Loyal to God Alone, Part 2 | How to Fight Temptation

Luke 4:5-6

So that first temptation was about daily provision. This second temptation, Luke 4:5-8 it’s about future reward. The devil tempted Jesus with reward, with treasure. Fourth aspect of this temptation that makes it attractive, the tradeoff. Nothing of great consequence seems to be at stake here. All the devil asks for here is a little respect, just a little acknowledgment. Look at verses 6 and 7 again, the devil said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it’s been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 

He’s just asking Jesus to show just a little honor and respect for his position and title as the reigning sovereign of the earth and notice that the devil is so accommodating about it, isn’t he? This act of bowing doesn’t even require some kind of public veneration. No public ceremony at all. Just the two of them. He can do this in private, where no one’s looking. Just between the two of them. Just bow. Verse 7, “It will all be yours.” That’s pretty juicy bait, isn’t it? Pretty juicy to become the ranking authority over the earth, to possess the glory of the world’s economy, industry, wealth, prosperity, bypassing the pain and suffering and all of that for the seemingly small price of just a private bow, which is, after all, culturally appropriate act of Near Eastern respect. No big deal, no big consequence.

You want to look at the consequences. So that’s what we’re going to look at here. We want to expose the hook and all its barbs. Why couldn’t Jesus simply do the courteous thing here? Why couldn’t he just show a little deference to the devil, just a little? He is the ruling potentate of the earth, after all. He said it. Because the consequences of that action would be irreversible. The consequences would be the undoing of divine redemption. That’s the deadly hook. It’s a three-pronged hook, a hook with three barbs on it. If Jesus had taken a bite, even a nibble, it would not only wound Jesus mortally but it would take the devil’s bargain. It would be the final unravelling of the plan of divine redemption. Look at verses 6 and 7 again, “The devil said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 

First barb on the hook is the barb of atheism. Atheism. I’m not talking here about a formal philosophical atheism. Rather, this is a practical atheism. This here is an invitation to make decisions apart from the consideration of God. That this is God’s world, God’s universe. I stand in it and so do you. Everybody in this world, in the secular world, is trying to get us to think that way. They want to keep God out of this, God out of that. They want you to have a conversation with them, real transparent, tolerant conversation, but let’s not talk about God. You gotta keep that out.

Commentator James Edwards made a very important observation here, he notes, quote, “The devil makes five references to himself and three to Jesus, but none to God.” End quote. Isn’t that interesting? Five references to self, three to Jesus and none to God. He speaks here as if God does not exist, that’s intentional. Notice in his explanation for the authority that he possesses to hand over the earth, the authority of the earth and the glory to Jesus, he used the passive voice there. He says, “It has been delivered to me.”

Trying to hide here, the sovereignty of God and he’s trying to replace the sovereignty of God with his own autonomy, his personal autonomy, his own right to decide. I will give; I give to whom I will. There’s no sovereign God present there. No righteous law-giver, no impartial judge. Satan wants to keep this matter just between Jesus and himself, to carve out a little place in the universe where God is not. It’s a complete fantasy, and yet he is successful in that enticement again and again and again with us, isn’t he? But not with Jesus.

The second barb in the hook, it’s the barb of deception. Deception. And it’s deception on two accounts. First, he attempts to deceive Jesus about the nature of his own authority and autonomy and second, he attempts to deceive about the viability of his plan. Satan’s a liar. You can’t believe anything he says. As Jesus said in John 8:44, “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character,” his own nature, “for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Every time he opens his mouth, a lie is going to come out. So knowing that, we’re on the lookout.

So let’s consider first his claims about himself. The Bible does tell us that Satan is a significantly influential being, no doubt about that. A ruler with great power. In 1 John 5:19 it says, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Paul calls him in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “the god of this world.” In Ephesians 2:2, he tells us, “The devil exerts significant influence as the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” Oh, yes, he has power.

He also has a position of authority, which is acknowledged by the titles that are used of him. Jesus refers to the devil three times in John’s Gospel as, “The ruler of this world,” John 12:31, John 14:30, John 16:11. Paul calls him, “The prince of the power of the air.” So he does possess real power, and he does possess actual authority. He exercises influence from a position of authority in the world. He is a ruler.

At the same time, though, we need to understand the parameters, the sphere, the limits of his authority. When Paul called the devil a prince, he was speaking about his influence over unbelievers, not over believers. In Ephesians 2:1-2, it says, “You were,” past tense, “were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked,” past tense, “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work,” in whom? “The sons of disobedience,” right? But God loved us. He set his love on us. He made us alive in Christ. He raised us up with Christ. He raised us up and then seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. We’re no longer under the jurisdiction of the devil.

Satan is trying to deceive him to make himself and his authority appear greater than it is. It’s called being puffed up. You know the type. He’s limited for sure, but the devil here, he tries to assert his sovereignty, a sovereignty that he doesn’t possess. When he told Jesus, verse 6, “To you I’ll give all this authority and their glory, I give it to whom I will.” He was lying. No surprise there. Not only that, but he’s being deceptive about how he received his authority in the first place. He seems to imply that he possesses his authority legitimately, which is why he wants Jesus to bow legitimately. If he did that, Jesus would have wrongly legitimized the devil’s authority.

Let’s not forget how the devil came to possess this authority in the first place. He didn’t win it legitimately, through a heroic action, stellar service in the cause of God. No, Satan won his place, if we want to call it that, through deception and murder. [He,] he’s the greatest mass murderer who ever lived. The greatest insurrectionist who ever lived because he led Adam and Eve into transgression and thereby, he murdered the entire human race. Do you know what he’s guilty of? Genocide. He’s a genocidal maniac. Don’t listen to anything he says.

Furthermore, when God remanded unbelieving humanity to the devil’s power and authority, it’s not like it was given to the devil as a reward. The devil represented it that way, though, in verse 6, “It’s been delivered to me, I give it to whom I will.” The word, delivered, there, is paradidomi, which has the sense of putting someone into the power of another. It’s the sense of handing them over, delivering them over.

It’s the idea of a prisoner being delivered over to a jailer, that’s not any reward to the jailer. He’s just there to do his job and make sure the prisoner doesn’t get out. Humanity is in the power of Satan. It’s not a reward to Satan; it’s a punishment for humanity. When God told Adam, Genesis 2:17, “In the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” You know what? He wasn’t kidding. God delivered all of those who refused to believe to “the one who,” according to Hebrews 2:14, “to the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

So the devil is a deceiver. It wasn’t just a deception about the nature of his position and his autonomy. It wasn’t just a deception about his ability to give and transfer authority. He also attempted to deceive Jesus about the viability of his plan, like this would work. I’ll just mention this quickly. What would have happened if Jesus took the devil’s bargain? What would have happened if Jesus paid his respects to the devil, performed this culturally appropriate genuflection, the bow?

Look, had that happened, let’s just say, we wouldn’t be here talking about this. We wouldn’t even be here. There would be nothing to reflect upon because reality itself would just cease to exist. If the one whom God had sent, the one that God chose and prophesied about before the foundation of the world, by the way, if he failed on the mission for which God had sent him, then God would have failed. The unchanging God who does not lie would have not told the truth. That’s the undoing of God. And in the undoing of God, is the undoing of all reality because there is no other sufficient, all-sufficient cause for all reality.

That brings us to a third barb on this three-pronged hook. We’ve seen the barb of atheism, the barb of deception. Thirdly, the third barb is the barb of unbelief. We could guess is that the barb of unbelief, to distrust God, to turn away from God, to distrust his perfect plan. Look, there is no other solution to the human problem, to Israel’s problem, to the problem of the nations, except the one that God planned and decreed from before the foundation of the world.

God’s plan of redemption, to change the heart through regeneration, to make the heart, the soul a willing subject of divine wisdom, to convert the sinning rebel into a worshipping subject of the heavenly kingdom. That plan of redemption would have never come to pass if Jesus had followed this. Is there a better plan than what God has decided? Look, the only way to rule a race of people, all of whom are committed to personal autonomy, committed to self-rule, committed to self-centeredness. Look around you, read the headlines, look at the news stories on the Internet. The only way to rule them is through power and domination, it’s through fear of death.

And Jesus, if he would have bowed to this temptation, he would have simply joined the ranks of the demonic horde. Nothing would change. Fallen humanity would continue in its enslavement to sin, to Satan, to death. So God intended to upend that whole system, to do away with it. Messianic rule was to begin by addressing the real problem with humanity, the fundamental problem of sin.

Listen, every social problem we face, every social, civil unrest, every social evil. Whether it’s divorce, sexual immorality, criminality, self-centered ambition, greed, lust for power, every social problem, it stems from the sin in the human heart and that’s why external legislation, new legislation, changes in leadership, a new Constitution, a return to the old Constitution of America’s founding fathers, none of that is going to solve humanity’s problems.

That’s why God sent Jesus Christ, to redeem mankind, to die on the cross for our sins. In him is the death of death itself. Jesus provided full satisfaction of God’s demand for justice. For all the ways we transgressed his law. He provided the atonement we needed, so that we might have a heart to submit to God and draw near to him in worship.

Jesus saw through it. He looked past the bait, he saw the hook and he escaped. That’s our third point here, the escape. Look at verse 8, “Jesus said to him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”’” We’ve taken some time to examine the bait and the dangerous hook beneath, but I love the fact that Jesus ignores all of that. He doesn’t expose the deception. He doesn’t interact with Satan’s arguments. He doesn’t have a conversation, go point-by-point, reason with the devil.

Instead, Jesus confronts Satan with the one person he tried to ignore. He cuts through the devil’s attempt to create a world in which God is not. He cuts through all the devil’s make-believe, his fantasies he entertained about himself, the mirage he tried to create about a future partnership between Jesus and the devil. And Jesus, by reciting one verse, he brings Satan face-to-face with the God who is there, with the God who has spoken, with the God who is the absolute sovereign of the universe and over every creature in it.

“You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” Because of Jesus’ answer, we can now identify the crux of the matter. Satan wanted Jesus to bow, to partner with him, to join forces and this is a test here of Jesus’ allegiance. It’s a test of his loyalty. Jesus stood firm. He affirmed God’s absolute right of rule and he had absolute, resolute loyalty to God and to God alone.

There may be some of you, hopefully a lot of you, who were thinking to yourselves, man, there is no way I could spot Satan’s subtly here. I mean if I were in those shoes, there’s no way I’d have the wisdom to discern the nature of this deception, to figure all of this out. Christ stood firm, but he’s Christ. I’m pretty sure I’m a goner. That’s a humble response. It’s a right response. It’s a realistic concern.

But you know what? By answering the way Jesus did, he gave us the key to success here. This is the silver bullet. “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” Jesus’s simple answer, it’s taken from Deuteronomy 6:13 and Deuteronomy 10:20. That answer, it exposed, it indicted, it condemned, and it countered the fundamental operating principle that drives Satan and all of unbelieving fallen humanity. Instead of self being at the center, God must be at the center. And Jesus quoted a verse that bound himself, the devil, who is speaking to him, and all creatures God created to worship and serve God and God alone. Worship God, not the self. Serve God, not the self.

Listen, beloved, if you keep that single principle of Scripture at the forefront of your mind, and if it is the fire that drives all your passions and affections, if it is the motivation that governs your every decision and all of your will, you will never fall to the devil’s temptation to worship the self. Any of his subtly will be diffused, deflated as you shoot that silver bullet and send him fleeing.

If you worship the Lord your God, if you serve him only, you’re gonna never fall to any temptations to love the self or exalt the self, to take a shortcut to honor. And that is because if God is at the center of your heart, he is your all-sufficient, eternal, and infinite reward. You’ve already got it all. All the kingdoms of the world, all their magnificence, authority, splendor, glory. That’s way too small, because God is your reward. If you remain loyal to him, it’s because you’ve come to realize there is no greater treasure. God is your treasure.

The glory of the universe is the God who created the universe. That’s the true glory. Everything else just points to that. Jesus already possessed that reward. God was already his treasure, so what else could Satan offer to the one who was so contented with God? That’s the key for you and me, as well, isn’t it? Since Jesus served God alone, the authority that he received from his father, legitimately, I might add, that authority, it was for the purpose of serving others. His authority had nothing to do with personal enrichment, self-aggrandizement.

And in Jesus’ case the authority he received from his father, it enabled him to go to the cross, to bear the crushing weight of our sin and to receive the righteous wrath of God. Jesus “took the form of a servant, being born in the form and the likeness of men. Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.” That’s how he used his authority. He used it in the service of God. He used it to sacrifice himself for all who put their faith in him.

Because Jesus would not ally himself with the devil, because he wouldn’t take this bargain, it put him on the collision course with the lord of all evil and that’s by God’s design. The offense the devil took with Jesus’ snub in these temptations. The fact that Jesus turned away from this bargain, the offer of partnership for the simple price of a small token of affirmation. That rejection had to fuel Satan’s anger, led all the way to the crucifixion.

The devil would visit Jesus again during his hour when he unleashed on Jesus the power of darkness. And here we see an ingenious instance of divine irony. An example, once again, of God’s wisdom, that Satan’s role in delivering Jesus over to death at the hands of the Jews and the Romans, it sealed his fate. The cross was the heel that crushed the serpent’s head, and the cross became the key to unlock our prison cell, to set us free from sin and Satan and death. I am so thankful, aren’t you?

When Jesus quoted this Scripture that indicted Satan, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” Do you know what? That verse, sadly, it condemns you and me as well. The most fundamental of all of our many sins is that we fail to worship and serve the Lord our God and him alone. We all too often find our loyalties divided. We find ourselves distracted. We find that hook digging into us and our affections and pulling us away, don’t we?

All of humanity stands condemned by that single verse. All except one. Jesus Christ never disobeyed that verse, not for one second. He worshipped God and God alone. He loved and worshipped God perfectly. Jesus served God perfectly. He did it to the very end. And he did it to the ultimate point of death on the cross. He was loyal to God alone and, once again, we need to round this out and come to a conclusion here by seeing that Jesus is our hope. He’s our only hope.

By trusting in him, by worshipping him, we’re protected from the wrath of God for our sins of self-worship. It’s idolatry, right? We’re forgiven of all of our self-centeredness and pride in him. God has graciously hidden us beneath the robes of Christ’s righteousness. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That is good news, isn’t it?