The God's-Honest Truth

Have you ever spent forty days and forty nights in the desert (sand, rocks, 100 degrees plus during the day while sometimes reaching the freezing point at night)? Without food? For the purpose of being tempted by the devil? Sounds like a party just waiting to happen, doesn't it?

Maybe not.

Have you ever spent forty days and forty nights in a spiritual desert (spiritual sand and rocks, emotional temperatures fluctuating between anger and extreme indifference)? It's not a party either. And there's plenty of temptation while you're there.

Where are you weak? Where are you vulnerable (Despair? Unbelief? Self-hatred?)? Your enemy knows, and he patiently waits until your defenses are down before he whispers in your ear. He doesn't whisper full-out lies. That would be too obvious. He takes a spec of truth and twists it around.

Check out Jesus in Matt 4. The Man is preparing for an intense three years of ministry, so He's alone in the desert fasting and praying. After forty days, He's hungry ("hungry?" after forty days without food? How about famished? Starved? Ready to faint?). The devil comes to Him and tempts Him (allure, attract, bait, captivate, charm, coax, court - just a few of the synonyms for tempt). Matthew records three specific temptations: Turning a stone into bread; jumping from the pinnacle of the temple; and gaining the kingdoms of the earth.

Turn a stone into bread? What a great idea! Christ is famished. Physically weak from lack of food. He's in the desert - who would see Him do it? Who would know? What could it hurt?
Jumping from the temple? What a way to jump-start your ministry! Everyone would see Him and be totally amazed. They'd have to believe He was God, right?
One bow = all the kingdoms of the world? How much easier would that be than the plan that He and the Father worked out? Forget the cross! Satan would just hand Him the kingdoms on a silver platter if He bowed down to him. A breeze! A no-brainer!

I've always read this story as if these things meant nothing to Jesus. I've pictured Him barely giving Satan a glance as he waved these things in front of Jesus, but in order for these to be temptations, they had to have triggered something in Jesus. A temptation isn't a temptation if it's not . . . tempting.

Satan knew he wasn't dealing with an ordinary man. He knew Jesus was the Son of God (see Matt 4:3). He knew he had to be extra sly. So he didn't just show up with pitchfork in hand and rattle off his lines for the sake of the future gospel writers. He whispered it. He was subtle. He took the truth (the fact that Jesus was the Son of God) and then played on it. You can bet he worked hard on the planning and execution of these particular temptations. He desperately wanted to win.

But he lost. Big time. Woo-hoo for us! It means that we can win too. We can do just what Jesus did: look at our tempter square in the face and speak the truth. That's one thing he can't stand - the God's-honest truth.