Temptation No.4 Refusing the Devils Bribe

I'm going to talk a little bit about what I'm going to talk about in this lecture. Our reading is taken from the book of Luke, chapter 4, verses 1 to 13. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them was hungry. The devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. Jesus answered, It is written, Man does not live on bread alone.

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.

Jesus answered, It is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the Son of God, he said, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully.

They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. Jesus answered, It says, Do not put the Lord your God to the test. When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

May the Lord bless this reading to us all. Time is rather at a premium this morning. Let's go to the parallel reading that Tom brought to us in Matthew's Gospel.

And let me remind you of a few verses from Matthew's account of the temptations of our blessed Lord Jesus. Matthew and Luke run parallel, but they have a different order. Luke reverses the order.

It's generally felt because of the way that Matthew expresses himself, that the first Gospel is following the actual sequence of the temptations as they came to our Lord Jesus. So from the eighth verse of Matthew chapter 4, we read these words. Again, the devil took him, that is the Lord Jesus, to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him, Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Three temptations broke in across the beach, so to speak, of our Lord's life at this juncture.

The first, be selfish. Here are stones, you're hungry. Use your miraculous power for your own advantage and turn them into bread, thus being able to feed yourself.

Be selfish. And then the second, which I isolated last week in terms of the problem, the temptation that confronts us in 20th century life today. You want to make a name for yourself? Gyrate in front of some microphone.

Ensure that the media are present. Do something quite astonishing. Be spectacular.

Throw yourself down from that pinnacle of the temple and see those thronging crowds present because, well, it's the time of the sacrifices in the evening, possibly. Watch their reaction as you, in a remarkable fashion, display your innate ability. God will send his angels and they'll act as a parachute, dropping you to the ground carefully so that no stone will bruise your foot.

Be spectacular. But then, here is the third temptation. Our Savior is taken off to some high mountain and the devil slides alongside and he says, in effect, be successful.

Be successful. You see, one of the most important things in the world today, or so it would seem, is power, control of power. I was reading of a conversation between Charles Coulson, Henry Kissinger, and President Nixon when Richard Nixon held that office in the States.

And the concerns that each of these men had to harness and to keep as much power as they possibly could. Be successful. The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

And he says, I'll give you these if you'll bow down and worship me. So we follow our Lord Jesus in these temptations and they're not dissimilar from the way that temptations break in across the beach of our lives. We've seen him in the solitude because the devil can be there, can he not? We've seen him amongst the multitude, the temple at Jerusalem.

And now we perceive him in the altitude, the highest place that the devil takes him to. We see him in the plain, the wilderness of Judea. We see him amongst the people in the holy city.

We see him at the peak, at the heights. And every time you see him, you also witness the onslaught of the devil as he endeavors to deflect him from achieving his father's purpose. As it was for Jesus, so it will be for you.

As the master was tried, so the disciples will be tested. That is what he said, was it not? And so as we break open these few verses of Scripture, let me do so by suggesting to you that first of all, there is a proclamation on the part of the devil, all this will I give you. And then there is a proposition, if you will bow down and worship me.

And finally, there is the reminder of a prohibition. You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. I break it up for convenience for those of you who take notes.

Proclamation. The devil takes him to a very high mountain. Again, again, the devil comes along.

And again, we see in this temptation, if you like, the same sort of thing as the Israelites went through scores of years ago. When confronting the promised land, the devil came along and tempted them. Moses is allowed to go a high mountain, if you like.

And here is a greater than Moses. And he is shown, not from Nebo, where this mountain is, I don't know. But he is shown all the kingdoms of the world.

The devil takes and tempts him. He tugs at him, slides alongside, and brings to him this particular option of worshipping him and not the Lord God. You remember I said that the devil's temptations are directed to us as we are and because we are as we are.

You see, there's an infinite computation of temptations that the devil can use. Now, who is Jesus? He is the Son of God. He meets him as he is there, and because he is what he is, he gives him this particular temptation.

All the kingdoms of this world. Jesus was interested in the world. The devil was interested in the world.

The devil claimed to be the power of the prince of this world. Jesus said to his disciples, Matthew 28, verse 28, go into the whole world and preach the gospel. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world.

He tempts as you are and because you are as you are. What is one of the most important things in the thinking of our Lord Jesus? The world and his relationship to it. So, the devil takes that theme at the center of the mind of Christ, and he slides alongside, and he perverts the desire that Jesus has for the well-being of the world, as the devil will slide alongside you and pervert whatever good objective you have so that in deflecting it, it becomes pernicious, perverted.

The devil takes the Lord Jesus to a very high mountain. He's already taken him to a fairly lofty point at the temple, you remember, in the previous temptation, but now he takes him, as I say, from the multitude to the altitude, to the highest point. The devil is known as the prince of the power of the air.

Is our Lord Jesus being taken, so to speak, into the devil's territories? I don't understand the structure and the organization of satanic forces, though I do believe they exist in our world. And when the Bible refers to the prince of the power of the air, it seems to suggest that there he has his headquarters, there he has his organization. I don't understand it, but the Bible uses this language.

And so the Lord is taken higher, as though the demons mimicking some third rate British television program, some quiz program, are shouting, higher, higher, higher. Take him up to where you are. The higher you can take him, the more he is brought into the orbit where we are in control.

The greater will be his fall when ultimately he's smashed as a result of your temptation. The devil takes him to a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of this world and their splendor. It's interesting, isn't it, that when you go through to the gospel of Luke and that parallel reading, you get further information about the devil claiming to have control over the whole world.

The sixth of the fourth chapter, and he said to him, Jesus, I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want. The previous verse, the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. I don't know how you envisage the devil doing that.

It seems as though at a 20th century level, you would have to help yourself by imagining that somehow from a high peak, you had several TV cameras with incredibly powerful zoom lenses, and they were bringing into the visage, into the sight of the Lord Jesus, all the power and all the wealth, all the glitter and all the gold of the world. And the devil says, look, all this is yours if you'll worship me. I envisage Sheba being shown around Solomon's temple and seeing all the wealth of that great king and all the utensils that there were, not only in the temple, but also in his palace.

The gold that was there, the silver that was there, and all the power that Solomon obviously had. Sheba, the queen, she sees it all. And here is our Lord Jesus, by the permission, so to speak, of the devil, seeing all the domains of the world.

And here is the proclamation, all this I will give you. You see, our Lord never seems to suggest that the devil in any sense was going beyond his brief in making this claim, does he? He doesn't say that it's not yours to offer me. And there are those who feel that the devil actually could have delivered the goods to the Lord Jesus, that he was the one who controlled the whole of the earthly sphere.

I'm not too sure that that was the case, actually. It seems to me that the devil, as our Lord tells us in the eighth chapter of John's gospel, was a liar from the beginning. And any rights that he had were the rights of someone who had usurped authority and power, the right of the squatter, if you please.

But the Lord Jesus doesn't in any way dismiss Satan's offer of being able to give him all the kingdoms of the world and all the power that is inherent in them. So he takes the temptation in its full brunt, its full force. You see, and you must go beyond the actual temptation itself to the principle that is at the back of the devil's mind.

What really is at issue on this occasion? It's not just a question of wealth. It's a question of Jesus's relationship to the Father. All this I will give you.

Now listen, he said you're his son, and in you he's well pleased. Fine, Father, is that one of yours? You're so hungry that it would be befitting for you to turn stones into bread. If I was your Father, it wouldn't just be a question of a slice of bread or a loaf of bread, but all the bushels of all the wheat harvest would be yours, greater grain than Joseph crammed into those granaries in Egypt.

They'd all be yours if I were your Father. That's always what the devil is after, you acknowledging his lordship and not the lordship of Jehovah God. And the devil has great impudence in the way that he slips alongside and offers up his temptation.

He shows him all the kingdoms of the world, him, the one who created the world. What could he teach him that he didn't know? What could he show him that he hadn't perceived? But this is the devil, you see. He will overreach himself and he will exploit a situation, particularly when a man or a woman is at his weakest point.

If I were your Father, then it wouldn't be a question of the cross before the crown. You'd get the crown without the cross. You would get the coronation without the crucifixion.

If I were your Father, you see what's at stake here? You can't read these words and there aren't that many of them in this temptation too quickly, because every word is loaded with meaning. Oh that God would give us eyesalve when we read Scripture to discover the fundamental profound truths that there are locked into each verse. Here is not just an ordinary temptation about power in terms of a politician who's seeking for prestige.

There are much greater issues at stake here. Here is at stake the whole purposes of God, the salvation of the universe, the allegiance of Jesus Christ to his Father, or the allegiance of Jesus Christ to Lucifer. All this will I give you.

So he shows him all the kingdoms of the world. That's a proclamation. And the proposition is, if you'll do that and worship me, then your life will be much easier.

Have you ever thought, my friend, that the psychology of temptation is always something that first of all is presented to the eye? It's the lust of the eyes. You see, it's not here to be seen in terms of the temptation of Jesus, though obviously that's what Matthew is dealing with, but this is a rerun of the temptations that the devil has brought to every man, to every woman. Here is Mother Eve right at the beginning.

There is a fruit that is forbidden. Look at that fruit. Let your eyes perceive that fruit.

Listen to what I have to say about the power that's innate within that fruit. If only, if only you'll accept me as creator and father and not him, you will be as gods. My way is so much more easy than the way that he is offering you.

The temptation of the devil, I say, is constant, you see, as it was with Eve, so it is with Jesus, so it is with yourself. He slides along with this proposition. If you'll take my way, things will be that much more easy for you.

The best of saints attempted with the vilest of sins, are they not? Look, Jesus, one paltry genuflection, one paltry indication that you acknowledge who I am and your future is going to be completely different from the one that you're predicating at the moment. I can't prove this, my friend, but what hit me forcefully when I was studying and praying through this word was that when our Lord Jesus, later on in his ministry, says that a man can gain the whole world and lose his own soul and still be the loser, that he had very much at the back of his mind this temptation. Because you see, our Lord was not just an academic theologian, he preached into the hearts of the people.

He knew where they were and he came from where he was to where they were. That's why they listened to him, because he's taught as a man who understood them and the nature of their problem. You can gain the whole world.

It's there, Jesus. It's there for the asking and it's there in such an easy way. All you have to do is to bow your knee and submit to me.

It'll be much, much easier for you. But Jesus knows that if he gains the world this way, he loses, so to speak, and I'm almost allowing my logic to take me to the point of being a fool. He loses his soul.

He loses his whole reason for coming on this earth, for God is his Father and his meat is to do the will of his Father. And his will ultimately will be seen to be one that will take him, even the Son, into the fullness of joy. All this I will give you if, if you'll bow down and worship me.

It swings on the if. It swings on the will of the Lord Jesus. It swings on your will.

Do you recognize the power that there is in that one word, if? I do not exaggerate. I could preach you at least a dozen sermons on the necessity of understanding the if in this particular verse. If only you will accept what I'm offering you as I come to you where I am.

You see, the Bible talks about the whole world being in the hands of the evil one, doesn't it? And although I would argue that the devil's rights are usurped rights, he nonetheless has tremendous power. And the Lord's temptation here is not a phony temptation. I don't know to what degree it was possible.

I tend to come in with a negative because I'm, I'm convinced of the theological reasoning of John Calvin as to the ability of our Lord to sin. But this will I say about this temptation and the triplet of temptation, they were so real, they were so genuine nonetheless. You see, right at the beginning of our Lord's ministry is brought in front of him something that will be repeated three years hence.

He's there in the garden. That awful cup is in front of him. Lord, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

He's the son of God. He's also the son of man. He's divine, but he's human.

This is why he relates to you. This is why you can serve him. We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

He didn't go to the cross as a sort of stoic, believing that somehow with a stiff upper lip, he could take it all on the lip or on the chin, as we would say in our English colloquial expression. He understood something of the nature of the problem that it would mean for him to go to the cross and the heartache of being separated from his father and all the horror and shame and blood and tears of that period of crucifixion. Now, here is our Savior being offered an alternative.

If you'll bow down and worship me. You see, it comes in a myriad ways. You can sort of personalize this.

Here's a young couple, you see, and they're going out together. Now, according to the popular British newspaper and the classy British newspaper these days, it seems sexual relationships, it doesn't really matter how far you go. After all, we're told in the Times, in the Telegraph, in the Independent, and in the tabloids that everyone has at least six partners as they pass through life in these days in British society.

That is placarded in front of the people. Now, if that's the case, then why don't you anticipate your marriage? Or don't even consider marriage at all. You see, here is this woman.

Here is a good night. Just get together. You're all right.

Why not just this little thing that will bring to you such great satisfaction? Why not? Because that is another example of the will of God being replaced by the purposes of the devil. You see, the temptation has, as I say, so many, many permutations. And so, our Lord, hearing the proclamation of the devil, all this I will give you, and the proposition, if you will bow down and worship me, now responds.

We can deal with this quite quickly. He responds how? He responds with a prohibition. Verse 10, Jesus said to him, Away from me, Satan, for it is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Here are three things, repulsion, ascription, quotation, repulsion away from me. I cannot tolerate you. There is total incompatibility between you and me.

I will have nothing to do with you. What you suggest repels me. What you suggest makes me sick.

Worship you over against him. Depart from me. Get away from me.

You infuriate me. The very obscenity that you bring in front of me is an offense. Away from me.

Begone, Satan. Repulsion. When Satan was tempting Jesus, he brought visually in front of him the kingdoms of this world.

When Satan tempts you, he will, as I said, try it through the eye gate. He'll bring you a picture. He'll bring you a suggestion.

Job says this, I have made a covenant with my eyes that I will not sin against you. And then he develops and tells us what the state of that covenant actually is. Jesus has made a covenant with his eyes.

And any picture that he has, that has within it the insinuation that he ought not to do the will of his father, is totally unacceptable. He'll switch the television off. He'll get away from that channel.

He'll dispense with that book. Why? Because the very thought is obnoxious to him. Repulsion.

Followed by? Ascription. Away from me, Satan. The devil has not been called by that name before.

He's just been referred to in the general term, the devil. Satan means adversary. It means enemy of God.

Jesus sees him for who he is, one who's alien to all the purposes of his father. And so he speaks to him, faces him, is repelled by him, and ascribes to him the name Satan. And finally, there's a quotation.

It is written, worship the Lord and serve him only. Leon Morris says the Bible was the only book Jesus quoted. And then, never as a basis for discussion, but to decide the point at issue.

You shall worship the Lord your God. Him only shall you serve. Actually, there's no one verse in the Old Testament that says that.

That is a summation, a summary of three or four statements that's made in the book of Deuteronomy and also in the book of Samuel. The Lord links together scriptural truth and he slays the devil with a word. The notion that I should be bribed by you and make you my father and achieve my life's goal by the options that you placard against me, they are totally obnoxious to me.

There's only one person who I will worship. There is only one person before whom I will kneel down. There is only one person who I will, if you like, kiss, for that's what worship means.

Kiss in the form of doing obeisance to God, and that is my father. So, the devil and our Lord Jesus leave off from this confrontation for a while. The devil, the devil's bribe is refused as our Lord squares up to him.

Do you likewise refuse the devil's bribe as it's dangled in front of you? All these things, that's a proclamation I will give you. If this is a proposition, you will live at my level and have it on my terms. And the prohibition is this, no, because the Bible says, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

Let's turn to another hymn, 378. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. I'm sorry, who is on the Lord's side? Who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? Now, the same sentiments of the one that I was quoting from memory anyway.

Who will be his helpers other lives to bring? Who will leave the world's side? Who will face the foe? Who is on the Lord's side? Who for him will go? We'll sing the first verse and the third and fourth verses, omitting therefore verse two, 378. Father, we thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus, his great courage. We ask that we too might be able to withstand the devil.

When offered his bribe, we might dismiss him, the very notion may sicken us, repel us, that we should be anything else but sons and daughters of the Lord God and heavenly father, that we should in any way compromise upon our faith or take a shortcut or submit to the tempter's philosophy. Give us the grace of our Saviour in this and continue to bless us for his sake. Amen.