Before Jesus really started His ministry, the Bible tells us that He went out into the wilderness for forty days, and at the end of those days, He was tempted by Satan. Now he had been fasting all that time in the wilderness, so, physically, He was probably weaker than at any other time in His life (by the way, I don't recommend fasting for forty days. Surviving such a fast is a miracle in and of itself). Spiritually, though, He was very strong, because of the fast. The devil tempted Him with food first. Well, really not so much food, but the idea that, You don't need to fast, You're hungry, You could use your divine power to turn these stones into bread... Satan would have been happy just to get Jesus to do anything selfish. Obviously, in the flesh, Jesus would have liked to have had something to eat. It wouldn't make sense to tempt Him with something He didn't want...
Satan also tempted Him with Scripture, he took Him to the pinnacle of the temple, and tried to talk Jesus into throwing Himself down. Scripture says that His angels will protect you. Jesus' response was that one should not tempt God. I've noticed some people seem to think that Jesus was telling Satan to leave Him alone. Jesus always had the power to tell Satan to bug off, but if that had been the intent of His statement, the conversation would have been over. All Jesus was saying was that He wasn't going to do something stupid, just for the sake of proving that God would protect Him. God has promised to protect us from all kinds of outside forces. This doesn’t mean that once one becomes a Christian, then they will never suffer a physical injury. Flesh is just temporal; it is your immortal soul that God will not allow to come to harm, as long as you remain committed to God. To intentionally place yourself in mortal danger to try to prove God (unless you have been specifically led by God), is tempting God to just write you off as an idiot ("I thought that one would do great things, but apparently they're just stupid. No great loss." Okay, granted, I don't really think God takes that simplistic of an approach to things, but sometimes He must be, well, tempted to...).
Finally Satan took Jesus to a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and said that he would give Him all of it, if Jesus would just bow down to Satan. There are several points of interest here. First off, some have made the criticism that there is no mountain anywhere on earth high enough that one can see the whole world. That is absolutely true; it is humanly impossible for a person to stand on a mountain and see the whole world. Of course, we are not talking about ordinary human beings, here, are we? Let's face it, Satan could have taken Him to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and showed Him the whole world. Neither one of them would have had a problem with that. Second, Satan didn't really have possession of the world, and Jesus knew that, and Satan knew that He knew, so why would he try to tempt Jesus with something that they both knew he couldn't deliver? I think he must have been offering something that he could deliver, and that he knew Jesus would want. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world..." That's not talking about this ball of rock that we live on. God could destroy it in an instant, and make another one just like it, and it wouldn't even hurt His feelings. The world that John is referring to is the people in the world; most of which, Satan had absolute power over. It seems to me that Satan is offering to stop trying to be god to these people, if Jesus will only allow Satan to be His god. Basically, he was offering to take away our options, so that we would have no choice to serve God (but, since God would then be serving Satan, we would, ultimately be under his control, anyway). Jesus also didn't want us to serve God only by default; He wants us to have choices. Jesus, of course, knew better than negotiate with a terrorist, even one holding millions of hostages. Thirdly, this is the point where Jesus finally told Satan that He was through talking to him (or he was through talking to Him--either way). This is what so many people think that He was saying after the second temptation.
In summary, a temptation will always be something you want. Granted, sometimes the devil will try to convince you that you want something that you don't really want, but desire is always going to be part of the temptation equation. It might be food, it might be to seek reassurance that God loves you (if that's the case, just consider what He did for you, take John 3:16 personally, that promise is to each of us, individually--repeat after me, "For God so loved me, that He gave His only begotten Son, that I could believe in Him, and I should not perish, but have everlasting life."), or it might even be something that seems like an awesome opportunity to win souls to Christ (of course, if that's being offered by Satan, figure the odds of it affecting anyone's salvation other than your own). Whatever it is, though, what you gain from it will never be worth what you gave up to get it. What shall if profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36) Satan plays for keeps.
Satan also tempted Him with Scripture, he took Him to the pinnacle of the temple, and tried to talk Jesus into throwing Himself down. Scripture says that His angels will protect you. Jesus' response was that one should not tempt God. I've noticed some people seem to think that Jesus was telling Satan to leave Him alone. Jesus always had the power to tell Satan to bug off, but if that had been the intent of His statement, the conversation would have been over. All Jesus was saying was that He wasn't going to do something stupid, just for the sake of proving that God would protect Him. God has promised to protect us from all kinds of outside forces. This doesn’t mean that once one becomes a Christian, then they will never suffer a physical injury. Flesh is just temporal; it is your immortal soul that God will not allow to come to harm, as long as you remain committed to God. To intentionally place yourself in mortal danger to try to prove God (unless you have been specifically led by God), is tempting God to just write you off as an idiot ("I thought that one would do great things, but apparently they're just stupid. No great loss." Okay, granted, I don't really think God takes that simplistic of an approach to things, but sometimes He must be, well, tempted to...).
Finally Satan took Jesus to a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and said that he would give Him all of it, if Jesus would just bow down to Satan. There are several points of interest here. First off, some have made the criticism that there is no mountain anywhere on earth high enough that one can see the whole world. That is absolutely true; it is humanly impossible for a person to stand on a mountain and see the whole world. Of course, we are not talking about ordinary human beings, here, are we? Let's face it, Satan could have taken Him to the bottom of the Marianas Trench and showed Him the whole world. Neither one of them would have had a problem with that. Second, Satan didn't really have possession of the world, and Jesus knew that, and Satan knew that He knew, so why would he try to tempt Jesus with something that they both knew he couldn't deliver? I think he must have been offering something that he could deliver, and that he knew Jesus would want. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world..." That's not talking about this ball of rock that we live on. God could destroy it in an instant, and make another one just like it, and it wouldn't even hurt His feelings. The world that John is referring to is the people in the world; most of which, Satan had absolute power over. It seems to me that Satan is offering to stop trying to be god to these people, if Jesus will only allow Satan to be His god. Basically, he was offering to take away our options, so that we would have no choice to serve God (but, since God would then be serving Satan, we would, ultimately be under his control, anyway). Jesus also didn't want us to serve God only by default; He wants us to have choices. Jesus, of course, knew better than negotiate with a terrorist, even one holding millions of hostages. Thirdly, this is the point where Jesus finally told Satan that He was through talking to him (or he was through talking to Him--either way). This is what so many people think that He was saying after the second temptation.
In summary, a temptation will always be something you want. Granted, sometimes the devil will try to convince you that you want something that you don't really want, but desire is always going to be part of the temptation equation. It might be food, it might be to seek reassurance that God loves you (if that's the case, just consider what He did for you, take John 3:16 personally, that promise is to each of us, individually--repeat after me, "For God so loved me, that He gave His only begotten Son, that I could believe in Him, and I should not perish, but have everlasting life."), or it might even be something that seems like an awesome opportunity to win souls to Christ (of course, if that's being offered by Satan, figure the odds of it affecting anyone's salvation other than your own). Whatever it is, though, what you gain from it will never be worth what you gave up to get it. What shall if profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36) Satan plays for keeps.
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