If you were the devil and were trying to trip Jesus up, how would you do it? Seriously, how would you go about it?
The number one thing you would want him to do is to disobey or turn his back on his Father. You would use whatever means necessary to try to do that because if you were successful even one time, separation would occur. Game over.
When Jesus was incredibly vulnerable, satan moved in. Because that’s how he works. He preys on vulnerability.
Jesus had been alone for 40 days and was hungry. He also had been devoid of people most likely. He was vulnerable.
The temptation to use his power for selfish ends was an obvious move. Jesus was very, very hungry. Entice him to use his power for himself. He didn’t bite.
But what about the other two temptations? How were they even remotely tempting to Jesus?
The next temptation was when the devil took Jesus to a high place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world.
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”
First of all I’m sure that Jesus caught the lie. Because the devil is always a liar with a little bit of truth mixed in.
The world had been given to the devil but only temporarily. God Almighty held the keys, not Satan. The world belongs to the Father, not the devil.
But the temptation here, among other things, is that Jesus would receive his goal of authority over all the world, just without the cross. He only needed to worship the devil and he could avoid the cross and its horrors.
Considering how satan lied, you think it would be easy. That this one would hardly be a temptation. And yet we know it had to have been otherwise satan would not have used it.
I don’t think we truly understand the horrors of the cross. It wasn’t just his death, but it’s that he took the sins of all of humanity for all time onto himself. He became sin.
It’s bad enough with me dealing with my own sins. But for Jesus to have to deal with the sins of all of history? Unthinkable.
And then there’s that last temptation that also seems strange.
And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said 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 guard you,’
and
“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Jesus is being clearly challenged to test God. Why is this an issue? Why would Jesus ever want to test God?
Jesus has gone through a time of suffering in the desert. It was 40 days of no food and likely no people. Whenever there is hardship, trust is always challenged.
Do we really trust the love of God?
Do we really trust the power of God?
Especially when we are not seeing either.
A simple fix would be if Jesus did something to prove the power of His Father. Then he would now with his eyes and his experience.
But it was testing God in an unrighteous way. This would not be pleasing to the Father.
There’s likely so much more than we understand in each of these trials. But certainly Jesus was being challenged to use his power and his relationship with His Father in self-serving ways. These ways would have stopped the mission to the cross. They would have created separation between Him and His Father.
The Scriptures then say this:
And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
On the outside it seemed like an opportune time. But satan was unsuccessful. He wasn’t going to give up trying. He was just going to have to try later.