Please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 4, verses 5 through 7. I will read it in English, and my brother will read it in Chinese.
Then the devil taketh Him into the holy city; and he set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,
and saith unto Him, If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written,
He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee:
and, On their hands they shall bear Thee up,
Lest haply Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.
This time we are considering together the matter of the Lord’s temptation. But our emphasis is not upon His temptations themselves. We want to see that He was tempted as the Son of Man.
Of course, as the Son of God, He can never be tempted, and He does not change in any way. But as the Son of Man, He was tempted. As the Son of Man, He was the representative of a new mankind. That is, He is the Head of all those who are His.
Therefore, in His temptation, we can see our temptation; and by His victory, we also can overcome.
In the three temptations recorded in the Scriptures, we find a summary of all the temptations that man can ever face. In these three temptations, we find three main issues of life, and from these issues we can understand the principles behind them.
In the first temptation that our Lord Jesus endured, He was tempted to turn stones into bread. The issue is this matter of living: How do you live?
Do you live by bread alone, or do you live by every word that comes out from the mouth of God? What is the principle of our own living? Do we live by bread alone—that is, seeking after physical things for ourselves and living for our own good—or do we live by the word of God? That is to say, do we live by God?
As believers, we are not supposed to live by bread alone. People in the world live for bread alone. That is the purpose of their lives. They will do everything and anything just to satisfy themselves. They live for themselves.
But this is not the case with God’s people. We should live as our Lord Jesus lived. He lived by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
He denied Himself, even of legitimate food, in order to wait upon His heavenly Father and to do His Father’s will.
This is the principle of our living. We do not seek for things below. We are not occupied merely with this world. We do not live just for ourselves, but we live by the living word of God.
Daily we are in communion with our God, and daily we live by His word. We live for Him and not for ourselves.
Brothers and sisters, we need to set our priorities. We should know what is the first thing that we should do.
But seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
This is the first principle: the principle of living.
In the second temptation, we find the principle of believing: whether you believe, or whether you tempt God.
The devil took our Lord Jesus into the holy city—that is, Jerusalem—and led Him up to the pinnacle of the temple. Now, if you know the situation, the pinnacle of the temple was very high. From there, one could look down over a cliff.
The devil told the Lord Jesus, “If You are the Son of God, You could jump from this pinnacle down into the cliff, because it is written.” The devil also quoted Scripture, saying that God would send His angels to protect Him, lest He dash His foot against a stone.
Why did the devil tempt the Lord to jump from the pinnacle of the temple? Because if anyone should jump from the pinnacle of the temple in the view of all the multitude below, and land safely, immediately the Jewish people would say, “This is the Messiah.” They were waiting for the Messiah to come.
In other words, the devil tempted the Lord and said, “You do not need to go through the cross in order to be the Messiah. You can claim Yourself as the Messiah just by jumping down from the pinnacle of the temple, and the whole nation will receive You as the coming Messiah.”
It was a very comfortable and quick way. It was really a great temptation. But the Lord Jesus said, “Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.”
Brothers and sisters, this is why we need to know the Scriptures. If we do not know the Scriptures, we will be completely confused and deceived. We may say, “Well, this is Scripture; now we have to believe it.”
But sometimes the devil knows the Scriptures better than we do. It is really a shameful thing for us. I do encourage brothers and sisters that we really need to know the Scriptures.
If we know the Scriptures, we will not be deceived by the devil, because when the devil quotes Scripture, he always quotes it out of context.
There is a saying: “A text out of context is a pretext.” If you take the Scripture out of context, it becomes a pretext, and you can use it for whatever you want to do. That is the way Satan always quotes the Scripture.
The Scripture quoted by Satan is from Psalm 91. Psalm 90 and Psalm 91 were most likely written by Moses, recording what happened in the wilderness. The children of Israel were in the wilderness for forty years, and when they came to the end of that journey, Moses looked back and wrote these two beautiful psalms.
Psalm 91 tells us how God protected them from all evils. This is the psalm that Satan quoted, but he quoted it out of context.
If you read this psalm, you find that it begins with verse 1:
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
How do you abide under the shadow of the Almighty? Our God is the Almighty God, and as we are under His shadow, we are protected. But how do you abide under the shadow of the Almighty? The psalm says that he who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
He is the Most High God. If we dwell in the secret place of the Most High, then we are abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. In other words, if you do not dwell in His secret place, then you are not abiding under His shadow.
His promise of protection is conditional upon our dwelling in Him. Again, you find in verse 9:
Because thou hast made the Lord, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee,
Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent.
For He will give His angels charge over thee.
God gives charge to His angels concerning you, but it is conditional upon your making the Lord your refuge and the Most High your dwelling place. In other words, if you do not make the Lord your dwelling place, there is no promise of God to charge His angels to keep you.
Furthermore, when the devil quotes Scripture, he always omits something. He does not quote the whole Scripture.
Here you find in verse 11:
For He will give His angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways.
Satan omitted the phrase, “to keep thee in all thy ways,” because “all thy ways” refers to the ways of God. If you abide and dwell in God, then all your ways are in His ways.
Satan deleted that phrase because he knew that if you listened to him, you would be out of God’s way. If you are out of God’s way, God has not promised His protection. That is the way the devil always quotes the Scripture.
Brothers and sisters, if we dwell in the secret place of the Most High, then in all the ways that we walk, we will walk in the ways of God. There you will find that He charges His angels to protect us.
But if we do not abide in Christ and are not walking in His way—if instead we are walking in our own way, yet expect God to protect us—what is that? This is the sin of presumption.
We commit the sin of presumption when we tempt God to do something that He has not promised. This is tempting God.
Our Lord Jesus answered Satan with another Scripture, from Deuteronomy, Chapter 6:
Ye shall not make trial of the Lord your God.
Sometimes we tempt God to do something that He has not promised. Some people say, “The Lord is protecting me,” and then drive one hundred miles an hour, because they say God’s angels will protect them.
But, as some people say, “If you drive one hundred miles an hour, the angels are far behind you.” You cannot expect Him to protect you. That is the sin of presumption.
David prayed that God would keep him from being presumptuous. Brothers and sisters, when Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden, the devil came, and again you find how he twisted the word of God.
He tempted Eve, saying, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” This implied that God was unkind and cruel, that God was not a loving God but a jealous God.
Eve replied, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it.”
But God never said that they could not touch it. This shows that in Eve’s heart she had already been deceived. She had accepted Satan’s suggestion that God was a harsh God—that they not only could not eat it, but should not even touch it.
Then Satan said, “If you eat it, you will be like God.” Our forefathers were tempted. They could not expect God to protect them when they went beyond what God had said, and we find that man fell.
But we do thank God for the second Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. He was also tempted. He was tempted to go out of God’s way to seek something for His own glory, instead of walking in the way of God.
That way would go through the cross. He was tempted to bypass the cross and obtain the glory. But our Lord Jesus dwelt in the secret place of the Most High; therefore, He was under the shadow of the Almighty.
He answered the enemy, saying, “Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God.” To tempt God means not believing in God.
If you believe in God, you will not tempt Him. You will rest in Him. You will abide in Him. You will do His will. What He has given you, you will gladly accept. What He has not given you, you will not lust after. You will be content and satisfied with God. That is believing in God.
Believing God is trusting Him: trusting Him in His love, trusting Him in His promise, trusting Him in His wisdom, and committing yourself wholly to Him.
What is believing? Believing is committing. When you believe in God, you commit yourself completely to God. In other words, you hand yourself over to God and let God govern your life.
Whatever He gives, you receive with thankfulness. What He does not give, you do not seek after. You do not try to seek something for yourself.
If the Lord designs that you should go through the cross, then you will willingly go through the cross instead of trying to bypass it. You do not seek glory and honor for yourself, but you walk in the way of God. That is believing God.
Dear brothers and sisters, look into the history of the children of Israel. God delivered them out of Egypt. God brought them to Himself. At Mount Sinai, God made a covenant with them.
God said, “If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own possession from among all peoples.” In the wilderness, God supplied their every need. God led them through the wilderness. God was good, kind, and merciful to them.
They were a redeemed people, a covenant people, and they ought to have believed in God. God delivered them with a mighty hand. They had seen all these signs and wonders. They should have worshipped God and believed in God.
But what happened to them? Turn to Psalm 95, beginning with verse 6:
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker:
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.
This is the right attitude. As a redeemed people, they should have appreciated what God had done for them. They were called to worship and bow down before God, to kneel before the Lord their Maker, acknowledging God as their God and themselves as the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. That is the believing attitude.
But instead of doing that, they hardened their hearts.
When your fathers tempted Me,
Proved Me, and saw My work.
Forty years long was I grieved with that generation,
And said, It is a people that do err in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.
In spite of all that God had done for them, they did not believe. God would supply their every need. All they needed to do was follow the Lord, believe, and obey.
But instead they said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” They wanted to eat meat. They questioned God’s power. They tempted God again and again because they did not believe in God.
In Psalm 106, we find the same thing. The psalm begins with “Hallelujah.” As redeemed people of God, we should praise the Lord.
Then believed they His words;
They sang His praise.
That is the right attitude. But verse 13 says:
They soon forgat His works;
They waited not for His counsel,
But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness,
And tempted God in the desert.
Again, verse 24 says:
Yea, they despised the pleasant land,
They believed not His word,
But murmured in their tents,
And hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord.
God promised to lead them into a land flowing with milk and honey. They were already at the border of the land, but they did not believe that God was able to lead them into the promised land. They refused to go in because they thought they would be swallowed up.
They did not believe in God. They tempted God. What they could not do, they thought that God could not do.
In Numbers, Chapter 14, it is said that they tempted God ten times. Finally God said that they were a people who did not believe. Therefore, they could not enter into the promise.
This is the conclusion of the Holy Spirit. If you read Hebrews 3:19, you find that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Tempting God and unbelief are one and the same thing. People tempt God because they do not believe in God.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us look at ourselves. Are we not the redeemed of the Lord? Are we not believers? We are called believers, and being believers means that we are a people who believe in God.
Not only did we believe in God once upon a time, but our whole life as believers is on the principle of believing. Christian life is a life of faith. We do not live by sight; we live by faith.
We know who He is. He has loved us. He has saved us. He has proven to us His faithfulness. We are the people of His pasture. We are the sheep of His hand.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
We are believers, and as we believe in Him, we commit ourselves to Him. Believing is committing.
If you say you believe in the Lord but do not commit yourself to the Lord, your belief is false. If you really believe in God, then you commit yourself to Him and let Him take care of you, believing that whatever He does with you is good.
In Hebrews 11:6, it says that without faith no one can please God. He that draweth near to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him.
It does not say that we must believe that He is God. We have already believed that He is God. In the original, it says we must believe that He is. He is the great I AM.
He is our salvation, our deliverance, our peace, our wisdom, our supply, our strength, our Shepherd, our protection, our dwelling place, our love, our God, our Rock, and our high tower. He is everything to us.
We who believe in God have an all-sufficient God. We can commit ourselves to Him, trusting in His wisdom and knowing that whatever He does is right.
We do not depend upon our own wisdom and try to judge God. We commit ourselves to His wisdom. We rest in Him. We wait upon Him. We trust Him. We allow Him to lead us. Brothers and sisters, this is a life of faith.
We know that if we seek Him, He will reward us. The reward is not only in this age, but in eternity. We are supposed to be a believing people.
If you believe in God, will you tempt Him? Sometimes you may be in lack, but if you abide in the secret place of the Most High, you can wait upon Him.
Our God is never in haste, nor does He ever delay. When the time comes, the supply will come. We have rest in Him.
But oftentimes we do not have such faith. When we look back on our lives, we sometimes think that God’s supply came too slowly, and sometimes we doubt His wisdom. We say, “Why, why, why?” We tempt Him and want Him to do things that He has not promised.
Brothers and sisters, where is our faith? This is why we find our Christian life so miserable. If we live a life of faith like our Lord Jesus, we will not seek anything for ourselves.
Even if God wants us to go to the cross in order to arrive at glory, we will not bypass it. We will trust in our Father’s wisdom and our Father’s goodness. What a life He lived! Nothing could disturb Him. Nothing could overwhelm Him. He was always under the shadow of the Almighty.
This is the way that we should live. We live by faith.
If we live by faith, we will find our life is restful, because we know that our God is good. We can trust in Him. We commit ourselves to Him.
Sometimes we say, “But I do not have that kind of faith.” It is true. Naturally speaking, we do not have that kind of faith. So far as our natural man is concerned, we can only believe in ourselves. We know what we cannot do, and we cannot believe that God can do it.
Where, then, do we obtain faith? Remember Hebrews 12:2:
Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
We are on a race. It is not a one-hundred-yard dash; it is a long race full of obstacles. How can we finish the race? Where can we get that faith? The Scripture says, “Look steadfastly on Jesus.”
In the original, it means, “Look away from everything and look unto Jesus.” Our problem is that we look around. We see many people, and we see our environment. Not only do we look around; we look within.
Sometimes we think that we are tremendous, and we become proud. Sometimes we feel that there is nothing good in us, and we become depressed. But the Bible says, “Look off, look off.” Do not look at all these things. Fix your eyes upon Jesus.
Why? Because He is the Leader and Completer of faith. The Chinese translation is very good. In the King James Version, He is called the Author and Finisher of our faith.
The word in the original is a very special word. It means the Leader—the One who originates a thing and sets the matter on course. He is the Originator of faith.
This word is used four times in the New Testament: twice in Hebrews and twice in Acts. It is used only of the Lord Jesus. He is the Beginner. He raised the path. He opened the way that we may enter. He is the Originator of our faith.
Brothers and sisters, where does our faith come from? Look at Him. If we look at Him, faith will rise, because He is so faithful. This is how we receive faith.
Satan tries to shift our gaze to things other than our Lord Jesus. You remember the story of Peter. Our Lord Jesus was walking on the water, and the disciples saw the Lord coming.
Peter said, “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee upon the waters.” His eyes were upon the Lord, and he walked on the water.
But then he suddenly remembered that he was on the water. He looked around, looked at the water, and sank. Brothers and sisters, this is how it is. The reason we fall is because we look around instead of looking at Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith.
Where does faith come from? In Romans 10:17:
So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God. The word used here is not logos; it is rhema.
God has spoken, and it is recorded in this Book. This is logos. It is true; it is eternal truth. But if we read the Bible without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, these are merely letters to us, and the letter kills.
But when we read the word of God and pray, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal His word to us, the Holy Spirit begins to open the word to us. It is as though God is speaking to us personally.
When that word comes to us, immediately our faith rises. What is believing? Believing is not that I try to grasp the word of God. It is when God’s word grasps me.
In the beginning, you may be grasping God’s word and praying. But one day, that word begins to grasp you. Then you know that faith comes by the living word of God.
Thirdly, in 2 Timothy 2:22, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy:
But flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Here you find that you should pursue faith with those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. Faith is something that we need to pursue.
We know that faith is the gift of God, as Ephesians 2 tells us, but we need to pursue it. We pursue faith with those who call upon the name of the Lord out of a pure heart.
How we need, brothers and sisters, to pursue faith together and to learn faith from each other. This is why we need to read of those men and women of faith in the Scriptures. We need to read biographies of men and women of God who believed in God.
We need to encourage one another with what God has done in our lives. This is the way to pursue faith. As we encourage one another, our faith will increase.
Dear brothers and sisters, we should never tempt God. In James, it says that God cannot be tempted by evil. This means that because God’s nature is good, evil cannot tempt God to do something evil.
How often we tempt God! But God will not be tempted by us. On the contrary, if you tempt God, you will suffer the consequence of tempting Him, just as the children of Israel did.
They tempted Him ten times. They did not believe in God, and the result was that they could not enter into the promise.
Brothers and sisters, do not tempt God, but learn to believe in Him, trusting Him and knowing that He is good. All that He has done in your life is according to His goodness and wisdom.
Commit yourself to Him. Wait upon Him and trust Him. If you do that, you will find that your Christian life will be a straight path, because this is the way that our Lord Jesus lived while He was on earth. May we live likewise.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do want to praise and thank Thee. Even though our first father, when he was tempted, failed, we thank Thee that Thou, our Lord, the second Man, wast tempted and yet didst overcome.
We praise and thank Thee that Thou hast shown us the way to overcome all temptations. Lord, do teach us the principle of believing, that we may really commit and trust ourselves to Thee, and not tempt Thee in any way.
Lord, we do pray that Thou wilt be glorified in our lives. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I see a lot of brothers and sisters looking at me and thinking, “What is this guy talking about?”
Our meeting tomorrow will be the last meeting of this series. The meeting will start at 9:40 with singing, and then we will have the message.
Tomorrow we will also have the Lord’s table and the love feast. Continue to pray for this meeting, and come again tomorrow. Good night.