The Temptations Of Christ!

.....Mathew 4: 1-11 says, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward hungry. And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, and set Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil took Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto Him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil left Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him.

.....Today I would like to take a look at the temptations of Christ, and share some things concerning this. But before we do, let us take a look at the real meaning of the word tempt. In English, the word tempt has a uniformly and consistently bad meaning. It always means to entice a man to do wrong, to seek or seduce him into sin, and try to persuade him to take the wrong way. But the Greek word for tempt, "Peirazein," has a quite different element in its meaning. It means to test.

.....An Old Testament example of this would be the story of how narrowly Abraham escaped sacrificing his only son Isaac. Genesis 22: 1 says, " And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham. Now clearly, the word tempt here did not mean to seek or seduce into evil. We all know that it is quite unthinkable that God would try to make any man sin or do wrong. What is quite clear here is the true meaning, "After these things God tested Abraham." A supreme test of loyalty. Just as metal has to be refined and tested far beyond any stress and strain that it will ever be called upon to bear before it can be put to any useful purpose, so a man has to be tested before God can use him for His purposes. What we call temptation is not meant to make us sin; it is meant to enable us to conquer sin.It is not meant to make us bad; it is meant to make us good. It is not meant to weaken us; it is meant to make us emerge stronger, and finer, and purer from the ordeal. Temptation is not the penalty of being a man, temptation is the glory of being a man. It is the test which comes to a man whom God wishes to use. So then, we must think of this whole incident concerning Jesus, not so much as a tempting, but a testing.

.....So why did the test that Jesus had to endure have to take place in the wilderness? Because Jesus had to be alone. His task had to come to Him, and God had spoken to Him. He had to think and ponder as to how He was to attempt the task which God had given Him to do. He had to get things straight in His mind before He started out on His mission, and He had to be alone to do this.

.....How many times do we often go wrong simply because we first never try to be alone with God, and to receive the instructions for what He has called us to do. There are certain things today which every man has to work out alone, with God. And, there are times when no one else's advice is any good to him. Such times is when a man has to stop acting, and start thinking. We all would and could make less mistakes in life today if we would just set aside the time, as Jesus did, to be alone with God. So please, take some time out of your day today, to be alone with Him.
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A Man of Heroic Endurance 2

Part 2

.....God is permitting things in our life today, all for His glory and ultimately, our good. As we continue in our Bible study of Job, we see that God is doing something, without Job knowing. The Bible takes us up to Heaven to see what is going on in the Throne Room of God. Let's observe the dialogue between God and Satan, which means adversary or accuser.

.....Satan appears before God and the Sons of God, and God asks him, "What have you been doing?" Satan replies, "Going to and fro on the Earth and walking back and forth on it." Now remember, God knows this, just like when He knew all the things that happened when He was talking to Adam in the Garden of Eden. God also asked Satan about Job, knowing that he was like no one else on the Earth, a servant of God, blameless and upright man, who feared God and shunned away from evil. Satan basically said that Job had a hedge of complete protection around him. Divine favoritism, on his body, his family, and his possessions, as well as all his works being blessed. But he challenged God by telling Him that if He stripped him of those things, that he would surely turn on Him. So God said basically, " Let's see what he is made of." God then gave Satan permission to attack and touch Job in the 3 areas of his life, his family, his material things, and his health. So Satan set out on his mission, as an adversary, to strip Job of everything he valued in life, destroying him and bringing disgrace to God.

Let's look at 4 principles that we can gain from this today:

1. There is an enemy we encounter that we can not see. Some of the most real things in life we will never see. His strategy is to play tricks on your mind and bring you down and is willing to do whatever it takes. He wants to ruin your testimony, destroy your life and bring disgrace to God, who created you in His image.

2. There are trials that we endure and God permits things we do not deserve. We are not to try to grasp or change God's profound plan, because we are not able to that. We will only become more confused, ultimately resentful, and finally bitter. This will allow Satan, our adversary to win. We are to accept the trial as permitted by God, for our discipline, and our reshaping, all for His glory, and ultimately for our good. Nothing touches our lives that first has not past through the hands of God. This is either true, or God is partially sovereign, and we know that is not true. God is sovereign.

3. There is a plan we can explore that we will never truly understand, but it is for our best. It all works together for our good, but is not altogether God. God is working right now, and He does not need to explain it all to us. If we knew it all, we still would not completely understand it, and probably mess it up anyway. Sometimes, it is the permission of a demonic attack. Why? I do not know.

The bottom line is that it is a battle of Good vs. Evil.

So, just come to terms with it. Acknowledge it, and seek the power you have in the Lord Jesus. Do not try to understand it.

.....Satan is not just a spy traversing the Earth intent on ferreting out all that he can discover. He is a spirit of malice and wickedness aiming to pervert men from the right ways of God, and destroy all goodness, as far as he can within his power and permission.

.....There is a profound meaning in his appearing among the Sons of God, before the Lord. It was revealed to us through the Word of God, to show us his subordination and subjection to Divine control. He can not act on his own discretion. He is not at liberty to pursue his own agenda to whatever extent he may choose. There is a superior restraint to which he obliged to bow. A superior Will that sets limits to his reign. He can only operate within these limits. His actions are also for a Divine end, by which he has been made to be instrumental in achieving. He is the enemy of Goodness and Humanity. With the powers of an Arc Angel, and the malice and subtlety of a fiend, he is intent on our destruction, and hesitates at nothing to which he can accomplish his goals. He pursues his targets with sleepless vigilance. Invisible to human eyes, he has all the advantages of secrecy, attacking his victims who are unaware.

He never sleeps. He never rests. He never takes it easy. He never takes you out of the cross hairs of his scope. He knows you better than you know yourself. He is permitted by God to do it.

4. There are consequences we experience and can not anticipate, but they are necessary. We are all going through struggles in our life today, things which we do not deserve.

We did not ask for it. We did not anticipate it. We did not think it would happen.

GUESS WHAT?

.....You have just entered Job's turf. Whatever you are going through right now, has been prepared for you by God for a reason and a purpose. So I would ask you to pay close attention to the teachings and study of this book.

.....The Good News is that for all of you who know the Lord Jesus, you have a power within, (Christ), that others who do not know him have. They are at the mercy of the enemy, who has no mercy, and you are not. Greater is He who is in you,(Christ), than he who is in this world,(Satan). In the name of the Lord Jesus, you are able to restrain and withstand the attacks of the enemy.
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A Man of Heroic Endurance

Part 1

.....Job loved and feared God, and disciplined his life according to that belief. This bible study of Job will show God's faithful and sovereign hand over us today.

.....God tests us but never disgraces us. He strengthens us and matures us through the trials and tribulations He allows in our life. His plans for our life are never cruel or dishonest. He always has our best interest at heart, though the journey to get us there is sometimes shockingly surprising.

.....Life is difficult for a lot of us today. Some would even say it is unfair, or intolerable. Our drive for justice today overrides our patience in pain. This is why the Bible is so relevant for us today.

.....Job is important to us not only because he suffered, but because he suffered in the same ways that we all suffer today. That would be in the vital areas of family, personal health, and material things. It is just not the suffering as such that troubles us, it is the undeserved suffering.

.....Let me explain further. When we have done wrong, we get punished, a sense of justice. We experience discipline connected with wrong doing. An example of this would be like when we disobeyed our parents when we were young.

.....Through life though, there is no correlation with the amount of wrong we commit and with the amount of pain we experience.

.....Very often it is the opposite. We do right and get knocked down. We do the best we are capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward, we are hit from the blind side and sent reeling. This is exactly what happened to Job. Life became unfair.

.....Job was a man well deserved of prosperity. A good, priestly and rich man, trusting in God and caring for others. He was a fine husband and faithful father. Blameless in the eyes of God and did not compromise with moral evil. He handled business with integrity, was respected by those around him, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil.

.....But in a quick and brutal sweep of calamities, he is reduced to a twisted mass of brokenness and grief. The extraordinary accumulation of back to back disasters which would have been enough to finish off any one of us. Job is left penniless, homeless, helpless, and childless. Insult and injury are also added to his experience.

.....He was a man tried not because of his unrighteousness, but in spite of his righteousness. A trial to establish his righteousness, and to give him a deeper insight into his relationship with God. Also a greater understanding of his own nature, Job 1:8.

.... Job had 3 friends arrive and sit and stare at him for 7 days. At first, they don't recognize him, and when they spoke, they had nothing but blame for him. They basically said, "You are getting what you deserve," which would have been bad enough, but misery turned to mystery with God's silence. However long that took, even if it were for just a few months, would have been unbearable. Words from friends can be hard to listen to, but the silence from God would been truly intolerable. Imagine, nothing coming to him by way of comfort, from God or man, and he had done nothing to deserve such pain.
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