to me, it was sort of told to me, is, well, you're going to go into ministry, right? And I went, certainly, absolutely, but I'm not going to be a pastor. God hasn't called me to be a pastor. And people were confused by that. They didn't understand, what do you mean? But I knew very early on that I wasn't supposed to be a pastor. I did not have the temperament for it. I did not have that as a calling. That was not where God... And I really felt that God could use me in a greater way if I was involved in business and could minister in my business and could literally be a testimony for God in my business. And so that's what we did for 40 plus years. And I have to tell you that it was a remarkable road to see God doing that. Now, what's interesting is now God has me in a different phase, and that's cool. And I'm excited about it. It's different. And I'm enjoying it. But it's crazy to think that just because you don't go into full-time ministry that you're not ministering. The truth of the matter is that more ministry is probably done in more complete ways by people that are just carpenters or just whatever, fill in the blank, business people, whatever you want to call yourself. I remember having this conversation with Jeff Lazarus one day, and Jeff said to me, it's exciting ministering for God. The guy's an orthopedic surgeon. And yet, he feels like in his orthopedic surgery, he's ministering for God. You know, I could probably go around the room, right? And we could all just say, you know, what is it that you're doing? Do you feel that you can minister for God in what you're doing? Whether it's being an airline pilot, or a counselor, or whatever. We all have the ability to minister where God has us, and God will say about you, enter into my kingdom, my good and faithful servant, of whom I am well pleased." That should be our greatest hope, that when God opens that door for us after this life is over, and he says, enter in my servant, of whom I am well pleased. In the same way that he said of Jesus, this is my beloved son, this is my son that I love, of whom I am well pleased." And so we see this beautiful picture of Jesus. Now, what's also interesting is it says that he descended like a dove. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove. It doesn't mean that he was a dove, by the way. The idea is that as a dove, if you've ever seen a dove descend, they just kind of flap their wings and it's just kind of the most lovely little thing to see. And so in this regard, we see the Holy Spirit represented in a bodily form, which is fascinating to me. And in this picture here, this is one of the few times in Scripture we see an absolute representation of God the Father. God his Son and God the Holy Spirit represented in one place at one time about one thing and that was the calling out of Jesus now to do this ministerial trip that he was going to take over the next three years. And I hope it doesn't take us three years to get through it, but you know, again, if it does, I don't really care. But at the end of the day, we see this beautiful picture of the Spirit of God coupling with the Son of God, coupling with God the Father, and now calling Jesus out to ministry. What I think is fascinating is it says immediately after he was baptized, the Spirit of God implored him to go out into the desert, to go out into the wilderness. And what's interesting is that The record in John's gospel we're gonna see is actually after this, but one of the things that he says after Jesus returns from that, when John sees him, and again, this is now the second time that he's had to do with him. The first time was here where he saw the dove, the Holy Spirit, this thing like a dove falling down and God speaking out, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. John, when he sees Jesus after he returns from the wilderness, says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At that moment, he has been given revelation that this is really what Jesus' calling is all about. And so we see that. So just a beautiful picture here, but we don't see any detail. We don't see in Mark, we don't see any detail as to what happened in his tempting and so forth, but we do see that detail in Mark and Luke. So let's go over to Mark chapter three. And, And let's start reading in chapter 3, verse 13, when it says, Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, coming to John to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I have need to be baptized by you, and you come to me? Now, think about that for a second, because that's an interesting point. He's baptizing repentance. The last thing Jesus needs to do is change his mind. Oh, Matthew chapter three. I'm sorry, Matthew chapter three, I apologize. My bad. Matthew chapter three. Yeah, it happens. Only downside to doing this chronology thing is you bounce around a lot. So we started in Mark chapter one, now we're over in Matthew chapter three. So in Matthew chapter three, we see this kind of more complete picture of the temptation of Jesus and the baptism. So what he's saying here is John is saying, wait, I don't have any need to baptize you. You don't need to repent. What do you need to change your mind about? And what's interesting is Jesus says this to him. This is really interesting. Look at what Jesus says. He says, permit at this time, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. That's an interesting statement. But remember what Matthew is all about. Matthew is all about the fulfillment of scripture. And basically what he's saying here is that in doing this, we are fulfilling God's righteousness. We are fulfilling God's word. We are fulfilling what God has set out to do. So work with me. is basically what he's saying, work with me. And so it says, then he permitted it. And then, and after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened. And I saw the spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon him and behold, a voice out of the heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. So we see the same identical thing that Mark had talked about. We see it represented here. If you go over to Luke, we're not going to do it. But if you go over to Luke, you'll see the exact same thing represented there. But now what we see is is a fascinating things. We see the heavens opening. We see the Holy Spirit descending in bodily form like a dove and a voice saying, this is my beloved son. And I just think it's so awesome. that here we see this picture of Jesus going through baptism and they're making a public declaration for the first time that his ministry is about to begin. But before he can start that ministry, he needs to go out into the wilderness. He needs to go and he needs to do something which, by the way, he only does apparently once in his entire life that we can see, or certainly once that we know about, and that is to fast for 40 days and 40 nights. In fact, there's no place in Scripture other than here that it ever indicates that Jesus ever fasted outside of the mandatory fast that happened at religious festivals and so on. So, and there's no indication that he would not have fasted during those times, obviously. But there's no indication anywhere else in scripture that Jesus did an extended period of fasting except after his public declaration. So he comes and he's publicly declared This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the spirit implores him to go out. Now, this is really interesting because here in Matthew, in chapter four, we see a picture and it said there's 11 verses. And I want to just read all 11 verses. Look at what it says. It says, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. So that was the whole reason that he was, in fact, brought up into the wilderness, was to be tempted by the devil. And then it says, And after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he then became hungry. Now, I don't know. I've done a little fasting. I get hungry a lot quicker than 40 days. I'm just saying. I have a dog right now that's on a fast. He's not on a fast because he necessarily wants to be, but he just is not eating anymore for some reason. He doesn't eat very much at all, and his bones are showing. It's just amazing, and it hasn't been 40 days. I'm sitting here, and I'm thinking to myself, If he didn't eat for 40 days and for 40 nights, no indication that he did anything other than maybe drink some water or whatever, he would get kind of weak. He would get kind of spindly. He would get kind of thin. I'm trying to think of any other word, you know, and so forth. And so it says, and then he became hungry. So, for 40 days and 40 nights, and it's interesting because you can't take the word fast and remove it from the word prayer. So my guess is that he was fasting and praying during that period of time, and that's a huge amount of time to be praying. That's a huge amount of time to be fasting. It's a huge amount of time to be all by yourself, because Mark tells us that he was out there, and the only people that were, the only ones around him were wild beasts. So he was out there by himself. It says that the angels were ministering to him, but we don't know even what that means. So we have this situation where Jesus is now hungry. And notice it says after 40 days. Now in Luke it just says that Satan tempted him during that 40 day period. I guess that's probably true because here it just says after 40 days he got hungry. So that doesn't mean that Satan wasn't tempting him during that period. But what's interesting is that Matthew was not there. Luke was not there. Mark was not there. The only one that was there was Jesus. So clearly, Matthew, being one of the 12, was told this story by Jesus and recorded what Jesus had told him to record. And Mark didn't know, apparently, enough about it to record much more than just, hey, he went off and came back. And Luke, it appears, pretty much took the same story that Matthew records and records it in his record. The only difference between Matthew and Luke is that he flips the three temptations. Same words, but they're just they're in a different they're a little bit different order but It says here that after 40 days and 40 nights he became hungry and the tempter came and said to him Now, the word in most Bibles is if. That word in Greek is the word I, which I means without condition. It means since, really. It doesn't really mean if. The word if in verse 9 actually is the word that we would consider if, which is a conditional if. Kind of like, if this occurs, then this occurs. Kind of like the if statement that you have on your Excel spreadsheet or whatever. It's that same idea. It's a conditional kind of thing. But this is an unconditional. So he's basically saying to him, since you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread. But Jesus answered and said unto him, It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And the devil took him into the holy city and he had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and he said, since you are the son of God throw yourself down for it is written he will give his angels charge concerning you on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone and Jesus said to him on the other hand it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test again The devil took him to a very high mountain, showed him all of the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, all of these things I will give you if, conditional if, that's the eon, different word, if you fall down and worship me. And Jesus said unto him, Be gone, Satan. Get behind me, Satan. Get out of here, Satan. Flee, Satan. Whatever word you want to use there. Be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall not worship the Lord your God and serve him only. I'm sorry, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and began to minister to Jesus. Let's look at this. Let's look at this temptation because I think there's some real interesting things that we can glean from this section of scripture. First of all, he calls the devil the tempter. The tempter. I find that interesting. He goes out of his way to call him the tempter. In another verse, in another section of scripture in the New Testament, the Bible says that there is no temptation given to you than that which is common to man. So, every temptation that we get is not necessarily from Satan. It can be from anything. You can be tempted by anything. Basically, most temptation, however, comes from a lust for the things of the world. In 1 John it tells us that we are not to love the world. It says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof. But he that does the will of God abides forever. So this idea of temptation being something that is exclusive to Satan is not necessarily correct. However, He is, in fact, the tempter. That is his modus operandi. There's only three places in Scripture outside of this, in the Old Testament in particular, there's only three places in the Old Testament where we see the words of Satan. The first is in Genesis chapter 3, where we see him tempting Adam and tempting Eve, and being fully accomplished in that task. Would you agree? He accomplishes what he set out to do, which was to destroy their perfect relationship with God. That was his goal in that one. But in that Genesis chapter 3, we see him tempting Adam and Eve, and he wins. In Job, the first chapter of Job, we see God having a conversation with Satan, and in that conversation, Satan says, you know, hey, how come you don't let me pick on Joe? You know, you got them all protected, you got them all hedged up, you know, why don't you let me hit on him a little bit? And God says, okay, no problem, I'll let you do it. And so we see this picture of Job being slandered, being destroyed, basically wreaks havoc on Job. Job is brought low because of what was brought upon him, only to be, of course, rescued by the Lord at the end in Job chapter 42. And so we see this interesting picture, Genesis chapter 3, Job chapter 1. I also think it's fascinating that Job is probably the oldest book in the Bible, and Genesis is the first book of the So, it's really kind of the beginning of all these things. We see a picture of God revealing not only himself, but also his adversary. And then in Isaiah 14, we see another picture of the devil. And we see a kind of a, if you read in Isaiah 14, if you remember when we were in Isaiah 14, he spends a tremendous amount of time talking about this son of Tyre, he calls him. And of course, it's revealed that he is this angel that's trying to defeat God. And so he says, He shows his pride because he says, I will ascend into heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the assembly. I will ascend above the earth. I will make myself like the Most High, which is another interesting thing because it reveals in that discussion that he can't be the Most High, but he can be like the Most High. So he can make you think that he's like God, but he is not. For example, he is not omnipresent. If you go into this picture of where he's tempting Jesus, it says he came and it says he left. So he's not everywhere at all times. People put a lot more Credence on on his ability to mess with them that they ought to probably give him Because the truth is is that he has to come and he has to go he can't stick around the Bible also tells us in James Chapter 4 that if you resist the devil he will what he'll flee Well, how do you resist the devil? You can only resist the devil according to James by Asking God that's what that's all about just to ask God for that that ability and God will give you that ability and He says you have not because you ask not, or you ask amiss. That's all in that same chapter. So we see this beautiful picture of Jesus now dealing with this one that he calls the tempter. And it appears to me that since Jesus was the only one that was there, the one that told Matthew to use that word would have been who? Would have been Jesus. So Jesus obviously told him that it was the tempter. So he named him the tempter, which I think is really important as well. So now we see him speaking to Jesus in Jesus' most weakened physical condition. And so in that condition, now remember, Jesus in this point is fully God, but also fully man. And going through 40 days of fasting did not affect him in his godliness, but it certainly affected him in his manhood. It certainly affected him in his ability to deal as a man. So, Satan does something which is fascinating. He goes to Jesus' godliness, not his manhood. And he says, You're weak as a man, but you've got your godliness, so why don't you use your godliness? Why don't you do what God can do? You're fully, since you are the Son of God, you have the ability to do certain things. And so he says, turn these stones into bread. Now, I think that's a fascinating request, because he certainly, I guess, could do that if he wanted to. He could turn the stones into bread, I guess. But maybe God doesn't do that. Maybe God doesn't turn stones into bread. I don't know. But clearly, bread doesn't come from stone, and God is the one that set up what things came from, so it's probably an unrealistic request to begin with, whether it's from God or anybody else. But it's interesting, Jesus' response to him. Jesus' response to him is very interesting. It says, first, it is written. So Jesus goes right back and appeals to him from a scriptural standpoint. And he says, it is written. And what it says is not, it is written, God. It says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone. That's Deuteronomy chapter eight. By the way, it's interesting. The three verses that he quotes here are all from Deuteronomy. They're all from Deuteronomy six through eight. So he says in Deuteronomy chapter 8 that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So what he's saying is that what makes people alive, what brings people health is the word of God. That's where our health is. That's where man's sustenance is. And it's not found in these other things. It's not found in food. That's why I'm out here for 40 days not eating it. I don't need food to have a relationship with God. I don't need food to do that. Now, am I hungry? Of course I'm hungry. And is there going to come a point where I'm going to have to eat? Absolutely, I'm going to have to eat. But the fact of the matter is that you telling me to turn these stones into bread is not going to accomplish anything because what I do is I stand on the Word of God. So, the devil then goes to his second request, and his second request is that, hey, Jesus, since you are the Son of God, why don't you just jump off this mountain? Jump off this mountain, and then you can resurrect yourself from the dead. And again, and by the way, and then he quotes, it's fascinating, then he quotes Psalm 90, which in Matthew he doesn't actually do the whole entire thing, but in Luke he does. He does both verses in Luke 90. So I don't think there's any idea here that he's necessarily skipping something or whatever, but although some people actually, I guess, might think that, I don't. I don't fall into that camp. So he's quoting scripture. So what does Satan do? Well, Satan goes and he quotes Scripture so he thinks that well Jesus quoted scripture. So now what I'll do is I'll tempt him by quoting scripture right back to him as Though knowing scripture is knowing God Remember I just said that Just because you know, the Bible doesn't mean you know God Just because you can quote scripture doesn't mean you believe scripture Hear me? Just because you can quote it doesn't mean you know it. Doesn't mean that it's part of your life. You know what's really fascinating is that I never really did any debating necessarily, but one of the things that's interesting about debating is that you can take either side of a debate. And by the way, what's interesting is that debate clubs will get a subject and the professor or whoever it is that's running the debate will say, you have this side and you have this side. Well, I don't believe in that. Too bad. You've got to debate it. You've got to come to a conclusion that you really do believe that thing that you don't even really believe. And so that's kind of what Satan's all about. He's just sort of doing a debate here. He's sort of, well, you know, this is what the scripture says. Here's what the scripture says. And I think it's fascinating because Jesus comes right back and says, well, on the other hand, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Now, once again, he's answering him not as the Lord God, but as a man. He's answering as a man. He's saying, look, in this moment, I want you to understand, as a man, I can't jump off of this mountain. And nor will I. Because I'm not going to put God to a test. I'm not going to do that. The Bible clearly says don't do that. It's not necessary. And then again, it says the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world. I thought that was pretty interesting. Showed him the kingdoms of the world. Obviously, he couldn't show him the entire world, no matter how high he got up on a thing. And the point is, is that it was a symbolic thing that I can give you all of this. Just look out, I can give you all of this land. I can give you all of this property and so forth, as though that's something that is going to be pleasing to the God-man. And he says, but you just need to worship me. Jesus I'm sure at this point Jesus didn't smile This is when Jesus said get out of here get out of here and That's the first time we see Satan being told to go away Get out of here No question about that's exactly what his goal is his goal is Well, no, but what Satan's goal is. Was Satan testing Jesus or was God testing Satan? Oh, I think it was clearly Satan thought he was tempting Jesus, but at the same time, I think you can make a good argument that both things were going on, but they're not mutually exclusive, let's put it that way. And so we see this interesting thing going on here of Satan using three basic ideas. The first is, He uses food, the lust of the flesh. The second thing he does is he uses this incredible idea that we can look out across the entire expanse of things and get anything we want, the lust of the eyes. And then finally, he says, and you know what? You can have the power of God, the pride of life. Those are his three best tools. They've always been his three best tools. And those are the tools that he used in trying to tempt Jesus. They're also the tools that he's going to use to tempt you. When he tries to tempt you, he's going to go, and he's going to go in those areas, and he's gonna try to find the area that you are most weak. What's interesting is, is that he doesn't go to your strength. It says here that Jesus was hungry, and so he tempted him with food. What I think is fascinating is that Jesus probably at that moment felt kind of like just empty. When you haven't eaten for an extended period of time, the longest fast I've ever done is seven days. And I can tell you that at the end of seven days, I was done. I'm sorry, that's the truth. I was done. I was like, whoa, this is not going, this is not working. And I've never done it again, by the way, which is kind of interesting. Because you get this spacey kind of feeling in your head, it's really hard to explain just how bizarre you start to think. And it's hard. when you're really hungry, to think really squarely. And so he had to go back to the Word of God, and that was exactly what he did. But when he tempted him, he tempted him with the lust of the flesh, the bread, the lust of the eyes, showing him the kingdom and the pride of life, that he could in fact do whatever he wants. Those are his best tools. When you look at this section of Scripture, we see Him identifying what He's all about. And what He's all about is lies. Did you pick up on that? Everything that He basically did here was a lie. You can't turn stones into bread. That's a lie. You can't jump off a mountain and commit suicide and expect God to rescue you. It's a lie. And here's what's even more incredible. Even though he thought he could give him all of the kingdoms, they weren't really his to give. They're all God's to begin with. It says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The fact of the matter is, is that God raises up kings and raises up kingdoms and does all the... It's God that... Satan doesn't do any of that stuff. Yes, ma'am? Yeah, and he's obnoxiously stupid. He knows he's talking to God, so it's like, I can give you what's already yours. I love that. Obnoxiously stupid. That's good. He gives us stuff that he knows that he's not the one to give. Yeah. Exactly. And the fact of the matter is, is that even in his weakened state, he still had the ability to resist the devil. Yes, but he was still weak as a man. See, that's what you have to understand. Remember, he's fully God and fully man. Well, actually, that's not really true. There have been examples of people going 40 days without eating and surviving. It's not unprecedented to think that that could not happen. In fact, there's examples of people going even longer than that without eating, but it messes with your brain. But what you have to understand here is that his purpose, his goal, Satan's that is, was to work on his weakness, on what his perceived weakness, even though he didn't really have that weakness as God, but he certainly had that weakness as man. The Bible tells us in Hebrews, this is interesting, it says we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. For he was tempted in all things just like we are, yet without sin. There is clearly something that's going on here at the very beginning where God wants Jesus to be fully aware of his humanity and fully aware of his deity at the same time. Fully aware that he has both things going on. Yes, sir. I think that was the purpose of him going into the womb. Oh, there's no doubt. That's my point. Yeah, I get your point. To show us. Yeah Yeah, get out of here he wanted to he wanted to be like that and if he could get God to work for him Yeah There is there is a remarkable picture here that everything that Jesus experienced we could experience with the Spirit of God, there's no question about it. And that's one of the reasons why we've been filled with the Spirit of God, so that we can experience those things. So again, I come back to this whole issue of what's this temptation supposed to tell us? What's it supposed to tell us? I think the lesson is that even though He was equally God in man, as man, that half, that we are, the flesh part, that we can resist the temptation. He was hungry. He didn't stay at me for 40 days. He was hungry. But so the devil was killing, like you said, the devil was killing for his God's side. Correct, but there is a caveat. You cannot do it if you sin. So the thing that's really fascinating here is that when we read the book of Hebrews and he describes this thing about Jesus being tempted in every way like we are, yet without sin. That's the caveat. So the caveat is that if you allow yourself to fall to the lust, if you allow yourself to be taken in by the pride of life, if you allow yourself to sin, then the temptation is going to affect you in the same way it affected Adam. And it's going to overcome you the same way it overcame Adam. But isn't that also, when you go to Romans, I mean, wow, that's so good. So when you go to Rome and therefore there's no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, you walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Correct. Because this is where the battle come in. You know, you can give in to your temptation, which is your flesh, or you can walk in the spirit, which is Jesus just got through showing us through the word that we can walk through the spirit. And in the very next paragraph, after he says that, is he asked the question rhetorically, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace might abound? God forbid, how can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein? And know you not that as many as were baptized into Jesus were baptized into his death. Amen. Whoa. Yeah. Flesh is nothing. So here's the deal. We get all caught up in all of the physical things that are going on around us. We really do. We get completely caught up in all the stuff that's around us. Why? Because because we have the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I said that one. Yeah, that was the very first thing we said. So at the beginning of this whole entire thing, we have to understand that as humans, we get sucked into the things of the flesh. So years ago, there was a fellow by the name of Tony Campola. And Tony Campola went to a black church. His whole entire adult life, he attended a black church. And what was interesting was, as a minister, well, first of all, he was a professor at Eastern University in Philadelphia. which was a Bible college and so forth, later became a professor at Temple as well, always lived his entire life on the western side of Philadelphia in a neighborhood that was predominantly black. That's where he grew up. And he went to a church that was a predominantly black church. which is interesting because one of the things that Tony Campola said one time, which I've never forgotten is, there is no more segregated place in the world than church on a Sunday morning. But anyhow, they asked him to preach one Sunday. So he got up there, man, and he was all excited. Now, if you know anything about black churches, they have usually got these chairs that are up in the front where the preachers, and it's usually preachers, plural, that are sitting there, and there's the most important preacher is typically the one that speaks last, correct? Well, Tony was the guy that was speaking second to last, so he obviously was not the most important preacher. And he got up and he preached, he said what he thought was the greatest sermon he had ever preached. He was so excited. He said, I was filled with the Holy Spirit, man. I was going, I was crazy. It was great. People were going, amen. People were going crazy. And I sat down at that chair and I reached over to the pastor and I said, pastor, what'd you think of that? And the pastor looks at him and says, son, that ain't nothing. And Tony looks at him and says, what are you talking about? That ain't nothing. That was amazing. Son, that ain't nothing. So the pastor got up, and he said, you know, that was a great thing that Reverend Campola gave us this morning. But I'm here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that that is not the message. The message is, and this is the chief pastor of this particular church. He goes up there, and the first thing they do is they hit the organ. So he hits the organ and said, this is not the message that was supposed to be given. Oh yeah, that was the message. No question about it. But the message is that we get all caught up in Friday. Friday you remember Friday Friday is when they when they when they hung him up. They they they persecuted him They beat him on Friday, but it was just Friday and then they hung him on a cross It was but it was just Friday and we saw him bleeding. We thought he was going to die, but it was just Friday and Nobody understood on Friday Sundays come And so the whole place just starts going, yeah. And the, and the, and the, and the, and the Oregon goes and everybody's here and it's Sunday's coming. But you know, you don't understand about Friday. Cause y'all get caught up in Friday, but you got to worry about Friday. No, we're not going to worry about Friday. We're going to worry about Sunday. Cause Sunday's when the Lord does his work. And so this pastor gets up there and Campola's sitting there and he says, he starts crying. He's got this big old smile on his face and he goes, Lord have mercy. I have been given the greatest message I've ever heard in my entire life. Not the one I just gave, but this one that was given by this pastor. And by the way, the entire message took one minute and 30 seconds. Which for a, if you know anything about black churches, one minute and 30 second message. He ain't even getting started yet. Right? And he sat down. Because Sunday's coming. Well, that changed Campola's entire life. Changed his entire life because he said it changed his whole way of looking at life. We get all caught up in the bread. We get all caught up in the stuff that we see. We get all caught up in this other stuff. And what Tony said was, we need to understand that our life is like a triangle. So down here on the base of the triangle is all the stuff that we think is important until we start having trouble. And so when we start having trouble, we start discarding those things on the bottom of the triangle. And we start paying more attention to stuff that's high up. Because those are the things we have to protect. You see, when everything's been taken away from you, when everything's been beaten down, when everything's been robbed of you, the only thing that matters now is the stuff at the top of that triangle. And if God is not at the top of that triangle, if your relationship with Him is not at the top of that triangle, then nothing else is going to matter in life. And here's what's really awful, Tony said. He said, the thing that I realized when he was preaching was that if I am coupled with other people that don't have the same thing at the top of their triangle, they're going to go in one direction and I'm going to go in an entirely different direction. Because all that other stuff that used to keep us together is not going to matter when things really get difficult. Because things get difficult on Friday. but they get redeemed on Sunday. And so this picture of what Jesus is doing here is so beautiful because He is laying down a picture of what it means to say, I am going to get prepared to minister. I am convinced that most people never get prepared to minister. And so they go into ministry, and they lay an egg, or they go flat, because they've never taken the 40 days to get ready. They never took that time to get ready. And it was interesting because John does not say, there is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world until after this happens. He doesn't say it when he sees him getting redeemed. Because it says immediately after he was gone. So John doesn't say that then. John says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world once Jesus comes back. Once he comes back. We're going to look at that next week. We're going to look at John chapter 1 next week and we're going to spend just a little bit of time as we get in now into the beginning of his ministry and we start to see Jesus doing some things. But isn't it interesting? at the very first thing that Jesus does after he comes back and he's had this incredible experience with God and has been tempted by Satan. He's had 40 days and 40 nights. The first thing he does, he goes to a wedding. He goes to a wedding. First thing he does, goes to a wedding. Is there anything more just regular than a wedding? Well, that comes after the fact, but he is invited to a wedding and he goes. And he calls his mother a woman. Well, actually, we're going to talk about that. That's actually a compliment in Hebrew. Well, I know, because in the beginning it says the woman's seed, he was actually honoring. Yeah, exactly. It's a statement of honoring. It's not a negative. Another thing that has been kind of pushed in the wrong direction by some. But here's the deal. Jesus is going to begin His ministry, and He's going to begin it in the most simple way. He's going to do it in the most secular way, in the most common way. I'm trying to think of the right word. Because that's what He's all about. Because that's who he deals with. He deals with regular people. Oh yeah, we're going to cover that. We ain't going to do that today. We're going to do that tomorrow. By the way, we're not going to be here next week. Easter Sunday. Got too much going on in the facility. So they don't want us in here next Sunday. All right, so just so y'all are aware, I put that in the email that none of y'all read. So that's good. But next week, no class. We'll get together in two weeks to talk about the wedding at Canaan.