“Then Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

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 seeth 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 up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth 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 when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Gailee;

And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying,

The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region of the shadow of death light is sprung up.

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:1-17

No human will ever endure the type of temptation that Jesus did, because the enemy knew if he could just get him to slip, but he couldn’t.

And offering the false promise of giving all the kingdoms to the one who created the kingdoms gives us insight for our own battles.

Let’s look at how it played out, Jesus was led into the wilderness.

He was where he was supposed to be.

We are often defeated in the battle because we too easily fall into the false belief that we are experiencing troubles and trials because we are out of the will of God and that is not always the case.

Everyone struggles at some point saved or unsaved, it is part of life for all beings.

He also tried to goad him out concerning his identity, kinda with a “If you are, prove it attack”.

And this is also another area that often will cause us to stumble.

Think of how the serpent played Eve, and even how she answered back she stated what they could do first, then that which was not allowed, one area that he played on was pride of life and sometimes we have pride in identity, even when we do not realize it and this can be in many, many ways.

The enemy often tries to tempt us into “proving ourselves” and that has nothing to do with God or His will for our lives.

We are taught in this world to take care of own problems, stand up for ourselves, fight our own battles.

And the ever popular looking out for number one, all this is contrary to the teachings of God.

We are to prefer our brother to ourselves, we are to cast all our cares on Jesus, we are to give no place to wrath and leave vengeance to God, and to never return evil for evil.

That’s tough in this world and the devil knows it, he is the one who causes all the drama and all the troubles in the first place.

He used physical needs as he still often does, so that it would appear that the end justified the means, but it does not.

And of course Jesus was hungry, can you imagine not eating for forty days?

And He is God, he could do anyth seeing he wants but he was enduring this as a man, he suffered all the things that any human can suffer.

But Jesus did it perfectly and without sin.

He did not use his divine power in any way to benefit himself, it was only ever used to bring Glory to the Father and to expand the Kingdom of Heaven.

In our lives opportunities present themselves as a quick fix to a problem that may not be exactly in keeping with the word of God and we can be swayed into telling ourselves that it is a one time compremise and we will repent for it.

But it does not work that way.

If it is wrong, it is wrong, and we can’t give into the devil because we are fearful of waiting on God’s timing.

In the end we only make our problems worse because we have coupled struggles with sin rather than overcoming them through faith in God.

Finally, this leads to the enemy trying to sway us into switching sides, trying to convince people that it is just not working out like they thought but that is the biggest lie of all.

The only thing the enemy can offer in exchange for your salvation is complete and utter destruction, that is all he has to offer.

He has nothing except lies, sorrow, and death for you and he is already eternally condemned he wants nothing more than to destroy as many as he possibly can before the judgment of the Lord.

The shadow of death, while this is written as the region of the shadow of death, there is the literal shadow of death.

The place of fear and the unknown that looms over the living, the dread of death being the root of most vexation.

The place the enemy strikes his heaviest blows while trying to sway souls.

As our verse assures us, those who sat in darkness have indeed seen that great light.

The light so bright that all darkness is consumed at the sight of its glory.

Jesus is that marvelous light and he is that glory and he alone saves us from the terrible darkness and dread of that horrible unknown.

So let today be the beginning of new day, a new season.

Consider the teachings of the temptation of Christ and let it be your guide through this incredibly wicked world.

Use the Sword of Spirit, The Word, just as He did, for any situation and especially any temptation that may come your way.

We do truly live in the valley of the shadow of death with trouble ever looming, but we have the most glorious light that shines on us and lightens our path and very soon one day at his coming every shadow will simply be done away.

Blessing and Peace to you until next time!

Φλογίζω Σαλπιζω NBJ 2023/ Rev. N Brown Johnson