Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry” (Luke 4:1-2).
What first comes to your mind when you think of a cartoon character facing a moral dilemma? Odds are that you may be thinking of a comical figure wearing red tights carrying a pitchfork in his hand standing on one shoulder and an angel arrayed in white holding a harp standing on the other shoulder.
For many people, this is how they see Satan, as just a comical figure who shows up when you are facing a dilemma. Satan and the angel are just merely your conscience trying to figure out what action to do.
But here’s the thing: Satan is real, and Satan is dangerous. Satan is dedicated to dismantling God’s kingdom and God’s people. And one of Satan’s primary tactics is deception. In John 8, Jesus exposes Satan for who he truly is: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).
Every time Satan appears in the Scriptures, he is lying, deceiving, and seeking the destruction of God’s people. Satan’s ultimate goal is to lead God’s people as far away from God as possible.
You see, Satan wants God’s people to abandon God’s Word and to break every instruction and commandment God has given us. In fact, many of Satan’s lies are directly in contrast to the Ten Commandments. Satan lies to everyone; no one is exempt from his lies. Satan lies to everyone, including Jesus.
Now, the first word out of Satan’s mouth as Jesus was tempted by him for 40 days may be his favorite word: “If.” Satan begins his temptation by saying, “If you are the Son of God …” (Luke 4:3a).
So, why is Satan asking this? It’s because God the Father had just proclaimed this from heaven at Jesus’ Baptism, “You are My beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).
Satan’s use of “If you are the Son of God …” is just another way of saying, “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1). Here, Satan is misusing God’s name by casting criticism on what God says. Satan is breaking the Second Commandment: “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.” Here, Satan wants to test God, to prove God wrong, to seize for himself a level of power and control that only rightly belongs to God. Here, Satan is using his art of lying and deception.
Much like with Adam and Eve, Satan wants Jesus to distrust God’s Word. Satan here is trying to persuade Jesus to take the matter into his own hands. In effect, what Satan is saying to Jesus is this: “You cannot simply trust God’s Word that You are His Son. You should test that out. Prove it! Find assurance by using Your power, by testing God’s Word. Come on Jesus, turn this stone into bread and jump off the temple. You know, the actual Son of God could do just that. Prove it to me!”
Just as Satan attempts to seduce Jesus, he also wants you and me to question whether God’s promises are indeed trustworthy. Satan asks you:
§ “Did God actually say you should love your enemies?”
§ “Did God actually say that there are only two sexes?”
§ “Did God actually say that merely lusting at another is sin?”
§ “Did God really say your favorite sin is not ok?”
§ “Did Jesus actually claim to be divine?”
§ “Did Jesus really perform all those miracles?”
You see, Satan encourages us to place our trust somewhere else; anywhere else. Certainly, Satan wants us to place our trust in his deceptions and lies rather than in God’s Word of truth.
Satan tests you and me through interlinking related lies through a logical progression. If we cannot trust God, then we cannot trust God’s Word. If we cannot trust God’s Word, then we cannot trust His prophets and apostles. If we cannot trust His prophets and apostles, then we cannot trust the Scriptures. If we cannot trust all these things, then how can we be sure our sins are forgiven? How can we be sure Jesus rose from the dead? How can we be sure Jesus was real at all? This is Satan’s tactic. Satan wishes to carve us away at our trust so that we are no longer able to discern the true and trustworthy from the evil and manipulative.
As true man, Jesus experienced hunger. He must eat, just as we must eat. So, Satan offers a simple solution: “Command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3b). In effect, what Satan is saying to Jesus is this: “Jesus, this is easy. I know how to solve your hunger problem. Show your power as the ‘supposed’ Son of God.”
What Satan is doing here is that he’s trying to lead Jesus to not want to suffer the inconveniences of being human. For example, hunger is not a necessary thing to endure for the divine Son of God, since one with divine power, like Jesus, is able to transform a stone to become bread. It’s all simple for Satan, just have Jesus create some bread to stop his hunger.
But what Satan is really attempting to do is to have Jesus not endure the inconvenience and limitations of being human. If Jesus is really the Son of God, as God the Father just proclaimed Him to be, then why not enjoy all the conveniences that has to offer? And if Jesus can be persuaded to use His power to overcome the inconvenience of hunger, perhaps Jesus can be persuaded to use His power to overcome the inconvenience of the cross?
Just as Satan attempted to manipulate Jesus, he is constantly working at manipulating you and me. Satan lies to us telling us that life would be so much better if we only seized more control. But what Satan means by taking more control is for us to usurp God’s authority for our own. And Satan tells us that nothing should get in our way of claiming power. Lies, threats, bribes, and murder are all fair game. For Satan, the ends justify the means.
In the case of the first man, Adam, he gave in to Satan’s seduction. After hearing that the tree would be good for food, he became hungry. He joined Eve and he ate from the tree in the midst of the garden. But, as for Jesus, the Second Adam, He did not succumb to the devil’s seduction.
You see, Jesus lives by the Word of God. He is the Man, the Son of God incarnate, who is the Word of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life from heaven who came to feed the people of Himself.
For you and me, we ought to be immersed in God’s Word and His Sacraments, so that we would be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Because, the thing is, Satan is also well-versed in Scripture. So, just as Jesus was refuting Satan with Scripture, Satan was refuting Jesus right back. But Satan has a major flaw. And Jesus exposes that flaw. Again, Jesus says of Satan, “There is no truth in him” (John 8:44).
You see, even though Satan claims to be speaking Scripture, he is also a liar. And liars tend to leave out important details when they speak. Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone’” (Luke 4:9b-11).
If you immerse yourself in God’s Word, like the Bereans, in judging to see if these were so by examining the Scriptures, you would notice that Satan left out an important detail in his quote from Psalm 91: “in all Your ways.” To this lie, Jesus says to Satan: “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Luke 4:12). Satan then departed from Jesus until an opportune time.
Satan would return with a vengeance on Maundy Thursday, but even at that time, God would use that evil for good as Jesus would suffer and die for our sins on Good Friday and rise for our justification on Easter, which was His plan for our salvation from the very beginning.
God keeps His promises. Before God calls on the people of Israel to place their trust in Him as their God, in the First Commandment, He says: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). What God is saying is this: “You can trust Me. I am your God. I brought you out of that suffering. Here are My Words, Words you can trust and live by.”
Again, when Satan tempts Jesus, notice how Jesus responds: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Jesus is sustained by that living and active Word of God through forty days of fasting and through the accusations and temptations of Satan.
While Satan desires our hopelessness and meaninglessness in our lives, God desires to instill us with sure and certain hope and to bring us into the fullness of abundant life through Jesus. Jesus entered into our humanity and endured the temptations of Satan without sin so that we would be saved ultimately through His sacrificial and atoning death for you and me. And now that Christ is risen and ascended, through His Word and Sacraments, He puts on us the whole armor of God, so that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
No comments:
Post a Comment