Where is Jordan?
Come and join me for a moment, would
you?
Those who are regular know I do things
spontaneously from time to time, and Jordan is
feeling rather worried at the moment, but he
really doesn't need to.
I just wanted to take a moment.
Could we just measure off for a moment?
I think it's important to recognize milestones in
people's lives, and I do believe that he
has reached a milestone in life.
You are taller than the senior pastor.
Yeah, well done.
So do remember, though, it's not hard to
be taller than the senior pastor.
We want to just mention a couple of
things.
That Thanksgiving offering, you just be sure to
mark on your checks and so on for
the Thanksgiving offering for missions, and we haven't
made it a special effort, but we're just
leaving it between you and God, and you
know it's important to reach people around the
world, and then I will be on vacation
this next week, and you know it's a
wonderful job.
You just work 30 minutes on Sunday morning,
and you get all this time off, so
it's good.
It's good, but Pastor Brad is here, and
he's got good broad shoulders and does a
wonderful, wonderful job.
What a privilege it is to work with
him.
This week he said something remarkable.
He does often, but it struck me that
it tied in so well with what I
was studying in preparation for the message.
He said, you know, it struck me that
a Christian is the only one that has
an enemy.
Other situations don't have an enemy, and of
course this morning we want to look at
the Gospel of Luke chapter 4 and the
first 13 verses, which speak about the temptation
of Jesus, and our thoughts this morning are
indeed entitled, If a Message on Temptation.
So beginning in Luke's Gospel chapter 4 and
verse 1, it says, And Jesus, full of
the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and
was led by the Spirit in the wilderness
for 40 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 will give it to
whom I will.
If you then will worship me, it will
all be yours.
And Jesus answered, 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.
Father, thank you for your word, and we
pray that you would feed our hungry hearts
from it this morning, and that you would
quench our thirst for a touch from you.
That you, Father, in the power of your
Spirit would take this your word and cause
it to live in our hearts and to
strengthen us in these days.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Every incident in the life of Jesus is
something that will be a part of the
life of a follower of Jesus.
And so when you think about the situations
that we read in the Gospel of Luke
and the other Gospels, these are things that
you and I are going to encounter, and
temptation is one of those things, isn't it?
Romeo Dallaire, Canadian general who led the NATO
forces in Rwanda, said that one day when
he was in a meeting he felt as
if he was in the presence of absolute
evil.
And our world sometimes wants to dispute that
there's no such thing as evil, but you
know there is, and there's something within us
called a human conscience, and we know what
is right and what is wrong instinctively in
some areas at least, and we know that
it is wrong, it is evil to do
some things.
And you think about Jesus facing this temptation.
This is a remarkable, remarkable piece of Scripture,
and I say that because it shows to
us the conflict in an open way between
the Lord Jesus and the one who is
called the Evil One.
And it's one of those few passages that
shows us directly the conflict that goes on
as we see the life and the work
of Jesus progressing on this earth.
So as we consider this passage this morning,
I want us just to take notice and
walk through the Scriptures, and usually when we
look at this kind of text, we think
about the fact that there are three temptations,
and Jesus gives the answer the same way
in all three, that he uses the Word
of God to refute those attacks and temptations
of the Evil One.
This morning I'd like to just approach the
subject from a little bit different area.
And you know, sometimes when I talk to
people, they feel that when they're tempted, it
must be because they're a very bad person,
and that nobody else could be tempted like
this, because, you know, it's just me, and
it's who I am, and God's upset with
me, or something of that nature.
But notice with me where this text begins.
In verse 1, it says that Jesus, full
of the Spirit—that's the Holy Spirit—led by the
Holy Spirit, goes out into this wilderness place
and faces this six weeks of temptation.
Now we are seeing the culmination of that
in our text, but I want you just
to keep in your mind that Jesus was
not a bad person nor an evil person.
He is the Son of God, filled with
the Spirit of God, and yet he encounters
this kind of thing.
And so we can set aside the idea
that temptation only happens to people who are
evil and bad.
And so then, as we walk on through
this, what we're going to see, I believe,
is that there are a series of lies,
and temptation is really all about lies, and
we live in a world that is full
so often of lies.
So here in this text, as we walk
through it, we could simply say that because
Jesus was tempted in every way, he knows
how to help us when we are tempted.
It teaches us that in the book of
Hebrews, and we could embrace that and be
strengthened by that.
I want you to go a bit deeper
than that this morning, and just think with
me as we consider how this unfolds and
unpackages.
It provides for us insights and tools to
be able to deal with temptation as it
comes to you and me.
And the good news is, there's nobody in
here this morning who hasn't faced temptation in
one way, shape, or form.
So very quickly this morning, let me just
outline four things in this text.
First of all, notice with me that the
evil one questions position.
He questions our position.
If you belong to Christ, your position is
going to be questioned.
He questions the position of Jesus, if you
are the Son of God.
And you know, if you read in the
Gospel of Mark and in the first chapter,
one of the things that happens as Jesus
encounters an evil spirit is the spirit cries
out, you are the Son of God!
It's not an if.
He is the Son of God.
He is the Savior of the world.
He is the only one that we can
come to who fully understands the struggle that
we have with the flesh and the world
and those things around us, and who can
save us from sin and self and Satan.
He is the only one who can do
that, because he is the only one who
is both God and man.
He questions that position.
He attacks that position.
And you'll notice that every attack begins with
the word if.
If.
It seeds doubts and fears and struggles and
lies.
And this is what I really want us
to zero in on this morning.
He questions our position, if we are in
Christ.
Why do Christians face temptation?
It tests our sincerity.
That's one reason.
And as we see temptation come, it also
tests our faith.
We have to trust God and believe him
to carry us through it.
And as temptations come, it also tests our
love.
You shall love the Lord your God with
seventy-five percent of your heart, soul, mind,
and strength.
Now let me just take a moment and
introduce someone to you.
Sir, would you just stand for a moment?
This is the Reverend John McGregor.
Is what I said true, sir?
Yes.
Okay.
It's not 75 percent.
No, it's all.
It's all.
He's a good Alliance pastor.
He knows what the Bible says.
Thank you.
With all your heart and soul and mind
and strength.
All of it.
And you see, sometimes temptation also tests our
patience, because we wait upon God and trust
him to deliver us.
It allows us to find victory in our
walk, because when through his grace and by
his Spirit we overcome temptation, there is that
sense of yes!
It's like my little friend Bill McLeod.
He said that when he was asked to
preach his first sermon, he went in fear
and trembling, and he preached a whole chapter
because he thought he wouldn't run out of
things if he did the whole chapter.
But he said when it was over walking
down the street, he found himself saying, Lord,
we did it!
What was the temptation in Bill's life?
You're not in a position to do this.
But by the grace of God and the
strength and equipping of God, he did.
And God brought him to that place of
victory.
And it brings God great glory, because he
defeats the lies of the devil through feeble
people just like you and me.
Whoa!
Ah, I really want to do it, so
I'm just going to do it.
Sorry.
Sometimes, you know, we want to run away
from it.
In fact, often we would love to run
away from it.
Can we run away from it?
Will solitude prevent it?
Sometimes people have become monks and gone away
to become more holy alone.
Will that prevent temptation?
Jesus is alone in the wilderness, and it
is here that this fierce temptation comes.
What about if we just fast and pray?
Maybe that will eliminate it, but Jesus has
been fasting and praying for forty days.
You see, it's something that we're going to
bump into, and it's something that God wants
to use.
But the evil one will question our position,
and it always begins with this question and
this word, if.
Oh, how subtle.
Just if.
Now, I know that nobody would be guilty
at Glencairn Alliance Church of using that word.
But you know, once in a while when
you listen to conversations, you hear people say
things like, if you loved me.
What is that?
It's kind of manipulating the thing, isn't it?
And oh, how the evil one is a
master at manipulating.
He wanted Jesus to doubt, and he wants
the same from you and me.
He always attacks at the vulnerable spot, and
he wants to make us orphans robbed of
a position in Christ that the Lord has
given to us if we have come to
him for salvation.
Let me just quickly slip over to Galatians
3 and 26.
Galatians chapter 3 and verse 26.
Here's what it says.
For in Christ Jesus you are all sons
of God through faith.
For as many of you as were baptized
into Christ have put on Christ, in Christ,
children of God.
Isn't that what John 1 12 says as
well?
But as many as received him to them,
he gave the power to become the children
or sons of God, even to those who
believe in his name.
See the subtlety of this attack?
Just questioning the position.
Secondly, he questions our needs.
As you look at how Jesus faces this,
the Savior's needs then come into question in
verse 3 in our text.
In Luke chapter 4, command the stones to
become bread.
Oh, you're hungry.
You have a need.
Command the stones to become bread.
And he's really saying, listen, you're alone.
You're in the desert.
Would a father really leave a child alone
in the desert?
If he cared about you, would you be
left alone like that?
And, you know, he's really saying, hey, you're
with the wild beasts.
If God really loved you, if you were
really the Son of God, would that be
true?
I mean, we have some philosophy here in
North America that says if you come to
Jesus you'll just be rich and everything will
be perfect.
But that's not what the Bible teaches.
Oh, you're hungry.
Would a loving father permit you to be
hungry?
You see, what he is doing is he
is looking at the need, and he is
seeking to place doubt about how the Father
cares for the Son of God and for
you and I as children of God.
You just look at him and his work,
and you see his personality, and you see
how he has knowledge and feeling and absolute
evil, and you look and you see his
character.
Let me just quickly for time's sake give
you some text.
You can look them up later.
In John chapter 8 verse 44, Jesus said
about his character, he's a liar.
He said in Revelation 12 verse 9, he's
a deceiver.
Not just somebody who tells lies, but who
deceives.
He said in Revelation 12 and 10, an
accuser.
Back in John 8 44, Jesus said not
only is he a liar, but he's a
murderer.
Well, and in 2 Thessalonians 2 and verses
3 and 4, he's a usurper, and a
usurper is somebody who takes something that doesn't
belong to them.
Where's that iPhone?
What?
You see, I would usurp his iPhone, but
he just did something that is the center
core of what I'm trying to communicate to
you in the message this morning.
There comes a time when you have to
take your position, and you have to say,
no, I belong to Christ, and Christ belongs
to me, and I will not go that
road.
He has power.
In 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 4, it
tells us that he blinds.
That is to say, he shuts our eyes
or covers things up so that we cannot
see the truth.
And you might have tried to share the
gospel of Christ with someone, and they say,
well, I just don't get it.
That's because there's someone who blinds our eyes.
I lived with that as that young person
who was involved in terrorism.
I was blind, full of hatred, full of
bitterness, full of anger.
And it came when the Holy Spirit touched
my life through the witness of someone sharing
the gospel with me that Christ is a
Savior, mighty indeed, and can give not just
whitewash for the outside, but a complete transformation
from the inside to make us new creatures
in Christ.
And when I came to that, I was
no longer blind to the fact.
I was able to know that this God
who loves me sent his Son to die
for me so that I could have this
life and walk with him, and you can
too.
In Luke 13 and 16, it tells us
that it's said of the devil that he
not only blinds, but he binds.
That is to say, he'll tie you up.
He loves to tie things up and create
bondage, and it's often bondage to the flesh
and the things of the flesh.
We see exactly what he's trying to do
here in the life of Jesus.
But, oh dear friends, do we ever stop
and come to the place of recognizing that
if you are in Christ Jesus, you have
an enemy.
He wants to blind you and bind you,
and he loves to cause us to lose
victory and everything else that he can take.
He will take it.
In Luke 11, 20 to 22, it tells
us that he enslaves.
But, oh, I thank God that he is
limited.
He is a long ways from the omniscient,
omnipotent, and omnipresent God.
He is a long ways from the Lord
Jesus, who has all power and authority on
heaven and on earth, as Matthew 28, 18
says.
Notice that he attacks the flesh.
You can get a lawful thing in an
unlawful way, Jesus.
He says, you don't need to wait.
Fill the need.
You're hungry.
Fill the need.
It's wrong for you to have a need.
But the answer is that there's something more
important than the flesh.
The answer is that we need Christ, and
we need his fullness.
Thirdly, we see that he questions our desire.
In verses 5 through 8 in our text,
every temptation is a probe into our desires.
This is what brought Adam and Eve into
sin in the first place.
Look at that.
That looks so good.
Wouldn't you like some of that?
Oh, you know, did God really say that?
What's he doing?
He's probing the desire.
What is it that we desire?
And Jesus is being tempted with authority here
in this latter part of the text, isn't
he?
Take a shortcut.
Surely it doesn't matter how you get there
as long as you get there.
Ah, isn't this the kind of thing that
we face every day in the world that
we live in?
Take a shortcut.
It's easier.
Go the easy way.
You don't have to go to the cross,
but Jesus wouldn't take the easy way, because
the easy way is not the way of
total victory over sin.
The easy way is not the way to
the place of peace and strength and power.
And doesn't it come to each of us,
there's an easier way than dying to self?
Goodness me, got to be an easier way,
Pastor Brad.
He says, no.
Let's check it out with the other theologian
over here.
Pastor, is there an easier way?
In Luke 9, 23, Jesus said, if anyone
wants to follow me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow
me.
It's not about the easy way.
It's about the way of walking in the
truth and in the power of God and
in the strength of God.
Here are three lies that the devil is
seeking to tell Jesus about desire.
I can make it easy for you.
Oh, easy.
Great.
Lie number two, hey, just this one time.
Lie number three, all power is mine, you
know.
I can do anything.
I can give it to anybody.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that that
power was given to him.
But time after time, it says that that
power rests in the authority of God, the
Father God, the Son and God, the Holy
Spirit.
Jesus is being tempted with allegiance, just a
temporary change of allegiance.
Isn't this what gets us in trouble?
Just this one time.
I mean, I don't even know why I
did it, but there it is.
Who are we to desire?
Psalm 73 verse 25 says, I have no
one in heaven but you, and there is
no one that I desire on earth besides
you.
That's who we are to desire, him and
him alone.
Who are we to delight in?
Psalm 37 verse 4 says, Delight yourself in
the Lord, and he will give you the
desires of your heart.
What a powerful promise.
Delight in him, and he will give the
desires of the heart.
There comes that time when, just as Pastor
Brad did about his phone, and he wouldn't
give it to me, we have to stand
on the rock and say no to this
tyrant.
Enough!
Especially when we know what is right.
And Jesus, of course, says it is written.
That personal knowledge of the Word of God
is so necessary.
It's time for John to quit, so lastly
let me just say he questions our understanding
of God's Word and promise in verses 9
through 13.
He says, hey, jump off the top of
this.
The Bible promises angels will grab you.
In other words, will just reverse the whole
thing of gravity for you.
Go ahead and jump off.
Prove it.
Show those angels.
If you are the Son of God, prove
it.
John 10 verse 10 says that you came
to bring life and abundantly.
Prove it!
That's exactly what the devil is saying to
Jesus in this text.
And there's such a breakthrough in verse 13.
Let me just read it as I come
to word a close.
And when the devil had ended every temptation,
he departed from him until an opportune time.
There's victory and peace and assurance.
It's not the end of temptation, but it's
broken.
And the Lord has dismissed him, as it
were, at that point.
Our greatest desire in looking back through life,
what will it be?
When we look back and we say, I
wish I'd spent less time on this and
more time on this.
What will it be?
Will it be, oh, I wish I knew
the Word of God.
I wish I had that close walk with
Jesus.
What will it be?
I love what Joshua, a great and godly
man, says in the Bible.
In Joshua 22, 14, he says this, I
am going the way of all the earth.
In other words, he's saying, you know what?
The gray hair has turned white, and the
years are growing short, and the time is
growing short with it.
I am going the way of all the
earth.
But, he said, there has not failed you
one of the things that God said that
he would do for you.
What a statement at the end of life
to say that in walking with Christ and
finding victory, even through those times of temptation
and struggle and difficulty and toil, there is
a God who in his faithfulness didn't fail
to produce one of the things that he
promised, not one.
Oh, how we need to stand firm upon
the rock.
But, you know, sometimes we're not even conscious
of the battle, because I think so often
the evil one loves to lull us to
sleep and just keep things quiet.
And the church in the Western world is
fast becoming a museum rather than a mission.
I have a friend who pastors in Ontario.
He's not an Alliance pastor, but I've forgiven
him.
He's an Irishman called Billy Wright, and I
was with Bill and Norma one time for
meetings in their church there in Lindsay.
And he told me one night when they
came home, he said, our son Phil, the
police were scared of him.
When Phil was around, the police were scared.
They wouldn't come unless in strong numbers.
They were so afraid of this young man
who was deep into drugs and deep into
everything that you can imagine.
He said, I came home one night to
find my son had taken a knife or
a razor and just slit his wrists.
He said, there's a pool of blood, an
unbelievable pool of blood.
He said, I gathered up that boy, and
I said, God, don't let my son die!
Phil today is the countrywide representative for the
Evangelical Covenant churches in Canada.
Why?
Because a Christian dad could see the fight.
He said to me, John, you should have
been there when Phil walked into the police
station, and the sergeant is backing away from
him, and Phil is saying, I just come
to tell you that I've come to know
Jesus, and it's going to be different.
The world is full of temptations.
Life is full of temptations.
We can persecute and hurt each other.
We can struggle with difficult situations, and what
we really need is this same Jesus.
He's the overcomer.
We need him.
So we've been looking at the questions that
the evil one asked Jesus, and could I
just finish by asking you a question?
Have you believed his lies about yourself?
About God?
About your marriage?
About your life?
About your home?
About his church?
You've been tormented with the past because of
the lies that come?
He's a liar, and you can come to
the cross this morning, or this afternoon, since
the preacher's been long-winded.
You can come to the cross and find
peace, and surrender, and victory, and joy.
He'll question your position.
He'll question your need.
He'll question your desire.
He'll question your knowledge of the promises of
God, but the Spirit of God in his
strength and power answers every question.
Let's bow together in prayer.
Father, we thank you for your word this
morning, and we thank you, Lord Jesus, that
you have walked before us in every conceivable
area and way of life, and yet you
have done it without sin.
And so we thank you that we can
come to you, the sinless one, this day
and find peace, and salvation, and truth.
Enough truth to heal our hurts, enough truth
to mend our difficulties, and we thank you
for the cross.
It's not the easy way, but it is
the only way.
And, O Spirit of the living God, would
you continue to speak to our hearts, and
be the after speaker long after this meeting
is closed in prayer.
May you, Lord God, continue to bring to
us the fact that in every temptation there
is victory in Jesus, and it is found
at the foot of the cross in surrender
to him.
As someone here this morning, under the sound
of my voice, and your life is cloudy
and hurting, and you're tempted to quit, you're
tempted to give up on things, you're tempted
to walk away or run away this morning,
don't do it.
Come and stand to Christ.
He will meet that need.
He will fill the desire that's in your
heart.
So let's stand together as we conclude our
time this morning, and we'll just continue in
prayer as we're standing.
When I give this last prayer, we'll ask
our elders and wives to come to the
front and be available to pray.
Now you must make a choice, my dear
friends.
You can choose to go on out from
here, and that's your choice, or you can
choose to come to the cross and do
some business with Jesus, and he'll be so
welcoming and so affirming and touch your life.
So, my dear friends, although I'll be gone
this next week, I'll be praying for you
through the week and seeking the face of
God for us as his people.
I receive the Lord's benediction.
For now we commit you unto him that
is able to keep you from falling and
to present you faultless before his presence with
exceeding joy.
To the only wise God, our Savior, be
glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now
and ever.
Go in his grace and serve him this
week.