Tempted In The Wilderness

How the Devil Defines Winning: Pride and Equality with God 1:01

“For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.”

— Isaiah 14:13-14 (NKJV)

It probably depends on how you define winning. If the question is, does the devil think he can win? It probably depends on how you define winning. You see, we tend to define winning, especially when it's mano-a-mano or one force against another force.

We tend to define it in, I guess, I don't know, wrestling terms. You know, two men enter and one man leaves sort of thing. Whoever's the last man standing is the one who wins. When we think of this sort of conflict with these sort of stakes, we think that he who is standing at the end of it is victorious.

Now under that definition, if you think long term, we think that only God will be victorious at the end of days. We see the devil cast into the pit of fire and we say there's only going to be one standing, only one standing that will be God Himself because He's bigger and stronger and more powerful and transcendent and all these things.

Well here's the thing. I don't think the devil defines winning the way we might. I don't think the devil believes that he can out-muscle God. I really don't.

I don't think that's something he believes is an option, that he's going to out-muscle God. However, he may have thought this. He may have thought that although he might not be able to out-muscle God, he may have thought that he could at least become equal to God. Maybe he thought that he could at least share the stage with God.

In fact, I can prove it. Isaiah chapter 14, we read this, how you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, how you're fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most High.

I don't think the devil thinks he can make God subordinate to him, but I do think that in his perverted, sinful mind he thinks that he and God can be equals. In fact, he's always had a complex with that. In Isaiah 14, he says, I can ascend. I can be like the Most High.

He overtly says that, and God says, no, and that's why you're being judged. The pride that you think you could do that. But what was the temptation to Eve? He comes up to Eve, and he offers the same idea.

Eat from the tree. What'll happen? You'll be like God, knowing good and evil. I think the devil has a complex about this, the idea of being like God.

Now, how could that equality occur? Is it possible? Well, we know, no, it's not. But theoretically, how could that sort of equality occur?

Can the devil ever rank up, perk up, rise up to God's level? Can he ever do that? Can the devil ever graduate and become the level that God's at in terms of power and authority and might? Well, probably not.

However, maybe the objective of the devil isn't necessarily that he's going to rank up to God's level.

Dragging God Down to His Level: The Aim of Temptation 3:54

Maybe, maybe the objective is to bring God down to his. And that's how the equality would be attained. When a child rebels against a parent, the objective isn't necessarily that I'm going to overthrow my parents. They know that's not an option.

But if a child can make the parent frustrated, if a child can make the parent break ranks from their previous adages, if a child can make a parent sin, then what happens? Well, then we're both wrong. Sometimes children in sin And are just looking to get their parents to that point of anger and heat and temper where they do something wrong.

And what is the net effect of that? It brings the parent down to their level. Right? We're both wrong.

There's an equality that could perhaps be attained if you can take the parent down to your level as a child. Well, what do you think is going on here in the wilderness? The devil is tempting Jesus to do what? To sin.

And what would be the outcome of that? Well, suddenly, suddenly then, the differences between the devil and Jesus are just a matter of degree and not of nature. It's very possible. I can't say this dogmatically because I don't know it dogmatically, but it's very possible that that's the objective.

To somehow even the playing field, to be like God. If I can't rise up to his level, maybe I can break him. Whatever the case, the objective here clearly is that the devil wants Jesus here to do that which he shouldn't do, to give in the temptation of the human flesh. And as we're going to see in the text, Jesus won't fall for it.

All right, let's expand on this now.

Led by the Spirit into the Wilderness 5:29

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.”

— Matthew 4:1-2 (NKJV)

Let's look at verses 1 and 2 and then just work our way through this short passage. Verses 1 and 2. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is not an accident.

This is intentional. God sends Him there. The Spirit leads Him there. And when he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, which is a significant number, afterward he was hungry.

Because he was a man of flesh and blood, just as he was fully God, he was also fully man. Alright, as we said a few moments ago, this passage occurs at the outset of Christ's ministry, really at the start. It's right after he was baptized and before he recruits his disciples, which will occur later on in this same chapter.

Now, verse 1 suggests that the Spirit, remember, had come down as a dove at Christ's baptism and had lighted upon Him. The same Spirit drives Him out after the baptism. After God has said, this is my son of whom I am well pleased, he's driven out into the wilderness in order that He would be tempted, in order that He would be tested, in order that His obedience would be put to the test in the most difficult of landscapes.

Now again, at face value, you can stand back and go, well, why? I mean, I get it happened, I read it happened, but why? Why did God the Father, why did the Spirit hand deliver the Son into just the most rugged landscape on earth, which if you've ever been there or looked out upon it, it's like the moon.

It's hard to describe. When you look at it, it looks like the least desirable place you could possibly ever spend a day, let alone 40, 40 days here. So why would he go out into that environment in order to encounter the world's toughest spiritual adversary? You're sending someone in the worst circumstance, the worst environment, in order to encounter the worst adversary they'll ever face.

Why? Well, let me answer that question as best I can in the shortest amount of time.

The Second Adam: Succeeding Where the First Adam Failed 7:17

I can answer. R.C. Sproul, the Presbyterian theologian, he explained it in this way, and I'm partial to this, but he says, all right, here's the deal. The first Adam, the first Adam, way, way, way back in the garden was tempted by the devil, right?

The devil had basically asked him some variations of the same thing, or asked Eve some variations of the same things that we're seeing here. Put God's word to the test, and without any hesitation, Adam and Eve, our first parents yielded to temptation and did that which was wrong. So the first Adam messed up, and the result of the first Adam messing up is that you and I are messed up.

We might not like it, but that's the way it is. We are fallen as a result of being the progeny of our parents' first sin, our federal heads for sin all these years back. So Adam messed up. Well, in Romans 5, we see that, all right, if Adam has messed up, then what do we need?

Well, we need a better Adam to come along. If Adam messed up, we need a better Adam to come along and do that which is right and live up to God's standard and to pass the tests and temptations that he might face. Well, Sproul makes the case, and I agree, that the whole objective here going out in the desert is that the second Adam would do what the first Adam failed to do, be tempted and yet stand.

But here's the difference. If you think about Adam and Eve, think about the garden. Was the garden a nice place? What do you think?

I would think so. Based on everything we read there, it sounds pretty grand. So Adam and Eve are just in this lush garden. There's fruit on all sorts of trees.

I mean, there was one tree not to eat from. Everything else was cool though, right? So there's animals and plants and flora and fauna and just good times. It's the Garden of Eden.

It can't be that bad. Contrast that to the wilderness here. And what you see is that one difference between the test of the first Adam and the second Adam is the environment. Adam and Eve, man, they broke ranks with God just like that, and they did so with full bellies.

They did so while life was at ease. Well, Jesus was tried and tested in the sense the same as Adam or the rest of us, but His environment was far worse than Adam. His surrounding was more desolate. He had no helpmate.

He had no food. He had no creature comforts. If ever there was a time when Jesus might have been inclined, might have been inclined to lower His divine standards when no one's looking, because that's the easiest time to sin when no one's there to see you do it. If ever there was a time, then this would have been it.

In the wilderness, like the dark side of the moon, no one around to see Him. If ever there was a time for Him to have yielded, it was when his stomach was not full, but was empty. He was miserable. His human flesh was just absolutely at great discomfort on the basis of the environment He's in.

And if ever there was a time for Him to lower His divine standards and yield to temptation, this would have been it. Well, that's exactly when the devil makes his move, when He's the most vulnerable.

The First Temptation: Stones into Bread 10:00

“If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

— Matthew 4:3 (NKJV)

And it won't be different for you. It won't be different for you and I. Let's look at what happened in verses 3 and 4. Verse 3, now when the tempter came to him, he said, if you're the son of God, if you're the son of God, command that these stones become bread. I see you're hungry, Jesus.

If you are the son of God, then clearly you have the powers of God. See those stones? Man alive, just say the word, snap your fingers, make up some bread. You're wasting away, Jesus.

Don't do that to yourself. Make with the bread. You'll be so much more comfortable, right? Temptation really appeals to the flesh.

It appeals to things that you want. No one wants to be empty in the stomach. Even Jesus and the human side of him didn't like to have an empty, rumbling stomach. And so the devil says, hey, I got the fix.

Go ahead and turn this into bread. You know, back in the 1990s, I was hiking with a friend. It was near Boulder, Colorado. And we were pretty well provisioned with the things that we thought about bringing.

I mean, we had sleeping bags, we had flashlights and the like, but the one thing that we didn't bring a sufficient quantity of was food. Now, on the one hand, I thought he brought the food, and of course, he thought I brought the food. I don't know why he thought I'd be on top of this, but with that said, we're sitting there, you know, without enough food to enjoy.

It really took the enjoyment out of the whole trip when we honestly just knew we didn't have enough food. And I was still silly enough to think if I sharpen a stick, I can go, you know, forge us up something out there. Whatever the case, in only just one night, we knew we had a huge dilemma.

One night of rumbling stomachs. With that said, Jesus is in the Judean wilderness a lot longer than one night. It's fair to say he was starving at this point, because he was. And the devil knew it.

And as I said a moment ago, the devil's a master of timing. That's one of the strengths he really has down. He knows when to time his temptations and when to deliver them.

Satan's Timing: Temptation Comes When We Are Weakest 11:57

And guess what? They are not when you are the strongest necessarily that they will come. They will often come when you are the weakest. You know, one of the times we're the weakest is when we're cut off from spiritual accountability.

One of the times when we're the weakest is when we think, hey, I can go face the evils of this world on my own, right? Everyone else is a sheep. I'm the commando sheep. I can go out there and face all that.

The other sheep, they need the church. They need the Bible and prayer and all that sort of stuff. But you know, God made me with some strength and some fortitude. I can walk into the lion's den and come out unscathed.

Well, here's the thing. The lion hears that and just laughs. And then he comes at you. And then he lay scars upon you, and then you come back to church.

For many of us, I've just described your Christian walk across some season of your life, maybe back in your 20s. If we think we're strong, we will learn the hard way that we are weak. And the devil will come to us with tests and trials when we think we're strong, but when we have no spiritual accountability to help keep us on the straight and narrow.

That's why college kids depart from the faith, or at least depart from unfaithful activities. It's because they think they don't need him, and they become spiritually isolated. Then they learn the hard way, and then they come back. As a side note, don't do that.

It does not work out. With that said, Jesus is all alone here. His flesh is hungering, and the devil says, hey, if you are the Son of God, if, if, if, you can circle that word because the deception lingers there, if you are the Son of God, then why not turn the stone into bread?

This is the whole concept of breakfast. I'm not a breakfast guy. I like my foods later in the day, so I don't get too hung up on this. But breakfast itself is idea breaking your fast.

You know, I'm gonna resume eating. You know, the night is done, I resume eating. So here this idea, break your fast, Jesus, by just dining on the stone here. Now, as I said a moment ago, the devil says if you are the Son of God, not since you're the Son of God or as the Son of God.

Jesus, as the Son of God, go for it he doesn't say that.

The Attack on God's Word: 'If You Are the Son of God' 14:05

He says if. Now why does that stand out to us so strongly when you contrast these words with what we read last week in Matthew 3? Well, Matthew 3, what happens? Jesus is baptized, the Spirit comes down, then a voice, the Father's voice, is heard, and the Father's voice identifies, this is my son, this is my son.

Well, literally the equivalent of moments later, sentences later if you're reading scripture, the devil questions that exact point. He says, if, if you are the son of God, turn this rock into bread. Now, is that just semantics? Eh, no, not so much.

The serpent, the serpent likes to question our presuppositions right down to the phraseology that we use. Hath God said? Was that not the challenge he gave to Eve? Was it not first an attack on God's word?

Was it not first a matter of semantics? Well, again, it's more than semantics. If the devil can change an article here, a preposition there, if he can cause you or I or the culture around us or denominations across the globe to question aspects of Scripture or to turn certain words on their head or to deprive them or neuter them of meaning, what happens?

Well, you've seen what happens. Just look at most of the world around us. Look at even most of the evangelical world and tell me that the devil hasn't gotten his fangs into the church by attacking the word. I assure you that's exactly what's happened.

And here we see him try it again. If, if you are the son of God, or as he said to Eve, hath God said, did God really say, is that what He really meant? Didn't God say you couldn't eat from all the trees and forest here in the garden? No, that's not what God had told Eve at all or Adam at all.

One tree. You see, there's enough truth in the devil's lies to look at it from 10,000 feet and say, okay, that seems like wisdom. But it's not. When you neuter certain words, when you kneecap truth by omitting certain words or inserting other words.

And again, that's the point of attack within modern evangelical circles, the word of God. As we said before, the devil doesn't have to come to us as a clown in the sewers with a red balloon. The devil will come to us by entering pulpits like this and preaching something other than what God has said.

The greatest safety for you or I is this, right down to every last syllable, preposition, and period. We start messing with this, we're falling into the same trap that he laid for Eve and that he tried to leave for Christ here.

The Second Temptation: The Pinnacle of the Temple 16:36

“It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

— Matthew 4:7 (NKJV)

All right, let's look at verses 5 through 7 to see what happens next. Verse 5, then the devil took him up to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it's written, he shall give his angels charge over you.

See, the devil is going to quote some scripture. He realizes that Jesus is into that. He's like, you like scripture? I like scripture too.

Here you go. He shall give his angels charge over you. You're not going to hurt yourself. I mean, the angels are looking out for you, right?

And into their hands, they shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. So this case, he even tries to use scripture to argue his case. You see, he tries to use scripture to argue his case, well, here's the thing. Jesus knows scripture too.

One of the most healthy ways to defend yourself against the serpent's lies is to know what God hath said. And so Jesus responds with scripture. He says in verse 7, Jesus said to him, it's written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

The Sin of Pride and Forcing God's Hand 17:31

All right, the first temptation that the devil offered in today's text catered to Christ's flesh and to His appetite. Was He hungry? Yes. So this is the point of temptation.

However, the second temptation is actually even more insidious, and that's because it tempted what you might call, attempted Christ's pride. Was an attempt to see if Jesus could engage in some self-promotion here. You see, when the devil fell, when the devil fell from heaven with one-third of the angelic host with him, it was not because he was longing for food, and it wasn't even because he was longing for power.

It was why? It was because of his pride. This is why the devil fell. Isaiah 41 and other chapters say the devil became full of himself.

Pride was his downfall. Well, here in Matthew 4, the devil's hoping it would be Christ's downfall as well. When the devil took Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple, he was inviting Jesus, on the eyes of everyone gathered around because there was always people around the temple, he was inviting Jesus to compel the Father and the angels to intervene on His behalf if He did something stupid like jumping off the temple.

Nothing says you're unique and special like doing something suicidal with a full expectation that you won't pay the consequences, that God somehow is compelled to act. I can force God to act on my behalf. The devil is trying to get Jesus to prove, to prove in verse 6, on the devil's own terms, Christ's position with the Father.

And so he appeals to Scripture and says, you know it's going to turn out okay. Clearly the Father is not going to let you hurt yourself, so let's go for it. All the people around, they'll see you, right? It'll be a good thing.

Let's settle this once and for all. God, His word is true and He'll protect you from even dashing your foot against the stone, let alone throwing yourself off the temple. You got this. He got it.

Let's go for it. And it was a temptation because, again, I mean, the temptation that those with power always have is to demonstrate their power in ungodly ways, to bring glory in an inappropriate way to themselves. Now, Jesus loved to validate, loved to validate the Father's love for Him and His divinity. This is absolutely true, but it was not going to be on the terms of the spiritual enemy.

It was always going to be on the terms of the Father. And so that's what He tells the devil in verse 7. He says, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. In any case, it's interesting that the devil switched up his tactics there in verse 6 and tried to quote scripture as a means to provoke Christ's response, but that didn't turn out so well because the devil is bad at what we call hermeneutics, the study of scripture.

The Third Temptation: The Kingdoms of the World 19:55

All right, let's look at verses 8 through 10. Again, so the devil is not done. Note this for your own personal walk. The devil is not done with you because you survived something in your 30s or 40s or 50s or whenever.

The devil will not leave you alone. It does not matter how much gray hair you have. The devil will not leave you alone. He will come back again and again.

He comes again to Jesus. Again, verse 8, again the devil took him up an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me, that Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan, away with you, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only You shall serve.

All right, after Jesus passed these other temptations, the devil tries to do something different. You know, when we're so busy trying to make our way in this world around us, what happens is we forget that we're in a war zone. We think that we can carve out utopia if we just idealize our circumstances, I can have the garden here, more or less.

And sometimes it feels that way. I mean, not on 900 degree days like this past month, but sometimes, sometimes it feels pretty good and pretty comfortable. And so we can delude ourselves into thinking that we live in the garden when the truth is that we live in a war zone and that this war zone is under the jurisdiction of a very powerful and very angry being.

What do I mean by that? For reasons that we don't fully understand, and for just a limited season of time, Satan has been granted certain powers and abilities here on earth, and John 12, and John 12, which is written after Jesus has been crucified and resurrected, Satan is identified as the ruler of this world.

This is not hyperbole. There's a certain amount of authority that he absolutely has. It's not to say he's sovereign, and it's not to say that his power is absolute, but he does have certain power and certain jurisdiction, which is transcended by God's own. Now, that's not going to last forever, but it is a part of your reality now.

The devil has certain abilities and powers and jurisdiction that he won't always have, but he does have in the moment in which we think we're just living out our days in nirvana here. So it's within the bounds of jurisdiction in verse 9 that Satan offers to give Jesus the jurisdiction. If you just bend the knee.

Oh, Jesus, just a little bit. I mean, it's just you and me, right? I mean, they're just the two of them out there. No one's watching.

Just come on, Jesus, a little bow, a little something. Give me something here, and that'll be enough. And then I'll give you all of it. See, everything you see out there, it's yours.

I mean, I have proprietary jurisdiction over it, and I can give it to who I want, and I'll share it at least with you. Now, would that have enticed us? Honestly, yes, and you're lying if you think otherwise. If you were brought to the highest mountain and said everything on the entire globe could be under your power if you'll just do X, Y, Z, I'm not saying you would do it, but I can't deny it would be a temptation.

You'd look at all that and say, what? Well, for Jesus, the question is, was it enticing to him? Some people might argue, even some theologians might say, yes, depending on your view of the doctrine of impeccability, which I'm not going to get into here. I don't think he was enticed.

Why? Because if I go up to Bill Gates and I try to tempt him with a dollar bill, here you go Bill Gates, here's my dollar bill, will you do XYZ for me? He's not gonna have any interest in that. Why?

Because when you're a billionaire, who cares about the dollar bill? In the same sense, you can't tempt the God of all creation by giving Him what's already His, the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills isn't necessarily going to be swayed by this sort of temptation, so why do it?

The Irrationality of Sin 23:37

Let's stop for a moment here. Why did the devil try this stuff then? I mean, that's a reasonable question. If he can't, if Jesus wasn't going to yield to it, and you and I know that, believe that, and we know it historically that he didn't, then why did the devil keep trying this?

What was the thought? Well, here's the thing. Sin is irrational. Years ago in seminary, this is a question I asked in my first year because I really wanted to understand it.

And I asked the president of the seminary this. I said, why does the devil do what he does? Hasn't he read Revelation? Doesn't he know how this turns out?

So my question of him, in essence, was if the devil has flipped to the end of the book and knowing that that outcome is in store, why does he do it? And the president of the assembly just looked at me and he said, sin is irrational. Think about some of the things you've done.

Some of the worst things you've done, you stand back and look now and you go, why did I do that? That was stupid. That was really, really stupid. Well, here's the thing.

Sin is irrational. It's irrational to take the word of God, to take the authority of God, to take His will for your life and say, I've got a better will. I've got a better plan. God, I'm glad you thought these things through, but my thoughts in this particular matter at least are superior to yours and therefore I'm going to pursue my route.

That's not a sign of maturity or intellect or what have you. That's irrationality to presume that you know better than the one who has made you and the one who is sovereign and omniscient and all these things. Sin is irrational. There's no rhyme or reason necessarily why the devil does what he does other than he hates God and he will act in any number of ways to demonstrate that hatred.

And they don't have to be rational for him to do it in the same way that your sin and your rebellion is irrational, let alone the sin and rebellion of the unregenerate. Sin is irrational. So why did the devil tempt Jesus knowing that it wasn't going to pay off, knowing what the book of Revelation would one day say, knowing that he's going to lose, I can't explain it in any other way than to say this, that sin presupposes an irrationality that it's hard to wrap your mind around when you just stare at it from a distance.

Resisting the Devil with the Sword of Scripture 25:42

Whatever the case is, Jesus did the same thing that is a model for how you and I should approach temptation. He did the same thing in verse 10. He goes back to Scripture. That's His wellspring.

That's His tool. That's His sword. That's the way He responds. He says, it's written, it's written, it's written, it's written.

You shall worship the Lord your God alone. It's the first of the Ten Commandments. Have no other gods before me. So that's his response.

When you're tempted, it's good if you've spent time in Scripture, sufficient time, so that you can extract verses to help gird you up for the battle yet to come. All right, let's look at our final verse, verse 11. Verse 11, then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

That's a good trade. You know, the book of Luke, as I mentioned before, has a parallel account to what we're seeing in Matthew 4. The primary difference is the order of the temptations are not necessarily chronological. With that said, Luke wraps up his account by saying this.

He says, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed until an opportune time. You see this? It's this picture of, yes, Jesus foiled the temptations. Yes, Jesus stood tall, stood strong, but that didn't mean the devil was done with him.

As I said before, the fact you have some mileage on your tires, the fact you might have some gray in your beard or hair what have you is absolutely no insulation that the devil's done with you or that temptation doesn't lay at your door, and we have to be cognizant that's the case.

Resist the Devil and He Will Flee 27:16

With that said, we also have this promise. We have the promise that as we grow in our faith and our understanding, God's word, and as we begin to resist the devil more and more actively and more and more proactively, it's not even just responsibly but proactively, steer our life in a trajectory that's healthy and right, we do that which is righteous.

What does scripture say in James is the devil's response to that? When you're righteous in the face of him's temptations, what does the devil do? He flees. James 4:7, if you resist the devil, he will flee from you.

Why is that? I think it's the same deal as when you shine a light on a cockroach. I bet only some people have some experience with cockroaches here, but you shine a light on a cockroach, what happens? Well, they scurry off to the darkness.

Why? Uncomfortable with the light. When you're tempted, have God's word either in your hand or in the back your mind or what have you and retreat to that and the devil will flee. It's a light he cannot sustain.

Righteous men and women, when they act righteously, reflect a holy God. And the devil hates that. And so he turns from it because there are easier pickings out there. Though on the flip side, let me submit this to you.

When you don't shine a light, in fact, when you bathe yourself in darkness, dear heavens, you are asking the devil to breathe down your neck. Again, there's no such thing as I'm going to go wandering as a commando sheep or ninja sheep into the lion's den and emerge unscathed. If I ever emerge from it, it will be with more scars than I know what to do with.

I'll be a bloody mess at the end of that. If you bathe and immerse yourselves in darkness, and a lot of it comes through our phones, a lot of it comes through media, if you bathe yourselves in darkness, you might as well just picture the devil just breathing down your neck and not fleeing from you, not fleeing, but drawn to you.

Here we see a picture of both things. However, Christ and His faithfulness, His act of obedience to the devil's response to that was to turn until a later time, a more opportune time.

Christ's Active Obedience and Imputed Righteousness 29:20

All right, let me wrap up with a last observation. As we've briefly seen, there's more we could study in this text, but as we've briefly seen in this text, what set Jesus apart from everyone else, what sets Jesus apart as a second Adam makes Him better than the first, is that when He was tempted, He did not surrender.

He did not yield. You know, last week we asked this question, which is more important to you, the death that Christ died or the life that Christ lived? Which is more necessary to your salvation, the fact that He died on the cross or the fact He stood up to temptation? Well, the truth is you need both.

You not only need His death and sacrifice on your behalf, but you also need the imputed righteousness granted through His good in His holy acts. What He did here was absolutely necessary to our salvation, even if we don't recognize it when we read this text. You and I not only need Him to die for us, we also need to have fulfilled all righteousness, to have kept the law perfectly in order for that to be imputed to us, and for us to be able to wear a white robe of righteousness in God's own presence.

How thankful we could be that Christ did this. A sinful Jesus would not be a saving Jesus, even if he'd only sin once. We can be grateful as we look at this text that He did not sin even when given ample cause to do so. Let's pray.