SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2020
12:35 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 of 3rd
“Worshiping Satan”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
4:8-10
Message of the verses: “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 will I give You,
if You fall down and worship me." 10 Then Jesus said to him, "Begone,
Satan! For it is written, ’YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM
ONLY’’.”
As
we look more into this temptation we know for one thing that Satan is a liar
and that he is the father of lies as Jesus stated in John chapter eight, so
when he says “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me”
we know that what he was trying to do from the beginning is to follow the same
pattern that he followed when he was first talking to Adam and Eve, and for
that matter he still does today. Most of
the time this strategy works, but it would never work when used against our
Lord, and as we go back to Satan’s rebellion against God at the very beginning
we know that he could not stand to be second, and wanted to be first and that
is why he rebelled against God in the first place. I read something or heard it a while back and
the question was asked as to how long it took Satan to fall, and the answer
given was about 20 minutes. I have to
believe this as when God created Lucifer he was perfect, but once he looked
around Satan, desired to have what God had and thus became Satan. As Satan looked at the Second Person of the
godhead becoming a man he thought that he had a chance to achieve his goal that
he had when he first fell. I have to say
that one of the things I look forward to when I get to heaven is that first of
all this old flesh will never bother me again and second I look forward to having
Satan in the fires of eternal hell.
Things will be much better then for all believers.
I
quote again John MacArthur: “And what he
gives is always is immeasurably less than he promises. For Jesus to have given in to this third
temptation would have brought the same ultimate result as His having succumbed
to either of the other two. He would
have disqualified Himself not only as King but as Savior. The statement of
those who mocked at the foot of the cross would have had to have been
reversed: ‘He saved Himself; others He
cannot save’ (see Matt. 27:42). Instead
of redeeming the world He would have joined the world. Instead of inheriting the world, He would
have lost the world. The Christ would
have played the antichrist, and the Lamb would have become the beast.” (This is a very important paragraph to think
about and then to praise the Lord for doing what He did for us.)
Now
we move onto what Jesus said to defeat Satan’s temptation and as always it came
from the book of Deuteronomy, and I will say something about that in a
moment. “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Begone,
Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall
worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’’ The tempter’s last proposal
was so preposterous that Jesus dismissed him with ‘Begone, Satan!’ (writes John
MacArthur” “The devil had stepped beyond all bounds in proposing such
unutterable wickedness. Because Satan’s
present power is only by God’s permission, when the Son commanded him to leave,
Satan had no choice but to obey. Therein
Christ demonstrated the very sovereign power Satan wanted Him to misuse!” Now I want to say a few words about the book
of Deuteronomy and how this book came about.
If you remember in the book of Numbers when twelve spies went to the
Promised Land to spy it out and 10 of them came back saying we cannot conquer
the giants there that God then stated that all people over the age of 20 would
die as Israel wondered in the wilderness for 40 years until all of them were
dead. When this second generation was
about to come into the wilderness Moses then wrote the book of Deuteronomy
which means a renewing of the Law. In
other words Moses was writing a book to help teach this second generation about
the Law and many of the things contained in it are similar to what was written
in Exodus and Leviticus. My point is
that this book that Jesus quoted to Satan after he was tempting Him all come
from Deuteronomy and if the first generation of the Israelites would have
obeyed the Lord and conquered the Promised Land then this book would not have
been written. (Something to think
about.)
To
worship God is the most important truth in the universe and Jesus would have
never compromised on that truth for sure.
We know that even after Satan was dismissed by Jesus that he would come
back again to tempt him as seen in the garden, which we will look at much later
on in the book of Matthew.
I
have mentioned that all of the things that Satan tempts Jesus with will be
given to Him later on, as we have studied earlier in the book of Revelation
that Jesus receives His promised Kingdom and will rule from Jerusalem for 1000
years after He has a strong angel put Satan into a fiery place for 1000 years.
Our
lives on this earth are not perfect, but Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:11 “"If
you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!’” Just as Jesus did not compromise we are not
to compromise as this is a cheap substitute that Satan proffers. MacArthur concludes: “We
can have the success of living righteously and pleasing our heavenly Father;
why should we settle for the brief and disappointing successes sin
produces? By God’s grace we can have the peace that passes
understanding; why should we settle for the cheap satisfactions that everyone
understands but that will soon pass?”
This is a very good question for all of us to ask ourselves.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful that it was so important that
Jesus desired to be my Savior and that He did all things necessary for that to
happen including not falling to these three temptations we have been studying
about.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to remember how much
that Jesus loves me as He became my Savior after dying on the cross for
me. I desire to continually seek
humility and to also have joy in serving Jesus as I study His Word each day.
2/12/2020 1:38 PM
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