Lead Us Not Into Temptation
Matthew 4:1-11
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… In Matthew 6, our Lord Jesus taught His disciples and us to pray these words: “And lead us not into temptation.” And the opening words to Martin Luther’s meaning to this petition teaches us that “God tempts no one.” But what does the first verse of our Gospel say again? “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Doesn’t that mean He was “led into temptation”? In a sense, He was. God Himself did not tempt His Son, but God the Holy Spirit most certainly drove Him out into the wilderness to be tempted. And it had to be that way, for our salvation.
We face temptation constantly, from without and from within. And the reason is that we are born infected, diseased, and spiritually deformed. We have inherited the sinful nature from our very first parents, Adam and Eve; and that sinful nature has been handed down through the ages through our parents to us; and we either will have or have already passed it on to our children.
And the natural inclination of our sinful flesh that we have inherited from Adam, after he fell into sin, is always moving away from God and away from what is right. It is always setting up false gods to worship, including the god of “self.” And that is all we know as sinful human beings: a life where sin is our constant companion, a life where false belief comes naturally, a life where despair is just a heartbeat away, and a life where great shame and vice call out to us from within, “Go ahead and do it. You know you want to. Nothing bad will happen.” As Jesus once said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” (Mk 7:20-22). That’s all we know, by nature.
But that is not all Adam knew. Before he fell into sin, he was pure, he was holy, and his thoughts lined up perfectly with the Holy Spirit’s thoughts. In order for Adam to be tempted, some evil from the outside had to sneak in and lead him astray. And that is exactly what the devil did. And even then, Adam had the power to resist the devil. But instead, he followed the devil and plunged our race into darkness and spiritual corruption.
Jesus was like Adam in that He wasn’t born with a diseased, sinful flesh, as we are from birth. But Jesus, our Brother, was sent into our human flesh in order to fix what Adam broke, in order to succeed where Adam failed. And that meant that Jesus had to be tempted, and tempted from the outside, even as Adam and Eve were.
The first temptation recorded in our Gospel grew out of the fact that Jesus had spent 40 days in the wilderness, all alone, fasting; and not fasting by His own choice, but fasting by His Father’s choice. Now, you may choose to fast and go without food for a while in order to focus on self-discipline and self-denial. And during the 40 days of Lent that began this past Wednesday some Christians do choose to fast, maybe once a week or once a day. Still, it was nothing like Jesus fasted; He went without eating or drinking anything for 40 days. That is what His good and gracious Father in heaven chose for His beloved Son, with whom He was “well-pleased.”
And the devil tried to take advantage of that God-ordained hunger; he tried to get Jesus to turn from the Father’s will, to turn from His Father’s providence, and use His divine power to create food miraculously for Himself. Satan sowed the seeds of discontent: “What kind of Father do You have, anyway? You are the Son of God, aren’t You? You shouldn’t have to suffer. You shouldn’t have to depend on Your Father for food. You have the divine right to eat! And you have the power to do something about it. So do it! Feed your empty stomach. You know you want to.”
For certain, Jesus could have zapped the devil away with His divine power. But instead, He chose to confront the devil with the very same armor and weapon that we have at our disposal: the Word of God. He resisted the devil with the Word of God every single time; and every single time the devil had to flee.
Jesus resisted the devil with a verse from Deuteronomy, and here’s the context of that verse, as Moses spoke to the Israelites out in the wilderness, after they had wandered around for forty years, eating nothing but manna every day: “And you shall remember that Yahweh your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Yahweh. Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so Yahweh your God chastens you. (Deut 8:2-4)
God made Israel practice a fast of sorts for 40 years, and Moses explained why. God had chosen to feed the Israelites only with bread for all that time – bread from heaven that was provided miraculously by God on a daily basis, just enough for each day. That meant that the only way they could survive was by means of the Word of God that promised manna every morning. God was training the people to trust Him; He was training them to look beyond bread and beyond the needs of this life, and to look to a faithful God in heaven who is the true Source of all good things. Israel often complained about God’s providence, even though He faithfully provided manna every day. But Jesus stood firm and kept trusting in His Father, even after 40 days of no food at all.
The devil, the world, and your sinful flesh try to get you to curse God in times of want. That “unholy trinity” tries to undo you when you don’t have all the things you think you should have. And then the devil whispers things like, “If God loves you, why does He let you suffer? He must not love you. You shouldn’t have to suffer, right? You shouldn’t have to go without. If God isn’t providing what you think He should, or what you crave so badly, then, take matters into your own hands and take care of yourself!”
For all the times you have given in to such temptations, repent. And then know that Christ Your Savior overcame the devil for you. His victory earned for you the forgiveness of your sins. Let His Word and example guide and keep you in the face of similar temptations.
The second temptation recorded in Matthew’s Gospel has the devil whisking Jesus away to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. “You want to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, Jesus? Well here’s one: He will command His angels concerning you. So let’s test His Word on that, shall we? Throw Yourself down! Is Your Father truly with You, Son of God, or not? Let Him prove it! Force Him to keep His Word by sending His angels.”
This temptation was an attack on God’s faithfulness; it was a temptation to doubt God’s Word. In fact, it was the same thing the devil tried with Eve in the Garden of Eden. And you recall that he was successful, and he got Eve to doubt God’s Word and even add words to what God had never said. The devil tries hard to get you to focus on one passage of Scripture while ignoring all the rest. False teachers do the same thing all the time today.
But Jesus wasn’t deceived. He replied, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” This was another verse from Deuteronomy, where Moses described how Israel tempted Yahweh their God at the waters of Massah, where they challenged God to prove that He was among them by giving them water. But where Israel failed to trust, Jesus again succeeded, for you.
The devil, the world, and your sinful flesh try to get you to test the Lord God, too, to challenge Him to take care of you. You think you can neglect your body, your work, or your studies. You think you can skip church and avoid reading and studying God’s Word. You may even use Baptism and God’s promises in order to tempt Him, in order to force Him to keep you from harm and danger, even as you do the very things He has forbidden in His Word. And the devil will encourage you and cheer you on every step of the way. He will try to pit one passage from Scripture against another to make you doubt and to give you false security on the one hand, or false despair on the other. He will try to convince you on the one hand that sin isn’t so bad, or on the other hand that God isn’t so good.
For all the times you’ve given in to such temptations, repent. Repent, and then receive Absolution. Christ Your Savior overcame the devil for you. His victory earned for you the forgiveness of your sins. Let His Word and example guide and keep you in the face of similar temptations.
The third temptation recorded in the Gospel has the devil offering Christ the world with all its riches, with all its power, and with all its glory and fame. As God, Jesus owned the world, but as a Man, He had humbled Himself in order to be our Savior. He placed the rest of humanity’s interests and needs ahead of His own. He was even going to the cross for mankind, sacrificing His own interests every step of the way.
Israel gave into this temptation of idolatry and friendship with the world over and over again in the wilderness, beginning with the golden calf at Mt. Sinai. But Jesus again returned to Scripture: “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.”
Dear friends, this world is a powerful temptation for you, too. You want to get along with the world. You want to be liked by the world; you want to have the things the world has; you want to enjoy the things the world enjoys. And the devil tries to convince you that you deserve everything you want, and that your life will be better and brighter and so much more enjoyable when you get everything you’ve got coming to you. And all you have to do to get those things is to set aside the kingdom of God and go along with the world. And you don’t have to become a Satanist to do it. You just have to look in the mirror and serve the god you see there.
Again, for all the times you’ve given in to such temptations, repent; repent and receive Absolution, an know that Christ Your Savior overcame the devil for you. His victory earned for you the forgiveness of your sins. Let His Word and example guide and keep you in the face of similar temptations.
And so, at your Lord’s direction, pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” But remember, that doesn’t mean you won’t be tempted. What it does mean is in the Small Catechism: “God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice; and although we are attacked by these things, that we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.”
Just as God the Father guarded and kept Jesus against the temptations of the devil – and purchased our souls in the process, so He will guard and keep you, too, not without means, but by means of His powerful Word.
And you are constantly strengthened by that same Word of God in the preached Gospel where here again you have heard that Christ paid for all your sins with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.
You are constantly strengthened by that same Word of God in remembering your Baptism where Christ delivered you from sin, rescued you from death and the devil, and gave you eternal salvation.
You are constantly strengthened by that same Word of God in Holy Absolution where you receive forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting but firmly believing that by that Absolution your sins are forgiven before God in heaven.
And you are constantly strengthened by that same Word of God in these humble elements of bread and wine which are Christ’s very body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.
The devil cannot overcome God’s Word in any of its forms; too bad for him. But wonderful for you who, through Christ alone and by His gifts can stand against temptation. To God be the glory.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
