Love Never Puts God to the Test, Part 2 | How to Fight Temptation

Luke 4:9-13

Luke 4 verses 9 to 13, and he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the Temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’” “When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”

So, let’s get into our outline. First point is a foolhardy recommendation, foolhardy recommendation or a foolish recommendation, you could say. Take a look at verse 9. It says there that the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the Temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.”

Now, I just want a remind you of the order of these temptations, that Matthew treated this temptation as the second of three, whereas, Luke listed it as the third. Again, it’s not a contradiction, just a difference in the purpose of the two authors, how they wanted to treat these temptations, what they’re trying to convey.

Matthew it’s clear in his Gospel that he uses temporal markers in his account and seems to convey a chronological progression from one event to another from the wilderness to the Temple finally to a high mountain. Luke, though, he’s less interested in the chronology he’s more interested in conveying theological themes that are found, in each temptation and tying those, wedding those together.

Notice in Luke 4:8, Jesus’ answer to the devil from Deuteronomy 6:13. He says, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” I told you last time Luke uses that verse like a hinge. It’s like a pivot point to focus our attention on the key to resisting all temptation. By worshipping God and God alone, Jesus has victory over all temptation. That is the heart of true worship, that is the heart of a believer and it symbolized this heart of worship, this heart of a believer, this faith, hope, love in God, this worship, it’s all symbolized, or supposed to be symbolized, in the Temple, because that’s the location of the, the symbolic presence of God, is there, in the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies with the cherubim leaning over the mercy seat.

That’s where all this is supposed to be symbolized as this true worship of God. Trusting in God alone it won the victory in temptation, number one. Hoping in God alone won the victory in temptation, number two, loving God alone wins the victory in temptation, three. This faith in God, hope in God, love of God, love for God, we can summarize all that by this single principle as old as Moses, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve.” And that is why thematically, Luke wants all the series of temptations to culminate at the Temple, to come together there. He wants readers, to see the contrast, between how Jesus treated the principle of worship, and how Israel treated worship.

He’s standing there, at the Temple, where Israel purportedly worshipped. That may be what Luke has in mind for bringing us to the Temple. The devil has another purpose. Here’s what he’s thinking. The devil had said in verse 9, he took Jesus to Jerusalem, the holy city, and he set him on the pinnacle of the Temple, the symbolic presence of God and presumably, the point was to put Jesus up on this great height, this precarious height, a dizzying height that would make you queasy if you looked down. I’m not a big fan of heights myself. Just imagining this makes me a little uncomfortable.

But he sets him there, he wants to up the ante, he wants to drive the stakes up here. “If you’re the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,” from this point. It’s really high. The consequences are grave. There’s definite article there that tells us we’re not talking about just any point on the Temple, some indeterminate point. It’s a very definite particular point. It’s not a pinnacle; it’s the pinnacle of the Temple.

Commentators admit they don’t know the exact location where the devil brought Jesus, but they do suggest a few things here. They say maybe it’s the apex of the sanctuary, the Holy Place, which had the Holy of Holies in it as well, could be that. They say it could be the top of Solomon’s portico, or you know, this high, arching entryway called Solomon’s portico, or even the royal portico.

Since Luke uses the word hieron to refer to the Temple, and not the word naos, naos refers to the Holy Place, the sanctuary that had the Holy of Holies in it, that’s the word naos. He didn’t use that. He used the word hieron, which is a word that refers to the entire Temple complex that had a number of high points the devil could have used for this temptation.

Most common perhaps the most popular suggestion, is that the devil took Jesus to the southeast corner of the Temple, which stood hundreds of feet above the Kidron Valley below. Josephus describes the royal portico and this whole area, he calls them royal cloisters. He says this about them, “This cloister deserves to be mentioned better than any other under the sun, for while the valley was very deep and its bottom could not be seen. If you looked from above into the depth, farther, vastly high elevation of the cloister stood upon that height in so much that if anyone looked down from the top of the battlements or down both those altitudes, he would be giddy while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth.” You can’t even see the bottom is what he’s saying, it’s high.

And there are a lot of points along the Temple that could be in that location. Whatever the exact location was, the devil took Jesus there, and he basically challenged him to take a flying leap. Throw yourself down there from right here, from up here. And the question, why? How is this tempting at all? I mean, I’m not fond of any of that, without a parachute especially, but you do have to ask the question: What was tempting about this for Jesus? What was the nature of this enticement here?

Alfred Edersheim, who I’ve found a lot of help from he’s written that big, thick Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. You should get that, read it, devotional reading, it’s wonderful. But he believes that he’s using a bit of sanctified speculation here. He believes that temptation it’s about making a dramatic entrance into Messianic ministry. He doesn’t reference Malachi 3:1, but it seems that he could have because, it seems to predict something like this temptation of coming into the Temple “Behold, I send my messenger, he will prepare the way before me.” That’s a reference to John the Baptist.

Then he says this, “And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his Temple.” The word suddenly, unexpectedly, surprisingly, could indicate such a dramatic entrance. It’s actually a passage that some commentators refer to in the Midrash, which is rabbinic literature which refers to this Jewish expectation that the Messiah would manifest himself to Israel by standing on the pinnacle of the Temple. Some have pointed to that expectation as well, and said, “Maybe this is what the devil wants Jesus to do.”

Edersheim goes further. He fills in the details a little bit and speculates, suggesting that the devil took Jesus to the Temple, this lofty pinnacle of the tower upon which the priest every single morning stood to watch for the break of dawn in the east, to announce to the Temple the morning sacrifice and then the priest would, once break of dawn boom, morning sacrifice, morning prayers are offered and just after that morning sacrifice, when all the faithful are gathered in prayer and worship, the idea is that Jesus, falls dramatically from a great height, lands safely in the arms of angels, who rescue him.

They cause him to descend gently onto the patio beneath amid this gawking crowd, this audience. He’d be recognized immediately as the Messiah. He’d be honored; he’d be crowned king. All would be grand, and they could move ahead with the program, right? And that’s one possibility. I’ll admit that enticing aspect of the temptation, perhaps, it’s the enticement to a fast track to honor, a fast-track to popularity, to acceptance, that Jesus could enter his Messianic ministry by this dramatic demonstration, display of angelic protection.

And the sin, then, would be in Jesus doing something like this something reckless and foolish, forcing God to protect him, and if so, this would be an instance of sinful pragmatism, some kind of Messianic pragmatism, the end justifies the means. “After all, it’s all about Messiah, it’s all about me being recognized as Messiah and lifted up. I’m going to just speed it along and I’m going to do it my way.” It’s doing God’s will, right, but doing it in his own way that seems to be the thrust of that interpretation. And if Edersheim’s interpretation is correct, it would explain why the devil, had to take Jesus to the Temple, because that’s where adoring fans would be. That’s where they’d be waiting to welcome and recognize their Messiah. Because if this temptation if it’s just a matter of presuming on God, to protect him from physical harm, why after all, did the devil need to take Jesus to the Temple?

I mean certainly the wilderness had plenty of high peaks, perched way up above, rocky crags below, and that would provide the necessary element of fear and danger of harm. What the desert lacked, though, was an audience. So the devil took Jesus here to Jerusalem, to the Temple to impress a gathered crowd. That’s the idea. And I really, I gotta tell ya, I really like that interpretation, but I don’t believe it’s the right one.

As much as I like Edersheim’s suggestion, and though I can see his suggestion could be a potential result of Jesus going through this, having some miraculous escape from certain death. I don’t think it actually gets to the heart, of what’s at stake here. The devil’s command there in verse 9, it’s brash, it’s forceful, it’s reckless, it’s not tip toe to the edge, it’s not lean over, it’s throw yourself. Throw yourself from here down below, get on with it.

The emphasis is on the physical danger. It’s on the element of physical danger, not on a dramatic display. He doesn’t want Jesus to think too much about this. He’s not getting him to ponder what might happen as a result. He just wants Jesus to act, to be impetuous, brash, impulsive. Do you ever see Christians who act impulsively? Sometimes they base it on a promise of God. God says, do this, I did it. It’s impulsive.

The devil follows up too, with reassurance which is on physical safety. Look at our second point, the false reassurance. In your Bibles, again, read in verses 9 to 11, the devil took him to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the Temple and said to him, “If you’re the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” So, the devil follows up this foolhardy suggestion, throw yourself down, by giving Jesus a sense of assurance.

It’s a false sense of assurance, but he’s basically saying, look, Jesus, Scripture guarantees your safety. God has promised to rescue you from physical harm. It’s his reputation that’s on the line, not your safety. So go ahead, take the plunge, what have you got to lose? Before we think about what the devil did there with Scripture, before we kind of unravel his false interpretation, it’s important to notice what the devil has passed by quickly here, what he’s granted in the argument.

First of all, he’s granted that Jesus is the Son of God. He’s not making any comment about that. He doesn’t want to argue about it. Whether or not the devil really believed Jesus was the Son of God, or in what sense, he was, he recognized Jesus’ as the Son of God, the devil doesn’t care to engage in the argument, he never does. He just wants to throw doubts into our mind and leave us there waffling, right?

Same thing here, he just wants to grant the point, by pass that, because he’s got a whole other design. Something else is at stake. He was obviously aware, as we said before, of the divine, heavenly pronouncement, “You are my beloved Son.” Probably even witnessed Jesus’ baptism. So he grants the issue of identity to Jesus, but he also he does a second thing here, he grants Jesus the use of Scripture as his authority. How does he grant that? By using it himself.

We’ve noticed time and again that Jesus did not get into a conversation with the devil. He didn’t argue with him, he didn’t debate with him, he didn’t try to engage the devil in dialogue. He just let Scripture do the talking. That serves as an example to us, doesn’t it? It’s also noteworthy regarding the issue of Biblical authority. Jesus held fast to Scripture as absolutely sufficient, as completely high and transcendent. It is the Word by which we’re all judged. It is the authority that holds us all fast. Jesus didn’t, here, ground any of his responses in his own authority, even though he possessed it. He grounded them in God’s authority, synonymous with the Bible itself. It’s a pattern for us, isn’t it?

But having failed to entice Jesus here, to reason apart from the Scripture, Jesus keeps answering, “It is written,” “It is written,” so the devil tries to get Jesus to reason from the Scripture, but in a sinful way. Do you believe people can do that with their interpretation, reason from Scripture in a sinful way? Have you ever seen that?

The devil here attempts to make a biblical argument that will reassure Jesus in his course of action. What action? Namely this, that it’s okay to jump off the Temple. He doesn’t argue the point of ultimate authority; he just grants it. Uses Scripture, attempts to use it to his own advantage. I like how simply G. Campbell Morgan put this. He said the devil admitted two things; he admitted relationship and revelation. Write that down, he admitted relationship and revelation, he granted relationship with the father, he granted revelation as his source of authority. The devil admitted Jesus’ claim of relationship with God, “Since you are the Son of God,” verse 9. The devil also admitted Jesus’ reliance upon the revelation from God, which is, “It is written,” “it is written,” verse 10.

The deviousness is in this, that while he grants Jesus that relationship, while he grants the revelation, he tries to pervert those good commitments toward a sinful end. In tempting Jesus to act presumptuously, the devil is just baiting him. He just baiting him and enticing him, asking him to do this, prove your relationship. Prove the reliability of the Bible. In other words, the devil wants Jesus to take, what he relied upon most, his close relationship with God, his confident trust in the Word of God, and he intended to use those commitments against him. Prove this loving relationship, by seeing if God will come to your rescue. Prove the reliability of God’s promise by putting it to the test. Just this one act, Jesus, will prove both things are true, that you are indeed the Son of God and that you are justified in relying on the Word of God.

The devil brought Jesus up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, he set everything up, the setting, the environment, the circumstances, the timing, taking care of every concern to induce Jesus to take the plunge, to put God to the test, from the pinnacle of the Temple. What the devil hoped would reassure Jesus and set his mind at ease, to precipitate his spiritual failure and his demise, his special relationship with God, the promise of Scripture, the sanctified location, all of it designed to prove the reliability of God and his Word. From that vantage point of the Temple, you know what Jesus saw a totally different picture and he was persuaded from the Temple in exactly the opposite direction that the devil had hoped.

When Jesus looked around at the Temple, he saw it for what it had become. It was the heart and symbol of spiritual presumption. It was the place where God had been tested again and again and again. The Temple in Jesus’ day had become the symbol of whitewashed idolatry. It had become the symbol of spiritual hypocrisy. It was the symbol of the spiritual rape of the most helpless of Israel’s citizens, its widows and its orphans. Remember the widow putting two mites in to the, into the Temple treasury? That’s not a commendation of the widow, that’s an indictment of Israel. How dare they take two mites of a widow, all she has to live on, and extract it from her for a building project? What in the world? The Temple had become the center of Jerusalem’s commerce. It was the heart of its banking; the priests were the bankers. They employed the money-changers, the profiteers.

Rather than symbolize humble worship, the Temple had come to signify the place where priests make money from the sacrifices of God’s people. Where they profited from people’s sins, from their dirty consciences. It operated here as a system that was helping people to get their conscience clean before God, but that was all pretense because what they were really after was getting their hands on people’s wallets and Jesus saw all of that, and all he could think of was this verse, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” That verse expressed the heart of his love for God, the heart of his devotion, his commitment never to sin against the one he loved.

And once again, Jesus’ reply became a condemning, stinging indictment against the devil himself. Look at verse 12, “And Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’” Listen, testing God is not trusting God. It’s not worshipping or loving God, testing God is doubting God. Even if you’re trying to prove something to the devil himself, to test him is to doubt him. The unbelieving heart has no claim on God, no right to dictate terms of a test of faithfulness. The unbelieving heart is by definition faithless.

So if Jesus would have submitted to the devil’s recommendation, whether he’s deceived into trusting in this false assurance offered from Psalm 91, whether in a valiant moment he wanted to step forward and prove the reliability of God and his Word, if Jesus had submitted, he would have put God to the test and he would have allowed the devil to dictate the terms rather than find contentment, rather than find rest in the faithfulness of God. The devil would have us believe that his power is unstoppable, his enticements are irresistible, falling to his temptations are inevitable. When we’re free from the penalty and the power of sin, entering into temptation, falling into temptation, you know what, beloved? For us, nothing is inevitable, nothing.

The resistance of Jesus Christ has proven this, and his power sustains us. Jesus found the power to overcome every temptation, all temptation. You say, but I’m not Jesus. I’m prone to weakness and failure, quite right, so look to Jesus, he’ll rescue you. Be diligent, constant in his Word, trust him in every moment, he will deliver. He has the will and desire to do so. The devil will flee and you will go forward in power of holiness.

Let’s pray. Father, we plead upon you for your grace in every moment of trial, temptation, testing and need. And we know based on this record that you will provide it. You’ll provide us with all the power we need to stand firm if we’ll just call upon you. Help us never to try to fight temptation, to try to fight anything in our lives in our own power, in our strength, with our own foolish judgment. Let us live in a way all through the day that is pursuing your wisdom, meditating on your Word, getting close to the heart of every passage of Scripture so we can understand you, know your character, know your ways, love you more deeply, more fully, more contentedly.