The Controversialist No.6 The Saviour v Satan

The scripture reading this morning is from Matthew chapter 4 verses 1 through 11. Let him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God, he said, throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus answered him, it is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test. Again the devil took him 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. Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him. Let's go on and read from Colossians in chapter 2, just a few verses there.

The apostle Paul picks up the teaching of our Lord by both narrative and example concerning the devil and the apostle makes some very interesting observations in regard to what our Lord Jesus achieved on the cross of Calvary. Verse 13, Colossians 2 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. We're coming back to something that we looked at earlier in this particular series where we had an incredible number of interruptions, if you recall, what with the low flying helicopter and the police sirens and the PA system, at least the organ PA system going wrong, and I think to some degree, although we captured the thrust of what the Bible has to say it's perhaps right that we come back to this very somber and important subject about our Lord, who was par excellence the great controversialist, and speak about the controversy which he had with the devil. The difficulty that Jesus had with Satan surfaces in the nativity, of course.

The attempt of Herod to a policy of genocide or infanticide to rid Jesus of life even in the early weeks is well known. It surfaces, this hostility again in the wilderness when the devil in disguise slips alongside our Lord Jesus and confronts Him. I guess it reaches its peak at the cross when our Lord knows not only just the terrible hostility of unseen forces and powers but He has to put up with the terrific physical and nervous pain that His body felt, and then there was the hostility and the abuse of the people who were centered around the cross looking at Him.

The apostle when he reflects back on that scene speaks about Jesus exposing principalities, making a public spectacle of them. And if you wanted to translate that little phrase colloquially that I've read from Colossians and just quoted again what our Lord Jesus does is this, He shows the devil up for what he really is. He shows evil forces up for what they really are.

And we're left with a picture of Satan on a downward spin still spitting out fire still spitting out the venom of evil, but nonetheless on his way to final destruction. When I was a lad, the boxers who commanded the attention of the media were somewhat different than they are today. I go back to Joe Lewis.

Do you remember him? This incredible black boxer from the United States who against all odds came to the forefront and became the heavyweight champion of the world. And Sugar Ray Robinson he too was one of the names I was brought up with as a kid. In boxing you don't always immediately throw your punches.

What you engage in doing is shadow boxing and if you've ever watched it you'll see how they parry with their opponent. Now they're not wasting time. What they're doing is exploring the defences of the other boxer, trying to see where he's weak trying to see how slow he is or how quick he is, endeavouring to discover the area where he is vulnerable.

My knowledge of boxing, actually my taste for boxing really stopped after around the age of 17 or 18 but I do recall that there were different types and categories of boxing and obviously that applies even today. There is the heavyweight and there is the light heavyweight and the bantamweight and the featherweight. All different categories of boxing.

In my day you never put a featherweight alongside a heavyweight and neither incidentally was it kosher to allow girls to box. Let me tell you something about the Lord Jesus. You see there is a sense in which he is the defender of the faith.

There is a sense in which you can see him as a wrestler for righteousness. Our Lord Jesus in that battle is tempted as you are tempted. He can be weakened as physically we too are weakened.

He can struggle as you too struggle. And what you find in the gospel record is an incredibly honest picture of our Lord, if you like, as a boxer. And by no means is he always reckoned to be a heavyweight.

I take you to the spectacle of the baptism of Jesus. Such was remarkable. But after the glory of the baptism he is driven from the river Jordan into the wilderness of Sinai.

From the multitude which gathered together or who gathered together to hear John the Baptist, his cousin, preach, he goes to the solitude of those barren hills. From identification with the Father, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, he submits to investigation by the devil. Forty days elapse.

And Jesus has in some sense the same body structure as you and me. His stomach has not known food. Therefore he is empty.

And because his stomach has not known food, therefore he is weak. And because he is both empty and weak, he is vulnerable. What you see depicted in the Gospels as our Lord's experience in the wilderness is described is a featherweight, a fragile man.

And I thank God for that. Because I'm a fragile person too. Because I've known the shadow boxing of Satan.

He knows my vulnerability. He knows my weakness. He knows when I'm empty.

And thank God, when the record is written up after the life of Jesus on earth has been completed, it says of him in the epistle to the Hebrews, we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Because he too has known what it's been to be tempted. He too has known what it's been, in one sense, to be a featherweight.

Let me tell you not just about the frailty of the Lord Jesus. Let me not tell you just about the brave way in which he fought Satan and fought well, even though at times it seemed as though the forces, the balance was in the favor of Satan. Let me tell you about the devil himself, just for a while.

And put the spotlight on him. First of all, let me tell you that he is. That's important.

Because there are people who deny the existence of the evil one. It is not fashionable. I read the critique of Don Cupid's latest book, Cupid being one of the most famous theologians at our historic universities.

And he would think that what I'm saying today, if from Cambridge he came to Worthing, is an utter nonsense. But I argue this from Scripture. The devil is, is a reality.

And what is more, he's a combatant. He's an assailant. He is the enemy of God.

And what is more, he is your enemy too. He's a fighter, and he's treacherous. He does not play by what in the boxing world they call the Queensbury rules.

There are no holes that he will refuse to go down. There are no low punches that he will stop in delivering, because well, that's just not being sportsmanlike. But there are two more things that you need to know about him, at least.

And one is this, he is not omnipotent. And the other is, he is not omniscient. He is defective in power, and he is deficient in knowledge.

Martin Luther reckoned that the devil had difficulty sometimes in recognizing who Jesus was. You see, the devil is no Delia Smith of theology. He is utterly unable to reduce godliness to its basic ingredients.

The devil's theology is the theology of glitz and glamour, of bang and crash. His methodology devolves into three aspects. There's always an assertion of his power, there's always a projection of himself, and the desire to absorb everything within sight.

An assertion of power, a projection of self, an absorption of all that he can get. And because of this, Martin Luther, the good old doctor, reckoned that the devil was in difficulty in the wilderness when he comes across this featherweight who has just been baptized several weeks ago in the Jordan. Satan suggests Luther found that when Jesus conducted himself so humbly and associated with sinful men and women, he overlooked him, did not recognize him.

For the devil is so farsighted, he looks only for that which is big and high and attaches himself to that. He does not look for what is low down and beneath himself. Now, if the good old doctor of the Reformation is right, then the devil has a quandary when he comes across our Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus in the wilderness.

The devil has a theological dilemma. How can this figure be identified with the Son of God? If Jesus is who he says he is, then why is he in the condition he finds himself? There's Jesus who's emaciated. There's Jesus who is isolated.

This non-heavyweight, this bantamweight, this featherweight, this fragile creature, if, if, if you are the Son of God. Luther reckons the ifs were actually sincere in exposing the theological dilemma of the devil on this, on this occasion. Fine, Father, this one of yours.

If God is your Father, then look at the condition in which you find yourself. And sometimes that happens in terms of the hiss of the serpent as far as we're concerned, not so. Fine, Father, this one of yours.

Are you really sure? If you are who you claim to be, then why are you as you are? If you are one of the leading young theologians in England, why is your wife suffering from multiple sclerosis? Spin the wheel of time on three years, and you get a similar picture. As far as our Lord is concerned, he's in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's alone. He's a forlorn figure surrounded by olive groves.

And the Lord Jesus, with beads of liquid tension forming on his forehead, he starts to speak. To whom does he speak, and what does he say? He speaks to the Father, and he addresses what is immediately in front of him. Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

The featherweight Jesus. You see, his humanity is real. You have never heard me preach from this pulpit any easy-flowing answers to the problem of healing.

I've had to cope with too much sickness as a pastor to bring you an easy solution. Here is our Lord confronted with the horror of Golgotha, and there is no way that he will engage in minimalizing it simply because of who he is. Because, well, he is a human being like you and me.

Spin the wheel of time again, but not too far, not too hard. Not for three years, just for a few days. The scene has changed, and here is our Lord, not in the olive grove Garden of Gethsemane.

He's a bloody bedraggled figure, and he's on the cross. And what do you find? You find that his back is as a ploughed field. Jesus dying, and he cries out, intimating his weakness, I thirst.

To whom and about what does he then cry? Once more to his Father and about himself. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You see, I've given you two examples of Jesus at the height of being confronted by the emissaries of the devil. You see, there he is in the wilderness, and Satan personifies himself.

And the circumstances associated with the arrest of Jesus and the preamble in the garden and the ultimate death on the cross, they're all as a result at one level of the machinations of evil, of Satan's policy towards our Lord Jesus. Satan confronts Jesus, and Jesus confronts Satan. Go back.

Go back if you please to the Lord in the wilderness. And there you find our Lord Jesus having the temptation dangled in front of him in the preposition if, that really he's got a wrong hold on his identity. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reckoned that the theology of the New Testament can be worked out with its prepositions.

If. If you are the Son of God, then command these stones and turn them into bread. Be selfish.

If you are the Son of God, then stand on the pinnacle which is on the edge of the rock, the perimeter of the holy city, and drop down 400 feet. If you are the Son of God, then the angels of God will come according to Jewish tradition and according to the Psalms and rescue you so that not one bit of damage will be done to your feet. If you are the Son of God, not only be sensational, but be spectacular and just a slight genuflection towards me, I'll give you all the kingdoms of this world.

If, if, if. Our Lord Jesus, here's a hiss of the evil one, and don't you sometimes hear it yourself? If you are a Christian, then why don't you do this, and why did you do that? If you are a Christian, the devil comes with his logic, and he insinuates his doubt. In the book of Revelation, in the twelfth chapter, and as you move into the tenth verse, you get a picture of the whole church breathing with a sigh of relief.

What has happened? Well, I don't have too much time to go into detail, but Satan has been kicked out of the redeemed community. The adversary has fallen. The accuser of the brethren.

That's the designation, or one of the designations of Satan. The accuser of the brethren. Doesn't he sometimes accuse you? Doesn't he sometimes take from the sink of your memory those things that you've tried to forget, dredge them and to bring them to the top and say if you're a Christian, how come that you behaved like that? The accuser of the brethren.

So, here is our Lord, the apparent featherweight engaged in a conflict, a struggle with fierce and hostile forces in the wilderness of Judea, and then in the forsakenness of Golgotha. I sometimes see our beloved Lord and the evil one almost literally in terms of the old-fashioned boxing match, which hasn't changed much since my youth. I see Pontius Pilate as a sort of master of ceremonies, calming the crowd down.

In the right corner, representing the heavenlies, dressed in a white linen robe, we have Jesus of Nazareth. In the left corner, representing the evil domain and dressed in black, we have Satan from hell. The bell clangs, and Pilate gets out of the way, and the final stage of the human conflict is left to take its turn.

As often as I've puzzled over the cross, so I've puzzled over the temptations. Neither of those instances do I fully understand. As to the temptations, hear me carefully, they were not exactly a big deal.

What I mean by that is, everything Jesus was tempted to do, he later on did. I mean, if it's a question of turning bread or other stones into bread, or feeding 5,000 on the sort of scale of the miraculous, presumably feeding the 5,000, 15,000 if you include the women and the children, that's got to be higher. And as for making a spectacle of yourself in the temple, what could have been more sensational than Jesus at the height of one of the religious feasts, shouting with a loud voice as is depicted in John 7, and saying that he who really needs to have his thirst slaked, let him come to Jesus, because he is the fount of living water.

And as for the kingdoms of the world, it was Jesus who said to Pontius Pilate, you would have no authority if it wasn't for my father. And what's more, I have just to do that, and he'll send legions of angels. You can't tell Jesus anything about the political scenario.

You see, put those temptations together, and really they don't amount to a big deal. You see, it's not the temptations, it's the tempter. It's what the tempter was trying to do, as far as Jesus was concerned, that is the problematic thing.

Let me rerun this in terms of Eden, and you'll understand. Here is Adam, and here is, if you like, the scenario at the beginning of time, repeated in the Judean wilderness, but it's there. In all its travesty, in all its potential, and in all its terror, the devil slides alongside Adam, and he endeavors to deflect Adam from doing what God wants him to do.

In other words, here is the devil endeavoring to get dominion over Adam, and he succeeds. Hath God said? Well, no. Eve, she submits, Adam submits, and what has happened is this.

The tempter has exercised control, and this is what he's doing in the wilderness. He is trying to privatize Jesus. He is endeavoring to get Jesus for himself.

It's not the temptations. They're immaterial. It's what is behind the temptations that are so important.

Here is the devil confronting Jesus, and he seems to have him in a half-Nelson. And don't you see, in those temptations in the wilderness, Jesus is confronted with the choice of obeying the Lord, or obeying Lucifer. The sovereign God, or the subtle serpent.

Choose you this day whom you will serve. The devil has the effrontery to put that to Jesus, as he puts it to you and to me. The first temptation was to distrust God.

The second temptation was to make an assumption as far as the father was concerned. The third temptation was to buy the lie that Satan actually controlled the kingdoms of this world, whereas actually God is behind them. And Jesus is able to resist those temptations, even though one paltry genuflection would have brought him at the human level such an easier way through life.

He would have got the crown without the cross. He would have known the coronation without the crucifixion. But what really would he have inherited? One of the saddest things about the last election was the debacle of the previous Tory cabinet.

One of the things that stands in my mind on that remarkable election night was looking at the extract on television when David Mellor discovered that he was no longer not just in the cabinet but a member of parliament. Now alongside Mellor there was James Goldsmith. James Goldsmith, one of the richest men in the world, had used millions of his billions to form the referendum party.

I'm not commenting on his politics, I'm commenting on him. And when Mellor didn't get elected, neither did Goldsmith. It was impossible for him to have been elected.

But Mellor as he's trying to make his resignation speech, touching his cap to his constituency, he finds that he can't continue because Goldsmith is playing almost the part of a football hooligan. Don't misunderstand me, some people who attend football matches 99% are not hooligans, but I use that as an illustration. And he's clapping his hands and he's saying, out, out, out.

And the rest of his entourage are doing exactly the same, politically mugging Mellor. And within three weeks Goldsmith is dead. One of the richest men in the world going the same way as Mobutu of Zaire.

And when you assess all that Goldsmith had and all that Mobutu controlled in the last moments, it mattered for nothing. Had Jesus accepted the coronation without the crown, had Jesus accepted the crucifixion, had Jesus accepted the crown without the cross and the coronation without the crucifixion, he would have had nothing left at all. He would have come under the control of the evil one.

So let me, in conclusion, put to you a final question. How, when he was tempted, how when he is engaged in conflict with the evil one, did our Lord Jesus Christ cope? Well, he does exactly the same in the wilderness as he does on the cross. And that is, he copes the word of God.

I want to say this, and I have got no easy formula for addressing the struggle that you have and that I have against the power of evil. But one way in which we can be helped from the example of our Lord Jesus is by recognizing the power of the word. When the evil one comes to Jesus and quotes scripture, Jesus quotes scripture accurately in its context back at him.

And one way in which you will be preserved in the hour of temptation as the devil comes and jabs you with his fist time and time again. One way to cope with being punched drunk is by being so immersed in scripture that you've got the right scripture for that occasion. And even on the cross when Jesus says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He's going into a psalm which eventually will speak of hope and light at the end of the tunnel.

Another thing that our Lord Jesus does as he combats the evil one is he uses a penetrating discernment. You see, temptation is not always a private thing, is it? Temptation can come to you through somebody else. Now here is our Lord and Peter.

Peter's a wonderful man. Don't put Peter down. He was a remarkable leader.

But on one occasion Peter speaks out of turn. Jesus has spoken about his impending death and Peter does not like the idea of Jesus being taken from him nor indeed from all of the disciples. And so he argues against the cross.

Not so, Lord. Not you, Jesus. And Jesus uses a penetrating insight.

He knows that at that point the hiss that he heard in the wilderness is being re-echoed by one of his men and Jesus is sensitive to the temptation that comes through his most trusted buddy. You and I must recognize, however helpful we can be to one another, there is also a possibility if we are not in a close relationship with the Lord that we could be leading another person astray. And what you need alongside the knowledge of the Word of God as you try to battle against this insidious test of the devil is a thorough penetrating discernment knowing when to get out of the situation, when to leave the stag party, when to switch off or get rid of the television, when to remove yourself from the conversation.

This penetrating discernment which our Lord has. He was not afraid to say get you behind me, Satan, even though that was a cutting insult to Peter. And what is more, through the power of prayer Peter on another occasion is addressed by our Lord, Jesus says, you're going to have difficulty when I'm arrested.

Oh no, says Peter, you can counter me. No, Jesus says you're wrong, you'll deny me like the rest of them. But Peter, when that happens, remember this, I prayed for you so that when Satan comes and riddles you with his blows, you won't be so punch drunk, you won't be so knocked down that you'll be out for eternity.

Peter, I prayed for you. How you cope with temptation? The Word of God, the power of prayer, and a penetrating discernment. So I bring you back to the cross of our Lord, Jesus.

If I fail to comprehend the temptations in the wilderness, how much more I claim my ignorance in understanding the death of Christ on the cross in its entirety. But there on the central gibbet is not only a man who is dying, here is a man who is exposing sin for what it really is, showing the ugliness up of Satan. What our Lord does on the cross, although it's not obvious to even the closest of the people that were watching, is he pulls the sting out of the serpent.

He pulls the venom out of humanity and potentially and he takes it into himself so that the eternal havoc that Satan can cause, as far as his battle with the human race is concerned, is limited and ultimately will be obliterated. It's Jesus who can say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He can say to the sinner, you can't bypass the cross because it's the cross that the sin has been dealt with, but you can come through Calvary and on to the other side and move into my Father's house.

Why? Because I fought the fight. I kept the faith. I finished the power of Satan in all its authority and entirety on the cross of Calvary.

I am your security. Never have me out of your sight. I am your safe conduct.

Without me you can do nothing. Without me you cannot win. But in me, with me, for me you shall be more than victorious.

So, brothers and sisters, I leave you in the right corner from the heavenlies, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the left corner from the regions of the abyss, Lucifer. The two lock into the final conflict, and the featherweight eventually reduces the power of the heavyweight and chucks him out, spiraling downwards into an eternal abyss where one day he will be and all who have chosen to follow him.

But as for you, as for me, whatever the defeats we may have known in our lives are, because of Jesus we can say ultimately we have the victory. Rejoice not O my enemy, when I fall I shall arise. When I sit in the darkness of a punch-drunk stupor the Lord shall be a light unto me and lead me through that day into the endless light of eternity with Him.

Brothers and sisters, we still have to wrestle, we still have to struggle, but our Lord Jesus God's seeming featherweight has proved more than victorious to take on all the powers of hell and darkness, and this Jesus is our champion and I recommend Him to you. A moment of prayer. And now let's move into a hymn of triumph.

656. It extols our Lord Jesus. Join the crowds of the angels and the archangels and more particularly the church of the redeemed which is in heaven who consciously at this moment praise God and bless Him as they can with an unusual awareness of the significance that the angels and the archangels can never know.

The Lord is King. The Lord is your King. The Lord is champion.

The Lord is your champion. The Lord has fought for you. The Lord is our victorious wrestler.

656. The Lord is King. The Lord is champion.

The Lord is champion. The Lord is champion. The Lord is champion.

The Lord is champion. Under your dominion, great God, we submit ourselves. We spurn the insidious doubts of the evil one.

We reject the hiss of his temptations, enable us to live lives that are pure and holy, and forgive us the times when we have been in a bloody mess simply because of our failure to keep close to our champion. Help us to see him more clearly, to love him more dearly, to follow him more nearly, until the day comes when we're taken home via the cross into his Father's house. Blessed Jesus, we thank you for your victory, our champion forever.

Amen. Good morning. God bless you.

Thanks for coming.