Luke 4; 1 to 13

Luke 4; 1 to 13

In today’s gospel reading we meet a very important biblical character who doesn’t often make a centre stage appearance.

He’s sometimes mentioned as being there in the backgound but we rarely get to see him in action. I’m talking of course about the devil or Satan.

The bible teaches us that Satan is a created being – a powerful fallen angel who lead a rebellion in heaven and was cast down to the earth by God - along with a third of the heavenly host, who rebelled with him.

Satan and his followers now live in opposition against God and those who seek to follow him.

So whether we realise it or not, we all live in a world that as well as being inhabited by physical beings is also populated by spiritual beings.

Thus Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians, that : “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

So there is a spiritual battle being fought in the world between the kingdom of God - the kingdom of light, and the kingdom of darkness; and unfortunately for us, the souls of human beings are the ultimate prize.

On one side is God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and numerous angelic beings encouraging us initially to come to believe in the Lord Jesus, so our souls may be saved, and then to serve him so that his kingdom can be extended.

On the other is Satan and his demonic followers creating fear, confusion, and doubt, and encouraging people away from God, towards death and destruction.

It’s an unequal battle as God is infinitely more powerful than Satan. Satan as a created being, a fallen angel with a spiritual body, can only be in one place at one time, unlike God who is omnipresent or everywhere. 

A normal individual Christian is therefore most unlikely to ever encounter Satan himself, although we will encounter other demonic beings or evil spirits even though we cannot see them.

Also Satan and his followers have limited knowledge and intelligence and importantly they cannot read our minds or see what we are thinking,

Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians – “who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him?”

Only we ourselves and God know what we are thinking at any particular time.

Now I think it’s important to have a balanced view about the devil. He and his followers are undoubtedly real and they can affect our lives and the lives of those around us – but it would be foolish to blame every negative thought or experience on the devil.

Likewise it would be foolish to discount his presence all together.

In today’s gospel reading we see Satan doing his best to destroy Jesus’ relationship with his Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit.

Luke tells us that Jesus is tempted for forty days by the devil. No doubt during this time he tried every conceivable trick to break Jesus’ relationship of total trust in and obedience to his Heavenly Father.

We are told of three temptations. Having fasted, Jesus was obviously very hungry so the devil tempts him to turn a stone into bread.

Perhaps he whispers the suggestion into his ear and then tries to justify it.

After all what harm can it do. Surely it’s not sinful to feed yourself if you’re starving hungry – and you are starving hungry.

You’ve got the power to do it so why not use it.

But Jesus resists the temptation to not trust in his Heavenly Father’s providence and quotes a verse of scripture at him – telling him that there are more important things in life than just eating bread.

Next Satan effectively tries to get Jesus to give up his mission to save mankind. He shows him all the kingdoms of the world – and says you can have all this straight away – now - if you just follow me.

Why go through all this hardship when you can have the whole world if you just come over to my side.

But Jesus again resists the temptation and quotes another verse of scripture at him about 

only worshipping and serving God.

Finally Satan takes Jesus up to a very high place – the pinnacle of the temple and encourages him to jump off.

After all it is written that God will send his angels to catch you and if He really cares about you, you’ll be fine.

Jesus quotes another verse of scripture about not putting God to the test, and eventually Satan leaves him until another opportune time to tempt him arises.

And Satan – and by this I mean any evil spiritual being - will use similar tactics with us.

He will plant negative thoughts and ideas into our minds and seek to tempt us away from God - initially to keep us from becoming Christians and once we have become Christians, to keep us from serving God and being effective disciples.

If you’re not yet a Christian realise that the last thing in the world Satan wants is for you to become one, because he knows that the second you repent and submit your life to Christ, his right to your life will be broken - forever.

When we become Christians God transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to his kingdom of light.

As Paul puts it in his letter to the Colossians,  he rescues us from the dominion of darkness and brings us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

We become God’s children and the spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us.

Once you have chosen to cease rebellion against God and to follow Christ your soul is safe – but until that time Satan will seek to keep you from finding a relationship with Jesus.

As we see in today’s gospel reading, the devil seeks to encourage us to make wrong decisions - although he cannot do anything about our free will.

So we may experience thoughts like - Why go to church – what a waste of your weekend. 

There’s so much else you could be doing.

And what would people think if you became a Christian? What would your friends think? 

They’ll think you’ve become a religious extremist. Is that what you really want?

Or he may seek to lull us into a false sense of security. You lead a good life and you’re a nice person – you’ll be fine. All this talk of being saved. Really it’s quite undignified.

Of course once you have decided to follow Christ the last thing Satan wants is for you to be a fruitful Christian who helps lead other people to Christ.

Again, he will do his best – as he tried with Jesus - to disrupt your walk with God and to cause you to focus on yourself and the world.

He will whisper lies into your life to cause you to be fearful and unproductive.

Do you really think God would use someone like you to serve him?

You’re not good enough to serve God. I mean look at your life. Call yourself Holy. And anyway you don’t have the knowledge or expertise to serve him.

Or perhaps you’ve sinned again. You know that God wont tolerate this. He’ll give up on you and abandon you if you carry on like this.

Satan is referred to in the scripture as the Father of lies and we are told that lying is his native tongue.

This is why Jesus used verses from scripture – God’s truth - to counter Satan’s lies.

And this is why it is so important for us to read our bibles and to know what is says.

We can then counter these negative thoughts and fears and lies with the truth of God’s word.

We will see that as Christians we are holy and redeemed children of God who are able to serve him and who in fact, -although we may feel weak are actually strong, because God can work through us more effectively when we have to rely on Him.

We will see that God will never leave or forsake us but that he will graciously forgive us as we confess our sins.

Furthermore we will find that as Christians we have authority over the devil and can tell him to depart and leave us alone in Jesus name.

In Luke’s gospel Jesus tells us; “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy.”

As well as discouraging people from finding and serving God, Satan delights genreally in death, destruction, discord, and despair.

He encourages people everywhere to indulge their sinful desires as he knows the more entangled we get in sin, the harder it is to break free.

In Isaiah chapter 35 we read: “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; …No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there.”

Picture the highway of holiness as a wide clear straight brightly lit path, but with woods on either side.

If we seek to lead morally upright lives and avoid sin as much as we can, we will remain on the highway of holiness, and find that our path in life is not so open to being influenced by the devil.

However the devil as we all know, is keen to lure us off the straight and narrow, and temptations are bound to arise.

It is not without reason that the Lord’s prayer includes the supplication to lead us not in to temptation and to deliver us from evil.

If we succumb to temptation, and start to leave the highway of holiness and indulge ungodly ways we will find that we start to walk along the edge of the wood. The light here is partially blocked by the trees and the going gets tougher.

If we continue to give way to temptation and start to persistently embrace ungodly practices, we find ourselves getting further away from the highway of holiness and going further into the woods.

Here the trees are thicker and the light is getting blocked; Brambles catch our clothes and life can get very dark.

Most importantly, the deeper we go into the woods, the more we find that we have opened our lives up to the influence of evil spirits.

Persistent drug taking or drinking or looking at pornography or occult practices or gambling etc, can eventually lead to bondages or addictions that are hard to break.

This may sound a dark picture but the gospel is that Jesus, by the power of the cross has overcome all the power of the evil one and that no matter how black things have got, he can rescue us and deliver us.

The story of Legion in Luke chapter 8 demonstrates this. Legion was possessed by numerous evil spirits but Jesus set him free with a word of command.

For a Christian the way back onto the highway of holiness is by confessing our sin, repenting, and rebuking any evil spirits that may have been influencing us.

As I’ve said, every Christian has the authority to tell evil spirits to get lost, although the effectiveness of this authority depends on how closely we walk with God and how much we are submitted to his authority.

Thus the bible tells us; “Submit yourselves…to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” The more submitted we are to God’s authority the better able we will be to delegate it.

Ungodly behaviour can give the devil a foothold in our lives, but when we have repented and chosen once again to walk on the highway of holiness, the devil no longer has any rightful hold on us, and can be rebuked and dismissed.

To conclude we live in a world that can be very beautiful but which sadly also has a dark side and is inhabited by intelligent and deliberately malicious evil spiritual beings.

However as we submit our lives to Jesus and invite him to be our Lord and Saviour he will rescue us from the dominion of darkness and make us children of God.

And then as we seek to follow him and get to know the truth of God’s word, we will find that 

not only can we stand against the devil’s lies but that we can also rebuke and dismiss him, not only from our own lives but also from the lives of others – just as Jesus did.

In the name of the living God. Amen