Satan Was Listening Are You?
Luke 4:1-13
In the passage before us Satan tempted the Lord Jesus Christ three different times. In all three cases Jesus defeated Satan by quoting a passage of scripture. But if we look closely to the words that Jesus quoted we can see an interesting fact in regards to the 3 areas that Satan has worked America over on. Let us look at these three areas and hopefully see some ways to not let Satan get an advantage over us.
3 Areas that Satan has worked America over on:
1) The Word of God (verse 4)
- In the verse Jesus told Satan, “that man should not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”
- So today Satan attacks the word of God at every turn. Since 1881 we have had over 200 translation of Bible to the point where scholars say that there is no word of God without error. If there is no true word of God then man becomes the final authority and that is what Satan wants.
- Now for those who have the true word of God, a King James Bible, the question is do you read it, study it, know how to rightly divide and use it? Most do not and this is what Satan wants.
2) Worship (verse 8)
- In the verse Jesus told Satan, “thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
- The next area we see that Satan has worked America over on is worship. This makes sense because without a true word of God then how can we truly worship God.
- But not only do we see churches confused today in regards to worship but we see saved people and lost people worshiping everything but God.
- Three major god’s in America would money, sex, and education. We have made god’s out of all three.
3) Tempting the Lord (verse 12)
- In the verse Jesus told Satan, “thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
- The first two areas of pretty easy to see, but this one may not be let us look to the scriptures and see if we can get some help on how we might be tempting the Lord our God.
The scripture that Jesus was quoting was Deuteronomy 6:16. In this verse it says that the children of Israel tempted the Lord at Massah. Therefore we will look at where this event took place and see if we can get a better understanding.
In Exodus 17:1-7 Israel complained about no water. The real tempting of the Lord is found in verse 7 where is says that they tempted the Lord, saying Is the Lord among us or not?
Now in Psalm we see a history of Israel in the wilderness and note the wording associated with them tempting the Lord. We must ask ourselves if any of these apply to us?
1) Trusting not in his provisions (Psalm 78:18-22)
2) Limited God (Psalm 78:18-22)
3) Worshipped other things besides God (Psalm 78:56-60)
If we are not careful we can follow the first two steps from above and before we know it we will be in step number three. Let us listen as well as Satan and strive to not follow the example of Israel but take the way out of the temptation that God provides for us (1Corinthians 10:1-14).