2/5/56

Scripture: Matthew 4: 1-11

The life of Joshua was long and eventful. He was the vigorous young man who seemed chosen by God to lead the people of Israel after the death of Moses. Moses had led them out of slavery in Egypt, had been their leader through a couple of generations of wandering about in the wilderness, had brought them to the very edge of their “promised land.” He had looked across to see that land before he died. But his time had come, and he was not to enter, himself, the country that the Israelites would call home. He died and it was his successor, Joshua, who became the leader in the conquest of the land west of the Jordan river.

Joshua was not only the military leader of such as could be called their army. But he was also a moral and spiritual leader. Was he not successor to Moses? The land was conquered and settled. They worked out the orderly ways by which they could live there. Joshua saw them through the years of growth into something like security.

But the burden of his purpose was that they continue to be God-fearing people, remembering their heritage, and deeply concerned with the right. Near the end of his own life, Joshua pointed out to his people, again, what he considered the most important matter of all for them. What, or whom, should they consider their deity? Should it be the idols of the surrounding peoples, near or through whose lands they had moved? Should it be creatures of their own hands or imaginations? Or should it be the one eternal deity their fathers had been taught to worship - the God of things as they are?

Joshua made it clear that they must choose Whom they would serve. He laid down no edict. He placed them in no compulsion except moral and spiritual duty. But he made clear the necessity of conscious choice. “Choose you this day whom you will serve --- But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” said he. [Joshua 24: 15].

It is the kind of choice that must be made by every individual, of every age and time in history. From the most famous to the least known, from the powerful commander to the humblest private, from the scholar to the untutored --- each must choose that to which he will give supreme allegiance and devotion. And all peoples, groups, nations must choose as well.

Centuries after Joshua, came another, whose name is a Hebrew variation of the same name -- Jesus, of the household of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth of Galilee. When Jesus was grown, and was determining what should be the nature of his influence among people, he went to his cousin, John the Baptist, and was baptized. Immediately thereafter he went off by himself in the wilderness. And there, without food or shelter, he wrestled out the issues of his own life and destiny.

Jesus discovered, as each of us must do, that making decisions is hard work. If we have read the story of his temptation in the wilderness so often, and with such uncritical adoration, that it appears to be a kind of sham battle, we had better read it again, more earnestly and alertly. For it was a very real battle, against the same kind of forces and over the same sort of issues, that each one of us faces. Like Joshua of old, Jesus had to chose right then in His day, whom he would serve.

We speak of Jesus’ “temptation in the wilderness,” being so familiar with the story that it may seem to us to have been a clear-cut battle between right and wrong. We may have seen or heard the story often enough to have forgotten how it looked through the eyes and experience of Jesus himself. For him it was a matter of searching, of mental and spiritual struggle. He needed to be alone while he worked it out; and he needed to remember who he was.

It must have become clear to him, by that time, that he had a unique mission upon earth. A few others had recognized in him the One they had long hoped for. And his baptism was something very special. More than ever before, he felt himself to be the Son of God.

And so this searching, this testing, this temptation in the wilderness had to be settled first of all in the light of his own answer to the question: “Who am I?”

(1) How will the Son of God act? What will be his attitudes and decisions? What methods will be appropriate for his ministry in the earth? Should he use supernatural powers that seem to have been given him for battering down the resistance in peoples’ wills? Is not time essential, so that one ought to make short work of opposition? Or ought he to follow the method of persuasion, of setting an example, of loving patience, or persistent encouragement, and of willingness to pay even the most extreme cost of his methods?

Sheer physical hunger forced one showdown in his series of decisions. The tempter put it this way: “If you are the Son of God....” Owen Hutchinson points out the subtle suggestions about Jesus’ identity here: “if you are the Son of God -- if you are the Son of God -- if you are the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread.” Well, why not? Isn’t hunger a physical need that has to be met? And if one has been given extraordinary powers, are they not to be used? Why else does one have them?

Surely it is all right to have food that is not taken from someone else, isn’t it? And he could have bread just by the exercise of his will, “if he is the Son of God,” couldn’t he?

The answer is, as if Jesus had said to himself: “Remember you are the Son of God. It is written in the Holy Scriptures, you have read so often and remembered so well, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” That was his answer to the cry of his body for the food that he had lacked for days.

And then the complexity of the task he faced, together with spiritual indifference on the part of the multitudes, forced another showdown. If he were the Son of God, would it not be all right to really impress people with a show of power? After all, does not sensationalism have its uses? Don’t you have to be noticed to be heard? How about jumping off the pinnacle of the temple tower and defy the pull of gravity? A person who could get up unhurt from that kind of jump could really “knock their eyes out and bowl them over,” couldn’t he? I guess they would sit up and listen, then, with their mouths gaping open, to everything one had to say! And do not the very Scriptures say, “He shall give his angels charge concerning you. And in their hands shall they hold you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.” That proves it is all right, doesn’t it?

Again, Jesus’ decision seems to hinge partly on his knowledge of who he was. It would be unworthy and wrong for the Son of God to pull off some cheap publicity stunt in order to get a hearing. He will not put God to any such “man-devised” test. “For,” he also says, “It is further written in the Scriptures: ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” That is, you shall not presume to test God in any such way. It might be a good guiding principle for each of us to remember who we are. Who am I? Who do you think you are? Certainly none of us is God’s son in the same sense that Jesus was. And yet each of us is a child of God. Jesus said so. We are God’s creation and the object of His care. Are we, then, to live cheap lives? Does it not make a difference, if we remember who we are, as we face some decisions of conduct or thought or speech?

Halford Luccock had a whimsical and amusing way of noticing, interpreting, and passing on some of the customs that surround us. He was surprised and mildly shocked when he overheard the Pullman porter on a sleeping coach talking to the train conductor. “This space got on at Norfolk,” said the porter. “This space is going to New York.” “This space came in from the other car.” “So that is what I am to the Pullman company, says Luccock, “‘this space.’”

Well, each of us reveals what he thinks of himself by the choices he makes. If you are to yourself what you may be to the Pullman company - just a body occupying space - then you will make your decisions on that level. It will not seem possible, or necessary, to sacrifice the appetite of the moment for the victory of the years. If you could turn stones into bread, even though it cast a shadow over your future, you would do so without

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disguises of evil. He refused to be fooled by plausible arguments and noble appearances.

Temptation does not always come to us in ugly form. If it looks evil, it may be fairly easy to resist and repulse. But it is the smooth plausibility that often catches you, and has often caught me.

The tempter came to Jesus with quite a vision -- the holy city -- the temple of worship --- its highest pinnacle -- even some Scripture about angels holding one up. And again, the devil took Jesus in vivid imagination to a very high mountain with a wonderful view. Anything wrong with these thoughts? An angel could have brought them!

But Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan.” -- Then the devil left him, says the story. It is not easy to discern the evil if we are caught off guard by appearances. If you or I were in Jesus’ place, hungry, physically deprived, sitting among the rocks mercilessly hot by day and impersonally cold and bonechilling by night, the “temptations” might have looked pretty good --- secure position in the estimation of people; leadership and strength; food and influence. Not bad, is it?

But it was not Jesus’ own hunger and discomfort that was involved. Out of that hunger, he knew what it felt like to be malnourished as he had seen others be - children wasted and sick; old women lying by the roadside begging for bread; starvation of body and mind crying out for social reformers to wage war on poverty and starvation.

God had something to say to Jesus, right through his own hunger of body and spirit. And the word of God for him was what he most needed and wanted. So he saw through the smooth disguise of the tempter.

How he might have yearned, in that third temptation from the mountain top, for a little power and influence to use for all those for whom he felt himself to be shepherd!

When the great Scottish reformer, John Knox, cried out, “Give me Scotland, or I die!” he wanted a nation not for himself but for God. So Jesus wanted nations for God. Was that so wrong? Couldn’t he have been a dictator for God? After all, it should be possible to use power for righteousness. And even though the devil suavely demanded, as his only price, that Jesus worship him, couldn’t a strong-minded person cross up the devil after receiving the ruling power?

Sell your freedom, and buy your security: “All these will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

We should be everlastingly grateful to a Savior who said “begone Satan.” “It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” You shall accomplish God’s purposes only with God’s methods.

When a Christian is looking hard at an issue, before he makes up his mind, he looks beneath the fine altruistic purpose on the surface to see if there be a booby trap of evil hidden there. And especially suspect is the plausible suggestion that a good end or aim or purpose justifies the use of an evil method.

How can one detect such a booby trap? Well, for one thing, notice Jesus’ strategy. He relied heavily on the insights of his Old Testament Bible for the right insights. Out of the store house of his memory of, and acquaintance with, its treasures of beauty and stern righteousness, he called up the Scripture passages that brought him the right light. In order to show up the evil for what it was, he needed to know his Bible!

The story is told that Martin Luther, sitting at his study in the Wartburg Castle, and thinking that he saw the devil, threw the ink well at the devil’s head. Jesus, in effect, threw the Scriptures at the devil there in the desert. And he won a victory that has blessed every one of us. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

How many of us, starting with fair visions and wonderful dreams, could be saved from wrecking our own visions by remembering the Scriptural injunction to quit tempting God? For while we may choose to ignore God, we can not choose escape from consequences.

It is written “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” How many disasters could be avoided if we could learn to say with all of our heart and intention, “Not my will, O lord, but thine be done.”

Here then are three guiding principles by which Jesus, our Christ, faced the hardest decisions of his life and won his victories:

(1) First, he remembered who he was; Son of God.

(2) Second, he looked at alternatives until he saw through

the disguise of evil, tore off the mask and called it by

name.

(3) Third, he armed himself with the Word of God and met

the evil with a weapon that could defeat it.

This can be the approach for every one of us at our own crossroads of temptation, testing and decision.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, February 5, 1956

Wisconsin Rapids, July 30, 1967