Acing the Devil's Tests, Part 2

Whether it's overindulging at the dinner table, letting our jealousy consume us, or allowing our minds to cultivate unhealthy ambition, most of us are a little embarrassed by the things that tempt us. And yet temptation is a test that no one escapes. In this passage, we're invited to see Jesus alone in the wilderness transform His temptation into moments of triumph.

His response is a model for us all. Chuck titled today's message, Acing the Devil's Tests, and we begin with prayer. How marvelous is your grace, our Father, to come to us and to meet us in our deepest needs, and to rescue us from stupid decisions, foolish allurements, subtle temptations that have a way of worming into our minds, beginning to convince us that wrong is right, is not that at all. How great is your grace.

How profound is your compassion. You have never once shamed us. You've never once thrown us out because we walked our own way. You never once turned against us. You've never once turned a deaf ear to our prayers. You hear us when we call, and you are touched with the feelings of our infirmities. How strong is your arm of protection.

How thick that shield that guards us from the assaults and darts and attacks of the enemy. We live in a wicked world. It is easy for us, our Father, to care more about what others may think than we do about what you have said.

To fight battles on our own and to think foolishly that we can win them through secular means and human effort. Show us over and over again, Lord, that there is no one else to turn to but you. You alone have the words of eternal life. And our Father, how deep is your love for us. Astonishingly deep. Limitless.

Beyond the deepest ocean, farther than our minds can take us. Your love is there. Never changing.

Always pulling for us. Filled with encouragement and affirmation. Dripping with forgiveness.

Thank you. With a God like this, please forgive us for turning to the other things in this life to find our security, our hope, and our reason to go on. As we open the vault of truth and peer deep within this mine of treasures, may we understand the dialogue between the Son of God and the sinister one, Lucifer himself. And may we, if never before, take you seriously and trust you completely. Our gifts come with confidence that they will be used wisely and well. We pray that integrity will mark the use of these funds, that they will be able to sprout wings and spread the good word of our Lord beyond our own community and into our state and our country and our world.

A world that has lost its way. May your love draw us back again and again to yourself. And may we not doubt the sincerity of your promise that you so loved the world that you gave your one and only son that whoever believes in him would never perish. We may die, but we will never perish but have eternal life. This is our prayer today and these are our gifts, both in the name of Christ, who loves us, gave himself for us, and everyone said, amen.

We are 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 resume Chuck's message about acing the devil's tests. 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. 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. As Coleridge wrote in his rhyme of the ancient mariner, alone, alone, 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 them 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. 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.

That's no appeal there. He comes in compassion. Hey, come here, man. We got to talk about this.

I mean, I just heard it. 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. 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.

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. He's no plaything. He plays for keeps. He wants your soul.

Don't ever doubt it. He wants everything about you. Everything. He wants your marriage. He wants your motive. He wants your ambition. He wants your dreams. He wants your successes. He wants to team up with you.

Doing it together with Mr. Charm, the angel of light, Lucifer is ready for a partnership. But 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 hadn't planned for the test, but he knew the word of God. It had been streaming into his mind for 30 years growing up in the home cooking of his mother Mary in the village of Nazareth. Day after day, year after year, he knew Deuteronomy backwards and forwards. He could quote it at the moment, and Satan has no answer for the scriptures.

But it doesn't stop. By the way, remember Peter's words, The devil is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Katapino is the Greek word. Kata means down. Pino is liquid.

To drink down, we would say to swallow up. Like a roaring lion seeking anyone to swallow up. He's not playing games with Jesus. It's not only about bread, it's about doing what he tells him to do. It's about meeting his own needs, not trusting in the Father to nourish him in his own providential way.

It's a test designed to get him to mistrust the provident provisions of God. You will face them regularly married or single. You will constantly be tempted to do it your way. Your way. And the devil will be there applauding it, saying, Welcome. Come on. There's lots of stones we can turn into bread together. No.

Verse 5 is the second test. Then the devil drove him? No. Whipped him? No. Pushed him?

No. He took him. Come on, Jay.

Come on, man. Let me help you here. Takes him into Jerusalem, takes him up to what is called in the Greek text the wing of the temple. It was apparently at that time a precipice that hung high over the street 450 feet below, over 40 stories.

They're standing there together, and he said, You're the Son of God. Jump. Jump off this thing. You think people won't follow you? They've been looking for signs for all this time. And they think when Messiah comes, he's going to be this miracle-working Savior, this miracle-working jump. Well, they'll follow you for the thousands.

You won't have to begin with a little small deal. They'll get in line to watch you jump. And if that isn't enough, Satan quotes from Psalm 91. Look at that. You think you're the only one who knows the Scriptures. Your enemy knows them better than you and I ever will know them. But he will order his angels to protect you, Jesus.

They'll hold you up with their hands so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone. Check it out for yourself. Psalm 91. The problem is he twists it out of context.

He misquotes a part of it, and he leaves out a section that ought to be mentioned. This has nothing to do with sensationalism, which is the temptation. Do something sensational, man.

Long enough for this wilderness nonsense. Why, your angels whom you could name one after another, you created all of us. Well, they'll become your parachute.

Jump! Jesus responds, the Scriptures also say you must not test the Lord your God. Well, what's wrong with this test? It's presumption. It's the sin of presumption.

It happens all the time. People do it in the name of faith. They play with snakes and they call it faith. They play with illness and they call it faith. They promise miracles of this and miracles of that as if miracles were every day. They call it faith, and if you don't have it happen, you don't have the faith. It's sensationalism.

It will always be with us, and it is a cheap way to minister. Those who follow the sensationalists are headed for a dead-end street. One man puts it this way. He who seeks to attract others to him by providing them with sensations in a way in which there is literally no future. Why?

Because they'll always want more. If you'll jump from there, how about jumping from here? If you'll jump from here, why not go up there?

And if you'll jump, why not? Then they start in. Remember this as you lead ministries and as you're involved in ministries, many of you are. Remember that there's always a tendency on the part of the flesh to rely on the flesh to do the Spirit's work. Don't go there.

Don't go there. A number of years ago, I came across a little cartoon-type clip out of a Christian magazine. It's called A Meeting of the Board, a Satire.

It's if Jesus had done things our way back then. So it's a conversation as the disciples meet, as if they're a group of elders, and Jesus is the leader, and Pete begins the conversation. This meeting has been called at the request of Matt, John, Tom, Little Jim, and Bart. Bart, will you please lead us in prayer? Sure, Bart says.

Almighty God, we ask your blessing on all we do and say and earnestly pray that you will see our side as your side. Amen. Let's just start there. Pete, Jesus, we've been following you around for some time and we're getting concerned about the attendance figures. Tom, how many were on the Hill yesterday?

Tom, 37. It's getting to be ridiculous, says Peter. You're going to have to pep things up, man. We expect things to happen. John, I'd like to suggest you pull off more miracles.

That walking on the water bit was the most exciting thing I've ever seen, but only a few of us saw it. Now, if a thousand or so had a chance to witness it, we would have more than we could handle on the Hill. Little Jim, I agree.

The healing miracles are terrific, but only a limited number really get to see what has happened. Let's have more water to wine, more fish and chips. Never hurts to fill their stomachs, deal more storms, give more signs. That's what the people need.

Pete, right. Another thing, publicity is essential and you tell half the people you cure to keep it quiet. What's that about? Let the word out, Jesus. Matt, I'm for miracles, but I want to hear a few stories I can understand.

Just those who have ears to hear stuff just clouds the issue. You have to make it clear, Jesus, or most of us are not going to be able to take your thing home. Big Jim, I'd like to offer an order of service. First, tell a story, then give a big miracle, followed by an offering. And then maybe followed by a small miracle to bring them back next time. Oh yeah, you can pray if you like. Tom, we've got to do something.

Jim, that's for sure, attendance has been awful. Judas, I'd just like to say if we're going to keep meeting in this upper room, we ought to do something about the carpet. All so secular. This is the way people want it, give them what they want. Scripture says you must not test the Lord your God, presumption is a sin.

We won't go there, I'm not jumping. Most of us can readily picture this fictitious scenario in which the disciples attempt to manipulate their evangelistic efforts. This is Insight for Living, and there's much more that Chuck Swindoll wants to show us in the fourth chapter of Matthew.

He titled today's message, Acing the Devil's Tests. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. In the first century, Matthew, under the inspiration of God's Spirit, recorded the story of Israel's king. He starts with Jesus' arrival in Bethlehem, through his earthly ministry, all the way to the Great Commission, in which he commanded us to make disciples around the world. Over the next few weeks and months, we'll take this journey in Matthew together.

It's a series Chuck has titled, The King of Kings. Now in order to make the most of this brand new teaching series, we're inviting you to add Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew to your personal collection. The commentary on Matthew comes in two hardbound volumes, and they're written in a style that's easy to understand, and the format is simple to navigate.

Chuck's practical insight, conversational style, and humor bring a warmth and accessibility rarely found in commentaries. These reference books belong to anyone who's a student of the Bible. So to purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew, go to insight.org slash offer. Or if you prefer, call us.

If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888. Insight for Living Ministries is a nonprofit organization fueled not by the purchase of commentaries, but through the voluntary donations of grateful supporters. And we're thankful for the loyal friends who've come alongside us with their generous donations. Our friends and families are facing complicated cultural issues today, and men and women all over North America and around the world are looking to Insight for Living for biblical clarity and direction. To help us continue, you can give a donation by calling us. If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888, or give online at insight.org. Chuck Swindoll's helpful message about acing the devil's tests continues Thursday right here on Insight for Living. is strictly prohibited.