After being baptized, we enter the book of Mathew chapter 4 verses 1 - 11 where the Lord Jesus was taken by the Spirit of God into the wilderness. This was the arena for the various temptations that were to be the hurdles over which He would have to cross before the onset of His public ministry.
To prepare for the tactics the devil would use to try to induce Him to do what was wrong, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights at which point he became hungry. This spiritual exercise weakens the power of the body so that it does not harbour notions of self-sufficiency.
At the end of the protracted fasting period, the first temptation brought to Him was designed to use hunger to prompt Jesus to take action that would allieviate His hunger while at the same time demonstrating the validity of His credentials as the Son of God which had been recently publically announced by the Jordan river by the Father.
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Jesus' response was derived exclusively from the scriptures ( Deutronomy 8 verse 3 ) which negated the idea that the promptings of the flesh or the desire to demonstrate our rank and stature were the basis for human beings to take any action. Jesus established that our actions should be prompted only by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
The next temptation also tested Jesus on the point of His credentials. This time, Jesus was to demonstrate that He was indeed the son of God by throwing Himself off the top of the temple in Jerusalem because the scriptures promised that the Son of God would be protected by angels if such a thing were to happen.
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “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.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, Jesus used scripture (Deutronomy 6 verse 16) to counter the temptation. Whereas it was true that He would be saved by angels if He were to fall but to deliberately put Himself in danger to prove that He was the Son of God would classify as a test of God which is forbidden.
The next temptation was an offer rather than an invitation to illegitimately prove credentials as the previous two temptations were.
The offer was a trade where the devil would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world with all their splendor in exchange for Jesus bowing to worship him.
In other words, Jesus would be granted the post of Prime Minister in the Devil's empire answering only to the devil in much that same way that Joseph was the Prime Minister of Egypt answering only to Pharaoh.
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Jesus rejected the offer using Deutronomy 6 verse 13 which establishes that the only legitimate worship is the worship of God and that all the service of a person's life should be exclusively rendered to God.
The devil left the arena to plan for another day but in the meantime, the angels of God came to attend to Jesus.
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Amen.
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