Archives for April 2014

“And immediately [after Jesus’ baptism by John] the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.” Mark 1.12. Also see: Mat. 4.1; Luke 4.1.

Jesus was headed to His hour of temptation. This is a very interesting remark: “driveth him into the wilderness.” The stark necessity for such an ordeal was a lash applied to His spirit; it was an ox goad keeping Him from deviating from the strait, narrow path ordained for Him. Is it possible that the man in Jesus’ nature did not want to go through the coming wilderness ordeal and that the Spirit of God in Him compelled Him (Jesus) to go against Jesus’ own natural will? It seems likely that, as a man (although not a rebellious man as we are by nature), Jesus would naturally want to avoid suffering.  Disliking the difficulty of the Way is not rebellion or disobedience; it is only being human. There is no doubt that His human nature recoiled from the forty days of rigorous testing that lay ahead of Him. But His will, as man or God, was now and always to do the Father’s will. (Heb. 10:7)

Testing, temptation: these words indicate stress, even suffering; and without them Jesus could not have been our near kinsman. The wilderness was no more a place of relaxation than Gethsemane or Calvary, each of which would soon cast its fearsome shadow across Jesus’ appointed pathway. It is true that Jesus did mentally recoil from the “moment of truth” blocking His pathway, but within Himself He would not and could not go any other way.

There was a reason for the use of the phrase, “driveth him into the wilderness.” Jesus had now, before the world’s sins were summarily laid upon Him, assumed the world as His burden. He knew that He had to endure the rigors of the desert ordeal as part of that burden.

There are times when the dedicated man of God has to go through the fire for a purpose. The higher the purpose the more he is determined, in spite of inborn aversion to inconvenience and distress, to enter the flame. When there is no other way for the man of great commitment to achieve a lofty goal for which he avidly yearns, he steels himself for the worst. He resolves in himself not to be denied his necessary pain. A person of this spiritual caliber is driven (not against his will) by the necessity that the Spirit lays upon him to accomplish God’s sovereign will. Thus it was with Jesus. He was led by the Spirit and He was driven by the urgency that the same Spirit impressed upon Him to push boldly into His distasteful mission.

This was one of the painful climactic hours that He dreaded but to which He had to commit Himself. Jesus was now caught in a hellishly trying vortex of continuous temptation for forty days. We tend to focus on His last three temptations because only they are detailed in the Bible, but they were just a summing up of all that had gone on before. During the forty days Jesus was tried in every conceivable way, not just in the general class of temptations that are reflected in the last three temptations, (Lust of the Flesh, Lust of the Eye, and Pride of Life). He was assaulted by every low, vile and despicable allurement to sin that we can know.

“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:15)

Jesus was tried in a “genteel” manner; He was assaulted fiercely in an all-out show of Satanic force. Satan attacked Jesus in direct ways and he approached Him in insidious, indirect fashion. Billows of longing washed over His Being at times; and anger and greed assailed Him. Hatred attempted to force its way into His heart. Jesus ran the gamut of temptations, “yet without sin” …Yet without sin.

Three Final Temptations and Total Victory

When the forty days of testing were drawing to a close, Jesus was weakened physically and drained spiritually. Satan thought to finish Him off. It is significant that the last three temptations represent all the testing that can come upon man. They do not comprise every individual test; they merely embrace the three broad categories of tests that man can experience. According to 1 John 2:16 they are:  1) the Lust of the Flesh; 2) the Lust of the Eyes; and 3) the Pride of Life. We shall look at them closely below:

1.       Lust of the Flesh

In this type of temptation Satan is striking at Jesus through one of the body’s natural and normally harmless appetites. It is notable, however, that throughout His earthly life Jesus deliberately refrained from using His miraculous powers for satisfying His personal bodily needs. Satan realized this inhibition and sought to cause Jesus to override it in His extreme hunger. Satan was also appealing to the pride that was at this time trying to gnaw its way into the consciousness of Jesus.

“IF,” Satan says as though not convinced, “if you really are the Son of God…” Prove that you are the Son of God because I don’t believe it. Satan’s approach through the distressful hunger Jesus was enduring was to be expected. He will strike at any chink or opening that he thinks he sees in the Christian’s armor; so how much more eagerly would he attack the Son of God when given the chance!

“It is written,” Jesus turned Satan off simply, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” The body and its appetites may seem all?impor­tant, but they are always to be subordinate to the will of God.

2.       Pride of Life

Satan was not impressed. He whisked Jesus away to one of the highest places in the Temple, looking down on the courts below.  As Jesus stood there with the tempter at His elbow, the tempter threw the implied doubt in Jesus’ face again.

“If indeed you are the Son of God,” and Satan was saying that there was as yet no proof of it, “cast yourself down before the people in the court below.”

Then Satan actually quoted Scripture:

“It is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Psa. 91:11,12)

Jesus knew that in this instance Satan spoke truth. It would have been a master stroke to have thrown Himself down from the dizzying heights in the sight of all the horrified onlookers who were at the moment milling around, unaware of what was occurring high overhead. Suddenly angels would catch Him in His headlong plunge and deposit Him safely on the ground. Jesus would have caught the imagination of all the people by such a coup.

But Jesus countered Satan’s thrust with another scripture that put the scripture Satan had quoted in proper perspective. “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt [try] the Lord thy God.” (Deut. 6:16) In other words, you shall not put God to the test for any vain or unworthy purpose.

3.       Lust of the Eye

Still undaunted, Satan took Jesus to the top of a very high mountain. From that vantage point he gave Jesus a panoramic view of the nations of the world and all their glory. This would be tempting to Jesus as a man who certainly wanted to make His mark on the people, although not in an unworthy manner.

Satan pressed his case: “I’ll give you all this if you will fall down and worship me.”

This may seem to have been a transparent test to one who was divine, but bear in mind that this was Jesus’ hour of testing and He was, for this period, subject to every trying situation and temptation that we now endure. Certainly everything with which Satan could lure and test Him was illogical and easily coped with by the divinity within Jesus, but for this moment this divine/human man was human and vulnerable. For this hour He was capable of being tempted. Thus it became him to fulfill all righteousness.

Satan’s latest offer was enticing to Jesus just as the others had been, but He rejected it out of hand. “Begone!” Jesus commanded. “It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

Satan had now been ordered to leave; and he lost no time in doing so. However, it is notable that Jesus did not rid Himself of His adversary until His time of testing was finished. Jesus could have sent Satan fleeing at any time, but He allowed him to work his will with Him (Jesus) so that Jesus’ own righteous purpose could be served.

So it is with the believer in Christ in the believer’s hour of temptation. There is a righteous purpose that God wants worked out in and/or through him and the believer should fortify himself with that knowledge.

After Satan’s flight from the arena of testing, we can well imagine that Jesus was left lying, spent and motionless, on the ground in the wilderness. The forty unsparing days had taken their toll, and “angels came and ministered unto him.” He had been beset by a continuing series of tests that was unique in the history of mankind. But He had not committed one sin; He had not failed in the least.

A Word to Today’s Adolescents

Very little is known of Jesus’ first thirty years beyond these events: 1) Jesus’ birth; 2) His appearance in the Temple at about twelve years of age; 3) His baptism in the Jordan when He was approximately thirty years old; and 4) His temptation in the wilderness.

The data is relatively sparse compared to what He did in the last three years, but the few facts we do know certainly bear studying.

Speaking as a human who needs all the aid he can get in studying the life of Jesus, it would have been so helpful to have a record of Jesus’ life between the ages of 13 and 19. But of course God knew what He was doing when He did not include those years in the sacred record.

Without speaking rashly, I can say I would give five years of my life to have a moderately complete record of Jesus’ teenage years. To me it seems such a record would be very helpful. But the only tidbit of information from that time of Jesus’ life is contained in the account of His trip to Jerusalem at twelve years of age with His parents. (Luke 2.41-51) And at that time He was just on the threshold of entering the teen years.

Here is a tremendous thought that hit me like a “revelation,” but of course it is much less significant than a revelation and I am sure many others before me have had the same illumination. The thought is this: Jesus said to His parents, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2.49) Jesus knew at that early age – this stripling of a lad – He knew who He was: He was the Son of God. By a little extrapolation we can say that Jesus knew He was God Himself!

Following is the scriptural logic behind this assumption on my part: As every Jew was taught from infancy that there is but one God, Jesus knew that if He were the Son of God, which would make Him a God, He would have to be the one only God. It is likely that with the knowledge that He was the Son of God, immediately came the full awareness of who He was – this lad named Jesus was God the Creator of the entire universe!

By a little more reasoning we can view it as a distinct probability that Jesus was also flooded with the knowledge of the enormity of the suffering and sacrifice He would have to make because He was God, like whom there is no other, and He was love, like which there can be no other. What person in the whole cosmos could have so much to sacrifice and what person could agonize so greatly? The human Jesus was unique in this sense: There is no other one in the universe who has divinity as their literal Father and no one else could experience such a loss as that suffered by Jesus when the beloved Father turned His back on Jesus. And of course Jesus was a witting accomplice in this awesome desolation of Himself.

We know, of course, that He never sinned; still what were His experiences in His inner self? What battles raged in His mind during His teen years? How did He relate to His peers? We will never know, and we have to let it go at that. Such matters are best left in the hands of God.

Perhaps the Israelite culture of Jesus’ day did not allow its youth the same individual freedom of expression that today’s youth has. But one fact is clear: In any age or any culture there is a transition period between childhood and the adult years in which the urge for individual expression and the strictures of society on non-adults will cause a certain amount of stress within the non-adult (teenager).

It is a tension and feeling of frustration ranging from feeling mildly irked with society to a major upheaval within the teenager. Whether “mildly irked” or “major upheaval” is the operative term, there has to be some adjusting done on the part of the teenager. It has been amply demonstrated over the years that society or good ol’ Mom and Dad are not apt to change their manner of doing things to alleviate the temporary discontent of youth that will pass with the years.

The old myth of “growing pains” that referred to the physical stress that accompanies bodily growth is a more viable theory when it is applied to the discomfort and turbulence that attend the development of the whole youth’s being – spirit, soul and body. Depending on the severity of the problem it could require only minimal help for the teenager or the outside help of a wise, trained Christian counselor. Nor should we overlook the proven efficacy of the prayer raised to God in faith.

The Teenager Needs Help from Others

If you are one who is mired in the teenage years, I don’t have to tell you they are a turbulent time of life. They are a furiously churning rapids you are trying to navigate before you have attained sufficient navigational skills for the journey.  You greatly need the help of one who is older and wiser to help you get through the rapids without tipping your frail craft over.

But not every older person has gained the wisdom that enduring the teenage years can bring. Don’t listen to every paunchy middle-aged or snowy headed senior “counselor” who wants to give you advice. You can usually get the “feel” of someone who wants to tell you how you should do and be at this time of life. The sincerity or lack of it will show through, but even then, you need someone who has been through what you are confronting and is now serving God. Sincerity is vital, but so is wisdom that comes from above and is acquired the hard way, by severe testing.

I will add this: There may be some young adults who failed miserably in their teenage testing, but who have somehow made it through and can look back and see where they failed and why. If they are now walking close to God – hear them. They can help you. They should admit, first, that they were not examples of how you should act, but they can tell you how they made their lives worse by not listening to their parents, counselors and right-thinking friends who had faced the dangers before them.

There Is Some Good in the ‘Old Ways’

Let me remind you teenagers (who do not yet know what life is all about): The “old ways” are not necessarily wrong – but that does not mean they are right simply because they are the “old ways” and possess a special kind of merit. But you, as one who is in the midst of the chaotic teen years, don’t always have the wisdom to determine what is wrong and what is right. You should not look on your parents and counselors as stodgy old people just because they are – well, stodgy and old. What do stodginess and age have to do with it? These middle-aged individuals are persons who once were young and had the same natural rebellious attitude you have. The attitude, it seems, comes with the territory. But, by the grace of God, these older individuals came through the rapids, wiser and better persons than before they entered that turbulent time of life.

So look to your godly parents and your Christian counselors and even your right-thinking friends who have not too long ago been jostled and nearly upended in the same waters in which you are now perilously flip-flopping. These are people who can help you; they have been there, done that.

If you were about to go hiking on a dangerous trail known for the mountain lions lurking nearby, would you prefer to hear advice from an unseasoned hiker or from one who had actually faced a cougar and had come away with his life? What can a novice hiker tell you? He hasn’t even set foot on the trail, much less encountered a deadly mountain lion. Your “parents, counselors and right-thinking friends who have faced the dangers before you” have a lot to offer you. Listen to them. It may be that you will yet come out of this topsy-turvy time of life alive – banged up and scarred, but alive and fit to continue your journey, a more mature and wiser human being.