Growing In Godliness Blog
“The First Temptation”
Categories: Author: Paul Earnhart, Bible, Jesus, TemptationThe First Temptation
By Paul Earnhart
It should be an encouragement to us to know that Jesus was tempted just as we are (Heb. 4:14-15). Mt 4:1-3 says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, 'If you are the Son of God, command these stones become bread.'”
If Satan had come to Jesus with this proposal on the first day of His temptations, it would not have been particularly tempting. But Jesus must indeed have been hungry after forty days without food. In fact, He must have felt that He was near death. And if He died, what of the mission He had to fulfill? This made Satan’s suggestion all the more appealing.
If many of us had been there, we would have said, “Lord, I don’t see anything wrong with doing this, and even if it is wrong a man has to eat.” But Jesus did not think that way. His total concern was to do God’s will, even if it meant death. And He knew that the only way to know God’s will was to hear it from God’s word. So, His first thought was “what does the Bible say?”
The Bible said nothing about turning stones into bread. Here again, we might have advised Jesus “if it doesn’t say not to, it must be all right.” But the very fact that God had not approved it was enough to keep Jesus from doing it. After all, it was God’s power that He would use if He turned stones into bread, and He needed authorization from God to use His power in that way. He did not have any word from God to do it, so He refused to do it even though His life was in jeopardy.
Jesus remembered the words of God in Deut. 8:3 and He quoted them to Satan: “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” If Jesus needed authority from God to use what belonged to God, so do we! We must not dare to use God’s church, God’s money, God’s name or any other thing pertaining to God without His authority. It is sin, whether it appears to be or not.
