Mike Bickle discusses the significance of John the Baptist's ministry as the Father's messenger, emphasizing the importance of repentance and the preparation for Jesus' coming. He highlights how John's baptism of repentance was a call to change one's mindset and values, aligning with God's perspective. Bickle also delves into Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, illustrating how Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit and affirmed by the Father, overcame temptation by relying on Scripture. This model serves as an example for believers to resist temptation and live under God's leadership. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a deeper understanding of repentance and the transformative power of Jesus' ministry.

We turn to Luke chapter 3, Luke chapter 3, on session 5, on studies in the life of Christ. Father, we thank you, Lord, for the glorious, precious Word of God that gives us insight into your beautiful Son. Lord, we want to see Him, be like Him, adore Him, understand Him more clearly, love Him with greater tenacity, and Lord, we thank you by the Holy Spirit. You will help us tonight, in Jesus' name, amen. Well we're going to begin talking about the ministry of John the Baptist, because John the Baptist is identified as the Father's messenger about Jesus. In Matthew chapter 11, he's called the Father's messenger. That's a pretty intense title. He was handpicked by the Father and said, I want you to introduce my Son to history so that they have the right ideas about Him. And the reason I say that is that some people think of John the Baptist as kind of real intense and fiery, you know, prophet in the desert, and then we have kind, gentle Jesus. And John the Baptist was handpicked by the Father to introduce Jesus so that we would understand Jesus better. And so to understand John the Baptist gives us insight into the man that we love, the Lord Jesus. Well it begins here in Luke chapter 3. We're going to look at Luke chapter 3 and 4, and again we'll just have to go through it fairly quick and just hit a few of the key points. There's a goldmine that will curse all the Gospels, I can say that of every session. Begins with John the Baptist, the dating of his ministry, and one of the reasons Luke does this is that he wants to set salvation history, the big events in salvation in context of world history. What Luke is saying in essence is this is actually, world history is actually following the lead of salvation history. So it begins, Luke chapter 3 verse 1, he says, now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Now that's the big date right there, the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. And much, this is one of the major insights to get the dating for Jesus' ministry. When he began his ministry, when he died, etc. Then he mentions Pontius Pilate and Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee. Now, number one, Tiberius, there's two dates that history gives for the fifteenth year of his reign. It would be A.D. 27 or A.D. 29. So one or two, either one of those dates is when John the Baptist's ministry began and of course Jesus' ministry began six months afterwards. And I think the evidence lines up best for it being A.D. 27. And I believe Jesus' ministry was launched in A.D. 27 and then he went to the cross in 30 A.D. And I think that most of historians will back up those numbers or real close to that. And I got a little bit of info on there. And I'll have an entire handout on the dating of Jesus' ministry with four or five really clear and significant indicators. I'll give you that at another time. Well, number three, Herod, well, there's quite a few Herods in the Bible. There's several of them in the Bible, quite a few in history. This is Herod Antipas. This is not Herod the Great. This is Herod the Great's son, Herod Antipas. And he was a Tetrarch. And a Tetrarch, all that means is he ruled one-fourth of the area because his brother Philip and others, Pontius Pilate, ruled the other part of the area. So his dad ruled the whole thing, but Herod Antipas only got a fourth of the, in his, his father passed on to him. Now Herod, this Herod Antipas is the one that imprisoned and then executed John the Baptist. And then you'll mention, you'll notice in verse 2, Annas and Caiaphas, the high priest. The reason I highlight this is because you're reading the Gospels and Acts, and one time it says Annas is the high priest, the next time it's Caiaphas. You go, well, which is it? Well, the official high priest was Caiaphas. But his father-in-law, Annas, was the high priest before him. And when somebody was high priest, they're high priests for life. But the Romans took him out of office, but the Jewish later said, you can take him out of office, but we're still going to treat him as a high priest. And so Annas, the father-in-law, was still involved deeply with Caiaphas, his son-in-law. And so there's two functioning high priests in the Gospels and in the book of Acts. That's just an FYI. Paragraph B, verse 3, that John the Baptist, he went to all the region around the Jordan River. That's down south in the southern part, the Jordan River, just outside of Jerusalem. And he was preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, or you could say for the forgiveness of sins. In verse 4, Luke wanted us to know, of course, all of the Gospels made this clear, all four Gospels, that John the Baptist was a fulfillment, a partial fulfillment, I'll add, a partial fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied, that there would be a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. That's the famous verse from Isaiah 40. And the promise was that every valley would be filled and every mountain would be brought low. But here's why we know John the Baptist was only a partial fulfillment, because the context, verse 6, is the hour when all the nations see the glory of God. And that only happened a little bit in John's day. But Isaiah 40 is about the time frame when all the nations see the glory of the Lord. It's in the generation of the Lord's return. And so though John the Baptist is the premier forerunner at the first coming, God is going to raise up voices in the wilderness that are going to prepare the way of the Lord for the second coming, in the hour in which all flesh, which you could put all nations or all people groups, will see with their eyes the glory of the Lord. And that is in those final years leading up to the Lord's return. And then the ultimate is the Lord's return and the glory of the Lord filling the earth. Now what Isaiah is really doing is describing Jesus' new covenant ministry. When we see that every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain brought low, that is symbolic. But there's also a physical reality to that as well. It's symbolic for emotional and spiritual truths. John the Baptist was connected to that. But this passage is also talking about topological changes, topographical changes, when the Lord returns on the earth. And that's a big subject for another day. But many things are going to be shifted even in geography. But in this hour, this is a reference to the new covenant ministry of Jesus. All the valleys in our life, the low areas, the areas where we're deficient in, in the grace of God, Jesus by the Holy Spirit says, I'm going to help to bring those areas up. And the mountains, those are the areas that are too intense, too out of balance, the emotions, the areas in our life that are way out of balance, they need to be brought down. And the Holy Spirit is saying that through Jesus, I'm going to do that. I'm going to help you do that. And so John the Baptist was actually a forerunner to get people ready to receive the man, the man we love, that would have that impact in our lives. And so I'm believing the Lord for every area that's low and deficient in my spiritual life to be brought up, and every area that's like a mountain that's over-exaggerated, that needs to be brought under the Holy Spirit's restraint, to be brought down, that mountain, the Scripture says you can believe the Lord's leadership in your life for that to happen. So I want to encourage you to really lay hold of this. This is about Jesus. This is about His ministry. Now, John the Baptist's ministry was characterized as a baptism of repentance. And some folks have a wrong idea about repentance. And again, they think John preached repentance, but then Jesus preached grace. But Luke was very focused on, and he emphasized the subject of repentance, because Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, and you know, most of you, Luke wrote the book of Acts. He wrote both of those. And you study the word repentance throughout Luke and the book of Acts, and Luke will show you how John preached it, how Jesus preached it, more than John did. And the apostles preached it even more than Jesus, because their ministry was longer. That repentance is the message that Jesus, the early church, and John the Baptist proclaimed. And so John wasn't kind of doing some weird thing until Jesus came around with the grace of God. I hear things like that. But faith and repentance are actually two sides of one reality. I really want you to get that. Faith and repentance is really two sides of one reality, because repentance really means change your mind. It's not just change your values from sinful things to godly. That's repentance. But change your perspective, your mindset, your perspective of life, the lens through which you view life and situation. And John is saying, repent, see it through God's eyes. We call that faith. But faith and repentance, really it's two sides of one coin in reality. And one of the reasons John the Baptist emphasized repentance, and Jesus emphasized it, and the apostles, because John understood that with repentance, changing our values, changing our perspective and our mindset, the way we view things, changing the leadership of our life from ourselves to the Lord, that is how transformation is released in our life. So we don't want to be shy or draw back on the subject of repentance. Now, he had a baptism of repentance, meaning baptism was you went down in the water and you came up and you were signifying that the old life was going down and being washed away, and I am now committed to a new life. It doesn't mean everything is going to be easy from then on, but it's a statement of commitment. You're coming up out of the water saying, I want from now on to be under a new leadership, to embrace new values, and to have a new perspective on how I view life and opportunities and challenges. I'm going to view them through the lens of the grace of God, through Jesus' leadership. Now the problem is some people in that day, they were getting baptized, they were doing the outward, but they were not doing the inward. And I know people today, they think, well, I've been baptized, you know, that's good enough. I go, well, you know, you could have a wedding ring, but if you don't have a spouse, it's not going to get you very far. And baptism without a relationship is like the symbol without the reality. Now this very glorious statement, verse three, it's a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. We're so used to that idea, but this is awesome. Your sins are totally forgiven. I mean, this is amazing. You can have a new beginning every single day in the grace of God. No condemnation, have confidence before God, even in your weakness, that is what remission of sins is talking about. This is the most glorious news, full forgiveness, final forgiveness, complete forgiveness, confidence with God, not just when we get to heaven, there's no condemnation in Christ. And John the Baptist was saying, guys, do you know who this man's coming? This man I'm talking about, the one that's coming, he's going to bring this to your life. This is more glorious than we can really, really grasp. And John the Baptist was emphasizing this and tying it to the subject of repentance, a new perspective on life, top of page two. Well, we're going to look now for a moment at the preaching of John. And again, John is preparing people for Jesus's leadership. And John is preparing people to understand what kind of man and leader Jesus is. Well, John starts off here in verse eight. He goes, bear fruits worthy of repentance. He goes, don't have repentance language and don't do the baptism, the repentance ceremony without repenting. He goes, if you don't change your values and your mindset about life, your perspective, you don't change leadership over your life from you to the Lord, nothing's going to change. Nothing good that God promised is going to happen in the way the word of God describes it. He goes, and don't say to yourself, we have Abraham as our father, because the Jewish people, they said, hey, you know, they would talk to the Gentiles, to their neighbors. I'm talking about the, those nations were hostile towards them, many of them. And they would say, well, Abraham was our father. So therefore we're right with God because he was our great, great, great grandfather. Abraham was 2000 years before Christ. And they said, hey, we're connected to him by blood. So we're good. And John says, no, no, your religious heritage isn't, isn't a substitution for a real relationship with the Messiah. And, and so John was telling the, don't trust your upbringing and your religious heritage. I know people today, they trust their church background. They go, well, I was raised in the church. I was homeschooled. I was in the youth group. I did this. And now they're, you know, in their, uh, college years and their early twenties and they're out and about doing things and they're thinking, well, I grew up with that. I check. I got that one settled and they're trusting their heritage. They're trusting Abraham in essence, or they trust their parents' faith or, you know, I'm real good. I'm good friends with the pastor back home. I was in the youth group. And what John says, no, that isn't what I'm talking about. Don't, don't lean on that, but have a genuine up-to-date relationship with the king of Israel, the king of the nations himself. So verse 10, the people said, well, what do you, what's that look like? It's interesting. There was three different groups that asked John the Baptist, what does this look like? And I'm, I'm a little bit amazed by the answer. Every answer he gave was an economic answer. It was about the way they stewarded money. That wasn't the whole answer, but that was the main answer. Every one of them. I would have thought, wow, you know, how about, you know, your pride or whatever, your lust in other areas, but it was about money. There's something about when the Lord has leadership over our money, it touches the deep places in our heart. It's like John saying, well, you just obey the Lord's leadership in money. You'll see how many issues in your heart will come to the surface, good ones and bad ones. And what will happen in your spiritual life if you stay obedient in the realm of money, but obeying the Lord and entering into his fullness, obeying the Lord in money and entering to the fullness of God in your life. They are connected. You know, in all the years I've been pastoring, when people won't obey the Lord in the realm of money, they're stuck in their spiritual life in a way that bitterness and money are the two things that I see more people stuck spiritually because they assume those two areas or things are settled in their life because they're doing better than the guy next to them. But these are really essential areas. And so he goes on, he says in verse 11, he goes, the guy that has two coats, give it to the one who has none. The guy that has food, do the likewise. I've never really met an American except for on a mission trip who had two coats, who really gave one of their coats away. You know, I've heard people do it on a missions trip or that one outreach, they'll do it. But that doesn't really cross our mind, really. You know, we think, well, I got five coats. I got six coats. I got way more than two. I don't know how many coats I really have. My wife knows. But you know, I got a bunch of them, I'm sure, in a closet somewhere. But we never really think about this. But John said, no, I really actually want you to talk to me about these kind of small areas of your life. Then verse 12, he says to the tax collectors. Now, the tax collectors, you could put the IRS guys. The tax collectors were the people who collected the money. But it's not only government employees, because they were government employees. They truly were the IRS kind of their day. Anybody that's in a position that determines who owes people what. It could be rent management. It could be the bookkeepers, store clerks, accountants. There's any number of professions where the guy that's making the decision can kind of be dishonest on 10%, and nobody will know. And John is saying, if you're in one of those positions, don't take more than is righteous. No one's watching. Nobody's ever going to catch you. But it will matter in your life with God. Then verse 14, he asked the soldiers. And the soldiers of that day, we could call it the law enforcement. Many types of law enforcement of today. But it doesn't only have to be the government law enforcement. It might be anybody in a position of authority that they can make a decision that can harm somebody else's future or hinder someone else's future. And he says, if you're in a position of authority to open and shut doors for people, good or bad, don't use that position of authority to intimidate them. Don't say, hey, if you don't do it my way, I'll make sure that life is a little rough on you. It's not just soldiers in law enforcement. Don't falsely accuse them. And the idea is that the soldiers would accuse a guy to get a bribe from another guy. Like, don't shift the story so you can get an advantage later from the person you helped by shifting the story a little bit. Don't do that in your leadership position. But be content with your wages. Now the reason this was a big deal, because the soldiers didn't make very much. So it was very easy to bribe a little bit or to take 10% more, because nobody could catch you. And so what's really happening in paragraph C is John is saying the realm of money really is related to responding to Jesus's leadership, because John's preparing people for Jesus. And again, that's just an area, those two issues, money and bitterness is almost an area you just don't touch much, because you can't really get onto the inside of somebody's cart, because those are subjective areas, because who really knows if you're bitter or you're covetous. But if we really want the fullness of God, we really want the valleys lifted up in our life, and the mountains, those difficult areas brought down, we want to take these cues from John about how to respond to Jesus. Roman numeral three. Now John's going to speak about Jesus himself. Now this is a pretty interesting description of the Messiah. I don't think you and I preach Jesus like John did. I mean, I've never heard much talk about this. You know, a little bit here and there, and I look at this and I go, Lord, this is good, we're going through this class, because this is how the great forerunner, the Father's messenger, Matthew 11 calls him, the Father's messenger, here's how he prepared people about Jesus. Verse 16, he goes, I baptize you in water, but the man coming is mightier than I. Okay, that's good, he's far more powerful. I think we all buy that, he's far more powerful than anybody, but he goes, he's the man that baptizes you with the Holy Spirit and fire. But not only that, number one, he baptized you with the Holy Spirit and fire, he has a winnowing fan in his hand. That's his leadership. I want to tell you what he's like, he has a winnowing fan in his hand. That's what, he's preparing to use it when he comes into his public ministry. And what he's going to do with that winnowing fan, he's going to thoroughly cleanse the threshing floor. And when he cleanses the threshing floor, you know, by the barn, right outside the barn is the threshing floor, he's going to gather the wheat, and he's going to mobilize the wheat and gather it and take care of it, and he's going to burn the chaff. I have never heard anybody preach a developed message on this description of Jesus. I mean, I need to get with it, get with it, Mike, okay. Paragraph B, he'll baptize you in the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now, fire refers to the purifying work of the Holy Spirit so that love is imparted to us. The purifying work is about an impartation of love, the revelation and impartation of love. But fire also means judgment. So Jesus uses fire in the positive and in the negative sense. But this gives us revelation of who he is, of what he's really like. And of course, when we receive Jesus, we want greater encounters with the Holy Spirit. And I don't think being baptized with the Holy Spirit is just a one-time experience where the Holy Spirit touches you when you're first saved or you receive the gift of tongues. I think being baptized in the Holy Spirit, the word baptized is immersed. We want to be again and again, the phrase used throughout the gospel, I mean, the book of Acts and the epistles is being filled with the Spirit, being renewed and refreshed in the Holy Spirit over and over, being baptized, immersed in it, where this is the world we want to live in, encounter with the Holy Spirit. And he's saying, John's saying, Jesus will lead you into encounter with the Holy Spirit more than you can imagine if you'll stay with it. So don't be content if you speak in tongues or you're born again. But more than that, we want that immersion and it's not just a one-time experience. We're talking about, we want to connect with the man who has the authority to release greater encounters of the Spirit. And these encounters have fire dimensions that are purity and the impartation of love and they have, there's going to be trouble in the nations when the fire of the Lord, in the negative sense that confronts sin, but that's the Jesus we love. He's the one that releases the fire, the good and the negative dimensions of the fire of God. He has a winnowing fork in his hand. That's an interesting description. Now in that culture, that was an agricultural culture, so they understood it. A winnowing fork is like a, I have written here, a fork-like shovel. They would take the winnowing big fork and they would take the grain and they would put it up in the fork and throw it in the air and the wind would blow and the wind would blow and the chaff, because it's lighter, would blow away and the grain is heavier would fall to the ground and that's how it got separated. And what John is saying is, he's going to separate what's going on in the nations. He's going to cause people to decide for him and against him, but he's going to bring a separation and Matthew chapter 10, he said that about himself, he says, don't think I came to bring peace. Actually, he did and he knew he did, but that wasn't the whole story of why he came. He goes, first I'm going to bring division. I'm going to intervene in lives and I'm going to intervene in the nations in a way where it's going to cause the wheat to be separated from the chaff and the chaff again, when the farmer threw it up in the air, then the wind blew and the chaff went, blew away, it was lighter and the wheat would come to the ground. But the point is, John says, this man that's about to come on the world scene is a man that's going to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's one of his primary things. Now again, we don't think about Jesus that way that much, but this is how he was introduced into human history. Paragraph eight. Now in past generations, there are a lot of preachers spoke about judgment and sin and repentance and they didn't talk that much about the good news. And there's a correction that needed to take place in past generations. But today it's quite opposite. A lot of folks talk about the good news. I mean, forgiveness and glorious things in our life, which is our focus, but they don't ever talk about repentance. The need to really take seriously the mandate to break our agreement with wrong thinking and wrong values and the wrong leadership in our life. That's what repentance is. We break our agreement with wrong values. We call sin, sin. We break our agreement with wrong ideas so we can walk in faith because right ideas is seeing things like God sees them, agreeing with them, not stuck in a negative mindset, but saying what God says, getting it in our mouth and getting it in our language with God and breaking our agreement with the wrong leadership over our life. We're not just following the crowd or following our impulses and desires. We're following a man who's leading us by the Holy Spirit. And I believe before the Lord returns, he's going to raise up forerunners in the generation that all the nations will see the salvation of God. That's what Isaiah 40 said, the passage we started with. And they will be voices crying out. They won't be just echoes, just repeating something someone else said. It will resonate in their spirit. They will be voices. They will call people to repentance, to agree with God's mindset. We call that faith, but it's really faith and repentance, it's two sides of the same coin. And they're going to call people to the glory of Jesus' leadership. Well, on top of page 3, the next passage right after that, it says here in verse 21, that it came to pass that Jesus now was baptized. Now, I mean, this is the highlight of John's ministry. He's baptizing Jesus. I mean, this is like, this is so glorious. I mean, you know, he was called to get people to agree with Jesus, but I don't think anything was a greater highlight in terms of a ministry event than this one thing right here. So verse 21, he baptizes Jesus. And while Jesus is praying, the heavens open. Man, what a remarkable thing. The heavens open. And two things happen. The Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. This is like so intense, like what? What do you mean? Well, I think it means he descended on Jesus like a dove. And then, so the Holy Spirit comes on Jesus in a way that other people could see evidence of it. Now, Jesus is fully God, so he has all the fullness of God in him. But as a man, he still needed to be anointed to function as a man, because Jesus didn't walk on the earth drawing on his own deity. He walked on the earth in the limitations of humanity, drawing on the anointing of the Spirit that was on his life. So Jesus the whole time was saying, you know, Father, I could draw on my own deity and do it all, but then I can't be a representative for the human race. I got to live in the limitations of humanity in every way. I have to be tempted in every way, and I have to draw on the anointing of the Spirit through my communion and prayer life and my interaction regularly with you, God, and that's what I have to draw on to move in power. So that anointing came on him on his baptism, but that's not all. The Father spoke audibly over him. He didn't just say, this is the man. He said, this is my beloved son. You are my son. I mean, he didn't talk to the crowd about Jesus. He talked to Jesus about Jesus, and the crowd just observed it. I mean, this is the most glorious thing I can imagine, that Jesus' childhood and his young adult years, because he's 30 years old right now, through his teens and 20s were summed up by this one sentence. We get more insight into what Jesus was like as a teenager and a young adult by this one sentence because we don't get much insight into his life. It was obscure. It's not in the Word of God, besides, you know, the one passage when he was 12 years old and went to the temple, but here we see the whole story right here. So Jesus is baptized. The power of the Spirit rests on him to anoint him as the Messiah. This was a new thing. It came on him as a man, as the Messiah, an anointing he did not have as a man before this happened. And the voice of God in his ordination service, so to speak, affirmed him, You are my beloved. I am so pleased in you. And of course, that's the truth that Jesus lived out of. That was the identity. When he's being rejected by men, and even his own team betrayed him and fled when they're under pressure, he lived out of the resource of knowing that God said, You're my beloved. I'm your father. And he lived out of the resource of the Father saying, I delight in your choices. I believe in your choices. The nations don't, but I do. You know, when he went to Nazareth, his hometown, and they went to kill him, for real, I mean long-term friends, I mean the whole youth group, all the elders of the church, all the leaders of the town, they went to kill him, for real. Mary's heart is broken. I mean, these are real friends that are really against him now, suddenly, because he was making these big, bold statements. And Jesus, when he would retreat, he would say, But Father, you delighted me, and I'm your beloved, and that's good enough for me. I can endure all of this if I have that. And this is not just a truth to observe about his life, but it's a truth to imitate as well. Now, let's go to paragraph E. Well, Luke doesn't mention this, but Matthew and Mark do. This statement that Jesus, John said, Hey, I can't baptize you, and Jesus said, Yeah, you have to. And John goes, No, no, no, no, no, no, no way, I can't do this, it's not right. And Jesus, in verse 15, Matthew 3, made this very unusual and surprising statement. He goes, No, you have to permit it, because it's fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. And so, in what sense was righteousness fulfilled when Jesus was baptized? I mean, it wasn't in the sense that Jesus was repenting, that's not, there was no repentance going on. And I have five paragraphs here that give a little bit about, and I don't want to take time on it right now, but I just, I point that out to you, is in what sense, because I remember when I first read this years ago, I went, This is strange, you know? How did it fulfill righteousness? I mean, we got a man who never sinned, in what sense does righteousness need to be fulfilled? And it was that God's will and God's ways were completed. And you can read these five paragraphs on your own if it grabs your attention. I don't want to take time on it right now, but I did want to, I did not want to skip that point in terms of the notes. Okay, let's look at Roman numeral five. Let's go now, we're moving now past the baptism, the anointing of the Spirit, the audible voice of God, all of these things taking place. Now the next thing that happens is that Jesus is led into the wilderness, but by the Holy Spirit to be, He's led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. Now that's an interesting paradox. Led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. Like, okay, I thought the Spirit was supposed to lead me away from temptation. This is a very unusual situation here. And we know that God never tempts us, He tests us. And so the Holy Spirit was leading Jesus into the most dramatic testing of a man ever in human history. The Holy Spirit empowered Him, He had the affirmation of the Father's love to empower His heart and the Spirit to empower Him, and He walked into the most dramatic testing that any man has ever walked in. And if Jesus failed in this test, then He would not be qualified to be our high priest to save us, and there's no other Savior, there's no other God in heaven. The Father can't become the Son, the Spirit can't become the Son. This is only one opportunity. There isn't another God up there who's going to come down as a man. And Jesus came down and in the wilderness, and the part I want you to see on this, that's why I wanted to go past some of the other areas, I want you to grasp this. This is the most dramatic moment in history before the cross. Right here. There, there's this man, Jesus. He's going to stand in the place before the devil that Adam and Eve stood, or I'll just say Adam. Adam, the Bible calls him the first Adam. And he fell under the temptations in the Garden of Eden. Now Jesus is called the second Adam, the last man. There isn't a third one. He's the last man. The second Adam and the last man. He's the only option for the human race, but he's going to be in the very grips of the most intense, horrific, every single element of power that demons can put against a man. It's going to hit him in the wilderness. Well, Adam had this in the Garden of Eden, in paradise. And so the father says, well, here's how we're going to do this. We're going to not put him in paradise. We're going to lead him to the wilderness, the most difficult situation, no advantage whatsoever in the natural. And we're going to bring him through 40 days of fasting, and he's so wearied and vulnerable in his humanity. And yet the devil comes, and he has the anointing of the Spirit, and he has the affirmation of the Father. That's what he has in his humanity, to stand against the Spirit, and he has the Word of God to speak it against the devil. And this is such a historic moment. I want you to grasp the weightiness of it, of the historic moment. But I also want you to grasp the model. Because it's not just a historic moment that we observe with wonder and awe and gratitude. Because if he would have failed, there isn't a third Adam. That was it. There is no salvation for the human race if he fails. So we look at this passage with admiration and awe and gratitude. But we look at the passage to get a model. Because under the greatest intensity, he had the Spirit, an interaction with the Spirit. He had the Father's voice of affirmation, and he had the Word of God in his mouth. Those were the three things that he drew on to overcome the devil. And that's a model for us. So let's look at this. First, verse 1, Luke chapter 4, verse 1. That Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, he returned from the Jordan River. Now he's led by the Spirit into the wilderness. To be tempted for 40 days. Now he's not only tempted three times. He's tempted night and day for 40 days. I mean, the enemy is barraging him with every single tactic and every single horrific thing he could bring against him in his humanity. Remember, Jesus can't draw on his own deity. He has to live in the limitations of a man and draw on the anointing, draw on the affirmation of the Father, and speak the Word of God. Those are his weapons that he's going to fight in. And he's not in Eden, in paradise like Adam. He's in the wilderness. And he's not full of vigor. He's fasting on water for 40 days. And he's getting weaker and weaker. And when you're weaker just in your frame, you're more vulnerable. And the Father says, this is still going to work. I mean, all the, you know, everything is on the line for this one six-week period. All of human history is on the line right now. And this six-week period is 40 days. And so, you know, we have this intensity, what's going on. This six weeks here, and then we have three years later, the six hours on the cross. Those two time frames, the whole thing comes together of human history. Now, the Spirit led this confrontation with darkness because it's a historic moment in history where Jesus is again standing before God and Satan as the second Adam. Because the first Adam failed, and all of history was scarred and injured by that failure. You know, with this new level of warfare, there's going to be new breakthroughs. And of course, the breakthrough is that he qualifies as a man. He completely is victorious. So now he can qualify as a sinless man who's been through every testing that any other person has. Every one of them hit him in full force, and he obeyed. Therefore now he's qualified as the innocent one to take our place, the place of the guilty ones. So that the guilty ones, you and me, can become innocent before God as a free gift. Top of page four. Now you're going to, most of you are a little bit familiar with this passage, Luke chapter four. But if not, it's not so, it's pretty easy to grasp the main things that are taking place that are stated in Luke four. There's three basic temptations that are highlighted. But remember he's being tested the whole 40 days, night and day. But there's three of them that the spirit brought to a head to be recorded in the word of God. And it's interesting, we're in paragraph C, that at all three of the temptations, Jesus spoke the word of God every time. There isn't a time where he didn't speak the word back. Now this is where the model comes, meaning with his temptation and how he overcame as a model for us. It's not just something we marvel at with worship, but it's a model for us to imitate. And a lot of believers just don't do this. When the enemy comes against them, they kind of grit their teeth. They kind of hunker down and like, oh, I'm getting hurt, I'm just hurt. Okay, lift your voice, talk to the devil. No, speak the word of God, declare who you are, declare who your authority. Don't just die. Like I'm all for pain, I understand pain's real. But it's not an hour where you want pain to be the final word of your response. We have to speak the word of God back and every time Jesus did it. And the word of God teaches us to do that. We speak the word of promise, who we are, our authority, devil be gone in the name of Jesus. And then we have to do it a thousand times in a day, we do it a thousand times. We live by the word of God and the way we live by it, we bring it back through our heart and mind, through our lips, our lips, by our mouth, we do that. We speak the word of God and it reengages our heart and our mind in agreement with God. That's how we live by the word of God. But if we don't reengage our heart and our mind by speaking the word, the enemy will speak his word over you. And I tell you, the enemy knows the Bible really well and he knows you real well and he knows how to deceive you really easy. And if you're going to be just in a, I'm just going to hang this one out and just feel sorry for myself and get a few friends to pat me on the back and say how rough my life is. I'm all for a little bit of that. But beloved, that can't be the final word or it can't be the main conversation that goes on. I'm all for sympathy and compassion, but I'm also like, Hey, I'll stand with you and let's see the truth of what's going on here. Well it's not just that Jesus quoted the Bible three times. He quoted it three times from the book of Deuteronomy. That's significant. And the reason that's significant because Deuteronomy is the book of which is describing Israel in the wilderness for 40 years. So Jesus is saying, I'm in the wilderness for 40 days and Israel was in the wilderness for 40 years. Adam was in the garden of Eden being tempted. I'm in the desert being tempted. So he is a contrast to Adam in the garden and Israel in the wilderness. He says, I'm going to bring both of those together and have victory and show you who I am before God in this intense six week, 40 day period. So number one under C, I say this again, Jesus is victorious in contrast to Adam in the garden because he's the second Adam and in contrast to Israel in the wilderness because he's the new Israel. He's the embodiment of what God wants in Israel. He's saying, Israel, look at me and see your destiny and see your source and see your future by looking at me. So all three, Jesus, Adam and Israel, I mean, you're not surprised, they're all three called the son of God. Even corporate Israel, God said, this is my son. He said it about Adam and he said it about Jesus. Those are the three in a more specific way in the scripture. So in paragraph two, Jesus is answering the enemy by the sword of the spirit. Remember when Paul said that he says you can quench all the flaming missiles of the evil one by the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, but it's the word of God in your mouth because when you speak the word of God, it aligns, it brings your mind and your emotions into alignment or into agreement with what God says. And if you don't speak it, your mind and emotions go right, left and up and down in all kinds of directions. Now paragraph D, I want you to really grasp what's going on, the historic intensity of what's going on, that the purpose of Satan in tempting Jesus, it's more than trying to get Jesus to sin. It's more than that. He's trying to get Jesus to act independent of God. He's trying to get Jesus to draw on his own deity and not stay under the limitations of humanity drawing on the Holy Spirit. Because if Jesus one time acts as God instead of a weak man drawing on the spirit, then Satan says you can't save man unless you live perfectly a hundred percent as man every time. So he's in the weakest condition and the Satan, when you understand what he's really after, he's trying to get him to move independent of the father, not trusting the father like the rest of the redeemed have to and waiting on the father. So he's trying to speed things up and get Jesus to step outside of that limitation. And Jesus, of course, he understands it far better than Satan does. Jesus said in John 15, he says, I say to you, I can do nothing of myself, but only what I see the father do. Now that is a, there's a number of points about that. But one thing Jesus is saying, I can't do anything of myself, but only the father. If I step out of the limitations of humanity and I'm moving my own thing here because he is God. If I'm, if I draw on my own deity, I can't be your savior that I have to live as a man a hundred percent of the time. And I have to live obedient a hundred percent of the time in order to qualify, to offer myself for your salvation. And that's why, you know, people talk about, well, I've heard, you know, guys on talk shows, they go, you know, you're kind of elite, your religion, you think you're the best. And it's not about being elite or the best. We're the only religion that has a man who faced everything and never sinned and then took the sin on himself. It's an issue of justice. It's an issue of, is there any other faith that has a man who did that? Because if they do, then we could talk. But of course there is no such thing. Okay. Paragraph E, I want you to notice, and you're going to have to put some of this together on your own, but I'm just tipping you off because we're, we won't have time to really develop it, but there's three main categories of sin in life. I mean, there's millions of temptations, but there's three big categories of which every temptation could fall under one of the three. First John chapter two, there's the lust of the flesh. That's our fleshly pleasures being gratified. There's the lust of the eyes. We see something and want it. And there's the pride of life. Three main categories of sin. Every human being faces it. Now what I'm going to show you, although we won't have time because I'm watching the clock here, Adam faced these exact three sins in the guard of Eden and fell. Jesus is going to face these same three in the wilderness and he's going to succeed. But he's standing right where Adam stood in the same three temptations. Although, remember, Satan has been tempting him the whole 40 days. These are the three the Holy Spirit brought to a head and they were climatic, I'm sure, even in the experience with Jesus. The lust of the flesh speaks of pleasures without reference to the will of God. And I'm calling that sensuality. Sensuality doesn't just mean sexuality. Sensuality is just a realm of physical pleasure. It's not just sexual in nature. The lust of the flesh. Then there's the lust of the eyes. That's possessions without reference to the will of God. And then the pride of life is position without reference to the will of God. I heard some preachers say that many years ago and I thought, man, I'm going to take that and run. I've heard a number of guys say that. So it's not just evil pleasures, but it's just pleasures out of the will of God. And in this case, Satan wants him to turn, because Jesus is really hungry, stone into bread. There's nothing sinful about one eating bread. There's nothing sinful about that at all. And God made manna in the wilderness for 40 years every single day. So God does make food out of nothing. He does it all the time. He did it all the time. And Jesus multiplied food. So Jesus knew it was in his repertoire, so to speak, to be able to do that. And so, but the father saying, Jesus, you can't do it without me telling you to do it. You, I mean, it's, it's in my character to do it. But until I say do it, you can't do it. You have to live under the limitation of your humanity 100 percent. And Satan goes, hey, you're hungry. Make come on. It's biblical. It's in the Bible. Just make that. You can do it. And Jesus says, absolutely not. And that's a, that's what I'm putting the, the lust of the flesh, meaning that wasn't sexual, but it was a gratification, a legitimate one. But he had to step out of the boundaries of his limitations as a man to do it. Because the father says, I'm not doing it. Even with Israel. He said, I'll give you food. When I give you, you got to trust my leadership. And so Jesus is here 40 days hungry. Father, I'm trusting your leadership. And he says, I'll, I'll give it to you when it's perfectly right. Trust me. And don't move on your own, no matter what Satan does. So Jesus turns that away. That's what he was doing. Paragraph F. I, I mentioned here, you got to read it and kind of look at it a little bit later. How this, I just make it real simple, sensuality, pride and greed. I mean, that is a little oversimplistic, but it just puts it real tight in your understanding. Almost everything you deal with, as far as I'm concerned, everything you do deal with and I deal with will be in one of those categories. Here in Genesis chapter three, I identify very quickly. If I had time, I could develop it more. Why all three of those, Adam and Eve faced them. Adam and Eve faced them. Okay. Paragraph G. Here's the principle that Jesus lived in. Now this is this glorious thing about this temptation. I mean, how we marvel at what he was facing. I heard a preacher say this many years ago too. Although Jesus was never less than God, never. There was never a moment when he was less than God. He lived on the earth as though he was never more than a man. His 33 years on the earth, he lived always in the limitations of his humanity, drawing on the spirit in the father's timing and not, the father didn't give it. He said, I can't do it. And he lived completely like he was a man, though he was never, ever less than God. He lived as though he was never more than a man, but I can say a man anointed by the spirit in those last three and a half years. And he gives us a picture of what a man anointed by the spirit. Of course, he's the ideal beyond measure, without measure. So let's, okay, here's an illustration I heard, down in paragraph I, illustration I heard years ago, that a laptop can be powered by a battery or plug-in, obviously. Jesus had the battery. He had the, he was God on the inside, but he always lived by the plug-in. He always lived by the source that came to him, the Holy Spirit. He never operated on his own battery as God. He always lived dependent on the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the analogy of the plug-in. I heard that years ago and I thought, hey, I could, that makes sense to me a little bit. Although we, laptops wasn't the, what we were using. We were using something else. I think it was flashlights or something, but anyway, top of page five, top of page five. The first temptation is the stone turned to bread. And again, there's nothing wrong with Jesus eating bread. He's not eating for 40 days, but he has to wait on the Father because Israel in the wilderness had to wait on the Father to provide the water and the bread. And Jesus says, I'm the same place that Israel was in, but I'm going to obey where Israel grumbled and they tested God. Paragraph B, we're just going to do this real fast. The second temptation was Satan and most of you are familiar with the story, showed him the glory of all the kingdoms of the earth, but not just the power of all the kingdoms, but their splendor, all of their riches, all the property and the glamorous buildings and all the possessions and all the wealth of the nations. And Satan said, I'm the God of this world. They're under my authority. That isn't a complete statement, but in the sovereignty of God, God let Adam give that place of authority over to Satan because that place of authority was given to Adam. And you can see here in Luke chapter four here, he says in verse six, Satan said to Jesus, I'll give you all the authority and splendor of all the kingdoms because it was given to me. He meant by Adam. When Adam sinned and Adam had the dominion over the earth given to him by the father, when he sinned, he gave that dominion to Satan. So Satan says, I got it. I won it. And Jesus stood as the second Adam and he won it back. He gained the victory as a man and he won the place between his victory in the wilderness and then the crowning achievement of the cross and resurrection. He completely destroyed Satan, but he won it legally. He didn't just take it. He won it as a man and the way that Adam lost it as a man. Paragraph G, when Satan's coming before him, I want you to get this paragraph. I mean, paragraph C verse eight, Jesus said these simple words that a lot of believers never say, get behind me. I talked to believers. I mean, for years I go, do you ever just rebuke Satan as well? You know, I go, no, are you kidding me? You know, Jesus did it. James four seven says, if you rebuke the devil, he'll flee. That doesn't mean one sentence and he's gone. You stay with this in the name of Jesus. As I command you to go, this torment coming to your mind or your body or your home or your, your money or your situation, Jesus actually did it. He rebuked Satan and this is where we're learning a model. He spoke the word of God. He spoke the promise of God and then he rebuked Satan. Top of page six, the third temptation, Satan comes and says, well, verse nine, he brought Jesus to Jerusalem. It's kind of intense because he's out in the wilderness. I don't, not very many miles from Jerusalem. I'm maybe 10 or 20, I guess something like that. Probably not that far. I don't know how he brought Jesus to Jerusalem. That's a pretty intense concept, but he did. And he set him on the pinnacle at the very top of the highest building. So here's Jesus, you know, 40 days fasting up there like what, what we're talking about. I mean, the ultimate powers in the dark realm and in the glory realm, Satan and Lucifer right here. So, I mean, these things are, are, are strange to us, but they're, you know, the realm that they live in, it's not as strange as it is to us. So Jesus is there, there at the top of the pinnacle of the temple. I mean, just stop and get your mind around that for a moment. It's like, wow, that's pretty intense. And then Satan says, if you're the son of God, throw yourself down because God promised to protect you. Verse 10, Satan's quoting Psalm 91. He goes, God promised to protect you. You know, Psalm 91, right here in verse 10, Jesus goes, I know Psalm 91, but you're twisting it. You're twisting it because the father didn't tell me to throw myself down and I'm not going to test the Lord. That's it. That's not, that's not what's going to happen. I refuse to test the Lord because the Bible said in verse 12, he quotes Deuteronomy again, Deuteronomy 6, 16, you don't test God. You don't make God act on your terms. That's what it means to test God. When Israel tested the Lord in Exodus chapter 17, what it meant when Israel tested the Lord is that God, they didn't have water because God hasn't, hadn't produced water out of a rock yet. I mean, they're going to get 40 years. They're going to have water flow out of a rock. Do you know how much water it's going to take to provide enough water for 3 million people in the desert, 600,000 men plus women and children and livestock? Do you know how much water that's going to take? And water came out of a rock day after day after day after day. And food came down from heaven. And Israel, when they didn't have water at first, they got really mad at God. And they said, God, you're not a good leader. That's an essence. They complained. And it was the complaining that God said, you've tested me. You want me to act on your terms in your timeframe. That's called testing God. We call it complaining. God calls it testing him. You're saying, I better produce on your terms or you're going to cast off my leadership of your life. You're not going to trust me anymore. And so Satan is coming to Jesus saying, jump down. I mean, I got a Bible verse, Psalm 91, it's right there in the Bible. He'll protect you. And Jesus says, yeah, God will protect me. That is for me. But it's not for me to determine the time and the place of how God intervenes. I'm not going to determine that. God determines that. And if I jump off this temple, I am the one determining when God intervenes and how. And I'm going to trust him instead of insist on him to do it in my time and my way. I'm going to have gratitude and worship. I'm not going to complain, which is what testing the Lord is all about. Well, it all came to an end in verse all the way down to paragraph I. We'll just end with this. Worship team, come on up. Verse 13, Luke 4, 13, at the very end of page 6, when the devil had every temptation, ended every one of them. I mean, 40 days worth. And these three big ones, but undoubtedly there were many different versions of those three temptations. Satan departed from him until an opportune time. And of course, the opportune time was some years later related to the cross, where Satan came in full force again to get Jesus not to endure the cross. And Jesus had victory in that, and beloved, I look at this passage and I marvel at what this man walked in for our sake. And yet I also want to embrace the model of how he did it, because it's meant to be instructive to us to build our faith that we are, the Lord says, I intend for this to work in your life. I intend for this to work in the weakest believer's life, if they will just draw on the Spirit, develop a relationship with the Spirit, speak the word of God, and believe what God says about them, about his love for them and their life. Amen and amen. Let's stand before the Lord. Lord, here we are before you. Lord, we love your leadership. God, we love your word. We're all being tempted. Everyone of us in this room are being tempted in various ways. Father, here we are before you. Holy Spirit, I just ask you for your leadership even now. I ask you to minister to us even now across this room. Lord, I ask you to strengthen our hearts by this example of Jesus, by this message of repentance that John brought. Lord, I agree with what John said. I agree with what Jesus did. Now, the Lord's calling some of you in this room tonight to repent. He's always calling us in a spirit of repentance, always, actually. It's repentance to experience the kingdom. Some of you, he's calling you to repent of some values you have in your life. He says, no, resist those things. Resist those different actions in your life. This is a night for repentance. Others of you, he's calling you to repent of your mindset. You have a mindset of unbelief. You don't take the word of God at face value. And he says, repent. Enter the kingdom. Experience the kingdom by agreeing with me. We say yes to your word. Some of you, you never speak the word of God back to the devil. You just ride the storm out week after week, year after year. He's calling you to repent and not to have that attitude anymore. Lord, we say yes to your leadership. We take authority. We agree with your leadership. The Lord is speaking to you tonight about repentance in any of those ways. I would invite you to come and stand before the Lord up here. If you would like prayer, if you would like prayer and he's calling you to repent, I want you to come up here. I mean, we're all going to repent tonight, one way or the other. I am for sure. This lines me up regularly with what the Lord wants. These kinds of passages. But if you want prayer, you say, I got to break my agreement with some activity or some value. Or I got to break my agreement with some negative mindset of unbelief. I want to invite you to come up. Lord, I thank you for the message of repentance. Holy Spirit. We break our agreement with darkness. We break our agreement with darkness. Dark ideas, dark desires, dark perspectives. We break our agreement with darkness right now. Lord, I ask for a spirit of liberty now to move in this room. We ask for a spirit of liberty to be released on hearts and minds tonight. John the Baptist said, repent for the kingdom is here. The experience of the kingdom is here, but we got to repent. We got to line up with what God says. Spirit of liberty. We release a spirit of liberty right now in this room. We take authority over Satan. We say, Satan be gone in the name of Jesus. We rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Tormenting spirits. A spirit of heaviness. A spirit of darkness. A spirit of fear. A spirit of lust. We take authority over it. We release the glory of the kingdom. We repent. We return. The kingdom's at hand. We repent. We return. There's power. There's power. There's power in the name of Jesus. Break every chain. Break every chain. Break every chain. Oh, we marvel at your leadership, Jesus. Break every chain. Break every chain. Break every chain. The Lord is raising up end time forerunners in this hour. They will be like a voice in the wilderness of the nations. The Lord says a voice will cry in the wilderness of the nations declaring the glory of the Lord. Beloved, that's an end time promise, not just a John the Baptist generation. Lord raise up forerunners in this house. Those that will have a voice to the wilderness of the nations. Be free in the name of Jesus tonight, chains. We break the chains by the word of God. I hear those chains falling. I hear those chains falling. Set us free. Here's our yes, Lord. We want to be your hands and your feet. We break our hearts, we say yes. Holy Spirit, we ask you, move in power. Lord, we ask you for a wave of your spirit. to be released in this room right now. We ask you for more tonight. Release power tonight, more, Lord. Release your glory tonight, tonight, Lord. Freedom tonight. Do what only you can do, Lord. Do what only you can do. Do what only you can do. We speak your word, Lord. Release your power. I ask for healings tonight. Physical healings tonight, Lord. Spiritual healing tonight. Heal hearts and bodies and minds. How many in the room here being tormented or attacked by fear? Any kind of fear. You would like prayer tonight. The enemy, he's a specialist at tormenting with fear. There's a hundred types of fear. If you're being attacked with fear and you want prayer, raise your hand up right now. Again, there's so many kinds that godly men and women are being assaulted. I would like the rest of you to look around the room. Let's see whose hands. I'm going to focus on this for a few moments. Anybody, raise your hand. There's all kinds of fears that godly men and women are attacked by. Wave your hands until somebody comes around. I want at least two people around everybody. There's someone over here. I want to take authority over torment and the spirit of fear. This is something we can do every single meeting actually. Scripture says he's not giving you a spirit of fear, but of a sound mind. In other words, a mind that lays hold of God's promises and God's perspective. That's what a sound mind. You have a mind to lay hold of the promise and the perspective of God. So I rebuke the spirit of fear right now that torments godly men and women. And I release a spirit of a sound mind that could take hold of the Word of God and the perspective of God. I rebuke a spirit of fear right now in Jesus name. Torment be gone. Torment be gone right now. Phobias, fears of any kind, fear of sickness, fear of something from the past catching up with you. I break the power of that fear right now. The fear of failure, of disaster, of rejection. The fear of a terminal sickness. I take authority over it right now. Lord I ask for a spirit of liberty on their mind. The spirit of liberty on their mind even now I ask. I rebuke the spirit of heaviness. I rebuke the spirit of heaviness. A sound mind that lays hold of the promise of God. Freedom in the night. We rebuke terror in the night that disturbs you in the night, different ones of you. Freedom to your mind. Freedom, freedom, freedom, even in the night. Fear has to go in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. A spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. The word of God says, it is written. He's giving you the power of a sound mind. It is written. He has given you the power of a sound mind. Healing now, tonight. Freedom tonight, tonight Lord. Tonight Lord. Tonight, here and now. Here and now tonight. Here and now. Fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. He has given you a sound mind. He has given you a spirit of fear and a sound mind. He has given you a spirit of fear. Reach out and grab it.