Matthew 4

Chapter 4. First Conflict and Victory of the KingThen Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1)Before David, the type of His greater Son, could be publicly called to the kingdom of Israel, he had to prove his prowess in single combat with the champion of the enemy, and his victory over Goliath vindicated his right to be recognized as the true leader of his people. In like manner the Lord Jesus Christ, immediately after the public inauguration of His ministry by the testimony of His Father, was called to meet the great enemy of God and overcome him in single combat and decisive victory. Meaning of the Temptation The temptation in the wilderness had a threefold significance. First, it was intended to prove the divine character and the spotless righteousness of the Lord Himself. In the next place, it was intended to defeat the devil from the very start and put him in the position henceforth of a conquered foe. And in the third place, He fought the battle of the wilderness as the Captain of our salvation, and His conflict was the pattern and pledge of the conflict and victory through which all His followers should pass. The Place The scene of the temptation was suggestive. The first chapter of human history began in a paradise, but it ended in a disaster. The first chapter of divine redemption began in a desert, but it shall end in a paradise restored. This contrast is typical of the old and new dispensations. The old dispensation gives promise of earthly blessing, the new dispensation starts in company with our Lord in poverty and humiliation and it leads up through great tribulation to the place where sorrow is unknown. The Time The time of our Lord’s temptation was also full of significance. It came immediately after His baptism and the voice of the Father proclaiming from the open heavens: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Our severest temptations will come to us after our greatest blessings. The old line is full of meaning, If conqueror, of tomorrow’s fight beware. Indeed, it is only the soul that has met God and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit that really feels the full force of temptation. The man that is going along with the current of evil is insensible to its power. It is when he resists that he is conscious of the opposing force. It was when the Philistines heard that David had been made king that they came to “search for him” (2 Samuel 5:17). He was important enough now to be an object of their attack, and it is when we have yielded ourselves to God and committed ourselves to the purpose of full salvation that all powers of evil are combined to break us down and dishonor us with defeat and failure. Then again the time of our Savior’s temptation was significant in respect of His physical condition. He had just been fasting 40 days and nights, and it is added that after this “he was hungry” (Matthew 4:2). His body and mind were worn and exhausted with long fasting and privation in the wilderness and in this condition He was particularly susceptible to the assault of the enemy. Satan knows when we are weak and subject to his power, and he wisely chooses the time of attacking. The story is told of a young student of blameless character who had struggled for years to win a valuable fellowship in the university that he might be able to support his widowed mother and continue his own studies. At length the crisis hour came on which all his future depended, and his friends were delighted when they learned at the close of a strenuous day that he had successfully passed the examinations and won his fellowship. Up to that time he had denied himself every needless indulgence and firmly resisted all temptation that might turn him aside from his high purpose. But it was the surprise and sorrow of one of his student companions on calling at his room that night to congratulate him, to find him lying on the floor in a condition of helpless drunkenness. The strain had been too great, the reaction had come, nature had given way, and the enemy had chosen that moment to wreck his life. And so we need to watch at all times, but especially to “stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13). The Adversary The agent of the temptation is called the devil. This name is passing out of some of the modern theological dictionaries, but you will always find that with the passing out of the devil, there will also come the passing out of the blood, the cross, the Savior and even God Himself. The Bible recognizes a personal devil as definitely as a personal God. It is the very intensity of the light that flings on the street the shadow as you pass beneath the electric lamp. There is a real devil and a mighty army of demon spirits under his direction and control. It is probable that he himself, their mighty leader, only occasionally confronts any of God’s servants. We may be very sure that he employs his time and his resources to the best advantage and wastes no needless ammunition on those that can be safely left to weaker hands. There is no doubt that the story of the temptation describes a personal conflict between him and the Lord. At the same time, we do not need to believe that he was there in visible form, and that the instance described actually took place on a real mountain or the pinnacle of the very temple itself. We know that He was tempted as we are, and our temptations do not come to us in tangible manifestations of Satanic power. It is in our spirit that he meets us, with mental suggestions so vivid that they almost seem like voices, and yet, there is no visible presence. Had our Lord’s temptation been a realistic incarnation and revelation of the devil, it would have been separated very far from the experience of His people. It is a question if Satan would be much of a temptation to us if he came in the traditional form, with cloven feet and dragon wings. The old Scotchman was not far from wrong when, after looking at a great painting of the temptation, with the devil in the background in the usual characters and colors, he said: “Yon deevil wouldna tempt me.” He meant that he was too repulsive and terrifying to attract him very far in his direction. It is when he comes as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), with his insidious suggestions to the mind, that we have most reason to dread him. There is no difficulty in supposing that the mountain and the pinnacle of the temple were made real to Christ in vision, just as Ezekiel was present in the spirit in the temple at Jerusalem, although actually hundreds of miles away in Babylon. The Cheap Devil One of the strongest impressions which one receives in carefully reading this narrative is the utter poverty of the devil. He had nothing to offer Christ but stones. He couldn’t even bring Him bread. True, he offered Him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, but these were all stolen goods, and the devil had no power to give title. Christ rejected his braggart bribe, and a little later was able to say Himself: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). The day is coming when the shout will be heard in earth and heaven: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15). The devil is a liar and a fraud, and he will cheat you every time. Do not listen to his propositions. He is a promoter of worthless stocks; he will take your money and laugh at you after he has fooled you. The Holy Spirit There was another agent in this temptation, namely, the Holy Spirit. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Do not let us make our own temptations, but when God permits them, let us be very sure that He will go with us through them as He did with Jesus Christ. Then we shall have no need to fight in this battle. Hand over the devil along with all our other trials to His hands, then the battle will be the Lord’s, and we shall learn to stand still and see Him conquer. “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:17). “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will put him to flight” (Isaiah 59:19, margin). Against His Faith The form of the temptation is full of practical teaching and help. The first object of the enemy was to destroy His faith. This is always the primary object of the tempter. It is a trial of our faith. He came to Christ with an insinuating question, just as he came to our first parents in Eden. He did not dare to deny Jesus’ divine Sonship, but he cunningly hinted at the obvious inconsistency of anybody in so deplorable a condition as He was, claiming to be the Son of God. It was as if he had said, “You, the Son of God, out here in this desolate wilderness, neglected by your Father, ready to perish with hunger? Surely it must be some wild delusion; and yet, if it be, why certainly you will have no difficulty in proving it by supplying yourself miraculously with all the bread you need?” And so he comes to us with some discouragement. He points to some mysterious trial or privation and he insinuates the subtle doubt of our Father’s love, or of our own sonship; and we begin to wonder if, after all, we can be truly His children. Discouragement is back of many a life of sin and failure, and confidence in God is a “shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). Then, when the adversary gets us discouraged, it is so easy for him to suggest to us some forbidden way of help—“make the stones bread,” take some unauthorized way of deliverance, step out of the will of God, and accept the compromise of right or honor which the wicked one has always ready at our hand. But the Master would do no such thing. It was not so necessary for Him to have bread, as to do the will of God, and stand where His Father had placed Him in submission and obedience. And so He answered, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). A Victory of Righteousness It has been finely said that the Lord Jesus did not defeat Satan by power, but by righteousness. It would have been very easy for Him, by a stroke of power, to have hurled the fiend into the abyss, but He did something better. He stood so panoplied by divine righteousness that the enemy could make no impression on the Son of God and was driven back helpless and defeated simply by the Master’s breastplate of righteousness. His High Nature The next temptation appealed to His higher spiritual nature. It was a solicitation to His faith to go too far, venturing beyond the prescribed limits of God’s own Word. “Throw yourself down” (Matthew 4:6), he said, “and let God work a mighty miracle in your preservation, which will lead the people to acknowledge you in your divine character.” When the enemy cannot tempt us through our lower nature, he will do so through our higher. He will use even our religious life and our very faith as the instrument of fanaticism, and push us to some rash, presumptuous extreme through which we shall take ourselves out of the hands of God, and really put ourselves in the hands of the enemy. Therefore, we see around us today, the numerous examples of well-meaning people that probably began with sincere faith and then allowed themselves to be controlled by the spirit of fanaticism until they have become the very instruments of the devil himself. Let us remember that even faith itself can go no farther than the Word of God. It must always be limited by “it is written” (Matthew 4:4), and then “Everything is possible for him who believes” (Mark 9:23). Power The next assault of Satan was aimed at the ambition of our Lord, and especially at what might be called a holy ambition. He showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and doubtless urged upon Him the good that He could do by accepting these seats of power and vast resources and using them to reclaim this earth from all its wrongs and grievances, and prove Himself the deliverer of humanity. But He asked this: that he be permitted to hold the helm, receive the homage and be the mastermind behind it all. “‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me’” (Matthew 4:9). But he overreached himself. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matthew 4:10) was the answering blow with which his blasphemous demand was met, and he himself was driven, defeated, from the field. So still he comes with the alluring vision of power and ambition, pleading, no doubt, as of old, some beautiful motive, some dream of worldwide influence, some scheme of social reform or political Utopia. The one fatal condition in it all is, “if you will bow down and worship me.” His touch, his control, his partnership is enough. There can be no compromise with evil. Even the best things that he can give would be defiled by his fatal touch, and the true Christian will always remember that the only safe course is to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and no partnership with evil in any form. The Word of God The weapon which the Master used in this great conflict was the Word of God. “It is written” was His constant answer to the devil’s approaches. It is very remarkable that the book of the Bible, from which Christ quoted all His answers to Satan, was that book which the higher criticism of today has rejected, the book of Deuteronomy. With divine foresight, the Lord chose this very portion of the Scriptures for His endorsement, and defeated Satan by the weapon which he himself pronounced the weakest in all the armory of truth. Satan seems to have been so much impressed with Christ’s effective use of the Bible that he himself tried it once and began quoting Scripture, too, but he left out seven words in the quotation from the 91st Psalm. Those seven are the most vital of all, “to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalms 91:11). All that Satan was thinking of was the physical keeping; but the clause he left out promised something besides this, namely, the keeping of the trusting soul in all his ways, so that it would be kept morally and spiritually as well as physically, and it was because of this very promise that Christ was kept from falling into his snare. You may always distinguish between the right and wrong use of Scripture by this test. The devil uses the Bible, too, but he uses it dishonestly to establish some special theory and without regard to the other Scriptures which appear upon the same point. We must remember always, not only that “it is written” (Matthew 4:4), but that “it is also written” (Matthew 4:5). The Results Finally, let us note the results of this conflict. “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14). The Spirit led Him in and the Spirit led Him out with mightier power than He had entered in. The conflict of the wilderness left Him stronger than at the beginning. He was not only conqueror, but He was “more than conqueror” (Romans 8:37). So the Lord would have us gain spiritual power through the conflict. Let us not be content with merely escaping the devil’s snare. Let us use the conflict for his defeat and dishonor and for the spoils of victory that will leave us richer and our adversary weaker than when the battle began. “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12). Not only is there the discipline of trial here and the strength it brings, but by and by there is a reward for the man that conquers. There are four crowns promised to the victors. The first is the martyr’s crown: “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). The second is the minister’s crown: “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:4). The third is promised “to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8). But there is a fourth crown for the faithful soul that has battled with some hereditary temper, some long-established habit of evil, some trying surroundings and conditions in life, and perhaps feels that little service has been accomplished for God, and that it will be much to be saved at all “as one escaping through the flames” (1 Corinthians 3:15). But some day, God will bring forth the crown of life for such tempted ones, and amid the acclamations of the skies, will place it upon your head, tried and struggling child of God, while the heavens shall ring with the echo of the promise, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial” (James 1:12).