Spiritual Warfare - Lesson 16

Dr. Gerry Breshears
Spiritual Warfare
th251-16
Temptation of Jesus
Lesson Transcript

Well, as we finish up this biblical theology piece of our course here, I want to go to what I think is really the foundational passage to show us what to do, and that's the temptation of Jesus. And if I put this back, starting in Matthew 3:13, it's, Jesus comes to Galilee to be baptized by John and John objects, "Wait a minute, you should be baptizing me, Jesus." And Jesus says, "Let it be so for now, for it's proper to fulfill all righteousness." 

And I'll just throw in my comment on this thing. Why does Jesus need to be baptized? I think he's doing the baptism of purification before doing kingdom work, in the same way that Jews coming to do temple work would go to a mikva and wash themselves as a ritual cleansing. I think that's what he's doing here. He's been living among sinful people for 30 years, more or less, and he has an uncleanness that comes through association with sinful people, and the baptism is a ritual washing to be cleansed to prepared for special work.

And then what happens in the baptism, as soon as Jesus is baptized, he went up out of the water. "At that moment, the spirit of God descends like a dove, lighting on him." I think that's anointing the Holy Spirit for his work as Messiah. Just like the coming, the Holy Spirit on David, anoints him for his work as king, and Elijah, anointing of Elijah, he's anointing that gives Elijah the power to do his prophetic work. And then the voice from heaven, the Father said, "This is my son whom I love and whom I'm well pleased." 

Says the anointing of the Holy Spirit from Messiah and the Father says, "This is my son. I'm well pleased." And then the spirit leads him out of the wilderness. Luke says it drives him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And why is that? Well, one of the reasons is he's recapitulating what happens to Adam and Eve. Adam's the first man. Paul points out that Christ is the second man, and so he does what happened to Adam. He's driven out to be tempted by the devil. 

And I think what this is doing is saying the first work Jesus does is take on the primary enemy, which is the devil, and that's where he begins. And the devil does the thing that he does well, he tempts Jesus. And the temptations, we could spend a lot of time on those. I'll just do a couple comments here. The tempted comes, it says, "If you're the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."

I think what he's doing here is not the hypothetical, "Are you really the Son of God? Maybe you should prove it by turning these stones into bread." That's a common interpretation. I think it's the opposite. I think he's saying, "You're the Son of God, the temptation's over, the test is over. Just turn, make some bread. I mean, you can do that." And he does later on, he turns five pita breads and a couple little fish into enough to feed 5,000 people. "You're the Son of God, make some bread. The fast is over." And Jesus' response is, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but every word that comes in the mouth of God," summarizes the whole manna thing from Deuteronomy 8. 

I think Jesus is saying, "No, I will continue and use being commissioned in partnership with the Lord and I'll let him provide bread for me, not use my powers to do it for myself." I think that's what he's doing. The temptation here, it seems to me, is used divine powers for his own comfort. That's the temptation and he refuses the temptation.

Then the second temptation is, "Throw yourself down," and just check out and be sure God's up to his promise, confirm the promise of God and, "Don't put the Lord your God to test. He takes him a very high mountain, shows him all the kings of the world and their splendor. 'All this I'll give to you if you'll bow down and worship me.'" And Luke, Ed was pointing out earlier to us off camera, in Luke, it says, "The kings of the world are mine. I can give them to anyone I want." 

And I have not seen that before, but I think that goes back to the Genesis 11 when the nations are turned over to the spiritual beings and that's when Satan got authority over the nations, and he says, "I can give whatever you want." Now I don't trust Satan on anything. Whatever he says, I don't do anything with it. But he's using that to say, "I can give these to you, Jesus. And here's the thing, it's a lot easier for you if we partner together. Let's do it together, Jesus." And Jesus said, "No. Worship the Lord your God only." 

The temptations are interesting. Dostoevsky, in the Brothers Karamazov, has the Grand Inquisitor thing. And his interpretation, I think, is a provocative, shall I say. And what he's doing is Jesus is bringing freedom to people. And what the Grand Inquisitor is saying, "You have robbed them of security by giving them freedom." If you're under authority of a God, then they don't have freedom, then they have security. And then in the miraculous, if we do something miraculous, it makes us worship the miracles, then that would be the gift of the church. 

And finally the power that comes. So his thing is his temptation of security, miraculous worship, and power. And what the Grand Inquisitor's doing in Brother Karamazov, which is Dostoevsky's critique of the church, is they're given security, the authority of the Pope. They've given miraculous, the miracle of the sacrament, and they've given power and he's giving that back. So, in coming into the freedom of the church, you get happiness and security instead of freedom, you get power instead of following, and sacrifice. It's an interesting interpretation of the temptations of Jesus.

But whatever it is, whatever those temptations are, they're the kinds of temptations that impact us. And there's a lot to be said there. I actually think that the temptations to virtue are more powerful than the temptations to vice. We all have our vice, our weaknesses, that kind of thing, but I don't think Jesus comes with a what we call a sin nature. I don't think he has temptations. I don't think he's, want and put his hands on Mary Magdalene or something like that. Though, I mean, we're not sure of that. I think the temptation here is to use his divine powers for personal satisfaction, and that's using good things in the wrong way. I think Satan does that sort of thing. 

What do I look at though is how Jesus responds to this. Because the trick is not so much studying the temptations, I think, as studying how Jesus responds to temptation. That's our lesson today. What do you do when Satan attacks you and tempts you or accuses you or tries to deceive you? I think Jesus's pattern is the pattern we use today. So the first temptation, "If you Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Bread is the security. Jesus answers, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that comes out of the mouth of God." 

So if we're in the class and we're doing this live, I would make you answer and think through it for yourself. I can't do it quite like this, but try with me. What is Jesus doing here in response to Satan? And what he's doing, I mean, "It is written," what does that phrase mean? That's referring to scripture. And so he goes back to Deuteronomy, which he has memorized. I don't think he's got a phone with him and pulls up YouVersion or something, he has it memorized. So scripture, that's part of his life. He quotes scripture. And I ask, "Does he do it quietly to himself or out loud?" Well, he speaks it. So I think he speaks scripture out loud. So he quotes scripture out loud, and then to whom? To the devil. 

So step one, in responding to demonic attack, is quote scripture out loud to the devil. That's step one. Quote scripture out loud to the devil. Does the devil give up and go away? No. Mm-mm. No, he puts him up on the pinnacle of the temple and quotes scripture to Jesus. Now, there's all kinds of irony here, because Psalm 91 in the Dead Sea scrolls, in other places, is actually a psalm that's part of the warfare psalms that's used against the devil, and the devil quotes it to Jesus. And there's all kind of enigmas there. The day-flying arrow is actually a demonic name, intertestamental literature says. And I'm inclined to believe that's true. 

You can go to Mike Heiser again and his Naked Bible podcast and he has a long thing on Psalm 91, unpacking what that means. But he quotes that to Jesus and suggests that you should follow what it says. "God promised to rescue you, do it." And Jesus' response is, "It is also written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" That comes from early in Exodus. What is he saying here? Again, what is he doing? "It is written," quotes Bible, probably out loud. Out loud, to whom? To the devil. That's what we saw back in the first temptation. 

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 

Quote Bible out loud to the devil. Now again, this is not's any verse and it comes from his own understanding. It's not just done magically. Does the devil give up? No. Mm-mm. Devil took him very high mountain. "Kings of the world, worship me, we can work together, it'll be great." And Jesus says again, "For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" Again, quoting Deuteronomy. All three are from Deuteronomy. What's he doing? You got it yet? Quotes Bible out loud to the devil. 

And so, the first thing to do in demonic attack, whatever kind it is, is to speak scripture, well understood, and integrate in our life is the best way to do it, out loud to the devil. This is what I think is the anthistemi, the resist, the oppose, of Ephesians 6, James 4, 1 Peter 5. And that is to resist by using the sword of the spirit, the spoken word of God, and you speak it, proclaim it to the devil. So Revelation 12:11, "They proclaim the truth." Same thing. That's our weapon against the warfare is the proclamation of the scripture against the specific attack of the devil. 

Now, proclamation scripture, scriptural truth is always a good thing, but when you're attacked by the devil, deceived, accused, tempted, that's a good first response. Quote scripture out loud to the devil. Now, of course, it's also quoting to me and reminding me of what truth is. So that's step one. But that's not the only thing Jesus does. In verse 10, he does something else. Jesus said to him, to the devil, "Away from me, Satan." So again, what is Jesus doing here? He's not quoting scripture here. There's, "No away from me" in the Bible. 

What he's doing though is he's looking at the devil and he's speaking, commanding out loud to the devil, "Get away from me." [foreign language 00:12:48] it is in Greek. "Get away from me, Satan." And it's a command. It's not an invitation, it's an authoritative command given by Messiah. And I think we have that same authority, because we're seated with him in the heavenlies. And I think that's the second thing you do when you're attacked by the devil. First is quote Bible out loud to the devil. 

Second is command the devil, command the demon, to get away in Jesus' name. Now, why doesn't Jesus say, "In Jesus' name?" Yeah, he is Jesus. Just a little different there. And again, "In Jesus' name" is not a magical phrase, it's a statement of authority. I can use synonyms just as much. I can say, "In the name of Jesus." I could use other synonyms for it, but I do it, because I'm a child of the Lord most high, because I'm seated within the heavenlies, and I have that authority. Quote Bible out loud to the devil, command the devil out loud, "Get away."

Verse 11, the devil left him. Does he stay gone? No. Mm-mm. No, he's going to come back. So this doesn't guaranteed he'll be gone forever. In order to be alert, as we saw in 1 Peter 5. "The devil left him and angels came and attended to him." So the third step is get some good angels to come and attend to you. I have never, ever been able to do that. To my knowledge, the spiritual being angel has never attended to me. 

So I was teaching this in Beirut, at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, to a group of people from all over the Arab-speaking world, and Walid was my translator. He's now dean of the seminary, a great guy, and he was translating. And I was writing stuff on the whiteboard there in English, and then he's writing it beside in Arabic, for the sake of the students. It was a good way to teach. And I wrote down something and just came to me, because angels don't come, I can't ask... I can't get angels to come and tend to me. There's nothing in scripture about that. God may send them. 

And just off the top of my head, my point is, don't leave your attention on the demonic stuff. So I wrote down, "Do Jesusy stuff," J-E-S-U-S-Y stuff. And Walid just, "I can't translate that." And my point is, don't leave your attention on the demon, don't leave your attention on the devil. He's the ultimate narcissist. And if we give him our attention, that's what he wants. I am to worship Jesus and Him only. That's why I take my attention from the attack of the devil and I turn it to the provision of Jesus. And that's what I meant by do Jesusy stuff. 

Now the rest of the story. Walid, he was so funny, caught him completely off guard and he... "I can't translate that." Well, there were two students in the class who'd done bachelor's at Oxford, Lebanese students, husband and wife. So the three of them put their heads together and figured out how to translate it in Arabic. And I actually have it in my notes what they wrote down. I took a picture of it. But that point is, when you're have an attack by the devil, always bring your attention back to Jesus. Do Jesusy stuff, you know? Turn some praise music, contemplate scripture, do acts of service. 

Go hang out with some Christians and serve together, do Jesusy stuff, because that's our mission is for kingdom outposts, places where God is worshiped and his ways are done, communities of generosity, justice, beauty, et cetera. I talk back in Genesis 1, that's our goal always. Don't focus on the demons. That's a sidelight. It's an important part, but we crush Satan by doing good things, community acts of service, and worship. That's a key thing we do. So that's Matthew 4, and we'll unpack that a little bit further.

Let me look at a couple other things. In Matthew 12:22, we get another encounter. Matthew 12:22, "They brought a demon possessed man who's blind and mute and Jesus healed him so he could both talk and see." Whoa, cool. No details there, but we have some other details in other places how he does it. "People are astonished and said, 'Could this be the son of David?'" And the thing of it is, in Isaiah, there's this thing, "Messiah will come." And if you sing the Messiah, which I did for a long time, played it on my viola, and now I go to Portland Baroque Orchestra and Choir every year and hear a great performance of full Messiah. One of them is Messiah. 

Well, "The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped." And you have to sing it that way. It's from Isaiah, and that's what Jesus does. "The eyes of the blind be open, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped." And that's what Jesus does. And people, "Whoa, this is Messiah." Well, the Pharisees are not ticked about that. They're not stoked about that, they're ticked, and they [inaudible 00:18:09] that summon Beelzebub, the prince of demons, the lord of the flies. This person does it. 

So he comes back and says, "Satan drives out Satan, the whole thing's going to fall." This not Satan. Satan won't drive out a demon. He'll happily sacrifice a lower demon to accomplish his ways. But if Satan's trying to destroy Satan, it isn't going to work. But then he has a passage here that is really helpful to think about. Verse 29, "How can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man, then he can plunder his house." And I think about this analogy, the strong man. Who's the strong man? That's the devil. Who can enter the strong man's house? What's the strong man's house? Well, that's his kingdom, his household.

So I think what's happening here is how can enter the strong man's, Satan's kingdom, the dominion of darkness, and carry off his possessions? What are the possessions? Well, that's people that are taken captive to worship him. And our goal is to come in and carry off the possession of the strong man. How can you do that unless he first ties up the strong man. King James, "binds the strong man, then he can steal his captives." And I think this is one of the place, where it talks about binding. And in this case, binding is what happened at the cross. That's when the strong man's authority is broken, and because the authority's broken, we can plunder his possessions. 

I think that's what it's saying and it goes on there and it's got another thing down that he unpacks this thing further, and down toward the end of it, he's talking about Israel as a Satan-honoring, Baal-worshiping group, which it still is, when an impure person's, verse 43, "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes to arid places, seeking rest and does not find it. Says, 'I'll return to the house I left.' It comes and finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order, goes and takes in seven other spirits more wicked than himself and goes in there and lives. The final condition of the person is worse than the first."

What's he talking about here? He's talking about Israel that's worshiping the Baal and the gods of Greece and Rome, and they're not worshiping Yahweh. And he's saying, "If I kick out a demon, you're not protected by Jesus because you're not a part of that." This doesn't have any relevance at all to why we deal with believers. I don't think we have to bind demons before we can do something. And I don't think if we take on a demon, that we make people susceptible to that demon and seven worser demons if they're a believer in Jesus Christ. 

I think what happens is when we resist satanic attack and release people from demons, Jesus is saying, "Then we come into the authority of the King." And we have to do that. One more passage, maybe two. Matthew 16, as we follow through this, Jesus is showing us how to do things. Matthew 4, quote scripture out loud to the devil, command the devil to get away in Jesus' name. He goes away, but then we get Peter and, "Who do you say that I am?" Matthew 16:15. Simon Peter is the first spokesman, "You're the Messiah, the Son of living God." "Bless you, Simon, son of Jonah." Son of Jonah? I thought I was son of... There's a thing for you to trail down. Why does he say son of Jonah? Because Jonah's not his daddy. Follow that through.

"This revealed through my Father in heaven. I tell you, you are Peter, you are rock and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." I don't think this is saying that Satan is attacking the church so much as saying the church is attacking Satan, and Satan cannot stand against the attack of the church. That's true that in a real sense, the church is attacked by Satan. But I don't think that's Jesus' main point here. "I will build my church," and when it's plundering the dominion of darkness and attacking the kingdom of Satan, Satan cannot withstand it, because we have authority of the crucified, resurrected, exalted Messiah. 

We are attacking him, and our confidence is in this reality that Satan can't win at the end. And that confidence is really important when you're doing spiritual warfare. "I'll give you the keys to the kingdom, where you bind on earth will be bound in heaven." And that's the Jewish, is this lawful or not? But then you get this thing that happens and it's really strange. Jesus began to explain, "He got to go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be killed, and on the third day raised to life."

"Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him." And the question is why is Peter rebuking Jesus when he says he's going to die and be resurrected? And the answer, the answer is he has been reading his Bible. He has been reading Psalm 2, where Messiah, "The Son will break the nations." He's been reading Psalm 110, where Messiah will break the nations. He's been in Daniel 2, where the stone will come and crush the statue and there'll be... He's been reading his Bible. And he pulls out and says, "Wait a minute, Jesus. No, no, no. You've got it wrong, Jesus. It says right here, you're Messiah, you win, they lose. They don't kill you, you kill them." And he's explaining his Bible. I can see it happening. 

He's not a nationalistic jerk, he's actually reading his Bible. And the thing he doesn't do is say, "Hmm, I don't quite understand, Jesus. Could you explain why it doesn't seem to be like this?" He comes in and says, "You're wrong, Jesus." And here's what Peter, "Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get away from me, Satan. Get away from me to the back.'" Who's Jesus speaking to here? "Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan.'" Who is Peter speaking to here? Sorry, who is Jesus speaking to here? "Jesus said to Peter, 'Get behind me Satan.'" Is he speaking to Peter or Satan? And, of course, the answer is both. 

Somehow, somehow, Satan is using Peter's stuff to accomplish Satan's agenda to discourage Jesus apparently. But here's a place where Satan, I don't think he's, I don't it's possession, to use that term, but somehow Satan has empowered Peter's interpretation of scripture to contradict the aim of Messiah. Satan is at work. And what Jesus does is the same thing he said to Satan, the devil, back in chapter 4, he's now saying to Satan, speaking through Peter, except it's "Get away from me to the back." It adds an adverb to the [foreign language 00:26:14] of chapter 4.

And that's the came kind of thing. He recognized what's happened and immediately command him, "Get away." Same thing. I didn't quote scripture to him, but that's in the context there. "You're a stumbling block to me. You do not have the concerns of God, but human concerns," and that's the mixed thing. Okay, one more, Acts 5. Again, fascinating, fascinating story. Barnabas, the son of encouragement, which says he's the most encouraging guy ever, has sold a field, given the money and brought it to the apostle and say, "Here, do with this money," fairly large amount of money apparently, "... do whatever you want." "And Ananias, together his wife, Sapphira, also sold a piece of property." 

Okay, Barnabas got a lot of likes on his Instagram posts, so he wants to do the same thing to put it in a little more contemporary way. "And with his wife's full knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself and brought the rest to put at the apostles' feet." So here it's, "Oh, we bring the price to the property, you can see it." And then what does Peter do? Peter is doing this. Remember this is the Matthew 16 guy. "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you've lied to the Holy Spirit and kept some of your money received? Did it belong to you? You could have kept it, but you've lied, not just to us, but to God. Ananias heard this, he fell down and died." Whoo. That's real church discipline. 

"How is it that Satan has so filled your heart?" And the word filling there is one of the words that's used to describe the filling of the Holy Spirit. And it's happened several times in Acts and other places as well. But Satan has filled the heart. So is Ananias a believer in Jesus? And doesn't say in so many words, but this is really early on, and I think he is a follower of Jesus, and Sapphira, his wife. I think they're believers. And Satan has filled his heart, which in my understanding is somehow he has empowered, exploited, energized Ananias' stuff, his desire to be liked, but it also, desire for security. "I better not give it all away, because we need some food for supper tonight," or whatever happened. 

But the lie is my extreme generosity's not quite so extreme, putting himself higher than reality. Peter somehow recognizes the work of Satan. How does Peter recognize that? Of course, nothing in the text. But I think he, from his own experience back in Matthew 16, has a sensitivity that somehow he recognizes Satan's done the same thing to you, Ananais, and to Sapphira, and they both fall down and die. Can Satan fill the heart of a believer? I think that's what happens. Same thing in 2 Timothy 2. Satan can take us captive to do his will. Does that mean that they're possessed? Does that mean Satan is inside them? Well, stay tuned. We'll come back to those questions in a bit.

But somehow Satan is using, I think, believers to accomplish his purposes, just like in Peter's life. He used Peter to try to accomplish his purposes. But if we're alert and see it happening, then we can rebuke. No, don't kill Ananais and Sapphira. And God fortunately doesn't do that today so often. Otherwise, you'd have a lot lower church attendance, I'm guessing. 

But this is, I mean, these are things just to ponder deeply as we finish this biblical theology side of our course. The primary response for us as believers to attack a Satan of any kind, quote scripture out loud to the devil, command the devil to get away, and then come back and do Jesusy stuff, come back to the kingdom of the saints. That's fundamental. So that's where we're going to go as we go into the what now section of the course. And I detect there may be some questions. 

It's just really interesting your understanding of, "Get behind me, Satan," because commentators really struggle with Jesus calling the head of the church Satan. But if he's primarily, I would say maybe, addressing Satan, he actually is saying, "Satan, get away. Peter, this involves you. But I'm telling Satan to get away."

I think that's exactly what he's doing. He recognizes the work of Satan in this man, Peter. And he speaks not to Peter primarily, but to Satan, but he's speaking to Peter as well, because somehow this has happened to Peter, and that's where you get this odd thing, "Get away from me, Satan. Get away [foreign language 00:31:38], Get away to the back." Same phrase as Matthew 4, but with the extra adverb. And he's saying to the head of the church. 

And that's part of the reason I believe the Bible is true, because it's leader, it's the fallibility of Peter is right up front. "Hello, this guy can be a jerk. This guy can be a wuss, but he's faithful disciple. Be like him." Not. Anyway, other things would say he speaks to Peter and he uses the term Satan with the meaning of accuser. "So you were accusing me." So he's calling him the accuser, not speaking to the devil himself. I think he's speaking to the devil. I think that's what he's doing.