Mark 1:12-13

GOSPEL OF MARK

Chapter 1:12-13

“12  Immediately the Spirit *impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. 13  And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.”

Mark only gives us a bit of the experience of Jesus going into the wilderness after His baptism and so we will look at some of the other Gospels to understand this event more fully, for this even is very important to understand.

The first thing that I wish to say about this event is that we are looking at Jesus as the servant who comes into the world in order to die for the sins of mankind and if God is going to accept the sacrifice of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice then Jesus must be able to overcome certain things and we will see in this section that Jesus will overcome the temptations of Satan even when Satan comes to Him at the end of the forty days to tempt Him personally.  We will see in this lesson and the next two that Jesus is going to overcome Satan, sin, and be able to win sinners so that they can become His disciples.  Any believer should know that Jesus has accomplished these things and then when believers began to minister effectively they too must be able to overcome temptation, be able to talk to others about their sinful condition so that they can then lead them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and then they must be able to teach these new believers the things of God through the Scriptures so that they too can be effective in following this process with themselves and others.  The key thing to remember is that we, as believers, need to stay in the Word of God in order to continue to learn and grow and to help other believers do the same.  We do not need any scheme or new process that comes along, we only need the Word of God.

We see in verse twelve Mark’s favorite word “immediately” at the beginning of the verse and we also see that the same Holy Spirit who came upon Jesus at His baptism is now impelling Him to go out into the wilderness and then verse thirteen shows that He is there for forty days being tempted by Satan.  Mark goes on to say that Jesus was with the wild beasts to show that there were no people around Him.  I wish not to take a look at the Gospel of Matthew to get some more input onto what was involved in Jesus being in the wilderness. “1 ¶  Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2  And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. 3  And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." 4  But He answered and said, "It is written, ’MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’" 5  Then the devil *took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6  and *said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ’HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ’ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’" 7  Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, ’YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’" 8  Again, the devil *took Him to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9  and he said to Him, "All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me." 10  Then Jesus *said to him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, ’YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’" 11  Then the devil *left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.”  (Matthew 4:1-11)

The first thing we see here that we did not see in Mark’s coverage of this event is that Jesus fasted for forty days in the wilderness and then we learn in verse two that after His forty day fast that He became hungry, He BECAME HUNGRY.  That is important to understand and I will explain why it is important to understand through some experiences that I went through when I fasted.  I worked for the Ford Motor Company for 34 years and decided that I wanted to retire, but I was not really sure what the next step was and so I thought that if I went to a secluded place and fasted for a while that my mind would become clearer and I could pray about what the next part of my life would take on.  I studied about fasting for sometime before I began this fast and what I learned was that there are different kinds of fasts that a person can go on, but it seemed like the fast with only water to drink was the best kind of a fast to go on.  I read books from the American Hygiene Society about fasting because people for there would supervise fasting in order to make sure that they were safe.  I also looked at the different fasts that people did in the Bible as Moses fasted along with Elijah and even Paul and we read that fasting was very common in the NT times for Jesus said “when you fast,” He did not say “if you fast.”  It seems like fasting was something that the NT Church in America had missed out on.  I learned that one of the men from the society mentioned supervised a fast for a man that lasted for 90 days, the man went 90 days without eating, but of course he did drink water every day.  Now remember the phrase “He became hungry,” in Matthew 4, the point is that after you begin a fast and are on it for three days you are not hungry and so the next time you become hungry is the time to end the fast and begin to eat again otherwise you are going to starve.  I believe that Jesus drank water while on this forty day fast, and I realize that there is no place in Scripture that states this, but a person cannot live very long without water and so I believe that if Jesus did not drink water that He would have had to use powers to keep Himself alive that we do not have and therefore I believe that that would make it so He would not be able to die for our sins.  Maybe what I am saying is not the case but after doing a study on fasting that is the conclusion that I have come up with.  One more thing about my fast and that is that I began to only eat two meals a day for a week or so before beginning the fast and then went down to one meal a day and so I began to fast I was never hungry, but I can say that I did not have a lot of energy, however my mind was clearer that I can remember it being.  A few years later I did another fast, but after a week I did drink some vegetable juice each day.  I enjoyed fasting, but one thing for sure it was boring because eating takes up a lot of time and is enjoyable, but fasting is profitable.

Mark’s Gospel says that Jesus was tempted the whole time while He was in the wilderness, while Matthew’s Gospel does not give that information, but it does bring up how Satan tempted Jesus during the end of His fast and we can learn that Satan was trying to stop Jesus from going to the cross because Satan’s temptation were directed to Jesus’ Kingly side.  I say side but I want to make sure that we understand that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God.  The first temptation was having Jesus turn stones into bread and if He would have done that it would have disqualified Him for He would have done that for Himself, and Satan was saying I know You are a King and therefore You deserve to eat, but Jesus quoted from the book of Deuteronomy, which He did three times once for each temptation.   

The next temptation Satan took Jesus to the highest point of the temple and told Him to jump off.  Now just think if Jesus would have done that and this was about 200 feet and he kind of did a soft landing, then people would have flocked to Him knowing He was their King.  Again Jesus quotes a verse from Deuteronomy. 

The last temptation Satan wanted Jesus to worship him, but Jesus told Him to worship the Lord and only the Lord. 

We can learn from these temptations of Jesus and how Jesus did not fall into these temptations, and that is by quoting the Word of God.  Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  We can also learn from Ephesians six where we are instructed to put on the whole armor of God and the last piece we put on is the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

I am so very thankful that Jesus the last Adam did not fall in the wilderness like the first Adam fell to temptation in the beautiful garden and I am glad for the way that Jesus overcame temptation through the Word of God, which teaches me that I too can do the same.