Matthew 4:1-4
What if I told you there is something that is even more essential to life than food. Would you believe me? Would you believe Jesus?
This text (Matthew 4:1-11) is about the temptation of Christ that occurred at the beginning of His public ministry. To get an idea of His surroundings, listen to the following description:
“It is an area of yellow sand, of crumbling limestone, and of scattered shingle. It is an area of contorted strata, where the ridges run in all directions, as if they were warped and twisted. The hills are like dust heaps; the limestone is blistered and peeling; rocks are bare and jagged; often the very ground sounds hollow when the footfall or the horse’s hoof falls on it. It glows and shimmers with heat like some vast furnace. It runs right out to the Dead Sea, and then, there comes a drop of twelve hundred feet, a drop of limestone, flint and marl, through crags and corries, and precipices down to the Dead Sea. In that wilderness, one could be more alone than anywhere else in Palestine.” (Ivor Powell, Matthew’s Majestic Gospel, p. 75)
And in what way was He being tempted?
“He had every right, Satan suggested, to use His own divine powers to supply what the Father had not. The Son of God certainly was too important and dignified to have to endure such hardship and discomfort. He had been born in a stable, had to flee to Egypt for His life, spent thirty years in an obscure family in an obscure village in Galilee, and forty days and nights unattended, unrecognized, and unpitied in the wilderness. Surely that was more than enough ignominy to allow Him to identify with mankind. But now that the Father Himself had publicly declared Him to be His Son, it was time for Jesus to use some of His divine authority for His own personal benefit.” (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Matthew 1-7, Pgs. 90-91)
- It was temptation to act independently of His Father’s will and Word.
- The temptation was to follow the dictates of His flesh, rather than the directives of His Father’s Word.
- Food is NOT the most necessary part of life. We need scripture even more than food, according to Jesus!
To appreciate the Bible:
1. We have to know Him (Christ) personally.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(1 Corinthians 2:14)
(The illustration of the Rubik's Cube and the blindfold.) Understanding the scripture without knowing Christ is like trying to solve the Rubik's Cube while wearing a blindfold.
2. We have to believe the Bible literally.
- Inspiration (Verbal, Plenary) “God breathed” (2 Corinthians 3:16) -- God breathed out His Word over a period of 1500 years to approximately 40 different, chosen and prepared men. “Verbal” means that the very words of the Bible were God breathed. “Plenary” means “in total”...every word is breathed out by God.
- Inerrancy means without error throughout. Because the men were “inspired” when they wrote, the words they recorded were without error and true.
“The Bible is inerrant in that it tells the truth, and it does so without error in all parts and with all its words.” Charles Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, p. 32
- Infallibility means that it is incapable of failing in what it says and promises. The scripture is incapable of misleading, deceiving, or disappointing.
Since the beginning of time, Satan has worked to undermine the Scripture and the Savior...calling both into question.
After abandoning journalism for the ministry, [Charles] Templeton met [Billy] Graham in 1945 at a Youth for Christ rally. They were roommates and constant companions during an adventurous tour of Europe, alternating in the pulpit as they preached at rallies...His friendship with Graham grew. “He’s one of the few men I have ever loved in my life,” Graham once told a biographer...But soon doubts began gnawing at Templeton...the skeptical Templeton, a counterpoint to the faith-filled Henrietta Mears [Christian author and educator], tugging his friend Billy Graham away from her repeated assurances that the Scriptures are trustworthy. “Billy, you’re fifty years out of date,” he [Templeton] argued. “People no longer accept the Bible as being inspired the way you do. Your faith is too simple.” Templeton seemed to be winning the tug-of-war. “If I was not exactly doubtful,” Graham would recall, “I was certainly disturbed.”
Graham searched the Scriptures for answers, he prayed, he pondered. Finally, in a heavy-hearted walk in the moonlit San Bernardino Mountains, everything came to a climax. Gripping a Bible, Graham dropped to his knees and confessed he couldn’t answer some of the philosophical and psychological questions that Templeton and others were raising. “I was trying to be on the level with God, but something remained unspoken,” he [Graham] wrote. “At last the Holy Spirit freed me to say it. ‘Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word—faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word.’ ” Rising from his knees, tears in his eyes, Graham said he sensed the power of God as he hadn’t felt it for months. “Not all my questions were answered, but a major bridge had been crossed,” he said. “In my heart and mind, I knew a spiritual battle in my soul had been fought and won.” For Graham, it was a pivotal moment. For Templeton, though, it was a bitterly disappointing turn of events...The emotion he felt most toward his friend was pity.
Now on different paths, their lives began to diverge. History knows what would happen to Graham in the succeeding years. He would become the most persuasive and effective evangelist of modern times and one of the most admired men in the world. But what would happen to Templeton? Decimated by doubts, he resigned from the ministry and moved back to Canada, where he became a commentator and novelist. (Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, Locs. 114-136)
Dr. Packer holds a PhD. from Oxford University: “What scripture says, God says; for, in a manner comparable only to the deeper mystery of the Incarnation, the Bible is both fully human and fully divine. So all its manifold contents--histories, prophecies, poems, songs, wisdom, writings, sermons, statistics, letters, and whatever else--should be received as God’s authoritative instruction. Christians should be grateful to God for the gift of his written Word, and conscientious in basing their faith and life entirely and exclusively upon it. Otherwise, we cannot ever honor or please him as he calls us to do.” (J.I. Packer, Concise Theology, p. 5)
You have to make the choice: will you trust human reasoning or divine revelation?
3. We have to read the Scripture regularly. (1 Peter 2:1-2)
As newborn babies desire milk every day, so we are to desire regular feedings from God’s Word. Why? “...Because man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)
I think most doctors would concur...there is something wrong when a baby doesn’t want to be fed.
As we grow in our faith we begin to desire more solid foods...the deeper teachings of Scripture.
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.” (Hebrews 5:12)
“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)
4. We have to follow the Word faithfully.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:22-25)
“Magic mirror on the Wall, who is the fairest one of all?” Does anybody know where that question comes from? (ANSWER: Snow White). The Queen was happy when the mirror told her she was the fairest of them all. But when it told her that someone else was fairer than her...she got angry and jealous.
That’s the thing about GOOD mirrors...they always tell the truth about us, even if we don’t like what we see!
God calls us to look into the mirror of His Word and do what it says!
Charles Swindoll tells the following story in his book, Improving Your Serve. "To make the value of obedience just a practical as possible, let’s play ’Let’s Pretend.’ Let’s pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly. I’m the owner and I’m interested in expanding overseas. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay there until a new branch office gets established. I make all the arrangements to take my family and move to Europe for six to eight months. And I leave you in charge of the busy stateside organization. I tell you that I will write you regularly and give you directions and instructions. I leave and you stay. Months pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters. I spell out all my expectations. Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival, I drive down to the office and I am stunned. Grass and weeds have grown up high. A few windows along the street are broken. I walk into the Receptionist’s room. She is doing her nails, chewing gum and listening to her favorite disco station. I look around and notice the wastebaskets are overflowing. The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned. I asked about your whereabouts and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the hall and yells, ‘I think he’s down there.’
“Disturbed, I move in that direction and bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager. I ask you to step into my office, which has been temporarily turned into a television room for watching afternoon soap operas. ‘What in the world is going on, man?’ ‘What do you mean, Chuck?’ ‘Well, look at this place!’
“‘Didn’t you get any of my letters?’ ‘Letters? Oh yes! Sure! I got every one of them. As a matter of fact, Chuck, we have had a letter study every Friday night since you left. We have even divided the personnel into small groups to discuss many of the things you wrote. Some of the things were really interesting. You will be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and paragraphs. One or two memorized an entire letter or two - Great stuff in those letters.’ ‘OK. You got my letters. You studied them and meditated on them; discussed and even memorized them. But what did you do about them?’ ‘Do? We didn’t do anything about them.’”
6. We have to teach the Truth diligently.
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)
Moses introduces a systematic teaching process that persists until the core truth is understood and applicable in the lives of our children.
- We need to teach our children the truths of scripture.
- Explain the reasoning behind those truths.
- Show them illustrations of how the truth applies to life.
- Encourage their consistency in following those truths.
