Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.
Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville North Carolina. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again the devil taketh him into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. Now, these are eleven kind of short verses, but I hope that you and I understand the context here of how close this could have come to us spending an eternity in hell. If Jesus had swayed just one little bit to the influence or temptation of Satan, our redemption would have been lost forever. These verses show how grateful you and I should be for Jesus Christ and what he did for us. Let me say this just for a way of introduction. Satan normally, and we get that really literally from these three areas, Satan normally always tries to tempt us in three particular areas, and in these areas there's all kinds of sub areas that would apply.
And you're familiar with these. First thing is the lust of the flesh, the second is the lust of the eyes, and the third is the pride of life. Now, the lust of the flesh means your body wants it. The lust of the eyes means your emotions want it. That's why Eve in the garden, she saw the fruit, it looked good. She made an emotional decision because her emotions wanted it.
The pride of life means your ego wants it. And usually in one of these three areas, Satan will tempt the believers. Now, I must give you the context of when this particular instance happened. Do you realize that in chapter three of Matthew, in the last few verses, immediately after the heavens were opened unto Jesus, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, and Jesus was declared to be the Son of God, by God. And obviously here as He was not only declared to be the Son of God, He was declared to be the Savior of the world. And here it is, this wonderful moment, as Jesus obviously is baptized by John, and this Holy Spirit like a dove descends on our Savior, and He's declared to be the Son of God, and obviously the Holy Spirit descending on Him, and then as He left, He gave us the Holy Spirit to be the comforter and the guide to us, and all these things. And immediately after that wonderful, victorious moment, the next thing we hear about Him is He's being tempted. Now, there's some things to gain.
Number one is this. Just because you have been given divine favor or special tokens of grace by God, does not mean that you are exempt from temptation. Let me put it this way. Just because you've been saved for years, doesn't mean He's going to leave you alone. He didn't even leave Jesus alone.
And right after one of the most victorious moments in Jesus' life, He didn't leave Him alone. The second thing I want you to understand, this is normally, usually, after great honor is put on us, or after great privilege is given to us, Satan normally tempts us right away. Because that is usually when you and I are susceptible, when we've had some great honor, or some great privilege, or something great has happened to us, oftentimes pride can slip in, and that's exactly when Satan jumps on us.
So if you have something wonderful happen in your life, you just put the seatbelt on because I'm going to tell you, before long, you're going to be humbled. The third thing I want you to understand is this, that normally God prepares His people before putting them or allowing them to go to temptation. Now remember, God does not tempt.
God tests. Satan tempts. But we find here that Jesus had fasted 40 days and nights in the wilderness, and then the Spirit led Him up to be tempted. So I want you to understand, dear friend, that the Bible says that Jesus will never put on us more than we can bear. And so I'm here to tell you that whatever temptation you face in your life, you have the power inside of you, through the blood of Jesus Christ, to overcome that temptation.
Oftentimes we just don't use it. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, it seems like deader than a doornail in here this morning, and I know Satan is fighting me preaching on temptation, but you don't need to help him out. Number one, I want you to see this morning Satan's efforts. Satan's efforts.
Let's look at what happened and how we can apply it to our life. Under Satan's efforts, number one, Satan will tempt you to doubt the Word of God. Notice if you would, verse one, that Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, listen, if thou be the Son of God, isn't that what God's Word claimed? If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he, meaning Jesus, answered and said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by what? Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Now, if you've got a piece of paper and a pen and you're keeping notes, you need to write this down. Now listen, as we look at these verses, under Satan's efforts, and Satan will tempt you to doubt the Word of God, number one, you've got to understand this under this, Satan will always do this when you are weary. Jesus had just been 40 days and 40 nights fasting in the wilderness.
He was weary. And that means this, there was a mental battle going on. Many of you, if you've ever fasted, and we're going to talk about that in a little bit, and fasting means that you do without physically to give yourself focus and time on that which is spiritual. And many times, obviously, we say fasting means I'm doing without food for a period of time because I want to give the time that I would normally spend eating food or around food so that I can spend that extra time praying to the Lord over spiritual things, over a particular subject matter.
I believe personally that fasting could be food, it could be anything else, it might be fasting television, it might be fasting activity, it might be fasting entertainment, whatever the case might be. Whenever there is a special thing in your life, a burden or a breakthrough that you need, that means setting aside things that the flesh would desire to give you time and to show God that you are focused on Him. And you'll find that Jesus had just done that 40 days and 40 nights. He was weary mentally.
You mark it down, that's exactly when Satan's going to come at you, when you're tired. He's going to make you doubt just about everything and everybody that you've ever been taught from the Bible. He'll make you doubt what the Bible says, He'll make you doubt the promises, He'll go through all that.
Why? Because He always does it when we're weary. Number two, He will always do it when you are weak. You see, Jesus was weary, which means mentally, but He was also weak, which means physically. He had not had food for 40 days and nights. He was starved physically. Now remember, He was all God and He was all man, but the man side of Jesus was starved. He had been without food. He was literally probably so weak. And by the way, if you've ever fasted, and those of you that have ever participated in it, if you've ever gotten serious into fasting, and usually people that are even serious might make it three days.
That's a very serious fast. Normally you'll drink water or something like that, but you'll go three days. And I have known people that have gone a week, I've known people that have actually done the 40 days, and those that have actually tried 40 days, literally what they faced mentally, the attacks of Satan and your body and all those things cannot be described. And yet they didn't even have, as we know from the book of Mark, that Satan was tempting Jesus during these 40 days and nights. So they didn't face all that Jesus faced as He had Satan himself on His back.
There is no way to know the shape Jesus was in mentally and physically. And then Satan shows up. Now listen to me, I want you to get this. Satan will come at you when you're tired and when you're weak. When you have had mental battles, when you are tired physically, when you are weak physically, and when you have all these things, I'm going to tell you, Satan will throw lies in your head. The third thing I want you to see from this is he will always do it when you are wanting. What was Jesus wanting? He needed physical nourishment.
He desired that. And so Satan came to him because he knew that he was wanting. And by the way, when Satan said, hey, why don't you look at these stones and why don't you make these stones into bread? You think about this, there was nowhere else to get food in the wilderness where they were.
There wasn't a McDonald's, there wasn't even a garden, they were in the wilderness, it was dry, it was a desert. And literally Jesus was famished and He was weak. And I'm going to be honest with you, there's nothing sinful about eating bread.
Except what Dr. Atkins says, but other than that. There would be nothing inherent sinful about Jesus turning a stone into bread. There's nothing sinful about that, He was God, He has the right to do whatever He wants to do. And it didn't seem like an unreasonable request, and that is often how Satan comes at you.
It sounds reasonable, and it sounds like it makes sense, but he always has an agenda behind it. He looks at Jesus when He's weary, when He's weak, and He's wanting. Now why would Satan do this particular thing if you are really the son of God, why don't you cast these stones and make them bread? Why was he saying that?
Now listen to me, I want you to get this. This was an occasion that he was trying to make Jesus question whether or not his father was really taking care of him. And his point was this, that if you are really the son of God, God would not do this to you.
If He was really your father, why would He allow you to get in a situation where you are this weak and this hungry and provide you nothing to eat? You've got to understand that what Satan was trying to do was to tempt Jesus. He was trying to get Jesus to question his father's care. He was trying to get Jesus to question his father's word. He was trying to get Jesus to even literally think that I can't believe my father would get me in this kind of condition.
Does that not sound familiar? How many times in your life you think if God is loving God in all that I've tried to do all these years, why would God let this happen in my life? An old Satan creeps up on your shoulder and he begins to make you doubt everything you've ever been taught from the Word of God. Now, Jesus makes a reply here. Notice this in verse 4. He says, it is written.
By the way, that was the reply He gave every time. He always used God's Word. It is written. It is written. It is written. Listen, and by the way, He wrote it. He wrote it. He can quote it. But it's amazing that even Jesus found it necessary to use God's Word to respond.
But now, notice what He says. He says, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Now, He said it is written.
Where is that written? This was a cross reference of Jesus to Deuteronomy chapter 8. Now, if you're keeping notes, you can write that passage down, verses 1 through 3.
Now, let me just read them to you. This is what Jesus was talking about. It had already been written. These promises had already been made.
Listen to this. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do that ye may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. Here we are, the children of Israel, and obviously God has made promise to them of the promised land. Verse 2, listen. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness. In other words, if God's taking care of you all the way from now, He'll take care of you the rest of the way.
Listen to this. To humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or no. And He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger. Deuteronomy chapter 8. Now, where is Jesus in Matthew chapter 4?
He is hungering. Deuteronomy chapter 8. Suffer thee to hunger to feed thee with man of which thou knewest not. Neither did thy fathers know that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
Dear friends, there would have been nothing wrong or sinful about Jesus making a stone into bread. But if He had, it would have showed that He doubted His Father's word. And if He had done that, it would show that He was doubting His Father's care.
And if He had done that, it would show that He was not dependent on the Father. How many times do you and I, we try to meet our needs ourselves instead of trusting the Father to do it? What's really going on when you and I go ahead of God and we decide we're going to try to fix things in our life before He does? What is really going on is you and I are doubting His word and all the promises in it.
When God says, I will supply every need according to His riches in Christ Jesus. When God makes promise after promise like that, when you and I try to fix our problems ourselves, it is nothing but temptation of Satan and we are literally letting him and everyone know that we doubt the Father's word, we doubt the Father's care, and we are not totally dependent upon Him. Satan will always try to get you to doubt His word.
He even tried to get Jesus to doubt it and He wrote it. I can't tell you how many times talking to people at church sometimes come for counseling and different things and they say, you know, I'm getting to the point, I'm beginning to doubt everything I've ever been taught. Why? Old Satan. Satan's tempting you. He's putting questions in your mind and you're beginning to doubt whether God's word is really true or whether it's really accurate or whether God's care is really sufficient for you. Dear friend, look at me. His word is sufficient, His care is sufficient, and you can trust Him.
I want you to notice number two. Satan will tempt you to alter the will of God. He'll tempt you to doubt the word of God and he will also tempt you to alter the will of God. Look at verse five. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city. How'd they get there?
We don't know. We don't know if they walked or we don't know if Jesus and Him just went there, which they both have the ability to do, by the way. If you remember, as we were talking about angels and Satan in our Wednesday nights, we talked about the fact that Satan can move anywhere in the world he wants to in an instant. The problem is he can't be everywhere at once like God is.
So he's limited. But Satan can move there and, by the way, Jesus is God. He could appear there in a matter of a second just like Satan could too. We don't know how they got there.
I like to just imagine just, boom, they were there. I don't know. But we know this in verse five that the devil took him. The devil led him. In other words, the devil said, hey, let's go here.
And notice this. He took him up into the holy city, which was Jerusalem, by the way, and seteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, the highest part of the temple. Verse six. And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Now, Satan's getting a little nastier here.
He started easy. He started with the $100 question, and then he moved on to the $500 question. Satan takes Jesus to the temple, the holy city, Jerusalem, and it's the temple in the holy city of Jerusalem. Now, just think about this. Jesus takes them up there, and he says, if you'll just jump off the temple, you know the Bible said that he's going to give his angels charge concerning thee, and they're going to protect you, and as you jump off that temple, and they save you, and literally you could just almost like glide or fly above everybody, and you'll be safe, and then now they'll know that you're God and all these things. Now, you say, well, I don't really know if that would really be tempting, preacher. Oh, hold on.
Wait a second. Think about where he's at. They're on top of the temple, the religious crowd, the very crowd that always gave Jesus problems, the religious hypocrites, the ones that were trying to deny him, the ones that were saying he was not God, the ones that were saying he was a false prophet, the ones that were constantly following everything he did, trying to find some way to snag him and to prove him wrong. Think of how tempting it would be at the temple where they were to finally in front of them show them he's God.
Think about this. What an opportunity to show these religious leaders that they were wrong and he was right. What an opportunity to turn all the haters into believers.
If everybody saw that, they would think, oh, my goodness, look at that. This guy jumps off the temple and angels hold him and bring him to safety. Of all places to put God right on top of the house of God. Of all places to tempt Jesus right above the religious crowd. And, dear friend, I'm here to tell you it happens just about every service here at Kerwin Baptist Church. Satan tempts you right in God's house.
You say, what do you mean? What does he tempt me to do? He tries to get you to tempt God and here's why.
You say, well, you know what, I'll live the way I want to. He still has to take me to heaven. Dear friends, that is tempting God. For you to say I can do what I want, live like I want, if I decide I'm just going to jump off the temple, it doesn't matter if it's the will of my father or not, I'm going to do this so I can show everybody that I'm God. That's exactly what would happen if Jesus had done what he asked. And how many times does God convict our heart in church and we tell him I'm not going to go forward, I'm not going to get this right, I'm going to keep doing what I want to do and you're still going to take me to heaven anyway.
Dear friends, I'm here to tell you what Satan did not, he gave some truth in this statement and he left out a bunch of truth. What he did not say is that God has promised that when you are in the will of God. But the moment you jump out of the will of God, protection is not promised. Now you might get it and you might not, but it is not guaranteed or promised apart from the will of the father.
Now listen to me, I want you to get this, please listen to me, don't give up on me yet. God did not give us promises in his word so you and I could perform our will. God gave us promises to bank on while we're doing his will.
Satan was doing nothing but trying to get Jesus to perform his will instead of the will of the father. Now listen to me, it is wrong for you and I to try to use God's power to accomplish our plan. That is tempting God. It is saying God I'm going to do what I want to do, but you're going to have to do what you told me you would do.
And dear friend look at me, no he doesn't. That's why Jesus said Satan, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Now listen to me, there are those who have been persuaded that Christ is willing to save you from your sins and there are some that actually believe also that he'll save you in your sins. I'm here to tell you the blood of Christ will save you from your sins.
But he has no, I'm trying to think of the word that I can best describe it to you. He has no thing applied to him where he has to follow a rule to let you sin and still to save you from that sin. Listen to me, he'll save us from our sins and give us salvation.
But you determined to do wrong, he has no reason that he has to protect you. By the way if you think about it once you've been saved he already has protected you. And for us to determine I'm going to do what I want to do and God's going to have to do what he already said in his word. That is tempting God. And teenagers I want you to understand something, you go and mess around and you do what you want in your life and you go party and you go do things and then you say God you're supposed to give me the wife or the husband that I need for my life and God you're supposed to bless me and God you're supposed to do that.
No he's not. You do what you want to do, you take the consequences. Don't you tempt God and think that God somehow is obligated to do something for you because of his word. God's word was given so that we could do his will with promises not so that we could sin with his guarantee. Listen to me, notice something that I found very encouraging. Look at verse 6, Satan looks to Jesus and he says this, If thou be the son of God, notice this, cast thyself down. Now I don't know if you understood this, I was reading it, read it, read it and I was like whoa.
Listen to me, what a guarantee. Satan is limited on what he can do. He couldn't push Jesus off.
He can't push you off a building. Look at me, listen, James teaches us that all of us, listen, often times we are tempted, we are drawn away of our own lust and enticed. That means this, that Satan can't entice us, but he can't make us do anything. If Jesus was going to sin, Jesus had to do it himself. And often times you say, well listen, I just can't help it, Satan made me, he didn't make you do anything. He can't, he's limited, Jesus is all powerful. Dear friend, he can entice you, but don't hurt yourself. Don't jump off the temple on your own. He can't make you do that.
That's a decision you make. Dear friend, Satan is limited in his power and he can tempt and he's got some nasty things he'll do and he'll play with your mind and he'll play with your emotions and he'll come at you when you're weak and you're weary and you're wanting and he'll do all that stuff and I'm here to tell you, look at me, you gotta understand, you can still say no because he can't make you. He doesn't have that power. I guess I was the only one that was excited about that.
You know why a lot of us aren't excited about that? Because that means it's our fault. We can't blame anybody. Well mama made this, well it's because of my family and they did this and so that's caused this in my life. Family doesn't make you do anything, Satan doesn't make you do anything.
It's our decision. Oh God, if you would clean the church up and clean this old pastor up and we would realize that you know what, I don't have to do what Satan tempts me to do and I don't have to do what he's enticed me to do. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. Dear friends, Satan will always try to get you to do your own will instead of the will of the Father. Jesus said, hey, let me tell you something Satan, you get away from me, he says this, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Number three, we're almost done. We find here, now remember this is Satan's efforts, this is everything that he tried. Number three, Satan will tempt you to neglect your worship of God.
That always happens by the way. Bad things happen in people's life, what do they do? They get out of church. They quit their worship.
But now notice what he tries, look at verse eight. Again the devil taketh him into an exceeding high mountain. Now they're in location number three. They go from the wilderness to the temple and now they're on top of the high mountain. And there's probably three or four mountains that different people believe it was and I'm going to say it because I don't know. You can try to work on that yourself if you want to try to figure it out. We're not told exactly where. There's some good ideas where but we don't know for sure.
Notice what it is. And by the way if God wanted us, if it's something we had to know, he'd have told us. Everybody wants to spend so much time figuring out things that Jesus didn't tell us. Why don't we work on obeying what he did tell us? That'll keep us busy until he comes, right? Alright, that's just a little pet peeve of mine.
Anyway, okay. Verse eight, again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Now that is one picture show. He shows him all the kingdoms.
Look at me, now get this. We're talking kingdoms that weren't even discovered yet. We're talking places that nobody had ever been. He shows them all the kingdoms.
Notice this. And the glory of them. He made them beautiful. Verse nine and sayeth unto him all these things will I give thee if thou will fall down and worship me. Now you say preacher why? Satan couldn't have been more blunt there. You just worship me. We know Jesus isn't going to do that preacher.
Now hold on. When Satan showed him all the kingdoms and the glory of them, why would that be so tempting to Jesus? Why was he there on earth to begin with? Because he loved them. He loved them so much that he left a perfect heaven and came to sin-cursed earth simply to be a perfect lamb to die for our sins.
And how tempting would it be that maybe I could go ahead and get all this kingdom and the glory and not have to suffer for it. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.
