I do not think I need to introduce our brother, Stephen Kong, to the majority of you. We know how our brother has been greatly used by our Lord.
We thank our Lord for sending His servant to our midst this evening. As Cornelius said to Peter, “We have all gathered here tonight.” We want to hear the word through our brother.
I do thank the Lord for the privilege of being with you, brothers and sisters, tonight. As I waited before the Lord for this time, I felt led to share with you on the temptation of our Lord Jesus.
Please turn to Matthew 4. We will read the first four verses.
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 afterward hungered.
And the tempter came and said unto Him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
We are not so much to be occupied tonight with the Lord’s temptation itself. Rather, we will see that the Lord Jesus, as the Son of Man and the representative of a new mankind, was tempted in all things, and how He endured and overcame.
In the same way, we who are in Him will also be tempted. Yet, by His life and grace, we shall overcome.
We know that Adam, being the first man, was tempted in the garden of Eden. When he was tempted, he failed; and all who are in Adam failed with him.
But now we have Christ, the second Man. When Christ was tempted, He endured and overcame. Therefore, all who are in Christ may be tempted, but we are sure of victory.
This is something that we would like to share during these times together.
We know that temptation comes from the tempter. In 1 Thessalonians 3:5, he is called “the tempter.” The devil, Satan, is a tempter, and the motive of his temptation is to draw us away from God into sin.
Therefore, when we are tempted, do not say that we are tempted by God. God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself tempteth no man. He is good, but temptation seeks to draw us into evil.
Temptation never comes from God. It comes from Satan, who tempts men so that they may fall into sin, rebel against God, and follow in his footsteps.
James tells us that when we are tempted, our lust is stirred up, and because of that we fall into sin.
There is a difference between desire and lust. In Chinese, the word for desire is a wish of the heart. In other words, it is the desire of the heart.
When God created us, He created us with certain desires. These desires are for our preservation and also for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating us. These desires are legitimate.
For instance, eating. We all have the desire to eat. This was created by God. There is nothing wrong with eating; we have to eat in order to live.
But when the desire of the heart is drawn beyond its proper measure and goes beyond its boundary, then it becomes lust. You can eat—that is a desire—but to be gluttonous is lust.
Lust is a selfish desire. It is not for preservation or for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. It is for self-exaltation and self-gratification. That becomes lust.
Lust is illegitimate, and lust produces sin. The wages of sin is death.
We all have many different desires, and they are perfectly legitimate. But the important thing is that we do not allow these desires to become overdeveloped, out of bounds, and wholly directed toward ourselves. Instead of fulfilling the purpose of God, we try to fulfill ourselves. That is what the tempter tries to draw out from us.
But we thank our Lord Jesus. He is God, yet He came into this world to be a man. He is a perfect Man. He too had human desires: the desire to eat, the desire to rest, and all those human desires.
Yet His desires were always under control. He always laid His desires at the feet of His heavenly Father. Therefore, when the tempter tried to tempt Him, His desires never developed into lust.
Our Lord Jesus is the only One who is sinless and perfect. He endured all temptations and overcame them all. Thank God, we who are in Christ Jesus will also be tempted, but Christ has overcome all temptations.
The life of Christ is in us, and that life has overcome all temptations. Therefore, with that life in us, we too shall overcome, and we will glorify God.
Knowing our own weaknesses, we should pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” In the Lord’s Prayer, the Lord teaches us to pray in this way.
Oftentimes we forget to pray that prayer, and somehow we fall into unnecessary temptations. We become too self-confident and are tempted beyond our measure.
Every day I pray, knowing my weakness, and ask God not to lead me into temptation. If possible, let no temptation come my way. This should be our daily prayer.
If you pray that daily, you will be delivered from many unnecessary temptations.
But that does not mean that, because you pray that prayer, you will never be tempted. You still will be tempted, because sometimes God allows the tempter to come to us in order that His life within us may have an opportunity to manifest His glory.
In the case of our Lord Jesus, if you read Matthew 4, you find that after He was baptized and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him as a dove, He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
If you read Mark, you find that the Holy Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted. In Luke, you find that He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Why was He carried, driven, and led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted? Because the first man, when he was tempted, failed, and all mankind failed in him. Christ, being the second Man, was to overcome the enemy in temptation.
Our Lord Jesus was tempted not because of Himself personally. He was tempted as the Son of Man, as the representative of a new mankind. He was tempted for our sake and overcame all temptations, not merely for Himself, but for all of us who are in Christ Jesus.
This is our assurance, and this is where our victory lies. The temptation of the Lord is not merely a historical event; it is an eternal victory.
Our purpose in sharing on the Lord’s temptation is not to consider every detail. Rather, from these temptations we shall see some underlying principles.
In the three temptations that our Lord Jesus suffered, we see a summary of all the temptations with which the tempter has tempted mankind. In these three temptations are three principles:
These three principles are very fundamental. It is very important that, at the beginning of our Christian life, these principles should be settled before God.
If these principles are not established at the beginning of our Christian life, then throughout our Christian life we will be confronted with these matters again and again. But if these three things are settled before God, they will establish us in Christ Jesus and enable us to overcome temptation.
This evening we would like to share on the first temptation. The first temptation has to do with the principle of living.
How do you live? By what are you living? Do you live by bread alone, or by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God? I believe this is something that needs to be settled right away.
When Adam and Eve were tempted, the first man was in the garden of Eden. The garden of Eden means the garden of pleasure. God had created a beautiful garden, full of fruit trees and all kinds of fruits.
God said that of all the trees in the garden, man could freely eat. In the middle of the garden was the tree of life, and even of that tree man could eat.
There was only one tree in the whole garden from which God forbade man to eat: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God gave man a desire to eat, and He also supplied things to fulfill that desire. All the fruit trees were for man’s food, to sustain his physical life and enable that life to grow.
But God also placed the tree of life in the middle of the garden. Whatever is in the middle surely attracts our attention.
All the other trees were for physical food, but the tree of life was for the food of man’s spirit. If man ate of the tree of life, he would have God’s divine life in him, and his spiritual life would grow.
God is so good. He not only provided physical food, but He also provided spiritual food, that man might be united with God. This was God’s desire for mankind.
But there was one tree that God forbade man to eat: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Some people say that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a bad tree. No, the tree itself was not bad. Actually, it was the second best.
Knowledge is the food of the soul, and the knowledge of good and evil is the highest knowledge—rational knowledge. Yet the second best is the enemy of the very best.
Why did God not allow them to eat of that tree? Because God knew that, apart from His life, the knowledge of good and evil would bring man to death. You may know what is good, but you cannot do it. You may know what is evil, but you do it. With that kind of knowledge, you are completely condemned.
Apart from God, if we try to develop ourselves and our soul, we are tempted to become independent of God.
The tempter came and said, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” The enemy tried to twist God’s word. God said that man could eat of all the trees except one, but the enemy implied that God was cruel and would not allow man to live.
He suggested that God kept them away from the one tree because, if they ate of it, they would be like God. They would no longer need God; they could govern themselves.
Adam and Eve began to doubt God. They began to doubt the goodness of God and the word of God. They began to think of developing themselves apart from God.
They fell into temptation. Their desire became lust. They ate the forbidden fruit, and the result was that they fell. They discovered that they were naked.
In the garden of Eden, man was tempted by food. Food is the first problem of human life, and at that very point, when man was tempted, he failed. He lived by bread alone instead of living by the word of God.
Throughout thousands of years of human history, the greatest problem of mankind has been food. Man wants to eat and live by himself. He does not want God; he wants to be independent of God.
This is how people in the world live. They live for their food and for their physical needs. In order to obtain what they want, they neglect and even rebel against God’s word.
They are wholly occupied with physical things: “What shall I eat? What shall I drink? How shall I be clothed?” This is the whole life of mankind.
Thank God, the second Man came to the rescue. Our Lord Jesus came into this world. He was born as a baby, and in everything He was like one of us. In His incarnation, He came to identify Himself with mankind.
The only difference is that there was no sin nature in Him, because He did not come from Adam. He came from a virgin. The Holy Spirit overshadowed the womb of that virgin, and when He was born, He was called the Holy One.
He had human desires just as we do. He drank His mother’s milk and grew up.
We have only two verses that describe the childhood of our Lord Jesus, and they are in the Gospel of Luke. One verse says that the Child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. Later it says that Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.
He grew up just as we do. He grew in stature, becoming bigger and taller. Together with that, His wisdom increased, and the grace of God was upon Him.
The only other thing we see is when He was twelve years old. Among the Jewish people, when a boy reached twelve years of age, he became a son of the law.
He was in the temple, and when His parents returned home, He remained there. When they found Him on the third day, His mother said, “Child, why hast Thou thus dealt with us?” He said, “Knew ye not that I must be in My Father’s house?”
Yet He returned home with His parents and was subject to them. The next thing we see is when He was thirty years old and came to be baptized.
The baptism of John was a baptism of repentance, calling the children of Israel to repent. Yet our Lord Jesus had nothing of which to repent. John said, “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?”
But the Lord Jesus said, “Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” It was the will of God that our Lord Jesus should be our substitute.
He took our place as sinners. He took our place in repentance, and He was baptized in our stead. At His baptism, He offered Himself as a sin offering and as a burnt offering to God. He offered Himself for us.
Because of this, heaven was opened, and a voice came from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove.
A dove was the offering of the poor. We are the poor, and He offered Himself for us. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and then He was led into the wilderness to be tempted. The second Man had to meet the tempter.
He fasted forty days and forty nights. The two temptations were so different. When Adam was tempted, he was in the garden of Eden. When our Lord Jesus was tempted, He was in the wilderness.
When Adam was tempted, God had provided all the food that he needed. But when our Lord Jesus was tempted, He had fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward He hungered.
Then the enemy came, and he came with food. The tempter said, “If Thou art the Son of God, Thou needest to eat. In the wilderness there is no food, but Thou art the Son of God. Thou hast the power to turn these stones into bread. Satisfy Thy hunger.”
Our Lord Jesus is the Son of God, and He does have the power to turn stones into bread. But the tempter tried to move Him away from His place as the Son of Man.
The temptation was this: “You are God. You can supply Yourself.” Of course, there was nothing inherently wrong with turning stones into bread. But if He had done that, we would all be finished, because He could no longer be our substitute.
He could save us only as the Son of Man. Only as a man could He take our place.
Our Lord Jesus came into this world to be a man. He refused to do anything on His own. Therefore, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3.
And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
In Deuteronomy 8, God delivered the children of Israel from Egypt and brought them through the wilderness. He commanded them to keep His commandments and His covenant.
God tested them. He led them through the wilderness, where there was no food, and they became hungry. When they became hungry, God gave them manna to show them that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Of course they needed bread, but God was able to supply them with bread. They were to obey God and live by the word of God. Unfortunately, the children of Israel failed against God.
But our Lord Jesus was hungry. Adam was not hungry at all, but Christ was hungry. Yet when He was tempted, He would not rebel against God’s word. If God did not say, “Turn these stones into bread,” He would rather starve than do that.
There was no lust in Him. His desire was under God’s complete control. He did not live for Himself; He lived for God. Brothers and sisters, that is how our Lord Jesus overcame.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
The word used in Matthew 4 is rhema, not logos. We know that God has spoken, and what He has spoken is recorded in the Bible. That is logos.
But logos has to become rhema. Then that word becomes living to us. God has spoken, and He has to speak again to us from what He has already spoken.
When you read the Bible, you find all the word of God there. Yet sometimes, even though those are God’s words, they do not seem to work in your life. The letter kills.
But one day, as you read the Bible, the Holy Spirit illumines that word and applies that word to your life. Immediately, that word becomes rhema. God has spoken personally to you.
It is not a different word from the word that He has already spoken. It is the same word, but it becomes living and operative.
This is the principle of living. This is how a Christian must live. We Christians do not live by bread alone. That does not mean that we do not eat bread; we need bread, but not bread alone.
First of all, the principle of life is to know the word of God. We need God to speak to us personally. As we read the Bible, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to open the Bible to us. As we pray, we need God to speak to us.
We need the living word of God. How can we have God’s living word unless we commune with Him? We must be in touch with Him and commune with God in our spirit.
As we commune with Him, His word will come to us. He will speak to us, and His word will become living in us. Brothers and sisters, this is the way that we live.
We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes fresh from God to us. Our whole Christian life is a living life, a living thing. Then we will find strength and wisdom in us.
Is this true with us today? I think we need to examine ourselves. Christ has overcome. He lived by the living word of God and not by bread alone.
We are in Christ, and the principle of life by which Christ lived should be our principle of living. Then our whole Christian life will be different.
Unfortunately, even though we are saved and have the life of Christ within us, we often find ourselves living far away from God. We are not in close touch with Him.
Our whole being can become occupied with making a living. We are worried about what to eat, what to drink, and what to wear. We say, “We have to live. We have to make a living.”
Surely, we need to make a living. But remember what our Lord Jesus said:
But seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Do not worry about what you will eat or drink. Your heavenly Father knows. Look how He takes care of the birds and how He clothes the lilies of the field. How much more precious you are to Him.
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
How often we make all these things the purpose of our living. They occupy our whole being, so that we have no time for God and no thought for Him.
No wonder our Christian life is so weak. As Luke says, there will be believers who are enticed by eating and drinking and the cares of this life. They become so entangled with these things that the Lord’s coming comes upon them suddenly as a snare.
In the first temptation, we see the principle of living: we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
This is the principle of our living. This is our priority. If we have this, God will add all these things to us.
But never try to reverse the order. If making bread and living by bread alone becomes the first thing, we are no different from the people of the world.
We are in Christ, not in Adam. Therefore, we should not learn from Adam, but we should learn from Christ.
In the Old Testament, consider Esau. Being the firstborn, he should have received the right and blessing of the firstborn. Yet, because of a bowl of lentil soup, he sold his birthright and lost his blessing.
Remember Lot. Lot and Abraham came out of Ur of the Chaldees, but Lot loved the world. He saw that Sodom and Gomorrah were like the garden of Eden, so he moved into Sodom. When God destroyed Sodom, Lot was barely saved.
In the New Testament, Paul wrote 2 Timothy when he was about to be martyred. It was such a critical moment, and one of his fellow workers, Demas, loved the world.
But there are also examples of people who lived by the word of God. Abraham followed God, and God made him the father of faith.
Remember Moses. Because he saw Christ, he would rather despise all the riches of Egypt and suffer the reproach of Christ with God’s people. God used him to deliver the children of Israel.
In the New Testament, remember Paul. When Paul met the Lord on the road to Damascus, he devoted his whole life to the Lord. Even today, we are blessed by God through our brother Paul.
What a difference.
Dear brothers and sisters, when we are tempted in this area, how are we going to face such a condition? Are we going to fall into temptation, as though we live by bread alone, and forsake our spiritual future?
Or do we see that we live by every word that comes from God? If so, we will find that God will supply our every need.
Brothers and sisters, do not live merely for the present. We should live for eternity. Do not live for ourselves; live for God. Do not live for the present, but live for the future.
Thank God, because Christ has overcome, we too can overcome.
Heavenly Father, how we do pray. Even though our forefather Adam, when he was tempted, failed, yet within Thee, Lord, Thou hast come into this world to be the second Man.
How Thou hast denied Thyself and lived by every word that came from the mouth of Thy Father, and Thou hast overcome—not just for Thyself, but for us.
Oh, how we praise and thank Thee that Thy life is in us. We ask, Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit, that Thou wilt open our understanding, that when we are tempted, we will not fall like Adam, but we will overcome because of Thee.
Lord, we do pray that truly, in these last days, we may not live for ourselves, but live for Thee. We do not live by ourselves, but by Thy life in us.
Lord, we pray that we may truly make Thee our priority in life. We know that our faithful God and Father will add all these things to us.
We ask, Lord, to deliver us from being wholly occupied by this world. We pray that we may be occupied with the Father’s business. To Thee be the glory.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.