Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. In a barren wilderness, Jesus was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan. Weakened by hunger and thirst, the Son of God faced his enemy and taught us how to face that same enemy. Today, the story of 40 tough days in the life of Christ. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr.
Erwin Luxer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer is showing us portraits of Christ. He's calling, come and see Jesus. Pastor, it's hard to imagine the stress of lasting 40 days in a barren wilderness. It is, Dave.
It's very difficult to even imagine it, but of course, Jesus Christ was the Son of God. You and I would have died in the wilderness over that period of time. But he continued on. But let's not miss the point. The way in which Jesus countered the devil was through scripture.
Each time he quoted the Word of God. And you and I need to know the Word of God, and we need to learn how to pray the Word of God. That's why it is that I'm so excited to offer for you a book entitled Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney.
Now, I have to say that this is a life-changing book because it will enable you to pray scriptural prayers. Even as you go through the scriptures, he teaches all of us how you and I can begin to pray scripture regularly. For a gift of any amount we're making it available, and because this is the last week we are offering it, here's what you can do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888.
218 9337.
Now, as we listen, let us learn from Jesus. and let us make sure that we learn how to pray the scripture. against our enemy. Uh When I mention the word temptation, I think that all of you would agree that we intuitively understand what it is. And all of us at times have fallen into temptation.
temptation of one kind or another. When I was in high school, I had a friend who always said that there's only one thing I can't resist. And that is temptation. What is temptation?
Well, temptation is the opportunity for us to pursue and to fulfill. What might be a legitimate need, but to do so illegitimately and wrongly. That's what temptation is. There's nothing wrong with you desiring to get a good grade in school, but if you get that good grade and cheat, you've fallen into temptation. Nothing wrong with loving and being loved.
and wanting to be loved, nothing wrong with that, but... If we have wrong relationships or fulfill those desires with a wrong person, Then, of course, we've sinned, we've fallen into temptation. Nothing wrong with wanting to earn money, but greed is sin. It was Martin Luther who said that we can't prevent birds from flying overhead, but we can prevent them from making a nest in our hair. What he meant was, temptation itself may not be wrong, it's not the problem.
In fact, as we shall see today, we are led into temptation, but succumbing to temptation, the wrong decision in temptation. That's another story. Are you troubled by the fact that the Bible says in chapter 4, verse 1 of Matthew, and that's our text today, by the way, please turn to it. Are you troubled? It says in Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil?
He had just heard the wonderful words, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Those beautiful words had been said. The baptism, and then there's the word: the Spirit drives Christ. It's even stronger than led. The Spirit drives Christ into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
You say, well, God doesn't tempt anybody. That is true. He does not solicit anyone to evil, but God does test us. And furthermore, it wasn't God soliciting Jesus to evil here. It was Satan.
But God brought Jesus to the place of temptation. Does he bring you sometimes to the place of temptation? Do temptations come your way? Jesus is known in the Bible, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, as the last Adam or the second Adam. The first Adam was in a gorgeous paradise with all of his needs met.
And he sinned. Jesus, the second Adam, is in a wilderness where none of his needs are met. and he overcomes. The serpent, the devil. The first Adam is in a place where he has everything going for him.
The second Adam is in a place where nothing is in his favor, and yet he stands against the devil. The first Adam. became the head of a whole new race. And everyone now who participates and is born into the kingdom of the first Adam is born into the kingdom as a loser. Jesus also stands at the head of a brand new race of born-again people.
And whoever becomes a member of that kingdom becomes a winner, thanks to Jesus.
So here in the desert, God places Jesus in a place where Jesus and the devil are going to tough it out. A couple of facts that we should know about this temptation. First of all, temptation of course has a purpose. Jesus was led of the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. What is the purpose?
First of all, I'm going to give you the devil's purpose, and then I'm going to give you God's purpose. The devil's purpose in temptation always is to draw us away from God. It is to cut our fellowship off from God. And the devil does that with sin. And what he wants to do is to bring out the worst in us.
He wants to draw us into a situation where that which is the worst comes out, where we believe that we are too far gone for God to care about us or to love us.
So that we keep on going the devil's direction. And that's why he is called the Diabolos, which means the accuser, because he even accuses us about sins that have been forgiven, but also he is called Apollion. And that word Apolloni means the destroyer. He comes to destroy, to do evil. That's his purpose.
God has an entirely different purpose. God's purpose in temptation is to bring out the best in us and to give us an opportunity that we love God more than our passions. We love God more than having our needs met. We love God so supremely that we will choose in His favor when we are faced with that decision, and we will make a tough choice, even if it hurts and does not seem in the short run. to be profitable.
When we are faced with temptation, and if we make the right choice, if we make God's choice, God is glorified, Jesus receives honor, character is built. and the cause of Christ is advanced. That's God's intention. Why do you think it says in Genesis, God did tempt Abraham? The Hebrew word actually means God tested Abraham.
God says, Abraham, sacrifice your son. What God was saying is, I know that you really love Isaac. You are absolutely in love with this boy, but do you love him more than you love me? God is asking.
So God says, I'm going to test you. to see where your loyalties lie. Temptation has a purpose. Secondly, temptations are diverse. They are diverse.
They come in many different forms.
Now, the bottom line is: Satan's desire is always, always to make sin to look good to us. And what he'll do is, he'll make it look good to us, and if he can make it to look good to us, our minds begin to rationalize so that sin not only looks good, but right to us.
So we say, this is the right thing to do. And we encase our actions with all kinds of rationalizations. Usually looking at other people and saying, well, look at what they've done. This isn't too bad. And what Satan does is, he uses lures because he himself always must remain hidden.
If he came to us in a fury, we'd be terrified. But as long as he's not there, As long as he uses disguise, we do not fear him. It's very important to him. Hunters will tell you this is true about animals. In the first apartment that Rebecca and I lived, We learned early on when we had a mouse problem that we did not solve it when the mice saw us.
I won't go into detail, but... What we needed to do is to get a trap. And it would be there whether we were physically present or not. And what we needed to do for the mouse is to put some cheese on that trap. That's all we wanted him to want and desire is the cheese.
Because we knew that he didn't understand all this business of springs and wood and steel. And we turned out to be right. He didn't understand it. When you want to kill a bear, what do you do? You use a trap.
You yourself get away and you let the trap do the work for you, and you use meat. Satan has as many lures as there are interests among Americans, except that what he does is he concentrates on a few that he knows are most successful. But listen to me carefully. Behind the trap is the trapper, and behind the lie. is the liar.
What he wants to do is to put ideas in our minds that we think. Are our own so that we won't fear them. You've heard me say that when Ananias and Sapphira were having breakfast and eating their bagel, and the idea occurred to them to lie about the price of the land. If Satan had come into their kitchen, they would have been terrified and they'd have told the truth. But because they talked about it and because they thought it was their idea, they thought that this deceit need not be feared.
And that's what the devil wants us to do. He wants us to think that the consequences. are controllable. and they're in our hands.
Well, what kind of temptations did he give to Jesus? You'll notice that, first of all, Jesus has fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and is hungry. And the tempter comes to him in verse 4 and said, If you're the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.
Now, you must understand that Greek scholars tell us that it's not as if Satan is doubting that Jesus is the Son of God. The idea is: if you are the Son of God and you are, then command these stones to be bred. Satan was not questioning whether Jesus was the Son of God. What he wanted Jesus to do is to fulfill a legitimate need. Illegitimately.
Was there anything wrong with Jesus? Creating bread? No. Later on he's going to do it for 5,000 people in one stretch. But this was not God's time to eat, and this was not the way he was to satisfy his desires.
So Satan says, Now I'm questioning God's love. You say that God loves you, huh? If God loves you, why are you hungry? Tell me that. Comes to us and says, if God loves you, why are you single?
If God loves you, why didn't that work out? Look at the love of God. What does the love of God mean when you're starving in a desert? and there's no food.
So Satan comes that way. And you'll notice that he's using now the desires of the body, the lust of the flesh. And Jesus says to him, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Does the devil say, oh, you win Jesus? One verse of Scripture and I am out of here.
No. You know what he says? You're going to quote scripture, huh? I can play your game too. I'll quote it too.
Comes to him in verse 5: Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down. You quoted a verse? I'll quote one. He will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. There's a verse for you, Jesus.
So, what he comes is with a scripture. It was customary in those days for false messiahs to do something spectacular like that. Say that I'm going to jump down or I'm going to do this. And he's saying, If you're the Messiah, I'm appealing to your pride now. Everybody will see you jump down and live, and they'll say that you're the Messiah.
Do it, Jesus. You know, I need to pause here and throw in a parenthesis. We live in a time when there is so much heresy. on television. By many television evangelists, not all of them, but some of them, who are receiving these special words from heaven, verses of scripture taken out of context.
Can't you almost see somebody saying, Oh, you know what the Lord just showed me? You know, the Lord just showed me that based on Psalm 91, you know, we could jump from the pinnacle of the temple, he'd catch us. Hallelujah! Not knowing that scripture out of context. Unbalanced Rested Out.
of its proper hermeneutical context can be heresy. And so the devil comes and says, you're using the Bible, Jesus? I'll use the Bible. Let me ask you something today. Has the Bible ever been used to justify foolish, silly, things including sin.
The answer is yes, of course it's been used.
Some people say, well, he misquoted scripture. He left out a phrase. He will keep you, quote, in all your ways. I've thought about that. I'm not so convinced as others that the devil here deliberately did that.
He may have just, his memory might have skipped a cog there and he missed a phrase, something like school students sometimes do when they're quoting scripture. Maybe there's significance there, but my point is, he's using the Bible to say, Jesus, do something spectacular, but Jesus would have no part in cheap sensationalism. And to try to glorify himself and to do something spectacular. Wasn't it in uh One of the musicals where it says, if you're the Son of God, you know, walk across Pilate's swimming pool. Jesus isn't into that kind of silliness.
So then the devil, Jesus says to him again, verse 7, underlying the little word again, again, Jesus keeps quoting scripture too: you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. You know, you're not going to ask Jesus to act presumptuously based on a text. taken out of context. Verse 8. The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory.
And he said to him, All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. Wow. Takes your breath away. And Jesus said to him, Begone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God only, and him also only you shall serve. I can imagine the devil saying, I'm not asking about service, I'm asking about worship.
And Jesus is saying, Whoever you serve, you do worship, you know. I don't know how the devil did this, but it's possible that he actually, in some way, was able to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth, maybe the pyramids of Egypt, maybe the. Acropolis, which was of course already standing in Athens. The glories of Rome, and he says, All these things I will give you. Just worship me and you can have them.
You see, the devil understood Psalm 2. Very well, because in Psalm 2, God says, I'm going to take my son and I'm going to make him son over the kingdoms. He shall rule over the nations. And so the devil is saying, What you need to do is not to go to the cross, take a shortcut, worship me, and you can have it all.
Now. Don't worry about the future. The future has too much pain, it has too much hurt. You can get it at this moment. Just worship me.
If Jesus had succumbed to this temptation, of course, Instead of redeeming the world, he'd have ended up joining the world. And you and I would not be redeemed if Jesus had done this. But what Satan says to us today, and this last temptation is in a sense a culmination of all of them. What he's saying is what you can do is you can have it today, today, and don't worry about tomorrow. Yeah.
And you know, my friend, Satan says the very same thing to us repeatedly. You can worry about today, enjoy today. Don't worry about the future. But it's the future that really matters. And you know the way in which you and I pray has great implications for that future.
That's why we're making available for you a book entitled Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney.
Now, what this book will do. is to enable you to take passages of Scripture almost any passage. and make it into a prayer. and then you don't even have to add the words, If it be thy will. For a gift of any amount we're making it available for you, and perhaps, as I've already mentioned, this is the last week we're making this offer.
I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'd like to give you some contact info. Take advantage of this resource that will help you. in your spiritual journey. Go to rtwoffer.com. or you can pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337.
Once again, RTW offer Dot com Ask for the book Praying the Bible. It'll be transforming for your prayer life. It's time once again for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. True confessions. Are there times when it's better to not confess a sin?
Listen to this question posed by an anonymous listener. He says that one of the principles of recovery is to make amends except when to do so is to cause harm to others. If a man commits adultery, then repents, confesses to God, and to his pastor, and to some friends, must he also confess to his wife? especially if he knows that this would cause great harm to her and the children. His wife has no idea of what happened.
If you say yes, he should, what is your scriptural basis for that opinion?
Well, as I listen to this question I'm reminded of the fact that human beings certainly do get themselves into a difficult dilemma, don't they? Sin somehow entangles us and we get into these very, very difficult situations.
Now, my friend, I'm not going to give you the answer that I suspect you wish I were to give you. You're probably hoping that I will say No, the man does not have to confess this to his wife. But I can't say that. Let me give you a couple of scenarios. Number one, you say that you've confessed it.
If you're the one, by the way, and the question is on. clear as to whether or not the person asking the question is the man who committed adultery. But since this is anonymous, I can just simply assume that for the moment. What you are saying is that you've confessed to your pastor and some friends. What if What you did.
got out and got back to your wife. Oftentimes that happens.
Somehow it's so difficult to keep a lid on these things.
Now you ask your wife and your children well, hopefully, I hope that the children will be protected from knowing all about this.
So for that reason, I think that it is wise for you to confess to your wife. Secondly, You should not do it probably on your own. I've been in situations like this as a pastor, and it is much better for me to be present as a pastor when two people need to be reconciled on such a very, very difficult issue. And I suggest that you go to a counselor, that you go to your pastor, and that he be present when this confession takes place, so that he can give some rationality and some peace to the situation, because it will be a very, very difficult experience. But at the same time your wife needs to know that in good faith you did confess it to others, so you are serious about repentance.
And even though it would hurt her greatly God sometimes does wound us and cut us in order that he might heal us, this might be, ultimately, a path of real Restoration.
Now I speak hesitantly because I know how difficult this situation is, and I know that good Christians disagree with me on this. But you've asked for my opinion, and then you say, What is your Scriptural basis?
Well, there is no verse in the Bible that says a man must confess to his wife, but there are plenty of verses that talk about forgiving one another and confessing to one another. and when we have hurt someone, that it is our responsibility to make restoration.
So, this is my interpretation of those verses. I trust that God will give you much grace. I pray that your wife will be prepared for this, possibly by the pastor. and in this way your conscience will be clear. The issue will be out on the table.
Hopefully forgiven, cleansed.
so that the two of you can move on. Thank you, doctor Lutzer, for the wisdom of Solomon in your answer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at RunningTowin 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614.
Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life.
Next time I'm Running to Win, Lessons from the Temptation of Jesus and why there's more to life than getting what we want when we want. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church. I'm going to use the same method for the first time.
