Sermon Tone Analysis
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*Intro* – An EMT crew responded to a call for help from an elderly man.
A tech opened his shirt to attach EKG cables.
"Any history of heart trouble?" "None," said the patient.
Noticing bypass surgery scars, the tech asked, "In that case, do you remember when the lion attack you?"
There was a guy in denial.
Just like many today are in denial about an enemy who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (I Pet 5:8).
People in denial are easy prey.
The world is full of them.
I don’t want that to be us.
That bring us to how Christ met and conquered that temptation in Luke 4. We started last week to look at some general principles from these verses under the outline I. God’s Part; II.
Satan’s Part and III.
Our Part.
We found that God is involved.
What Satan intends for evil – for our downfall, God intends for our growth.
Satan tempts; God tests!
Temptation is never randomly imposed.
Rather, a sovereign God allows it – His goal is our benefit and His glory.
He administers or controls it.
I Cor 10:13 tells us that He will never allow more than we can endure.
And He accompanies it.
He goes through it with us -- right to the end.
So, the most important thing to know about temptation is that God is in control.
Never doubt it.
*II.
Satan’s Part*
But though God is greater, it is still critical that we know our enemy.
To understand Satan’s role in temptation, we’ll see 5 characteristics of his person revealed here.
They show what he brings to the table and why temptation is no small thing.
We minimize it to our detriment.
Five things about the devil.
*A.
Real*
Is the devil real?
This passage of Scripture is nonsensical if he’s not.
Some suggest there is no personal devil; the name just represents human tendency to err.
But that definition hardly fits this context.
These temptations are very specific.
He quotes Scripture.
He demands worship.
And eventually, he even leaves for a time per v. 13.
Listen – if Jesus is real, Satan is real.
Satan here is not just some vague personification of evil.
He is personal – a fallen angelic being who is after your soul and mine.
He wants to bring us down.
His treachery knows no bounds.
And were it not for the limitations imposed by Almighty God, we would have been done in a long time ago.
One 7-year-old sent a letter to Santa: “I’m sorry for putting all that Ex-lax in your milk last year, but I wasn’t sure if you were real.
My dad was really mad.”
There is no similar reality test for Satan because he inhabits another dimension – the spirit world.
Years ago a commercial showed a beautiful bus with the Greyhound logo.
But when sprayed with water, the logo came off.
Beneath was the logo of another line – unseen until the covering façade was washed away.
Our world is very like that.
The physical world is only a veneer.
Behind it is a spiritual universe, inhabiting the same space we inhabit, with spiritual beings just as real as we are.
We don’t see them, but they are there.
(See II Cor 4:18).
But even a cursory look at our world shows that Satan has an amazing influence through the limited means that God gives him.
He’s very happy to operate anonymously.
It is much easier to destroy someone when they deny your existence or think you’re a joke.
The old Flip Wilson jokes that ended, “the devil made me do it” play right into his hands.
He’s convinced the world that he is a joking matter which makes it all the easier to take us in.
It’s easy to take someone down who doesn’t know you’re there.
No precautions, no warning system, no guard.
We’re a piece of cake.
John Huffman pastors Hollywood Pres.
While a seminarian at Princeton he supervised clinical work at Trenton State Hospital, a psychiatric institution in NJ.
An orderly would open a door, then lock him in during visits.
One day while inside a doc called him aside and began to brief him on several patients.
He walked him to their beds, introduced them, went through their case histories.
After an hour, he walked Huffman to the door and called the orderly – who quickly advised Huffman that he had been talking to a patient – not a doctor.
Huffman’s mentor reminded them that pathology does not always look like pathology.
Neither does our enemy always look like an enemy.
He’s not called “deceiver” for nothing.
With Satan, the fix is always in.
Rest assured, he is as real as you.
And he hates you with a passion.
*B.
Ruthless*
Second, we must know Satan is absolutely ruthless.
He is a cold-blooded, heartless killer.
And he hates you with a passion.
V. 3, “The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
Consider the context.
Jesus has just heard the Father say, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" (3:22).
Now here is the devil saying, "If you are the son of God." What’s he doing?
He's inducing Jesus to live up to his reputation -- appealing to his pride.
He is trying to get God to sin -- to use his deity for selfish purposes.
If He can get Jesus to do this, all hope of salvation is lost.
One selfish act will end the whole thing.
He will win the whole world.
The devil does not want anyone ever under any conditions to be saved.
He is a heartless, cold-blooded killer.
We must never lose sight of who it is that we are dealing with.
He’s a roaring lion seeking someone to devour and you are right in his path.
Jim Caviezel stars in a new TV show, "Person of Interest."
Each week he saves the life of someone who has been targeted for death.
He himself is a jaded, heartless ex-CIA operative who has seen too much of the bad side of life.
In one episode he finds that a former girlfriend, whom he left behind out of fear for her safety, has been brutally killed by a new love interest whom she had trusted.
He tracks the man down, and everyone assumes that he has illegally killed the man given the brutality evidenced at the crime scene.
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