The Temptation of Jesus Christ – Part III

Matthew 4:8-11

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.

The devil yet again took Jesus to an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. The worldly grandeur that the satan displayed was nothing for Jesus and it is all in His hands and in His control. Colossians 1:16-17 says, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Satan is trying its last trick as desperately as he could. Jesus, the Son of God came to do the will of His Father and the Father sent Jesus to earth to bear the human form to take away the sin of the world. John 6:38 says, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” The promise of God that He will be with us is sent to us through Emmanuel which being interpreted means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23) and we are here to do the will of God. The satan may try every fiery dart to pull us down, but we will NOT fall for its tricks for we have the Lord God with us. If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31). We will not get carried away by satan’s lies, nor the flashy things he shows us because these are all sure to fade away but the love of God is forever, never failing, always abounding and always refreshing!

Satan said to Jesus, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” What a lie! Satan wanted Jesus to fall down and worship him. It is not in satan’s hands to give all that to Jesus; they are already His and were created by God the Father when Jesus was with Him. We should never fall for the words of satan or the fake promises of the satan. Jesus said “Get thee hence, Satan”! The word hence implies “therefore”; so there is a strong reason He rebuked the satan in this way. Exodus 20:5 says, “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them”; in other words, we are not to bow down or serve anybody or anything but only the Lord God. This is the first commandment in the Ten Commandments that the Lord God has given to Moses. This is the reason Jesus rebuked the enemy to get away. He immediately applied the Word of God. If Jesus used the Word of God alone to fight against the enemy, should we be trying to use any other source? Absolutely not! Word of God should be our means of living; it is the standard for us; by the Word we can win any fierce battle against the enemy. In Jude 1:9 we see that Michael the archangel was contending against the devil over the body of Moses and said: “The Lord rebuke thee”. Yes, we cannot rebuke the enemy all by ourselves but He rebukes the devil and so when we rebuke the devil, we should do it in the name of Jesus Christ. We see in Acts 16:18 that Paul the apostle commanded the spirit of divination to leave a damsel in the mighty name of Jesus.

After Jesus commanded the devil to leave speaking the Word of God, the devil immediately left and the angels ministered unto Him. In the same way, we see that the spirit of divination left the damsel the same hour Paul rebuked it in the name of Jesus. Proverbs 18:10 says, “The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” His name is a STRONG TOWER. Let us run into it and be safe! The Lord Jesus Christ when He lived on earth used the Word of God to combat the satan and his evil wiles; let us beautify ourselves with the wonderful Word that we may win against the enemy when he attacks us.

Next: Peninnah’s Provocation