After yesterday's devotional, I felt prompted to dive deeper into Matthew's account of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness:
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’
and,
‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
What is remarkable is that Jesus' rebuttals all came from the Book of Deuteronomy. They are, as follows:
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 the Lord. Deuteronomy 8:3, NKJV
You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah. Deuteronomy 6:16, NKJV
and now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land which you, O Lord, have given me.’ “Then you shall set it before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 26:10, NKJV
you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, Deuteronomy 5:9, NKJV
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, Deuteronomy 10:12, NKJV
We fight and resist the devil by speaking the Word of God. Further, I want to reference the Scripture verse that Satan tried to bait Jesus with (but had left a key part of it out). I will share the full verse and then highlight the part that was omitted above:
For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12, NKJV
The line Satan omitted in Matthew 4:6-7 was: to keep you in all your ways. Satan was trying to bait Jesus into doing something foolish and something that was outside of His ways. Thankfully, Jesus was having none of it. Praise God.
More and more, I'm finding that my favorite Bible verses have tended to gravitate toward times of refreshing and healing after an intense time of trial. As I've written before, I hate trials and tribulations. I just do. And in the midst of this latest one, that hasn't changed. But, one thing that has changed (praise God) is that I have seen times of much-needed refreshing in my life, and that is something I am holding onto. As of today, one of my favorite Bible verses is Job 42:10-11, where after all that he went through (none of it was his fault), after he repented and prayed for his friends, the following happened:
And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the Lord had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold. Job 42:10-11, NKJV
To that end, here is Matthew 4:11 (NKJV):
Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.