to turn with you in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 6 for Old Testament scripture reading. We're actually going to read some representative portions from this section in Deuteronomy, really the heart of the covenant, chapter 6 to 8, which focus on the first and greatest commandment, what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So we'll read Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four to 17, and then verse 25, and then the first six verses of chapter eight. Again, this is kind of a representation, a representative section of this broader segment within the book of Moses. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to you with great and good cities, these cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God whom you shall fear. It is Him that you shall serve, and by His name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you. For the Lord your God is in your midst, and He is a jealous God. And if you do go after these other gods, beware lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and He destroy you from off the face of the earth. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massa. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God and His testimonies and His statutes which He commanded you. And there will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as He has commanded us. Now, jumping to chapter eight, verse one, the whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do it. That you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way of the Lord your God, as He has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you hunger. He fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make known to you that man does not live by bread alone, Rather, man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, your feet did not swell these 40 years. Know then that in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways, by fearing him. Our New Testament reading now comes to us from the Gospel of Matthew chapter four. I encourage you, if you've got a Bible, to turn with me there. So we'll give our attention to the first 11 verses this morning. This will also be our sermon text. The nation of Israel was God's national son and they died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Now here comes in the wilderness another son of God, the everlasting son who obeys. the first Israel had failed to obey. Matthew chapter 4 verses 1 to 11, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. So the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written that he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him again, it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Well, again, the devil took him up to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. And Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan, for it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him. Behold, angels came and were ministering to him. This is God's word. Let us go before the Lord now and ask that he would illuminate our hearts to understand this good news. Our gracious God and Father, as we do come before your word this morning, we confess that we find ourselves so often distracted by the cares of this life, by the busyness of things, by the other duties and sorrows that attend us in this life. We pray that you would strip these things away during the next few moments as we give heed to your word, that your spirit would rouse us from our slumber, and that we would hear the good news of our Savior, whose name we pray, amen. Well, I've never really been good at baseball, ever. I remember in junior high once as we were learning the rules of the game of baseball, my PE coach for PE class, and it's kind of sad when the PE coach will say to you, Charles, you can sit this one out. Felt great then, but in hindsight, oof. But it doesn't stop me from enjoying watching a good baseball game every now and then. In fact, the reality is my favorite baseball team is a team I've actually never, ever seen live or in person. It's the old Farm League back in my hometown in Jacksonville, Florida, that of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. Nothing beats supporting a team whose mascot is an underwater cockroach. But it didn't stop me rooting for them and getting excited when I read in the news that my favorite baseball team has actually won a game. The question we have is why is it that I, a middle-aged man who has no athletic ability whatsoever, and a casual observer, not even a baseball fanatic, One who can never make it to first base without suffering a heart attack. Why is it that I could ever get excited about the victory of a little farm league you've probably never heard of 3,000 miles away? I think the answer is that in one sense, this is a team of players that represent me on the playing field, where their victory is now seen as mine, though I live thousands of miles away. though I never saw it face to face, their victory in one sense is mine. I think this is what we see with respect to Jesus and what Matthew and his gospel is relaying to us, that at Jesus' baptism, He comes as the representative of his people. Jesus is inaugurated into public office, as it were, to serve as the new representative of the human race on the playing field. As he emerges from the baptismal waters, the voice from heaven booms with this divine acclaim. This is, in fact, my beloved Son. Jesus is declared to be the Son of God. And now his identity as office bearer and representative of his people is put to the test as the spirit now drives him into the wilderness that he might undergo the crucible of moral combat. that he might liberate his people from Satan's tyranny, and that he might prove his worth as the true messianic heir of the kingdom of heaven. That is what the story we have before us tells. Here in open conflict, the obedience of the Son is put to the test his obedience is put to the test in three arenas. We'll consider these arenas in turn, that of the wilderness in verses 1 to 4, the temple in verses 5 to 7, and the mountain in verses 8 to 11. I think it's critical to grasp here the connection between Jesus' baptism at the end of chapter 3 and the temptation narrative that ensues in this passage because both center on the same thing, Jesus' identity as the Son of God. It's that divine declaration at the end of chapter three, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And now we see here in the temptation, in the first two of the temptations, Satan puts that identity to the test. He asks Jesus, are you really the son of God? If so, then prove it. The question is, will Jesus heed the voice of his father, who is already declared to be so, Or will Jesus be led astray by the temptation of the adversary who seeks to pit the son against his father? For those of you familiar with the biblical story, this is not the first son of God, as it were, to be tempted by the serpent. The Bible also calls Adam the son of God, although Adam himself was a created son. And as son of God, Adam's obedience is put to the test in a garden. Adam was sinless. And the idea is, as you read Genesis 1-3, that if he were to pass this kind of probationary period of testing, that if he were to prove obedient, he would secure for him and his progeny everlasting life. Adam was placed in a garden, it was very good, but the goodness and the benefits of everything he had to enjoy all could be lost if he were to fail the test. And as we see and read in Scripture, that first, that created son failed. Would that son of God obey? Would he secure righteousness and bliss for humanity? No. He fails in a treacherous act. He thrusts himself, his wife, and all their progeny into an estate of sin and misery. Now because of the sin of Adam the son, the curse of sin now hangs over the whole of creation. He and his wife are exiled from this garden land, this Edenic temple as Ezekiel describes it. We fast forward a number of years and now you have the nation of Israel, whom the Lord in Exodus chapter four calls Israel his son as well. Here comes another son of God, what we might call the national son of God. Would this son obey God? Would they lay claim to the land of promise or would they, like Adam, be kicked out of the land because of their sin and treachery? The nation of Israel, this son is tested not in a garden but in a wilderness and they are tested for 40 years. Numbers chapter 14 tells us that 10 times they put God to the test and as a result they perish in the wilderness. Their children enter the land, but that generation and the generation after generation after generation continues this repeated act of disobedience. And so this, and you read this in the book of Judges, there's this repeated kind of mini exodus cycle where Israel is thrust into slavery on account of their sin. They cry out to the Lord. He delivers them. They have victory, but then they fall right back into their own sin. And so the Lord punishes them again by bringing them into captivity. And all this culminates in the exile where finally the Lord says, enough of you, enough with you. He exiles them from the land of promise. But before he does that, he puts in place a king. The hope being that the king would lead the people into righteousness. This is David and his sons, whom according to 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 2, the kings of Israel and Judah are known as sons of God as well. We might call these the royal sons of God. Isn't it interesting that in 1 Kings 1-11 and in Psalm 72, Solomon is presented as a new Adam, as it were, one who rules in the midst of a garden temple, one who adjudicates between good and evil, and yet he, like the first son of God, Adam, is led astray by the voice of his many wives. And now here comes Jesus of Nazareth. One who we will find to be is the eternally begotten Son of God. One born of a virgin that he might stand as the head of the human race. One who is himself free from the vestiges of sin. One who is baptized and declared to be God's Son that he might represent and save Adam's helpless race. Here stands the last Adam. And the question is, will history repeat itself? Will we see the same cycle of representation and disobedience and the curse of sin fall upon the nation yet again? You know, when I was in junior high, I wasn't what we would call one of the cool kids. I went and did it on one month a week and I would go do Civil War reenactments up in Fort Clinch in Fernandina Beach, Florida. I think it was interesting, Fort Clinch is the only Union-held fort through the duration of the whole of the Civil War. During these weekends, I'd go and I'd participate in these drills. I'd sleep in barracks. You'd eat kind of old food. You'd reenact the history of the troops stationed there in the midst of battle and conflict. What we see here is this is, in one sense, what Jesus is doing. Jesus is, in one sense, as it were, reenacting Israel's history. But it's not just a reenactment. it might be better to say that Israel itself was doing a pre-enactment of the real battle that comes to be waged here in the wilderness. Here is the real battle that is to be fought, and Jesus comes, as it were, to rewrite Israel's history. Just as Moses the lawgiver and just as Elijah the prophet, Jesus undergoes a 40 day fast in the wilderness under command of the spirit. You see here, this year in verse one, he is led, he is driven by the spirit into the wilderness to fast 40 days and 40 nights. Will he maintain that fast? The scene is set. Will the son of God break this fast and will he disobey his father or will he remain obedient in the midst of trial and temptation? Here the serpent appears. Three names, by the way, are given to the serpent here in this passage. You see he's called the devil in verses one, five, and eight. It can also be translated as the slanderer. Verse three, he's called the tempter. And finally in verse 10, he's called Satan, the adversary. This is the slithering serpent of the garden, this is the Leviathan in Job, this is the ravenous dragon of Isaiah, and this is the prowling lion that has attended human history from the garden forward to seduce man, to lure him into slavery to sin, to try to get him to rebel against the Lord, and as he is entrapped for him then to turn around and accuse man before the holy courts of the living God. You read the Old Testament, the few times Satan appears in the Old Testament, that's exactly what he does. He entraps man and then he accuses man for the very thing he has lured him into. He slanders God to man, he tempts man to sin, and then he accuses man to God of this sin. And up until this point in human history, Satan has won every single conflict. Death continues to loom over the head of every parent, over every child. The wrath of God is still barreling its way into the just destruction of the sons and daughters of Adam. And this is Satan's plan to ensure that God's wrath will fall justly upon the whole human race. So the first round of the conflict begins here in the wilderness and Satan puts Jesus' sonship to the test. He says, if you are in fact the Son of God, the representative of the people of God, then prove it. It's been 40 days. I bet you're starving. You've got the authority, you've got the power, just say the word. Command these stones to become bread. You can almost imagine the conversation. I don't know if you've ever read C.S. Lewis's Paralander. It tries to kind of depict for this as a repeated series of temptations. This isn't just one temptation, it's a repeated temptation over and over and over. It's a pummeling trying to get Jesus to succumb. Didn't you hear John the Baptist's sermon a few weeks back? Remember when John the Baptist said that God could turn stones into the sons of Abraham? I'm just saying, why don't you turn some stones into a few baguettes? Just show us a little bit of your power, Jesus. By modern ethical standards, it doesn't seem unreasonable. What would it hurt? He's not being asked to rob a bank. He's not being asked to murder anyone. What's a little food going to hurt anyone? And yet right away we see images and echoes of the temptation in the garden, don't we? Images and echoes of the temptation even in the wilderness. Adam's probation was, you can have all this food except for one. Jesus' probation is you can't have any food these 40 days. first Adam fails the very first test. This is how Israel fails their test in the wilderness according to Exodus 17. They grumbled and were said to have put God to the test because they asked, is the Lord really among us or not? Has he led us into the wilderness to kill us? Has this been his plan all along? Did he bring us out here to die? Will he not feed us? Ten times, Moses says, Israel put the Lord to this test on this question. They doubted God's gracious provision, even though man had continued to fall miraculously from heaven every day. They continued to ask, was this really a gracious God? Is this really a loving Father? I think what's interesting is Satan's words given to Christ. He says, give the command and the stones will become bread. He doesn't say, well, pray to the Lord that he provides you with your food. He just says, well, just command, just do it. In one sense, this seems to echo the incident in Numbers 21 with Moses. You remember the incident where Israel's going through the wilderness, and this is yet another time where they're grumbling and complaining about a lack of provision of food, and in this case, water. And so the Lord tells Moses, he says, well, I want you to go over there, and I want you to go to that rock, and I want you to speak to the rock, and I'll show my miraculous provision. Water will gush forth from this rock. Something that doesn't really normally happen, by the way, in everyday experience. The Lord tells Moses to speak, and what is it that Moses does? He stands in front of the rock, he says, shall I not provide you with water? And he strikes the rock. And water comes and flows. But Moses has taken the divine prerogative to himself. He has claimed this authority as his own, and now as a result of even Moses' disobedience, he is banned from entering the land of promise. How will Jesus respond? Will Jesus appropriate his office for self-interest? Or will he trust in his Father's goodness to provide for all that he needs to live? Will Jesus be like the first Adam and eat what has been forbidden him? Will Jesus be like Israel, God's national son, and endow God's fatherly care? Will Jesus be like Moses and act of his own accord in disobedience to the father? You see, here we read of one who is better than Adam, one who is better than Israel. Yes, even one who is in fact greater than Moses. One who heeds the words of Moses, citing the book of Moses and Deuteronomy, Jesus responds to the tempter that there is something more basic than bread that gives life to man. And that is the very word of God. The Father has already declared me to be a son, Satan. What do I have to prove to you? You're wanting me to prove my sonship. The Father has already declared it to be so. He's already given the defined approval. He and he will as my heavenly father provide me with everything I need. I will trust in my father's kindness more than my own physical hunger. I will not use my office for personal gain. I would rather die than call the love of my heavenly father into question. So round one concludes and Jesus remains the obedient son of God. He's already succeeded where the first Adam has failed. So now Satan raises the stakes and makes the temptation even more deceptive. You see that here in verses 5 to 7. Satan takes Christ to the Temple Heights in Jerusalem. The Temple in Jerusalem is situated atop Mount Moriah. It's the mountain opposite the Mount of Olives. And separating these two mountains is the Kidron Valley. Mount Moriah stands 2,500 feet, roughly 2,500 feet above sea level, but overlooking the temple is this steep ravine. It's not a body of water, it's not a lake, it's not an ocean. Jesus, or Satan takes Jesus to the top of the temple and says, jump. Right? This is not a case of a bunch of high school students jumping off their parents' roof into the backyard swimming pool late at night. This is a suicide jump. Satan is, in fact, in effect, trying to tell Jesus, trying to convince Jesus, jump off the Empire State Building and so prove that you are the Son of God. Jump into the rocky crevice below. Consider what this would prove to the religious world. Again, if you are the Son of God, let's prove it. According to the Psalms, now Satan begins to quote Scripture. at the very least, begins to misquote Scripture. He says, if you're really the Son of God, look what would happen. Everybody would worship you. You think of all the people flocking to Jerusalem and the centerpiece of Jerusalem on top of the mountain. You see a guy standing on top of a building and you see him jump and the angels, if they were to lift him and deliver him from this massive death-defying jump, the saint says, consider the spectacle. You would gain all these followers right away. It would be on TikTok everywhere. Psalm 91, he says, and he cites this, he says, the Lord says to his son, he'll give his angels the command to keep you to ensure that you will not even stub your toe on the rocks below. If you really are God's son, let's put God's word to the test. Don't you see how manipulative Satan is here? He's trying to pit Jesus' affections against the affections of his father, all in the name of love for his father. It's highly manipulative. And it's the same MO that Satan had in the garden. Did God really say? Or he takes the words of Scripture and he twists them. He weaponizes Scripture to try to manipulate Christ against his father, just as Satan did with Adam and Eve, where they don't even realize the fact that their hearts are being now pivoted against the Lord God Almighty. The question here, I think, is not simply is Christ strong enough to withstand the temptation, but is He wise enough to cut through the deception? See, here's quoting the Scripture right back to Jesus. I think this is a good reminder, you know, every devil has his proof text. Every heretic has his proof text. knows the Bible better than Satan, though. The only way that one's love for the Lord can be preserved is not by a superficial knowledge of Scripture, but by, as David says in Psalm 119, by treasuring God's Word in our heart that we might not sin against Him. You know, when you consider this scenario, kind of on the foolish to wise scale and spectrum, one to ten, one being pretty dumb, 10 being pretty wise. Teenager one night steals his parents' car keys, gets drunk, driving 95 miles an hour down the interstate on the wrong side of the road with the lights out, without a seat belt on, says, I'm doing this to prove that God loves me. Because if God really loved me, he would keep me alive. Is that wise or is that foolish? It's about as dumb as it gets. But that's essentially what Satan is trying to get Jesus to do here. He says, well, God's in control. So if God is truly in control, you shouldn't have to worry about a thing. You could throw caution to the wind. But what we see when we read the rest of scripture is that's not wisdom, that's folly. The book of Proverbs is replete that God gives wisdom as the means to preserve his people from harm. Now Satan is trying to cast wisdom aside and to put the Lord God to the test. Here we must distinguish between courage and recklessness, bravery from brashness. Satan basically says, I want you to jump off the cliff, and only then can you prove that you are God's son. And yet when we read Psalm 91 in its context, the promise is not that if we put God to the test, he will prove himself faithful. It's rather that God will preserve the man who takes refuge in him in the midst of testing. and trial and temptation. I think it's interesting in 1 Corinthians 10, as we heard earlier in the service, Paul, as he reflects on Israel's own history, notes that when Israel put God to the test, they were destroyed by serpents. The fiery serpents of the wilderness that come and kill off so many of the people of God. The question is, will Jesus put God to the test and so be destroyed by the serpent here? Here, Satan has the semblance of wisdom. He's quoting Scripture. You know, might we just kind of as a side point here, just say this, beware of any man who tries to quote the Bible to you to try to convince you to act out of self-interest or self-promotion, even under pretense of glorying, giving glory to God, right? Satan knows his Bible, but Christ knows his Bible better. I think what's interesting here is that Satan quotes Psalm 91, verses 11 and 12. But what he doesn't quote is verse 13. The very next verse in Psalm 91, that the man who makes the Lord his strength will tread down the lion and he will trample the serpent under his feet. Using the echoes of the imagery of Eden once again. Genesis chapter three, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent under his feet. Well, how's he going to do so? Ah, it is going to be by his unfeigned obedience to the Father. one who makes God his refuge will issue the death blow to Satan. And that death blow to Satan comes by his obedience unto death. Jesus thus responds in kind. He interprets Psalm 91 in light of Deuteronomy chapter 6. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Right? Rather than giving these isolated fortune cookie proof texts, Jesus lets Scripture interpret Scripture. The whole counsel of God matters. Well, round two concludes. The Son remains obedient and undefeated and undeterred, and now comes the final round, and in one sense here, we find that the gloves come off. It's the final temptation, and in my opinion, it's the most insidious of them all. There's no proof texting of Scripture here. There is, in fact, a call for brazen disobedience. In one sense, it seems desperate. We're saying, flat out comes out and says, you know what, just fall down and worship me. But look at what he offers. He offers the kingdoms of this world. We ask ourselves, as we're reading the Gospel of Matthew, what is it that Jesus has come to claim? He's come to claim the world as his inheritance. The temptation here is, do the ends justify the means? Satan is offering this particular temptation. Look, I'll give you what you came for. You don't even have to go to the cross. Which matters more, obedience or gain? Remember that God stripped the kingdom from Saul for this very reason. Saul tried to gain greater glory for the kingdom, but he did so in an act of defiance and disobedience against the Lord. But I also think we need to take one brief step, another step back for a moment. We have to ask, even if Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world, we have to ask, does Satan really have that kind of authority? The word devil there also be translated as slanderer. Three times he's known as the slanderer in this passage. Elsewhere, Jesus calls him the father of lies. So the question is, is Satan even telling the truth here? And if so, to what extent? Not just would Satan hand over the kingdoms of this world if Jesus were to fall down and worship him, but does he have that authority to do so anyway? You know, one of my favorite contemporary Lutheran commentators, Hans Fein, put it like this a few weeks ago. He says, the best way to understand the devil's third temptation is to imagine that someone broke into your house and then tried to sell your house right back to you. What does Psalm 24 say? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Satan's claiming this is his, is it really his to give back? And yet on the other hand, Paul does say that Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He is the, according to Ephesians 6 and Colossians 1, the cosmic power over this present dark domain. He is 2 Corinthians, excuse me, chapter 4, the God of this world who keeps the human race blind to Christ's glory. It seems nearly impossible to sift between the mixture of truth and lies found in Satan's speech. And yet Jesus doesn't simply try to parse out what is true and what is false here. He cuts straight through it all. He cuts right to the heart of the matter by once again saying, it is written, citing with divine authority, the book of Deuteronomy. Scripture's carrying this binding moral authority for how the Son of God is to act as the obedient Son, as He has already told us, and He told John the Baptist last week, that Christ has come to fulfill all righteousness. He has come to obey His Father to the full extent. Satan offers the nations to Christ. Satan offers the world to Christ, but at a cost. But what we find is that Jesus has come to inherit this very thing. He doesn't need Satan to give it to Him. Here the long-awaited Son of David has come. He has been promised an everlasting throne, a kingdom whose expanse will, there will be no end. Satan is essentially trying to sell Jesus what is in fact Jesus' own birthright. But yet this is where I think the temptation hits hardest. Satan is trying to sell Jesus a kingdom without a cross. And isn't that the temptation that so much of the church faces today? an attempt to bypass the path of suffering on the way to glory. A saint offers a shortcut to glory by bypassing the road of deep humiliation. A saint, well, you just don't need to fully worship the Lord. Just this one time, drop down, bow the knee just this once. Everything can be yours. It's this temptation that will be the temptation that is hurled against Jesus over and over and over again in the Gospels as he makes his way to Calvary. It's going to come by way of the Pharisees in Luke chapter 13 when they say, stop, Herod's trying to get you, don't go to Jerusalem. It'll come by way of the Jerusalem mob. It'll come even by way of Jesus' own friend, Peter. The temptation being this, do not go to the cross. Satan says, I'll give you this world, so long as you don't go to the cross. Peter says, look, the humiliation of the cross does not befit your dignity. Do not go to the cross. The mob, as they say to Jesus as He hangs on the cross, if you really are the Son of God, echoing the hiss of the serpent, then prove it and take yourself down from that accursed tree. And yet, what would it profit Christ to gain the whole world and forfeit His soul and the souls of every man, woman, and child that He's come to save? Because if Jesus fails in his test here of obedience, then he cannot be the spotless, sinless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And if Jesus is unable to take away the sin of the world, then we remain dead in our trespasses and sins, and Satan has won. This final temptation is the most diabolical of all. Will Christ inherit the nations according to the promise of his father in Psalm chapter 2? You are my son. Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. Do not say ask Satan and he will give it to you. Just ask of me. Jesus chooses the path of a costly obedience. as he will inherit the kingdom of glory through the path of suffering by choosing to remain obedient even unto death. And yet, it is obedience unto death that will prove his worth as the true son of God. We read in Revelation 5 as the angels acclaim, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive this everlasting dominion. Christ by his obedience is the one who makes him worthy. Remember the scroll when John says who is worthy to open? The angel says Christ alone is worthy. It's bringing into view this trial and testing that Christ has undergone. He is worthy because he has proven faithful to the Father in every place. be it the wilderness, be it the temple, be it the mountain, and in every way, though it cost him his very life. And now here for the third time, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy to the devil, as he says, quoting Deuteronomy chapter six, it is the Lord alone who you will worship, and it is him only that you will serve. I think what's striking here is in every one of these instances, Jesus responds from the same section of the same book, Deuteronomy chapter six to eight, the heart of the book of Moses, that focuses on the heart of the covenant and what it means to be the obedient son of God. And the answer is simply this, that the obedient son of God loves the Lord, his God, with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind, and all of his strength. The obedient son knows that God is good, and so he trusts God as his father for his daily bread. It is the obedient son who knows that God is good, so he does not put God to the test by trying to prove God's goodness in the midst of our own folly. It is the obedient son who knows that God is good and so he worships God and God alone and not other things even to achieve good ends. The ends do not justify the means. The path that God has prescribed is the path that the obedient son must walk. And so we see now for the first time in human history, the representative Son of God passes through probation. He passes the conflict and the test. He demonstrates his power, he demonstrates his wisdom, and he demonstrates his devotion and love to the Father. And so now, full power of the Spirit, he commands Satan to flee. And Satan, as vicious an adversary as he is, has no choice but to heed the command of Christ and to flee. He can only but obey the voice of this king who has triumphed over the serpent in wisdom and in might. You think of the incident in 1 Kings where Elijah triumphed over the false prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. What happened then, by the way, as he underwent a period of fasting for 40 days and nights? At the end of that period, the angels come and minister to him and feed him. Here comes one who is greater than Elijah as the angels come and minister to him. They give him a moment's respite as he prepares to enter the next phase of conflict and begin that long and humiliating road to Calvary. So what are we to make of this passage? I think there are three things. I think the first thing to point out is that Jesus here is more than a model. How often have we heard the story told simply as a how-to manual for withstanding temptation? Satan comes to tempt, you repudiate those temptations with Scripture. There's value to that, right? The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, is the only offensive weapon that the church has in our arsenal. We are called to know God's Word fully that we might not sin against Him. There is truth in that. Jesus is a model. He does model for us what it looks like to submit to God and to resist the devil. But I think the point here is that Jesus, in this passage, is more than a model to imitate. He's certainly not less, but he is more. There is more to the story than that, and that leads us to the second point, as the focus here is on the obedience of the Son of God. Here is our champion, here is our representative on the battlefield. Adam, who's called the son of God, he failed in the garden. Israel, the national son of God, they failed in the wilderness and they were both kicked out of the land that God had promised to them. But now comes Jesus, the eternally begotten son of God, who represents us and by his obedience secures access to heaven for us. In every location, in every trial, Jesus succeeds where the human race has failed. He has been put to the test and he has been found worthy. And as our representative head, just as your favorite baseball team on the playing field, when they win the victory, you say, their victory is now mine. Christ's obedience has now made ours. As Paul writes, just as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation for all men, speaking of the sin of Adam, even so through the righteousness of one, there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man Adam's disobedience many were made sinners, so now through the obedience of the one, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, the many will be made righteous. Now that Christ has been tested, proven, tried, and true, the obedient son emerges from the wilderness to proclaim that the promised land, the kingdom of heaven, has finally arrived. And that a new and living way has been opened up for sinners to draw near because one has come to make his obedience theirs. An obedience, a righteousness that is received only by faith and not by works of the law. How is it that Christ's obedience is made ours? How is it that Christ's victory is made ours? It is only by finding refuge in Christ who has overcome Satan on our behalf. Christ who washes us of our sins. Christ who clothes us with his own righteousness. Christ who gives us his own Holy Spirit to preserve and to protect us. Isn't it fascinating that when Jesus tells us how to pray, He does not say, as I entered into temptation in the wilderness, so should you. Rather, he says what? That we are to pray that we not be led into temptation, but rather that we be delivered from all evil. Christ has engaged Satan in a way that none of us ever could. And this is what leads us to, I think, the final significant feature of this passage, that Christ is not only the obedient son, but that he is also our sympathetic high priest. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus underwent these trials, not only that he might be the perfect sacrifice for sin, but that he might also be our sympathetic older brother. Now, I would imagine these two particular scenarios, two men decide that they want to swim up the Mississippi River. Mississippi River has a strong current. Now let me put the question to you, of those two men, who is going to know the strength of that current more? The one who swims the whole course of the river, or the one who taps out in the first three minutes? It's the one who swims the whole course of the river, isn't it? He knows the strength of the current. He knows the strength of the tide and how painful and difficult the trial is. And when it comes to temptation, so many of us think, well, Jesus doesn't know what it's like to suffer under the weight of temptation. And I would actually say it's probably quite the opposite. How easy and how quickly do we buckle under the weight of temptation? We're tempted, we resist, what, five, 10, 15 minutes? And then we cave. Jesus goes the whole of his entire life and not once succumbs to the temptation of Satan. He feels, he undergoes the full weight of temptation and he still emerges victorious. He knows the weight and power of temptation of far greater than we do. And the book of Hebrews says, because he has undergone this trial, he has now been made fit to be our sympathetic high priest so that we might not only come to him for mercy when we have sinned, but that in the midst of temptation we might flee to him for strength as he has promised to be the source of that strength to give us the power to fight against those temptations that assail us day in and day out. This is the story of our great champion. This passage is not simply a how-to story on how to fight Satan's schemes alone. The point is that Jesus faced the devil alone so that we do not have to. Scripture now calls us to flee to Christ in the midst of temptation, to flee to him. As Christ was led into the wilderness to be tempted, yet he tells us to pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. So the exhortation this morning as we reflect on Christ as our representative champion, Christ as the Son of God, the true and proven Son of God, Let us find Christ to be our refuge and to be our salvation, for if we are joined to him, Christ himself promises that he will soon crush Satan under our feet as well. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word and ask that you would bless this word and that your spirit would strengthen us, that we would come to you for our righteousness and that we would come to you for our strength in the midst of temptation. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen.