Satan Wants to Break Prophecy

I'll be here today. I was thinking as we look into the next few weeks of coming back from the feast, it's always interesting and exciting. But I also am always thankful to go to the feast and be able to be there for, of course, eight days is how long the feast is, to sit in 10 services and listen to somebody else besides me. I'm sure that's what you're thinking too. That's always something that's far more helpful to me than, you know, as I normally am. You'd be sitting, or if I happen to be sitting here, listening to you, usually if I have something I'm assigned here or up in Fulton, then I'm somewhere else. But it's always wonderful to be able to listen to someone else speak and be able to learn things, or just learn concepts or the way of stating something that is just different than the way I would state it. And some of the things I think, whenever I think back on them, well, I do know that, or I know it a little bit, maybe I need to know more. But normally, what I'm going to do probably in the next several weeks, is focus on some things that really stood out to me here at the feast. Because the feast was a very wonderful opportunity to come together. I think the brethren, not only in the location where I was, but in all the sites, as far as information I get, the people were very cooperative, very united, very peaceful, very contended, and that is something that we can be grateful for and thankful for, and be able to build on that as we go forward. But one of the things that stood out to me as I was listening to the speakers at the feast this year, I think it was Dr. Ward who made this statement, and I think it must be something that he must say periodically, because I believe he said it in maybe one or both sermons, or at least in one sermon, and then at his seminar. But what he said that stood out to me was that Satan wants to break prophecy. That's one of his goals. One of his main priorities is that Satan wants to break prophecy. And he desires to get all the people on earth to worship him. Satan wants to break prophecy, and he desires to get all the people on earth to worship him.

See, that's something that ought to give us, I think, cause to reflect on how Satan is doing that. Of course, how we can avoid fitting that category. But also think about the things that we have in the Bible that are given for our direction and guidance.

Satan tried, back at the time when Jesus was born, to interfere, to intercede. And of course, he sent, unfortunately, a slaughter, trying to catch the little baby. The little baby that was supposed to have been born in a certain area, and yet he wasn't in that location. But unfortunately, some other small children were killed. He was chasing whenever they had to go down into Egypt and wondering whether it was safe to even come back. There's a lot of different incidents that you could look at to where Satan has tried to interfere with the plan of God. He's tried to interfere with the prophecies that God has predicted. And of course, factually, Jesus fulfilled everything that was to be fulfilled. There are a lot of predictions in the Old Testament. A lot of things that were to be done in a certain way, or to come to pass in a certain way, or to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ. And so you could see very clearly why maybe not only the beginning days, but the 33 and a half years that Jesus was alive. Now that was a prime time for Satan to try to do something that would in some way support prophecy for the plan of God. And yet, as we all know, we know a certain amount about what's going to happen between now and Christ's return. We know at least some. We can read the book of Revelation. We can understand a good part of it. We can read the book of Daniel. We see the summary information. That information tells us what's going to happen. It tells us that God is going to win. It tells us that there is no contest going on between God and Satan. Now Satan is angry, and yes, he's upset, and yet he is clearly under God's authority and power, even as he was in the very beginning. Even as he was when God created him, because God created the angelic realm, including Lucifer, and Lucifer became defective. He became defective and then, of course, perpetuated that onto mankind. And he did that starting with Adam and Eve. And yet, we know kind of what's going to happen in prophecy, but we also know that Satan would like to mess that up in some way. And exactly how he might do that, I don't know what he could do or what he would even consider doing.

But the part of it, that statement about his desires to get all the people on earth to worship him. What I got to thinking about that was, we have a statement in Matthew and in Luke, and this is in a section that you're familiar with, about the temptations that Jesus endured, or that he battled with Satan, I guess, or he was within a sphere of time there, where he was dealing with the temptations that Satan threw at him. And one of them involved, I'll give you everything. I'll give you everything right here. I'll give you everything right now, if you will simply bow down and worship me. See, that was one of the things that Satan directly told Jesus Christ. And of course, I think that that certainly must be what he wants. He wants the great God still to bow down and worship him. And of course, he's going to get the bulk of humanity to worship him, because who's going to be fighting Jesus Christ when he returns? Now, there's going to be massive warfare, and people are going to be accumulating together in order to fight the one who has all the answers, the one who is bringing peace and a way of love and a way of cooperation. And as Christ has to put that down, there's no doubt that he's going to win. He's going to do that. And so the contest between God and Satan is a wrong idea. So many people have that idea that there's a contest between God and Satan. And that's not true, because God is clearly over anything and everything that Satan could ever do, or ever did, or ever will do.

But see, there is a certain level of contest between us and Satan, because we're told we need to resist him, and that we need to use the tools that we see in the Bible in order to do that. And so we want to be learning about how to do that. Certainly we don't want to fall into the category of worshiping Satan, as so many others do. You know, many do it unwittingly. They do it without a knowledge of the fact that that's what they're doing. They may be very sincere, but they may not be accurate with the information that they are actually trying to follow. And then many others are going to, I think, continue to be deceived by what Satan will bring into this world. I'd like for us to think about, as I mentioned, to think about the section there in Mark, or excuse me, in Matthew and in Luke, that describes the temptations of Jesus. And it only takes a few verses to read through that, and I'm going to read through it in the sermon here a little later on. But I wanted to start in Hebrews 2. Because in Hebrews 2 we find that our Savior, Jesus Christ, came to the earth. He came as the Lamb of God. He came as our Savior and our Redeemer. He came for us. And here in verse 14, it starts saying in Hebrews 2, verse 14, Since therefore the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things.

And so here's what we find about Jesus, that He came to this earth. He became a human being. He was able to experience what it's like to be human, even though He was the Son of God. He was also called the Son of Man. He called Himself the Son of Man, knowing that He had been born of Mary, knowing that He had purposely come into being as a human being. There's reason here, as he's going to point out. It says, He Himself shared the same things so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And so Jesus, as He came to the earth, as He lived and died, as He was our sacrifice for sin, He conquered the power that the devil has. And as it points out here, the power over death, the power of death that comes from the devil. And He says, in verse 15, He frees those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. See, this is what Jesus offers. He offers a great deal of peace and contentment. He offers a great deal of victory. He offers assurance to, and this section is talking about the fact that He's doing this for human beings. He's doing this for people, because, you know, we're the object of His attention as He came to the earth. In verse 16, it's clear that He did not come to help angels, but He came to help the descendants of Abraham. And so, in this section, it is explaining that, well, He didn't come in order to restore the angelic realm, and that clearly was not what He was going to do, or what He perhaps even intended at all, but He did come to help human beings. Therefore, in verse 17, He had to become like His brothers and sisters in every respect, so that He might be a merciful and a faithful High Priest in the service of God to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. And so, verse 17 is, you know, it's clear how that He became human like we are. He, you know, only lived a short period of time, 33 and a half years. Many of us, most of us perhaps, are older than that. We've lived longer than Jesus lived in a physical form. And yet, He said that He did that in order to be in the same form as His brothers and sisters in every respect, so that He would be a merciful and faithful High Priest. So He would know what it's like. What it's like to be a person. What it's like to struggle against the forces that we struggle against. Then in verse 18, He says, because He Himself was tested by what He suffered, He is also able to help those who are being tested. He knows what it's like, and so He knows how it is for us to need help. He knows how it is. Whenever we cry out for help or we cry out for assistance, He doesn't say, well, you know, that's a bogus request. He says, I know what that's like. I know what you're struggling with. And over in chapter 4, I want to move on over to chapter 4 because it continues in verse 15, talking about Him being our High Priest. It says, we don't have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

So He can understand the weaknesses that we have as human beings. He says, we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. So He was, of course, perfect in His dealing with the trials and traumas that He faced, the suffering that He went through. And so He tells us in verse 16, let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. If we concentrate on what Christ has done for us, what He went through, how He gave His life for us, but how that even today, He's at the right hand of the Father. He's very familiar with what it is to be human. He is merciful and loving toward us. He understands the limitations that we have. And what we find when we look in Matthew chapter 4 is that as a human being, and this appears to be right at the time when He was going into His ministry, right at the time, actually the time at least in Matthew, between the time when He was baptized by John the Baptist, and then He actually started His ministry down in verse 12. It goes on into Him going into a ministry in Galilee. And so this was between that time. And of course, Jesus went to John the Baptist to be baptized. And in verse 14 of chapter 3, in verse 14 of chapter 3, it says, John would have prevented Him. He came to John and said, I want you to baptize me. And John would have prevented Him saying, I need to be baptized by you. This makes no sense. You know, I'm here to represent you or to proclaim you. I'm here to lead the way for you. You're the one I'm pointing everybody to. And He said, I need to be baptized by you. And do you come to Me? And yet, Jesus said, well, let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness. See, there was a purpose for what He wanted to do. He wasn't being baptized to be forgiven, because He didn't need to be forgiven. But He clearly was setting an example, a pattern of being baptized. And in this particular case, whenever Jesus was baptized, the Father identified Him and said, this is My Son, My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

See, He noted to those who were around, and I think people probably wondered what they were hearing. You know, is this some kind of a boom, a sonic boom, or a lightning, or a thunder strike? They didn't know exactly, but what we read in verse 17, that the voice said, this is My Son, My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. He noted that. God the Father did whenever Jesus had been baptized, and He was being acknowledged in this sense, kind of as He was going into a ministry. But here in chapter 4, we have some temptations that Satan brought to Jesus, or that they were in a conflict over, in a sense. And amazingly, Jesus was clearly able to be a victor in this particular incident. And I think it's good for us to study this, to be able to see what it was that He did, or how it was that He responded, how it was that He reacted. And so here in Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, it says, Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And so this almost appears to be a meeting that was arranged. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, to be tempted by the tempitor. I think some of the translators mentioned that or used that. And so clearly, he, in verse 2, prepared for this. He fasted 40 days and 40 nights, and afterward he was hungry. I guess that's kind of an understatement. You know, anybody tried to fast as a physical person 40 days and 40 nights, they would, you know, they would be famished. You know, they would partially, you know, you would seem like they wouldn't even be alive. And yet you have a few instances in the Bible where that type of thing is mentioned, and Jesus certainly is one of those. And yet it's interesting, it's interesting we have similar accounts in Matthew and in Luke. And yet you also have a little mention of this in Mark.

And Mark doesn't go through the three temptations, and actually, Mark, Luke has them in a little different order than Matthew does. Matthew, I think, is more familiar, so that's one we'll use today. But when you read in Mark 1 verse 13, this is really the only account that Mark includes there. He says, and this is, I'm not sure exactly why he says it this way, but he says, "...the Spirit," verse 12, "...immediately drove him out into the wilderness," and he was, in verse 13, he was in the wilderness, 40 days tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him. Now, why was he with the wild beasts? I don't know. I don't know what kind of wild beasts are in the Judean wilderness. Do they have lions or tigers?

Nobody has an idea. I don't know what kind of beasts would have been there. I don't know why Mark would mention that, because it isn't mentioned in Matthew or Luke, but he was just pointing out, I think, that he was in a wilderness setting. He was out what would appear to be on his own, and yet, that's a reference that Mark makes that doesn't seem to add a lot to understanding it, because he doesn't even go through the account. But back here in Matthew chapter 4, verse 3, it says, "...the tempter, Satan came and said to him, if you be the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread." And, of course, being hungry, like he was, what Satan was doing, of course, there are several things that you certainly see or you can learn from this type of statement. Of course, he was, in a sense, bringing up the question or trying to cause Jesus as a... now, let me back up a little bit, and I've said, I think today and probably several times in the past, you know, there's no contest between God and Satan. God is always in charge. Whatever he allows Satan to do, he might allow, but he will always be in charge, always be in authority, always be in control of the outcome. And yet, whenever you see here, in this case, Jesus was the Son of God. Yes. And he also was the Son of Man, so he took upon a human form.

And yet, in this case, you see this physical man, Jesus, dealing with the great adversary, Lucifer, the one who became the devil. You see him dealing with him in almost, in a sense, kind of as an example. You see him dealing with him, not so much as just directly putting him down, as he could easily do as God. But he's actually showing, I think, to human beings how we could respond to the temptations that Satan injects into our lives. And so, you know, Satan said, well, if you are the Son of God, then command that these stones be made bread. He was trying to put into Jesus's mind, well, really am I, the Son of God. He was trying to get him to doubt. He was trying to get him to have a certain level of disequilibrium, to throw him off, to try to get him confused or get his mind off of the real purpose that he had here on this earth. Because here he'd lived for 30 years. He was yet to do a lot of the work that he was going to do in the next three and a half years in his ministry and ultimately, as he gave himself, as a sacrifice for sin. And yet, what Lucifer brought up, or what Satan brought up, was to try to create doubt. It was trying to attempt to get Jesus to disobey God, just out of a sense of physical need. And yet, what we find in the response in verse 4 is something that we can learn from. He says, Jesus answered in verse 4, It is written, One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Now, in response to Satan's desire to get him to doubt if he's really the Son of God, or doubt that if he asked that God would help him, or to be confused by the way he was phrasing things, Jesus immediately quoted a section in the Old Testament. And I want to go back to that in Deuteronomy. What you actually find here in this whole exchange between Satan and Jesus is that Jesus refers back to the wall. He refers back in each of the answers that he's going to give. He's going to refer back to the book of Deuteronomy. He's going to refer back to a familiarity with the Word of God. He's going to refer back to the fact that he knew that he had existed long before Lucifer had, long before he had gone defective, and long before he was here as the tempitor on earth to bother and to be an adversary and an accuser to mankind.

But here in Deuteronomy chapter 6, or let me back up in the wrong one here, Deuteronomy 8, verse 1, it says, This is our entire commandment that I command you today. You must diligently observe so that you may live and increase and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. So this was prior to Israel going into Israel. Actually, the whole book of Deuteronomy is essentially a repeating of the law. It kind of goes over much of what you read in Exodus and in Leviticus and Numbers. And yet in verse 2, he says, Remember, the long way that the Lord your God had led you through these 40 years in the wilderness in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. And of course, that was something that Israel failed to remember. They failed to do. They showed that as people, just simply on their own, by themselves, that they wouldn't or couldn't keep the laws of God. He says in verse 3, He humbled you by letting you hunger and then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were familiar, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And so what Jesus was quoting in response to Satan's temptation, well, turn these stones into bread, was simply a repetition of what Deuteronomy 8 verse 3 says. And when you go back and you read that, you see that while God had worked with Israel, he had humbled them by being in the wilderness. He had humbled them by letting them get hungry. And this, of course, Jesus was very hungry at this point. But he said he'd also provided manna. He's the one who provides the physical needs that we have. And yet, to go back to Matthew chapter 4, we find that what Jesus responded was simply to point out, I don't think something that Satan was going to learn anything from. He didn't want to know or didn't need to know that. He didn't care. He just wanted him to break down in any way. But see, what Jesus pointed out was that man, if they simply focus on physical things and physical human dealings, you know, they'll die. But for man to truly live, he said, man, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. What you really want as a human being is to truly live. And that's not going to come by anything that's physical. That's not going to come by anything that is human. That's going to come from the Spirit. That's going to come from spiritual understanding. It's going to come from spiritual guidance and direction. And so, Jesus points out that every word of God needs to be what people are thinking about, what they're mindful of. And actually, over in chapter 16, we've got an interesting example here. Matthew 16. See, what Jesus is truly saying in the response, which came from his knowledge of the law, having been the giver of the law, but there's more to life than just fulfilling the physical desires that man is dependent upon the word of God in order to truly live. That's what he was truly saying. And here in Matthew 16, he seems to be pointing this out to Peter. Now, we all know, you know, Peter was chosen by Christ to be a servant and a leader among the members of his apostles. He was often outspoken. He was often, you know, opening mouth, changing feet. Sometimes he would say things he later probably wished he hadn't said.

And yet, interestingly, here in Mark or Matthew 16, he got an exchange that is really very, I think, close to what Jesus says in this first temptation. In verse 21, it says, From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and be killed and, on the third day, be raised from the dead. You actually see this. He was interjecting that idea over and over again at different times. He'd be doing miracles. He'd be feeding, you know, masses of people. He would be walking from one area to the next. Then he would just throw out to them, I'm going to go to Jerusalem. I'm going to be killed. I'm going to be resurrected the third day. And it seemingly like they didn't get it. They would hear what he had to say, and they would perhaps kind of file that away and say, I don't know how that's going to happen. And until right toward the very end, and maybe as some of those things started to happen, well then they may have started to proceed, but probably even more so after it happened, they could look back and see that, well, he kept telling us this. He kept telling us what was going to happen. He knew what he was going to have to go through. But after he did it here in Matthew 16, verse 22, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Now, I don't know if any of us want to be in that position to be rebuking Jesus Christ. But Peter pulls him over, come over here, you're bothering all of us with telling us that you're going to be going to Jerusalem, they're going to kill you, and you're going to be resurrected the third day. That is offensive. That is just difficult to understand. That's incomprehensible. That just, he goes ahead. God forbid! This would never happen to you! See, that's the type of interaction I think that Peter was able to have with Jesus. And Jesus, of course, understood Peter. He understood his limitation.

He worked with Peter a lot. He helped him walk on the water briefly. He helped him to do that. Peter wanted to do that, but he knew he couldn't. Yet he could, with Jesus standing there. He could do that. You find him later on, you know, doing other things with Peter and telling him certain things. He told Peter, I've prayed for you, Peter, that you'll be able to withstand. You'll be able to do the job that I'm going to commission you to do. He was setting Peter up, in many ways, for, you know, a very difficult role.

And he was ultimately going to, as, you know, he later, I think, was killed or crucified upside down, because he requested that. He wasn't going to be crucified the same way as Jesus. He said, that would be too good for me. I don't want, you know, to fit that same pattern, but in verse 23 here, after Peter makes this kind of snide remark on the side, Jesus turned to him and said, Get behind me, Satan! See, what he realized was that Peter didn't have a clue as to how much he was being influenced by thoughts that dominated the world.

How much he was a part of the world. How much he was a part of, you know, affected by human nature that is guided by the prince of the power of the air. And so, he said, Get behind me, Satan! You're a stumbling block to me. For you are setting your mind not on spiritual things, not on divine things, but you're setting them on physical things, on human things. You're setting your mind on the flesh. And see, that's really the contrast that Jesus was making back here in Matthew 4.

Whenever he rebuffed Satan's attempt to cause him to, you know, to get sidetracked in any way, even though he was so hungry, even though he would love to have had some bread, but he said, In this case, I don't want that. I simply want to focus on the fact that, you know, man really needs to live by every word of God. And so, man really needs to be guided by spiritual things, as opposed to just simply, you know, all of us deal with physical things. We're going to have to do that until God takes us out of this form.

But, you know, we want to be spiritually minded. As I mentioned last week, you know, we want to continue to recall that it is the Spirit that gives life, and that the flesh profits nothing. And Jesus said that the words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life. And so, he was giving even more information in this test that he was going through with Satan. Back here in Matthew 5, and starting in verse 5, it says, The Devil, you know, after the first temptation that he offered, didn't seem to face Jesus at all.

The Devil took him to the holy city. So, after having been in the wilderness, they went back to the city. They went to Jerusalem, placed him on the pinnacle of the temple way high, saying to him, You're the Son of God. Throw yourself down, for it is written that he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.

To hear, obviously, Satan is quoting Scripture. He's quoting Scripture from Psalm 91, verse 11 and 12. And he's pointing out something that, you know, is a little bit off. Because when you go back and read Psalm 91, it's talking about being God being our refuge.

God being the one who watches over us. God being the one who would protect us. God being the one who would nurture and care for us. But what Jesus answered in verse 8 was again quoting from Deuteronomy, Jesus in verse 7, I guess, Jesus said again, it is written, Do not put the Lord your God to the test, or do not tempt the Lord your God. So it's not going to be wise for me to drive my car off of a cliff and hope that God doesn't allow me to crash on the bottom.

See, that'd be tempting God. That would be putting myself in a real jeopardy. And I don't think any of us would want to do that. But what Jesus responded was in showing Satan that what he's describing, you know, the ridiculously ludicrous thing that he's describing or asking, you know, just jump off. He'll take care of you. Now that that would be tempting God. And when you go back to Deuteronomy 6, you see in Deuteronomy chapter 6 how that this is connected to a couple of incidents here.

Deuteronomy 6 verse 16, it says, Do not put the Lord your God to the test, or do not tempt God. This was again a directive that was given to Israel. It says, Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you did test them or test him at Masah. And so here he gave a reference to something that Israel had done. And we find the account of it back in Exodus 17. And so I want to go back there. In Exodus 17, this is the chapter right following the manna that was being provided to the Israelites.

And even though God was going to be able to take care of them, he was going to provide manna, he was going to provide quail, he was going to give them something to drink. He would be able to nurture and take care of them in the wilderness, whether they knew it or not. But here you find in Exodus 17, the people quarreled with Moses in verse 2.

They said, Give us water to drink. And Moses said, Why are you quarreling with me? Why do you test the Lord? For the people thirsted for water, and the people complained against Moses. And they said, Why have you brought us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and while livestock with thirst? And so Moses cried out to the Lord and said, What should I do with these people? They're always ready to stone me. And the Lord said, Well, go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you and taking your hand, the staff of which you struck the Nile, and go, and I will be standing there in the front of you and the rock of Horeb. Strike the rock and water will come out of it so that the people may drink. And so Moses did so in verse 6, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massa and Maribah because the Israelites had quarreled and had tested the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?

So this is the incident that Jesus referred to whenever Satan was trying to get him to do something extremely foolish and clearly ill-advised. Clearly not what the Psalm 91 that he had quoted was referring to. Jesus said, You should not tempt the Lord your God like the Israelites did, where they said, You brought us out here in the middle of the wilderness and we're thirsty. We're hungry. We need you to provide everything for us. And see, the example was that they quarreled about that. They complained about it. They moaned about it. They were in contention with God.

And actually, they said, Is the Lord among us or not?

So they were complaining about the fact they were out there. And of course, what is being pointed out is that as we live a life that is drawing close to God and asking God for help, He wants us to live a life that is a life of faith and a life of trust, knowing that, yes, you know, we may run into trouble. We may run into difficulty. See, when you read Psalm 91, it doesn't say that you'll never have any difficulties. It doesn't say that there will never be any suffering because there will be. There will be a certain amount of suffering, but God is even there with us in that suffering. And He's able to help us. He's able, but He wants us to live faithfully. He wants us to be truthful and trustworthy, or at least trusting Him. And that's what Jesus is referenced was in this temptation, the second temptation that we read about in Matthew 4. So God wants us to learn to live by faith and to trust Him fully. And then the final temptation there in chapter 4 of Matthew in verse 8, again, the devil took him to a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their splendor, and he said to him, all of these I will give you. All of this I will give you. And apparently, being the God of this world and being the one who had something to give, he could have done that.

But if you will, or all of this I will give you, if you will simply fall down and worship me.

And that's what I was thinking whenever that statement was made, that He wants the whole earth to worship Him. See, this is directly what He asked Jesus to do. I want you to worship me. I'll give you everything. Of course, He could have been lying since He lies about everything. He is a liar. And, you know, but essentially what we find is that Satan was trying to, you know, get any kind of an upper hand, any kind of an advantage, any kind of a, you know, a mocking of God. He was wanting to do that. And of course, Jesus dismissed Him by saying, Get away from me, Satan. Away with you, Satan, for it is written that you should worship the Lord your God and Him only should you serve. Again, He was quoting from Deuteronomy. And we'll go back there again. Deuteronomy, actually you've got verse 13 or 14 in chapter 6, and we've got a verse similar to that in chapter 10. Deuteronomy 6, verse 13 says, The Lord your God, you should fear Him, you shall serve, and by His name alone you shall swear. Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the people who are around you, because the Lord your God who is present with you is a jealous God, and the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you and would destroy you. So He wants us to focus our worship and our attention on Him. And over in chapter 10, Deuteronomy 10, verse 20, a little more direct statement here. And actually, chapter 10, verse 12 through 22 is a great section in the law, because it summarizes what it is that God wants people to do. But here in chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, verse 20, it says, You shall fear the Lord your God, and Him alone you shall worship, and to Him you shall fold fast, and by His name you shall swear. So here He points out, and this is what Jesus was quoting, and what He was telling Lucifer, and what He was telling us. Now, we don't want to be sidetracked in any way. We don't want to worship anything, any other idol, any other God, except the true God. Except, our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, our Lord, as Jesus was pointing that out. And so, back in Matthew 11, or Matthew 4, verse 11, Jesus dismisses Satan. He is victorious in this encounter. He is ruling over Satan's desire to get him to bow to him and to worship him. And it says in verse 11 of Matthew 4, The devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. And then it talks about him going into his ministry in Galilee in kind of the next few verses. So we find this encounter between Satan and Jesus to be one that is, in principle, I hope, beneficial to us. Because what we find Jesus doing in each of the cases where Satan was trying to get him to trip up. He was trying to get him to make a mistake. He was trying to get him to disobey, trying to get him to sin. And yet Jesus' focus was so much on the Word of God. So much on, as he quoted, chapter 8 or chapter 6 or chapter 10 of Deuteronomy.

His mind was so filled with that law that he was not going to be sidetracked. He was not going to fail in the mission. And he was going to overcome the world. He was going to overcome Satan in this account. And certainly then, throughout the rest of his life, he overcame any attempts that Satan made to try to break prophecy, to try to change that in any way. But what we find that the tools that Jesus was using in this exchange with Satan, first of all, he always appealed to the Word of God. And that is, I think, an important thing for us to keep in mind. Because studying the Word of God should be extremely uplifting to us. It should be enlightening. It should be thrilling.

Now, it probably hasn't always been thrilling to each of us. I don't know that it's been thrilling to me all my life. It is today, I think, far more than it ever was. And yet, I just mention this because all of us need to want to study the Word of God, have that as a basis for our lives and a basis for our spiritual thinking. And if we find that that doesn't seem to be the case, well, then we need to find a way to try to make it that way. We need to look for other ways. Maybe we're, you know, I can think about how it is that I study the Bible, and I do know a number of different ways that you could do that, and I'm sure you do too, but I am familiar with a lot of different ways that you could study. And there's lots of stuff to study. That's a pretty big book. And yet, and some of it probably is easier to study than others. But if we are not, you know, finding that our study of the Word of God is something that we look forward to, that we anticipate, that we desire, well, then we need to look at it a different way and figure out how can I make it that way? Because it ought to be. In order to have the type of a spiritual mindedness that Jesus displayed and that we want, then we need to find ourselves flooding our thinking with the Word of God.

Now, I mentioned, you know, I can do that in different ways, or I do do it in different ways. Some seem to be better than others. My wife does that in an entirely different way. She doesn't do it exactly like I do, and she does it completely different in that she focuses on other things. She reads other things that are more helpful to her, and that's great. That's fine. I mean, I don't think I could just say that all of us are going to be the same, and everybody could do it exactly the same we do, but we do need to do it. Whatever it is, we need to do it as far as studying the Word of God so that, as we are, if we run into Satan's attempt to sidetrack us, well, then we are able then to appeal to the Word of God. We're able to bring that into our mind. We're able to benefit from that. We also find that Jesus continued to maintain a focus on the plan of God, and that He exhibited faith in that plan. And that, of course, is what we also want to do. We want to live by faith. We want to live in an example of trust, an example of faith, and in adherence to a belief that the plan of God will unfold as God has directed it will. And we are simply a part of it. We are a beneficiary of that plan. We're the ones who benefit from what is offered in the plan of God. But we want to live faithfully. And I think the last thing I mentioned is just simply that Jesus clearly in this temptation, and as it appears He fasted for lengthy periods of time. This is not asking us to do that. It doesn't have to be unwise. We don't want to tempt God in by trying something like that. But during that time, undoubtedly, and throughout other examples of Jesus, He was praying in order to combat the temptations that I think in this case He knew would come. He was praying. And that, of course, I mean those are things that are obvious as far as our study of the Bible and our living by faith and our prayer life that ought to be beneficial to us, ought to be uplifting, ought to be nurturing to us. Because that's what, you know, those are the tools that we need and that we use as we overcome, as we overcome our own flaws and our own nature, and as we overcome any attempts of Satan to sidetrack us. You know, that's what Jesus was doing here in this example. And certainly it's His example, it's His pattern that He extends to us to be able to be overcomers as well. I think it says this back in Revelation, I think it's chapter 2 or 3. Let me see if I can find it.

Yeah, I think this translation is mentioning it a little bit in a little different context. But here in chapter 3, at the very end of Revelation 3, this is, of course, talking about the Laodicean church. But the directive to each of these churches is a directive to all of us in verse 20, he says, listen, I'm standing at the door knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you and you with me. Now, that's the type of a union. That's the type of a communion. That's the type of a connectedness that we want with Jesus Christ and God the Father. And it says to the one who conquers or the one who overcomes, I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. So he's the one who has everything to give. He's the one who has the guidance and the direction that we need. He's the one who sets the example. And he's the one, as he was overcoming, he set a pattern for us to be overcoming as well. So, as we think about how Satan would like to break prophecy and how he would like to get everyone to worship him, now we want to see the perfect example. The perfect example of how to not only maintain faithfulness, but how to grow and thrive in our Christian lives through the example of Jesus Christ as he studied the Word of God or as he was filled with that Word and certainly was able to quote it. And it appears that even at the temple when he was 12, he was baffling the doctors of the law because he knew more about the law than they did. And of course, not that we want to simply do that, we simply want to have that as a defense. Have that where we appeal to the Word of God and to the closeness that we can have with God in prayer to truly be overcoming throughout our Christian lives.