We have been looking at the testing of God’s son, that passage right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry which is called the Temptations of Christ.
We looked at the first temptation:
3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Stones to bread – the false expectation that the Son of God would always have an easy life, never become hungry, never become thirsty, never suffer. And we saw Jesus answer, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Because the truth is that being Son of God, or being a Christian, does not make Jesus any more than it makes us immune from hunger or thirst or tiredness or pain.
Then came the second temptation.
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Here was the second test. Would being Son of God guarantee that Jesus would always be safe, always protected by the angels? And again the answer is no.
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
None of us should put God to the test by demanding an easy life, or assume when life gets had that God has abandoned us.
So then there came a third and final test of what it meant for Jesus to be the Son of God.
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Some people think the trick here was that devil was lying when he offered to give Jesus all the Kingdoms of the world and their splendor. But the devil was not lying. Luke records the testing of God’s son in these words in Luke 4 5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
The truth the Bible declares is that the whole world is in control of the evil one, the devil. John 5:19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
Perhaps it was easier to see that in Jesus’s day. When signs of the devil’s work were so much more visible. When demons took control of people in obvious ways and Jesus’s ministry of deliverance changed lives so dramatically. Of course the signs of the devil’s handiwork are still there in the modern world. In warfare and murders In the greed of so many people in this materialistic world. But the Devil’s best stratagem has always been to persuade everybody that he doesn’t exist. So the devil is not lying when He said to Jesus, “I will give you all their authority and splendour, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.
The lie comes when the devil says, “you can have all these if you will only worship me”. Because of course ultimately all the kingdoms of the world, all their authority and splendour belongs to Jesus. That is HIS ultimate destiny – to rule over everything. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! And the church will also share in that destiny. The meek will inherit the earth – Jesus says. That will be God’s gift to all who put their trust in Him – NOT to those who worship the devil and do what he tells them to.
The devil is the prince of this world. The devil DID have control of all the Kingdoms of the world to offer Jesus. But Jesus knew that all the Kingdoms of the world and all their splendour were his destiny anyway! That is how things will become!
Rev 11: 15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.
The devil was only offering Jesus what was to be his own anyway. But the devil was offering Jesus a short cut, and easy way out. This was the temptation – this was the test. No need to go through the suffering of the cross. No need to die for the sins of the world. Just worship the devil and all these things will be yours! Taking the devil’s short cut, the easy route.
And that is a temptation which comes to us all as children of God. To take the short cut. To compromise. That little white lie. Those sins which are so easy to excuse because nobody else notices.To believe that the end justifies the means. To do God’s work the devil’s way, because the devil’s way gets results quicker and easier and much much less painfully.
There is nothing here or anywhere else in the bible to suggest that authority and splendour are in themselves wrong. The temptation here is chase after those things by the devil’s means, instead of trusting in God to provide them. The end does not justify the means. We must not worship the devil to acquire authority and splendour. We should be content with what God gives us!
Again Jesus answers from Deuteronomy 6
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Here is the lesson the Israelites failed to learn. To worship and serve God alone. Never to compromise. No foreign gods. No idols. “To love the Lord your God will all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind.” That is what it meant for Jesus to be the Son of God and that is what it means for each one of us to be sons and daughters of God. And in his time of testing in the wilderness, Jesus Christ the Son of God passed all his tests.
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
No short cuts. No doing God’s work the devil’s way. Unfortunately through the centuries the church has often failed this test. Too often the church has been more interested in the kingdoms of the world and their splendour and less interested in God’s Kingdom and his righteousness. Over the centuries the church has tried different ways to bring the kingdom of God on earth. Christians have pursued different things because they thought these would be the way to get God’s work done. But they have been mistaken and the church has been sidetracked.
One way of looking back at church history would be to say that things started to go wrong with the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 AD. Soon afterwards Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. And for centuries the church held great political power in the Empire. Converting whole countries to Christianity by war and conquest. Even after the fall of the Roman Empire the church held on to that power from Rome in the West and Constantinople in the East. Through the Middle Ages wars in Europe and the Crusades in the Middle East were motivated by a fusion of politics and religion. Some Christians including our Anabaptist forefathers were persecuted because they refused to be part of the official state version of Christianity. But for centuries Western Europe could be described as Christendom, a society where the Church was a central part of the Establishment and Christians had great power and influence.
Over the last 50 years, Christendom has been breaking down. Christians are being increasingly marginalised from society in Western Europe, and in some places even persecuted. Some Christians see this as a bad thing, and are fighting to keep a Christian influence in our laws and in our government. But we Baptists have always been non-conformists. We have always refused to compromise and have always insisted on a separation between church and state. The church should never be an accepted part of society around – the church should always stand out as counter-cultural. So Christians like us should realise that the collapse of Christendom and the loss of political power for the church is not a disaster, but probably in the end a good thing. The church will now be able to stand up for Christ and His truth without compromise! In many ways, the centuries of pursuing political power and influence were the church falling for the devil’s temptation to take a short cut to the kingdom!
Another way in which the church has fallen short of God’s ideal over the centuries has been in pursuing wealth and property. Interwoven with political power has been the acquisition of great wealth, buildings, and staff. But the church of Jesus Christ was never meant to be about great buildings and lots of priests and paid workers. God’s Kingdom is not something a rich church can buy. The third world is full of vibrant Christians in churches which are materially poor but spiritually so rich. The West is full of opulent churches which have such wonderful facilities but so little spiritual life!
The story is told of an occasion where St. Thomas Aquinas was walking with a prelate through one of the grand cathedrals of his day. Referring to a coffer filled with precious coins, the prelate remarked, “Behold, Master Thomas, the church can no longer say, as St. Peter, ‘Silver and gold have I none!’” St. Thomas was apparently quick with his retort, “Alas, neither can we say what follows, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.’”
Now we are moving into an age where many churches are running out of money. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. Churches will need to stop relying on generous benefactors, who may not even have been true believers but in some circumstances just rich people trying to buy their way into heaven. Churches will need to start relying on God to provide for their needs again!
But what is the temptation facing churches in this day and age. In America it may still be to pursue political power and influence. In Africa and South America it is very sad to see churches pursuing wealth. I remember seeing one of the famous African televangelists boasting that he had his own private jet in which he had flown to a rally addressing thousands of Christians many of whom had walked a hundred miles just to hear him!
But I believe the greatest temptation to churches in Britain and even in Chelmsford is what I could call “the cult of success.” Wrongly measuring spirituality by popularity. Falsely assuming that church is all about numbers. One aspect of this is the cult of personality – people following particular preachers or leaders. Just because they are popular, and speak at the big conferences, and have a radio show even on Premier Christian Radio, or a programme on God TV, or a flashy internet site, probably means they are good communicators, but doesn’t mean that what they are teaching is necessarily true! Too many Christians are sacrificing substance for style.
And the same problem comes in the so called “worship songs” some churches sing. Just because the writers headline at Soul Survivor or New Wine doesn’t make their songs more worshipful! My friend Nick Page has written a book on worship called “And now let’s move into a time of nonsense.” He suggests an obvious reason why so many modern worship songs sound so good in the Big Top at Spring Harvest but just don’t seem to work without a band in the local church. The reason is, Nick says, that the words are just rubbish! Some Christians have forgotten how to be discerning about what they sing. Worship needs more than a good tune and a popular worship leader!
Today’s world measures success by size. Big numbers. Lots of money. And popularity – being well known. We live in a world where people pursue celebrity for its own sake. Not being famous for any great or worthwhile achievement. Just being famous. The world of X-factor. And some Christians expect the same in their Christian lives or in their churches. They expect a story of growth and success all the time. Everything getting bigger and better every day, always the newest and the best. And some churches and particularly some styles of worship portray the Christian life as always successful, always victorious, always big and growing even bigger. But it isn’t necessarily meant to be that way.
When the Toronto blessing hit England the Baptist church which was at the forefront of the blessing was in Wimbledon led by Rob Warner. Rob was on the Leadership Team of Spring Harvest and he championed that outpouring of God into Baptist circles. 15 years later Rob is now a university lecturer in Practical Theology. In his book “Reinventing English Evangelicalism”, Rob has some strong words on some of the kinds of worship he once so passionately advocated.
“Some kinds of contemporary song promotes a universal ecstatic spirituality that promises a sustainedly passionate devotion to Christ, with the expectations that every believer will speak truth to all mankind and that whole towns are presently filled with joy and compelled by the Gospel. Neither the New Testament nor church history gives credence to such expectations. Given the current condition of the church in Western Europe such songs indulge a wilful disregard for reality. They represent a heavy cocktail of the promise of an altered state of consciousness through exuberant singing – the charismatic equivalent of clubbing – combined with the exaggerated hopes of entrepreneurial evangelicals, persisting in denial faced with the failure of inflated promises.
(Some kinds of worship provide) disposable worship songs with an imminent sell-by-date. Contemporaneity has been secured, while eccentricities of spirituality and exaggerated claims of present day success have been promoted. Here is a Mephistophelean pact with modernity: the hidden price tags are a ruptured tradition, a heightened potential for a theologia gloriae unfettered to a theologia crucis, a growing biblical illiteracy, a replacement of parousia hope with expectations of imminent success, and a quasi-gnostic, ecstatic and escapist spirituality (pp.84-85).”
Forgive the long words – it was his PhD thesis. But what Rob is saying is that churches and styles of worship which talk only about success and growth are unbalanced and unbiblical. Pursuing “the cult of success” will be a dead end for the church.
For so long the church chased after political power and influence. It has pursued wealth and property. In this day and age we have “the cult of success” distracting Christians from living out and proclaiming the true gospel. God longs to bless us with all kinds of good things. If it is his will He will bless Christians with success and power and authority and splendour. Or he may not. The challenge for Christians is always to give God the glory and not keep any of that glory for ourselves. The challenge is to remember that it is God who has filled our lives with blessings, and not our own achievements. And the challenge is not to chase after authority or power or splendour or glory or fame or fortune by doing the devil’s work. The problem is it is so easy to compromise. To take short cuts. To do God’s work man’s way – which is the devil’s way!
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
