47. Tempted By Power

Deuteronomy 6:13, Matthew 4:8-10, Luke 4:5-8,

Key Verse: "Fear the Lord your god, serve Him only and take your oaths in His name."

Deuteronomy 6:13, Matthew 4:10 & Luke 4:8

How absurd this seems; the creator bowing down to the created?  To think that the fake splendor of this world could even be considered a possible temptation to the one who came from Heaven and knows what true splendor is?  How, we ask, could this have been a temptation for Jesus at all?

However, what if Jesus could have gained the world without the cross?  What if He hadn't had to suffer, to accomplish His goal?  Satan wouldn't know this of course.  Satan was offering what many mortal men seem to want: fame, power, control. 

Satan was also speaking a truth when he claimed that all the nations of this world had been given to him.  Is he not referred to as, "the prince of this world?"  What he was forgetting is that he is only a prince, not the King.  What he was offering was not really his to give.  It already belonged to Jesus.  Jesus was not there to conquer the world, but to reclaim that which is His own.  He would do this by defeating satan once and for all.  He would use a true power that satan does not understand. 

Was satan hoping to avoid the challenge or battle that he must have known was coming?  After all, God had said back in the Garden that Jesus, the seed of woman, would crush his head.  (Genesis 3:15)  So perhaps the temptation was in trying to get Jesus to think he wouldn't have to fight satan to take back what was rightfully his.  But the trick was that if he worshipped satan, it would ruin Jesus' sinless perfection and so satan would win anyway and still wouldn't give the kingdoms over.  Satan's a liar!

Maybe.  It's probably more true to say that satan didn't understand God.  He never had.  At the beginning he thought that he could prove that he was better than God.  He was envious of all the praise that God, deservedly received.  Satan thought that he deserved praise as well and has continued to strive to capture that praise for himself since his fall.  Now, with only his finite understanding, he believes that God wants the world with all its sin.  After all, that is all that satan has to give.  He has no understanding of redemption or forgiveness or renewal.  He makes the mistake here of assuming that God thinks like him, which is a mistake that we humans often make as well. 

If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)  Jesus didn't come to simply conquer the world or paint its sinfulness over with His forgiveness, or force us to worship Him.  No, Christ came to make all things new.  Jesus knew that the world that satan was offering would pass away.  It had to, because the wages of sin is death.  (Romans 3:23)  Jesus would make all things new.  Satan's offer, this finite world, would be destroyed, but what was reclaimed for Christ, those who believe in Him, would stand. 

We too are a new creation when we believe and are reclaimed by Christ.  Our old has passed away.  We are become new.  That which Christ redeems will live on forever with Him.  Only our sinful nature, our wood, hay and stubble, will be destroyed by God's refining fire and, to be truthful, it will be good to be rid of it!  That is God's power, the power of love.

Hymn: "Seek Ye First"