SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/8/2020 10:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus: 2nd Temptation “Testing God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 4:5-7
Message of the verses: “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.’’”
We learned in our last several SD’s that Satan was tempting Jesus to use His divine powers to serve His own interest, and we learned that this did not work, so now Satan give Jesus another temptation that is to put God to the test.
We are really sure how “the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple.” I have always wanted to fly by myself like the angels do, but I guess I will have to wait until the rapture and after that to fly. I say this because perhaps this is how the devil got Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. This location on top of the temple has some interesting history, but first let us talk about where it was located; even though we are not really sure as to the location we can make an educated guess. We do know for sure that Herod did some reconstruction of the Jewish temple when He was in power and John MacArthur writes about this: “It must have been part of the reconstruction ordered by Herod the Great and most likely was on the eastern side of the Temple, overlooking the Kidron Valley. ‘The pinnacle’ may have been the roof that extended out over Herod’s portico. Josephus reports that the drop to the valley floor was some 450 feet. According to early tradition, James, the head of the Jerusalem church, was martyred by being thrown from that portico.” There was a false messiah who tried to jump off this portico but he killed himself in doing this.
Satan was hoping to undermine Jesus’ relation to God in His divine sonship as he introduced the words “if You are the Son for God.” Satan knew very well that Jesus was the Son of God, but he was saying that if You are the Son of God go ahead and prove it to the world that is who You are.
We saw in the first temptation there was a need, and that need for Jesus was food, and now in this second temptation a need was to be created. Satan even used Scripture to make this temptation more persuasive as the devil quoted Psalm 91:11-12 as he said “for it is written, ‘He will give His angels charge concerning You’; and ‘On their hands the will bear you up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.’”
This was a clever trick from the devil as in the first temptation Jesus said that He had to live by the Word of God, and now Satan is giving Him the Word of God, so he is saying “You claim to be God’s Son and You claim to trust His Word; if so, why don’t Your demonstrate Your sonship and prove the truth of God’s Word by putting God to the test, even a Scriptural test. Satan was trying to get God to be involved in helping His Son not so unlike the first temptation where he was trying to get Jesus to use His divine power to help Himself. He is saying that if God cares for You that He will not allow You to fall off the temple and be killed.
Lord willing we will continue looking at this second temptation in our next SD.
2/8/2020 11:01 AM
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