Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 11 - Jesus' Baptism & Temptation

Lord, thank you so much for this time for us to study your word, to be together as the people of God on the Lord's day. Thank you, Lord, for those that are teaching our children right now. Fill them with your spirit. Fill us with your spirit as we just discussed the importance of your son's baptism and his temptation, how that relates to us.

And we just thank you, Lord, for all that you have provided for us and calling us yourself and providing for us, just our salvation. And thank you, Lord, for the freedom that we have in this country. We pray for Our friends all over the world. Christians all around the world that do not share such freedoms.

We even think of, some of our missionaries that we support around the world. That have different sufferings and challenges, we pray that you'd be with them. As well, in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Alright, we are gonna be looking. At Matthew, and one of the questions we're going to be asking is, if Jesus was sinless, why did he get baptized? If you guys were here last week, you guys remember, there was a question about Jesus. he didn't follow his parents back home after the trip to Jerusalem.

And some raised the question, was he being an unruly child or at the very least, a neglectful child. And Looking at the various passages, we determined, no, that Jesus is sinless, but there was something within the relationship between him and his human parents where they should have known. He says to them, in Jerusalem, did you not know that I must be about my father's business? And so from a young child, Jesus knew that he was supposed to be about his father's business.

Thank you so much. You're a gentlewoman and a scholar. All right. Let me try this out.

Oh, that's perfect. All right, so, So we know that Jesus is sinless and he's about his father's business. And so when we come to this particular section of scripture, we see the initiation of Christ's ministry. And so we're gonna, we're just gonna jump right in here.

Is it OK if I skip all the review and it's OK with you guys? Once I've like studied the lesson, it's kinda like, that was last week, so. Let's get into the good stuff. So, we're gonna basically talk about two big ideas.

One is the fact that John prepares the way for Christ. And then we're going to talk about the fact that Jesus is initiated. In the, in the way that has been opened up for him. And so let's, let's spend a little time first of all on just John preparing the way.

We're in. Matthew Chapter 3, and let's read the text at length first and then we're gonna come back and start making some observations. And applications. So starting in verse one of chapter 3, in those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Now, John himself was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him. And were baptized by him in the Jordan confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. I say to you that God is able to raise children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.

Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water and repentance, but he is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gathers wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

We'll read the section about the baptism here. The actual baptism of Christ here in a second. Let's stick, let's start here just with John the Baptist. First of all, as he prepares the way.

He prepares the way in a couple of different ways, right? First of all, by, preaching repentance. So we see him coming out into this wilderness, which is probably, this isn't a totally, this isn't what we would think of as like necessarily a desert, but it's a less populated area. in Judea, and he's saying repent.

For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The idea of, of repentance would be a change of mind. He says, you are to repent because, why? The kingdom of heaven.

is at hand. The idea here is that the kingdom that is ruled by heaven is here and ready to be initiated by virtue of the fact that Christ the King is on the planet, right? And so they're being called to to think again. Change their mind about their sin.

This is one of the calls of the prophets throughout the Old Testament when, and then John the Baptist shows up in the spirit of a prophet calling upon people to repent. And, and this is universally one of the components of gospel preaching on the pages of the New Testament is that we need to think again. It's just the, it's the nature of mankind to minimize sin. And to think that our sin really isn't that big of a deal, or to think that our sin is so terrible that God couldn't possibly forgive.

It seems like, there's, there's a spectrum there, but people can fit into two general categories. My sin's not that bad, God's not that holy. He's a pretty good guy, right? Or my sin is so terrible.

There's no way that God could possibly forgive me. And so people can be damned in either way. There's gonna be prostitutes and priests at the gates of hell, as it said. Some will think they're too sinner, too sinful, some will think they're too righteous.

and so the call is to repent. Think again. Think again about your sin. Why for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Jesus is here. it's, this is, his kingdom or his ministry is being initiated. And so we also see that prophecy is fulfilled with this preaching of John the Baptist, as Matthew says in verse 3. That this is the very guy that the Isaiah prophet or the prophet of Isaiah was talking about.

When he says the voice of one crying in the wilderness. So there's this prophecy that's very old that is fulfilled by John the Baptist, and then John the Baptist, shows up in the consummate prophetic uniform, right? He shows up in camel's hair and a leather belt. It's not the way that most people dressed at this point.

This harkens back to 2 Kings chapter 1. Elijah, he's spoken of as a hairy man who has this leather belt, has this odd diet, right? Some people think that the hairy man idea is the fact that he did wear camel's hair. We're not really sure exactly.

But if you, if you think back to Elijah, And that whole setting, I think it's Ahaziah is he falls through the lattice. Do you guys remember that? He falls through his roof, he gets hurt, and he sends his guys out to a prophet of bail to find out if he's gonna die or not. And the Holy Spirit says to Elijah, go intercept them and tell them, yeah, you're gonna die, and why are you going to bail rather than me?

So, Elijah intercepts, they come back a lot sooner than Hessiah is expecting. And why are you back so soon? Because a man of God met us. What did he look like?

He's a hairy man with a leather belt. He's like, that's Elijah the Tishbite. I don't like that guy. And Elijah tells him, yes, you're gonna die and you should be calling upon Yahweh, not on bail.

And so John the Baptist shows up and he's wearing this type of clothing, partially to demonstrate That he really doesn't care about the things of the world. He's not trying to associate with the rich. he's out here doing a job, fulfilling prophecy, making straight the paths of the Lord. And he's got the consummate, prophetic diet of locusts and honey.

So probably roasting his locusts over an open fire, roast nuts, roasting on an open fire. Dipping them in his honey and and then eating. So you can imagine he's probably not, he's not overweight, right? He's probably a little thin.

But from what I understand, I, I don't, I'm not a dietitian. I understand that locusts are actually pretty healthy, pretty healthy diet. And, and you mix it in with some Palestinian honey. And you're getting some, some OK, OK nourishment.

So, at this time, it wasn't all that unusual. Well, how should I say this? It was, it was like, a thing to do. If you found out about some prophetic, unusual guy out in the wilderness, a lot of people would want to go out and see him.

And in fact, this happened way into the early church period. It's, it's kinda like, I don't know if you guys have ever been to San Francisco and you see some of the weird street shows along the, the boulevard, you wanna stop and see the street shows. John the Baptist, no doubt, he would not have been the only guy that's off in some remote area, preaching and wearing unusual clothing and doing stuff. but there's something unique and different about this guy because all of Judea, all of Jerusalem are coming out to him.

The Lord is clearly in his ministry. He's not just your average freak show out there. by the way, this, one of the things that Christians actually began to, mistakenly view this type of lifestyle as, as equivalent to the holiest lifestyle to where you had like the desert monks of the early church that it was, like Anthony and whatnot. They thought that that was the way that you really can achieve a closer walk with the Lord.

Just a closer walk with thee, we'll go out by yourself in the desert and eat as little food as possible and wear as little clothing as possible, and somehow you'll meet with the Lord. That wasn't really the point that John the Baptist was trying to make. He's trying to point people to Christ and sure enough, as people often do, they get the wrong message. so strong was John the Baptist and his lifestyle followed that children in the early church, they would play a game called Monks and Demons.

I don't know if you guys ever played cowboys. We used to call it cowboys and Indians. I'm not sure what they call it today. cops and robbers, right?

Cops and robbers, things like that. well, if you were a little kid growing up in the early church, you would play monks and demons, and where someone would play the part of Saint Anthony, and then all the other kids would jump around him and they would be the demons trying to tempt him, and then he would like banish them and do battle with the demons. That's just what you did. You can still see that stuff, by the way, on a Spanish television.

Anybody ever watch any Spanish-speaking TV? A little bit? OK. You don't see this on English TV, but if you watch Spanish TV, especially late at night, I don't know why I was watching late at night television, but you'll see like these Roman Catholic shows where like, these priests are like just whipping up on demons and stuff.

Not like the American version where the demons win and, but the, the priests are like throwing their holy water and just like, just really going ape on the demons. And, so if you want to get a little taste of, of the monks and demons, you can stay up late and watch Channel 52. Anyway, so, so we've got John the Baptist here. So he's out here preaching in prophetic garb, fulfilling prophecy, kingdom of heaven's at hand.

the other way that he's preparing the Lord is not through preach, not just through preaching repentance, but by baptizing with confession of sins. So we see in verse 5 and 6, that all Judea, all the region, they're coming, they're being baptized. This, the idea is they're being actually brought underwater, out of water. As they're coming out of the water, they're confessing sin.

The idea here almost certainly is not just that they're saying I'm a sinner, but as they get out of the water, they're saying, I have committed adultery. I'm a thief. I'm a liar. I've been lying about this for years.

I, I'm stealing taxes from the government. So they're confessing specific sins. So this is clearly a move of the Holy Spirit. You don't just see, there's no culture where people just suddenly start blurting out the secrets of their heart, just for no reason.

The Holy Spirit has fall, has fallen, through the ministry of John the Baptist, people are confessing sin. And so he's preaching, repentance, he's baptizing, people are confessing their sins, and also he's preparing the way of the Lord by warning of the wrath to come. And so we see in verse 7, that the religious establishment show up. And You would think, you really wouldn't expect John the Baptist to be so.

Cruel to these guys. this is not, this, this is not necessarily a church growth approach to building your church. you have some people that show up at church here at Cornerstone. What if our, we had all of our visitors stand up on a Sunday, Pastor looked out there and he noticed several religious people from the community, and he said, brood of vipers, who invited you to Cornerstone?

But John the Baptist as a prophet looks out, he knows the heart of these religious leaders. These are people who, as it were, were raised in the church, so to speak, right? You've got the very conservative wing of the Pharisees. who want to keep the law, and you've got the liberal wing of the Sadducees.

These are ones that are trying to rationalize the faith, make it palatable to the Greek mind by denying miracles and resurrections and all the nonsense that's in the Old Testament. And so you've got two different sects there that show up, and John the Baptist continues to preach repentance, but he gets very specific with these folks. So if you look back at verse 8, he says, brutal vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance.

Very interesting phrase. He doesn't always, you don't always see this particular language being used with everybody. when you see, certain people fall on their knees immediately before the Lord because of their sins, you don't always see this language, but when you see a religious people show up, frequently, the message is something like this, where's the fruit? Right?

Where's the fruit of your life? You're saying you're coming out here to be baptized. Let's see the evidence of actual repentance. And then he says something that, that Jesus is, is gonna say throughout his ministry.

do not think to say to yourselves, we are, we have Abraham as our father. Hey, we're Jewish, we're within the Abrahamic covenant. He says, don't, don't rely upon that. Where's the fruit?

Don't say, oh, I was raised in the church. I've been coming to Cornerstone since I was in my mother's womb. I've always been a Christian, as it were. So he uses this image of an ax being laid at the root of the tree.

Ready to be thrown into the fire. Then verse 11, I indeed baptize you with water under repentance, but he is coming, is mightier, whose sandals I'm not even worthy to carry. He's gonna baptize you with the Holy Spirit, some translations say, and with fire. It's interesting, he says he'll be bap, he'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit because when you think of somebody being baptized with the Holy Spirit, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

That's a good thing to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So even as John the Baptist is preaching a very stern message, he's actually, there's, there's a latent hope in there that there's some to whom he's speaking to that are gonna be baptized with the Holy Spirit. As, as some of these Pharisees and Sadducees are going to repent. And then he says, he turns back to another image, verse 12, for the winnowing fan is in his hand.

He will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, gathering his weed into the barn. He will burn up the chaff and unquenchable fire. I actually had to do some research on a winnowing fan because I don't know about you, I just kinda had my mind like a little fan like this. I wasn't sure what it was, but winnowing fan is actually an idiomatic expression for a process.

There isn't really a In the ancient times, there's not really a fan per se. in all likelihood, what we've got is like a, a, a big shovel that someone would hold with either corn or grain, and they would shake it and dump it out in the evening, particularly when the wind was blowing. And as they're dumping it out, the lighter chaff would be blown by the wind, and the heavier grain would just fall straight down. So there's like this shaking process.

You're left with chaff in one pile, and some of it would just be blown away, but some of it would be in a pile. And, and then you have the wheat in the other pile. So winnowing fan is really just a process. If anything, the fan is the wind.

Does that make sense? So it's an idiomatic expression for this process. But clearly, he's using this image to say that when Jesus comes, he's dividing the wheat from the chaff. He's dividing Those who are not just giving feigned repentance, but those who are are repenting and bearing fruits of repentance and thus proving themselves to be wheat, are going to be gathered into the barn.

Those that are coming out and feigning repentance or actually setting themselves opposed to Christ, will prove themselves to be chaff, and will be burned and unquenchable fire. So part of John the Baptist's preparation for the way of the Lord is to lay out the conflict right away, right? If you're watching a good movie or reading a good book, what happens in the opening scenes normally? You gotta establish the conflict, right?

What's, is this man versus nature? Is this man versus man? Is this man versus himself? There's various conflicts in any particular movie.

John the Baptist is preparing the way. He's got a bunch of people repenting, confessing sin, they're, they're humbled. He's got a bunch of religious people that come out that are identified as people who are not genuine in the repentance. John the Baptist says, Jesus is coming and there is a conflict.

He is gonna divide this group from that group. And so this is part of his preparation ministry, warning them of the wrath. So you have people being humbled and confessing sin and being saved, other people that are expecting wrath. So that's the, in a nutshell, or in a grain, shell of grain, however you wanna say it, is the preparatory ministry of John the Baptist.

And so then, we have Jesus shows up on the scene. And he is now initiated in the way. So let me ask, let me ask you guys one question before we read the next section. Why are people being baptized?

It's baptism of repentance. So what are they doing when they come out of the water? Yeah, they're confessing their sins. So I want you to keep that in mind.

They're repenting in the waters of baptism, and confessing sins. So when we come to. Chapter 3 verse 13, it says, then Jesus came from Galilee up north to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. When the first time we read this, if you've never read this before, imagine you're in the early church, where you're hearing this story for the first time.

Suddenly you find out that Jesus wants to be baptized, you should be like, What? Jesus wants to be baptized? Wait, I thought everybody was baptizing because, or they were getting baptized because they were repenting. And confessing sin.

And so it should be a shocking statement, right? Jesus wants to be baptized. So there, and there should be some tension. Wait a second.

The way this gets developed early in the book of Matthew, it seems like Jesus is the Messiah. It seems like Jesus is a holy one. He's anointed. He's without sin.

But he's, why is he gonna get baptized, Brian? Don't you get baptized, repent of sin and confess your sins? He needs to be a model. He needs to be a model.

OK, that's really good, Brian. That's really good. You're letting the cat out of the bag there. Good job, Brian.

No, yeah, so that's good. verse 14. John gets, he gets the conflict. John tries to prevent him saying, I need to be baptized by you.

And are you coming to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, permitted to be so, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water. Behold, the heavens were opened to him.

He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, alighting upon him, and suddenly a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So let's break this apart. So Jesus comes, he's initiated in his ministry, first of all, by being baptized. It's a baptism of identification.

Just like part of what Brian was saying, he's both setting a bottle, but also he's identifying with the sinners. In the opening scene, you have people being baptized for sins and being, and confessing sin. Jesus is identifying with those that are being baptized. Remember, the Bible tells us, well, let's, let's, open to 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Let's look at this real quick. 2 Corinthians 5:21. Where it says he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Christ already knows at this point where he's going, where his life is headed.

That is, he's gonna die, not for his own sins, but for the sins of others. And so he's being baptized, not for his own sins, but as a precursor to his death and burial and resurrection for the sins of other people. And so he's right out the gate, he's identifying himself with sinners. Just like it says in Isaiah.

What is that? 5312? let's see. You guys know the passage.

Therefore, I will divide him a portion amongst the great. he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors. So he's, he's gonna bear the sins of many. And he's also initiated by divine approval.

So when the masses were getting baptized, what were they doing as they came out of the water again? Confessing sin, right? When Jesus comes immediately out of the water, does he confess sin? No, he's not confessing sin.

In fact, there is a confession that's made, but it's not by himself. It's made by the Father. So he comes out of the water, he's approved by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes in a lights upon him.

That's an interesting word. And he settles upon him. This is, I'm not even really sure what this would have looked like, cause Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit came in bodily form. So, so the Holy Spirit comes in bodily form and it says as a dove or like a dove.

So when it says like a dove, it doesn't mean it was an actual dove, right? It's just like a dove, but it, but it is something that looked like it had a bodily form. Holy Spirit comes, a lights upon Christ, demonstrating. This is a Holy Spirit-filled individual.

And then the Father speaks the, not just, well, first, the sky is open, the heavens are open. We're not really sure exactly what that means. There's a few different places where we see that in the Old and New Testament. What does that look like?

Who knows? But, the skies are split apart in some way, then the Father pronounces, this is my, what, beloved Son. In whom I am well pleased. So beloved.

This is a, a son who is, who is greatly loved by me. And right now, I am well pleased with him. Whenever you see that type of pronouncement, this is made upon individuals that absolutely please the Lord based upon either their own righteousness or based upon an alien righteousness. When we consider, Ephesians 5, for instance.

We're called beloved. Right? Ephesians 5:1 speaks of us as being beloved, but we are pronounced as beloved and accepted in the beloved. So we are accepted because we are in Christ.

How does he say that again? Therefore, as imitators of God, as dearly beloved children, now walk in love. And there were other places were called accepted in the beloved. So here we have Christ who is well pleasing.

He has, so he's, he's being baptized as, as, to identify. He's being approved by himself in not confessing sin by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit settling upon him by the Father speaking from heaven and saying, and giving him that heavenly divine blessing. Let's see, we had all this, yeah, Father blesses called Beloved, well pleased. And Then thirdly We see that Christ ministry is initiated by withstanding temptation.

So let's look over chapter 4. Let me say one final thing here about the, the baptism of Christ. When John the Baptist is doing his baptism, there's those that are going in and confessing their own sins that parallels Christ being baptized, not confessing his sins. But then you also have John the Baptist turning to the bad guys, so to speak, and, and, and really calling upon them to repent because of the wrath to come.

So there's this threatening of curse upon the Pharisees and Sadducees. In Christ's case, there's this pronouncement of blessing upon Christ, which totally contrasts with the, the scene with the Pharisees and Sadducees. So then in verse chapter 4, then Jesus was led up by the Spirit. So the Spirit alights upon him, and then right away, you get the sense that is pretty quickly hard upon his baptism.

He moves from this wilderness, which is, in Judea, this is probably a lightly populated area, to a, to a true wilderness, probably Sinai, where he is absolutely by himself. And so let's read along in chapter 4 for this final part of Christ's initiation, his withstanding of temptation. So 4 verse 1, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights afterwards, he was hungry.

Right? I'd be hungry. What about you? I get hungry when I miss breakfast.

I'm hungry right now. Now, when the tempter came to him, he said, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. And he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up to a, a holy city.

Set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 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. Jesus said to him, It is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Again, the devil took him up an exceedingly high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to them, all these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, 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 ministered to him. Now, as a young believer, I just remember reading through these sections of scripture several times. And just thinking to myself, What is the big temptation here?

after all, Jesus is God, right? It'd be like Superman. is out trying to fight some common criminals, right? They're coming after him with crowbars.

They're coming after him with their fists, even like a bullet, right? Can a bullet harm Superman? Everybody knows that a bullet cannot harm Superman. And so, if somebody's coming and trying to tempt or, or, or do some damage to Superman, what's the big deal?

These things cannot harm him. And so what's the big deal with Jesus being tempted? By the devil in all these ways because it just seems like He's Jesus, right? So what's, what is, what's the big deal here?

What do you guys think? Reading about Sign Yeah. Jesus obviously could do anything he wanted, but he came as a man, right. That's good.

So, yeah, so Cynthia is saying Jesus could do anything he wanted, but he came as a man. Remember last week we were talking about what theologians call the kenosis doctrine or chronosis theory, that Christ, when he came as a man, he laid aside the prerogatives of deity. He became a man in the weakness of human flesh. And so part of what we're gonna see as we look at these three different temptations, part of the temptation is for the devil to try to get Jesus to use the prerogatives of his deity in order to help his own human flesh.

Does that make sense? There are, there are some unique aspects of this temptation, because after all, Jesus is the Son of God. And so the devil's not approaching Jesus as if he's just you or me. He's approaching Jesus with full knowledge of who he is.

This is the Son of God. And, and the devil seems to be somewhat aware of the plan that Jesus has come to the earth, and he is not going to insist upon his deity, he's not going to exercise his prerogatives of deity. And that seems to be where the devil attacks. And at the same time, we're gonna see some parallels and overlap, with, with some of these temptations.

So, so let's go ahead, let's, let's look particularly at the, the temptations. Again, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. To be tempted, of the devil is, is the way he's called initially. Now, he has to be tempted of the devil because Christ does not have a corrupt nature.

When we look at James chapter one, we are each led, led away by our own desires, right? The devil could be in Zimbabwe, and guess what, you and I can still be tempted, because we have these desires in us that incline us towards evil. Christ did not have any evil desires and so for him to be tempted, the devil had to be present. By the way, it is very unlikely that any one of us in this room have been personally tempted by the devil.

You realize that when the Bible speaks of the devil many times, it's using that as a big overarching term for his kingdom, and that it's, if we've encountered demons, and there's no doubt that demons do organized attacks against God's children, it's probably his minions. But in this case, Christ is going face to face with the actual devil. Devil's not omnipresent, you understand? He's a created being, he's an angel, so he can only be in one place at one time.

And so, at this, he is at this particular moment, he is with Christ at a point in time, tempting him face to face. Does that make sense? And so he is going mano a mano. with the devil.

Say it again. Foo Foot to foot, yeah, exactly. And this is after he. Hasn't eaten Yeah, exactly.

In fact, it's good that you brought that up. There, there is a, the book of Luke says that he's tempted for 40 days, and then in Matthew, it says he fasted for 40 days, 40 nights, and then it speaks of the temptation. And so when you, when you synthesize the two accounts, actually 3 accounts, it appears that there were probably multitudes of temptations throughout this 40 days, no doubt some temptation on the back end of the 40 days. And what we're seeing is a representation of three of the probably multitudes of temptations.

In fact, if you compare the order, like the book of Luke has a different order from the book of Matthew, right? Why is that? Because the two writers are basically giving us samplings of the temptations and putting them In their own Holy Spirit inspired order for their theological purposes. Remember, the gospels are not blow by blow histories all the time.

They're developments of theological treatises based on real history. And so, when you synthesize it together, we're probably seeing a representation of 40 days of temptation from the devil himself. that's, yeah, so I just told you that. So let's go to the first.

Temptation. I'm categorizing the first temptation. These temptations are actually fairly complex because the devil's sophisticated and he's tempting a godman. So, And so there's lots of different aspects that you can draw in on.

I'm some overly simplifying the first temptation as obey your thirst, which is the slogan for what? Close but no cigar. Sprite, yeah, so obey your thirst. so in that first temptation, we see this.

Now the tempter, so here he's called the tempter, came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, Command that these stones become bread. So that's the first temptation. OK, he's been fasting for 40 days. If he's exercising the practice of a deity already, no problem.

But remember, he's a man who hasn't eaten for 40 days. And so, this is a temptation. Take your prerogatives of deity. If you're the really the Son of God, so that's the first aspect of the temptation.

Are you really who you think you are, who you say you are? If you are, it's very easy for you to turn these stones into bread and feed your hunger. so let's tear us apart. So the devil is called a tempter here.

bread of stones. I don't know about you, but like bread might not get me, but if the devil came to me and said, turn these stones into tacos, be like, I don't know. But turn, turn this, The stones and the bread. Do a miracle for yourself as part of this temptation.

You're the Son of God. Do a miracle for you. Not for anybody else, just to feed your hunger. You can do it.

use your deity to aid your humanity. That's part of this temptation. This would never happen to any of us in this room because none of us are deity, right? But the devil could tempt Jesus to, to try to access his deity in order to aid the weakness of his humanity.

Jesus' response It is written, this is very interesting. We're gonna read what he says here in a second. But does Jesus, the one who's the God man who wrote the Bible, really need to say, It is written No, He is the word, right? But as a man, and identifying with us as human beings, he is going not just to his prophetic soul, his prophetic mind, he's going to the written word.

He says, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I don't need to access my deity in order to assist my weakness as a human. The main thing I need is the Word of God. That is much more important than me even having bread right now, especially being tempted by you, devil.

And so he goes to the Word of God. The second temptation, Let's see. There we go. we could oversimplify it by saying because you're worth it.

Anybody know which model this, what model this is? L''Oreal, right? There you go. I had to look that up.

I didn't know that off, I just until last night, so you're worth it, right? Or God don't make no junk. is the other idea. If you really think about what that means, it's, and the way people apply it, it's kinda like, no matter what choices you've made to completely mess your life up, and no matter how you persist in your sin, to, to ruin other people's lives, God don't make no junk.

Oh, I don't know. Anyway, the devil here is now called the devil. Let's read The 22nd temptation. Then the devil took him up to the holy city, 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 shall give His angels charge over you, and in their hands, they shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. now, does Jesus and his deity really need the devil to take him somewhere? No, but again, he is not exercising progress of deity. And so the devil has to take him in some spiritual way or some miraculous way.

The devil is taking him to this high pinnacle, right? We don't know, we would assume this is a physical realm. We don't, I don't know that this is some out of body experience. It seems like this would be some physical transportation, we're not really sure, but the devil tempts him to throw yourself down.

Go ahead, throw yourself down. If you are the Son of God, make your Father do a miracle for you. Hey, you're the, if you're really the Son of God. You can throw yourself down, nothing's gonna happen to you.

Just make God. So instead of tempting him to, to access his deity, cast your humanity upon the Father's deity in a presumptive way. Jesus's response again? It is written.

He says, it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. many commentators also point out the fact that in response to the first temptation, Jesus says it is written. And so then the devil comes along and says, All right, I'll use some Bible too. And he takes a portion of Psalm 91.

takes actual truth, but wants to tempt Jesus to misapply the truth. There's nothing in Psalm 91 that would ever imply that you should just throw yourself out of an airplane without a parachute and expect God to save you. That's not what Psalm 91 is about at all, right? And yet the devil takes a little bit of truth, says, OK, I'll play the it is written game.

Let me give you some Bible. And, and then Jesus comes right back with scripture, interpreting it properly. These, these are actually pretty. Pretty subtle temptations.

I don't know about you. It's one of the reasons why when you read the commentaries on the temptations of the devil here, that people are really all over the map on how to interpret and understand because there's a really, there's quite a lot of subtlety, psychology, and then just realizing the dual nature of Christ that's involved in these temptations. So then, thirdly, We have this 3rd temptation, which I'm gonna oversimplify and say, why wait? That's an abbreviated motto for.

Snickers, right? Snickers says, why wait? Satisfy your hunger now. I forget how they say the whole thing, but it's like, why wait?

You can just eat right now. Snickers are great. Snickers are pretty good. I think I overdosed on them when I was younger, and so I don't like them as much anymore, but they are good.

I prefer, Reese's peanut butter cup. Especially on my frozen yogurt. Yeah, My frozen yogurt with Reese's and then some mochi. And a cup of coffee.

What's that? I'm being tempted, you guys, and a cup of coffee at the same time. It's really good. OK, so the nature of this temptation is called the Devil again in this section.

Let's actually, let's read it. verse 8, again, the devil took him up to an exceedingly high mountain. showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

Then Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, him only shall you serve. The temptation here seems to be avoid the cross kingdom now. Hey, Jesus, he, he seems like he has some idea based upon the baptism. And what he said to his mother, what's been prophesized about him in the past, that the life before him is going to be a road of suffering.

He's the enemies have already, the conflict's already been set up, right, between the Pharisees, Sadducees and Christ. This is a temptation of the devil to say, I, you can basically have your kingdom right now without going through the suffering. Rule in your humanity without the Father. You can roll right now.

Without going through all the things that your father has asked you to go through. Jesus's response again, away from me, Satan, and then he says, it is written, You shall worship the Lord, only him only shall you serve. I don't know that it's completely. If we're able to completely understand.

The full weight of these temptations. Because none of us have ever been a human being that has laid aside the prerogatives of deity, right? And so here's Jesus Christ, who is God and man simultaneously, being tempted by a creature he created, by the way, Who is coming to him in total disrespect, right? if, if Jesus wanted to, right?

He could call 10,000 angels, if you want to, he could just smash him with his sovereign thumb. And here the devil is coming along, trying to tempt him to use the product of, of his deity, apart from the weakness of his, in the weakness of his human flesh, stay within your lane, so to speak. I don't know that any of us could completely understand. What he went through, other than the fact that at the end of this 40 days, 40 nights, part of the results we see, he says, away from you, Satan, and what does the devil do?

He leaves. Now, we need to remember that up to this point, Jesus has remained within his human nature. He's not operating within his process of deity. So when he says, away from you, Satan, and then quotes scripture, the devil's fleeing not just because Jesus is God.

But because Jesus as a man has access the written word and relied upon his father. So part of what we should learn from this is, can we cause the devil or temptations or demons to flee from us? Yes, the Bible tells us in James, resist the devil, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. And so this isn't just Jesus and all of the Superman powers getting the devil to flee.

This is Jesus as a man causing the devil to flee. So the devil does flee. And then angels, other angels, good angels, lesser beings come to minister to Jesus. This implies that this was very difficult.

Look at verse 11. The devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. Why did they minister to him? Because he needed to be ministered to.

What's, what's that? Yeah, he, yeah, he, he's probably just completely wiped out. He's still hungry. these angels show up, they're ministering to him.

This reminds me of the Simon of Cyrene, situation where Jesus is bearing the cross, and in his humanity he just can't carry it anymore. And so they assigned somebody else to come and carry the cross. The rest of the way to his death. And so Christ isn't just play acting, there's an old heresy, and I always get the old names mixed up, whether it's Nestorianism or all the other isms, but there's a, there's an old heresy that says that Jesus wasn't really a man, he just play acted like a man.

And so whenever you see him, like getting tired or needing ministry from angels, or Simon of Cyrene, that's not really Jesus doing that. It's kinda like me playing basketball with my son Samuel. I'm just pretending like I can't swat him, right? He comes running up, he's about ready to do a jump up, and I pretend like I'm gonna try to swat him, but I keep my hand down here, and then he makes a shot and he's like, oh, I, I made a shot over dad's hand, right?

That Jesus just play acting. No, Jesus isn't play acting. He is a man. He is tired.

This is, it's been excruciating. and then Jesus begins his public ministry, verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and say, repent for the kingdom. of God is at hand or kingdom of heaven.

So let's, let's wrap up a few tie up a few things and then by way of application here, When you look at the temptation of Christ, you can compare it to the Old Testament there in Genesis 3, the first Adam and Eve, the devil comes in the form of a serpent, says things like, has God said? Implication? Can it possibly be, be, can it possibly be true that What God said, about the tree and so on and so forth. The devil also says, God knows that, or can God possibly be that stingy?

He knows that if you guys eat of the tree, that you're gonna get knowledgeable, and so on. So there's two basic temptations that are going on in the garden. Basically, God can't really be true, or you've misunderstood him. Secondly, God's really not that good.

He's stingy. The first Adam and Eve, but the blame goes on Adam. They fail the test. They fail the temptation.

Jesus comes along, Matthew 4 in the initiation of his ministry. The devil comes to him as the second Adam and as the god man and says, prove who you say you are. You say you're the Son of God, prove it. Turn these stones into bread.

Throw yourself down from this pinnacle. And hey, why don't you bow to me and we'll avoid all this cross stuff. You can presume upon the Father's promises, you're the Son of God. The kingdom plan of redemption is unnecessary.

You don't have to go through all this suffering. We can make a deal right now. Jesus Met, meets those temptations and he succeeds on our behalf. This is also the doctrine of identification.

We're baptized as sinners confessing sin. He's baptized on our behalf, not confessing sin. The Father's well pleased with him. When we come into Christ, he's well pleased with us.

We fail in our temptations, as a race and as individuals, Jesus comes along, he succeeds in his temptations. He identifies with us, we get wrapped up in his righteousness. So let's finish with these applications here. I'm sorry.

Let me go back to that again. So I was probably having some battery. So according to what we have learned today, why was Jesus baptized and why does that matter? Yeah, to identify with us as sinners, right?

Not for his own sins, obviously. So, yeah, so, I think one of the things is, is we've talked about here at Cornerstone for years, as we're preaching the gospel to ourselves and thinking upon Christ, think upon his baptism. Think upon him. Being, going under the water, coming out of the water on our behalf, not needing to confess his own sins, but being pronounced as well pleasing to the, to the Father and beloved of the Father.

And then the Bible further says, you are accepted in the beloved. And so we are buried with Christ and we are raised with Christ, right? So part, Christ baptism can be part of our gospel preaching to, to ourselves. Also, Christ's temptation and success in the temptation can be part of preaching the gospel.

I have failed, Lord, many times in the temptations, but Lord, you did not fail. And on my behalf, you succeeded in your temptations against the devil. Lord, help me to say no to the devil and the flesh in my next temptation. so to be dwelling and thinking upon and to realize that Christ defeated the devil not based upon his own progress of deity.

He defeated the devil as a man using the very same resources that we have at our disposal, right? The word of God, the Holy Spirit. And so we can do battle with the devil. We don't have to have a defeatist mentality and say, oh well, the devil made me do it.

I have no, there's nothing I can do. I'm, I'm Irish, right? That's just the way I am. I'm a berry.

That's just who berries are. We can't change. No, we, we have a new nature. So develop your battle plan.

You guys have, a handout that we're not gonna go over, but I encourage you guys to go over it over the next week or so. What is your battle plan for dealing with temptation? Because we're all gonna be tempted. We're tempted in many ways, right?

But God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, and He's given you everything that you need for life and godliness. Guess what? We have the written word that Christ accessed. We have the Holy Spirit that alighted upon Christ is within us.

And, and we have prayer, and we have the people of God. One of the things that I've been really hit with lately, we're talking in one of our family devotions. About how that prayerlessness is basically the attitude of saying, it's OK, God, I got it. I don't need you on this one.

So when we're prayerless, and I don't know what it is, but there's this default thing in my head where I hit certain problems. And where I just, sometimes I just won't pray about it. I'll start worrying about something, worrying about these days, our kids are in these real transitionary states with one that's graduating from high school and looking at college and all that stuff. And so sometimes I'll just find myself, thinking about that or even just thinking about where are my kids gonna end up with their walk with the Lord, as they have to deal with things on their own in a sense between them and Christ.

Yeah, it's a great opportunity for me to say, Lord, I have no power whatsoever. all things, Lord, by your grace, would you pour your Spirit upon my children? Help them, their eyes to be open to their own sin and their need of repentance. Lord, would you give them the ability to move from all the temptation that all of us have to be Pharisees or Sadducees and move them over to want to confess sin?

Would that just flow out of their heart because of the movement of your Holy Spirit? That you've really convicted them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Now they see a greater need for Christ in their own lives. Guess what?

I can't accomplish that anyway. when I, when I'm not praying and I'm just sitting there worrying, and then trying to enforce my will upon my kids, I'm, I'm, I'm unwittingly saying that I think I can do it without the power of, the power of God. Let me just end on this, a couple, couple of things here about I think we can glean from the temptation of Christ. First of all, no one is exempt from temptation, not even Jesus.

There's no reason to think that you and I will be spared, so don't be surprised when temptation comes. Temptation is coming, it will come every day, so we should not be surprised. So what's your game plan? What are you, what are you doing to get ready for the next temptation?

Temptation is not the same as sin, so, it is not a sin to be tempted or to feel temptation. Jesus was tempted, but he never sinned. And so we don't have to feel terrible about ourselves because we're tempted. We just want to use the resources that's been given to us.

respond to temptation with God's word. And so memorize God's word, but I would particularly encourage you to meditate upon God's word. It's one thing to memorize God's word and just check it off for your wanna Bible verse time. But think about God's word, chew upon it.

Think about it during the day, keep it before you. Use it strategically. I have certain go to verses depending on what I'm dealing with. as I'm doing my Bible reading, sometimes all of a sudden I'll start struggling with a particular issue and boom, I have my go to verses.

This is like a little booklet that I flipped through a lot of times. This is when I went to a, to a marriage conference. I, there's a lot of notes in here that like really impacted me. And sometimes when I feel like I'm just losing the edge or.

I'll just like flip through this and like just read all the notes and something will stop, will jump out to me and I'll go back and spend time on that particular verse. This is a little book I've been reading lately, just on the sin of anger. It's like 50 lessons dealing with anger, bitterness, patience, peace, and the chapters are like 2 pages. You read one page, 1 chapter a day.

And it highlights a certain verse and a strategy on dealing with that particular temptation. And so I'll just kinda go through, and I've been making up these little mnemonic devices because I forget things as soon as I read them. I'm just like weird that way. And so I create this mnemonic device where I can flip through these pictures in my head.

I'm down to about chapter 17, so I can pretty much recite all the principles down to chapter 17. The other day I was about ready to get ticked off at an inanimate object. And I, I just started flipping through my chapters 1 bun, 2 shoe, 33, 4 door, 5566 like, all right, I'm good. All right, we're good.

And it's just good reminders of, of, scripture principles and, the power that we have to overcome the temptation of anger. Resist the devil in the power of the Spirit. Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. There is really something to the power of the Holy Spirit, right?

We're not just, it's not just turn lemons into lemonade and psychological tricks. It's the Holy Spirit fills us. And if we keep pumping our hearts with His word and meditating on His word that gives fodder for the Holy Spirit to suddenly start making connections for us. I'm not one of these people where I feel like I'm walking around and all of a sudden, like the Holy Spirit whispers in my ear.

But as I am stuffing my heart with the word of God, I'll, I'll tell you what, sometimes I'm just walking along or I'm, I get up, I'm having breakfast in the morning, all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit starts making these connections with all the things I've been doing in the word. And suddenly I'm just like, Man, why did I never think of that? It's like something will just occur to me that I just never thought of before and it's like, man, I'm 50 years old. I never thought that thought in my life.

Where did that come from? The Holy Spirit takes his word and just starts doing stuff, right? And it helps you overcome your temptations. And again, just pursuing the will of God.

If we really want his will rather than our will, guess what? Things tend to go in a good direction. It's when we insist upon our own will that we get in trouble, right? All right.

So let's go ahead and pray. if, if there's any other thoughts you guys have, you can come up afterwards. This is the final, Sunday school for this particular year. We'll be back in September.

That doesn't mean that we don't want you to study the word this summer. Stay on the word. We're gonna have a, Milton, are we gonna have a reading program this summer again, do, or? Yeah, so we're gonna have a reading program.

Let, let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your kindness to us this year as we've just studied, your word, your faithfulness to us. We pray, Father, that you just be with us this summer. I know so many different activities and, different schedules and sometimes unique temptations.

We thank You, Lord, for Just the instruction on how we can deal with temptation, the resources that you've given us. Thank you for your son who is baptized and tempted and has identified with us and became sin. For us dying on the cross that we might be, bear the righteousness of Christ. Thank you for the righteousness that we stand in.

We pray that it work itself out in our lives day to day in Christ's name we pray. Amen.