Tested, tempted, and victorious

Sermon for Invocavit – Lent 1

2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

Today is the first Sunday in the 40-day Lenten season, which isn’t really 40 days, but that’s OK. For us, they’re symbolic. Today, in particular, we recall the literal 40-day fast that our Lord Jesus endured in the wilderness, and the length of His fast is significant. It goes back to Old Testament Israel after they were led by Moses across the Red Sea after being divinely rescued from Egypt. They took just a couple of months journeying through the desert, eating the Manna that fell from heaven every day, until they got to Mount Sinai, where Moses spent 40 days on the mountain, receiving the Law from God, and came down to find the people dancing and playing around the idol of the golden calf they had just made. But they repented, and God forgave them, and they spent about a year hearing and learning the newly given Law and constructing the tabernacle and its furnishings. From there, it was supposed to be a quick trip up to Canaan, where they would, with God’s help, quickly and easily defeat the wicked inhabitants of the land and enter into the peace and prosperity of the Promised Land.

But that’s not how it went. After they left Sinai, it was a quick trip up to Canaan. And they sent out 12 spies, who spent 40 days surveying the land. 10 of the 12 warned the people that victory would be impossible, and so the people refused to go in. As a result, the Lord cursed them with 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, one year for each day the spies spent in the land.

So it was that the Lord Christ spent 40 days in the wilderness without food, one day for every day Moses spent on the mountain, receiving the Law; one day for every year of Israel’s punishment in the wilderness. As Moses explained after those forty years came to an end, And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

So Jesus, too, had to be tested by His Father. We note from the text that Jesus didn’t choose to fast or to confront the devil there in the wilderness. He was led there by the Spirit. When He became Man, He took on not only our flesh, but our way of life, our place under the Law, and our dependency on God the Father for everything. So He went where His Father, by His Spirit, led Him and did what His Father, by the Spirit, commanded Him, which meant abandoning civilization and food and shelter and living with the wild animals for over a month. It was a time of testing, so that Jesus, as true Man, could prove His obedience. As the writer to the Hebrews says, Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as High Priest. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus knew He was there in the wilderness to be tested, that He was there to obey and to suffer hunger at His Father’s bidding. The Lord tests, but the devil tempts. The Lord tests, with the goal of giving His children a chance to prove their love for Him and their trust in Him through obedience. But the devil tempts, trying to get God’s children to turn away from God.

Still, the Lord’s testing is sometimes hard to endure. The children of Israel had to endure hunger for a very short time in the wilderness. As soon as they became hungry, God provided them bread from heaven every day. He didn’t do the same for His beloved Son. No bread from heaven for Him who is the Bread from heaven. Only debilitating hunger.

That’s where the devil began his attack, trying to take advantage of the heavenly Father’s testing and use it against Jesus: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread! At the heart of this temptation is a dissatisfaction with God’s care. “If God loves you, how could He let you suffer like this? How could He test you for so long? How could He deprive you of what you need—or even of what you want? Forget His plan. Forget His Word. Take matters into your own hands. You deserve it.” In the end, it’s a temptation to distrust God, to disobey God, and to despair of God’s help.

Jesus fought back against the devil with the sword of the Spirit, with the Word of God. He quoted from Deuteronomy: It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ Here’s the larger context of Moses’ words to the Israelites: So the LORD humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.

You see, God had a purpose in humbling Israel, and He had a purpose in humbling Jesus. It came from love, the love of a dear Father for His dear Son and for all who would benefit from His Son’s obedience. That’s you and me. We haven’t been perfectly trusting, obedient children. We haven’t proven that we will always do what God commands, even when it’s difficult. So we needed a righteous substitute, and now we have one, since Jesus, in our place, proved Himself trusting and obedient, even in times of suffering—suffering which was only just beginning during the 40-day fast.

The second temptation listed in Matthew’s Gospel is from the top of the temple in Jerusalem, where the devil tempted Jesus: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down! For it is written, ‘He will put his angels in charge of you,’ and, ‘In their hands they will lift you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” This is another temptation to doubt God’s love and care. But whereas, in the first temptation, the devil’s solution was for Jesus to disobey God and take care of Himself, the devil’s solution here is for Jesus to challenge God to prove His love, to prove that He is worthy of being worshiped and obeyed. “It looks like He’s abandoned You. If God is so trustworthy, as You say, if He loves you as His dear Son, then jump, and make Him send His angels to catch You.”

Part of the difficulty with this temptation is the devil’s own use of Scripture. He’s crafty that way. He can quote the Bible, too. But he always quotes it out of context, or twists the meaning, or leaves out important information. Jesus was too knowledgeable of Scripture to be fooled, but many aren’t so knowledgeable and are quick to be fooled by any slick-sounding preacher. In this case, the part of the Psalm that the devil left out was, “He will put his angels in charge of you, to keep you in all your ways,” that is, in the ways assigned to you by God, in the ways that flow from your vocations, in the things you’re supposed to do. No one is supposed to jump from a high building. That would be tempting God, trying to get Him to prove His care.

Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’” God the Creator, God the Teacher, God the Master has every right to test us, the creatures, the students, the servants. We don’t get to test Him. Jesus’ quote was from the book of Deuteronomy, where the Israelites tested God when they started to get thirsty. They tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” It was that arrogant, blasphemous attitude, “If God loves us, then He’ll do this for us or that for us. And if He doesn’t do it, then He’s a terrible God and He doesn’t deserve to have us as His children.” And so the creature becomes his own god, which is exactly what the serpent promised Eve in the Garden of Eden, that she could be like God.

You recognize that temptation, don’t you? To make conditions for God to fulfill, if He is to have your obedience, your trust, and your love? Instead of being thankful for all that God has given, you focus on the thing He hasn’t given, and the devil takes advantage. But Christ was victorious, and He shows us how to be victorious, too: by faith in Him, by trusting the goodness of our Father in heaven without having to see yet another example of it.

The final temptation recorded for us is from a high mountain, where the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said, All these things I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me. In other words, “You don’t need God at all. I’ll give you the world. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted in the world, as long as you recognize me, the devil, as the one who deserves the worship of your heart.” And lest you imagine that’s an empty promise, Jesus Himself calls the devil the “prince” or “the ruler of this world.” He became that after Adam and Eve sinned, as part of the curse we now live under, a world ruled, in large part, by an angry, bitter, hateful, spiteful, arrogant, lying demon. He hasn’t been given all power, but he has been given a lot.

Yes, but you’re no Satan worshiper. You would never bow down to the devil. Few people in history ever have…directly. But indirectly? Accept evolution, embrace secular “science,” and you’ll have the world’s approval. Support abortion and homosexuality, and you’ll have some of the most powerful people in the world on your side. Deny that there is only one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that there’s only one way to be saved—through faith in Christ Jesus—and you’ll find that many doors open to you here on earth. You may even get to stay out of jail when the fiery persecution against Christ-confessing Christians ramps up in earnest.

Jesus remained unmoved by the devil’s offer. Get away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. “No matter what you offer, Satan, I’ll never worship you, because you can’t give Me the one thing that matters most to me: My Father’s love. My Father’s approval. My Father’s kingdom.” As the Psalmist wrote, Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

And so Satan was defeated in the wilderness by Christ every time, in contrast with Israel, who fell in the wilderness time after time, as have we. Christ was tested by His Father, tempted by the devil, and victorious after those 40 days. And then, what happened? Angels came and ministered to Him. The time of testing was over, and the Father comforted His Son and gave Him what He needed for the work that lay before Him for the next three years, which would see more testing and more tempting, and also, a final victory.

You’ll have more testing in your life, too, and more tempting, until the time for testing and tempting is over. You’ll have the help of God’s Spirit and God’s Word the whole time, just as Jesus did. And you have mighty promises: the promise of forgiveness for those who repent and believe in Christ, the promise of God’s love and the care of His angels, the promise that you’ll never be tempted beyond what you can bear, and the promise of victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.