For The Record Is.
Scripture Text: Matthew 4:1-11(NASB)
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.
3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ ”
5 Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,
6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You’;and ‘On their hands they will bear You up, So that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;
9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ”
11 Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.
Introduction
Children of God McGhee has already told you; you’re in a war. So I want to show you satan’s sense of urgency to take you out. So put your finger in Matthew Chapter 4 and then turn with me to the 12th Chapter of Revelations and look at the 12th verse, and it reads: “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” So satan has a sense of urgency to take you out. His anger increases as each day goes by because he knows his time is shortening. This would explain the very devilish and sin sick times we are living in today. We live in a world full of apostasy and idolatry. Apostasy is a renouncing or turning away of the faith. In today’s world satan has so many in his hands that have turned away from God. Right now we can all name someone we know who has turned away from God and fallen into idolatry. For many of us our focus is off and we focus on the temporal things of this life rather than eternity. And that causes us to zero in on our financial struggles, so we idolize money. If causes us to zero in on our emotional struggles, so we idolize alcohol. It causes us to zero in on our mental struggles so we idolize drugs. It causes us to zero in on physical struggles, so we idolize sex. If you ask Hosea he’d tell you that idolatry is spiritual adultery. Adultery is one of the worse sins that one can commit, not because God grades sins, but because it cripples the husband, it to cripples the wife, it cripples the children, it cripples the family. Some of you right now know exactly what I’m talking about. Adultery destroys relationships. If you read the book of Hosea you’ll find that God told Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman and to have children from her unfaithfulness, because his family would be a sign of the children of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. They were taking their focus off the true God like we do sometimes and worshiping these idol gods. gods with little g’s. So satan wanted Jesus to commit idolatry. He knew who Jesus was, just like if you are a Christian he know who you are. He wanted Jesus to fall down and worship him. And that’s what he wants us to do. He wants us to fall down. See because he was cast down from heaven he want us to be cast down to hell. He wants us to fall down. And Family anytime you leave the standards of God you have no place to go but down. Adam and Eve did it and they went down. Jonah tried to do it and went down. And anytime you try to leave the standards of God you are going down. Satan had the nerve to tell Jesus he’d give Him all the kingdoms of the world. Satan doesn’t own anything. How can he give what he doesn't own. He can't do anything that God doesn't allow. For the records is: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.” (Psalms 24:1,2) Satan doesn’t own anything; God is the one who snatched nothing from nowhere and made somewhere.
Satan wants us to take shortcuts
As McGhee has already told us over the past two weeks; satan’s plan was to get Jesus to act independently of God. See satan wanted to see if he could cause Jesus to take shortcuts. Has the devil ever tried to get you to take shortcuts. Here God has given you a vision. He’s put a plan right before your eyes. But here comes old satan. And satan whispers in your ear that he knows a better way. He says he can make it happen faster for you. He says he knows a shortcut. And it’s sad to say but some of us have been or are in a world of trouble because we took one of satan’s shortcuts. But Jesus wasn’t concerned with Satan’s shortcuts. He knew the plan. He had thoroughly studied the playbook. It was now time for Him to execute the plays. Satan wanted Jesus to by pass God’s plan for salvation which required that Jesus suffer. And you know church that is some of our problem. We don’t want to suffer, and because we don’t want to suffer; we take every shortcut the devil gives us. We lie, cheat, steal all because we don’t want to suffer. And I got news for you, anyone who can’t ever stand any suffering; anyone who’s all ways got to have the easy way out; really needs to do a Holy Ghost check, because one of the fruits of the spirit is long suffering. And every now and then in this spiritual battle we’ve got to suffer long. Israel in their wilderness experience didn’t want to suffer long. And because so they started to look for other ways to make it through. Have you ever turned away from God, trying to take shortcuts. When you take shortcuts you let satan win. You become defeated. Tore up, Depressed, Stress out, Feel like nothing is going right in your life. Feel like everyone has turned their back on you. You’ve dug yourself so far in a hole with satan’s shortcuts, that you don’t know where to turn. You have no place to go. Your family doesn’t have a long enough rope to get you out of this hole that you have dug for yourself, so you feel all alone. But the record is Jeffery that Jesus told Simon that satan desired to have him and to sift him as wheat, but Jesus said I’ve prayed for you that your faith fail not. I want you to know today that the master prays for you too. He intercedes on your behalf. He does not want you to take one of satan’s shortcuts and get beat all up and end up all broken and ashamed. Instead the Lord wants you to com to him now; freely broken. That means humble and wholly surrendered to Him. Don’t take satan shortcuts. I know its hard, but you have to be willing to fight. You have to put up your spiritual defense and 3 things that you must do with your spirit to survive this battle, and that is: Feed it, Fight for it, and Fight with it.
Feed It
The first thing you have to do is feed it. You've got to feed your spirit. Have you ever heard the expression that a closed mouth won’t get fed. Some of you are spiritually dying because you won’t open your bible and open your mouth and read. I don’t understand why we love ignorance. I don’t understand why we don’t want to get into the Word of God and learn more about Him. One songwriter said it’s good to know Jesus. Show of hands how many want to know Jesus. Well the record is that Jesus said that the scriptures testify of Him. Not only that but according to 1 Peter 2:2,3 the record is: like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the lord. In other words you need this word to grow up in your salvation. For some of you there is a baby Christian in you, yearning for the word, and dying of starvation. Give'em the word. Bible study students this how you grow in grace. Not by the deeds of the law, but by the truth of the word. For the record is: that scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. You know what that tells me is that the word of God is essential to prepare us for spiritual battle. Jesus knew the word. Now he had an advantage over us because he was the Word made flesh. So my brothers and my sisters if you want your spirit to be healthy, nourished, and fruitful; You’ve got to feed it. Not only that but you’ve got to fight for it.
Fight For It
Against the wields of the devil you’ve got to fight for it. Against your own flesh you’ve got to fight for it. Because of sin you were born with a spiritual infection that can only be cured by the blood of Jesus. Now after your acceptance of a relationship of faith in Jesus and your adoption into the family of God you received the Holy Spirit. And in this spiritual battle you’ve got to fight for it, for the record is: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) And because of this, one thing we need to do is keep our focus straight. So I have a little acronym fto help us focus . Somebody yell out the meaning of the word HALT. The word halt means: to bring to a stop. In being an acronym the H in HALT means hungry, the A in HALT means angry, the L in HALT means lonely, and the T in HALT means tired, and any time you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired you need to HALT and refocus yourself on the Lord, because you are open to the temptation of trying to handle your situation in your flesh, and if you do, you’ll begin to lose the spiritual battle. What do I mean? When you are hungry you may be tempted to rob or steal for food. When you are angry you may be tempted to try and get revenge on somebody, when God already said vengeance is mine. If you are married and lonely you may be tempted to seek companionship in another man or woman. Do you see what I mean here you’ve got to halt refocus on God? You have to fight for your spirit in order to do this next thing which is fight with it.
Fight With It
In our text, Jesus was guided and empowered by the spirit in His temptations. He was never alone in His struggle. Even at the most difficult moments. Jesus relied on the power of the spirit to enable Him to resist the devil's temptations. Jesus shows us how we can overcome temptation. We must resist the devil in the power of the spirit through the guidance of the word. When I played football in college we would sit and watch hours of game film of other teams that we had to play. And we would do this because from watching this game film, we could see the characteristics, and the habits, and the tactics of our opponents. And because we new their characteristics, because we new their habits, and because we new their tactics we were better prepared to go up against them. Well children of God the record show us on many occassions the characteristic, the habits, and the tactics of satan. We've got to study so we can be better prepared for this spiritual battle. Fight with your spirit encompasses faith, because now you have to stand on what you've fed it. You got to stand on the word of God. The record is that a man ought to always pray. So when trouble comes, don't be so quick to act of yourself. Fall down on your knees and pray. Somebody said that prayer changes things. For the records is that when Paul and Silas started to pray and sing songs of praise to God. There was a great earthquake and the foundation of the prison that they were in started to shake. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone ones chains were loosed. This morning you maybe be chained up in sin. You may be chained up in your flesh. You maybe chained up in an old way of thinking, but I dare you in your heart to truly begin to pray and sing praises to God. Watch Him loosed those chains. Watch Him set you free. You ought to operate in the spirit of faith. Because if you let satan he has the power to take you out. If you will turn back with me to Revelation chapter 12 you'll find that there was a war in heaven . And that the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and satan. Him and his angels were cast out onto the earth. And there job is to seek, steal, kill and destroy you. But you have to learn how to fight with your spirit. For the record is: that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. It didn't say that the weapon wouldn't form, but it did say it wouldn't prosper. It didn't say that you wouldn't have hard times, but it did say that God won't put more on you than you can bare. It did not say, that you would never have some crying hours, but it did say that weeping may endure for a night, but joy will come in the morning. Do you have joy! I've got joy! and the reason I've got joy is because though the accuser comes to accuse me both day and night. That 11th verses of this twelveth chapter says: And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb... they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. I don't know whats your testimony but my testimony is that I have faith that one day Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane as He prepared to walk the green mile. He crucified Himself. For I hear Him Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless not my will but thy will be done. What a spiritual warrior Jesus is!