Temptation No.5 The Devils Departure

Now let's sing. Please be seated. Let's turn to one or two verses from the Word of God.

Just a little catena, that is a selection of readings you might like to follow in your Bibles, or you might like just to listen to them being read. Here is our Lord Jesus in Matthew's Gospel, and he's at the end of his tempting experience, Matthew chapter 4. And in the 10th verse, resisting the third temptation, we read this, Jesus said to him that is the devil, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him, and the angels came and attended him.

Now Mark's Gospel, and chapter 1, there you find a very compressed comment about the temptations of our Saviour. The ninth verse, at that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.

And a voice came from heaven, you are my Son, whom I love with you, I am well pleased. At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert for 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels attended him.

Finally, Luke's Gospel, and in the fourth chapter, towards the end of the account of the temptations, verse 12, Luke 4.12, the Lord Jesus answered, it says, quoting scripture, 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. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.

Extend the border of thy mantle over me, because thou art my nearest kinsman. Cover me, cover me, cover me. Blessed be the God of Israel, for in the shadow of his wings my refuge is.

He is Jehovah, my God forever. I'll cling to him and trust his promises. You're my hope, king, one, redeemer.

How great the grace you've shown a servant such as me. I was a stranger, yet have found favor. He is watching over me, over me, over me.

Extend the border of thy mantle over me, because thou art my nearest kinsman. Cover me. And let's turn to Matthew and the fourth chapter.

And as I conclude this short series of addresses on the temptations of our Lord, I want you to focus in on the eleventh verse of Matthew 4, and couple it in your mind with the verses that we also read from Mark's Gospel and Luke's Gospel. One of the things that impresses me in reading Scripture is the depth of meaning that there is, even in the shortest expression. And it might well be that you considered that last week I'd concluded this address.

And yet in one sense, all that I've shared with you during the series has put down a foundation for what needs to be said right now. So, verse 11, Then the devil left him, the Lord Jesus, and angels came and ministered to him, or and attended him. I want to say that we need to have a very respectful attitude to the whole business of temptation.

You should never voluntarily put yourself in the tempting situation. Daniel did not jump into the lion's den he was pushed. Had he jumped, he would have been on his own.

Because he was pushed, the Lord was with him. I say that semi-humorously and also with a great deal of meaning in the point we are to respect the power that there is in temptation. That's the reason why in the Lord's Prayer we ask the Father, Lead us not, don't allow us.

If it's possible, if it's within your will, don't allow us even to find ourselves in the tempter's snare. But if we are in that situation, then at that moment deliver us from evil. Deliver us from the evil one.

I think that's perhaps a better and more accurate rendering of the Lord's Prayer. Now we don't come to temptation with a defeatist attitude. We come to temptation knowing full well that everything that happens to us in our lives is within the sovereignty of God.

It was God who gave permission for Job to be tempted. Do you remember? And it's the Lord who tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 through the mouthpiece of Paul that there is no temptation that has taken us, that we are submitted to, that is so severe we cannot cope. But the Lord has more than the ability and a great deal of enthusiasm for us to be able to stand, to resist the evil one.

So we come to temptation respecting the power that there is within it. We come to temptation realizing, however, that our God is sovereign. Now remember that here in the beginning of the ministry of our Lord Jesus you have an illustration of all that the Bible is going to teach about temptation.

He had to submit to the power of the tempting authority to the devil himself. Submit to the temptation in terms of all that the devil dangled in front of him. But our Lord Jesus did not submit to the power that was operative through that temptation and was therefore not foiled by the evil one.

Why did Satan tempt the Lord Jesus? Well, to deflect him from achieving his father's purposes. That's the reason why he wants to tempt you and me. You see, at stake is who is your father.

Is it the God and Father of our Lord Jesus or is it Lucifer, the devil himself? Says J.I. Packer, all Satan's temptations are so many welcome notices along the broad road that leads to destruction. All Satan's temptations are so many welcome notices along the broad road that leads to destruction. Well, with that in mind, having watched our Savior negotiate these temptations that the devil has placed in front of him, let's come to this final verse linked, as I say, to the other verses in the Gospels.

First of all, Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Firstly, the departure, when it happened. And secondly, the consequence, what opened up after the devil had left the Savior.

And then finally, the warning, what were the immediate prospects in front of the Lord? The departure, when it happened. Then the devil left him. I want to speak about the devil leaving the Lord and then the devil leading us at this moment.

The devil leaving the Lord and the devil leaving us. When did the devil leave the Lord Jesus? Then. You remember my intonation and the way that I endeavored to develop this when confronted with the initial stages of this experience.

Look at verse 1 of the fourth chapter. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert. When? Well, when he'd been baptized.

When he'd known the ecstasy of the Father identifying him as his beloved Son. After the ecstasy came the agony. After the blessing came the buffeting.

It's always that way. After the waters, the wilderness. Then Jesus was led into the desert.

Now we read the same conjunction, the same word in the eleventh verse. Then the devil left him. When did the devil leave him? After the Lord Jesus had been able to take those triple attacks upon his person and upon his allegiance to the Father.

Then the devil left him. After the regaling, the refreshing. For the angels came.

After the protestation, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shalt thou serve. Then the vindication. From heaven come the messengers with the very food which is now legitimized for the Lord Jesus to take.

Having rejected the devil's offer of food. Have you noticed how this is a replay of Eden? The whole issue of the first temptation. Surrounded food.

Taking what is prohibited. And when our Lord Jesus repulses the devil, then the devil leaves. And after that, he's refreshed by these angelic messengers.

Then the devil left him. When? When all the arrows have been taken from the quiver of the devil and been shot at the Savior. Then the devil left him.

When all the ingenuity of the evil one had been brought into play to try and trip the Son of God. Then the devil left him. You see, the devil is not omnipotent.

Nor does he have complete omniscience. There are times when the devil can get to the end of his own resources. Luke's Gospel makes it very clear.

When our Lord Jesus had submitted to, been tested by all the trials that the devil could bring. Then he left him. Like a disappointed child was the devil.

Unable to achieve his objective. Then the devil left him. When does the devil leave you and me? He leaves us when we fill our minds with the Word of God.

And when temptation breaks, we use the knowledge that we have in order to withstand the trial that he places in front of us. If you do not know and if you are not continually growing in your understanding of the Word of God, you are making yourself much more weak, much more vulnerable to the attacks of the evil one. Says a great congregational theologian at the beginning of this century.

P.T. Forsyth Unless there is within us that which is above us, we shall yield to that which is about us. Unless there is within us that which is above us. Where does the word of the Lord come from? Well, of the Lord describes the origin of scripture.

It comes from above. Unless that which is above us is within us, we shall be tempted to that which is around us. What is around us? All the hostility of a world largely under the control of the evil one.

When will the devil leave you? When your mind is filled with scripture and you use it as the Savior wielded the sword against the evil one. Then the devil will leave you. When? When we make it clear that our goal is God himself.

Worship me, all this I'll give you. No. No, Satan.

There is only one who supremely should have my honor and my allegiance. I have no other Lord to whom I will bow my knee. Only him.

My goal is God himself. This one thing I do. Then the devil will leave you.

When? You admit to the authority of scripture and put it back at him. When your prime objective is the service of the Lord and the fulfillment of his will. When? When you prove yourself so hard a prey that the devil opts for someone else whose resistance is that much weaker.

That may not seem an honorable argument, but logic drives me to it. The devil does not have the omniscience or the omnipresence of God. He has certain characteristics that impinge upon those qualities.

But there are times when the devil will particularly come across you and endeavor to trip you. But there are other people whose allegiance he still wants. And when you prove yourself to be hard a prey, he'll turn frustratedly to another.

When? Then. Then the devil left the Lord. Then the devil leaves us.

And we discover this amazing truth. That every temptation is an opportunity to get nearer to God. Then the devil left him.

And angels came and ministered to him. The departure, when it happened. The consequence.

What opened up? Well, it seems to me two things. Here we have a foretaste of the future and a recollection of the past. Hear me and you'll understand.

Those are my summary statements. What opened up? A foretaste of the future. The angels came and ministered to him.

It's an interesting study, isn't it? The ministry of angels. You notice how they filter through the early narratives of the Gospels. And you find the ministry of angels in the darkness that was in the world.

The spiritual darkness at the time when Jesus was born. The people who sat in darkness saw a great light. And within the light was the filtering through of the angels into various situations.

Which were attendant upon the birth of our Lord Jesus. The shepherds, Joseph, Mary. The end of his life, our Lord Jesus will know.

The ministry of angels, will he not? How do you understand angels? I see them, if you please, as a sort of bodyguard of our Lord Jesus. Does it surprise you that I use such words? The letter of the Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. The letter of Peter says about our salvation and Jesus coming into the world.

That the whole thing is so remarkable that angels desire to look into it. One thing you are to perceive about angels is that they have a great curiosity. It's a legitimate curiosity.

You see, when the first great angel fell and took with him a large proportion of the heavenly realm. The father never engaged in a rescue ministry to redeem the fallen angels. But when Adam fell, God sent into his world.

The Lord Jesus Christ. Angels crowd and peer over the balustrades of heaven. And look at what is happening regarding our Lord Jesus.

You say I'm fantasizing? Hear me. Listen to my argument. Logic is my currency from this pulpit.

The logic of the Bible. When our saviour is in difficulty, so to speak. Inverted commas.

In front of the Roman procurator. What does he say? He speaks about his father. And the ability of his father.

And the power of his father. What does the Lord Jesus say to his disciples when they make an inept attempt to defend him? Don't you think that I could speak to my father and he would send a legion of angels. To come.

To come. To my help. Then the angels came and ministered.

Why? Why didn't they come before? Gabriel, he could have done with a slice of bread. Much sooner than you and your colleagues were present. Well, you see, our Lord Jesus is here on earth to achieve the one thing that he alone can do and no one else.

And that is to fight the devil. He trod the winepress alone. In one sense, our Lord is a man of solitude.

In as much as there is no human agency, no divine agency that can help him along to the achievement of what his basic purpose is. He fights alone. Three years will whip by and he'll be alone in Gethsemane.

He'll be alone on the cross. He's alone here in the wilderness when the devil comes and tempts him. That's the mettle of a man.

That's the iron that's in his spirit. He will take on all the hostility of hell encapsuled in the devil. And he will fight on his own.

That's why they didn't come before. But what did they come to do? They came to minister to him, didn't they? To minister, not to his spiritual, but to his physical need. For he's son of God, he's also son of man.

He knows what it is to be tired. He knows what it is to hunger. He knows what it is to be thirsty.

And as Elijah received that human ministry from the angels centuries before, so the Lord Jesus receives similar attendance. Of what do they speak? To what do they point? These angels now in attendance. You see, it's very difficult for us earthbound creatures.

Unless you've had experiences like Richard Wurmbrand was telling me when I was having a dinner with him the other evening. Of solitary confinement, it's so easy for you to think of angels as being something unreal. And of heaven as being so detached from earth, really there's no relationship between the two spheres.

But the Bible in the book of Revelation, as the apostle John is recalling what happened to him on the isle of Patmos, speaks of this great vision. I, John, saw the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. The idea is of heaven touching earth.

What's the reason why heaven cannot touch earth at the moment? Because of the sin that there is within this sphere. But you see, for a little while, in that area of the wilderness, sin has been abolished. The devil has gone away, as we would say, with a flea in his ear.

The Son of God there stands heroically untouched by the evil one. And the angels minister to him as one day there shall be an alignment between earth and heaven. And you and I as human beings and angelic beings will comfortably be in relationship one with the other.

Then they ministered unto him. When? When the devil departed. And the consequence that was opened up was a foretaste of the future.

I argue also it was a recollection of the past. A recollection of the past. You see, very often in Matthew's gospel, the author will let his slip show he's a Jew.

And he's writing with a Jewish background. And he has the thought very often in his mind of Eden and the transgression of the first man, Adam. And here is a garden, so to speak, a wilderness, suffering from the curse as a result of the first man's sin.

But here is the last man. Here is the representative man who's going to take on the devil and undo the harm achieved by the first Adam. And what do we discover? That our Lord Jesus is not just ministered unto by angels.

But Mark will tell you and Luke will tell you that he's in the company of wild animals. Now that's extraordinary, isn't it? Would you like to be in the company of a wild animal? Why are animals so wild? Why is nature sometimes so hostile? Well, the Bible will tell you the reason is the curse, the sin that's come into our world. It was never intended to be like that.

Adam was not afraid of the ferocious lion because the ferocity of the lion didn't exist before the fall. He only became afraid. And you and I share the same fear because of the consequences of sin.

But for a little while, in a small corner, if you like, of the world, Satan has been thrust aside. And the last Adam moves amongst the wild animals, unfeared and unfearing. There is not only just a foretaste of the future in these tempting accounts, the accounts of the temptation.

There is a recollection of the past. What Adam did, you and I are involved in. Adam's sin contained all the sin of the people.

The vice of all sin was in one. Ah, but the virtue of all conquest is in the last Adam. And as you and I identify with him, so we will increasingly know the conquest of sin in our own lives.

Then, the devil left him. And angels came and attended. The departure, when it happened, the consequence, what opened up? Finally, the warning.

What are the immediate prospects? Well, you see, that's why you need to carefully read Scripture, putting verse alongside verse. Because Luke makes it very clear that though the devil has slunk away from our Lord Jesus, he has not done so permanently. He will be back again.

It's put in the fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel in the thirteenth verse this way. When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. The A.V. puts it, he left him for a season.

There was just a little interlude. When the devil is away from the Lord Jesus. But he's going to come back.

For the assaults of the temptations are just a precursor for the wretched assaults that he'll know throughout his life and concentrated at the end. The hiss of the serpent, our Savior will still hear. The rattle of the snake will still be detected.

I wish it were true to say, and if it were, I would preach it with enthusiasm and passion. That there is some experience, my brother and sister, which will release you always in your earthly sojourn from the trials and the power of the evil one. But there is none.

He will leave you for a season. And he will return. That is the warning.

And so we put up two questions. How did he tempt our Lord Jesus as he returns? And then how does he tempt us? How did he tempt the Lord Jesus? Perhaps you need to have confirmed in your mind that he actually did go through temptations again. Well if you were to read the Gospel of Luke in the 22nd chapter and the 28th verse.

You'll remind yourself of our Lord speaking to his disciples and saying, you were the ones who were with me throughout the whole of my temptations. Do you think when the demons spoke out, they tempted the Saviour? They spoke clearly as to who he was. As though they were ministering to his own pride.

Do you think that the devil was absent? Of course not. On that occasion when Peter suggests to the Lord Jesus that he should not submit to the cross that the Father has in store for him. Jesus spins round and he says to his disciple, get thee behind me Satan.

The devil gets one of the closest friends of Jesus to do his dirty work. He comes again. He comes perhaps when our Lord is fatigued.

There he is in the garden. The human Jesus. His nerves stretched.

This is what the Greek word gives me the right to describe. Stretched like the string across a violin bridge. If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Is there a hiss that our Lord also detects? That same hiss as three years ago the devil came along to try to dissuade him from doing what he knew to be his Father's will. Our Lord had said in anticipation of those final moments, you remember, this is your hour. It's the hour of darkness.

What hell was released as our Lord is crucified? Do you have words to describe it? Then you would be better in this pulpit than myself. Do you have an understanding that you can fully comprehend to the extent that you can say I perceive all that it cost our Lord Jesus? Hell was let loose during that afternoon when Jesus was crucified. The devil slunk away but he was to come again.

Then the devil left him and angels came and attended him. But there will be another season, an opportune moment, which the devil will try to exploit. And when it comes, he still finds the Savior is the flint man, the man of metal, who is able to cope with all the powers of the evil one.

How does he tempt us? Does he not tempt us when we're poor? And we feel, oh, so hurt by certain things that have happened in our lives. Does he not tempt us, conversely, when all is going our way? We're riding the crest of the wave. Take these blessings.

Identify yourself as being the reason why you are so successful. He comes again. He comes in moments when we're in dire distress.

He comes at times when we're at the peak of success. He comes to us, departs for a season, only to return again. He comes to us when we've done wrong and he exploits that wrongdoing.

And he says, you know you? You'll never get strong. You're down. You'll never get up again.

You're beaten black and blue. You will never be able to hold your head high. How the devil comes when he's knocked us down to exploit our weakness.

Know his strategies, my friend. Know the way that he comes. Whatever your circumstances are in life, he's got a particular way to slide alongside you.

He'll leave you for a season. You'll quote the word of God at him. You'll tell him, as I mentioned before, that your goal is God himself.

And all these things you'll mean. And for a while, he'll withdraw from you. And then with full-blooded, obscene attack, he'll break in on you at a moment when you're not expecting him.

That's the diabolical way that he copes with the human situation. But, remember? The last Adam. And the power that he has.

And the way that he repelled the devil. He is the one who's your closest friend. In the power that he releases, so you are empowered to be able to withstand all the treachery of the evil one.

In him, we are more than conqueror. Does your tempting sometimes cause you to question your sonship? Away with the idea. Our Savior was tempted but remained the Son.

Temptation does not invalidate your position before God. Temptation, rightly understood, can give you more power and more strength. Because we read, incredible though it seems in Luke's Gospel, that after our Lord Jesus had been tempted, then, then, he went back to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.

How about that for illogicality? The Spirit drove him into the wilderness. You remember the Greek verb? Drove him with the same tenacity and force as the Lord drove the money changers out of the temple. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness.

And after he's submitted to all these temptations, he goes out to northern Galilee, more empowered than ever, more determined, more equipped. Your temptations as they break in upon you can have as their objective within the sovereignty of God, the strengthening of your allegiance, the increasing of your quality of discipleship. That's why Martin Luther said, My temptations have been my master's in divinity.

My temptations have been my master's in divinity. Look, God promises you and me as Christians a safe landing. He doesn't promise us a calm voyage.

The time will come when you'll be rocked. Some of you, perhaps, right now, by the devil. You'll shudder, you'll tremble, and you'll quote the word, and you'll try and tell him that God is your goal.

Know this, that when the boat's passage is particularly rough, the moment will come, calm will return, and ultimately, the end of your life, you'll have a safe landing. But begin to thank God, even for the storms that break in the interim, for those stormy temptations can be your master's of divinity. Let's bow our heads in prayer again, and let's think once more of that great prayer which our Lord Jesus taught us to say, which has, halfway through it, the request.

Lead us not into temptation, but even farther when that is permitted. Deliver us, as you delivered him, the author of the prayer, from the power of the evil one, and send us on, knowing that thine is the power and the kingdom and the glory. Send us on, further enveloped in the power of the Spirit of God.