This morning, I would like you to turn to the temptation of Christ that is found in Mark's, excuse me, in Matthew's edition. I did wanna make a statement about Mark. I'm pretty sure we're gonna start the Mark series two weeks from now, okay? Two weeks, I was decided with the Lord's Supper and everything, everything has been changing in terms of the schedule in my mind. So I'm gonna start. the Mark's gospel in the morning services on the 19th. So this morning I'd like you to turn to Matthew's edition of the temptation in Matthew 4. Please listen carefully to the holy infallible word of God. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you. and on their hands they shall bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone. Jesus said to him again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we read this incredible text at the beginning of Christ's service here on earth, we ask, oh Lord, that we would see what the battle is about. It is about powers and principalities, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan. in our weakness, in our frailty, in which we are not able to follow Jesus here, we trust in Christ to have secured for us the blessing, the power against the evil one. Let our eyes focus on Jesus by faith this morning. In Christ's name, amen. If you have your Bible still open, you may want to follow this in terms of the initiation of Matthew's gospel. There is something very interesting in the way that Matthew organizes Christ's immediate life before us in his gospel. Every aspect or event in that early situations is determined by the Old Testament scriptures. So for example, if you do keep your Bibles open at this point, We first be put after the genealogy, which of course is mapping out the family tree and line of Christ from Abraham to Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of God. After that, we come immediately in the birth of Christ. You will notice there concerning the birth of Christ in 123, the quotation, of Isaiah 714. It occurs according to the Old Testament scriptures. The next situation that you are faced with is the discussion of where he was born. That is Bethlehem. You will notice that in chapter 2 verse 6. And there you see, this is according to the Old Testament scriptures, Micah 5.2. Then the next incident is that Christ must escape into Egypt to get away from the slaughter of the children. And we are told about that in 2.15, in which we have the quotation there that this is a fulfillment of Hosea 11.1. Then at this point in that very context, we are told about the situation of Herod's slaughter of the male infant children, chapter 2, verses 17 and 18, which is a fulfillment of Jeremiah 31.15, as it is quoted. Then we enter into the ministry of Jesus Christ, which is initiated in relationship to John the Baptist. And there you see, in terms of that very incident, you see in Matthew 3.1, concerning the ministry of John the Baptist, is in fulfillment of Isaiah 40.3. Skipping right now, the temptation, if you move over to chapter four, you will see also that as Jesus begins his ministry in Zebulun and Naphtali, you will notice that that statement is made in Matthew four, 14 through 16, which is a fulfillment of Isaiah nine, one and two. Now, What is so extraordinary in how Matthew has recorded the initial part of Jesus' life in ministry, it is this. Each crucial event in Jesus' life has already been mapped out by the Old Testament scriptures. The events of Jesus' life just do not happen. Jesus is not free to come into this world and live a free and autonomous life. Not at all. He must live a life that is ordained by his Father which is ordained and prescribed in the Old Testament Scriptures. This is marvelous. Marvelous stuff in terms of understanding, you see. It might be a way in which you yourself can give testimony in terms of the idea of foreordination and being ordained or predestined. Even Jesus, you see, even Jesus' life as he lived on earth, each step is preordained. predetermined by the scriptures. Well, That is also true. That is also true concerning the text that is before you this morning, the temptation of Christ, which appears in this same general context in Matthew 4, 1 through 11. But to begin with, as we look at that particular text, It is important to note that the temptation of Jesus is clearly related to his baptism. As Jesus steps forth, as he steps forth from the waters of the Jordan, the Spirit of God descends upon him and a heavenly voice pronounces him, Son of God. by virtue of Jesus's baptism. By John the Baptist, Jesus is now equipped, and underline this, with the Spirit of God, so that he can carry out his kingdom ministry while he is here on earth. He will be, it will be, a ministry of the Holy Son of God. but before the ministry of the Son of God begins. God the Father, in accordance with the Old Testament, has the Spirit of God lead Jesus into the wilderness to undergo temptation by Satan. Jesus is to be tempted in order to demonstrate that he can withstand the vicious and the direct onslaught of Satan himself. Furthermore, the trial must be witnessed by his heavenly father. The father will witness that his son is indeed The one in whom he is well pleased. As Jesus initially confronts the prime enemy of the Godhead, Satan. Satan himself. Satan is confronted here with the heir of God's covenant. With the heir of God's throne, with the heir of God's right hand. If Satan fails this time, then Satan's hope is greatly diminished. It would be difficult for Satan to conceive of any hope of lasting victory at all over the kingdom of God. The fact that Jesus is led into the wilderness has profound importance for the history of God's covenant people. Let us look into the Old Testament and see the ground for this historical significance. In Exodus chapter 21, And 22, God said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you go do before Pharaoh all the wonders that I will put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go. And you shall say unto Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. Once again, if you've missed it, it's Exodus 4, 21 and 22, that God calls Israel his son, the son of God. Well, God viewed Israel as his son. And as God's son, Israel was finally let go by Pharaoh after God brought many plagues on Egypt. God's son, Israel, now wandered in the wilderness. But their wilderness journey was characterized by disobedience, which caused a whole generation of Israelites to perish. Thus they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Christ, who is driven into the wilderness, notice the parallel theme here. Israel, wilderness, Jesus wanders into the wilderness by the Spirit, reenacts, key word here this morning, reenacts the same 40-year history of Israel in the Old Testament in this incident. Notice. The texts from the Old Testament that Jesus quotes in responding to Satan's temptations, those texts either come from Deuteronomy chapter six or Deuteronomy chapter eight. In Deuteronomy 8.5, It states that God led Israel into the wilderness for 40 years to humble and test the people and to discipline them as a man disciplines a son. Remember? Israel's the son of God. Likewise, the Spirit of God leads Christ into the wilderness, the parallel, for 40 days and nights, corresponding for the 40 years, that he might prove himself to be the true and faithful covenant Son of God. Will Jesus truly be God's faithful son where Israel failed as God's son? Well, let's see. Let's look at the temptations themselves. In the first temptation, if you're looking there at your text, Satan addresses Christ in the following manner. If you are the son of God, command these stones to become red. First and foremost, notice the title that Satan uses in addressing Jesus. It's very important. He calls him, even Satan calls him the son of God, the son of God. Satan realized exactly who Jesus was. Satan realized that Jesus was God's very Son. That Jesus was sovereignly self-sufficient. This was a trait that Satan did not find in any other creature who had lived on earth, including the Israelites in their 40-year journey in the wilderness. And thus, the Son of God that Satan was now confronting was the final heir of God's covenant, the final hope The final hope of the covenant rested on Jesus who bore that title, Son of God. And Satan, Satan knew this fact. Jesus' faithful obedience to the sovereign will of his father was now being challenged by the devil. So as we have alluded to before, the wilderness in Matthew's narrative, as in Deuteronomy 8.2, is the testing of humiliating and testing hunger. Jesus' 40-day fast was an ordinance of God, which resembled what the children of Israel went through in Deuteronomy 29.5, when they did not receive ordinary bread to satisfy Him. It is a test designed to discipline the Son of God and to reveal what is in this one's heart. In Jesus's heart, we found out what was in Israel's heart. Israel did not withstand their temptation. The people were seized with craving, discontent, doubt, unbelief. and grumbled because they wanted a different kind of food, not the food that the sovereign God of heaven had provided them. For Israel, evil gained supremacy over their heart. Listen to what Israel says in Numbers 21, 5, and the people spake against God. and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread and there is no water in our soul. Our soul despises this light bread. Satan desires to entice Jesus into that exact same attitude. Hunger is to result in the craving of earthly food, which the Son of God is to obtain for himself. But Christ stands fast. He stands fast by remembering that which, according to Deuteronomy, is at hand for the Son of God. He trusts in the words proceeding from the mouth of God, and he rejects the temptation with it. For Christ answers Satan by quoting Deuteronomy 8.3. which says that man does not live by bread only but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God. Christ endured the temptation by living, living on the words that flow from the living God who promises to nourish his needs without necessary natural processes. Israel had failed. They could not understand that the living God was their nourishment. Christ was faithful. The word of the Lord was his sustaining nourishment. And Christ himself will try to very clearly place this in the minds and the hearts of his people in his ministry. That he alone, he alone is the nourishment of the people of God. He alone is the bread of life for you. He is the one whom you come to and you will never thirst again. He is the quenching water of life. That's our Christ. In the second temptation, Satan also addresses Christ as, here we come again, he knows who he is, the son of God. tempting him to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple, saying that God would save him. Jesus' response to Satan was taken from Deuteronomy 6, verse 16, where Moses says to the Israelites, you shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted him at Massa. The event of Massa in the Old Testament, as Moses makes that remark, is described in Exodus chapter 17, and again it is referred to in Deuteronomy 9.22 and 33.8. To tempt God has the meaning of proving, proving God, that is to test whether God's power to lead Israel to Canaan could be relied upon. Israel's proof of God sprung from doubt. and outright unbelief. Our Lord plainly implies that casting himself down from the height of the temple, trusting that angels would intercept his fall, would be acting just like those murmuring Hebrews back there in the Old Testament in the wilderness. The significance of the second temptation is that Satan exhorts Jesus to endanger himself by his own act, so to challenge God, his father, to save his final covenant son. However, Christ realizes that the protection of the Lord depends on not tempting his Father, but in trusting, trusting his word and decrees. Thus, after the second temptation, we see that the Son of God is still obedient. In the third temptation, The son of God is tempted to forget his God for the sake of the riches of the world and to fall into idolatry. That is the worship of Satan, an open and open and disgusting act of sin. The final temptation is concerned with the world's wealth. and the worship of Satan. Jesus is taken up to a very high mountain where Satan shows him the kingdoms of the world and their glory and offers to give them to Jesus if he will fall down and just worship him. The imagery. The imagery of this scene is once again taken from Deuteronomy, where we find that the high mountains is not only the vantage point from which to view the riches of the world and the place for the conveyance of power and possessions, but also the traditional scene, the traditional scene, For idolatrous worship, listen carefully in context from Deuteronomy 12 verse 2 and following. The Lord's instruction that you shall surely destroy all the places where the nations that you shall dispossess serve their gods. Upon what? Upon the high mountains. And upon the hills, and under every green tree, you shall break down their pillars, and you shall cut down the graven images of their gods, and you shall destroy their name out of that place. Jesus rejects the third temptation by remembering the duties of the covenant son, where Israel had failed. The covenant son, according to Deuteronomy, never, no never, to forsake his God for the sake of earthly riches, never to fall down and worship any idol. Do you see the progress of the three temptations? Do you see the final temptation? Are you hearing? It's focused. It's focused in terms of Satan's craft. It's focused upon the earth. Earthly possessions. It's focused secondly and importantly on the issue of worship. Worship. Going to worship Satan? or worship the sovereign God who is the creator of heaven and earth. These are the two principal problems that the world faces. And even perhaps more importantly, what the church faces. Remember the narrative? Is your mind connecting the dots from last Lord's Day? Satan takes Christ up to the high mountain and tempts him to possess the earth and to worship satan. Do you know what Matthew is going to do with the mountain theme in his gospel? Let it penetrate your heart this morning. Let it encourage you. Look at Matthew 5, 1 and 2. The Sermon on the Mount. Matthew's narrative is going to switch for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to switch the narrative from a mountain of idolatry to a mountain that is set in heaven. Christ giving the church, the disciples, the blessings of heaven, where Christ sits down. The imagery, as we said last week, in terms of the Sermon on the Mount, the imagery is the right hand of the Father in heaven. Astounding. Follow the narrative of Matthew's gospel so that you, so that you worship the Holy Son of God who has come for you. You see, while the children of Israel continued to fail in unbelief and disobedience in their wilderness journey, and failed as God's faithful son, Jesus Christ proves himself to be obedient and all points to the will of God as the true covenant son, the ideal Israelite. Don't miss what we said earlier and highlighted here that you don't have in the narrative of Deuteronomy. That the Holy Spirit leads Christ into the wilderness. Don't forget what the Holy Spirit is doing. The obedience of Christ in this situation of the temptation is being assisted by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is working as the person of God with this person of God in this context to assure us, to make sure that Jesus Christ is what? What does the Holy Spirit do? He helps people of God obey the word. That's what he's doing. Don't miss it. Jesus Christ is the true historical son of God, the firstborn, because he did not murmur against God in his hunger. He did not tempt the Lord, his God, and he did not fall into idolatrous worship as Israel had done, as they expressed as clearly in the classics. Incident, the golden calf. No, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is victorious over Satan, the prince of this world, and comes forth as the victorious messianic king, who is faithful, obedient, perfect Son of God. By this event, Christ moves forward in his ministry, knowing that through obedience, he will be able to endure the bitter agony of the cross in which he will atone for the sins of his people. In this initial conflict, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, Christ, the son of God, gives a vicious, vicious blow. to Satan, for Christ was obedient to the will of the Father through the Spirit's help and direction, so that his Father, by virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, will give his Son all authority on heaven and on earth. This is our Lord, Jesus Christ. King of kings, son of God, omnipotent, who through his obedience gives to us victory over the kingdom of Satan. Not, listen carefully, This is not, this text is not a model for our temptations, but as an accomplished historical fact in which we as the church have the assurance and the confidence of victory over the powers and principalities of Satan himself, yes. When we fall into sin, there are times we want to be, and we know this in our lives, we are conscious of the word of God and we avoid that sin, but you're not gonna be able to do it every time. You are Israel, we are Israel in the text. We need Christ to be victorious. If I was up here telling you this morning and said, do what Jesus did, quote scripture every time sin's going to come out, in two minutes you're going to be depressed when you walk out the door. Because you're not going to be able to do it. That's why Jesus came. Only He does it. He does it for you. You are asked. All you are asked to do is place your faith in Christ. Look unto Him. He's the one who defeats Satan once and for all on your behalf. That's what's tremendous. about Jesus. There's no one that ever has lived on the face of the earth like your Jesus in relationship to the evil one. So indeed, by virtue of his accomplished sonship and by faith, we become sons of God, joint heirs, joint heirs with him, marching forever onward, knowing that through the obedience to his will, through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to his commandments, to his honor, the nations will come unto him. For the gospel of Matthew cries out on its final page through the words of Jesus Christ himself, all dominion, power, and authority has been given to the Son of God by virtue of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. And through him, we as his sons, we as the church, carry out our dear son's commission. For the church of Jesus Christ must not, we must not march forward into the world as a defeated entity, but as the victorious power of God. who in obedience, both in testimony and witness, both in word and in actions, through the power of the Spirit of God, see that God himself brings many sons of God unto glory. Matthew declares to the church that the Son of God has come, that he has come as faithful, obedient, perfect Israelite, where the Israel of the Old Testament failed. He comes as Immanuel. God with us. Never to depart from us. For He dwells in us. He dwells with us. And He dwells among us. men, women, young people. It is through union with Jesus Christ in obedience through the power of the Holy Spirit to his commands that the church as a unity, as a unity removes the power and principalities of Satan. We know this. We know this for Christ made the lame walk. He cast out demons. He raised men from the dead and his very words descending upon you this morning from the scriptures, those words are life. Matthew even records that great assurance to us, the church, that the gates of hell will never prevail against the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, the world thinks it can do that. The world tries hard to do that. But you can't. You can't overcome the power of the Holy Spirit. in the spirits and hearts of the people of God. The church will be forever preserved by our holy triune God. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we are so thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how marvelous it is to hear, to understand the power of himself and the spirit bringing Satan himself and his kingdom down. Help us not to lose sight of that. even as we ourselves can be tempted ourselves to have our eyes set upon the earth. Give us eyes that see into the realm of the invisible, heaven itself, and more importantly, even the inheritance that we have in the person of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Bless our church that we ourselves would be united in this for the sake of the gospel against the kingdom of Satan. In Christ's name, amen.