CROWN OF LIFE EV. LUTHERAN CHURCH

Pastor John C. Schneidervin

1st Sunday In Lent March 9, 2003

Matthew 4:1-11

The Devil Doesn¹t Have To Make You Do It

1. Like Jesus, Know What To Watch Out For

2. Like Jesus, Know What To Do

Text: Matthew 4:1-11

1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the

devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

3 The tempter came to him and said, ³If you are the Son of God, tell these

stones to become bread.² 4 Jesus answered, ³It is written: ŒMan does not

live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.¹ ²

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest

point of the temple. 6 ³If you are the Son of God,² he said, ³throw yourself

down. For it is written: ŒHe will command his angels concerning you, and

they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot

against a stone.¹ ² 7 Jesus answered him, ³It is also written: ŒDo not put

the Lord your God to the test.¹ ²

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the

kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 ³All this I will give you,² he

said, ³if you will bow down and worship me.² 10 Jesus said to him, ³Away

from me, Satan! For it is written: ŒWorship the Lord your God, and serve him

only.¹ ²

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Sermon:

³The devil made me do it!² This is often spoken in jest to excuse a

wrongdoing. Yet there is a lot of truth to the statement. The devil is a

roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. The devil has already devoured the

unbelievers and the wicked. He has them in his hip pocket. We who believe

in Jesus and have eternal life are his prime targets. He is out to get us.

So he tempts us to commit sins against God. But the devil doesn¹t have to

make us do it.

Through the gospel of Jesus the Holy Spirit has made us believers new

spiritual creatures. He has created within us a new spiritual nature. Our

new man, or spirit, hates what is evil and loves what is good. He needs to

be strengthened to resist the devil¹s temptations. Our sermon text provides

our new man the opportunity to grow spiritually, so he can prevent the

devil¹s making us do the evil we do not want to do. Our new man can learn

from Jesus how to resist the devil¹s temptations.

Our new man wants to do only what is pleasing to God. We have this desire,

because God saved us from the guilt of our sins and the punishment we

deserve for them through our Savior Jesus. Jesus saved us by resisting the

devil¹s temptations to live a holy, righteous life for us as our substitute,

so his righteousness would be credited to us. We see Jesus doing this for

us in our sermon text.

In Eden the devil tempted Adam and Eve to sin against God. He succeeded.

By giving into the devil¹s temptation Adam ensnared the entire human race in

sin and made us slaves of the devil who are bound to do his evil will.

Jesus came to destroy the devil¹s work. He came to free us from the devil¹s

power and to save us from eternal punishment. Our text tells us how as our

substitute Jesus resisted the devil¹s temptations to undo the damage Adam

had done by giving into sin. We can now learn from Jesus what to watch out

for and what to do, so the devil doesn¹t make us do what is sinful.

Verses 1 and 2 inform us: ³Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert

to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he

was hungry.² The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert, because it was his

Father¹s will that he be tempted by the devil and overcome those temptations

to redeem us.

The devil knew that Jesus was the Christ whom God had said in Eden would

crush his head and destroy him. So the devil was out to defeat Jesus and

crush him at the very outset of his ministry. If he could trick Jesus into

not doing what was God¹s will just once, the devil would be victorious. The

salvation of all of mankind was hanging in the balance and resting on Jesus¹

shoulders.

To trick, deceive, and mislead Jesus into sin by not doing God¹s will, the

devil employed a number of schemes. As in Eden with Adam and Eve, the devil

raised doubts and suspicions. Twice he challenged whether Jesus was truly

the Son of God, saying, ³If you are the Son of God...² By raising doubts

about Jesus¹ divinity, the devil was trying to trick Jesus into using his

divine power to turn the stones into bread. If Jesus did so, he would be

using his divine power at the prodding of the devil, not because it was his

Father¹s will. Jesus would then be following the devil¹s lead, not his

Father¹s will.

What is more, the devil was trying to trick Jesus into turning the stones

into bread to deliver himself from hunger. But if Jesus did so, he would be

avoiding his Father¹s will to suffer the hunger and trust in his Father to

give him his daily bread. By challenging Jesus¹ divinity, the devil was

also trying to trick Jesus into putting his Father¹s love and protection to

the test by throwing himself down from the temple.

The devil also schemed to entrap Jesus in sin by giving Jesus¹ misguided

directions. Jesus should use his divine power to turn the stones into bread

rather than do his Father¹s will of suffering the hunger. Jesus should put

his Father¹s love and protection to the test by throwing himself down.

Jesus should worship the devil rather than his Father. Following any one of

these misguided directions would have set Jesus on a course that was

contrary to God¹s will.

Since Jesus liked to quote Scripture, the devil schemed to ensnare Jesus in

sin by quoting Scripture back to him. Thus the devil quoted Psalm 91:11,12:

³He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in

their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.² But

the devil was deceitfully misapplying these Scripture verses to entice Jesus

to do what he ought not to do, namely put himself in harm¹s way to test his

Father¹s love and protection.

An additional scheme of the devil was to entice Jesus to short cut what was

the Father¹s will for him. The Father wanted Jesus to go to the cross to

gain all the kingdoms of the world. The devil offered a short cut. Rather

than go through that horrible suffering and death, Jesus should worship him

and he would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world.

The last scheme the devil used was an empty promise. The devil promised to

give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth if Jesus worshipped him, but the

kingdoms of the earth were not his to give. They belonged to God the

Father. As Psalm 24:1 states, ³The earth is the Lord¹s, and everything in

it, the world, and all who live in it.²

Jesus saw that the devil¹s schemes intended to ensnare him into sin and not

doing his Father¹s will. And Jesus knew that if he sinned, he could no

longer be the Savior in God¹s service of saving the world. He would be in

the devil¹s service and fail to save mankind.

The devil will use these same schemes on us. Through the mouths of false

teachers he will raise doubts and suspicions about what the Word of God says

and what is God¹s will for us to mislead us. When we are suffering, he will

tempt us to reject the suffering as God¹s will for us and to stop trusting

in God to help us. He will use the world¹s ideals to misdirect us into

thinking we have the power within us to do whatever we set our minds to

doing without relying on God¹s help to bring it about. Or, he will

misdirect us to accept sexually perverse life styles, abortion, the reversal

of the roles of men and women and husbands and wives, and divorce. He will

tempt us to worship the idols of fame, fortune, and pleasure by putting them

before God in our life. He will use religious sects like the Jehovah¹s

Witnesses and Mormons to twist and misapply the Scriptures to lead us

astray. He will tempt us to take short cuts, such as resorting to gambling

to enrich ourselves rather than following God¹s course of diligent and hard

work. He will hold out empty promises that make the grass look greener on

the other side of the fence. Watch out for these schemes as Jesus did.

When we know what to watch out for, we then must know what to do. Learn

from Jesus what to do. Jesus did not turn the stones into bread to avoid

his suffering, he trusted in his Father to provide for his needs. Jesus

quoted Deuteronomy 8:3: ³It is written: ŒMan does not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.¹ ² The word of God,

ŒLet them live,² keeps us alive, not a storehouse of bread. The Lord will

then provide what we need.

Jesus did not heed the devil¹s misguided directions, he did what his Father

told him to do in the Scriptures. Jesus parried the devil¹s temptations

with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Jesus under cut and

sliced away each temptation by quoting what the Scriptures really told him

to do. ³Away from me, Satan!² Jesus said. ³For it is written: ŒWorship

the Lord your God, and serve him only.² Jesus would not get caught up in

worshipping any idol, and certainly not Satan.

Jesus corrected the misapplication of Psalm 91 by interpreting those verses

of Scripture with Scripture and rightly quoting Deuteronomy 6:16: ³Do not

put the Lord your God to the test.²

Jesus did not avoid what was his Father¹s will for him, he accepted his

Father¹s will for himself and did what his Father wanted him to do. He

accepted the hunger. He accepted going to the cross to gain the kingdom¹s

of the world rather than taking the short cut of worshipping the devil to

gain them. In these ways Jesus overcame the temptations and defeated the

devil to save us from the devil and hell.

Being redeemed children of God through the blood Jesus shed on the cross for

our sins, we desire to overcome the devil¹s temptations to sin as Jesus did.

We desire to follow what is God¹s will for us. When we suffer, we will

accept it as God¹s will for us without blaming him for it. When we are

given directions that would lead us down a wrong path, we will follow God¹s

instructions in the Bible. When tempted to sin, we will fight back with the

sword of the Spirit and quote what the Scripture tells us God wants us to

do. When Scripture is being misapplied, we will correct the error with the

right teaching of Scripture. When tempted to take a short cut, we will take

the Lord¹s way even though it appears longer and more difficult.

The devil will tempt you to sin. But he doesn¹t have to make you do it.

You have a new Christian spirit that loves what is good and hates what is

evil. So know what schemes of the devil to watch for and what to do to

combat them, as Jesus did when he resisted the devil¹s temptations to save

us all. Amen.