SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/5/2020 10:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Temptation of Serving Self”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 4:3-4
Message of the verses: “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.’’”
I want at this time to quote Deuteronomy 8:3 which is the verse that Jesus quoted to Satan, but there is more to the verse than He quoted because there were no verses until much later on. By doing this we will get the whole context: “"He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.”
If we would go back to Genesis three we would see that the temptation that Satan gives to Jesus is the same kind of temptation that Satan gave to Eve and that temptation was casting doubt on God’s Word. Satan asked Eve “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). This question Satan gave to Eve caused her to question God’s command. Satan’s first word to Jesus was “If you are the Son of God” and MacArthur writes “the Greek conditional phrase assumes that Jesus is indeed the divine Son whom the Father had just proclaimed Him to be at His baptism (3:17). Before he gave the direct temptation, Satan gave the one direct temptation; Satan gave this one simply to set up the rest. Satan was hoping to persuade Jesus to demonstrate His power to verify that it was real. That would mean violating God’s plan that He set that power aside in humiliation and use it only when the Father willed. Satan wanted Jesus to disobey God. Affirming His deity and rights as the Son of God would have been to act independently of God.”
Satan in this temptation wants Jesus to act against God’s plan and that would be for Him to “command that these stones become bread,” something Jesus had the power to do, for after all He is the One who made the stones in the first place, so to make them turn into bread would be no problem if it were not doing something that was not in the will of His Father to do. Jesus feed probably a total of 25,000 people counting the women and children when He made bread and fish for them on two different occasions so the power was there to do it, but again it would have been against the will of His Father to do it.
John MacArthur writes “The purpose of the temptation was not simply for Jesus to satisfy His physical hunger, but to suggest that His being hungry was incompatible with His being the Son of God. He was being tempted to doubt the Father’s Word, the Father’s love, and the Father’s provision. He had every right, Satan suggested, to use His own divine powers to supply what the Father had not. The Son of God certainly was too important and dignified to have to endure such hardship and discomfort. He had been born in a stable, had to flee to Egypt for His life, spent thirty years in an obscure family in an obscure village in Galilee, and forty days and nights unattended, unrecognized, and unpitied in the wilderness.” I had to look up the word unpitied and when you look at it as unpitying it means unmerciful. “Surely that was more than enough ignominy to Him to identify with mankind. But now that the Father Himself had publicly declared Him to be His Son, it was time for Jesus to use some of His divine authority for His own personal benefit.”
In the crucifixion of Jesus Christ He would hear similar things from the crowds around Him when they said “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 37:40). We know from Scripture that Jesus is the second Adam and when we look at what happened to the first Adam we saw that he ate the forbidden fruit (whatever it was), and now Satan tires again with the Second Adam with bread.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Jesus came to do the Father’s will and since He saved me I too am to do what the Father wants me to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I want to do the Father’s will and I know that there are many times when I am tempted not to do it, but by His power I will not fall to those temptations. I desire to continue to learn humility, and to have joy while studying the Word of God.
2/5/2020 11:01 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment