"The Bible: God's Reality Check"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now, let's get to the Word of God. We're going to talk about temptation this morning and even the word has kind of an ominous ring to it, doesn't it? Temptation. Temptation means being enticed to do something that you know you shouldn't do, something that you know you're going to be sorry for afterwards. And the best way to resist temptation is to have a reality check.

Isn't that true? To have something that says, uh-uh, wait a minute, hold on. You're going to be sorry for this. Don't do it. What is the reality check that keeps you from skipping work on a beautiful spring day and just going out and playing hooky? Well, the reality check is you know you're going to have to face the supervisor when you show up the next day. What is the reality check that keeps you from leaving your children and going to Acapulco? Well, it's knowing the police are going to be waiting at the airport when you come back.

Right? I mean, we all need reality checks or we would go do crazy, stupid things. I would.

You would. And you know, God has given us a spiritual reality check for our lives. We call it the Bible. And the reason he's given us the Bible is to keep us from drifting into places where we don't belong, drifting into places where we will end up getting badly hurt and getting ourselves in deep weeds. And because of that, this morning, I want to try to convince you how essential the Bible is in your Christian experience when it comes to keeping you from rolling gutter balls in the Christian life. All of us are prone to do that and left to ourselves, we would without a reality check. I'm here to tell you that you need the word of God on an everyday basis or you can roll a lot of gutter balls in the Christian life.

And so am I. Let's talk about that, because we're going to use an example from the life of the Lord Jesus himself, where he uses the Bible in this very same way as a reality check to temptation, to doing something that he ought not do. Let's look. Luke, Chapter four. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. Would you notice what we pick up here is not the only time that the enemy ever tempted him, just the culmination.

He's been being tempted for 40 days. And at the end of that time, it says after he had eaten nothing for those 40 days, he was very hungry. Now, for those of you who've been to Israel with me or with somebody else, you know where the Spirit led him. And it's important for us to notice that the Spirit led Jesus away from his baptism at the Jordan River and into the wilderness. This was not his idea.

It wasn't something he just felt like doing. It was the leading of God to lead him into the wilderness and to lead him to fast for 40 days. The area where he went is called the Judean wilderness. It's the land that lies between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. And it is barren. It is arid. It is a wasteland. It is a parched, jagged desert. And there is nothing there. There is no vegetation. There's no water.

The temperature often is well over 100 degrees. It even looks like a miserable place. In fact, the Hebrew word for this area is yeshimon, which means devastation or devastated place.

That's what they thought of it even in their day. And here Jesus spent 40 days without food being tempted, the Bible says, by the devil. You say, wait a minute, Lon.

Hold on just a second. The devil. You're not trying to tell me you really believe there is such a person, are you?

I mean, I always thought the devil was kind of like, you know, the Bible's word for evil in the world or the Bible's word for all the bad things that happen. You don't really think there is such an actual being or person, do you? Well, sure, I do. Don't you?

Sure. The Bible says that he was an angel who revolted against God, continued in his revolt against God, even to this day, and will continue all the way till the day that God destroys him in his revolt against God. The Bible says that he is the God of this age. And in a minute, we're going to see him say to Jesus, I have the authority to give you all the kingdoms of this world if I want to.

And Jesus never argued with that, never said, oh, no, you don't. Yeah, I believe he's real and I believe he's genuine. And in my days when I used to trip out, I saw him or something close to him on a number of occasions. Yeah, I believe he's real. And God help you if you don't, because it'll leave you awful defenseless against him.

If you don't think he's out there and you don't think he's at work. Now, let's see what he did. The Bible says that he was trying to tempt Jesus Christ to sin. Why? Because he knew if he could make Jesus Christ sin, he could extinguish God's plan of salvation forever.

Why? Because the Bible says that in order to sacrifice an offering for sin, that offering has to be blemishless, perfect. And when it came to a man dying for the sins of the world, it had to be a blemishless man. It had to be a sinless man. That's why you or I were not candidates, but only God in the flesh, Jesus Christ himself. But if the enemy could get him to sin even once, he wouldn't be sinless. He wouldn't be blemishless. He would no longer be a candidate for dying on the cross and paying for the sins of the world. And God's plan of salvation goes down the tube. So there's a lot at stake here.

Look what happened. Verse three. And the devil said to him, if you are the son of God, you can really translate the Greek, since you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. You're hungry.

Make bread out of these stones. The first temptation focused on Jesus's intense hunger. And the devil challenged him to work a miracle to relieve his hunger. Now, folks, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making bread for ourselves.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with us satisfying our physical needs as human beings. But there is more than that going on here. Remember, I told you, Jesus was led into the wilderness. Verse one, by the spirit. In other words, it was the will of God that he was in the wilderness at that moment. And it was the will of God that he had no food at that moment. And what the devil was asking Jesus to do was to take matters into his own hands and to put his physical needs, his physical desires, his physical drives and his physical cravings ahead of the will of God for his life.

This is the exact same thing that the enemy is constantly trying to get you to do and me to do. We all have natural desires for things like sex and intimacy. We all have natural desires for money and the nice material things that can buy.

We all have natural desires for the comforts of this life and for notoriety and for success. And there's nothing wrong with these desires, so long as we satisfy them within the will of God for our lives. What Satan was asking Jesus to do was to satisfy them outside of the will of God for his life, which is exactly what he tries to get you and me to do. And the Bible says when we leave the plan of God for our life to satisfy our own cravings and our own appetites, in our own way, that that's sin.

And look how Jesus counteracted the enemy's attack. Verse 4, Jesus answered, It is written. You say, where is it written? Well, it's written right here, huh? Right in the Bible.

It is written. And he's going to quote from the Old Testament, from Deuteronomy chapter 8. You say, why doesn't he quote from the New Testament? Because it wasn't written.

OK. He's quoting from the Old Testament. And here's what he says. It is written, Man does not live by bread alone. And as Matthew goes on to say, But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In other words, what he's saying to the devil is, hey, look, it is more important to obey God than it is to eat. It is more important for me to obey God than it is for me to satisfy my own body's appetites. And as Warren Wiersby, the great Bible commentator, said, and I quote, Jesus said, It is better to be hungry in the will of God than to be satisfied outside of the will of God. That's what Jesus was saying. He used the Bible as a reality check against his own hunger.

And let's face it, after 40 days, you'd be hungry. And hunger is an incredibly driving passion. Did you see the show last night on television, 10 o'clock, about that plane crash in the Andes with that soccer team? You know, they're making a movie about this now. And what happened is this plane full of soccer players going across the Andes a few years ago crashed. And only a few people survived. And after they ran out of candy bars and granola and whatever else they had on board, the only way they could survive, they were there 72 days. The only way they could survive is to eat the people who had not survived. And so they began to eat their friends. In fact, one man on the show last night said, When I first put the meat in my mouth, I chewed it up and I could not swallow it. I spit it out. But when I got hungry enough, I swallowed it. They ate their friends. You say, I'd never do that.

That's horrible. Now, wait a minute. If you were starving to death and your friend was already dead, I'm not so sure you wouldn't do that. You might spit out the first bite, but you got hungry enough. I'm not so sure you wouldn't do that. I'm not so sure I wouldn't do that. Put in that same situation.

Why? Because hunger is one of the most driving passions of the human experience. Jesus felt it 40 days worth. But he did not yield the temptation because he used the word of God as a reality check and said, There's something more important than my hunger, and that is that I do not depart from the will of God. And where did he get the reality check? Right out of the Bible. Now he does the same thing two more times.

Let's look. Verse five. The devil led him up to a high place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in an instant and said to him, I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it's been given to me and I can give it to anybody I want. Jesus didn't argue with that.

So I will do if you worship me, it'll all be yours. This time, Satan appeals not to Jesus's hunger, but to his human desire to avoid hardship and pain and suffering. He said, Lon, I don't see that in here.

Where is that? Listen. God had promised Jesus that he was going to give him all the kingdoms of the world anyway. He said in Psalm two, he, God the father, said to me, the son, Jesus Christ, you are my son. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance and I will give you the ends of the earth as your possession. So God had already promised to give Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world. However, Jesus Christ was on his way to the throne of all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. But he was on his way there by way of what? By way of the cross.

That's right. He was on his way there by way of the cross. And we know from looking at him in the Garden of Gethsemane, the pain that the cross represented for him, the agony that going through the cross represented for him. He prayed in the garden, Father, if there's any way I don't have to go through this, any way at all, take it away from me. And what Satan was saying is, hey, Jesus, how about if I can get you to the bottom line? But we'll skip the cross.

We'll skip the pain. I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world right now and you don't have to deal with the cross and the pain. You understand what he was offering him? He was offering him a different plan for his life. God had a plan for his life and his plan called for him to get the kingdoms of the world by going through the cross.

Satan said, hey, I've got a different plan for your life. I'll give you those same kingdoms and you don't have to go through the cross. And let's all agree.

This is very enticing for us. If God were to give you the choice in any point in your life, whether you wanted to go through pain or go around pain, there's not a one of us who would volunteer to go through pain. Not one. Unless we're unbalanced and crazy.

I wouldn't. But, you know, when we want to go around pain so badly that we'll sell our soul and shortcut God's plan for our life, that's a problem. And that's exactly what Satan was tempting Jesus to do. Now, look at how Jesus responded.

Again, he counterattacked in the very same way, this time from Deuteronomy six. He said, verse eight, Jesus answered, it is written. You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him his plan for your life only. God has established a right plan for my life, Satan, and I'm going to worship him and I'm going to serve his plan for my life. And if God's plan for me calls for me to hang on a tree before I can sit on a throne, then I'm going to follow his plan for my life.

I'm not doing it your way. Verse nine, then the devil took him to Jerusalem after he had already appealed to his hunger, his bodily appetites, and had already appealed to his human desire to go around pain and suffering. Now he's going to appeal to his pride. He took him to Jerusalem and he had him stand on the pinnacle, the highest point of the temple. If you've been to Jerusalem, you know where this is. It's that corner of the wall of the temple mount that overlooks the Kidron Valley. If you're standing on the Mount of Olives, you're looking right over to that corner.

And the drop from there is about four hundred and fifty feet to the valley below. And there would have been people all around in this valley and near around at the temple worshiping. And that the enemy put him up there and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it's written he will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully.

They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. Did you notice that Satan can quote scripture, too? Did you get that? Now, he always gets it wrong and he always twists it and he always distorts it. But he can quote the Bible. Don't just assume because somebody quotes the Bible to you that they know what they're talking about and they're from God. No, the enemy quoted the Bible to Jesus. The only problem is he always quotes it wrong. And Jesus said to him, wait a minute, you're right. It does say that, but it also says he took scripture, the misinterpretation of it, and he balanced it and came up with the right interpretation by other scripture. What was Satan challenging Jesus to do?

He was challenging his pride. He says, look, if you were to do a swan dive here off the pinnacle of the temple and you were to kind of float on down to the ground and just land, not crash and burn now, but just land. Why, the people, they would come running over here. They would flock to you. They would hail you as the Messiah. They'd lift you up on their shoulders.

They'd exalt you to immediate power. You're the son of God. You deserve this kind of treatment. You don't deserve the kind of ostracism and ridicule and opposition that they're going to give you.

Why should you have to put up with that? You are the son of God. Throw yourself down and prove who you are.

You deserve a break today. Jesus said, wait a minute. Again, it is written. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, quoting from Deuteronomy Chapter six. I like the way the King James translated.

It translates it. You shall not tempt the Lord your God, meaning, yes, God does promise to protect us. But when we plunge ourselves into foolish situations aimed at only inflating our arrogance and our pride. No, that's not what the verse is talking about. Satan, you turned it around. You missed it.

You misused it. That's not what God meant. Verse 13. And when the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Satan could see he was beat. So he retreated, but he didn't retreat forever. He never does.

Only till he saw another opportunity to try again. This is a perfect example that we've just read about of what James tells us in his letter, where he said in James Chapter four, verse seven, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And what is it that Jesus used to resist the devil? His own cunning, his own wisdom, his own philosophy, his own education.

No. What did he use? It is written three times. And I love what Origen, the great church father, said. He said, Jesus routed the tempter with a weapon that we can all use.

The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So learn from this passage the value of scripture and the impotence of Satan against it. End of quote. Jesus through scripture in the enemy's face. And that's the end of our passage. But it leads us to ask the question. So what?

That's right. So what? And I want to answer that for you in the time I have left. What difference does this make for you and me living in the 20th century?

Satan's never come and tempted us and I've never been to the Judean wilderness and I don't plan on going there. So what difference does this make? You know, our new president has been playing some in your face here at the beginning of his administration. He's taken the highly controversial issues of abortion and homosexual rights and he shoved them into the face of America.

And he's not just shoved them in our face, but he shoved them down our throat. And this past week, I, like many of you, have been listening to some of the rhetoric out there about gay rights. I've heard people try to convince me that homosexuality is genetic and that therefore people can't help being this way. And therefore, the argument goes after that to discriminate against gay people when they can't help being that way any more than black people can help being black.

That that's a violation of their civil rights. It is a civil rights issue, not a moral issue. Now, I'm not here to talk to you about homosexuality this morning.

I do have a tape on it that I would invite you to pick up in our bookstore and in our tape section. If you have any doubt where the Bible stands on this issue and where we stand, pick up the tape and listen to it and you'll know. But the point I want you to see this morning is that there is a very fierce battle going on out there in our nation to redefine morality. There is a battle going on to redefine the values and the absolutes that God has established for human society. And we see that not only in the issue of homosexuality and abortion, but we see it in many other areas. We see it in the area of premarital sex.

There is a deliberate movement going on to redefine what God says in the area of premarital sex. We're given out condoms now in high schools. Can you believe that? When I went to high school, if you got caught smoking a cigarette in the bathroom, they expelled you.

Boy, can you believe this? There's a moral fight going on out there to redefine how we feel about divorce in this nation, to redefine how we feel about business ethics in this nation. That's what the Milken trial was all about.

It wasn't about whether the man had stolen money or not. It was about ethics in business with computers and everything that can be done as quickly as it can be done these days. There's an effort going on to redefine personal morality and personal decency. We had people shot to death right down the road here this week by a random killer. What in the world is going on in our society? People are trying to redefine the family in our country and many, many other things.

People out there are trying to redefine how you feel and how you think about every single one of these issues and many others. And friends, this is no haphazard phenomenon. This is not an accident. It is a well coordinated, skillfully calculated campaign by the devil himself. And he is leading it and he is directing it.

And don't think anything different. And there's a reason that he's doing it. You say, why?

What's the reason? The reason is he wants to destroy your life. Pure and simple. He wants to destroy your life. He wants to convince you that sin is really OK. He wants to convince you that what God says is wrong is really not that bad because he knows something. Something that not enough of us as Christians understand and know. He knows that what Jesus said is true. When Jesus said in John Chapter eight, verse thirty four, the person who commits sin becomes a slave to sin. He knows that.

He understands that. Too many of us don't. The thing that concerns me is that there are so many of us as Christians who spend more time reading the newspaper. Then we do the word of God.

And then we wonder why we struggle the way we do. You might not like what I'm going to say, but I don't think you've got any business reading the newspaper till you've read the word of God. You can spend 15 minutes in the newspaper minimum. I don't think you have any business reading the newspaper as a Christian till you've read the word of God. You say, Lon, you're against newspapers. No, I'm not. No, I'm not.

I'm all for them. But I'm not for them or anything else taking you away from the word of God, which is the only reality check you've got. It's the only one you've got. You give it up. You're adrift. And believe me, Satan's smart enough.

He's going to knock you off. Do you spend 15 minutes a day? Do you spend the amount of time a day in the word of God you spend in the newspaper?

That's kind of a searching question, isn't it? If the answer is no, I don't. Then you need to change for your sake, for your family's sake, for our church's sake, for the work of God's sake.

You need to change. And I'm going to ask you to make that change a commitment to it this morning. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for speaking to our hearts. We need it.

It's tough six days a week out there fighting. But thank you we've got your spirit and thank you we've got your word. And may they be the weapons that we learned to skillfully wield even as the Lord wielded himself. To protect ourselves and stand against the temptations of the enemy. Make us strong as individuals. Make us strong as a church. That we might carry out our mission to reach out and touch people's lives in this community with the love of God. And I pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information visit our website lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.