that that intro I always like when people you know puff me up before I get on stage it's great to be a little proud heresy I'm kidding um way before any of us existed there was a garden named Eden that held the first human beings their names were Adam and Eve God made them primarily for his glory and he constructed this world in their home to function for their good he'd given them free reign over everything with one exception they could not eat from the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil some time passed
and a snake walked up to Eve and began to converse with her about God he asked one question the question on the surface seemed reasonable able thoughtful even he asked her about the word of God did God really say you couldn't eat of any tree in the garden Satan asked Eve responds not with a rebuke but an answer perhaps she didn't know who she was talking to yet enough to be able to discern what this snake was really after she might have thought he was there to help her verbally process the word of God but
oh no Eve this snake is Satan and he is here to destroy you therefore the questions that are being posed are questions designed to make you see God differently a little darker not in the same light as before he then convinces her that the Judgment that God promised would come if she disobeyed his command was not the truth at all that God was saying something he didn't mean and she believed him the the devil that is so she looked at the tree and noticed some things about it that made it worth her Disobedience and she
ate it wasn't like God was really going to judge me she might have thought then she gave some to her husband Adam who was right there and he ate and the eyes as all of us know were open and then death and sin entered into everybody that would come after them what Adam and Eve experienced is what we know as spiritual warfare and we must understand that it is real and that it is still happening even today the way spiritual warfare is talked about sometimes can be a bit weird where everything is a spirit or
a demon which is not always the case but on the other end there can be Christians who act like it's not a reality at all and I don't know which side of the pendulum most concerns me tonight I want us to spend some time dealing with the topic because each of us has a real enemy that is crouching at our doors seeking to devour us and if he succeeds he will not only destroy our ministry efforts but he will destroy us as ministers there are three persons to be considered in understanding spiritual warfare there is
God there is Satan and there is you hear me there is not a war between Satan and God God defeated Satan a long time ago but this war however does have a lot to do with God because Satan is not after your house Satan is not after your ministry Satan is not after your marriage Satan is not after your children those are messed with as a means to an end but not not the means themselves Satan is ultimately after your faith in God where do I get that from you say but before we get into
the main text I want to read something from Ephesians 61016 it says finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against authorities against the cosmic Powers over this present Darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly places therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil debt and having
done all to stand stand firm stand therefore having fastened on the belt of Truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the Readiness given by the gospel of peace in all circumstances take up the shield of Faith with which you can extinguish all the Flaming darts of the evil one here we see that our faith that your faith is what extinguishes what suppresses the darts of Satan imagine being in a war and you got your your belt on praise God and you got your breastplate because you
need that you got your shoes on you put your helmet on amen glory and you grab your sword because the Devil is a Lie and you walk out on the field and you see darts with flames on the in flying your way how will you protect your body from the darts you can and can't not see if you have no Shield to hide behind the thing is the belt of truth the breastplate of righteousness the shoes of gospel peace the helmet of salvation will do you no good if you don't have the faith that produces
what these pieces of armor represent so if there is anything Satan wants you to let go of it's your Shield because once your Shield is gone you're dead Romans 14:23 tells us for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin and in Romans 6:23 says for the wages of sin is death so for Satan to come for your faith is Satan coming for your very life and that is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve they believed the wrong person and it killed them spiritually it separated them from God because they were no longer holy
as he is Holy now after God confronts Adam then Eve then Satan he dispenses curses to each one of them but inside of the curse given to Satan we find something very interesting God says in Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your Offspring and her Offspring he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel what is the Lord talking about he is letting Satan know that someone is coming that though this woman you deceive that through this woman you deceive will come a man that you'll try
to do the same thing to but he will triumph over you I love how in Satan's judgment God gives us a promise and who is this man that God is talking about is it Moses or Abraham maybe Isaac it might be Jacob sorry to disappoint you but none of them were qualified for the task he is talking about Jesus Christ the son of the son of the Living God in Luke chapter 4 which we will be spending our time I hope we have Bibles I said I hope we have Bibles praise God I know we're
in the digital age where we don't know where Bible chapters are anymore but we'll be in Luke chapter 4 this is where we will be camping out the rest of our time we will see the beginning of how Jesus would crush the Serpent's head and we will learn from him how spiritual warfare is to be one in Luke 4 we have just left the scene of Jesus's baptism the Holy Spirit has descended upon him and the father has confirmed him audibly by saying that you are my beloved Son with you I am well pleased then
we come to verse one and Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil and he ate nothing during those days and when they were in did he was hungry verse three the devil says to him if you are the Son of God command this Stone to become bread and Jesus answered him it is written man shall not live by bread alone 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 will 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 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 him for 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 and when the devil had ended every Temptation he departed from him until an opportune time Jesus has just left his baptism and go straight into the Wilderness this is not a random decision Jesus isn't lost he is following the spirit's lead scripture says that he was led by the spirit
Into the Wilderness the spirit has f Ked him the father has confirmed him and now it is time for this son of God this long awaited Christ to be tested and what better way to test the Christ than by placing him in the wilderness if you know anything about the Old Testament then you know that God has led his own Into the Wilderness before after setting the people of Israel free from the bondage that they were under in Egypt God guided his people into the Wilderness but sadly due to their unbelief God judged them causing
them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years here we have Jesus being led into the Wilderness for 40 days coincidence I doubt it for 40 days Jesus ate nothing shout out to you if you are one of those real saved people that did a 40-day fast I'm not blessed that way the most I'll do is hold 30 after 40 days of no food his muscles were most likely weak his energy low his body was probably considerably thinner due to the loss of fat and muscle and not surprisingly at the end of 40 days verse
two says he was hungry I love how human we see Jesus being here it is then that the devil continues his temptation notice I did not say start his temptation verse two tells us that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil this testing this temptation this Warfare if you will had already been going on so not only is Jesus weak physically but he has been enduring spiritually Eve couldn't endure past one question but this man the Son of God is all together different verse three the devil said to him
if you are the Son of God command the stone to become bread if why would the devil questioned the deity in the sunship of Jesus you might be wondering well the thing is he's not the devil and the demons are clear on who Jesus is he is not casting doubt here this if is to be understood as since since you are the Son of God command this Stone to become bread Satan is aware of what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God he gets the implications of this title that it would mean
that he was the one in the beginning who created the heavens and the Earth that he is the one who made man out of dust that he is the one who caused Mana from Heaven to fall and feed the people of Israel while in the wilderness he is aware that his sunship makes him equal with God therefore more than able to provide for others by way of something super super natural so now it's as if Satan is saying now you did all that for them do it for yourself just do what you do Jesus you're
hungry we we're in the wilderness pick any stone and tell it to become bread you have a habit of using your words to do Miracles so do it right now as I mentioned earlier there are always motives behind Satan's suggestions there is something about God God that he doesn't want Jesus to believe in this first Temptation Satan wants Jesus to distrust the satisfaction of God on the surface his suggestion seems reasonable thoughtful even you're hungry so feed yourself but Satan doesn't really care if Jesus is hungry or fool what he cares about is if he
can keep Jesus from trusting God to provide his sustenance Jesus was a man he had to eat that is natural but he was being tempted to decide when and how the food would come Jesus has come to do the will of the father period he did not move behind beyond what God sent him and led him to do so this test here is the tempation to not depend on God for what is necessary for survival but instead to give into to the desires of the body and satisfy self and we are always tempted to do
the same if you've ever found yourself in an Evangelistic or discipleship discussion with someone who is samesex attracted you will find that a common hindrance to faith in Christ is the potential that submission to Christ could possibly mean being celibate for life not because of choice but because of the absence of sexual attraction for the opposite sex but God God's grace many have not seen this as a hindrance but as a beautiful cross to bear but for others the idea that they might have to spend their entire life with only Jesus and his church is
an idea to be rejected at all costs Jesus God has made us for Community for relationship he by nature is a god of community one God in three distinct persons so to one a relationship is natural just like hunger is natural but Satan will consistently leverage what is natural to bait you and others into what is sinful the same sex attracted person who has rejected Jesus because they cannot fathom the thought of being alone has made bread out of stone when God has provided another means for the human needs to be met the same goes
for the man who justifies and continues to justifies his Lust by appealing to how God has made him as a man just because it's natural doesn't mean that you need it to live and Jesus believes this verse four and Jesus answered him it is written man shall not live by bread alone you see how quick Jesus is he is not here to have a whole conversation with the devil Jesus immediately says it is written Jesus quickly referencing SC referencing scripture because he trusted it's written in his heart he easily discerns the LIE of Satan and
knew how to respond because he was prepared so many Christians given so quickly to Temptation because they have not hidden the word of God in their heart mainly because they don't spend enough time in it they can easily recollect everything else but the word of truth but Jesus depends on the word because he depends on God and it has prepared him for this fight Jesus says man shall not live by bread alone what is he quoting the New Testament obviously has been written at this point so it's the Old Testament he is referencing Deuteronomy verse
chapter 8: 3 all of Jesus's responses by the way are from Deuteronomy while the people were in the wilderness coincidence I doubt it in Deuteronomy 83 Moses is in the wilderness during the 40 years and he is warning encouraging and reminding Israel of God's word in chapter eight in particular he brings up how in the wilderness God humbled them by letting them hunger then he fed them with Mana so that they would know one thing that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord I'm
not sure why Jesus did not quote the entire verse but he gets his point across very clear Satan wants Jesus to believe that he needs bread to live Jesus affirms the truth that bread is not what would keep him alive it's the God who provides the bread that does we give a lot of credit to our food for feeding us and our jobs for providing for us and our homes or relationships for comforting us or our gifts for making room for us which in a sense they do but if God did not want you to
eat you wouldn't if God did not want you to receive comfort you wouldn't if God did not want you to have a platform to use your gifts you would not the reality of what these things provide is not owe to the things themselves but our God who gave them to us this is why we lose our minds when any of these things are threatened because we started believing that we needed them to move and have our being and not God himself and Jesus refuses to give into such a lie he is confident that God will
supply all of his needs and that he will sustain him and that when it is time for him to die he knows that it won't be because he starved to death but because he laid it down on a cross verse five and the devil took him up and showed them 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 he's such a liar if you then
will worship me it will be all yours with this second Temptation Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in the moment and what Luke describes as a moment in time we know from Matthew that this temptation is taking place on the mountain it seems as if Jesus was being shown a vision or Supernatural like images of the kingdoms of the world in quick succession before his eyes which is highly feasible seeing that Satan is a supernatural being he is able to move in and out of Dimensions that we have no idea about seeing
that at one point he had access to the throne of God to accuse job and now he is on a physical tangible mountain with Jesus Satan in some way displays all of these kingdoms before Jesus and says that they have been given to him and that he will be a nice little demon by giving it to Jesus the question to be asked is is Satan telling the truth has he been given Authority over all the kingdoms of the world now scripture does say that Satan is the prince or the ruler of the world of this
world the God of this age and the prince of the power of the air I mean hearing the titles Prince and God being ascribed to Satan can seem to affirm what he's telling Jesus about himself but what we must understand is that what he is Prince over and what he is God over is all that is wicked evil demonic un true ungodly Unholy he is no God or Prince over the kingdoms of the world but he is the god of the people that occupy these kingdoms he is the god of every human being that is
a slave to sin a commentator said it this way the name God is given to Satan not because he has any Divine attributes but because he actually has the homage of the people of this world as their God as the being who is really worshiped or who has the affections of their heart so with Satan telling the truth partially remember Satan is a liar and a good one at that he will tell you a lie with a little bit of Truth he does indeed have a measure of power but this power has nothing to do
with having authority over Kingdom so he is lying to Jesus because a have truth is no Truth at all the interesting thing about what Satan is offering Jesus is that the language he uses is very similar to a prophecy regarding the son of man in Daniel 7 I'm going to read it to you and I want you to pay attention to words being used in Daniel 7 that sound a lot like what Satan is promising Jesus it says and behold with the Clouds Of Heaven There came one like a son of man and he came
to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples Nations and languages should serve him so Daniel is prophesying that one of day one day the son of man will be given dominion and glory and a kingdom and here Satan is saying hey bro I got it I got the authority and the glory in my back pocket here it is I just showed you you can have it on one condition worship me if Jesus gives in to what Satan is saying here
there will be something about God that he has chosen not to believe remember Satan is after faith and what is that Satan is tempting Jesus to distrust the worthiness of God how do I know this look at Jesus's response verse eight and Jesus answered him it is written you shall Worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve you know what a major difference between you and Jesus is it's a lot but Jesus was not born in sin Jesus did not come into this world under the Dominion of its God because he has
always known and always loved the true God perfectly he was and is God In the Flesh so he is able to experience temptation but never give in perhaps Satan thought he could do to Jesus what he's been doing to us since the beginning beginning of time which is to trick us into believing that he could give us something that he doesn't own he's done it when he's deceived you into believing that a sinful relationship would give you Joy or when you thought that unforgiveness would actually Comfort your pain maybe you could relate to the lie
that you will get away with serving two masters that as long as you're a good person that you don't really have to repent because God is a god of love and Grace not wrath or judgment if this describes you what you have believed as rational ways to live your life or lies you have believed from Satan himself he has offered you something that he does not own so that you will lose what you have always needed which is God the truth is only God can heal your pain the sin of unforgiveness will never be able
to do that God is the source of all comfort Not a Human Being hypocrisy is not the path to death but life or not the path to life but death it is only the surrender that know what it truly means to be free before Jesus ministry Begins the devil tells him remember that he will give Jesus authority over kingdoms after his bodily Ministry on Earth is completed Jesus says that he has it remember Matthew 28 after Jesus has resurrected he tells his disciples that all authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to him
we know that Jesus did not give into Satan's Temptation so what did he have to do to get this Authority after all in between the temptation of Jesus and the exaltation of Jesus was suffering listen to Isaiah 53 surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken Smitten by God and Afflicted but he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone
to his own way the lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all satan would have preferred if Jesus got his authority through Disobedience he would have preferred if Jesus Took the easy way out but God was too valuable for Jesus for him to skip his cross before he got his crown Philippians 2:8 says and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on the cross therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at
the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord the authority and the glory and the Dominion that Jesus was given was came through obedience Jesus had come to do the will of his father and that meant that he was here to serve him that he was here to worship him like he has been doing in all of eternity why because no one else is worthy who was like him who was more deserving of Glory than him who else
can say that all things were created through him and for him but God nobody but the Lord of hosts so don't let Satan deceive you into believing that a created thing is worthy of more Glory than the one that created it sin will never even the subtle sins will never give you what it promised the word says you shall Worship the Lord your God in him only shall you serve verse 99 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 him for fear for it is written he will command his angels concerning you to guard you on their hands they will bear you up let you strike your foot against the stone Satan knows scripture y'all and he's Relentless for he he wanted Jesus to turn stones into bread at first then he wanted Jesus to worship him now he wants Jesus to jump off the top of the temple he's getting a little bit more obnoxious than we might have expected because that's what demons do they're weird they have now moved from
the Wilderness to the temple in Jerusalem this is the temple that the people of Israel thought very highly of it was built first by Solomon then destroyed then it was built over again some years later animal sacrifices were done here atonement for sin through a high priest was made here simply put this Temple was the center of Jewish religious life and this is where Satan wants Jesus to jump from this time Satan uses scripture to back up his temptation though he quotes from Psalm 91 and it's a Psalm of trust he might have gotten tired
of Jesus firing back at him with scriptures so he needs to remind Jesus that he knows a little bit of word too but he will use it when it best suits his purposes he says to Jesus since you are the Son of God since you seem to trust God so much you keep using the Bible to dictate how you respond to me so I have some encouragement for you jump off the temple show the people who you really are because God has said in his word that where you really believe that he will command his
angels concerning you they won't let you die that's if you trust God enough to prove that his word is true if there was ever a time that I feel that this temptation is relevant it is now Satan is still using and twisting scripture in such a way that it deceives people and the blame isn't on Satan it's on us Romans 1 says that we suppress the truth by our own unrighteousness and that we are the ones that accumulate teachers to suit our own passions we as humans are prone to deception because we like what it
offers we don't just choose deception for deception sake we don't even give it those kind of names we call it Prosperity Gospel or we say things like God turned water into wine so drunkenness isn't the problem I'm free in Christ or Ephesians 5 says women must submit to their husband so that means abuse is permissible here's my favorite this is my faith the Bible says that God is loved so surely everyone should be able to love whomever they want to love right using scripture and making it mean something completely different Satan is using a Psalm
of trust to tempt Jesus to not trust what exactly does he want Jesus then to stop believing about God remember he's after faith I believe that he doesn't want Jesus to believe that God is faithful this is how I came to that conclusion by listening closely to Jesus's response I believe the scripture he uses to rebuke Satan exposes the lie that Satan is trying to conceal verse 12 and Jesus answered him it is said You shall not put the Lord your God to the test I used to read this in and think of my mama
I used to think about when she would tell me to wash the dishes right now and I would say why right now she' say you better was your mouth before I do something to you that you're not going to like I was testing her I thought it was the same it's not the same this response I'm grown now so I don't have to wash her dishes this response comes from duter Deuteronomy 6 when Moses is telling the people of Israel not to put God to the test like they did back in Exodus what happened was
the people of Israel have been delivered out of Slavery to the Egyptians they came to a point in the wilderness where they were thirsty and they started to talk crazy to Moses and to God they said why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us with thirst so Moses prayed God answered by giving them water out of a rock then at the end of that narrative it says that he called this place Massa and marah because of the quarreling of the people and because they tested the Lord by saying is the Lord
among us or not God had delivered them out of slavery and promised to deliver them into a land flowing with milk and honey he promised it and now they are accusing God of Del delivering them for the sole purpose of killing them and Moses says that it was the same as saying God is not with us in other words testing God is to D doubt him with a heart of accusation that says will he really do all that he said that he will do will he keep his promise will he be good to us will
he Deliver Us will he protect us will he provide for us will he sustain us and Satan wants Jesus to doubt God in the wilderness in the same way that Israel doubted what God in the wilderness by testing him when Satan told Jesus to jump off of the temple he also wanted Jesus to believe that that was the way he would be glorified and seen as the true Son of God by his people but if Jesus would have obeyed he would have killed himself Satan didn't care if Jesus died he cared if Jesus died according
to the will of God if Jesus died the way God meant for it to happen every Power the devil thought he had would be disarmed God had already determined that the Son of God would be exalted but it would come through a beaten body on a Roman cross even though the ministry before him was not going to be easy he trusted God's will Jesus will not put his Lord to the test because he knows that God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should repent what he said
he will do he will do Jesus knows that God is faithful just as much as much as he knows the psalm that Satan is trying to quote so because he can and will command and his angels concerning him he will go to the Cross because they can bear him up lest his his foot strike against the stone he will trust the faithfulness of his God the scripture Satan thought he could use to destroy the Son of God contain the promises that sustained the Son of God listen Church Satan is after your faith in the god
that this Bible is about every single day there will be circumstances and trials that arise in your life that you will be tempted to trust or test God in and I beg you trust his faithfulness those trials are refining you I know some of y'all have been walking with the Lord for a while now but that doesn't mean that you're done keep believing God because they are working for your good so that you may grow in the image and in the knowledge of your creator he is your protector he is your provider he is your
comfort he is your peace he is your ref refug the beginning of the psalm that Satan quoted tells us that he who dwells ain't it funny that he use that ssal he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the almighty and he says I will say to the Lord my refuge my Fortress my God in whom I trust even though Satan might have taken this verse out of context Jesus knew it all and believed it and I'm so glad that Jesus trusted God instead of testing God because
now we can too first 13 and when the devil had ended every Temptation he departed from him until an opportune time do you know why this passage matters why the Temptation and victory of Jesus against Satan matters because you probably heard this story so much that it doesn't Amaze you anymore but this is huge with the first Adam Satan was able T to tempt and succeed through Adam's Offspring he was able to work their sin nature for his purposes through adultery through murder through rape through Pride though God had consistently revealed himself as worthy of
people's affections his people always found themselves kneeling at the feet of Idols to get something that only God had in himself everybody tried died to turn stones into bread everyone has jumped off the Temple of their own making to be exalted through sin and not obedience everyone has tested God God has commanded and every single person alive at one point or another fail to obey but here for the first time in history there is a man on Earth that obeyed everything Satan wanted Jesus to prove his sunship through sin but Jesus proves it through his
sinlessness and because of this he was able to be the sacrifice that we all who have broken God's law needed he was qualified to take our sins and their judgment on himself because he was indeed the Spotless lamb without blemish and the perfect Lamb of God this lamb was slaughtered for all the time that we' taking Satan at his word all of the times that we refuse to endure temptation all the times that we have tested God all of the times that we've worshiped Idols before and in Christ and when his work was done he
said it was finished he laid down his life and Rose three days later crushing the Serpent's head once and for all like God said he would do in Genesis [Applause] Satan has no power and if you have trusted in the Son of God you have received Power by the Holy Spirit who will help you resist just like Jesus did please my fellow Saints who are fighting what seems to be a consistent War do not be discouraged resistance is hard it gets exhausting but remember you have a great high priest who has been there done that
he is working in and through his church to strengthen and sanctify you it is most likely his time in the wilderness that allows him to look at you and say I get it he sympathizes with you and he is interceding for you he has a throne of grace that he beckin come and receive help in your time of need and I don't know about you but my time of need is daily this is crucial to understand because how you respond to Temptation will not only impact your ministry but it will impact your life and at
the end of the day we all have two choices We Believe God's word to be true or we trust Satan instead let's pray God I thank you that you're better than us I thank you that you were able to do what we would never be able to do I thank you that you showed us how to fight I thank you that you showed us how to endure but ultimately I thank you that you showed us how worthy God is that he is worth obedience that he is worth suffering that he is worth enduring because at
the end of the day one day we will see him we will see you and we will live with you forever but while we're here on Earth continue to do in us what you promised you would do which is to keep us to him who was able to keep us from falling God we believe that doxology today God I pray that you would strengthen us as Saints strengthen us for the task before us and strengthen us even right now in this moment I pray all these things in Jesus name amen [Applause]
