1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. 3. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4. But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
Following Jesus's baptism, He was led into the wilderness. The baptism was something public. The testing was something private. We have found there's a big difference between declaring commitment to God publicly before others and being a follower of the Lord in private when no one else is looking. What you are privately is what you truly are.
Before His public ministry begins Jesus is given a test. Notice that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to fast for 40 days and 40 nights, probably relating to Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness where they grumbled at God because of the lack of food. (Deuteronomy 8:2).
After fasting He was hungry. To stand in the place of the nation of Israel and indeed the human race as a whole, He must withstand the temptations of the devil, otherwise He would be disqualified as Messiah and Savior. Jesus was at His weakest was when Satan came to Him. Satan will attack us when we are at our weakest and most vulnerable.
The enemy came to Him and said, “If you are the Son of God tell these stones to become bread”. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with turning stones into bread, unless it is against God's will.
1 John warns us of the worldliness in three ways (2:16): “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” This corresponds to the temptation of Jesus, as well as the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden. They failed their test. Jesus passed His. Adam and Eve looked at the fruit and saw how delightful it was to eat which was the lust of the flesh. On the surface, it seemed like a simple suggestion for Jesus to use His supernatural powers to change a limestone rock into a loaf of bread to eat, but Satan wanted Jesus to use His supernatural powers for Himself rather than for others. Jesus responded, “It is written man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The devil was trying to get Jesus to exercise His powers outside the will of His Father. The devil was trying to convince Jesus that God could not be trusted to meet His needs. This is one of those lies that Eve believed when the devil had convinced her that God was withholding something from them by not allowing them to eat from the tree (Genesis 3:4-5).
We know that Jesus responded with scripture, properly interpreted. “It is written” is the only way we can confront lies with the truth of God's Word. Jesus sets an important example to us by having a firm commitment to the written Word of God. It is the final authority for a life lived in obedience to God. Jesus teaches that when God takes us through times of testing, it is better to trust Him, hold on, and endure than to escape God's appointed trials. We can only do this if we believe that God is good and has our best interests at heart.
Application: Scripture reading and memorization are crucial to store it up in our hearts, helping us to see particular temptations for what they really are. It gives us the strength to overcome temptation as the Spirit brings the truth to our minds and delivers us from evil.
Prayer: Lord, may I never lost sight of the power of Your Word in my life and my ability to stand.
