Episode Transcript
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Good morning, and welcome to StormsCreek Missionary Baptist Church this Sunday morning radio
program. This morning, we'll bejoining Pastor Kenny Hurts because we once again
open the scriptures and study God's work. Okay, this morning we're going to
be in the Gospel of Luke.We are in Luke chapter four, and
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we're going to be focusing on versesone through thirteen. But as we begin,
I just want to read the firstthrough verses I titled the message this
morning the Sun's Testing, and Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost,
returned from Jordan and was led bythe Spirit into the wilderness, being forty
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days tempted of the devil. Andthose days he did nothing, he did
eat nothing, and when they wereended, he afterward hungered. From the
time man first was tempted and fellin the garden, temptation has been a
part of life in this fallen world. Every single child of God, regardless
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of who you are, you facedtemptation every single day in some area of
your life. Jesus taught his disciplesto pray in Matthew chapter six, and
one of the petitions that he taughtthem to pray was lead us not to
temptation, but deliver us from theevil or from the evil one. You
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see, we pray this petition sothat God would Well, what we're asking
him to do is to keep usfrom any situation where we would be tempted
to sin, to so order ourlives that we would not be in situations
where we face temptation. But ofcourse we know that's not always the case,
because oftentimes we do find ourselves insituations where we're tempted. And in
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that case, well, we havethe promise of God that he has given
us what we need to be ableto resist overcome that temptation. Well,
here in Luke chapter four, we'regoing to see that even our Lord Jesus
Christ, the eternal son of God, he wasn't exempt from temptation. When
he begins his public ministry, heis personally confronted by Satan, who's trying
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to entice him to sin. Now, when we think about Satan and we
think about temptation, I seriously doubtthat any of us have ever been personally
tempted by Satan. I say thatbecause he can only be in one place
at a time. He's not omnipresentlike God is. He can't be present
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everywhere to the same time. No, he can only be in one place
at a time. So I doubtthat he has attempted any of us.
But he does have an army ofdemons. He has fallen angels will who
do his bidding, who do hiswork for him, And so we have
been enticed by demonic beings. Butin the case of the Son of God,
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there is an exception. Satan isnot going to give this task to
one of his angels, one ofhis minions. Know he is going to
take care of this matter himself,so he will personally attack the Lord.
There's another time when he personally attackedand he didn't give that responsibility to a
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fallen angel, and that is inthe garden with Adam and Eve. There
they were both personally attacked by Satan. So what we have here then,
in Luke chapter four, verses onethrough thirteen, is Jesus, who is
the last atom. The Bible oftenrefers to him as the last atom.
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He is personally attacked by Satan,but unlike the first atom, there's a
huge difference in how Jesus handled histemptation and how the attacks took place.
For example, Adam. Adam wasattacked while he was living in Paradise.
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He was living in the Garden ofEden, a perfect world, a world
that provided him everything he could possiblyneed to live. Plenty of food,
plenty of everything he needed was thereat his disposal. He also had a
loving companion to help him and toencourage him. Jesus, on the other
hand, was tempted, not inParadise, but in the wilderness. He
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had no food. Remember, he'dgone forty days without food. He had
been fasting. He wasn't surrounded bya loving companion. He was surrounded,
as Mark tells us, by wildbeast. And yet Jesus was victorious.
Adam failed. Now, before welook at the son's testing here in chapter
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four, I do want to callyour attention to the final verses of chapter
three, which is verse twenty threethrough thirty eight. You noticed that I
skipped over these verses from the lasttime. Last time I appreach, we
finished with Luke chapter three and versetwenty two. Well, the reason that
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I skipped over this is because youhave here the genealogy of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Luke and Matthew both giveus the genealogy of Christ and what you
have is a list of names,a lot of names, names that are
well, are hard for us evento pronounce. Gives us seventy seven names.
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Matthew, well, almost only halfof that forty two. You see,
what Matthew does is he goes fromAbraham up to Mary. That's why
there's forty two names. Luke,on the other hand, starts with Joseph
and goes backward all the way toAdam and even God himself. So that's
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why there are seventy seven names.But with all these names, there is
a reason for them being there.What do these names tell us? Why
is it important that they're listed here? Well, if you remember in chapter
three, we looked at four faithfulwitnesses. We looked at John, we
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looked at Jesus, we looked atthe Holy Spirit, and we looked at
God the Father. So I wouldargue that one reason for the genealogy is
to simply give us another witness toshow us that Jesus was fully qualified to
be the Messiah, that he isof the right lineage, that he is
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of the right family, he isfrom the family of David, because he
wasn't a self appointed messiah like somany were in his day and time.
No Lu traces his ancestry through David, through Abraham, Adam, even God
himself. So clearly Jesus is Israel'srightful king, and every name in this
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genealogy bears witness to that fact.If Jesus wasn't from the right lineage,
then he would be disqualified, hecouldn't be Messiah. Well, as we
get in a chapter four, we'regoing to see yet another witness, an
unusual one, not one that weprobably would think of as being a witness
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for the Lord Jesus Christ. He'snot a family member, he's not a
friend. In fact, he's theenemy. He's none other than Satan himself.
And by his testing the Son,by his opposition, what he does
is well, he bears witness towho Jesus is, that he is the
Son of God. Why else,why else would he personally attack him,
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There would be no reason to see. He doesn't want the Son of God
to do what he came into thisworld to do, and that is to
go to the cross and pay thesin debt, to pay for his people's
sin. So with that introduction,what we're going to do this morning,
then is we're going to focus onthis testing of the son and how he
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responded to that testing. So thereare three things that I want to mention
this morning in regard to this testing. That is the reason for the testing,
the response to the testing, andthe result of the testing. So
first of all, the reason forthe testing. As we look at the
first two verses, we can't helpbut notice the tremendous contrast between what we
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see in chapter three and what wesee now in chapter four. From his
baptism to his temptation, Jesus goesfrom a time of great blessing. Remember
again, the Spirit descended upon himin the form of a dove. John
the Baptist bore witness to him.The Father himself spoke audibly from heaven.
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This is my beloved son, inwhom I am well pleased. So this
is a highlight. This is ahigh point in our lord's life. He
begins his public ministry in such aglorious fashion. But now, wow,
things suddenly turn. Now he facesa season of conflict and suffering, spending
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forty days in the wilderness fasting beingattacked by Satan. You see, friends,
the Prince of this world will notgive way to the prince of peace,
without a struggle, without a battle, without a fight. And so
Jesus here is going to be attackedby the evil one, just as Satan
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attacked Adam. He's going to attackthis last atom as well, just as
our Savior was attacked, tested,tempted by Satan. Every child of God
can expect the same ourselves. Now. The good news is, and hear
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me out, Satan cannot keep usfrom Heaven. Did you hear that?
Satan cannot keep us from if weare truly saved, if we are justified,
we are, if our sins havebeen forgiven, we're a child of
God. Nothing Satan can do cankeep us from reaching our eternal home and
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glory. We praise God for that. But he can make our journey rough
and painful and miserable at times.Now, I want you to notice in
verse one that this testing is initiatednot by Satan. Oh, he's there.
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But we're told in verse one thatthe spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.
See. Friends, part of thereason for Jesus coming into this world
was to regain what the first atomlost. To reclaim what he lost,
he had to be tested, justlike the first at him, But unlike
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the first Adam, he was successful. He didn't fail. He was victorious
over the evil one. So hetells us in verse two, being forty
days tempted of the devil. Aword there, tempted means the test to
prove. It's a neutral word.It can be good or bad. It
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all depends on who's doing the testingand why. Well, the spirit led
Jesus into the wilderness to be testedto prove that he is the rightful messiah.
He is the king. He's theonly one who can defeat Satan.
So the spirits leading Jesus there inthe wilderness wasn't for evil purposes. It
was for good. It was forour good. Satan, on the other
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hand, he tempts Jesus not fora good purpose, but for an evil
purpose. He's trying to entice himto sin. And if he does that,
then what will happen is Jesus willbe disqualified from being our savior.
He can't die in the cross forour sins because he has sins himself that
has to be punished. So thenwhy was Jesus tested? Well, let
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me give you two reasons. Oneis secondary and the other is the primary.
Reason. I'll give you the secondaryfirst, to give us a pattern
to show us how to resist Satan. When we're tempted, we can look
to Jesus and see how Jesus resistedand we can follow that same pattern.
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That's the secondary reason. But theprimary reason is to prove that Jesus is
the Messiah, that he is theone, the only one worthy to rule
over this world and the kingdoms ofthis world. He is the only one
who can defeat Satan. He's theonly one who can live without sin.
Make sure we keep this reason inits proper order. I don't miss out
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on the main point here, becauseso many times people preach on this.
Preachers will preach on this passage andthey'll talk about the key to overcoming temptation,
and it's like it's as if that'sall that this text is telling us.
That's putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. No,
may we realize first and foremost,this encounter with Satan, this testing,
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was to show us that Jesus trulyis the Messiah. He's our savior,
He's the only one who can saveus. Now, this isn't the first
time that Satan has attacked. OhNo, remember In Matthew chapter two,
King Herod issued a decree for allthe male children that lived in the area
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of Bethlehem who were two and younger. They were to be put to death
because he heard about this king thathad been born. He didn't want to
rival well Jesus. He escaped becausean angel warned Mary and Joseph of what
Herod intended, and they went toEgypt. But why did Herod issue that
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decree? He didn't want Jesus tobe well, not only born, but
he didn't want him to live andthen one day become a king. He
tried to prevent Jesus from coming anddoing what he came to do. That's
what Satan's intention is, to keephim from being able to save his people.
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Now, we don't have any recordof Jesus's life from the time he
was young until he was thirty,except for the occasion we looked at back
in chapter two when he was twelveand at the temple. But certainly Satan
would have tried to get Jesus asa child, as a teen, as
a young adult to sin to fall. But do you know what All of
his attempts were all to no avail, and so how do you know that,
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preacher. You don't know that becausewe have no record of what Jesus
did up until he was thirty exceptfor that one time. Well, we
can rest assured that he didn't sineven one time, because if he had,
there would be no reason for himto be here, to be at
this time, at this point,because he cannot be our savior if he
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has sinned, he's disqualified. Andby the way, the Father would have
never said what he said in chapterthree, this is my beloved son and
whom I'm well pleased. If Jesusat some time in his life committed a
sin, he wouldn't be pleased withhim. But see, I think it
is this proof that Jesus he liveda perfect life, a sinless life,
and he had to in order tobe our savior. So that is the
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reason. Second, the response tois testing. There's three different responses that
are given here. The first oneis there's a temptation for him to doubt
God's love, to doubt God's carefor him. Verse three, And the
devil said, unto him, ifthou be the son of God, command
this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying it
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is written that man shall not liveby bread alone, but by every word
of God. Those he says there, if you are the son of God,
that doesn't mean that's not a questionof doubt. That's simply an affirmation.
You could say sense or because youare the son of God, and
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you could read it, because you'rethe son of God, it makes no
sense for you, the son ofGod, to be hungry. I mean,
if you're the son of God,you could probably just take those stones
that are on the ground there andturn those into bread. Know while liberals
and skeptics and cult leaders, unlikethem Satan and his demons, never ever
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deny the deity of Christ. No, they know who Christ is. They
know he's divine, they know he'sthe son of God. Like many today
who say otherwise, and Jesus,because he's the son of God, saying
is saying, just create some foodon your own. If your father's not
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going to provide for you, you'restarving, you're hungry, then just take
these stones and turn them into bread. And see that wouldn't be a temptation
for any of us. You know, I can't take a rock and say,
you know what, I'm hungry.I don't think God's going to provide
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for me today. He's not goingto provide me anything to eat today.
So I'm just gonna take this rockand I'm just gonna make a hamburger out
of it and eat it and satisfymy hunger. That's not a temptation for
me or for any of us,because we can't do that. We can't
create our own food. We haveto depend upon God to supply what we
need. But with Jesus he could, He could satisfy his hunger. He
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could create food. I mean,in the wilderness, God created food for
Israel. He calls many to fallfrom this guy every day from those forty
years. Jesus later and his ministryis going to take food and he's going
to multiply that food and feed thousandsof people. So it's clear that for
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Jesus to create his own food wouldbe no problem for him at all.
See, this temptation appears so innocent, doesn't it, Because it's not a
sin to eat. We have toeat every day. We pray, Lord
give us this day our daily bread. We know we have to eat.
But see the problem here is ishe's doubting God's love he's doubting God's care.
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That's what he's being tempted to do. He wasn't the father's will for
Jesus to live. It was hisfather's will for Jesus to live as a
man, and he laid aside hisdivine attributes. He didn't depend upon himself.
He could have every time he washunger, he could have created his
own meal to eat, but hedidn't do that any more than we can.
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He lived here as a man,and he had to trust his father
to provide for his needs. Sowhat Satan is trying to entice him to
do is to well to not trusthis father, which would be a sin,
wouldn't it. Well. Jesus respondsby quoting from Deuteronomy, chapter eight
and verse three. That's how werespond to Satan, and as we use
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the word of God. The secondtemptation is the temptation to doubt God's plan.
We see this in Versus five througheight. And the devil take him
up into a high mountain, showedhim all the kingdoms of this world in
a moment of time. And thedevil said, unto him, all this
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power will I give thee and theglory of them for that is delivered unto
me, and to whomsoever will Igive it? If thou will therefore worship
me, all shall be thine.See. Having failed to convince Jesus to
doubt his father's love, now he'sgoing to change tactics. He's going to
offer Jesus the world without pain andsuffering, and even death itself. Now,
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keep in mind, the Father hasalready promised to give the Son the
kingdoms of this world. In Psalmnchapter two and verse eight, it says,
ask of me, and I shallgive thee the Heathen for thy inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earthfor thy possession. So the Father
has already promised the Son the kingdomsof this world if he will do that
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which the Father has sent him todo. See for him to get the
kingdoms of this world, to havethis inheritance, he has to suffer and
die suffering first and then glory.See what Jesus, See what Satan is
doing here. Jesus is in thewilderness, has nothing more than the clothes
on his back. He hasn't haveany food to eat. He's hungry forty
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day. He's not forty year.There is forty days without eating. He
looks word to a life of poverty, unjust treatment of others, being rejected
by his own people. Going tothe cross. All that awaits Jesus before
he can have what the Father's promisedhim. And here comes Satan a long
and says, hey, I gota good deal for you. You can
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have all that, and you don'thave to go through all the pain and
suffering. You can have it rightnow. All you have to do is
fall down and worship me, whichis what Satan has always wanted. Well,
Jesus rejects Satan. He rejects hisoffer, and once again he quotes,
this time from Deuteronomy chapter six andverse thirteen. See once again he
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uses the word of God to defeatthe evil one. You know. In
Philippians chapter two, in verses nineto eleven, it talks about every knee
bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesusis Lord to the glory of God,
to Father, every person who's everlived, all those who live in opposition
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to the Lord, who die intheir sins. Everyone will fall down one
day and bow down and worship theLord. But not only every human also
believe Satan and all his demons.One day they're gonna bow down. They're
going to bow the need as well. But see, one thing will never
happen, as Jesus will never bowdown to Satan. But Satan is going
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to bow to Jesus. And thenthird a temptation to presume upon God verse
nine. And he brought him toJerusalem and set him on a pinnacle the
temple, and said, unto him, if thou be the son of God,
cast thyself down from hence, forit is written here He's going to
quote from Psalm ninety one, Verseseleven and twelve. He shall give his
angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear
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thee up lest any time thou dashthy foot against a stone. See.
The final temptation is, well,it's what it's as if Satan is saying,
Okay, you wanted to use theBible. You love the quote the
Bible. You say you trust theBible. Well, here's what the Bible
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says. And he said, andhe quotes then from Psalm ninety one.
He says, do you believe that, then if you do prove it,
jump off the top of the templeand see if your Father will rescue you
and keep you from dying. Now, what's the problem. The problem is
God didn't tell his son to dothat. Psalm ninety one to eleven said
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it has to do with according toGod's will in all thy ways, is
how he puts it. See Satanleaves that out. The promise is for
those who do God's will that Godwill protect. We're always to obey God.
We're always to do God's will.We're always to trust him, but
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we're not to presume upon him.Means not to do something he hasn't commanded
us to do that's not according tohis will, and then expect that he's
going to deliver us and he's goingto take care of us. Now you
say, but I have faith,Well, faith only goes along with the
promises of God, the will ofGod. See, we're guilty of putting
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God to the test. And ifI say, I'm going to quit my
job and I'm just going to trustGod to take care of my family.
See, that's presuming upon God.Because God has told us by the sweat
of our brow that we are towork and to earn our own living.
Now he provides for us, butwe are called upon to work. You
say, but I have faith,I trust that God can do it.
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No, but God hasn't told youto do that. You're presuming upon him.
I have cancer and say, youknow, instead of going through any
treatment, I'm just going to trustGod to heal me of this cancer.
Well, he might heal me ofcancer. He does a lot of times.
He heals people, but he doesn'talways a lot of the time he
doesn't. See he hasn't given mea promise that he's going to heal,
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nor to anybody. He hasn't promisedto heal our sicknesses and our illness.
No, See, that's presuming uponGod. See Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy,
chapter six and verse sixteen and versetwelve. He says, in Jesus answer
and said it to him. Itis said, thou shalt not tempt the
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Lord by God. So many presumeupon God the day they do something that
God hasn't commanded them to do.And they said, but I'm going to
trust God to take care of me, to deliver me, to provide,
And then when he doesn't, theyget all boun out of shape because God
doesn't do what he's never promised todo. Well, let's look at it
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and at the result of his testing. Verse thirteen. And when the devil
had ended all the temptation, hedeparted from him for a season. How
did Jesus do on his test?Well, he scored one hundred percent perfect
score. Jesus was successful where thefirst atom wasn't Why because he was full
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of the Holy Spirit, and hewas full of the Word of God,
which, by the way, ishow we resist Satan. Isn't it by
using the word of God as we'reled by the spirit of God. Was
this the end of his testing?No, he knows. At the end
of the verse, he says hedeparted for a season. Oh, he's
going to come back. He's goingto come back over and over and over
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again. But every time he does, Jesus will be successful. Jesus will
pass the test. He will alwayshave a perfect score. Jesus proves that
he is the only one who candefeat Satan. He's the only one who
can be our great high priest.He's the only one who can help us
in our times of testing, whocan deliver us. So make sure we
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realize Jesus was tested here first ofall to prove that he's the Messiah,
but also to give us a patternto help us to resist when we're attacked
by the evil one. On oneof his emails today, may you look
to the Savior. May you lookto Christ. May you look to this
one, the only one who cansave it. That is the word Jesus
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Christ. We'd like to thank youfor listening to our program this morning.
We pray that God has used thismessage to draw you closer to Him.
Storm's Creek Missionary Baptist Church would liketo take this opportunity to avily you to
any of its services. We havea Sunday School which starts at nine thirty
am, Sunday Morning Worship ten fifteen, and our Sunday Evening service starts at
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six pm. We also have aWednesday Night Bible Study which starts at seven
point thirty pm. Storms Creek MissionaryBaptist Church is also on the internet under
Sermonaudio dot com. You can goto www. Dot Sermon Audio, look
for Storm Street Missionary Baptist Church andlisten to any of our sermons in full
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length audio. At the side.Again, we'd like to thank you for
listening this morning, and may Godbless you throughout the week.
Good morning, and welcome to StormsCreek Missionary Baptist Church this Sunday morning radio
program. This morning, we'll bejoining Pastor Kenny Hurts because we once again
open the scriptures and study God's work. Okay, this morning we're going to
be in the Gospel of Luke.We are in Luke chapter four, and
(00:39):
we're going to be focusing on versesone through thirteen. But as we begin,
I just want to read the firstthrough verses I titled the message this
morning the Sun's Testing, and Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost,
returned from Jordan and was led bythe Spirit into the wilderness, being forty
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days tempted of the devil. Andthose days he did nothing, he did
eat nothing, and when they wereended, he afterward hungered. From the
time man first was tempted and fellin the garden, temptation has been a
part of life in this fallen world. Every single child of God, regardless
(01:25):
of who you are, you facedtemptation every single day in some area of
your life. Jesus taught his disciplesto pray in Matthew chapter six, and
one of the petitions that he taughtthem to pray was lead us not to
temptation, but deliver us from theevil or from the evil one. You
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see, we pray this petition sothat God would Well, what we're asking
him to do is to keep usfrom any situation where we would be tempted
to sin, to so order ourlives that we would not be in situations
where we face temptation. But ofcourse we know that's not always the case,
because oftentimes we do find ourselves insituations where we're tempted. And in
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that case, well, we havethe promise of God that he has given
us what we need to be ableto resist overcome that temptation. Well,
here in Luke chapter four, we'regoing to see that even our Lord Jesus
Christ, the eternal son of God, he wasn't exempt from temptation. When
he begins his public ministry, heis personally confronted by Satan, who's trying
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to entice him to sin. Now, when we think about Satan and we
think about temptation, I seriously doubtthat any of us have ever been personally
tempted by Satan. I say thatbecause he can only be in one place
at a time. He's not omnipresentlike God is. He can't be present
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everywhere to the same time. No, he can only be in one place
at a time. So I doubtthat he has attempted any of us.
But he does have an army ofdemons. He has fallen angels will who
do his bidding, who do hiswork for him, And so we have
been enticed by demonic beings. Butin the case of the Son of God,
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there is an exception. Satan isnot going to give this task to
one of his angels, one ofhis minions. Know he is going to
take care of this matter himself,so he will personally attack the Lord.
There's another time when he personally attackedand he didn't give that responsibility to a
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fallen angel, and that is inthe garden with Adam and Eve. There
they were both personally attacked by Satan. So what we have here then,
in Luke chapter four, verses onethrough thirteen, is Jesus, who is
the last atom. The Bible oftenrefers to him as the last atom.
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He is personally attacked by Satan,but unlike the first atom, there's a
huge difference in how Jesus handled histemptation and how the attacks took place.
For example, Adam. Adam wasattacked while he was living in Paradise.
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He was living in the Garden ofEden, a perfect world, a world
that provided him everything he could possiblyneed to live. Plenty of food,
plenty of everything he needed was thereat his disposal. He also had a
loving companion to help him and toencourage him. Jesus, on the other
hand, was tempted, not inParadise, but in the wilderness. He
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had no food. Remember, he'dgone forty days without food. He had
been fasting. He wasn't surrounded bya loving companion. He was surrounded,
as Mark tells us, by wildbeast. And yet Jesus was victorious.
Adam failed. Now, before welook at the son's testing here in chapter
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four, I do want to callyour attention to the final verses of chapter
three, which is verse twenty threethrough thirty eight. You noticed that I
skipped over these verses from the lasttime. Last time I appreach, we
finished with Luke chapter three and versetwenty two. Well, the reason that
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I skipped over this is because youhave here the genealogy of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Luke and Matthew both giveus the genealogy of Christ and what you
have is a list of names,a lot of names, names that are
well, are hard for us evento pronounce. Gives us seventy seven names.
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Matthew, well, almost only halfof that forty two. You see,
what Matthew does is he goes fromAbraham up to Mary. That's why
there's forty two names. Luke,on the other hand, starts with Joseph
and goes backward all the way toAdam and even God himself. So that's
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why there are seventy seven names.But with all these names, there is
a reason for them being there.What do these names tell us? Why
is it important that they're listed here? Well, if you remember in chapter
three, we looked at four faithfulwitnesses. We looked at John, we
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looked at Jesus, we looked atthe Holy Spirit, and we looked at
God the Father. So I wouldargue that one reason for the genealogy is
to simply give us another witness toshow us that Jesus was fully qualified to
be the Messiah, that he isof the right lineage, that he is
(07:15):
of the right family, he isfrom the family of David, because he
wasn't a self appointed messiah like somany were in his day and time.
No Lu traces his ancestry through David, through Abraham, Adam, even God
himself. So clearly Jesus is Israel'srightful king, and every name in this
(07:38):
genealogy bears witness to that fact.If Jesus wasn't from the right lineage,
then he would be disqualified, hecouldn't be Messiah. Well, as we
get in a chapter four, we'regoing to see yet another witness, an
unusual one, not one that weprobably would think of as being a witness
(08:01):
for the Lord Jesus Christ. He'snot a family member, he's not a
friend. In fact, he's theenemy. He's none other than Satan himself.
And by his testing the Son,by his opposition, what he does
is well, he bears witness towho Jesus is, that he is the
Son of God. Why else,why else would he personally attack him,
(08:26):
There would be no reason to see. He doesn't want the Son of God
to do what he came into thisworld to do, and that is to
go to the cross and pay thesin debt, to pay for his people's
sin. So with that introduction,what we're going to do this morning,
then is we're going to focus onthis testing of the son and how he
(08:54):
responded to that testing. So thereare three things that I want to mention
this morning in regard to this testing. That is the reason for the testing,
the response to the testing, andthe result of the testing. So
first of all, the reason forthe testing. As we look at the
first two verses, we can't helpbut notice the tremendous contrast between what we
(09:20):
see in chapter three and what wesee now in chapter four. From his
baptism to his temptation, Jesus goesfrom a time of great blessing. Remember
again, the Spirit descended upon himin the form of a dove. John
the Baptist bore witness to him.The Father himself spoke audibly from heaven.
(09:43):
This is my beloved son, inwhom I am well pleased. So this
is a highlight. This is ahigh point in our lord's life. He
begins his public ministry in such aglorious fashion. But now, wow,
things suddenly turn. Now he facesa season of conflict and suffering, spending
(10:05):
forty days in the wilderness fasting beingattacked by Satan. You see, friends,
the Prince of this world will notgive way to the prince of peace,
without a struggle, without a battle, without a fight. And so
Jesus here is going to be attackedby the evil one, just as Satan
(10:28):
attacked Adam. He's going to attackthis last atom as well, just as
our Savior was attacked, tested,tempted by Satan. Every child of God
can expect the same ourselves. Now. The good news is, and hear
(10:48):
me out, Satan cannot keep usfrom Heaven. Did you hear that?
Satan cannot keep us from if weare truly saved, if we are justified,
we are, if our sins havebeen forgiven, we're a child of
God. Nothing Satan can do cankeep us from reaching our eternal home and
(11:16):
glory. We praise God for that. But he can make our journey rough
and painful and miserable at times.Now, I want you to notice in
verse one that this testing is initiatednot by Satan. Oh, he's there.
(11:37):
But we're told in verse one thatthe spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.
See. Friends, part of thereason for Jesus coming into this world
was to regain what the first atomlost. To reclaim what he lost,
he had to be tested, justlike the first at him, But unlike
(12:01):
the first Adam, he was successful. He didn't fail. He was victorious
over the evil one. So hetells us in verse two, being forty
days tempted of the devil. Aword there, tempted means the test to
prove. It's a neutral word.It can be good or bad. It
(12:24):
all depends on who's doing the testingand why. Well, the spirit led
Jesus into the wilderness to be testedto prove that he is the rightful messiah.
He is the king. He's theonly one who can defeat Satan.
So the spirits leading Jesus there inthe wilderness wasn't for evil purposes. It
was for good. It was forour good. Satan, on the other
(12:46):
hand, he tempts Jesus not fora good purpose, but for an evil
purpose. He's trying to entice himto sin. And if he does that,
then what will happen is Jesus willbe disqualified from being our savior.
He can't die in the cross forour sins because he has sins himself that
has to be punished. So thenwhy was Jesus tested? Well, let
(13:11):
me give you two reasons. Oneis secondary and the other is the primary.
Reason. I'll give you the secondaryfirst, to give us a pattern
to show us how to resist Satan. When we're tempted, we can look
to Jesus and see how Jesus resistedand we can follow that same pattern.
(13:35):
That's the secondary reason. But theprimary reason is to prove that Jesus is
the Messiah, that he is theone, the only one worthy to rule
over this world and the kingdoms ofthis world. He is the only one
who can defeat Satan. He's theonly one who can live without sin.
Make sure we keep this reason inits proper order. I don't miss out
(14:00):
on the main point here, becauseso many times people preach on this.
Preachers will preach on this passage andthey'll talk about the key to overcoming temptation,
and it's like it's as if that'sall that this text is telling us.
That's putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. No,
may we realize first and foremost,this encounter with Satan, this testing,
(14:24):
was to show us that Jesus trulyis the Messiah. He's our savior,
He's the only one who can saveus. Now, this isn't the first
time that Satan has attacked. OhNo, remember In Matthew chapter two,
King Herod issued a decree for allthe male children that lived in the area
(14:48):
of Bethlehem who were two and younger. They were to be put to death
because he heard about this king thathad been born. He didn't want to
rival well Jesus. He escaped becausean angel warned Mary and Joseph of what
Herod intended, and they went toEgypt. But why did Herod issue that
(15:09):
decree? He didn't want Jesus tobe well, not only born, but
he didn't want him to live andthen one day become a king. He
tried to prevent Jesus from coming anddoing what he came to do. That's
what Satan's intention is, to keephim from being able to save his people.
(15:35):
Now, we don't have any recordof Jesus's life from the time he
was young until he was thirty,except for the occasion we looked at back
in chapter two when he was twelveand at the temple. But certainly Satan
would have tried to get Jesus asa child, as a teen, as
a young adult to sin to fall. But do you know what All of
his attempts were all to no avail, and so how do you know that,
(16:00):
preacher. You don't know that becausewe have no record of what Jesus
did up until he was thirty exceptfor that one time. Well, we
can rest assured that he didn't sineven one time, because if he had,
there would be no reason for himto be here, to be at
this time, at this point,because he cannot be our savior if he
(16:21):
has sinned, he's disqualified. Andby the way, the Father would have
never said what he said in chapterthree, this is my beloved son and
whom I'm well pleased. If Jesusat some time in his life committed a
sin, he wouldn't be pleased withhim. But see, I think it
is this proof that Jesus he liveda perfect life, a sinless life,
and he had to in order tobe our savior. So that is the
(16:44):
reason. Second, the response tois testing. There's three different responses that
are given here. The first oneis there's a temptation for him to doubt
God's love, to doubt God's carefor him. Verse three, And the
devil said, unto him, ifthou be the son of God, command
this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying it
(17:07):
is written that man shall not liveby bread alone, but by every word
of God. Those he says there, if you are the son of God,
that doesn't mean that's not a questionof doubt. That's simply an affirmation.
You could say sense or because youare the son of God, and
(17:27):
you could read it, because you'rethe son of God, it makes no
sense for you, the son ofGod, to be hungry. I mean,
if you're the son of God,you could probably just take those stones
that are on the ground there andturn those into bread. Know while liberals
and skeptics and cult leaders, unlikethem Satan and his demons, never ever
(17:51):
deny the deity of Christ. No, they know who Christ is. They
know he's divine, they know he'sthe son of God. Like many today
who say otherwise, and Jesus,because he's the son of God, saying
is saying, just create some foodon your own. If your father's not
(18:12):
going to provide for you, you'restarving, you're hungry, then just take
these stones and turn them into bread. And see that wouldn't be a temptation
for any of us. You know, I can't take a rock and say,
you know what, I'm hungry.I don't think God's going to provide
(18:33):
for me today. He's not goingto provide me anything to eat today.
So I'm just gonna take this rockand I'm just gonna make a hamburger out
of it and eat it and satisfymy hunger. That's not a temptation for
me or for any of us,because we can't do that. We can't
create our own food. We haveto depend upon God to supply what we
need. But with Jesus he could, He could satisfy his hunger. He
(18:59):
could create food. I mean,in the wilderness, God created food for
Israel. He calls many to fallfrom this guy every day from those forty
years. Jesus later and his ministryis going to take food and he's going
to multiply that food and feed thousandsof people. So it's clear that for
(19:19):
Jesus to create his own food wouldbe no problem for him at all.
See, this temptation appears so innocent, doesn't it, Because it's not a
sin to eat. We have toeat every day. We pray, Lord
give us this day our daily bread. We know we have to eat.
But see the problem here is ishe's doubting God's love he's doubting God's care.
(19:44):
That's what he's being tempted to do. He wasn't the father's will for
Jesus to live. It was hisfather's will for Jesus to live as a
man, and he laid aside hisdivine attributes. He didn't depend upon himself.
He could have every time he washunger, he could have created his
own meal to eat, but hedidn't do that any more than we can.
(20:04):
He lived here as a man,and he had to trust his father
to provide for his needs. Sowhat Satan is trying to entice him to
do is to well to not trusthis father, which would be a sin,
wouldn't it. Well. Jesus respondsby quoting from Deuteronomy, chapter eight
and verse three. That's how werespond to Satan, and as we use
(20:27):
the word of God. The secondtemptation is the temptation to doubt God's plan.
We see this in Versus five througheight. And the devil take him
up into a high mountain, showedhim all the kingdoms of this world in
a moment of time. And thedevil said, unto him, all this
(20:47):
power will I give thee and theglory of them for that is delivered unto
me, and to whomsoever will Igive it? If thou will therefore worship
me, all shall be thine.See. Having failed to convince Jesus to
doubt his father's love, now he'sgoing to change tactics. He's going to
offer Jesus the world without pain andsuffering, and even death itself. Now,
(21:12):
keep in mind, the Father hasalready promised to give the Son the
kingdoms of this world. In Psalmnchapter two and verse eight, it says,
ask of me, and I shallgive thee the Heathen for thy inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earthfor thy possession. So the Father
has already promised the Son the kingdomsof this world if he will do that
(21:36):
which the Father has sent him todo. See for him to get the
kingdoms of this world, to havethis inheritance, he has to suffer and
die suffering first and then glory.See what Jesus, See what Satan is
doing here. Jesus is in thewilderness, has nothing more than the clothes
on his back. He hasn't haveany food to eat. He's hungry forty
(21:59):
day. He's not forty year.There is forty days without eating. He
looks word to a life of poverty, unjust treatment of others, being rejected
by his own people. Going tothe cross. All that awaits Jesus before
he can have what the Father's promisedhim. And here comes Satan a long
and says, hey, I gota good deal for you. You can
(22:21):
have all that, and you don'thave to go through all the pain and
suffering. You can have it rightnow. All you have to do is
fall down and worship me, whichis what Satan has always wanted. Well,
Jesus rejects Satan. He rejects hisoffer, and once again he quotes,
this time from Deuteronomy chapter six andverse thirteen. See once again he
(22:41):
uses the word of God to defeatthe evil one. You know. In
Philippians chapter two, in verses nineto eleven, it talks about every knee
bowing and every tongue confessing that Jesusis Lord to the glory of God,
to Father, every person who's everlived, all those who live in opposition
(23:02):
to the Lord, who die intheir sins. Everyone will fall down one
day and bow down and worship theLord. But not only every human also
believe Satan and all his demons.One day they're gonna bow down. They're
going to bow the need as well. But see, one thing will never
happen, as Jesus will never bowdown to Satan. But Satan is going
(23:25):
to bow to Jesus. And thenthird a temptation to presume upon God verse
nine. And he brought him toJerusalem and set him on a pinnacle the
temple, and said, unto him, if thou be the son of God,
cast thyself down from hence, forit is written here He's going to
quote from Psalm ninety one, Verseseleven and twelve. He shall give his
angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear
(23:48):
thee up lest any time thou dashthy foot against a stone. See.
The final temptation is, well,it's what it's as if Satan is saying,
Okay, you wanted to use theBible. You love the quote the
Bible. You say you trust theBible. Well, here's what the Bible
(24:10):
says. And he said, andhe quotes then from Psalm ninety one.
He says, do you believe that, then if you do prove it,
jump off the top of the templeand see if your Father will rescue you
and keep you from dying. Now, what's the problem. The problem is
God didn't tell his son to dothat. Psalm ninety one to eleven said
(24:33):
it has to do with according toGod's will in all thy ways, is
how he puts it. See Satanleaves that out. The promise is for
those who do God's will that Godwill protect. We're always to obey God.
We're always to do God's will.We're always to trust him, but
(24:56):
we're not to presume upon him.Means not to do something he hasn't commanded
us to do that's not according tohis will, and then expect that he's
going to deliver us and he's goingto take care of us. Now you
say, but I have faith,Well, faith only goes along with the
promises of God, the will ofGod. See, we're guilty of putting
(25:18):
God to the test. And ifI say, I'm going to quit my
job and I'm just going to trustGod to take care of my family.
See, that's presuming upon God.Because God has told us by the sweat
of our brow that we are towork and to earn our own living.
Now he provides for us, butwe are called upon to work. You
say, but I have faith,I trust that God can do it.
(25:38):
No, but God hasn't told youto do that. You're presuming upon him.
I have cancer and say, youknow, instead of going through any
treatment, I'm just going to trustGod to heal me of this cancer.
Well, he might heal me ofcancer. He does a lot of times.
He heals people, but he doesn'talways a lot of the time he
doesn't. See he hasn't given mea promise that he's going to heal,
(26:06):
nor to anybody. He hasn't promisedto heal our sicknesses and our illness.
No, See, that's presuming uponGod. See Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy,
chapter six and verse sixteen and versetwelve. He says, in Jesus answer
and said it to him. Itis said, thou shalt not tempt the
(26:26):
Lord by God. So many presumeupon God the day they do something that
God hasn't commanded them to do.And they said, but I'm going to
trust God to take care of me, to deliver me, to provide,
And then when he doesn't, theyget all boun out of shape because God
doesn't do what he's never promised todo. Well, let's look at it
(26:51):
and at the result of his testing. Verse thirteen. And when the devil
had ended all the temptation, hedeparted from him for a season. How
did Jesus do on his test?Well, he scored one hundred percent perfect
score. Jesus was successful where thefirst atom wasn't Why because he was full
(27:11):
of the Holy Spirit, and hewas full of the Word of God,
which, by the way, ishow we resist Satan. Isn't it by
using the word of God as we'reled by the spirit of God. Was
this the end of his testing?No, he knows. At the end
of the verse, he says hedeparted for a season. Oh, he's
going to come back. He's goingto come back over and over and over
(27:33):
again. But every time he does, Jesus will be successful. Jesus will
pass the test. He will alwayshave a perfect score. Jesus proves that
he is the only one who candefeat Satan. He's the only one who
can be our great high priest.He's the only one who can help us
in our times of testing, whocan deliver us. So make sure we
(27:57):
realize Jesus was tested here first ofall to prove that he's the Messiah,
but also to give us a patternto help us to resist when we're attacked
by the evil one. On oneof his emails today, may you look
to the Savior. May you lookto Christ. May you look to this
one, the only one who cansave it. That is the word Jesus
(28:21):
Christ. We'd like to thank youfor listening to our program this morning.
We pray that God has used thismessage to draw you closer to Him.
Storm's Creek Missionary Baptist Church would liketo take this opportunity to avily you to
any of its services. We havea Sunday School which starts at nine thirty
am, Sunday Morning Worship ten fifteen, and our Sunday Evening service starts at
(28:45):
six pm. We also have aWednesday Night Bible Study which starts at seven
point thirty pm. Storms Creek MissionaryBaptist Church is also on the internet under
Sermonaudio dot com. You can goto www. Dot Sermon Audio, look
for Storm Street Missionary Baptist Church andlisten to any of our sermons in full
(29:08):
length audio. At the side.Again, we'd like to thank you for
listening this morning, and may Godbless you throughout the week.
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