Love Never Puts God to the Test, Part 3 | 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.”

The passage, the devil provides to reassure Jesus that it’s okay to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple. Here’s the portion the devil quoted from Psalm 91, verses 11 to 12, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.”

Now for those of you who are following along in Luke 4, following the wording, you notice the devil left out the last phrase in verse 11, “in all your ways.” 

I think rather than get distracted by the omission of a single phrase at the end of verse 11 there, what about the omission of the entire heart and soul of the psalm? That seems to be the major omission here. That seems to be the violation, it’s the violation of the entire psalm, the heart of the psalm, he’s gutted it. The devil has distorted, mutilated this psalm for his wicked purpose because the very heart, of what it means to dwell in God, to abide in him, to trust him means you would not put God to the test.

That’s precisely, what God himself takes note of at the end of the psalm verses 14 to 16, God says, “because he holds fast to me in love.” God’s about to speak a promise to those who hold fast to him in love. And certainly Jesus held fast to him in love, so applying this to Jesus, because Jesus holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.

What is it to know God’s name? Just to know it’s Yahweh, no. It means to know his character, it means to know his nature, means to know what he’s like. “Because he holds fast to me in love,” he’s devoted. Because he knows my name, my character, my works, my ways. When he calls to me, I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble, I will rescue him, I will honor him with long life, I will satisfy him, I’ll show him my salvation.

Beloved, that is the heart and soul of Psalm 91. Devotion to God, worship of God, relying on God, resting underneath his protection and that provides us with insight into a relationship with God that’s based on love. This is the kind character of God. This is a beautiful thing to behold in this Psalm, isn’t it? The devil here, he is so far from seeing that beauty. His eyes are so polluted with the filth of his own evil motives that he cannot see the beauty of that psalm. He’s far from appreciating the beauty. So the devil sees this as an opportunity to entice to Jesus, to destroy all beauty and put God to the test. A.T. Robertson put it this way, “Satan does not misquote this psalm, but he misapplies it, and he makes it mean presumptuous reliance on God.” End quote. So true.

Here’s what the devil is saying to Jesus in all its ugliness. He says this, since you’ve trusted in this God, whom you call father, he calls you son, I get that. Since you’ve trusted in this God, and since you’ve anchored yourself into the Bible, let’s see how serious you are about that. Throw yourself down from way up here, there is no going back, in fact, I’ve set you up for success. God would not let his precious Messiah die, especially in Jerusalem, the Holy City, especially at the Temple of all places. The blood of the Messiah on God’s hands, I think not. God wouldn’t let his precious promise fall to the ground, especially one that so directly applies to you. God wouldn’t let his beloved son die. Just tip-toe to the edge there, Jesus, and throw yourself down, hurl yourself into the greatest existential unknown. See if your faith in God and his word is truly warranted.

In fact, Jesus, that is a wise thing to do. After all, you’re charting a pretty difficult course of unparalleled suffering. So let’s test this, see if God is really trustworthy, prove it to me, prove it to yourself for your own sake. Like all these temptations, the devil sidles up to Jesus, and pretends friendship. He acts like he’s on his side. He acts like he’s got his best interest in mind, and he insinuates this garbage. Do you know the tricky part of this temptation? Is that if you back off a little bit, it may not even seem necessarily self-centered. It is self-centered, but it doesn’t maybe necessarily seem self-centered. There’s an aspect of this temptation, that if Jesus sees through the devil’s machinations here, there’s a challenge here to prove the honor of God, to prove the concern for Jesus as the son, to prove here the reliability of Scripture and its promises. So, from that perspective, it almost seems like it might be a noble thing to do to take the leap. Let God prove his faithfulness. Silence this devil once and for all.

With that in mind, turn back to Numbers chapter 20, Numbers chapter 20. I want to show you a few things from Israel’s wanderings, its time in the desert. And I want to show you how Moses, he faced a similar situation to defend God’s honor, as it were. By Numbers chapter 20 in Israel’s history, Moses had a pretty good read on the kind of people he’s leading. They are unruly, they are a rabble, they’re rebellious. Ready to complain at a moment’s notice.

He’s been chosen by God, set apart by God to lead them, and they’ve done nothing but grumbled against him, resisted him, complained, been ready to even stone him and go back to Egypt. This is a nation full of ingrates. Take a look at Numbers 20, verses 1 to 3, “People of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was buried there. Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord!’”

Look at verse 4, “Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” Ultimately, you know, who are they complaining against, Moses and Aaron? I meancan they provide water? Can Moses and Aaron make figs grow, pomegranates? The complaints against God, isn’t it? But Moses and Aaron they’re just a convenient focal point because who wants to condemn God when you can condemn a man, blame him instead?

These people are barking up the wrong tree. Look at verses 6 and following, “Then Moses and Aaron went up from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces.” There’s humility for you. “And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them give drink to the congregation and their cattle.’”

What graciousness! What kindness! Verse 9, “Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, ‘Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?’ Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.” Stop there.

Just as God had done for Moses and the people back at Horeb in Exodus 17:6, God did it again here. Moses struck the rock there; he struck the rock here. Back in Exodus God had delivered them from Egypt, he drowned the entire Egyptian army, which was the superpower of the day. He turned bitter water into sweet water. He provided manna from heaven, the bread of angels.

He gave it to them, one test of thirst for the people of Israel coming out of Egypt, they came to a place without water and that’s all it took to turn them from a grateful people into a complaining, bitter, quarreling, murderous mob. And God told Moses, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and all the people will drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

And the water flowed. Now, Numbers 20, it’s like déjà vu all over again. And Moses is tired of this rebellion. The complaining is grating on his very last nerve. He’s tired of this continual questioning of God at the slightest chance, the people seem willing to throw all caution to the wind; they’re willing to forget all that God has done for them in the past; they’re ready to cast aside his faithfulness, slander his character, slander his nature, and invite his judgment.

So instead of speaking to the rock as God told him to do, he struck the rock twice. Seems to indicate his irritation with these rebels. God said, “Speak.” Moses struck. God told him one way; Moses did it his own way. And at least in this instance, the saying came true, “Like people, like priest.” A nation of people who put God to the test. They were just led by a man who was made of the same stuff, right?

And as we read it, we know God didn’t let them off the hook, he didn’t excuse it. God punished Moses for what seems to us like such a minor violation. He struck instead of spoke, come on. It wasn’t minor, it wasn’t a small issue, particularly since it was committed by a man in leadership, a man with influence. He was born a Levite, he’s called to be a prophet, he’s put at the head of Israel, and he’s leading them. Take a look at verse 12, “And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not believe in me,” Wow! God gets to the heart of the issue, it’s a lack of belief, it’s a lack of faith. “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.’ These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.” There is no record of Moses complaining about this. He understood the violation of divine holiness. He accepted the punishment with his characteristic humility and meekness.

Even Moses, as great of a man as he was, Numbers 12:3 says, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth,” but as great as a leader as Moses was, and as he became, he was not allowed to presume upon God. He was not allowed to take God’s holiness for granted, to set it aside in one instance. If God says, “Speak, Moses,” you’d better speak. If God says, “Strike, Moses,” you’d better strike.

Like the people he was called to lead, Moses also had to obey every single word that comes from the mouth of God. He had to align himself, his emotions, his passions with the holy character of God, considering God first; virtually no concern about the people that are standing around him, he had to consider God first, because that is the mark of one who loves and worships God above all.

Listen, where Moses failed and indeed we could say where all of us fail, every single one of us, Jesus never failed. 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, 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.

John Calvin writes, “Satan brings forward the guardianship of angels for the purpose of advising Christ to put himself unnecessarily in danger. As if he would say, ‘If you expose yourself to death, contrary to the will of God, angels will protect your life.’” That has to be the very height of putting God to the test, to pit God the Son against God the Father. The devil wins the prize, right, for the greatest violation of Deuteronomy 6:16. And you can see in that that he is at the heart and soul of every form of sinful presumption of mankind. He’s the one animating. He’s the spirit of the power of the air, animating every sinful presumption. But setting aside his testing of God the Son, the devil put God the Father to the test by twisting his words, by employing Scripture against its intended use.

He was making sport of God’s promises. He’s trying to bind God with his own Word. He has absolutely no fear of God. In fact, his heart is driven by utter hostility toward God. Those who use God’s Word in such a devious way, like the cults, like today’s moral activists who are leading the LGBT revolution. They are also turning Scripture on its head. They’re turning God against God putting him to the test. Look, let’s not point the finger outward. Let’s consider how we’re prone to put God to the test.

I like what William Hendrickson says. He says it very clearly, “Daily life all around us affords abundant illustrations of false confidence similar to that which the devil urged Jesus to exercise. A person will earnestly beseech the Lord to bestow on him the blessing of health; however, he neglects to observe the rules of health. Or he will ask God to save his soul; however, he neglects to use the means of grace, such as the study of Scripture, church attendance, the sacraments, living a life for the benefit of others to the glory of God.

Again, someone will plead with the Lord for the spiritual, as well as the physical welfare of his children, but he himself neglects to bring them up in the way of the Lord. Can I tell you how we do that nowadays? We involve our kids in so much activity that we distract their minds away from Scripture. We, as fathers, fail to teach our children and our families. Mothers can be so involved in interaction with other people, whether it’s social media or face to face or on the phone or whatever.

We neglect to bring our children up in the way of the Lord and it’s presumption. We hope for one result and we do nothing to help attain it. Hendrickson continues, “A church member, admonished because at a circus he had eagerly rushed into a corrupt sideshow, defended himself by saying, ‘I cannot deny that I went in there, but while I was there, I was constantly praying, Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity.’” “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” is the answer to all of this.

Beloved, we do this repeatedly, putting God to the test, hoping for some great dramatic result and benefit in our spiritual life, all the while doing nothing to attain it. How can we pray that way? How can we pray for our children to turn out well when we do nothing to invest? How can we pray, God make me holy, when I’m continually pursuing things that are unholy? How can we do that? God doesn’t take this lightly, folks.

But I want to be quick to say this, we see our failings in these areas. When the Bible says, “All have sinned,” it includes you and me. But thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen? Oh, it’s time for judgment to begin with the house of God. It has to begin with us first. That’s the point of reading the record of these temptations that we’ll see the perfect qualification of our Savior, that we’ll see the perfect sufficiency of his representation of us, there is no lack in him and again, that’s why I believe Luke wanted to put temptations two and three in the order he puts them in.

He wants us to see the theological significance of Jesus’ commitment that true worship means never putting God to the test. Look down in your Bible, one more verse to cover very quickly and it’s the frustrated retreat. Temptations don’t last forever, every temptation has an end. It’s a massive encouragement to us. When the devil faces Jesus, it’s a guarantee the temptation is going to end in the devil’s frustration. Look at verse 13, “When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.” He’s absolutely frustrated here. He can’t get Jesus to sin.

And in fact, look ahead at the next couple of verses in Luke 4, Luke 4 verses 14 to 15, not only did he fail to tempt and test Jesus, get him to fall, but Jesus, verse 14, “returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee report went out about him throughout all the surrounding country and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.” He’s launched into ministry in a commitment to holiness, having passed every test.

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.