Let me go over some announcements real quick. First of all, we're not going to have the monthly men's prayer breakfast this month. the deacons meeting on the because that's the same day as the picnic so we'll be going out there so far and I just pulled this up it looks like there's a 40% chance of scattered showers on for Houston anyway I don't know what it is out of Patterson may be different but on that day and looks like the temperature will be pretty good my little humid but so far Doesn't look bad, so we might make it for a change. That will be April the 13th at Orlando Salas' place, and I think there's maps on the westhoustonbiblechurch.org website, and then we'll have that printed up here for you for Sunday and next week. We'll also have sign-up sheets up Sunday morning for what you can bring. To come out there also remind people that we need some Sunday school teachers. It's a great opportunity to get involved in some ministry serving the Lord and in that way and if you're interested talk to Mark Friedrich or Cheryl Jeffries or Also, I'll be leaving in the morning, bright and early before dawn, oh, dark 30, to go to Albuquerque for George Meisinger's memorial service Saturday morning due to changing planes and other issues. I'm not coming back till Monday, late Monday morning. So they bumped me and moved me around and it was just not possible to get back. uh... for sunday morning then uh... temperate is going to be july fourteenth through july twentieth in tennessee and the topic this year is redeemed for a purpose to christian walk defined by giving our bodies as a living sacrifice Speakers this year will be David Roseland, Clay Ward, and Brad Mastin. Each of them are pastors. David's at Preston City Bible Church, Clay is at Play Roma Bible Church, and Brad Mastin is at Fort Collins Bible Church. And this is for teens 13 through 18 years of age. and you can go to www.camparete.com and there will be a caravan transporting everyone from Houston to camp in Tennessee and back again. You might want to make that last part optional for some of them. Some parents may not want them back. There's a charge for that, yeah. An extra fee. Yeah, yeah. So anyhow, that's the slate of announcements. One other thing, we'll be sending out an email with a little information on this. One of our missionaries that we support is Igor Smolyar, Igor and Julia in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. And their oldest son, Daniel, is coming to spend a couple of months with us this summer. I had told the two kids, Daniel's the oldest and Sophia is the youngest, our middle now, and they were like six and four, so this was ten years ago, and they were about ready to quit their English classes. They were starting early as you should. And I told them that if they got good and could carry on a conversation that they could come and spend a summer with me. So that motivated them. They reminded me every year when I've gone to Kiev. So Daniel comes first. He's coming this summer. So that's going to be a great opportunity for us to find some things to keep a young man like that interested and involved. And he's learning about Texas and America. And yes, there is a trip to Alamo and a trip to San Jacinto on the planning board. So we have to send a Texan back, if you know what I mean. OK. How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Jesus prayed to the Father, sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. For the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Before we get started, we'll have a few moments of silent prayer. This is an opportunity for us as believer priests to make sure we are spiritually cleansed. That means that we are forgiven and in right relationship with the Lord so that we are prepared to study his word, live the spiritual life, walk by means of God the Holy Spirit. And after a few moments of silent prayer, then I will open in prayer. Let's pray. Our Father, it's a great privilege we have as believers in Christ to be in Christ, that he is our High Priest, that God the Holy Spirit interprets our prayers for us as we pray, because often we do not know how to pray as we should. And Father, we are thankful that we have this ability to come boldly before your throne of grace. Father, we're thankful that we can come together to be refreshed and encouraged and learn from your word this evening. We thank you for the freedom we have in this nation. We pray that that would continue. We pray that you would continue to shut down all of these individuals and people, these who are evildoers, who seek to destroy this nation, seek to destroy the rule of law in this country. And we pray that you would destroy their council and that you would bring their plans to no effect. Father, we pray for us that we might learn to really show love for those who are unsaved, give them the gospel, speak the truth in love, and that we might be shining lights in the midst of this wicked and perverse generation. We pray that you would open our eyes to your truth this evening. In Christ's name, amen. Open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, and we are going to see the prime example in the scripture of how to use the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. This is the example that Jesus gives us in Matthew chapter 4, verses 1—actually, it's through 10, not 1 through 7, 1 through 10. We're studying in 1 Peter, we've come to this passage, this verse, key verse in 1 Peter 5, 9, resist him steadfast by means of the faith, that is by means of what is taught in the Word, that is what we believe, by means of the truth of Scripture, what we've been taught, because we know that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. We go through the same categories of suffering of everybody else in the world. They may face rejection where it may cost them their life. We face rejection where it may cost us our job, or it may cost us friends, it may cost us family, close relationships, sometimes even marriages. So we all go through those same sufferings, but the way to handle them Peter says is to resist the devil. He's ultimately behind everything. So there's very little direct involvement by Satan with individual believers. He's not omnipresent. There may be indirect involvement. We can't say for sure because we can't see the invisible realm. with demons, but the demonic influence is all around us. Demonic influence is otherwise known as paganism, human viewpoint philosophy, secular philosophy, any kind of philosophical or religious system that is contrary to the Word of God. And any system that puts forth an alternate God or they may call their God God, or they may call their God Jesus, but it's not the God of the Bible or Jesus of the Bible. That is an idol. People also generate false gods in their own mind, false ideas of God in their own mind. They also generate false images of Jesus in their own mind, false ideas of Jesus in their own mind. In fact, there's one man who is running for the Democrat nomination for president, and he has accused the vice president of not being a Christian. And what this means is that he doesn't know what a Christian is. He is an openly and avowed homosexual. That's fine as far as the world is concerned because everybody's a sinner. You know, we don't want to make the mistake of classifying homosexuality as some elite sin unlike any other sin. It's a sin. It's always classified with those who are liars or deceivers or adulterers or murderers. I mean, it's another sin like other sins, though it may have more tragic consequences in a person's life than other sins. But every sin, no matter how great or small, separates us from God through spiritual death, but when we trust in Christ as Savior, those sins were paid for on the cross. And there's a problem in this culture with a lot of legalistic Christians who want to single out certain sins as being somehow much more terrible and destructive of your relationship with God than other sins. And all sins were paid for by the cross. Jesus forgives all sins. That's one of the great messages of the gospel is we have forgiveness in Christ Jesus, which we'll be talking about in Ephesians 1-7 when I return from my trip. But to say that those who believe the Bible And the identification of certain sins as sins in the Bible are not Christian is just the devil's lie. And yet we have a lot of people who want to say that. They're basically worshiping a false Jesus and they're studying a false view of Scripture. and this will be destructive to their own spiritual life. They are under demon influence. There's as much demon influence in some of the family films that have come out of Hollywood, family TV shows that have come out of Hollywood because they teach a way of just morality as the way to God. And that is as much a product of the devil's thinking as anything that we think of as being more evil. The Bible defines evil as worshiping any God other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so that is important to understand that evil is defined as a root error in your understanding of ultimate reality. And if you're worshiping a false god, then you have succumbed to evil, and that is ultimately self-destructive. And when you get enough people in a culture who are following a path of evil, then you end up like the ancient Canaanites, or those in Assyria, or those later in Babylon, or in Rome, and your culture will self-destruct. So we're always involved in this spiritual warfare, and the way for the believer to survive is to put on the full armor of God, which we've studied in Ephesians chapter 5. So when we ask the question, what is the biblical example or model? And you should do this for many of the commands that we have in Scripture. because God not only tells us what to do, he gives us different pictures, different lives in the Old Testament and some in the Gospels of people who exemplify faith rest drill, who exemplify a solid prayer life, who exemplify evangelism. All of these different things we have these different pictures in people's lives and so we should always think what biblical example or model do we have for resisting Satan and being steadfast by means of faith. And that ultimate example is the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 6.17 we're told to take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, that is the machira, like the sword down in front of the pulpit, which is the Word of God. It's not Logos but Rhema. It is the spoken word rather than the written word. It is saying something and this is an important thing. The noun here is Rhema and we'll see it used in our passage in Matthew chapter 4. Now we started with this last time. Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is a significant area for Israel's history. It is down here. John tells us that John the Baptist was baptizing by Bethabara is another name for it, Bethany, across the Jordan. That site has been discovered on a couple of Israel trips. We've been there. But this area where Jesus was baptized is really significant. This is where the Jews came down coming down from the Jordanian hills over here where Mount Nebo is located here which is marked as number 15 I believe but in this area this is where the Jews came down at that time the Jordan was it was a springtime it was a flood stage it was a huge river not the little meandering sort of stream that it is today so much of it has been taken away by modern irrigation, mostly for Jordan but some for Israel. Anyhow, they came down, this is where they crossed the Jordan. Later on this is where Elijah is taken up in the same area by a fiery chariot into heaven. There are numerous things that happen that are significant for Israel's history and so it is significant too that this is where the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ is is baptized. It is a very unforgiving geographical location. It is dry. It's barren. It is bleak. It's a horrible place to go. I pointed out that this is up in the hills here behind to the west of Jericho, which is where Jesus would have gone during the forty days, and it's marked today the Mount of Temptation by a gift store and restaurant and place to get tempted by ice cream and all these other things. I showed you these pictures last time. This shows just how bleak and barren this area is. And Jesus went out for about six weeks alone without eating day or night. and the wilderness here. So this is looking down into the Jordan River Valley. You can see the darker line there where the Jordan River is located. So this just gives you a little idea of this area and what it must have been like. The text says he's led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by by the devil. And this is important to show that the Holy Spirit is leading him. It's a significant word there. I pointed it out last time that he's led up by the Spirit which indicates that God the Holy Spirit's directing his paths. We'll look at some of the other words in just a minute. And it's by the Spirit. Now I didn't bring this out last time but in Greek when you have a passive voice verb the one who performs the action is indicated by this preposition, translated by the spirit. And so that's how you know who performs the action of the verb. And then the second verb that we'll see is tempted, and you're tempted by the devil, and it's the same preposition there. And so the writer states it this way so that we understand that this is going to be a spiritual conflict between the Lord Jesus Christ, depending on the Holy Spirit, against the devil. Mark uses a different word. He says that the Spirit impelled him into the wilderness, and there he was tempted by Satan at the end of the 40 days. Luke 4.1 says that he's being filled by means of the Spirit, and that's the word play race. I pointed this out in a study with Acts. This just indicates maturity and a special act of the Holy Spirit, usually it's related to some sort of revelation that comes. Now, we don't have revelation here, but it shows a special kind of leading. This is not what is typical of the believer today. The word that's used here, I point this out again and again, because people miss it in the English, it is not the word pimplemi, or excuse me, it's not the word pleirao that is used in Ephesians 5.18. That's what we're commanded to be filled by the Spirit, but it's the word plerao. This is a different word. Actually, it's an adjective here, play race, which is used as a descriptor of the Holy Spirit's actions in the life of a mature believer. He's led by means of the Spirit. That's the phrase that we find in Ephesians 5.18, to be filled by means of the Spirit. We find it in Galatians 5.16 that we are to walk by means of the Spirit. We see it in other places related to the spiritual life. The use of this adjectival phrase is used to describe maturity or characteristics. In this sense, it's the opposite, talking about Simon that he's full of all deceit and fraud. So that's what he's characterized by. It's not like when you're being filled by means of the Spirit, you're either being filled by the Spirit or you're not being filled by the Spirit. It's a binary option. But this is a description of a person's character, so it's not like you can be filled with deceit one minute and fraud, and then the next minute you're not. It's not that kind of an idea at all. It is a description of somebody's character, just as I showed you last time in Acts 6, 5, it describes Stephen as a man who is full of faith, that is, he's a strong believer. and trusting the Lord and the Holy Spirit. So that talks about spiritual maturity. So Jesus is led up by the Spirit, not by means of the Spirit, but it's chuppah indicating the that one who performs the action of leading to be tempted. This expresses the purpose of the Spirit's leading. And I point out last time, because this is always difficult for people to understand temptation, because you and I come from a post-fall experience, and we are not like Adam, and we're not like the Lord Jesus Christ. They were tempted in an objective way. And what I mean by that is when you and I are tempted, we have something inside of us that is attracted to the sin like iron filings are attracted to a magnet. Okay, we want it. Now sometimes we don't because for whatever reason we're not in the mood or we're satiated, whatever it might be. If you've ever had the opportunity to be on a diet or something like that where you've denied yourself and you think all day, I really want whatever it is you would really want, cake, pie, ice cream, baked potato, pasta, whatever it might be. But then when the time comes, because you've eaten correctly all day, and you've already had some appropriate food, and you get the opportunity to eat that one thing you've been lusting for all day, well, your appetite's been satiated, so you're not really attracted to it. Well, then the next day you're hungry and that just happens to float by you and you gobble it up like you haven't seen food in six weeks. We've all had that kind of experience. That is the second category up here, to be subjectively enticed to do something, you're drawn or attracted to it. And so you've had to work your self-discipline not to succumb. But the first category is just the idea of objectively testing, evaluating someone to see or evaluate their abilities or what they are made of. It is not the idea of enticing them to sin. But the same Greek word is used for both. So that becomes difficult for people when they come to passages such as Well, not that, such as James 1, 13 and 14. Let no one say when he is tempted. Now, I would translate this, let no one say when he is tested. that I am tempted by God. The idea there is that God is trying to entice us to evil. So maybe I should translate that first line, let no one say when he is attracted to evil. that God has put me in this situation and I just can't resist it anymore, and that it's all God's fault, because you'll have people who will say that. If God hadn't put me in that situation, I never would have committed that sin. Don't blame God for your failures and for your weakness. And then James says, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. That is important. Number one, God cannot be tempted by evil. That tells us something about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully God. He didn't give up any of his divine attributes when he entered into human history. He limited them, He limited the use of them during the time that He was on the earth in the incarnation in order to demonstrate His complete dependence upon God the Father, to live His spiritual life on the basis of God the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. That's what we're going to see in this passage. Jesus Christ handled the testing the way we should handle the testing. He relied on the God, the Holy Spirit, and he relied on the Word of God to show that the Spirit and the Word of God are sufficient to handle any situation, any testing, any temptation that we encounter. So God cannot be tempted by evil. So in terms of that conundrum that everybody throws out, was Jesus able not to sin or not able to sin? In his deity Jesus was not able to sin, and it is a hypostatic union. In his humanity which he would wall off from his deity in terms of handling problems. So he's not relying on his divine attributes, but nevertheless he is welded. It's like taking a copper wire that's pretty soft and welding it in some fashion to a steel beam. The steel beam can't bend, but that copper wire technically could bend. But as long as it is attached to that steel beam, it's not going to bend. But in Jesus, in his humanity, therefore, was able not to sin, but not by relying on his divine attributes to give him the strength. Otherwise, these tests would not have the value of teaching us that they have. He's made just like Adam was created. Adam is created without a sin nature, so when he is tempted in the garden, he doesn't have anything inside of him that is attracting him to sin. He doesn't have a sin nature. Jesus, when he is in the wilderness, has nothing within him, no sin nature that is going to attract him to disobey God. So it's the same kind of test. It's a little different for us because we have a sin nature. So there's a different element there. We have an enemy within that's our real problem. But neither Jesus nor Adam had a sin nature that it was a purely a matter of choice on the part of Adam and it's a matter of choice for the humanity of Jesus to rely on the Holy Spirit and to rely on the Word of God in order to overcome the test and to be victorious. And that's what we're studying is how to really be victorious in the Christian life by resisting Satan and standing firm steadfast by means of the faith. So after 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus was pretty tired. He would be physically weak because of the lack of nourishment. It's time for his appetite to come back on full force to desire food. And so he is, at this stage, he is ready to to eat, and so this would be much more of an attraction to him than even a few days earlier. So Jesus is going to be tested in that first sense, in that objective sense. Now one of the things that I want to point out as we talk about Adam and we talk about Christ and the differences and the similarities, what we see with Adam, what we see in the Old Testament is that the after Adam's fall. What we see in the Old Testament is when a person was saved there was no break in the power of the sin nature. The sin nature still had the same level of control and that's why you have, I think, a lot of problems in the Old Testament. You don't... well, we still have them in the New Testament, but it's a different dynamic for the testing of the believer in the Old Testament. Romans 6, 3 through 6 says it is that identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection that breaks the power of the sin nature. It doesn't remove it, so we still have that fight, but that gives us the opportunity to say no, which was not there for Old Testament believers. That means there is definitely a dispensational view of the spiritual life and how to handle sin. because something changes with Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit. So we're also indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and according to Romans 8, we're also led by the Holy Spirit, and these are ways that did not occur in the Old Testament. So there are these vital distinctions in the spiritual life of the church-age believer and the Old Testament believer. And third, there's no completed canon of Scripture in the Old Testament, but we have a completed canon today. All of that makes a difference. So, Jesus is modeling for us, because he's led by the Holy Spirit, he's modeling for us the way in which we can have victory. He's led by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is empowering him, and he has a full understanding of scripture to rely on scripture because after all it is the mind of Christ. The purpose for fasting spiritually was not to somehow impress God with a person's sincerity or genuineness so that they would, so that God would answer their prayer. It was a sign that you saw something was significant and so you were spending time doing something other than eating and preparing food. And it was also a sign of humility, submission to God. David says this in Psalm 35, 13, He was in prayer. with fasting and my prayer would return to my own heart. He is talking about the fact that he would submit to God, focus completely on that relationship with God, and so that is what Jesus is doing through fasting. He's not just giving up food for the sake of giving up food. He is using that time in close fellowship with God humbling himself in to be obedient. Now that takes us over to, I'm not going to go there, but to Philippians chapter 2 where it talks about Jesus humbled himself by being obedient to the point of death. Humility is submission to the legitimate authority that is over you. So in these 40 days Jesus is humbling himself. He is in submission to God because this test that is going to come at the end is really a test of his submission to God's authority versus Satan's authority. So Satan comes up. There's three tests that take place. And he says, or the scripture says, now when the tempter, who is the devil, so we learn that he is the ultimate source of all temptation, maybe not the immediate source, but the ultimate source. But for Jesus he is the immediate source. When the tempter came to him, he said, if. And I've got a little red one there because this is a first-class condition. In Greek, there are three different ways that are used in Scripture to express this kind of condition. There's actually a fourth that possibly is used one time in the New Testament, but three are used primarily, and this is the kind of assumption where you assume the first part or the condition is true if you are the Son of God. So Satan knows it's true because he's been in heaven. He has been involved before his fall with all three members of the Trinity. He's also been in their presence after the fall as we've seen with these regular convocations of Satan and the fallen angels in heaven. And so he knows full well Jesus is the Son of God. But he's saying this not just to state this assumption, but to state this as if this is true, then you should do this. And the point is that he's emphasizing the deity of Christ and saying, you're God. You shouldn't be suffering like this. You shouldn't be out here so hungry. You can solve that problem. All you have to do is utter a command or think a command and your problem is solved because you're God. And so that's the temptation is that you have every ability to solve your problem. The trouble is, if Jesus did that, he would be solving his problem apart from dependence upon God. That is the basic characteristic of Satan's sin, is to live independently of God. And so at no point ever has the second person of the Trinity been independent of the Father, but this is the temptation, be independent of the Father. that you are to command these stones to become bread. This is the essence of this particular test. Now I want you to turn with me now to Deuteronomy chapter 8, and let's get a little background on what Jesus is going to say, because Jesus is going to quote from Scripture. There's a temptation here, and Jesus is going to handle it by quoting Scripture. What do you know first and foremost in this situation that would be true? For Jesus to quote Scripture, Jesus had to have memorized it in his humanity. If you're not memorizing Scripture, you can't quote Scripture to handle your problems. Notice Jesus isn't saying, well, according to the doctrine of temptation, Point number one. He's quoting Scripture because it's the Word of God that is alive and powerful. It is the Scripture that has significance. It's not just abstract doctrine. Now there's nothing wrong with that. We understand that that's what the Scripture teaches certain things. But the example that we have in Scripture again and again is people who are quoting the Scripture. And so he's going to quote from a passage in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 8, verse 3. So we need to look a little bit at the background here for Deuteronomy 8, 3. And I can't remember if I... Yes, there we go. I'm going to back up to the slide I just jumped past. So Jesus answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is a quote from the last part of Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3. Now the interesting thing is in that statement he says, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and this is the dative of Rhema. What is rhema? Remember, we just mentioned that with the sword of the Spirit. This is the Word of God, the spoken Word of God. And so this is the Greek word that was used to translate the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 8.3. It's every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. A word that proceeds from the mouth of God is a word that's been spoken. It's emphasizing that which has been revealed, that which has been spoken from God. Remember, it is the spoken command of God that brought the heavens and the earth into existence. It's the spoken Word of God that separated light from darkness and the waters from the dry land. It's the spoken Word of God that caused the dry land to bring forth vegetation. It's the spoken Word of God that created all of the sea creatures and all of the creatures of the air and the spoken Word of God that created man. It is that spoken Word of God that is inscripturated for us in the Word of God. Now, this refers, this situation that is the backdrop for Deuteronomy chapter 8, 1 through 3, refers back to the situation in Exodus, in Exodus chapter 16, and this is where the Israelites have come out of Egypt. They have witnessed, think about this, they have witnessed the ten plagues, the ten judgments that God brought on the Egyptians. Now, you would think that that would be something that would have impressed them for a little while. They came out. There's about two and a half to three million of them. They eventually came to the Red Sea after a day or two, and their backs were to the Red Sea, and they had no place to go, and they're surrounded by Pharaoh and all of his chariot corps and his army, and they are going to be slaughtered and those who survive will be taken back into slavery. And Moses commands them to stand still and watch the deliverance of the Lord. So they panic, they've already forgotten the power of God. Moses tells them to stand still and he parts the waters of the Red Sea and they can cross on dry land. So they see the deliverance of God. This is the benchmark redemption event in Israel's history. In fact, in a couple of weeks, we'll have Passover. This year, Passover occurs on Friday, on Good Friday, we call it, the Friday before Easter. That's the same sort of pattern that we had in the first century when Jesus was crucified. On Thursday night, in two weeks, we will have a Seder. here. So I'm going to go through it again just following the course of events. So you've seen me do it again. I've been doing more reading and more research and everything. I always love doing that. But we're going to walk our way through the events of that Thursday night. And then on Friday, because with sundown, the 14th began, and so the next day is when they would sacrifice the lambs in the temple. So they have their Seder meal that night, the disciples do with Jesus, and then the crucifixion's the next day. He's buried before sundown, Saturday comes, and then Sunday is the first day, I mean it's the day of firstfruits, and that is the day of the resurrection. So we're going to walk through those issues, and with Friday, thinking about the crucifixion. It's interesting, in the early church, There's evidence that, especially among those who were Jewish background believers, well into the second century, they continued to celebrate the Passover and observe the Passover as the focal point. And somehow in those years, that became the focus, and the Passover was, when they celebrated the Passover, that was when they would celebrate the resurrection. In the Western Church, the focal point was more on the resurrection that was celebrated on Sunday. But this influenced the Eastern Church so that even today, if you were to emphasize the weight of observance, they put more weight on Good Friday. than they do on Easter because this is when sins were paid for. Okay? So it's interesting how that's worked out, but it has its background in the Jewish background believers in the early church continuing to observe Passover because they understood all of the symbolism and its emphasis on the payment for sin. So that's the backgrounds, exodus, they're coming out, they get into the wilderness and they don't have any food. And they start complaining about the lack of food and so God is going to provide a miracle for them in the form of manna. Every morning they would wake up and there would be something unusual that had come down like dew in the morning and they would gather it up and it was like an MRE. It had everything they needed except it was tasty. And it had all of the nutrients they would need. And then on Friday, there would be a double portion to get them through the weekend. They were not allowed to keep any. If they did, it would start to rot and have worms. And so they couldn't keep it over for the next day. It was to teach them to live and trust God day by day. On Friday, they were given a double portion to get them through the Sabbath. And then on Sunday, it would begin again. And so they were being taught a lesson. Who created the manna? God. Who created food to keep them physically alive every day? God. That's the point, is God provides for the physical, and this was the analogy God provides for the spiritual sustenance, for the spiritual life for every believer. So we come to Deuteronomy chapter 8, and this is where Moses is going back and he's applying what they should have learned from the manna episode. It actually happened twice. It happened on the way to Sinai, And then about a year or more later as they're leaving the Sinai, it happened again, the provision of manna. So in chapter 8 verse 1 we read, Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. Look at the verbs there. That you may live, multiply, Go in, that means to conquer the land and possess the land, to enter it and to possess it, to conquer the land, which the Lord swore to your fathers, a reminder that God is fulfilling your promises, he's able to give that to you. And verse two, you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness. You see a comparison there between that and Matthew chapter four? The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and God is leading the Israelites into the wilderness for 40 years. There's an intentional parallel there. And why did he do that? to humble you and to test you. What's the purpose of fasting? To humble yourselves before God. They're led into the wilderness to teach them obedience and submission to God and to test them. Now the Hebrew word here that is used for testing There we have the verse right there, to humble you and test you, and the verb is the Hebrew word nasa, which means to test, to try, to prove, to tempt, to assay, So in metallurgy, it's the idea of demonstrating the purity of the metal, to evaluate it, to purify it, to examine it. That would all be part of it. It's also the idea, some have used the word experiment. that Christ in hypostatic union was an experiment. Now the way most of us take the meaning of experiment is a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery or to evaluate a hypothesis. And we've all gone through those experiences in high school biology or chemistry or physics where we've done things and things may not have worked out the way we thought. I always look, you can do this too. I look back on my life and God protected me in ways I couldn't imagine. And not because I was doing things the right way. So one day I had first class on a, I don't know what day of the week it was, let's just say it's a Wednesday morning. And like a lot of freshmen in college, I preferred to sleep late and not show up for chem lab at 8 o'clock in the morning. So I was running late. And it was because I had stayed up with my friends too late the night before and had too much of a good time, so I'm running late. I walked in the door at the end of the hall, opened the door, and boom! People start running out of the chem lab, smoke is going everywhere, and they had gotten something that was impure and it blew up. blew the finger off of the lab instructors, blew his pinky off, and it was, he had, you know, of course, was bloody in a mess and everything else, but I, where he was standing was right next to where I would have been at my station. so that when that experiment exploded, I would have been about a foot or two feet away from it. So that was just God protecting me. But that's an example that, you know, these experiments can go wrong and not demonstrate anything. But a third way that experiment means something is that it demonstrates a known fact. In freshman chemistry, Except for that instant, nearly every experiment, they knew exactly what was going to happen, you were just demonstrating a known fact. And that's the way the term experiment is used when you talk about Jesus' life. It is to demonstrate the known fact of His absolute perfection in hypostatic union. For others, it is simply to evaluate to see if they're going to obey or not. That would be more of the second sense, to test the hypothesis as to whether it works or not. And so this was what was going on in the wilderness. It was the opportunity to evaluate the spiritual condition of the Israelites to see if they were obedient or not. And of course, they grumbled and they complained about food and about many other things, so they didn't pass the test. Now, we get this same issue in the New Testament. Paul is given a test. It is, I think that the power behind it was demonic, and he has a thorn in the flesh, which is a messenger of Satan. Now, some have tried to make this one thing or another. Later on in the passage, it identifies that this test is that people rejected him, people persecuted him. He was run out of Damascus, almost killed. It had to do with, here's a man who is probably the most brilliant individual on the planet at the time, with one of the greatest educations that occurred, and he's going around to the Jewish community as one who had the highest of all credentials in the Jewish community, and most of them are rejecting him, ridiculing him, and want to kill him. That is going to keep you humble. And that's what the purpose of this testing was. I think it was probably the rejection that Paul encountered. He said, my grace is... And Paul prayed three times for God to remove it. And God gave him the answer in 2 Corinthians 12, 9, putting Paul in a position where there was nothing he could do about it, God was teaching him to rely completely upon his strength and his provision. And Paul learned that lesson. He said, I would rather boast in my infirmities, my inadequacies, my inability, that the power of Christ, that is the ability of Christ, may rest on me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses." See, that's the idea of the thorn in the flesh. It's the reproaches, the persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. So when we look then at Deuteronomy 8.3, Moses then says, so he humbled you, he taught you to submit to God's authority, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, for the purpose of that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. The point that God is making is, by analogy, is that the Israelites need to learn was God sustained them every single day, whether they were getting steak or whether they were getting manna. whether they were getting food that was tasty and seasoned by the leeks and garlics of Egypt, or whether they were getting the same old thing day in, day out, and they got bored with it. God was sustaining them with what they needed to accomplish the mission that God gave them. And so Jesus then takes this verse, and he applies it to what Satan is saying. When Satan says, take care of your physical needs, Jesus is pointing out that the spiritual is the more significant. That by satisfying his physical desires for food, it would destroy his spiritual life. That is often the rationale that we give is, well, I'm this, I'm that, I'm this other thing, in order to succumb to some physical temptation, and what it does is it wipes out our spiritual life. We need to keep the priority on the spiritual food, making that the priority for our life, that we are focused on that every single day. We live by every word, not some words, not most of the words, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. I think this is one of the great tragedies in the history of dispensationalism, that they correctly emphasize the importance of New Testament and especially Pauline epistles for the church age life but they did it in such a way that they never taught the Old Testament in many cases I knew I can tell you a dozen different hardcore dispensational pastors in the early 20th century who never once taught anything in the Old Testament and rarely taught anything in the Gospels unless they had to go there to talk about something that was in the epistles But Jesus, before the New Testament is given, before the Gospels are written, says that we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And what he's talking about is the Old Testament. That the Old Testament may not tell us everything that we have in Christ. It may not tell us all the privileges and positions that we have as church-age believers, as individual believer priests. but it gives us illustrations, it gives us background. You cannot understand what's going on in the Gospels of the New Testament if you don't have a handle on the Old Testament. And that's why I encourage everybody to continually read through your Bible. Now, does that mean you're going to run across verses that confuse you? Sure you are. I run across verses that confuse me every single day when I'm reading Scripture, because I haven't had the time to study them. But I become familiar with them, I become familiar with the people, with the situations, with the circumstances, and that's one of the first stages in learning and coming to a point where you're going to understand something. I frequently hear of someone, some conversation where somebody says, well, you know, I just don't want to read my Bible because I think I need to have a pastor who can tell me what it says. Well, if that's your view, go join a Roman Catholic church and listen to what the Pope says, because that is not what the Protestant Reformation was all about. It was to put the Bible in the hand of every single believer so that they could begin the process to learn and to grow to spiritual maturity so they could memorize all of these promises in Scripture so they could do what Jesus is doing. So we have to know what the Scripture says and use it correctly. Now, Jesus answered that first test with Scripture. In the second test, Satan, who's a quick learner, said, ah, if you're going to use the Bible, I will too. That's always a great idea. So we always have people, and you frequently will hear politicians like the one I mentioned earlier, who will quote some passage out of the Bible completely out of context and think they have really trumped the other side and they're the ones who've won the argument. but they're just following the devil's pattern. He quoted scripture, but he quoted it not only out of context, but misquoted it. And that's what we see in this second temptation. And in this second temptation, what we see is the devil takes Jesus into the holy city, that's Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple. Now, the pinnacle of the temple is the highest point on the retaining wall that is around the temple. When Herod the Great was rebuilding the temple, It's never called the third temple. You know, in one sense you have a second temple, the temple of Zerubbabel, and then you have the third temple, you might say that, think there's a third temple with the temple of Herod. But the sacrifices never stopped. So you don't go from a second temple to a third temple. The second temple just gets rebuilt, and it gets renovated to where it's about the eighth wonder of the ancient world. And because Herod wanted to level out the top of Mount Moriah, that's the same place where Abraham was taking Isaac to be sacrificed, up until that point it was extremely uneven and it was set on the top of this hill. And so Herod came in and he set up this retaining wall in order to hold up and shore up the foundation for this mammoth temple he was going to build. So he moved in just an incredible amount of dirt, and he built this mammoth retaining wall. And some of the foundation stones weigh as much as 400 plus tons. And they moved those stones into place. And those of you who've been to Israel with me, you've seen that particular stone. He built this wall that was so high, it was about 450 feet from the top of the wall down to the valley of the Kidron Valley. That was known as the pinnacle of the temple. And the test is, if you're the Son of God, notice again he states the assumption, he's right, Jesus is the Son of God. He says, you're the Son of God, so you're in charge of all the angels. So if you throw yourself off the top of the temple, then these angels are going to protect you. And he quotes from Psalm 91. And he says, he shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. So now there's another interesting thing that goes on here in the background is that it seems that he is also alluding to a rabbinical tradition. Alfred Adersheim, who was a rabbi who became a believer in the early 19th century, was quite quite well known because of a massive work that he wrote called The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. It's only been recently surpassed by Arnold Fruchtenbaum's four volumes on Yeshua, the life of Jewish Messiah. Adersheim quotes a rabbi who said, "'Our rabbis give this tradition. In the hour when King Messiah comes, he stands upon the roof of the sanctuary.'" So the background for this is Satan is playing on this Jewish belief at the time based on a couple of statements also in Malachi that when the Messiah comes he's going to come down from the heavens and he will touch down on the temple. And so he's alluding to that when he says go up there and jump off the top and the angels will protect you and you'll just come down and you'll touch down on the planet. And so he quotes from from Psalm 91. Now here's what the temple looked like. If you get down low in the left picture you're looking up. You can't get the same visual effect today because the Kidron Valley is built up higher than it was at the time of Jesus. But at the time of Jesus it was much lower and so according to writers of that time, it was about 450 feet. In the model of the temple over at the Israel Museum, you can see that today the road level is right about here, and so it was much further at the time of Jesus, and so this would represent about 450 feet, and the idea was throw yourself off and let God protect you. Regarding this, Josephus says, and this is interesting because I read today in a recent book that came out on archaeology where the guy was arguing that it was the southwest corner where the trumpeter stood blowing the trumpet on feast days, that that's the pinnacle. But that's not what Josephus says here. He says, from above into the depth, this further vastly high elevation of the cloister, that's the pinnacle, stood upon that height insomuch that if anyone looked down from the top of the battlements or down both those heights, he would be giddy while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth. So that's, and he's describing the south, the southeast corner of the temple. The Jews were always looking for a sign, and so this is one that they would be looking for, is this miraculous appearance of the Messiah. We studied this term sign on Tuesday night with the sign of the Virgin, that a sign signifies something significant. Just remember that. A sign signifies something significant. It's not necessarily a miracle, but something that is extremely out of the ordinary. Now in Psalm 91.9, 9 through 13, we find our quote in verses 11 and 12. For He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. And then it says, in all your path or road or journey. Satan didn't quote that. He stops. He left that out. And then he goes on, "...in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone." Now the original text says, "...in all your path." I put in road or journey because the word Derek there can refer to a road or a journey. And so this is talking about God's plan for Jesus' life in all of his path. What The last thing he says is to keep you in all your ways, all your ways. This is the problem, is that if Jesus disobeyed the Father, he would be out of the Father's plan. The Father's plan is to stick with it in all areas completely. And so the temptation was to Announce yourself. The people aren't too excited about you. You need to announce yourself in some fantastic or tremendous way so that they will see this sign and everyone will follow you. And so Jesus responds again by quoting from Deuteronomy, this time from Deuteronomy 6.16, Jesus said to him, it is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. And in this sense it is a quote from Deuteronomy 6.16 talking about how the Jews had tested God at Massa, where they lacked water and they thought they would die of thirst, and rather than trusting God in that situation, they tested Him by complaining and quarreling and being disobedient to the point where God thought anthropomorphically that God would relent of his promise to Abraham and would get rid of all the Jews and go to plan B. So that's the anthropomorphic way of expressing this as tempting the Lord. But the point is you shall not test the Lord your God as you tempted him in Massa." And so Jesus quotes this that what essentially what Satan is doing is he's trying to get the Lord Jesus Christ to go outside of the Father's plan in order to make himself known in a different way. And so Jesus, in contrast to Satan, is correctly quoting Deuteronomy 6.16 to remind Satan of who the real authority is. It is God. You are not to test Him, you are to follow Him. And so again, Jesus quotes from scripture, scripture that he memorized from the time he was a child. He would have had all of the Old Testament memorized by the time he had his bar mitzvah and went to the temple when he was 13 years old. And then we come to the third test. In this one, the devil takes him up to an exceedingly high mountain, probably a vision as opposed to taking him to a literal place, but he may have taken him to a literal place. We don't know which one. But a high mountain, some say maybe Mount Hermon, others some other location, but that's not necessary for understanding the passage. and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory." Now Satan is the prince in the power of the air, he is the god of this world and the god of this age, and these are all epithets for Satan because at the time that he tested Adam and Eve and they failed, Satan took ownership of the earth. and he is now the landlord until he will be deposed in the future at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. So as such, he is the ultimate overseer of the kingdoms of man and all of their glory, and he can make a legitimate offer to Jesus that if you will just follow Me, fall down and worship Me, then I will give all these kingdoms to you." You can have the crown, you can have the glory without the suffering of the cross. Let's just take a shortcut and get to all the glory. And Jesus isn't about glory, He's about service, He's not about Himself, He's about obedience to God. He is demonstrating that He has learned the lesson of humility in the wilderness as he has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. And so Jesus then dismisses him. He says, Away with you, Satan, for it is written you shall worship Yahweh your God and Him only shall you serve. He's not going to worship Satan. This comes from Deuteronomy 6.13. You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him and shall take oaths in His name. The point is we all get tested in many different areas, but the tests are to reveal the doctrine, the teaching, the instruction of the Word of God that we have taken in, that we have learned, the scripture that we have memorized, so that we use that in the midst of those tests in order to remain steadfast by means of that faith. So James 1, 2 through 4 states this very clearly. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces something. It produces not patience, that's New King James, it's endurance. Huppabonai. It produces endurance, but let endurance have its maturing work. that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." The only way to get to the glory of the crown is to go through suffering, and that is what Jesus learned, and we learn the same thing, and we will be co-heirs with Him if we suffer with Him, according to Romans chapter 8. So that's what is met here in 1 Peter 5-9, that we are to resist Him, steadfast by means of the faith because we know that the same sufferings are experienced by other believers in the world and the solution for everyone is the same. So we'll come back next time and go into the last part of 1 Peter 5 starting in verse 10 wrapping up the end of the epistle. Father we thank you for this opportunity to be encouraged to look at our example the Lord Jesus Christ for the joy set before him endured the cross." He went through the suffering, he went through the either privation, all for the purpose of going to the cross to pay for our sins. Father, we thank you for the fact that we can be encouraged to memorize scripture, to read the scripture, to internalize the scripture, so that it's there in recall when we need it, when we encounter the various tests of life that come our way. In Christ's name, amen.