Not By Bread Alone, Part 1 | How to Fight Temptation

Luke 4:1-4

Starting in Luke 4:1, and we’ll read all the way through verse 13. “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led up by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone.”’ And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,and 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.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”’

“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.”’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’ And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”

Word temptation, there, that’s in the text, is the word peirasmos. The verb form is peirazo, as it’s used there in verse 2, a verb form, there. It’s a word that has really both positive and negative senses. You say, how could a word temptation have a positive connotation? Well, it’s the same word in Greek used either way. Okay? In the positive sense, the word peirasmos, it refers to testing. It refers to proving. You might think of God disciplining his children, refining their faith. Peter uses the word that way in 1 Peter 4:12, saying, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial,” peirasmos, “the fiery trial, when it comes upon you to test you, as though some strange thing were happening to you.” That’s a positive sense.

In a negative sense, and especially when the devil is the subject, it’s not used positively. It’s used here in Luke 4:2, the word peirasmos means temptation, as in an enticement, a solicitation to commit sin against God, that’s the idea. There’s a sense in which that same word, peirasmos, and even in the same single instance of a peirasmos, a temptation, a test, in the negative sense it is a solicitation to commit sin, it’s a temptation, but in a positive sense that same peirasmos, God is sovereign over that thing and he is using it to test us, to refine us, to prove and strengthen our faith. That’s why James warns us never to blame God for our temptations.

In fact, let’s go to that passage just quickly by way of illustration. Go to James Chapter 1, verse 12. James 1:12, turn over there for a moment cause this is the perfect place to clarify the difference between a positive peirasmos, that is a trial, a testing, and then a negative peirasmos, a temptation, an enticement. God is sovereign over all of our trials, over all of our testing, that’s the positive use of peirasmos, but sometimes we fail to respond to that positive testing in a good and godly way. Sometimes we fail to see that as a good test from God. The sin nature within us, it’s stirred up, old habits of thinking and responding come out of us, and that leads to sin and God is not responsible for that. He is not soliciting sin from us. He is refining us.

Listen to James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial,” there’s the word right there used in a positive sense. “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” There’s a test coming from God. God brings him through it so that he’ll stand the test, receive the crown of life.

But, verse 13, “Let no one say when he is tempted,” and here’s the first of several instances of the negative use of the very same word, peirasmos, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. And then desire when it has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

So, there’s a warning here, good warning against blaming God for the temptations that stir up within us. Any temptation, any sin, anything like that that comes up, that’s our fault, that’s on us. Make no mistake, God does test and try his children and he does it to strengthen them. He does it to refine them, to grow them. It’s a great act of his love for us as his children.

It’s kind of like a father or a coach, you might say, putting his athlete through rigors of testing and when that athlete goes through, he’s strengthened through the test, he’s ready for the game. When that athlete grumbles and complains and gets lazy and lays on the ground and doesn’t do his push-ups, that’s on him, isn’t it? It’s not the coach’s fault. It’s not the father’s fault. That’s testing. But because of indwelling sin, because of our weakness in believing, we don’t always respond righteously to God’s plan to test and try us. We don’t always respond, as strange as it may seem, we don’t always respond well to God’s amazing acts of love for us, like testing, like trial. And again, that’s not God’s fault. It’s ours. Look at verse 16, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every prefect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.”

Listen, there is no fault in God. His intention for you is holiness, and he’ll do whatever it takes to bring you there. His intention for you is good and only good all the time. There is no variation with him. There’s no shadow of change. God is immutable. That means, “I, the Lord, do not change.” That’s what that means, it means, I never change. He’s unchanging by nature, by definition, and it’s that unchanging nature of his being that guarantees he is going to help and reward us when we stand firm during the testing when we resist the temptation.

So, whenever you face temptation, realize that it’s the sinful habits of thinking, the sinful desires of the sin nature that are in there luring you away, enticing you, but also realize that when you feel that, this is an opportunity for you to remain steadfast under trial. God is high above. He is sovereignly planning this situation for your good, whether it’s a relational issue, whether it’s a job situation, whether it’s the threat of violence, whether it’s the threat of financial instability, God is hovering sovereign above it all, he’s planning it for your good. And he’s not just high and transcendent, removed from it; he’s very near, too. He’s right next to you. He cares and he is ready to help you in your time of need; so, call to him, turn to him. He delights in responding to our prayers, our cries for help.

Now turn back to Luke 4:1, because this here is an extraordinary instance of God testing his son and it’s an instance, like all instances, of the son responding in perfect righteousness. He does exactly what he’s supposed to do here. Jesus received this time of testing in the wilderness like he received everything else from his father. Jesus considered this time in the desert as, yes, “a good and perfect gift from above coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Everything that comes down from above is a good and perfect gift on us, even the hard times, even the pain, even the suffering. We are so wrong, beloved, to turn and run from conflict. We are so wrong as Americans to avoid every kind of suffering and try to medicate it all out of our lives. It’s an indication that we are so small-minded. We’re so weak in our thinking, so sinful. But listen, whenever we are weak and failing, we have this recorded testimony of Christ’s perfection. Jesus never failed and he is our hope. He is the ground of our Christian assurance. We don’t look to ourselves as the ground for assurance, that is a false hope. We’re so inconsistent. Christ is the ground of our assurance and that’s what we find here in Luke 4:1 to 13. We have here in him an unshakable confidence of a certain salvation, won by an absolutely in conquerable Savior. So whatever successes or failures you and I have as Christians, let Christ be our confidence, let Christ be our confidence.

We’re going to look at the first of the three temptations here that Jesus conquered. The devil came to him, it was in a time, as we read, of great hunger. The devil tempted him to turn stones into bread and to feed himself. We’re not tempted in the exact same way, are we? I mean, none of us possesses the creative power that Jesus did, but we do face the same temptation in kind. There is the same kind of temptation, in fact, this particular temptation is very common for us and it reveals in us the condition of our faith in God. Is it a strong faith in God, or a weak faith in God?

Here’s the question that comes up in this passage that really we’re going to spend our time focusing on. It’s a question I want you to be thinking about as we go through. Do I really, do I really trust God, or do I tend to rely on myself? Do I really trust God, or do I rely on myself, because that’s exactly what the devil wanted Jesus to ponder. That’s what he wanted Jesus to question. Am I going to trust God, or am I going to look to myself? We’re going to see here how he stood firm.

Jesus went directly from his baptism and the affirmation of God, and he went into the wilderness, right? Mark, in his Gospel, I love Mark’s vivid, forceful language that he uses to describe how Jesus went into the wilderness. He says this in Mark 1:10 to 12, “When Jesus came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open.” Love that vivid imagery, torn open, that’s Mark. “Torn open, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son;with you I am well pleased.’” And then this, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”

Luke says Jesus was “led by the Spirit,” a little gentler. Mark says, he’s being driven out by the Spirit. It’s the verb ekballo, which is used every time Jesus casts out a demon. It’s ekballo, it’s cast him, throw him out. The Spirit here threw Jesus out. He threw him into the wilderness. It’s not that Jesus, here, is pictured as reluctant. It’s, he’s not resistant in any way, but what Mark wants us to see is that immediate issue that there is no time gap, there is no down time for Jesus. He went from one to the other immediately. God’s sovereignly here, even forcefully; took Jesus from the baptism tank and cast him into the testing tank, into the refiner’s fire.

Look at verse 1, Luke 4, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil.” The participle there, being tempted, the participle shows purpose. So, let’s translate it this way, this comment on the temptation, “Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,” that is, he was led the entire forty days, “to be tempted by the devil,” with the purpose of temptation, being tempted by the devil. So, it’s an issue of purpose there, not necessarily of duration. But, “he ate nothing during those days.” Stop there.

As we noted last week, Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days after the pattern of Moses, God’s chosen instrument to bring the law down to Israel from God at Mount Sinai. And as Alfred Edersheim put it, he said, quote, “Moses was the giver of the covenant, Elijah its restorer, and the Messiah its renewer and perfecter.” End quote. That’s exactly right.

Both Moses, as the giver of the covenant, and Elijah, as the restorer of covenant, both fasted for forty days, which is why we see Jesus being intentional about this period of withdrawal into the wilderness. The Spirit was leading him there for testing, but from Jesus’ perspective as a devout worshipper of God, he entered the wilderness for a period of fasting and prayer. Having come from his baptism, realizing the great significance of the Messianic mission that lay ahead of him, Jesus intended to commune with God. He intended to meditate on God’s Word, to fast and to pray.

It’s the only period of fasting, by the way, that’s recorded in Jesus’ life and ministry. I feel compelled to make a note just for all of those who have mystic tendencies in them, that he only did this once, okay? And Jesus is unique. This isn’t to be a pattern for us. Jesus’ lack of fasting, actually, in contrast to John the Baptist, it was noted by his enemies. They saw Jesus’ lack of fasting in his ministry, his lifetime, as a reason to dismiss him as, quote, “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus was not a glutton, but his life was not marked by fasting either. He came as the bridegroom to the bride.

His coming was a time of joy and, and I only point that out to make this comment, that Jesus’ forty-day fast is not to be a pattern of spiritual discipline that Christians are expected to follow. I remember a time in the 1990’s when it became popular within Evangelical circles to demonstrate a very high degree of spiritual discipline by entering into a forty-day fast. Listen, that’s a bad idea. It’s even a bad weight loss idea. Ask a nutritionist; it’s not good for you. But they did this, it was popularized, and, never mind the fact that Jesus himself warned in Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.”

I once knew a guy that became known, I knew him personally, this guy, he became known for his forty-day fast and, it seemed that that’s what he wanted, to be kind of known as a modern-day monk living right in our seminary. He didn’t hide his fasting at all, he actually paraded it. You could actually see his gaunt appearance, and he stumbled about the hallways from class to class. He ended up becoming so severely emaciated he needed medical attention. It actually affected his wife, his family, his work. If it weren’t for the hospital plugging some IVs into him and nursing him back to health, that man would have died.

Folks, that’s not what Jesus’ forty-day fast is for. It’s not here to set a pattern of spiritual discipline. Is it wrong for Christians to fast for certain things? Not at all, but keep it to yourself between you and the Lord, right? Matthew, chapter 6, don’t practice your righteousness, whether it’s giving or prayer or fasting or anything else you do in your life, to be seen by men. Because if you do, well, there you go, there’s your reward. Enjoy it because it’s not going to last long.

God raised up Jesus here for a unique purpose in the plan of redemption. What Jesus did here was unique to his role that God had called him to. Jesus fasted one time in his lifetime, like Moses did, like Elijah did before him. Moses gave the covenant, Elijah restored the covenant, Jesus fulfilled the covenant. Look, none of us is in that position. None of us has that role. That said, it was during this period of deep spiritual devotion, preparing for the ministry that lay ahead of him, that Jesus was visited by the devil. The devil watched. The devil observed. The devil waited patiently and then pounced on him at his weakest moment. Look at verse 2, “He ate nothing during those days and when they were ended, he was hungry and the devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’”

As I said, Jesus has here been fasting, praying. He’s anticipating the end of this period of withdrawal. When Jesus was at his most hungry moment, his weakest physical moment, that’s when the devil attacked him. The gloves came off. He pounced, knowing that this unique opportunity was drawing to a close, the window was shutting here. Jesus, here, was certainly close to death physically. In fact, Matthew’s epilogue tells us that after Jesus stood firm against these final three temptations, outlasting the tempter completely, it says, “The devil left him. And behold, angels came and were ministering to him.” That is to say, Jesus didn’t have the strength to go walk back into the city and get some food. Angels had to come.

The verb tense that’s used there, it implies that there was a period of time that was needed to restore his physical body. That is, angels were ministering to him over a period of time. It’s a very significant degree of fasting and weakness and, in some measure, we all can understand this, to a very limited degree, but we can understand what it must have been like to be visited with temptation at a time of severe physical strain.

I like to think of mothers when I talk about this. Have any of you mothers had one of your dear, beloved children, the fruit of your womb, or even your normally very sweet and understanding and considerate husband, it’s the end of a hard day, you’ve done a lot of thankless tasks around the house, and there’s nothing but demands. Where’s the dinner? I don’t like this dinner. What’s for dessert? You don’t have any dessert? All that stuff comes out. You’re working on a severe headache, and whoever it is just walks in and plucks that last nerve. It’s a time of weakness, isn’t it? You’re ready to snap.

Have any of you ever been in a time of sickness and you feel like you just cannot handle any more drama in any form, in any degree? You just want some peace and quiet. You just want some rest so you can recover. Amplify that beyond your ability to imagine, and that is the condition that Jesus was in here. He’s not just hungry, he’s weak. His nerves are raw and exposed. He’s tired, he’s weary and in that state of physical weakness, the devil says, I believe it’s about time. That’s the situation.

Look, we don’t have to understand all that God has in mind for our circumstances, do we? We don’t need to understand the fullness of the situation we’re facing. We don’t have to know all the reasons in his mind for our suffering. All we need to do is believe in him. We need to accept the fact that God is fundamentally good. We need to affirm the fact he is powerful enough to remove our suffering if he wants to. We need to embrace the fact that if we continue to suffer, well, then he has a good and wise reason to continue that trial. He will bring relief when he believes it’s the proper time, but not before, because he’s wise. We trust him, and we walk forward in obedience.