The Temptation of Jesus Christ - Part 2

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You may have heard the name Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde was not a believer by any means. He was a renowned Irish writer and poet. He was born in 1854, in Dublin, Ireland, and he became one of the most prominent literary figures of the late 19th century. One of his most famous works, that perhaps you read in school at some point, was a kind of personal, moral biography entitled, The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's a novel about a man who, in his physical appearance, remains young and beautiful while his portrait ages, and it reflects his growing moral corruption. It's ironic that the man who wrote, The Picture of Dorian Gray, once famously said this about temptation, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.” 

It's a terrible quote, and yet as I read that, I was reminded that tragically, that is how most people in our world think, and it's why most people on this planet are constantly overwhelmed by temptation and sin. True of all unbelievers; sadly, more true than it ought to be of believers who have not yet learned what we will study today. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us by His own powerful example how we can consistently overcome temptation in our own lives. Let's read again the story of His temptation from Matthew's Gospel. You follow along, Matthew 4, verses 1 through 11. 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’ ” Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’ ” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’ ” Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and 1worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’ ” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.

In His temptation, the Lord Jesus undeniably demonstrated His supremacy over temptation and sin. And Matthew, in his record that we just read together, provides us several essential insights into the temptation of our Lord, and through that insight, into our own. Now last time, we just examined verse 1, and we saw “The Circumstances of Jesus' Temptation.” We saw “Its Deliberate Timing–‘Then.’ ” It comes immediately after His baptism when the Spirit descended upon Him and when the Father spoke from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” This is intentional in its timing, deliberate. We saw “Its Ultimate Cause.” Jesus was led up “by the Spirit,” by the Spirit to be tested; but Satan's intention was temptation. We looked at “Its Desolate Location.” He was led “into the wilderness.” While Adam failed in paradise, Jesus succeeded in the wilderness. We looked at “Its Immediate Purpose”–‘to be tempted,’ ” and “Its Reprobate Source–‘by the devil.’ ”

Now today, we come to the heart of this passage, verses 2 through 10, and I've called, it “The Climax of Jesus' Temptation,” the climax of Jesus' temptation. We examined Matthew's summary, in verse 1, last week. This week, we begin to study the specific temptations. Now, both Matthew and Luke, who record the temptation, record three temptations, the same three, and Matthew is clear that these three happened in the order that he has recorded them for us, but these were not Jesus' only temptations. During the forty days, Luke 4:2 says, “for forty days, (He was) being tempted by the devil.” But His temptation didn't end with those forty days.

No, after the forty days, Luke 4:13 ends the story of Jesus' temptation with these words, “When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him, (Listen to this.) until an opportune time.” In other words, he would tempt our Lord throughout our Lord's earthly life in various ways, and we'll see some of those in the weeks ahead. So, these three then are examples of the temptations Jesus faced throughout the forty days, and yet these three are significant in that they come as the climax at the end of the forty days.

Now that means that these three were intentionally selected. Selected by whom? Well, remember, there are only two witnesses. There was Satan, whom I'm sure is not giving us his eyewitness testimony, and there's Jesus. So that means Jesus, our Lord, decided that these three temptations captured the essence of his entire temptation, and He later shared them with His disciples, and through the inspiration of the Spirit, they recorded them. These three are also representative, as we'll discover. These three temptations represent three huge categories of temptation. In fact, let me put it to you this way, most of the temptations that you and I face in our lives, and the sins that we sadly then end up committing, most of them fall into these categories of the three temptations our Lord faced. Thirdly, these three temptations are instructive. They first and foremost instruct us about Jesus our Lord, about His power over temptation, that He is, in fact, qualified to be the Messiah, He had no sin. But these three temptations also instruct us in the plan for overcoming temptation. You see, our Lord's response provides a wonderful plan for each of us to follow in our own battle with temptation. 

Now today, we study “The First Temptation,” where we're going to discover one of the greatest roots from which all temptation comes into our lives. What is that root? The physical needs of our bodies. Let's look at it. Satan's first temptation of Jesus, this is how I'm going to express it to you, His first temptation was “To Meet Legitimate Physical Needs Contrary to God's Will and Word,” to meet legitimate physical needs contrary to God's will and Word. Now we just read the first temptation, verses 2 through 4, and as you saw, and this will be the pattern with the other temptations, verses 2 and 3 record the temptation itself, verse 4 records Jesus' response. So, Matthew initially then explains the first temptation.

Let's look at it together. Now, remember, in the incarnation, Jesus did not give up any of His divine nature or His divine prerogatives. Sadly, there is teaching around, particularly in charismatic circles, that Jesus, either on the cross or perhaps His entire earthly life, gave up His deity. That's heresy, and those who really believe that are not true believers. That's not the Jesus we worship. Instead, Jesus fully possessed His divine nature, His divine perfections, His divine prerogatives, but He chose not to fully express them and to veil His pre-incarnate glory, except for the glimpse on the Mount of Transfiguration. So, when you understand that, Jesus' temptations were not directed at His divine nature, James 1, “God cannot be tempted by evil.” Instead, it was His human nature that was tempted. 

And “The First Temptation” was this, for Jesus to use His miraculous power as Messiah to selfishly meet His own physical needs. Look at verse 2, “And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights.” Now, as we will discover when we get to chapter 6, when we look at fasting a little more thoroughly, always when we find fasting in Scripture, it's connected to prayer. And it's often connected with mourning. Now, we aren't told here why Jesus fasted, but Matthew says, “He fasted forty days and forty nights.” 

Now, the fact that Jesus fasted for forty days doesn't mean that this is an implicit command to follow His example. I mean, when you read narrative, narrative isn't necessarily a command for you to repeat what you read in the narrative. The Scripture says Judas went out and hanged himself–that doesn't mean you should. And in fact, there are several reasons that this is not an implicit command to fast the forty days of Lent leading up to Easter. Let me give you the reasons that that's not what's commanded here. Number one, Jesus did not fast during the day and then gorge himself at night, which is what most do during Lent. Or they give up something they don't even do. My wife was teasing this week that she's giving up smoking for Lent–she's never smoked a cigarette in her life. That's not what's going on here. A second reason is that in Scripture, only three men fasted forty days and forty nights. Moses at Sinai in Exodus 34; Elijah on the way to Mount Horeb in 1 Kings 19; and Jesus here. This was not the common pattern for all believers. Number three, Jesus only fasted like this once in His life, not annually. There's no record of any other times in His life when He fasted in this way. And number four, and I think this is really important to understand, there's only one fast commanded in Scripture, and it was on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament. So, this is not an implicit command for you to follow Jesus' example. In Jesus' case, He fasts here under the direction of the Holy Spirit, and He does so for forty days and forty nights. 

Now at the end of that period, verse 2, Matthew says, “He then became hungry.” There's an understatement for you. He didn't become hungry like you are right now as you anticipate lunch. Jesus hadn't gone without food since breakfast or perhaps supper the night before. He'd gone without food for more than a month, forty days! And Luke 4:2 says, “He ate nothing during those days,” forty days, forty nights, “And He ate nothing.” He survived on water alone. At this point, his body was demanding food so that he wouldn't die. Forty days is about the limit of what a human being can survive without food. His body is demanding that He eat or He's going to die. What I want you to see is that you will never face a more intense temptation to satisfy your body's desires or needs than Jesus did in this temptation. Let me say that again, “You will never have a temptation to satisfy your body's needs that comes close to the temptation that Jesus faces here.” He faced this temptation when to say, “No,” was to risk imminent death, but He never gave in. So, he endured temptation in its most extreme form.

Verse 3, “And the tempter came and said to Him, ‘If you are the Son of God.’” Now, some scholars and teachers make much of the word ‘if’ as if Satan is saying, “I'm really not convinced that you're the Son of God.” That's not likely because in Greek, there are several different kinds of conditional statements, and the construction, the grammar, tells you what the speaker means. Now, one of those conditional statements does insinuate that the condition is very unlikely, maybe even impossible. For example, John 5:46, Jesus uses this construction when He says to the Jewish leaders, “If you believed Moses,” and the way it's structured, says, “and You don't, you would believe Me, for He wrote about Me.” But that's not the form used in these first two temptations.

Instead, in both of these temptations, the two that use a conditional statement, Satan uses a conditional construction that assumes the condition is true, whether the speaker believes it or not. So, in other words, you could translate it like this. “If you are the son of God, and I am assuming that that's true,” that's what Satan is saying. In addition, in this case, Satan did know and believe that Jesus was God's Son. Or folks, he wouldn't have been there; he wouldn't have been there to tempt Him. So again, we can translate Satan's words, “If you are the Son of God, and I certainly assume that to be true.” It's also clear that Jesus knew who He was in His divine nature, of course, He always knew. In His human nature, He had gradually likely learned, from the Scripture, the reality of who He was as He grew. Luke 2:40 says, “The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” We don't know exactly when, in His development, that He was fully aware in His human nature that He was the Son of God, but we know that by the time he was twelve, that was true because you remember the incident that unfolds in the temple, and Jesus is twelve years old. He says to His parents, His earthly parents, He says, “The Temple is My Father's house, and I must be about my Father's business.” So, at least by twelve years of age, in His human nature, Jesus fully knew who He was. So here, both Satan and Jesus know that Jesus is God's Son. 

So, look at verse 3, “The tempter came and said to Him, ‘if,’ ” or we could say, “Since we both know you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Now, Jesus would eventually use His miraculous power to produce food for others, but don't miss what's going on here. Here, Satan was inviting Jesus to perform His first miracle to satisfy His own body's legitimate needs. Think of it like this. It's as if Satan said to Jesus, “As God's Son, You have every right to have your physical needs met. In fact, it's unthinkable that someone of Your significance would not have His needs met, and You have the power to turn these stones into bread. So, You both have the right and the power.”

So, what's the problem with Jesus turning stones into bread in this situation? Here's the problem, it would have been contrary to the revealed will of God for Jesus–He had been directed to the wilderness and to fast by the Spirit. Now, in one sense, Jesus' temptation here is unique. I mean, let me see a show of hands, how many of you have ever been tempted to turn stones into bread? I didn't think so. On the other hand, however, Jesus' temptation here is typical because Jesus had the same, listen carefully, He had the same non-sinful physical desires and needs that we have. He had a human body just like us. Now, in His case, this temptation was only external. As we talked about last week, He didn't have a fallen nature that had cravings within it that responded to the external temptation. So, the temptation here doesn't originate from inside of Him, but it comes solely from the outside. 

However, let's stop and ask this question, “What form does this temptation take for us?” The key point that we need to understand from this first temptation is that our physical body is one of the greatest sources of temptation. Let me make that more personal, “Christian, your physical body, and even if you're not a Christian, your physical body is one of the greatest sources of temptation to sin for you.” John Broadus, in his Commentary on Matthew writes, “Our bodily appetites form the occasion of many of our severest temptations, yet these appetites are not sinful in themselves.” John Calvin writes:

The nature of Adam, while it was still innocent in the garden and reflected the brightness of the divine image, that nature was liable to temptations. All the bodily affections that exist in man are so many opportunities which Satan seizes to tempt Him.

Think about that. What Calvin is saying, think back to the garden. Satan made his appeal to Eve on the basis of what? Her physical needs. She saw that the tree was good for food. Nothing wrong with food; nothing wrong with meeting one's physical needs. But in the same way, Satan uses our physical needs and our appetites to appeal to us to sin. 

Now, let's step back and be clear. Your body is not sinful; it's a good thing. God made us body and soul, two parts–He gave us bodies. Adam and Eve had bodies in the Garden before there was sin. Our Lord Jesus has a glorified body today. One day we will have, those who are in Christ, will have glorified bodies. You're going to be in a body forever. Nothing wrong with the body. It's a gift of God. God made you and designed you that way. And God created our physical bodies with physical needs and the related desires that move us to meet those needs. You say, “What are the legitimate needs and desires of our bodies?” Well, as I looked through the Scripture and tried to come up with a list, here are the main ones that jump out at me.

First of all, food, it's obvious, water, sleep, sexual intimacy in marriage, the avoidance or alleviation of pain and discomfort, and some measure of physical activity. And if I had time, I could take you in Scripture and show you where all of those, in their proper place and in keeping with God's commands, are all good things. In fact, Scripture affirms each of those as “God-given.” You say, “Well, what's the problem? I have a body, the body has physical needs, God gave me desires so that I would move to meet those needs, so what's the problem?” Here's the problem, “The commitment to meet our body's physical needs and desires becomes a temptation to sin.” It crosses over and becomes a temptation to sin under five conditions. Here's when we know it's wrong. Number one, “When we fail to meet a physical need of the body, either in neglect or rebellion. This happens! Sometimes people neglect the basic needs of the body. Scripture speaks to this in the “Ten Commandments.” Exodus 20, verse 13, “You shall not murder.” We have a stewardship before God to take all reasonable steps to preserve not only the lives of others, but our own lives. Another example of this is when we neglect sexual intimacy in marriage without Biblical warrant. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:5, “Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time.” In other words, it has to be mutually agreed upon, has to be temporary, “so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” There has to be a good reason, and then “come (back) together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” It's sin when we fail to meet a physical need of the body, either in neglect or rebellion. 

Secondly, it becomes sin when, ”We seek to satisfy a physical need in excess.” For example, when we allow the rightful need for sleep to become laziness, when we are neglecting our duties. Proverbs 6, verses 9 through 11, talk about people who do that, who sleep too much, more than their body needs, as sluggards. Or, when we allow the desire for food and drink to become gluttony or drunkenness, Proverbs 23, verses 20 and 21.

A third way the physical needs can become a temptation to sin is when, “We seek to satisfy a physical need in ways contrary to God's Word.” A legitimate physical need, but we try to meet that need in a way that's disobedient to God. For example, Ephesians 4:28, when we try to satisfy the desire for food by stealing. It's contrary to God's Word. Or, when we try to satisfy the normal desire for sexual intimacy with our spouse, but we do so outside of marriage or in front of a computer screen with pornography. Ephesians, chapter 5, talks about sexual sin of thought, of lust, of word, sexual innuendo, and all that goes with that, our world is filled with that, and sexual actions that are contrary to God's Word. That's allowing a physical desire to become a temptation to sin. 

Number four, when, “We seek to satisfy a physical need in ways contrary to God's design and God's intention.” For example, when the normal desire for food and nourishment leads to eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia. Or when the desire for loving sexual intimacy with our spouse is instead perverted into sexual desires for things like sadomasochism, fetishes, homosexuality, pedophilia, incest, or bestiality.

And number five, physical desires become a temptation to sin when, “We seek to satisfy a physical need with an idolatrous passion. In other words, when the fulfillment of that need or that desire becomes more important to us than anything else, including loving and obeying God. Colossians, chapter 3, verse 5, speaks of covetousness, and I think in context, it's talking about coveting someone else sexually, that seems to be the context of the passage, so he's talking about sexual lust where you're coveting someone else's body, which “is idolatry.” It's idolatry. Now look at that list. Every temptation that you face regarding your body's needs and desires will come to you in one of those five ways. That's the temptation. So, there's the first temptation. 

Let's go back to our text in Matthew 4, and let's examine “The Biblical Response,” the Biblical response. Verse 4, “But Jesus answered and said, ‘It is written, “MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” ’ ” Jesus' response to the kind of temptation that comes from our physical needs and desires teaches us, in turn, how to respond. But be careful, don't jump to the wrong conclusion. Some people read this at a cursory level, and they reason like this, “Okay, well, Jesus was tempted. Jesus quoted Scripture in the face of temptation, He overcame temptation, so, if I memorize Scripture and quote it when I'm tempted, then I'm going to overcome temptation.” Not so fast. Memorizing and quoting Scripture alone will not ensure that you overcome temptation. And that point is made right here in the context. Satan has memorized verses of Scripture, and he quotes them to Jesus. But he quotes them to create temptation. You get the point? Scripture, wrongly understood and/or misapplied, can actually become a source of temptation. So be careful. 

How does Jesus' response here then to the temptations that come in the area of the needs of the body, how does His response help us to respond? Well, let's look at it. You'll notice, first of all, if you have a reference Bible that has marginal notes, you'll see that in all three cases when Jesus responds to temptation, He does so by quoting Deuteronomy. And all of His responses come from three chapters, Deuteronomy 6, 7, and 8. And it's clear by how Jesus uses these passages that He understood the context of each one of them. In other words, He's not just pulling a verse out of context, He gets it and what it really means. He's going deep in these responses. He spent years as a human being growing up, reading the scriptures, hearing it taught in the synagogue, meditating on the Scripture, as all righteous people are commanded to do, and coming to a deep and profound understanding of these specific Scriptures. So, we need to get up to speed on the context as well. So, turn back with me to Deuteronomy.

Look at Deuteronomy, chapter 8. Now as you're turning, let me give you the setting of this Book. Israel has wandered in the wilderness for forty years; that's basically the Book of Numbers. And all of those older than twenty when they left Egypt, have died except for Joshua and Caleb. It's a new generation. And the wilderness wandering is now over, but Deuteronomy tells us that for a couple of months, Israel has encamped on the east side of the Jordan opposite Jericho. And while they're there waiting, Moses delivered a series of messages to prepare them for the conquest of the Promised Land. Moses essentially, in the book of Deuteronomy, drew out the spiritual lessons from the forty years of wilderness wandering. Now with that context, look at chapter 8, verse 1:

All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD (Yahweh) swore to give to your forefathers. You shall remember all the way which the LORD (Yahweh) your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD (God). 

Now that's the passage from which our Lord quotes. And now that we see the surrounding context, we discover that, rather than a simple quoting of a verse, behind Jesus' response to Satan, there were several crucial presuppositions. This is what He understood from this passage, and this is how He's responding to Satan. Here are the presuppositions that lie behind Jesus' response. Number one, “The Scripture is authoritative and sufficient for dealing with the spiritual issues of this life.” What does Jesus say in our text, Matthew 4:4? He says, “It (literally) has been written,” that's where He goes. It's like Ephesians 6:17, where Paul says, “If you're going to fight Satan, if you're going to respond to temptation, you need to take the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” That's what Jesus does here. I love how Leon Morris puts it. He says, “For Jesus to have found a passage in the Bible that bears on the current problem is to end all discussion.” That's exactly how Jesus saw the Scripture. He's in the middle of a temptation, and for Him, if the Bible speaks to it, then that's what He needs. That's how you need to think, Christian. 

Number two presupposition behind Jesus' response is that “God is sovereign over our physical circumstances.” Look at verse 2, “All the way which the LORD your God (Notice this.) has led you in the wilderness these forty years.” That was true for the children of Israel, those forty years, and it's been true for Jesus these forty days and forty nights. God is sovereign over your physical circumstances. I don't know where you find yourself today, but God is sovereign over your physical circumstances, including which needs are and are not being met. 

Number three, “God is the provider of every legitimate need.” Look at verse 3, “He fed you.” He alone is the provider of every legitimate physical need. 

Number four, “God, at times, chooses to deprive His children of the normal fulfillment of our physical needs,” Deuteronomy 8:3a. He, at times, chooses to do that. Look at verse 3, “He humbled you and He let you be hungry.”

Number five, why would God do that? Well, “When God chooses to deprive us, He has great spiritual ends for our good.” In other words, God is not capricious. He's not sitting up in heaven going, “You know, how can I take advantage of these people?” He's good by nature, and He does good. He has our good in mind, such as humbling our hearts–did you see that in the text? Humbling our hearts, testing our heart's loyalty to Him, testing our willingness to obey Him. We could add Romans 5, and James 1, and say, “to build and strengthen our faith, to build our endurance so that we're stronger spiritually.” And here, He also wants to instruct our minds. 

So, what's the primary lesson that God wants us to learn when He chooses not to meet our physical needs? What's the primary lesson? Look at verse Deuteronomy 8:3, “That He might make you understand.” In Hebrew, “That He might make you know that...” And here comes the main point and what Jesus quotes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, in Matthew, chapter 4, look at the end of verse 3, “MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT MAN LIVES BY EVERYTHING THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE LORD.” Now, this passage makes two points. One negative; one positive. First of all, negatively, “MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE.” Now, don't misunderstand, Jesus isn't denying the importance of food to life. He created our bodies to need food and gave us the desire to eat to satisfy that need. So, he's not doing that; He's not saying, “Ah, no, food's unimportant!” No, rather He's denying its exclusive importance. You see, what He's really saying is this, “Meeting your physical needs is not the only thing in your life. In fact, it's not even the most important thing in your life.” God has made you body and soul. Your body is a gift, but that physical body you're sitting there in right now, Paul calls it your tent, it's temporary. One day it's going to be torn down and they're going to put it in the earth and it's going to go to dust, but your soul is eternal. That's what Jesus is saying. 

I love the fact that He quotes a verse here that has to do with man–do you see it? “MAN DOES NOT LIVE…” BUT MAN LIVES BY EVERYTHING “THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.” By quoting a verse that has to do with mankind, Jesus is identifying himself as a man!  But even more importantly, He shows that He's overcoming this temptation, not in His divine nature, but rather as a man through the Spirit's power and through the written Word. So negatively, He says, “You don't live by your physical needs alone.” 

Positively, notice the end of verse 3, “BUT MAN LIVES BY EVERYTHING,” The Septuagint and what Jesus quotes says, “LIVES BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD (Yahweh).” What sustains our life is every word that goes out of God's mouth. The point that Christ was embracing and believing here, in His response to Satan was this, if I can kind of paraphrase in light of the context, here's what Jesus was saying to Satan, “Like Israel in the wilderness, I am clearly in the wilderness and without all of my physical needs being met. And like them, that is the Father's will for me. And I will not pursue satisfying My physical needs contrary to God's will because if God chooses, He can intervene and meet my needs, even supernaturally, as He did in providing manna for Israel.” John Calvin says, “God, who now employs bread for our support, will enable us whenever He pleases to live by other means. In other words, keeping you alive is not a problem for God.”

Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator, writing on Deuteronomy 8.3 says this, and I love this. He says:

Our savior quotes the Scripture in answer to that temptation of Satan, “Command these stones be made bread.” “What need of that,” says Christ? “My heavenly Father can keep Me alive without bread.” (Henry goes on to say.) Let none of God's children distrust their Father nor take any sinful course for the supply of their own necessities. Some way or other, God will provide for them in the way of duty and honest diligence, and they shall be fed. 

Now, don't misunderstand what's going on here. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't take reasonable, Biblical steps to meet our physical needs. It's right for us to pray about our physical needs. It's right for you to pray for marriage if you want to be married. It's right for you to pray for a child or for food or for housing or for clothing. It's right to pray for those things. It's also right to diligently seek employment if you're out of work so that your physical needs can be met. It's right, if you have a job, to work hard to make sure that your physical needs are met. In Ephesians 4:28, “that you have something to share with one who has need.” It's right to pursue potential relationships with other Christians if you have a desire to be married, and you don't feel you have the gift of singleness. It's right to pursue that. And it's right to use medicine and technology to avoid or alleviate pain and discomfort. All of those things are right. 

But what Jesus means is this. Once you have taken every legitimate step, you shouldn't attempt to meet your physical needs contrary to what the Bible teaches. Why? Because your soul is more important than your body. Let me say that again, a lot of Christians don't get this. You're a two-part being, and while God created your body and it's a good thing, your body is the beachhead of your flesh. It's the part of you that remains unredeemed, and it is not always your friend. So don't listen to it and obey everything it tells you to do. Let your redeemed mind direct how you use your body. Don't listen to everything your body tells you to do. Don't reach over and hit that snooze button five times because your body says, “It feels good!” That's just one example. Don't listen to your body. Paul says, 1 Corinthians 9:27, “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” In other words, don't be obeying everything your body tells you to do. It's not always your friend. It's the beachhead of your remaining unredeemed humanness, and often it will be telling you things that are contrary to God's will and purpose–so don't listen.

After my cardiac arrest last year, I promised my wife that I would take cardiac rehab. So, they had me exercising forty minutes, you know, I'd go in and they'd wire me up and check my heart rate and everything else. And when I first met with the person who was helping there, the medical professional, she said to me, “You know, when you're exercising, you need to listen to your body.” And I was like, “What does that mean, ‘Listen to my body?’” She said, “Well, you know, watch for signals, listen.” I said, “I've never listened to my body. I tell my body what to do and it does it.” Now, that can be a problem, obviously. But at the same time, that's what Paul is saying, “Don't let your body set the course for your life.” You tell it what it needs, how much sleep it needs, how much food it needs, the other ways these needs should be met. 

Now, God may choose to have us go without some physical need being met for a short time. I mean, think about Jesus. Under God's direction, Jesus' normal physical need for food went unmet for forty days and nights. God may also choose to have us go without some physical need or desire being met for a lifetime. That may be God's purpose. And I want to be careful and respectful here, but think about this, under God's direction, Jesus went His whole life without satisfying the normal human physical desire for sexual intimacy. Of course, that was true because of His divine nature; that made perfect sense. But I want you to see that He lived in perfect purity. God made a choice that this would be true of Him. And the larger point I want you to see is that in all of His temptations, Jesus powerfully, undeniably demonstrated His supremacy over temptation and sin. I love what He says in John 14:30. Speaking of Satan, He says, “The ruler of this world…has nothing in Me.” He has nothing in Me. He was more than qualified to be our redeemer. He was tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin. 

One author puts it this way, “With every tree of the garden except one for food, Adam fell; with desert stones mocking His hunger, the second Adam conquered.”  But Jesus' response to this first temptation also has massive implications for us. When He answered Satan's temptation about His body's needs, He didn't quote a verse about being the Messiah; instead, He quoted a text applicable to every one of us. Christian, Jesus overcame this temptation, not through divine supernatural power, but with the same resources available to you. So, like the Children of Israel in the wilderness, think about this, when our physical needs aren't met, when our physical needs aren't met like theirs weren't, what do we do? We do exactly what they did. Either one or both, we grumble and complain; or secondly, we decide to take matters into our own hands and meet our own physical needs in our way, even if it means returning to Egypt! Let me ask you, and I want you to answer this in your own heart, “How are you most often tempted to sin in seeking to meet the legitimate needs of your body”? Let me say that again, “How are you most often tempted to sin in meeting the legitimate needs of your body?”

What I want you to realize is here's how you should respond. Like Jesus, you need to remind yourself that “The Scripture is authoritative and sufficient for dealing with the spiritual issues of your life,” Matthew 4:4a; Ephesians 6:17. The Scripture has the help you need! Don't you dare go to somebody's blog or somebody's posting on TikTok or Instagram or some other social media platform. They don't have the answers. They don't have any more help than you do. God has the answers to your problem. Jesus understood that, and Christian, you need to understand that. 

Number two, you need to remind yourself “That God is sovereign over your physical circumstances,” Deuteronomy 8:2. He's in complete control. He's the One who's chosen for a time not to have that need met if it's not being met. 

Number three, “God is the only provider of every legitimate physical need,” Deuteronomy 8:3a. Look to Him. 

Number four, “God at times chooses to deprive you of the normal fulfillment of your physical needs and desires,” Deuteronomy 8:3a. 

Why would God do that? Number five, “When He chooses to do so, He has great spiritual ends for your good,” Deuteronomy 8:3b.

You know, if I could summarize all five of those, you know how I would summarize them? Like this, “Like Jesus, you need to trust the wisdom and the goodness of your gracious heavenly Father.” That's what He was doing when He responded to Satan. He said, “Listen, the Father's going to take care of Me.” That's where your heart needs to go. Matthew 6, we'll get there,  I love this, one of my favorite passages, Matthew 6:32, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” And then He says, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.” In other words, focus first on your soul and not meeting your physical needs. “And all these things will be added to you.” In other words, the Father knows what you need physically and He's going to take care of you. You put your energies into your soul and don't listen to every command your body gives you. Make it your slave, but you can trust the wisdom and the goodness of your gracious heavenly Father.

Let's pray together. Father, thank You for our time together this morning. Thank You for the clarity of Your Word, for how amazingly insightful it is to how we live and our struggles. Lord, I pray You would use this this morning to help those who are already in Christ to respond like Jesus did when they're tempted to turn the physical needs of their body into a temptation to sin. Help them to remind themselves, help all of us to remind ourselves of what we've learned this morning. And mostly, Father, that we can trust You, that You are wise, and You are good!

Lord, I pray for those here this morning who are not in Christ. What they have seen in this passage is that they cannot stop sinning. I pray that You would use that awareness to bring them to true repentance and faith, that they would turn from their sin and put their faith in Jesus Christ, Your Son, in His perfect life, His substitutionary death, and His resurrection as the only way of having their sins forgiven and of having their hearts changed from the inside out. Father, may they cry out to You like beggars even today. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.