Most of our personal temptations occur when we're all alone. We look at the plate of sugar-ridden desserts and think, no one will see me gobble down a few.
Or while preparing our taxes sitting alone at a desk, we're tempted to manipulate the numbers to work in our favor. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll teaches from Matthew chapter 4, where we find Jesus alone in the wilderness, alone that is with His tempter. So how do we resist inevitable moments of temptation? Chuck titled today's message, Acing the Devil's Tests. If you have brought your Bible with you, please turn to Matthew chapter 4. The first 11 verses cover the most intriguing scene where Jesus, before His ministry has really gotten underway, encounters the temptations of the devil directly, face-to-face, toe-to-toe. The encounter is contained for us in Matthew chapter 4, verses 1 through 11.
I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. During that time the devil came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus told him, No.
The Scriptures say people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, jump off. For the Scriptures say, He will order His angels to protect you, and they will hold you up with their hands, so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone. Jesus responded, The Scriptures also say you must not test the Lord your God. Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. I will give it all to you, he said, if you will kneel down and worship me. Get out of here, Satan, Jesus told him. For the Scriptures say you must worship the Lord your God and serve only Him. Then the devil went away, the angels came and took care of Jesus. You're listening to Insight for Living.
To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now let's begin the message titled, Acing the Devil's Tests. Most people have cheated on tests. It may be in your case that when you came to know Christ you decided all cheating is over. From now on as a Christian I will no longer go there.
It doesn't mean you're not tempted to do so, but you've determined your days of cheating are past. I read this true testimony this past week which I thought was timely and many could identify with it. The man writes, when I became a Christian a year after graduating from high school everything changed on the inside and eventually on the outside. So when I transferred to Wheaton College to major in Bible and Theology, I vowed never again to cheat. This vow, however, was quickly tested.
In my second semester of New Testament Greek, which I'm convinced uses the same mental muscles as math, I missed the midterm exam due to the flu. My professor graciously allowed me to take the test on my own time. He told me he would leave a copy of it in his mailbox outside of his office.
I could pick it up, take it whenever I felt better. A few days later, in good health, I stood before his mailbox. I saw the test and grabbed it. Yet as I looked down in the mailbox again, I noticed another exam, completed by one of the class's best students. I looked around.
The hallway was empty. I cautiously lifted the other exam. It felt heavy, as if a thousand fat devils were dancing on it. Yet as heavy as it felt, it was as if a calm, reasonable voice whispered from it, take and copy, take and copy. I heeded that advice. I placed both exams in my backpack and hurried across the street to the library. I opened the backpack, placed the blank test on the right, and then slowly lifted the other exam.
Then I stopped. I didn't place it down on the left. Instead, convicted by the Spirit of God who sees all that cheating is a sin, and that such a sin would be offensive to God, my teacher, and my classmate, I placed the completed exam in my backpack again. I walked back across the street, placed it back in the professor's mailbox. I returned to the library and took the test on my own. I passed the test, both the Greek test and the temptation test. What a victory for me, one among many, for by God's grace I never cheated in college, graduate school, or seminary. But I certainly was from time to time tempted to do so. He continues, we all struggle with various temptations. Maybe you're tempted to cheat or lie, steal or lust. Maybe you're tempted to look the other way when wrongdoing is done around you. Maybe you're tempted to indulge in sexual sin when you're on a business trip, when you're all alone and no one's looking. Maybe you're tempted to indulge sinful anger, and that tongue of yours is like a wildfire that once one spark hits the surface, you let rage consume you and anyone in your way.
Maybe you're tempted to engage in pride, to think you're better than everyone else, especially the weak-willed and ill-willed, those who cheat, lie, steal, lust, and rage. I made an interesting discovery over the years that when God gives you a test, it's impossible for you to cheat on it. First off, he doesn't write his tests down. I find it interesting that Jesus never once wrote anything, never once is it recorded, except in John 8 where standing beside the woman taken in adultery, he knelt down and he wrote something in the sand. All kinds of speculation has been offered as to what he wrote down. That's the only place in all of the accounts of all of his life recorded in scripture where he wrote anything.
He never once gave the disciples a written exam. They never had a reason to ask, will this be on the test? It certainly would be, but it wouldn't be written.
It would be experienced. That's why you can't cheat on the test the Lord sends your way. The process is very simple and straightforward when he gives us a test.
Think about it. First, the test is designed for us alone. My test in every detail is not your test.
There are no cloned tests. What hits you hardest may not hit me the hardest and vice versa. Every test is uniquely prepared for the one who will live it out. Second, there are really only two results when we take the Lord's tests.
We either pass the test or we fail it. Third, in every test, God's desire is always the same. He wants us to pass. He wants us to do well. He wants us to grow when he gives us a test. He doesn't want us to falter and fail. Being the God of great grace, he desires us to do well, to stand tall, to pass with high marks. I've often compared him to the swimming instructor on the day of the final exam. Those folks who have been learning to swim dive into the water and every swimming instructor has the same hope that they make it to the other side.
No swimming instructor hopes they'll drown. It's always, you can make it. You can go there.
You can do it. And that's the way it is with the Lord our God when he tests us. The devil is altogether different. Nothing delights him like our failures.
His tests are always designed to lead us into failure. His great hope is to see us yield to his subtle temptation and sin. As we come to this fourth chapter in Matthew's Gospel, we will read about tests that were designed by the devil for Jesus, specifically with the hope in mind that he would fail.
The 11 verses are full of the devil. Five times he is named, once he is called Satan. All the way through, he's like the main thread in the fabric. He appears and reappears. He's engaged in one simple plan, and that's to bring Jesus down.
We have to be careful, however, that we don't make this an impractical kind of formal time of study. Practically speaking, Jesus is all alone in a wilderness. If you've never been in the Judean wilderness, you don't know what alone is all about. It is barren beyond belief. It is usually cold at night, and during the summer, especially, it is blistering hot.
There is no water. All alone in the wilderness area, on top of that, he has fasted 40 days, followed by 40 nights. He has maximum privacy, silence, and solitude. In many ways, it's a perfect setting for him to grow deeper in his relationship with the Father. We have learned in our lives, practically speaking, that when we are alone, we can hear God a little better than in the noisy crowd.
When we are fasting, holding back from so much to eat, we often grow in our sensitivity toward the Lord. And because of the silence and solitude, he is able to speak. There's everything right about this, but the danger signals are there by just being alone.
Stop and think. Eve was alone when she yielded to the serpent. David was alone on his bed when he began to take that walk on the porch and notice Bathsheba bathing below him in her backyard. Elijah was alone under the juniper tree when he asked the Lord to take his life.
King Saul was alone in the tent when depression overwhelmed him and the demons were hot after him. Judas was alone when he made the bargain with the devil to betray him for 30 pieces of silver. The old English couplet is right.
Still as of old, man by himself is priced for 30 pieces Judas sold himself, not Christ. Your mind plays tricks on you when you are tempted. And in the midst of that temptation, if you're not careful, you begin to feel sorry for yourself. Self-pity plays a major role when we are very much alone. It's as Coleridge wrote in his rhyme of the ancient mariner, alone, alone, all, all alone. Alone on a wide, wide sea and not a one took pity on my soul in agony. How alone he felt. And how alone is Jesus. While alone we can rationalize our way into wrongdoing.
We can justify our evil desires. Don't think the devil doesn't know this. He's been studying you since you were in the womb. He knows you completely. He knows every tiny chink in your armor. He knows every, every area of weakness.
He knows what appeals to you the most and the least. He knows how to shape his temptations in such a way that will bring you closer and closer to his goal of having you fall and fail. Now understand the devil can only be one place at one time.
He may be supernatural, but he is not God. Only God is omnipresent. So when the devil is here, he is nowhere else. And when he is here, he is all together here. By the way, these 11 verses form a rare account. No one else was there to tell of him except Jesus.
So somewhere in the training of Matthew and the disciples, he revealed the story of what occurred in the temptation. He alone would know. But remember, the devil is supernatural. He oozes with charm. He could lead the most successful charm school in the world. In advertising, why, he would win every Super Bowl ad that you would ever want to see. He would be so appealing you'd have to go out and buy it or taste it or try it. He knows us that well and he knows our nature that well that when he begins his often subtle approach, it just kind of unfolds out of him.
I don't want you to miss that. He's not a cute little red imp that looks like this. I have in my hand one of my favorite little guys who's been sitting on my library shelves in every home where I've lived and I look at him virtually every day. I make sure he's right there.
I want you to look at this guy. He's seen hard labor. He's gone through four little children growing up. So we've lost his pitchfork. His nose has been bent to go every way you can turn it.
He lost a horn which we put back in place. But there's nothing here that is about the devil. He isn't a toy. He isn't an imp. He isn't a red creature.
This red epidermis is unreal. He doesn't, oh I meant to mention we lost his tail. He doesn't have a fork tail. He doesn't carry a pitchfork. He doesn't have fangs. He is gloriously magnificently beautiful the angel of light. He's not this.
The only thing true of the devil is this. I've been holding out on you. I didn't tell you that it's a pop up. It used to say go to hell but it now says welcome. My sister gave it to me.
So knowing that I would often use it as an illustration she whited out the go to hell part which I wish were still there and she just simply wrote in her beautiful penmanship welcome. Come on. Come on man. Hey. Hey Jay what's going on? Look at you.
How much weight have you lost? You're not sleeping much either are you? Man. Your robe's kind of hanging on you. You look emaciated. Notice the devil came and said, well of course. He's not stomping up and down, blaspheming the living God, cursing the son of God.
There's no appeal there. He comes in compassion. Hey come here man.
We got to talk about this. I mean I just heard in your baptism heard your father. He's your father right? I heard him call you son. Is this any way to treat a son?
Would you treat your son like this? Come on man. Hey. Here's a stone.
Man. Turn it into a warm loaf and think how nourishing that would be. Smell it.
I have to tell you when I do that that I have a weakness when I go into a mall. Cinnabons. Can't even get near them but the smell follows me. Why don't they stink? But they smell like the greatest cinnamon that's ever been made. When they're smeared on his, oh man my jaws are hurting right now just thinking about cinnamon. But Jesus it's been 40 days.
40 days man. And while you're at it, of course make thousands of loaves. There's stones everywhere. Man you could feed all of them. People are hungry all over the world and you're all about that. Let's do this together. First of all you'll be nourished and it's about time.
Oh don't think that wasn't tempting. You and I miss a meal we think we're martyrs. I mean we go to meals it's like what time does Cheesecake Factory open? Bring on three of those meals. 40 days. 40 days and nights stumbling across locusts and scorpions and snakes and the barrenness, the howling winds of the wilderness.
I thought you were his son. William Barkley writes, we must always remember that the person who is gifted with charm will be tempted to use that charm to get away with anything. The person gifted with words will be tempted to use his command of words to produce glib excuses to justify his own conduct. The person with a vivid and sensitive imagination will undergo agonies of temptation that a person more stolid will never experience. The person with great gifts of mind will be tempted to use these gifts for himself and not for others to become the master not the servant of men. It is the grim fact of temptation that it is just where we are strongest that we must forever be on the watch. I love Jesus' response.
He doesn't play with the enemy. So Jesus told him, no, love the way this is handled in the new living scriptures. No, the scriptures say people do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Deuteronomy 8.3, check it out. He knew Deuteronomy backwards and forwards. He could quote it at the moment and Satan has no answer for the scriptures.
Face to face with the enemy, Jesus turned every temptation into an opportunity to reflect his deity. You're listening to the Bible teaching of Chuck Swindoll and he titled today's message Acing the Devil's Tests. In the event you missed any program in this brand new study of Matthew, remember you can catch up by streaming the audio directly from the Insight for Living website.
You'll find all the information at insightworld.org. Now behind the scenes we're quite excited about this verse by verse series called The King of Kings. It's a study through the entire book of Matthew.
We're praying that thousands, perhaps millions will join us in this exciting introduction to Israel's long awaited king. In the coming weeks and months Chuck Swindoll will guide our global audience through Matthew's account of Jesus' entire ministry on earth right through his parting words commonly known as the Great Commission. Along with the daily program, Insight for Living Ministries has prepared a number of additional resources for you and each one is designed to help you dig deeper into God's Word on your own and to apply the principles to your daily life. For example, the online Searching the Scriptures studies will complement each sermon. This gives you a way to explore the passage on your own and take notes of what you're learning.
You can even download the PDF and email it to your friends. To search the Scriptures with Chuck go to insight.org slash studies. Finally, along with the release of this brand new series on the daily program, Chuck has recently completed his verse by verse commentary on the book of Matthew as well.
It comes in two hard bound volumes. Alongside the verses in Matthew you'll also gain access to charts, maps, photos and of course Chuck's practical observations. To purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew call us. If you're listening in the United States dial 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888. Or go online to insight.org slash offer. Chuck Swindoll's brand new study through the book of Matthew continues Wednesday right here on Insight for Living. you
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