Every year Lent is a time when we give thanks to God for His great love and amazing grace. How much we need that love and grace. Every year on the First Sunday in Lent the Gospel reading is the account in one of the synoptics of the temptation of Jesus. This year the reading is from Luke 4. The Gospel writers tell us that Jesus resisted the tempter and how He did so. The author of the letter to the Hebrews expresses so beautifully and powerfully what that can mean to us. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4: 15).
We have a God who can empathize with us. But more than that, we have a God who paid the penalty for and broke the power of sin and who won the victory over death and the devil. Therefore, we can “approach the throne of grace with boldness” for it is there that we will “receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4: 16) Do you see the throne of God as a throne of grace? Do you know that you can approach it with boldness? Have you found at the throne of God mercy and grace to help in time of need?
What I would like to do is to go through Luke’s account of the temptation as found in Luke 4: 1-13. As we do so, we will see what makes God’s throne a throne of grace and why it is possible for us to approach that throne with boldness.
Luke 4: 1-2 tell us that after His baptism “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Matthew and Mark say it a little bit differently. According to Matthew 4: 1, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Mark 1: 12 says, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” When have you felt that the Spirit led you while you were in the wilderness? When have you felt that the Spirit actually led you into the wilderness? When have you even felt that the Spirit drove you into the wilderness?
Luke 4: 2 continues, “He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.” Note: The devil attacked Jesus at a point of weakness – at a time of great vulnerability. Remember: The devil also knows your points of weakness – your times of greatest vulnerability. And that is exactly where the devil will attack you.
We find the First Temptation in Luke 4: 3. “The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’” Just a few verses before, in Luke 3: 22, at His baptism, the Father had said to Him, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
I can see two possible things going on here. First, Satan could be saying, “If you truly are who you think you are, then you should be able to turn these stones into loaves of bread.” But Jesus knew that if He were to do that in order to have the strength to resist the devil, then He would be drawing on a power that would not also be available to us. A second possibility is that here we see the devil attacking Jesus at His sense of self-identity. He wanted to get Jesus to question whether He truly is the Son of God. In the same way the devil will try to get you to question whether you are a child of God. The devil is jealous of your identity as a child of God, so he will attack you there. The devil will attack your self-identity, your self-image, your self-confidence.
We find the Second Temptation in Luke 4: 5-7. “Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’”
The truth is that the devil has no more right to lay claim to all the kingdoms of the world than I would have the right to try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. The devil could claim that right only as a usurper – a thief. The devil was also tempting Jesus to choose the easy, less painful way, and to avoid the way of the cross. When has the devil tempted you to choose the easy, less painful way? What was the result? Would the easy, less painful way have worked?
We find the Third Temptation in Luke 4: 9-11. “Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’”
Again, the devil attacks Jesus by trying to get Him to question His identity as the Son of God. Here we see that the devil knows the Bible (in this case, Psalm 91: 11-12), though he will misquote and misuse the Bible. If the devil knows the Bible (and he has had many more centuries than any of us have had to learn the Bible), then we had better get to know the Bible too, so that we will not be led astray.
Luke concludes his account with these words. “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” (Luke 4: 13) The devil is like the Terminator, who said, “I’ll be back.”
Again, I can see two things going on here. First, the devil had finished every test. The devil has thrown everything he has against Jesus and none of it knocked Him over. Jesus experienced the full onslaught of evil and none of it worked against Him. The devil does not need to throw everything he has against us, for we fall early in the process. Jesus experienced the full severity of temptation in a way that we do not know because the devil does not need to use it all against us.
Second, we can ask the question, When was that “opportune time”? I believe in the Garden of Gethsemane, where again the devil tried to tempt Jesus to go the easier, less painful way and avoid the way of the cross.
In Luke’s account of the agony in the garden after Jesus prayed, “Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done,” it says that “an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength.” (Luke 22: 42-43). Mark’s much more succinct account says, “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan . . . and the angels waited on him.” (Mark 1: 13)
When have you experienced the ministry of angels after a particularly difficult time in your life, including a time of severe temptation? When have you offered encouraging and strengthening ministry to someone else after a particularly difficult time in that person’s life, including a time of severe temptation? My prayer for you during this Lenten season is that you will experience the throne of God as a throne of grace, that you will know that you can approach that throne with boldness, and that coming into God’s presence you will receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Thanks Dennis, wonderful words for this season of Lent!