In The Wilderness

"Then was Jesus led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Matthew 4.1

We can read In  Matthew's account of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. John the Baptist had come out of the wilderness, declaring the baptism of repentance and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

John did this to prepare the way for Jesus' public ministry.

When Jesus is baptized , and pointed out by John as "the lamb that takes away the sin of the world" 

John's ministry was completed :  Now, the very one Who Israel had long hoped for was here the  Messiah,

 "he that should come." Matthew 11.3

 Here was the Messiah of Israel, identified  by the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and the words of the Father ,

 "this is my beloved Son." Matthew 3.17

The Messiah

 Here the very Messiah   had arrived   bringing  the very Kingdom of God. This is the One Whom   the prophets  of Israel had spoken of, He had come,  the hope of all humanity  . The anticipation  hopes and expectations.  The years of waiting , all came to  focus upon Jesus .

This was a great  moment.  But Jesus' mission was not to be accomplished  the way some had hoped for. That was yet to be seen and made very plain..

Into The Wilderness

"Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Matthew:4:1

Jesus' first action was  not to go to Jerusalem and the Temple but rather He is led by the Holy Spirit to go to the Judaean Wilderness. A harsh dry windswept place. In Hebrew cosmology this was place where demonic powers were thought to inhabit. It is such a place that Jesus is powerfully led to go, it is as if Jesus is declaring that He will face Satan in his own territory.

 In this  wilderness, we witness, through the Scriptures,  the Kingdom of God , embodied by Jesus Christ , demonstrates  what ,was and is and always will be true, the Great God is victorious.The conflict of good and evil, of light and darkness, is in this moment is revealed.

The things of darkness, of this world are that which obscure and confused,  and indefinite; but the coming of light, the true light of God  makes them plain. In the clear simplicity of the desert, away from all the distractions, the conflict becomes an open one: the satan , comes to Jesus,  and in the temptations of Jesus, the subtle nature and forms of that conflict are seen, that was and  is satan's method .He is probing for weakness.

The Temptaions 

First, Jesus  is tempted to turn stores into bread. Satan  attempts to goad Jesus into employing the power of God   for carnal  worldly ends, to satisfy the demands of the flesh. There is nothing inherently wrong or evil about  hunger and wanting to eat, but the temptation lies in seeing gratification as the purpose of , and the point of the Jesus' Messiah ship, the real temptation is not being hungry, but vanity.Satan uses very clever temptations to entice Jesus, and us. Remember this; There is a difference between being clever and being wise. Satan is clever but he is not wise.

 "If you are the Son of God, command theses stones to become bread" Matthew:4:3

 But the Kingdom of God is not about  eating and drinking; so it does not consist in devices to make the flesh  more comfortable . Jesus' answer is from Deuteronomy:8:2

 "Man does not live by bread alone, but by the whole Word of God." Matthew:4:4

The second temptation is to test - and that is what "tempt"  means - to test Jesus' divine power:He takes our Lord Jesus to the pinnacle of  Temple its self in Jerusalem which over looked the Kidron Valley 300 feet below.

"If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down." Matthew:4:5

 It is the temptation to measure the divine power, to uses  the God's  spirit, according to one's own needs. It is the temptation to try to have God under our control for human reasons. But the Kingdom  has nothing to do with using God for human purposes. The miracles of Kingdom of God have  another  purpose than this. Jesus again uses the word of God to bear in the face of the temptation  we find in Psalm:91:

"Thou shall not test the Lord thy God." Matthew: 4:7

The third temptation is very fundamental, and  it is the foundation of all others. It is the  temptation of Adam: "to be as God." It is the temptation to see one's  "self"  in the place of God, to be oneself the absolute measure of everything. 

The  Self As "god"

That is  the worship the devil. "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." It is, an illusion, a futile pride and ambition, because it is untrue to the absolute reality of God. and his order of creation. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." 
What satan was attempting to do was to have Jesus  to step out side the will of God, to circumvent the Father's purpose, Jesus he applied to Jesus' want to do good, now. He could have it all and avoid the cross.He could preserve his self. To which Jesus refused, he would fulfill the will of God.

"Then the devil left him."  this demonstrates what we see in James:4:7

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

They were  temptations to use God for worldly ends, and the temptation to regard one's self as God. Once we see them for what they are, of course,  absurd there is nothing so absurd as the devil - but humanty has great capacity for self-deception.

Jesus' Victory

"And behold, angels came and ministered unto him." With the temptations ended, Jesus  now is ready to carry out His  mission. 

The Angelic assistance Jesus receives here is His right  , it is not just a statement of his need but it speaks to us about Who He is and the angels,   serve Him because He is the God.

The temptations of Jesus represent the basic forms of all temptation; they are ours temptations not just Jesus'  and the temptations of Christians. They represent the voice of the carnal nature,to exult our own will over  that of God's . That we can use God for worldly our  ends, that we can make God subject to our whims and wants , that we can be as absolute as God.

What we see here in the wilderness temptations of our Lord , is not Jesus, earning the right and there by becoming the Messiah. That is, Jesus is not the Messiah because He defeated satan, but rather, He defeated satan because He is the Messiah. Jesus is God from all eternity. Satan was not here defeated, but in truth has always been defeated,  this encounter in the wilderness only shows us what has always been true. God is God and there can be no other. There could be no other out come, this is the victory that always has been. 
The victory of Jesus is ours to share in not because of anything we have done  but it is all due to Who He is.

"But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" 1Corinthians:15:57

 "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us"Romans:8:37

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives to the death." Revelation:12:11

 the Season in the Wilderness

In this season of the year  we are led up by the Spirit into the wilderness with our Lord through the pages of the Scripture so that we can see Jesus showing himself to be the very one whom Israel longed for. Jesus also shows us that we can call on His Word to ward off the temptations that come our way in life.
In this season of the year we need to take time and consider are we allowing ourselves to be led to step out side of the will of God in any area of our lives. are we giving in to the carnal nature that we all have?

At times we can shield   ourselves from the truth, we need to face the temptations, for they reveal the truth about our humanity. Jesus faced them and what was raveled was that He is the Lord.  

A  wilderness is necessary for the clarifying of the Holy Spirit to us  minister  in , recall the Scripture shows that Jesus was led into the wilderness for His face temptations. The Holy Spirit will show us the truth. 

In The ancient Church there were hermits, the "Desert Fathers,"  they are called, had a point when they claimed that the real battles of the spirit, the real confrontations with our devils, take place in quiet and isolation. There are times when God does "test" us, the word test is really the usage of the language of accommodation, when God allows us to be "tested" it is not because He wants to find out what we will do, but rather He wants us to see what we will do.

This season calls us to participate, at least in some  way, in that flight to the desert, to try to see ourselves clearly in the light of God's Word, to identify our illusions so as to be free of them all because of Who Jesus is and the victory that is His and His alone from all eternity, this is His victory that He offers each of us.

John, in his first Epistle, wrote of  the three forms of temptation, the Apostle says it this  way:

 "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." 1 John 2.15-17. Amen

Rev.Todd Crouch, Pastor

The Fountain of Life Church a Congregation of Grace Communion

Washington, Pennsylvania.

The Fountain of Life Broadcast heard on the RKP Radio Network 1710 & 1670 AM in Washington and North Franklin, Pa. and on 1710 AM in Bentleyville , Pa. And online around the world at www.rkpradio.com