Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Plato had a friend named Trachilus who had a very close call and almost lost his life in a storm at sea.

The ship actually sank and he was thrown into the sea, but he managed to get to shore.

When he reached his home he ordered his servants to wall up the two windows in his chamber that overlooked the sea.

He was afraid that some bright day he would look at the tranquil scene of beauty and be tempted to once again venture out on its treacherous waters.

This is one of man's major methods of fighting temptation.

It is by striving not to see it.

There is no doubt about it that what we see is a primary lure of temptation.

Had Adam and Eve never looked upon the forbidden fruit and seen it's loveliness they would not have been so easily enticed to taste it.

Had David not seen the beauty of Bathsheba he would not have been lured into the sin that so marred his life.

Had Lot's wife been unable to look back at Sodom she would not have become a pillar of salt.

The story is repeated perpetually as people testify that had they never seen that automobile with the key in it they never would have stolen it.

Had they never seen that door open, they never would have entered the building, and on and on it goes.

What the eyes see provoke all kinds of feelings in the mind and body, and that is why we teach the children to sing, "Be careful little eyes what you see."

But the fact is, there is no escape from seeing what can entice you to choose evil.

Even before television it was nearly impossible, but now it is definitely impossible.

Sin is so visible in our world today that we could accuracy describe our period of history as the times of temptation.

It is reassuring for us to see that Jesus went through such a time as this himself.

Satan took Him to a high place so He could see all the kingdoms and all their splendor.

We sometimes think of His temptation as a one time ordeal, and so we dismiss it as totally different from the lifetime battle that we have to endure.

We imagine the testing of Jesus to be like this: "Yes, I'll never forget that day when I was about 30 years old, and I had a terrible time of triple temptation."

We figure that anyone can get through a tough day, and so we tend to doubt that Jesus really knows what temptation is all about for the average man.

Take note of the precise language of Luke in verse 2: "Where for 40 days He was tempted by the devil."

We think in terms of 40 days of fasting and then a day of temptation, but Luke says it was 40 days of temptation.

We are talking a major battle here, and not a mere skirmish for a day.

W. Graham Scroggie writes, "...it is not the 40th day that we fear so much as the 39 days of petty assault, of guerilla warfare, of irritating trial....But Jesus faced these also.

In ways of which we have no record, He was assaulted by the devil during the whole period, and the 40th day temptations were but the last, concentrated, and desperate assault of the infuriated foe upon His weakened body but loyal spirit."

Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, and not just in the 3 areas of which we have record here.

The last verse of this record makes it clear that when it was done it was far from over.

Satan just withdrew to lick his wounds and prepare for another assault at an opportune time.

In other words, a careful reading of this temptation account makes clear that this triple temptation, though of tremendous significance, is only a trickle of the total temptation Jesus had to endure.

Someone said that those who flee from temptation usually leave a forwarding address.

Satan catches up with them, and so it was with Jesus, for this ordeal of His was not just a one-time shot.

We do not live in a world that Jesus does not understand.

He knows every trick of the devil, and He knows the power of temptation.

We need to take seriously Heb.

2:18, "Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted."

Let's recognize that Jesus has been there.

He knows the power of persistent temptation, and He also knows the way to victory.

The study of His temptation is one of the best things we can do to learn how to handle this universal experience.

When I say universal, I mean it in an absolute sense.

Death is universal, but we have a couple of exceptions in the Bible of those who never died such as Enoch and Elijah.

We say sin is universal, but we have one exception, for Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are, and yet He was without sin.

But the one thing we can say is absolutely universal from Adam to the last person on earth is temptation.

God cannot be tempted, but man cannot not be tempted.

Nobody, not even God in human flesh, can escape the testing, for it is part of what it means to be human in a fallen world.

This leads us to the first point we want to consider about Christ's temptation, and that is the paradoxical reality of-

I. THE VALUE OF TEMPTATION.

Matthew begins his account in 4:1 by saying, "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil."

Luke begins with an emphasis also on Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit.

If you think being a Spirit filled Christian will shelter you from temptation, think again.

This encounter of the Savior and Satan was no accident.

It was an appointment.

It was a part of God's plan and an important event in the life of our Lord.

John Milton saw this.

His two greatest poems are Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

The first deals with the temptation of Adam and Eve and their failure and fall.

The second deals with the temptation of Christ and His success.

Milton is saying that what Adam lost Jesus regained in the wilderness of temptation.

It is true that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but where did he earn the right to be the spotless Lamb of God worthy of being such a sacrifice to atone for sin?

It was here in the desert where He was put to the test, and it was here that He passed the test.

Here is where Jesus became our Savior, and He could never become such without being tempted, and that is why He was led of the Spirit to be tempted.

This means that there is value in temptation, and not only for Jesus, but for all of us.

That is why it is so universal.

No person can be what God made them to be without temptation.

Walter Baghot said, "It is good to be without vice, but it is not good to be without temptation."

This is biblical, and that is why God allowed Satan to tempt Adam and Eve, and why He led His Son to be tempted.

Temptation is from the Latin temptatia, which means a testing or trying out.

Not to be tempted would be to have God reject you before you got a chance to prove you can see evil and choose good.

Products are tested to see if they will serve the purpose for which they are made.

Man is made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

The only way He can fulfill this purpose is to have the ability to see evil and choose what is good.

This can only be tested by making the choice of evil possible, and that is what temptation is.

It is the lure and enticement to choose what is not God's will.

William Prescott was right when he said, "Where there is no temptation there can be little claim to virtue."

There are many sins that I feel no enticement toward at all.

I am not virtuous by avoiding these, for my dog avoids them also.

I am only virtuous by avoiding the ones I find appealing.

The man who has an opportunity to steal and doesn't do it, even though he feels like doing it, is more virtuous than the man who never feels like stealing.

If you never feel like doing something, you are not being tested, and so you never choose good when evil was not a tempting choice.

The man who has an opportunity to do evil, and also feels the enticement of it, but then chooses not to do it, that man makes a virtuous choice.

Edmund Vance Cooke wrote,

So you tell yourself you are pretty fine clay

To have tricked temptation and turned it away,

But wait, my friend, for a different day;

Wait till you want to want to!

What this means is that most righteous people are those who have felt the pull of sin in the world, but who have had the power to say no.

Martin Luther praised temptation as one of his key teachers.

He wrote, "Temptation is one of the three things needed for a saint's development."

We have all heard that we need to study the Bible and pray, but we have missed this one that we also need to be tempted to grow.

John Bunyan wrote, "Temptation provokes us to look upward to God." Jesus could not have been our Savior without temptation, and none of us can be all that God wants us to be without temptation.

We are to love and hate temptation at the same time, for it is the door to both good and evil.

It is important to see this, for if you only feel negative about temptation, you will fail to sense when you are led of the Spirit to be tempted for the sake of growth and advancement in the kingdom of God.

Every temptation is an opportunity to demonstrate where we stand.

It is one thing to say, "I am for honesty and morality."

But it is another thing to choose honesty and morality when the dishonest and immoral is enticing you and making you feel they are so appealing.

The Christian will have these feeling where evil can seem so good.

Can it be good to have such feelings?

Yes it is, for that is when you value system is truly tested.

Is it just something you were taught like the multiplication table, or is it something you really believe?