MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/6/2026
10:27 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
Introduction
to “The Temptation of the Messiah”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Luke
4:1-13
Message of the verses: “1 Jesus, full of the
Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the
wilderness 2for
forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days,
and when they had ended, He became hungry. 3And the devil said
to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4And Jesus answered
him, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE.’” 5And he led Him up
and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6And the devil said
to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed
over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7“Therefore if You
worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” 8Jesus answered him,
“It is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND
SERVE HIM ONLY.’” 9And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the
pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw
Yourself down from here;10for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS
CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,’11and ‘ON their HANDS
THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP,
SO
THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’” 12And Jesus answered
and said to him, “It is said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD
YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’” 13When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him
until an opportune time.”
Now as my custom while looking at
John MacArthur’s commentary I will quote the introduction that he has for the
verses that he will go over in the chapter.
“There are many ways to verify the
truthfulness of Scripture. There is
secular ancient history, and archaeology corroborates the biblical record. The Bible also contains hundreds of
prophecies that were fulfilled exactly as predicted. Despite being written before the age of
modern scientific discoveries, the Bible is completely accurate when it
discusses scientific matters. The book
of Job, written during the patriarchal period, says that God ‘stretches out the
north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing’ (Job. 26:7). Commenting on the scientific implications of
that statement Henry M. Morris writes,
“Job was
saying that the north-pointing axis of the earth extended indefinitely beyond
the boundaries of the earth’s surface, pointing to the polar star and orienting
both the geography of the earth and the corresponding starscape of the stellar
heavens….Furthermore, the earth was not resting on the shoulders of Atlas or on
the back of the cosmic elephant….Suspended in the formless void of space
without support, the earth is rigidly maintained in its orbit by a mysterious
force we call gravity, but which could just as rationally be called nothing—or perhaps
better, the will of God. (The Remarkable Record of Job [Grand Rapids;
Baker, 1988], 40).”
“But the most compelling proof of
the Bible’s truthfulness is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every character devised by fallen, finite
human minds is somehow flawed. It is
utterly impossible that mankind could invent Jesus as He is portrayed on the pages
of Scripture. He is absolutely, sinlessly
perfect; His wisdom is unerringly profound; His understanding of human nature
unparalleled; His response to every situation He faced perfectly consistent
with the nature of God. It is also inconceivable that
Satan and the demons could have invented the story of Jesus to deceive the
human race. Absolute evil cannot create absolute good. And why would demons or humans invent a
person who defeats and ultimately destroys Them?
“The perfection of the Lord Jesus
Christ is nowhere more evident than in the story of His confrontation with the
archenemy of God, Satan. The devil assaulted
Him with wave after wave of temptations, seeking to lure Him into sin and
derail the plan of redemption. But Jesus
defeated him, demonstrating the power He had to ‘destroy the works of the devil’
(1 John 3:8) through His death and resurrection. His victory over Satan in the wilderness laid
the groundwork for His later triumphs at Gethsemane, Calvary, and the
grave. Without His victory over the
devil’s temptations, Christ’s messianic credentials would not have been
complete. If He was not able to defeat
Satan in a head to head confrontation, He would not be able to redeem sinners.
“But Jesus was not only the divine
Son of God, but also the fully human son of Adam (Luke 3:38).” “the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of
Adam, the son of God.” “It was in His
humanity that Jesus endured the onslaught of temptation, ‘for God cannot be
tempted by evil’ (James 1:13). The
question arises as to whether or not Jesus was inpeccable; that is, not able to
sin. Obviously, Jesus did not sin; He ‘knew
no sin’ (2 Cor. 5:21), ‘committed no
sin’ (1 Peter 2:22), and ‘in Him there is no sin’ (1 John 3:5); cf. Heb. 4:15;
7:26; John 8:46). Some theologians
however, believed that He could have sinned, even though He did not. But the union of Christ’s divine and human
natures precludes the possibility of Jesus having sinned as Wanye Grudem notes:
“If Jesus
as a person had sinned, involving both his human and divine natures in sin,
then God Himself would have sinned, and he would have ceased to be God. Yet that is clearly impossible because of the infinite holiness of God’s
nature. Therefore if we are
asking if it was actually possible for Jesus to have sinned, it seems
that we must conclude that it
was not possible. The union of
his human and divine natures in one person prevented it. (Systematic
Theology [Grand Rapids; Zondervan 1994], 538-39. Italics in original.)
“But even
though Jesus could not sin, that does not mean the temptations He faced were
not genuine; their reality did not depend of His ability to respond. Actually, since He never yielded to them, He
endured their full force. Temptation
was, therefore, more real for Him than for those who yield to it. It could be so intense that it made His ‘sweat
[become] like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground’ (Luke 22:44).”
I have heard that a person under
great stress can actually sweat blood and so I found the answer to whether a
person can sweat blood under severe stress:
“ Yes — in extremely rare cases, a person under intense physical
or psychological stress can sweat blood, a condition known medically as hematidrosis (also
called hematohidrosis or hemidrosis)
What is
hematidrosis?
Hematidrosis
is the appearance of blood-tinged sweat or blood oozing from the skin, often
from the forehead, nose, eyes, fingernails, or umbilicus Wikipedia.
It is very rare and not a common medical condition, so it is
often diagnosed only after ruling out other causes such as bleeding disorders,
high blood pressure, or skin diseases.”
“Comparing Adam’s temptation with
that of Jesus reveals some obvious differences and makes Jesus’ victory over
His temptation all the more remarkable.
Adam faced temptation in the best possible surroundings, the garden of
Eden. Jesus faced temptation in the
worst imaginable setting—the wasteland of the Judean desert. Adam lived in the sinless perfection of the
pre-fall world. Jesus lived in a sinful,
fallen world. No overwhelming buildup of
temptation lured Adam into sin, because he yielded to the first temptation he
faced. Jesus, on the other hand, faced
repeated temptations over the first thirty years of His life (Heb. 4:15), and
intense temptation during the forty days before the final three recorded
here. Adam feasted on all the lush
provisions the garden had to offer.
Jesus was weakened for forty days of fasting. In the best of circumstances, Adam fell; in
the worst imaginable circumstances, Jesus did not. The consequences of Adam’s fall to temptation
were lethal to the human race; the consequences of Jesus’ triumph over
temptation were life-giving.
“Jesus’ conflict with Satan unfolds
in three scenes: the preparation for the
battle; the pattern of the battle, and the postmortem of the battle.”
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life today: Now because Adam sinned, it caused many great
problems for the human race as we life with them each and every day of our
lives, especially seeing people die, which would not have happened if Adam did
not sin. Now because it was and is
impossible for Jesus to sin, then that meant that He could go to the cross and
pay for the sins of the world, to which I am so very thankful. People still die, but believers when they die
go to heaven as they await their glorified bodies so that they can return to
planet earth when the Lord returns as seen in Revelation 19.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I am trusting the Lord to continue to take
care of my wife as she battles that terrible disease of cancer.
5/6/2026
11:43 AM
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