Note: I preached this sermon this past weekend in an ongoing series through the gospel of Matthew at Roosevelt Community Church. This is the condensed version. I’ll post the video for the interested when it’s available.
Now the Holy Spirit that descended upon Jesus at his baptism (in Matthew 3) leads him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (4:1). And in this scene too we can hear echoes of Israel’s story.
Jesus spends 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. Only one other person is described in the Bible as fasting forty days and forty nights. Moses spent forty days and forty nights atop a mountain in a desert many years before. At that time, the nation of Israel was camped between Egypt and the Jordan—they had fled the place where they were slaves but they were not yet to the place where they could be free. Moses went up on a hill to get instructions from God:
So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 34:28)
These commandments were the beginning of the covenant between God and the Israelites. They were like wedding vows outlining each party’s commitments to the other. Moses was sort of like the minister who officiated the wedding and who then did all the marriage counseling thereafter. Moses stood between God and the people—listening to God, leading the people.
Jesus is now alone with God in the wilderness, between his early life and his earthly ministry. He’s getting ready to ask the people to renew their vows (“Repent!”).
But—
The thing about Moses is that the people under his leadership failed to keep their vows. Moses led them during forty years of disobedience and judgment (there’s another “forty”).
As for Moses himself, he was an “almost leader.” He was faithful almost to the very end. He almost successfully led the people into the Promised Land. He almost completed the job he was called to do.
As good as he was, he ultimately broke his vows, too.
Jesus is where Moses was—alone with God before launching into his ministry.
And I think the narrator (Matthew) wants us to feel the weight of this question: Will Jesus be faithful enough? Obedient enough? Does he have what it takes to lead God’s people effectively and bring them, successfully, into God’s rest? Will Jesus succeed where Moses failed?
That’s the question. Our story picks up there.
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Three Temptations
The devil shows up at the end of Jesus’s fast to turn the screws through a series of temptations.
Turn Stones to Bread
And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Two quick things are worth noting here. The term “Son of God” connects us back to the previous episode. When Jesus was baptized, God said, “This is my son” (Matthew 3:17). The devil is taking for granted that Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God. The “if” here is probably better understood as “since.” The devil isn’t so much questioning Jesus’s identity as the Son of God but, rather, the implications of that identity.
The devil is suggesting to Jesus, Since you are the son of God, you’ve got options. You have resources at your disposal that can help you through this situation. He comes to Jesus when he is hungry and says, Oh, this is easy for the Son of God. You’re surrounded by an endless number of potential loaves of bread.
At one level, the devil is right. Turning stones to bread is well within Jesus’s ability. Later in Matthew’s gospel we’ll see Jesus multiply loaves and feed 5,000 people. He can do this!
So why doesn’t he? Jesus gives the devil what sounds like a super-spiritual reply:
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
It sounds like Jesus is saying he’s not really hungry because he’s got spiritual food or something. That’s not what he’s saying. The passage tells us, he was hungry.
Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. There Moses reminds the people that those who wandered in the wilderness didn’t have any bread. Instead, God fed them with manna. He met their needs with a word. That’s what it means to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. It doesn’t mean Jesus no longer needs calories because he’s got the Pentateuch. It means that Jesus trusts that God will provide what he needs when he’s ready—in his time and in his way. God chose when this fast began and he will choose when it ends. Being the Son of God doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t have to rely on God. Instead, he trusts—as later he will instruct his disciples to pray—that God will always provide our “daily bread.”
In this way Jesus addresses a lie the devil would love for us to believe: that God won’t meet our basic needs.
When we believe God won’t meet our basic needs, we think it’s up to us to hustle, hoard, and slay to meet our own needs. To borrow a description about Ebenezer Scrooges, this can make us “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner(s).”
Throw Yourself Down
The details of the second temptation are straightforward:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,” and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
The devil begins by quoting Scripture this time. Jesus doesn’t get into an argument about exegesis, like Eve did in Genesis 3. He doesn’t “well actually” the devil, like you and I do on Facebook. Instead he quotes Deuteronomy again.
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
This is Deuteronomy 6:16. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses encourages the people to keep the Lord’s commandments completely when they enter the Land, instead of “testing” him as they did in the wilderness. When the people didn’t have bread, God gave them manna. When they didn’t have water, he provided water from a rock. Nevertheless, the people “grumbled” against God. That’s legal language—the language of accusation. They brought a charge of injustice against God. When they worried that God wouldn’t meet their basic needs, they said, Oh, great! God brought us out of Egypt so he could kill us himself!
“Putting the Lord to the test” appears to mean something like behaving as if God has to be manipulated into doing what he has promised to do. The Israelites seemed to think that the only way to make sure God did what he was obligated to do was to take him to court.
The way this looks for Jesus is this: If Jesus is the Son of God, everyone needs to know about it. And the best way to prove it is through some big show. If you throw yourself off this high place, God is obligated by this Scripture to intervene. When you land safely on the ground in the arms of the angels, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that you are the Son of God.
The devil is tempting Jesus to use his sonship to manipulate God into acting on his behalf.
Soon Jesus will perform plenty of miracles. He’ll heal the sick. He’ll raise the dead. He’ll multiply loaves and fishes. He’ll cast out demons. He’ll do all kinds of things that should confirm to the people watching that he is who he says he is. Even so, people will misunderstand him. They’ll say, Oh, he does that stuff because he’s possessed by the devil!
Maybe the devil was right—maybe a stunt like throwing himself from the pinnacle of the temple would’ve offered incontrovertible evidence of Jesus’s sonship.
But Jesus resists. When he does, he addresses a lie the devil would love us to believe: that God has to be manipulated to keep his word. I notice sometimes in my own heart a tendency to believe that God owes me for all the good things I’ve done. That’s evidence that I’m prone to think that I need to do good things to leverage God into keeping his vows.
Jesus wasn’t having it. Much later in the book of Matthew, while Jesus is hanging on a cross, some Roman soldiers will look at him and say, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (27:54). They will recognize Jesus for who he is not because he manipulated God to make sure it happened but because he remained faithful to the path God set out for him.
Worship Me
In his third volley, the devil drops the pretense. He just comes out and says the thing:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
The devil is offering Jesus power. He’s saying, Let’s stop playing games. No more party tricks—like turning rocks into bread. No more theatrics—like hurling yourself off of high places to be borne up by angels. If you want the whole world at your fingertips—all you have to do is worship me. I can give you everything.
Behind is a lie the devil would love for us to believe—a lie as old as the Garden of Eden. It’s the lie that God is holding out on us. In Genesis, the devil promises he can make Adam and Eve wise. Here he’s promising power. In both cases the devil is sowing a suspicion that God might be holding out on you. I can give you everything—and I’m willing to give you everything. There’s more out there, and God is keeping it for himself.
Jesus wasn’t having it:
For it is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’”
Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6 again. Here Moses encourages the people, when you receive all the good things God has for you, when you move into “cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,” don’t forget where it came from. Don’t think you did it yourself. Remember: You lack for nothing! And all of it is a gift! Don’t think there’s more out there and God is holding out on you. Remember what God has done and, in your gratitude, worship and serve the source of all good things.
Those of us who have read Matthew’s story already know that all authority in heaven and on earth will be given to Jesus (Matthew 28) but it won’t come this way. It’ll come through his faithful obedience to death on a cross and will be demonstrated by his resurrection.
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
Jesus does what Moses (and Israel) couldn’t do.
When the devil leaves Jesus, he knows Jesus has won. And we know, when the devil leaves Jesus, that Jesus is able to do what Moses couldn’t do. Truly one greater than Moses is here (Hebrews 3:3).
Additionally, Jesus did what the Israelites never could do. For all the history of the Bible—from Genesis to Malachi—God’s people never could resist these temptations. Over and over they believed the lies that
God could not meet their most basic needs
God has to be manipulated to keep his word
God is holding out on them
These lies are at the heart of idolatry.
By resisting these temptations, Jesus fulfills “the law and the prophets (5:17). He keeps his vows, trusting that God will keep his. He brings the Law to the end for which it was designed.
Jesus does what none of us can do.
I think if we’re honest we can admit that we struggle with these temptations every bit as much as the Israelites did. We are tempted to believe that
God cannot (or will not) meet our most basic needs
God has to be manipulated to keep his word
God is holding out on us
Jesus offers an example to follow. We can read Deuteronomy.
I realize Deuteronomy is not the book most people run to when they need a dose of inspiration. But Jesus goes there because it’s a great summary of Israel’s entire relationship with God—and ours. It’s a brief recap of God’s faithfulness and Israel’s lack of faith. Which is to say that Scripture is a great resource when we are tempted to lose confidence in God. We can return to this story and remind ourselves how, over and over, God shows up to provide for his people, to bless them graciously on his own accord, and to give them abundantly more than they could ask or imagine.
Jesus’s example is crucial, but it’s not enough. We also have Jesus as a substitution. When Jesus resisted the devil’s temptations, his faithfulness was enough to work backward and cover Israel’s past. And it’s enough to work forward and cover all our unfaithfulness into the future. We are empowered by his spirit and borne up by his grace.
I look over the list of lies
God could not meet their most basic needs
God has to be manipulated to keep his word
God is holding out on them
And I see a group of traumatised formerly enslaved people thinking that God is like Pharaoh.
And God, in righteous fury at this warped view, is over and over again saying "you are not slaves any more, you are my people and I will take care of you". But the people refuse to believe that He is Good. Instead, they default to scarcity, hierarchy, control, fearful power dynamics.
This is the first time I've ever thought of "living by the Word" in this way, and it is speaking to something God has been working on convincing me of for the past several months. I literally said "Whoa," as I read it. Thanks for this.