Waimea United Church of Christ

Mathew 4:1-11 “Temptation”

Wow, Jesus actually chooses to go out into the wilderness where there is no internet, no wifi, no cell phones, no electricity, no water even. That sounds like Kauai after hurricane Lowell. Who would choose to do that? Well, actually I was intrigued by the fact that we had some men in our church who happened to be on the mainland before the storm. They chose to come back to ride out the storm with their families and to be available for preparing for the storm and cleaning up afterwards. They chose to face the devil! One cannot get much more Christ-like than that. This is the heart of sacrificial love.

Jesus, we all know, went to the Cross and died for us. Yet, long before that he went out to the wilderness to face the devil for us. And, he walked on water in the storm for us. He fed us and healed us. He reassured us of God’s absolute providence.

The Word today is every seminarian’s dream in a way. In school to become a pastor we are still instructed to make a three-point sermon. Jesus faces three temptations. How convenient for me! See, God provides!

Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 about the three attacks that we must have spiritual strength against. Let us read this: “Our struggles are not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the authorities against the spiritual forces of evil.”

The first attack or temptation from the Devil to cause us to lose faith and belief in the goodness of God is what could best be translated as “lesser spirits” or smaller things. We can surely name some of these lesser spirits. There is the spirit of licentiousness, the spirit of slothfulness, the spirit of disloyalty, the spirit of promiscuity, the spirit of apathy, and so many more. Jesus in the wilderness is tempted with a lesser spirit of hunger. He is tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread.

Let me tell you that these spirits can get really small. After the hurricane, I went to the Post Office which had been closed for a while to collect the mail. In the mail was my credit card bill. So, I was thinking about everything that is going on Kauai right now—all the heartbreak and stress from the natural disaster. There was this letter from Delaware demanding payment from me by a certain date.

What would the credit card company do if I had not survived the storm, I wonder? This was just such a small little nothing. I pay the bill every month. Yet, in that moment, realizing the preciousness of life and loved ones and faith in God, it was just a little devilish prick to my heart.

Jesus is able to defeat this lesser spirit of hunger. He knows that his strength comes from God. That is why he quotes the Scripture that says that, “one does not live by bread alone but by the Word of God.” Jesus echoes this in his ministry time and again. For instance in John 6:24-25, “Do not work for bread that perishes. . . . “

Back to the first temptation: It is no problem at all for Jesus to turn stones into bread. Think what Jesus did when he changed water into wine, or wine into his own blood! No, the issue for our world today is the Devil turning bread into stones that we cannot digest.

I think about the bounty of the sea. Then, I recall seeing all the boulders on Ka’umu’alii Highway in Kekaha that have been ejected from the sea during the hurricane. That is as if the Devil is saying, “Eat this!” God saying, “I will keep you safe from those boulders!” That is what God does.

The second attack according to Paul is against the heavenly causes on earth directly. This is the larger attack against God’s plan in this world. This is not the small stuff or lesser spirits. In the Scripture from Matthew, we see Jesus being taken up to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. He is tempted by Satan to jump off and let God save him. We can see how this would upset God’s plan that Jesus would go to the Cross and be crucified for our sins and our salvation. If God were to take up Jesus in that moment rather than in the Ascension after Resurrection, then we would not have Christ’s ministry at all. We ourselves would not have the salvation that Christ came to give to us from God!

And, I have to point out that in this particular instance that the Devil does something that is truly confounding: He quotes Scripture to Jesus! Look there in verse 6. Satan gives a Bible lesson to Christ! We should really take this to heart and realize that Satan can and does quote Scripture. Satan knows the Bible. Satan knows the heavenly plan. And, Satan will use all means to disrupt it. This is the essence of that second kind of attack by evil. This is the perversion of God’s plan for this world, the perversion of Godly things on earth.

The last attack according to Paul is the unrighteous attack against God’s plan for heaven itself. We might want to think about it this way that the second attack is against Christ’s earthly ministry, and the last attack is against Christ’s heavenly ministry. Jesus is the rightful King of heaven, Satan offers a kingship over the world. Satan is really grasping at straws and looks very weak now as he is trying to attack God in heaven. The temptation is to give up heaven, Christ’s heavenly throne, for earthly dominion that will be Christ’s anyway after the Second Coming!

In the third temptation, Jesus is taken to a high mountain and is promised all the kingdoms of the world if he will bow down and worship Satan. He is taken up this mountain so that he might get the larger view of things. We forget that Christ does not need the larger view; he enjoys the largest view already!

I have to say however, I think that one of the things that has surprised me the most about living on this island of paradise is that people don’t realize sometimes how beautiful it is here. You know, everything looks different now after the hurricane. We can see the ocean and the sunset much clearer now from the parsonage, and it is still beautiful. No wonder Newsweek just posted that Hawaii is the happiest state! The people are beautiful. I actually loved driving around after the hurricane looking at the damage because in front of every damaged property there were people coming together to help out, talking story and smiling!

Another interesting thing I have noticed is that when the weather forecasters in Honolulu make their predictions and show those satellite pictures they tend to always get Waimea wrong. They will say, for instance, that there is an increased likelihood of rain. There will not be a single drop of rain in Waimea. If they it will be dry, then we tend to get some rain. I am convinced that even though the weather forecasters have the larger satellite picture, they do not have the largest Godly picture, that which truly determines the weather in Waimea. You cannot really see the people of the Westside from the rader image.

As an aside, I have changed my mind about one thing however. I used to always say that whenever it rains in Waimea it is a blessing from God. After my first hurricane, I am not saying that anymore. I think the Devil is also able to send hurricanes.

Jesus is not going to be fooled by the Devil to see just this planet when he has the view of the entire universe! If Jesus were to take this temptation to take the throne of the world, what would happen to our hope in the Second Coming of Jesus when he will reign down from heaven? He would give up the heavenly throne. Jesus “reigns” also but by God’s eternal grace!!!

We might also want to very simply see these three attacks then as the attack against our inner hearts, against our earthly lives, and against our eternal souls themselves. In all of these attacks, Christ is victorious.

How is Christ victorious? He simply tells the Devil to take a hike! Let me say that again: “Take a hike, Satan!” One more time because it feels soooo good: “Satan, leave.”

I want to make sure that you leave here today with this simple and yet powerful understanding that because you have taken Christ into yourselves, you now have the power to tell evil to leave your life! You do not have to suffer through temptation. We pray that every time we meet that we will be delivered from evil, but we have to know that that power is within us already!

The essence of that power is also displayed so clearly in our text for today. Jesus does not simply tell Satan “no.” Jesus says yes to God! For instance, “I will not only not change stones into bread, but I will rely solely on the Word of God.” So that in all of the denying of Satan is also the saying “yes” to God. In our Scripture we see that when Jesus sends Satan away, he finishes the banishment of Satan with a command to the Devil, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

At that point, angels came down and fed Jesus. Or, as the Bible says, they waited on him. Wouldn’t you like to be waited on by angels? IT is going to happen one day, once we make it through this earthly land of temptations.

Amen,