Jesus Loves Little Babies, a new fully illustrated children's book teaching God's heart for pre-born children by Sarah Fenn. Oh Sovereign Lord! Holy is your name. Our souls magnify you. Our spirits rejoice in you alone. Your name alone is holy. Our Father, Your Son, Jesus, was crucified in utter weakness, but You raised Him in divine power. And oh Lord, we thank You that although You summon us into the utter weakness of Christ, we have no strength of our own. We're reduced to dust and ashes. Oh, we thank You, our God, that when that great weakness of Christ is in us, then the great power of Christ is able to work through us. Oh Lord, please don't let us be put to shame. Our enemies want to triumph over us, but we pray that you would keep us from being put to shame. Let them be put to shame, O Lord, who seek the ruin of your saints. But we pray that you would remember us according to your lovingkindness. O Lord, merciful Father, please do not remember the iniquities of our youth, but remember us in your love and according to your mercy, and so teach us your ways. Oh, direct our steps in the paths of your truth. Cause us to walk in your holy commandments. Instruct us, oh Lord, in the way of wisdom. Your secret is with those who fear you. And so you lead them in your holy ways. Oh Father, please impart knowledge to your saints. Revive us and awaken us again in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Awaken your sleeping churches. Awaken your slumbering people. Awaken us to the goodness of the fear of your name. And to the greatness of your covenantal love. Oh Lord, don't let Satan have the victory in your churches. But we pray that you would cast out Satan. And we trust that very soon you will crush Satan under our feet. And all of Israel will rejoice. All of your saints will be glad in you. In Jesus' holy name. This morning, the gospel according to Luke chapter four, the temptations of Christ in the wilderness. Luke chapter four, verses one through four. This is the word of the Lord. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted, or tested, for 40 days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. And the devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. But Jesus answered him saying, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. thus far the reading of God's holy word, and we tremble joyfully at it. God sends his Holy Spirit upon Jesus with power in order to strengthen him for this time of testing. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is both filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit into the wilderness of testing. That is, this graceful, supernatural empowerment of the Holy Spirit of God is given to Jesus for the purpose of preparing Him for His coming contest with Satan. Do we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? The powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not given by God for selfish and self-glorifying purposes. It is to their own shame and ruin, those so-called new apostles and new prophets. in the churches today who claim ever so boastfully both this filling and leading of the Holy Spirit in their ministries, but their claim is proved false by where it leads them. For them, it leads to monetary riches, and unblushing carousing in the daytime, and cultic paranormal powers that allow them to exalt themselves to these great heights of popularity and fame. Such men shall be terrified on the day of judgment, when they are exposed as blind guides and false teachers, and are swept away in a whirlwind of swift destruction. To the contrary, the Scriptures describe the filling and leading of the Holy Spirit as a special empowerment from God that prepares the righteous for times of great trial, and suffering. To be filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit is to be made ready for the coming fierceness of the Devil's combat. This is the armor that prepares God's warriors for the coming blows of suffering. It is the creamy nourishment that strengthens them for the time of the coming famine. The victory is won through hardships and afflictions, not through wealth and prosperity. And so the Holy Spirit comes upon God's servants in order to equip them for the coming tribulations. Micah 3 verse 8, But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of justice and might. For what purpose? to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. And so he will suffer. And also in the book of Acts, Stephen is described as a man, in Acts 6, 5, full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Yet for what event does this filling of the Holy Spirit prepare him? Acts 7, 57-58, Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord, and they cast him out of the city, and stoned him. Jesus then is about to enter into a great contest with Satan. He who has the divine power to slay the roaring monster of the seas with one single word from his mouth, Now, on account of his willful taking up of our own weak human nature, submits himself to the brutal barrages of the devil. The fight is scheduled. The wilderness is chosen for the fight's arena. The contest shall last forty days, and no less, and no more. During that time, Satan will be allowed to throw his diabolical worst at Jesus. He will be allowed to test Jesus with every crafty and sharp and poison-tipped weapon that is at his ugly, satanic disposal. Luke 4, 1 through 2, then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted or tested for 40 days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. Where then is the Father? when such a rush of evil assault has fallen upon His only begotten Son. The truth is that God Himself has ordained this. This contest has been pre-planned by God. For God is He who tests the hearts of man, and it is necessary for Jesus, in His human nature, to be so tested. God, of course, does not tempt us to sin. He Himself cannot be tempted by evil, and He tempts no one. Yet He does test us. In a good, holy way, He subjects us to the test in order to reveal what it is that exists within our hearts. Whether or not we will trust Him, and therefore act upon that trust by obeying His holy commandments. Sometimes then, This regards the wicked. Sometimes God tests the wicked in order to reveal the wickedness that is stored up in their own hearts. Judges 2, verses 20 through 22. Then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And he said, because this nation has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded my voice. I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, so that through them I may test Israel, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not." Other times, however, God actually tests the righteous. He subjects the righteous to the test, so that he can display to the world the obedient faith that is already, he knows it's already in their hearts. Hebrews 11 verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, who tested Abraham? God tested him. Abraham offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. And also Revelation chapter 2 verse 10. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. So for the saints then, God's testing is a good gift to us. It does not seem so at first, because it's filled with this excruciating pain. Moreover, it comes upon us in the wilderness, and so it feels nearly unbearable because of its loneliness. The wilderness is a lonely, lonely place. But such trials and testings are indeed good gifts to us from God, and so we should count it all joy whenever we fall into them. For we know from the book of James that the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and perseverance in turn carries us onwards towards being perfect and complete in Christ Jesus our Lord. And so, in other words, The battle is fierce indeed, but the victor's crown of holiness in Christ is so sweet that the believer is grateful to God for the former fierceness of the battle. However, 40 days is a long fight. It is one thing to parry a sword thrust here or to dodge a bullet there. It is quite another thing altogether to sustain blow after blow from the enemy for forty days. Why must the devil be allowed to attack me even in the night so as to rob me of my sleep? When I sit down to rest, why must he be allowed to plunge at me even before I have time to catch my breath? If this contest is ordained by God, how can I possibly survive it given the frailties and weaknesses of my flesh? And so the joyful news is that there is much help available to us during the fight. If we choose to fight unaided by God, if we choose to fight in the pride of our own puffed-up stature, we shall be slain in the wilderness by these temptations. But God, who desires our victory, patiently waits for us to call upon Him for help. And once we cry to Him for every possible aid and assistance, He so quickly preserves us in holiness through the testing, and when it's all finished, delivers us from the testing. We have, first of all, the help of the refuge of prayer. When Satan assails us, we can shield ourselves from those fiery arrows through faith by entering into the safe refuge of prayer. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and therefore we watch and pray, lest the testing lead us into a state of temptation, and that state of temptation ensnare us in all of the enticements of sin. And so we pray, lead us not into the temptation, knowing full well that while physical blows may wound the body, but fail to injure the righteousness of the soul, it is sin alone that has the power to scar the spirit and slay the soul. Then second, We have the promise from God that He will not allow us to be tested beyond that which we can bear. The Lord knows our frame, that we are from the dust. The Lord does not expect a child to lift a boulder, nor an untrained soldier to fight a whole troop. He trains His mighty men to know how to slay a lion in a pit on a snowy day, And he causes his prophets to run both with men and to run with horses. Yet even they, his best trained men, need much help from the throne of grace. In the day of testing, they too are desperate for his divine aid. 1 Corinthians 10.13. No temptation or no testing has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful and will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able, but with the testing will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. From what source then comes this divine assistance. When Satan is fuming at us and closing in upon us, and our hands are too weary and weak to grasp our weapons, and we are all but slain, in what direction should we look from which shall come this God-sent deliverance? If God's help shall come to us to save us out of the testing, in what form shall that help come? Here is how it comes, Hebrews 2 verse 18. For in that he himself has suffered being tested He is able to aid those who are tested. This is why Jesus fought Satan for 40 days in the wilderness. He didn't do it for His own sanctification, but for ours. In full humanity, He endured what we in our sinful state could not endure. He won the very victory that Adam should have won, but Adam lost. And therefore Christ alone is able to aid us in our time of testing. He alone can sustain us and deliver us, for it is Christ alone who is able to fight for us and to win for us. John Knox, a mighty man of Scotland who helped to bring the Reformation to Scotland, was a man subjected to the worst of testings. He was captured by the French and made a slave aboard one of their galleys. He was hunted by the Roman Catholics with a high price put upon his head. Knox was constantly shelled by the spiritual bombs of the devil, who breathed out many murderous threatenings against him all of his life. So at times the fight for reformation, which lasted decades rather than just a few years, seemed hopelessly unwinnable. But John Knox knew that Christ Jesus alone was the one who had defeated Satan in the wilderness. And therefore he boasted only in the victory of Christ on his behalf. This is John Knox writing on the temptations of Christ. This is from his exposition upon Matthew 4 concerning the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, a book he wrote. He says, this is John Knox, What comfort ought the remembrance of these things, and he's speaking of the victory of Christ over Satan in the wilderness, be to our hearts? Christ Jesus has fought our battle. He Himself has taken us into His care and protection. How that ever the devil rage by way of temptations, be they spiritual or physical, he is not able to bereave us out of the hand of the potent Son of God. to him be all glory, for his mercies most abundantly poured forth upon us." End quote. Oh dear soldier of Christ, so wounded and fainting on account of the contest of the testing, remember that Christ Jesus is your mighty warrior who fights for you He is able to keep you from falling into sin. He has power to sustain you. He who in real flesh and blood defeated the devil during his 40 days in the wilderness knows how to undo the same devil who now assaults you. Therefore, dear soldier, call for Christ. Cry out to Christ Jesus in the midst of the assaults. Fear not those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear Christ and trust that He is able to be your help in your time of testing. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, has been tested in every way that you are being tested. He has suffered every pain that you are suffering, yet infinitely more. And therefore His grace is sufficient to be your help in your time of need. So call upon Him in the day of trouble and He will deliver you so that you can glorify Him. Jesus then undergoes the testing for our benefit, in order to defeat our foe for us. And yet, this is not a rigged fight, as it were. Jesus does not merely seem to be human. Rather, He has assumed full humanity. But of course, not without losing any of His divine nature. And so his human nature, being truly human, is in fact tested, truly tested, in every way. And we must remember also that this is not just any foe or combatant with whom he must contend, but this is the devil himself. Luke 4, 2-3, being tested for 40 days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. And the devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread. No one knows how to tempt man to sin like the devil. No one understands the subtlety of the sin of pride like the devil. He is the master of pride, which is the root of all sin, because his own rebellion against God was, first and foremost, one of wicked pride. His nature is proud. Isaiah 14, 13-14, 14 For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Satan is the king of pride, and craftily so. For he is also the father of lies, and can spin a web full of ten thousand lies in less time than it takes from the sunset to go down and the sun to rise. He is also a murderer, and has been one since the beginning. And therefore Satan loves to inflict pain upon God's children. Whenever he is permitted to test them, he delights in torturing them, Job 2, verse 7, So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. So this is no small adversary. This is no foil for a nice children's story about good men making short work of evil men. Rather, we speak here of our ancient enemy. who walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. This is the one who invented child sacrifice way back in ancient times, whose evil mind is twisted enough to delight in the slaughter of the weakest of the weak. He is the one who entices women to worship idols, and men to desire women who are not their wives, and children to rebel against their parents. God hates divorce, and so Satan loves divorce. He loves the splitting up of homes, and the tsunami type of devastation that divorce brings into the lives of the children. Anything that can cause God's Spirit to grieve, Satan relishes and craves. He is a personal being, a fallen angel. He is much more than a slithering politician, or a clever crook. Unlike a mafia boss, or a serial killer, or a zealous jihadist. Satan cannot be arrested and incarcerated behind man-made walls of concrete and bars of iron. No, this is the one who has the power and rage of a dragon. And he has been allowed by God to exercise mighty feats of persecution against God's elect. Revelation 12, 15, So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. So what then is happening here in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke? Has the Son of God voluntarily disarmed of all of his divine weapons, made a mistake by challenging the dragon to a duel. Will Jesus, the Son of God, now subjected to all of the weaknesses of human flesh and blood, be found to possess an Achilles' heel, and thus be slain and vanquished because of his soft spot for fallen mankind? This is really an ancient battle. This is a contest that first began in a garden, not in a wilderness. There in the garden, Satan tested and tempted Adam. There in the garden, Adam first learned the horrible taste of sin itself. And yet now, things are ever so different. Now, one infinitely greater than Adam is here. Luke 4, two through three, being tested for 40 days by the devil, and in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry, and the devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. The stakes were high in the garden. Suffering and death were in the balance. Spotless righteousness was on the line. And there in the garden, Satan triumphed. He said to Eve, you will not surely die. And she hungered for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And then she ate of it, and gave some to Adam who was with her, and he ate of it. And then they both died. Spiritually they died, and later on physically they died. Yet the stakes are so much higher here in the wilderness. Instead of a lush garden surrounded by good trees, filled with good, delicious fruit, wherein only one tree was forbidden, and all of the others offered as gifts from God, in order to satisfy Adam's every holy hunger and craving. Here is the Lord Jesus with no food at all. He has fasted for 40 days. In His real human flesh, He is starving for food. And so, the testing of Christ is so much greater than the testing of Adam. Also, the lie is more crafty. since Satan's potential prize is so much the greater. Because having slain Adam, he certainly gained many souls with him in his kingdom of darkness. But if he can slay Christ, spiritually, by getting him to sin, not only hell, but also heaven, shall become the territory of his black, horrible dominion. And therefore, instead of, you will not surely die, Satan says, He saves His best weapon for this, if you are the Son of God. What a crafty word this is. Since surely Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore has every rightful claim on every stone of the wilderness, if He so wishes to turn one of those stones to bread. However, Jesus is the second Adam, the new Adam. As we learn from His genealogy, He is the son of Adam, sent to be the new Adam. And therefore, unlike the first Adam, Jesus will not take and eat of this temptation. Rather, He will do what the first Adam did not. That is, whereas the first Adam doubted the Word of God, and so fell into temptation, the second Adam, Jesus the Righteous, will vanquish Satan by putting his faith solely in the Word of God. And in this, he gives the dragon a mortal wound. Hebrews 4.15, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted or tested, as we are yet without sin. Those are victory words, yet without sin. Oh, church of the risen and glorious Christ, He is the new Adam, and so He is the victor. He has conquered temptation for us in His battle with Satan in the wilderness. He also has allowed the guilt of our sins to be slain in His own body on the cross. And so sin is defeated. And the curse of sin is ready to be removed from a new garden, which is paradise itself. We were rightly accused and condemned by Satan because of the filthiness of our former sins against God. Those sins were horrific, and they were condemning. But praise be to God, through Christ Jesus our Lord, that He, by His righteous, sinless life, and especially by His sinless perseverance in the wilderness contest with Satan, is able to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So this then is the victory shout of those who worship the Lord Jesus. It is the triumphant cry of those who know that although Satan tested Jesus in the wilderness, it was Jesus the righteous who prevailed over Satan on our behalf. Revelation 12, 10. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren. That is Satan. who accused them before our God, day and night, has been cast down. How then does the Lord Jesus vanquish Satan in the wilderness arena? Is it not by way of the Word of God? Luke 4, 1-3, then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tested for 40 days by the devil. And in those days he ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, he was hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." Why was Jesus tested for 40 days, and no less, and no more? And why did Satan test Jesus by telling Him to command the stone to become bread? Well, certainly Moses was on Mount Sinai without bread or water for 40 days and 40 nights. Elijah also went 40 days and 40 nights without bread on his way to the mountain of God. Yet Jesus is greater than Moses and greater than Elijah. And so he alone, being God's beloved son, comes to do what neither Moses nor Elijah could do. So remember then, That it was the children of Israel who were in the wilderness, tested by God in the wilderness, for 40 years. Deuteronomy 8, 1-2 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. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the land of Israel. wilderness. So Israel is 40 years in the wilderness, Jesus is 40 days in the wilderness, to humble you and test you. So Israel is tested in the wilderness, and Jesus likewise is tested in the wilderness, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. Yet Israel, as we know so painfully well, failed their test in the wilderness. Hebrews 3, seven through nine, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me, tried me and saw my works 40 years. So it's no wonder that Satan wants to test Jesus for 40 days in the wilderness. For it was there in the wilderness that Israel loathed God's manna and failed God's test. It was there also that God spoke to Moses, telling him to command that that stone bring forth water, but Moses, in the exasperation of his wearied flesh, struck the rock in anger, and so sinned against the commandment of God, and died in the wilderness." But Jesus defeats Satan precisely in this. Namely, that he will not do what his father has commanded him not to do. And he will not despise the spiritual manna of God's holy word for the sake of a mere loaf of bread. Even in his state of sheer starvation, he will choose God's word over the forbidden fruit of sin. Deuteronomy 8 verse 3, So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." So how does Christ obtain the victory over Satan and over sin? He does what Adam did not do. Adam exercised unbelief towards God's Word. Jesus believes God's Word fully. Adam wanted to become his own God, and so refused to submit himself to God's authority. Jesus, being God, nevertheless submits himself in obedience to the Father's sovereign authority. Adam ate when he should not have eaten. and had no inherent need to eat. Jesus refuses to eat even when he suffers under the pains of starvation. Adam chose bread over manna. Jesus chooses manna over bread. Adam opted for fleshly lusts and so plunged humanity into all of the immoralities of the flesh. Jesus clings to God's love over fleshly lusts and thus offers to us His own righteousness of physical purity and spiritual fidelity. The way of Adam was a hungering for mammon. The way of Jesus Christ is a hungering and thirsting for God. Do you see then how faith in Christ defeats the power that sin has over us? We cannot win the contest on our own merit. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all of our righteous deeds are like mere filthy rags. And therefore we must have Christ's own righteousness, His own sinlessness, credited to us by faith, At the cross, He became sin for us, and so bore our sin for us. Yet at the cross, He was also sinless Himself, and so able to offer His own righteousness to us, fulfilling in His own humanity the very laws of God against which we had formerly transgressed. But if we put our faith in these Gospel promises of God, does this not take the power of sin away? And does this not remove the sting of death? When Satan tests us, trying to tempt our hungry flesh to eat the forbidden fruit of sin, Can we not follow Christ in saying, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? Have we not found the word of God to be infinitely sweet, while sin is only everlastingly bitter? Is not Jesus our bread of life? And should we not feed upon Him whenever we are put to the test? Is it not infinitely better to hunger for God than to waste our flesh on the poisonous fruits of sin? O tried and tested and weary Christian, tarry not to feed upon God when you experience the deepest hunger pains of your soul. His Word, Jesus Christ, is your bread. His sacrifice for you on the cross is your everlasting food. No matter how severe the testing may be, and no matter how intense the hunger pains may become, If you will make the promises of God your very sustenance, you will taste and see that the Lord is good. And in your deep fear of God, you will know that although the lions lack and suffer hunger, those who seek the Lord shall lack no good thing. And thus we shall eat of the bread of Christ's table and be satisfied with all the feasts of heaven unending. And the praise of Christ, our victor, continuing on forever and ever to the glory of God the Father, world, without end. Amen. So as we now close this morning, this Lord's Day, and we return to remember the Lord's Table, we come this morning hungry, not for bread, but for every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Before we come, here is the doxology. Praise be to God, our Father, who has given his beloved Son to be the bread of life for our souls. Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ, who has defeated Satan by his sinless perseverance in the wilderness. And praise be to the Holy Spirit, who comes to our aid whenever we are tested, and who feeds us with the living Word of God. Amen.