Hello everyone,
Today, I will continue to examine Jesus' journey into the wilderness. We looked, last time, at how the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. It appears that the devil spent forty days tempting Jesus, but Luke only specifically records three of these temptations.
Luke 4:2 makes one of the great understatements in history. After not eating for forty days, Jesus was hungry. Satan’s temptation of Jesus attempts to exploit the hunger after not eating for such a long time. He tries to get Jesus to turn stone into bread. I ask myself, though, what is the problem here. There is no command in the Bible that says you can’t turn stone into bread. Nowhere does the Bible say, "Thou shalt not turn stones into bread." So what then is the temptation here.
There are different thoughts about this particular temptation and what it means, because the act of turning stones into bread is clearly not sinful. (In fact, who other than Jesus could even do it?) From the various ideas that I read, the one that makes the most sense to me is that in doing so, Jesus would no longer be trusting in God’s provision. Remember that he had been led here by the Holy Spirit, and was trusting in His Father for everything. He was going to trust God to meet all of his needs, and not taking his cues from the devil. Also, we never really see Jesus using his miraculous abilities to benefit himself, only other people. It reminds me of Phil. 2:6 “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” (TNIV)
Jesus responds to the devil's temptation, by quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3, "man shall not live on bread alone." (Matthew adds to Jesus' response the continuation of Duet. 8:3 “but every word that comes from the mouth of God.”) Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy recalls how God had provided for the nation of Israel for forty years in the wilderness. All of their needs were met. (Read Deut. 8:1-4). Jesus always trusted in God’s provision, but certainly he was trusting in that for these particular 40 days. Although Jesus could have turned stones into bread, he did not. Instead, he continue to trust his Father to provide for his needs.
The Israelites wandering in the wilderness, however, didn’t seem to trust God for anything. In Exodus 14:14, with the Egyptians on one side and the Red Sea on the other, Moses responds to their grumbling, saying, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Moses seemed to take these words to heart. The Israelites did not. They complain non-stop throughout their journey. In Exodus 16 they complain about food, saying basically “Why didn’t God just kill us in Egypt?” (my paraphrase) Yet, God provides food for them. In Exodus 17 they complain about water. God provides it for them. In Numbers 11 they complain about the manna that God has provided them with. In Numbers 14, they refuse to trust that God would take care of them in the Promised Land. They constantly fail to trust God’s protection and provision in the wilderness.
In this first temptation we see Jesus succeeding where the Israelites failed. He trusted completely in God, in spite of his circumstances, whereas the Israelites did not. They whined and complained about everything, and were fortunate to make it through the wilderness at all.
Robert Stein ties two scriptures to support the point of trusting God for our provision, Luke 11:3, from the Lord’s prayer, “Give us each day our daily bread.” and Luke 12:31 “Seek first His kingdom and all these things will be given you as well.” (Stein, 146) The call then is to seek God’s kingdom and trust God for provision. No matter what. Like Moses said by the Red Sea, we need to learn to be still and let God fight for us. Allow God to work the miracles. Of course, I don’t have the ability to turn stone into bread. (Personally, I would rather turn stones into pie.) But what is the equivalent of turning stones to bread for me? Do I worry and complain, refusing to believe, like the Israelites? Or am I really trusting God’s provision for me?
Tom
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