Matthew 4:1 ¶ Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
This passage is also reflected in Luke although there is a little
difference in the order of the temptations in the two accounts. Remember that
Matthew is recounting what Christ told him and Luke is going on the testimony
of not only the Apostles but other Christians who preached and wrote and
discussed what they were told. There is absolutely no significance in the
slight differences unless you are a skeptical modernist who reads the Bible
like your car manual, in which case you will get little from the text because
you don’t really believe it. Here also are comments I’ve already written.
Luke 4:1 ¶ And Jesus being
full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness, 2 Being forty days tempted
of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended,
he afterward hungered. 3 And the devil
said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made
bread. 4 And Jesus answered him, saying,
It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of
God. 5 And the devil, taking him up into
an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of
time. 6 And the devil said unto him, All
this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto
me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. 7
If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. 8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get
thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve. 9 And he
brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said
unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: 10 For it is written, He shall give his angels
charge over thee, to keep thee: 11 And
in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot
against a stone. 12 And Jesus answering
said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 13 And when the devil had ended all the
temptation, he departed from him for a season.
“An important point must be made about verse 2 in Luke 4. To tempt is to test or try.
Revelation
3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of
my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
When Satan tempts one, tests one, the ultimate goal is to make
them fall. God never tempts anyone of His people for the purpose of making them
stumble as it says in James.
James
1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
God tempted Abraham but knew that Abraham’s faith would keep him
from disobeying.
Genesis
22:1 And it came to pass after these
things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
Hebrews
11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his
only begotten son,
A temptation then is not merely a matter of whether you looked too
long at the magazine rack at the airport but a test of your faith, a trial.
Only who is it from; the Devil, Satan, to make you fall or God to prove your
position in Him, if only to yourself? Job’s entire ordeal can be called a
temptation. Early Christians were sometimes faced with a demand that they
reject Christ or die. This is also a tremendous temptation, an assault on one’s
faith, belief in God, and trust in God as can be an illness or pressure from
the world. Noteworthy scripture on temptations include;
Luke
11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
1Corinthians
10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you
to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
James
1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation:
for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath
promised to them that love him.
Satan wishes to have Jesus take the Crown before the Cross and
subvert His mission as Saviour of the world. He uses His human hunger to begin
demanding that He turn stones to bread but Jesus answers with Scripture.
Deuteronomy
8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered
thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did
thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread
only, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
Then, Satan tempts Him with power and the glory of the kingdoms of
the world. God has given those over to Satan and the lowest of men rule over
nations through him as the god of this world system (2Corinthians 4:4). He
demands worship.
Daniel
4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of
the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth
in the kingdom of men, and
giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.
One day Jesus will seize these kingdoms.
Revelation
11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and
there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdoms of our
Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Christ replies with Biblical truth.
Deuteronomy
6:13 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God,
and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.
Deuteronomy
10:20 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God;
him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
Satan then tries to tempt Him with presuming on God, to his sense
of self-preservation and tries to create a sense of needing to prove at this
time His relationship with God the Father. He quotes:
Psalm
91:11 For he shall give his angels
charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. 12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone.
Jesus replies by alluding to this Scripture.
Deuteronomy
6:16 Ye shall not tempt the LORD your
God, as ye tempted him in
Massah.
In these things, Satan tempted Christ with the lust of the flesh
regarding hunger [see Deuteronomy 12:15 for lust and hunger], the lust of the
eyes regarding power and glory of man’s kingdom, and the pride of life with the
temptation to display His supernatural power.
These are types of the temptation that disobedience to God put in
the hearts and minds, the spirits, of Adam and Eve.
Genesis
3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with
her; and he did eat.
It is what the Christian must face and oppose to truly love and
serve God.
1John
2:15 Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
On a note of personal opinion I think these passages teach us that
it is inconsistent with being a Christian to be constantly employed with
seeking to satisfy our physical desires, to seek political power for
self-glorification, or to presume on God’s mercy and love for us.
Satan, who understood the prophecies concerning the Messiah in the
Old Testament certainly better than the Jews or us, having failed in his desire
to subvert Christ’s mission, leaves Him.”
Matthew 4:12 ¶ Now when
Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;
13 And leaving Nazareth, he came and
dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and
Nephthalim: 14 That it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of
Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the
Gentiles; 16 The people which sat in
darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of
death light is sprung up. 17 From that
time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.
John the Baptist is imprisoned, and we will see what becomes of
him in chapter 14. Verses 13 and 14 are said to be a fulfillment prophetically
of passages in Isaiah 9.
Isaiah 9:1 ¶ Nevertheless
the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he
lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward
did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in
Galilee of the nations.
2 The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them hath the light shined.
Notice the word substitution of Gentiles in Matthew 4:15
and nations in Isaiah 9:1. See then in the Old Testament how the
nations typically refer to Gentile nations around Israel.
Joel 3:2 I will also gather
all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will
plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have
scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
Amos 9:9 For, lo, I will
command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is
sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
So, nations refers to the non-Jews.
Jesus is talking to the Jews still under the Law as their Messiah
to repent to receive Him as John the Baptist also forewarned. Be careful when
applying things Jesus said to Jews under the Law as in here, to prepare them
for His declarations and very presence among them, to the dispensation of
Christianity. We must repent of our sins and indeed, our sinful nature, when we
get saved as Christ’s resurrection and our faith in it frees us from the penalty
of sin, as our sanctification frees us from the power of sin (we have no excuse),
and in eternity from the very presence of sin, but this repentance is to
prepare the Jew for Christ. We will discuss these differences as well in later
statements of Jesus to pork-abstaining, beard-wearing, temple-going,
sabbath-observing Jews in the first century AD.
Matthew 4:18 ¶ And Jesus,
walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon
called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they
were fishers. 19 And
he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20 And they straightway left their
nets, and followed him. 21 And going on
from thence, he saw
other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his
brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called
them. 22 And they immediately left the
ship and their father, and followed him.
This metaphor Jesus uses about catching men like fish is
particularly interesting in light of the following verse;
Habakkuk 1:14 And makest
men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over
them?
Sermons have been made about how a Christian, when called by God,
should leave everything of this world, including his family, if necessary, if
they are opposed to God’s calling and just immediately follow Christ. We must
be careful, though, in applying the lives of the Apostles to our own lives.
We are Gentile Christians, non-Jews, for the most part and we are
called to minister to our families and to not shirk our responsibilities to
them. Notice what Paul says about familial duty.
1Timothy 5:8 But if any
provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath
denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel…16 If any man or woman that believeth have
widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may
relieve them that are widows indeed.
We will be given marching orders within the framework of our
current life. No, God does not need saved card dealers in Vegas or saved
prostitutes so you may be called to make some changes but I don’t see anywhere
that Christ or Paul or anyone else tells you to walk way from your life’s
responsibilities, but only to repent and turn from your sin.
However, a call to service to God prompted by the urging of the
Holy Spirit is best effected immediately. God will deal with your situation if
that is indeed His will. I can’t tell you how many times I have felt compelled
and drawn to studying and writing on the Bible to give what I have learned to
others around the world on my written or my video blogs or books
self-published.
Notice how straightway and immediately are shown to
be synonymous in this passage.
Matthew 4:23 ¶ And Jesus
went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel
of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease
among the people. 24 And his fame went
throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken
with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils,
and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed
them. 25 And there followed him great
multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from
Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
Here we have classifications of sick persons; the possessed, the
mentally ill, and the physically ill including those will the palsy, a form of
paralysis (we’ll see in Matthew 9 and in Mark 2 instances of this.) Jesus
healed any of those categories of distress.
Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom and this is further
elaborated in other places, just what this entails. In fact, the gospels are
typically about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Heaven specifically.
Remember that this kingdom at this time was within the believer.
Luke 17:20 ¶ And when he
was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered
them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo
there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
So, at this time this is not a reference to a physical kingdom
with castles, fortified cities, and armies but a spiritual kingdom within the
heart and mind of every believer who trusts in Christ, the Messiah of all men
and women, not just the Jews.
John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
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