Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

True Christianity is a fight. Anyone who offers you a Christianity without tears is not giving you good money; it’s counterfeit. Anybody who says, “If you receive the baptism of the Spirit, your problems are over; if you receive the voice of assurance down on your heart, if you receive the sense God is pleased with you, that’s the end of conflict, strife, temptation,” that person is not offering you the real thing. There are three things we learn about the fight right here. Who’s the enemy? Where’s the front? What are the weapons? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 10, 1996. Series: The Real Jesus Part 2; His Life. Scripture: Matthew 3:13-4:11. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. For many of us, trusting Jesus with our lives is challenging. How can we trust Him in light of so much suffering and pain? How can we know He is the one who will make things right, both in our lives and in the world? Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller continues looking at the gospels to show us who the real Jesus is and what that means for our lives. The passage on which the teaching has taken this morning is printed in your bulletin. Matthew chapter 3, verse 13, through chapter 4, verse 11, We're looking at the life of Jesus in a series.

We're looking at not so much the teaching of Jesus, but the events in the life of Jesus. And today we come to the narrative, the description of his baptism and his temptation. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John, but John tried to deter him saying, I need to be baptized by you. And do you come to me?

Jesus replied, let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented. And as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights he was hungry, the tempter came to him and said, if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, it is written. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God, he said, throw yourself down for it is written.

He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Jesus answered him, it is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me, Jesus said to him, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Then the devil left him and angels came and attended him. This is God's Word. I, my, what's the principle here? You know, this is very important. Only two of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

and only two of the four gospels, do you even have the birth narratives of Jesus? You know, Mark and John leave it out. They don't say anything about the birth of Jesus. But every gospel talks about the baptism of Jesus. And in this passage, we see an extremely important overarching principle. What is it? It's all bound up in this little word then. You see it in the beginning of chapter 4 verse 1, then. There's spirit baptism, then there's spiritual battle.

There's a voice from heaven, then there's a voice from hell. Voice from heaven we spoke once. The voice from hell keeps on going and going and going. First there's comfort, then there's conflict. First there's joy. First there's strength, then there's weakness. First, and here's the irony of it, you see, first there's water, then there's desert. First there's a fusion, there's refreshment, then there's parched, then there's dry, then there's crack. But what does the word then mean?

Is it just the way it happened? Some things just happened. This happened at Dan Radar, he says, now this. Now this, in other words, what happened? Now this, the commercial really has nothing to do with what I just told you. I mean, things have to come in some order. Now this, the commercial really has nothing to do with what I just told you. I mean, you know, things have to come in some order. Now this, is that it baptism, now this, temptation, or does it mean, therefore, does it mean, not now this, but thus.

And the reason it does mean thus. The reason I'm going to push it on you is because what is it that leads him into the desert? What leads him into the weakness? What leads him into the hands of the devil, the thing that came down on him, the one that came down on him in the baptism? The Spirit came down and is the author of all of this comfort and water

and then it's the Spirit that drives him out, the same spirit. Jesus was led by the spirit. And here's the principle. Spiritual baptism, therefore, spiritual battle. Comfort, power, love, therefore, stress, conflict, temptation. Therefore, heaven, therefore, the voice of hell. Here, can you imagine a person, well no, think about this way, imagine yourself, imagine that you get to the place where you're so filled by the Spirit and you're so led of the Spirit that you are absolutely pleasing to God. Imagine you can get yourself into that condition where you are absolutely and totally pleasing to God. Imagine you could get yourself into that condition

where you were absolutely and totally pleasing to God. How would your life go? That's what I wanna know. Now I'm pushing you on this because when troubles begin to happen to you and conflicts begin to happen to you and difficulties begin to happen to you, what are you almost immediately assumed?

Well, you know, in the sound of music, which of course Christopher Plummer called the sound of mucus, he didn't like it. In the sound of music, that one strange song where she says, why is my life going so well? Why are good things happening to me? Remember that? She says, somewhere in my youth or childhood,

I must have done something good. And of course, that's the first thing that happened. My life is going very well. My life is going better than other people. I must be better than other people. My life is going better. I must be better. My life is going worse.

I must be worse. But here we have the exact opposite that says, the better your life. Though, there was one person who was utterly led by the Spirit and who was completely pleasing to God, how did his life go? What were the results? Do you see what happens? The more God pours his strength and his peace into your life, the more conflict and temptation strife there will be. And let me put it to you in another way.

If your life is absolutely spiritually tranquil, if it's comfortable, if there is no conflict inside, there is no conflict outside, it's because you're not led by the Spirit. You're not attempting great things for God, you're not even attempting to be pleasing to God. Anybody who says, I am gonna please God, I'm gonna give my God pleasure. I'm

going to give him every bit of pleasure I possibly can. You will experience conflict. Inside, you will feel the pressure and temptations in your heart. You never felt before. Outside, you will experience opposition. This is the principle. I don't know why I got into the last point so quickly. You see, the baptism and the temptation are never separated. In fact, Marco so far as to say immediately, he uses the word immediately. It says, the Spirit came down and he heard the voice, this is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased, and Mark says, and and immediately to make sure we don't miss the fact that the then is a thus.

Christianity is a fight. Listen, one of the things I better say here before we break this down a little bit is a lot of people who are in this room every week are thinking about Christianity, you're exploring Christianity. You're looking at Christianity, you are thinking about Christianity, you're exploring Christianity. You're looking at Christianity, you're wondering about Christianity, and today some of you are saying, you are a lousy salesman. And I don't think,

I sure hope salesman is not the right word, but if I am a salesman, I hope you today, you will see that I'm being a truthful salesman. Anyone who offers you a Christianity without tears is not giving you good money, it's counterfeit. And anybody who says, if you receive the baptism of the Spirit,

your problems are over. If you receive the voice of assurance, down on your heart, if you receive the sense that God is pleased with you, as the end of conflict, as the end of stress, that's strife, that's the end of temptation, that person is not offering you the real thing. Christianity, true Christianity is a fight.

Now, there's three things we learn about the fight right here, and those three things are, who's the enemy, where's the front, and what are the weapons? I mean, if you're going to have a fight, you know, if you're going to have a battle, who's the enemy, you need to know that, where's the front? I mean, if you mistake a rearguard action for the front, and if you mistake the front for rearguard action, you lose. And lastly, what are the weapons? Now they're all in here. And there's too much, but let me at least give you some ideas about what it teaches. First of all, who's the enemy? Satan. Now, let me state it and then let me deal with the questions that are

immediately arise. This text teaches, in fact the Bible teaches this, that when you look out into the world and you see any progress of the kingdom of God, any progress of the kingdom of love, grace, love and grace and peace, there is another kingdom out there. There is opposing forces, there's also a kingdom of not love and grace and peace, but of pride, of hate and fear. And the forces of pride, hate and fear in the world are enormously

powerful. Who's going to deny that? And they are incredibly complex. Who's going to deny that? But the Bible says one thing that a lot of people don't believe today, that they are enormously powerful and that they are enormously complex because at the bottom they are intelligent. At the bottom of evil there is an intelligence. And the Bible says, a New Yorker, nobody, no one in New York. You can call a New Yorker stupid, you know, wicked, you know, fully, call him anything, and say, oh well, but he called him naive and they get a very upset. I'm a New Yorker, I'm not naive. I am sophisticated. Let me just suggest, the Bible says, if you

think all that was behind the Holocaust was Hitler, if you think all that was behind slavery was economics and even racism, if you think that all that's behind your addiction right now is poor parenting, you are naive. There's more to it than that. There's an intelligence. There's the devil and there's demonic forces. Now I'm going to speak up for it. The Bible teaches that. You're naive if you don't believe in them.

Now, I have to have a couple of seconds here on this. Right away, objection. People are going to say this is ludicrous. A lot of you have to feel that way. You have to. You're smart people. You live today. You're educated people.

You're going to imbibe the educated culture. You're going to say this is ludicrous. Of course, the Bible talks about demons and demon possession, but that's because, in those days, people didn't understand the etiology, the genesis of sickness or mental illness. Because they didn't understand sickness or mental illness, they chalked up the demons, we know better today. We don't believe in that anymore.

My suggestion to you is it's not even superficial to write off the devil. Let me give you a couple of reasons. Logically, it's superficial to write off the devil. If you believe in God at all, and an awful lot of people do, do you believe in God? Do you believe there's a personal, supernatural good?

I mean, not just supernatural good, but a personal, supernatural good being. Do you believe that? Then let me ask you, what would in the world would be logical about saying there couldn't be, there isn't, a personal supernatural evil being? That's arbitrary to say, well, I believe in supernatural personal good, but not personal evil. Logically, that doesn't fit. Let me go empirically. Look out in the world. Look out of the newspaper. Look out at history. And we ask you, is there more evidence

for personal supernatural good beings or bad? And when you look at the atrocities, just yesterday, the front page of the New York Times, I don't want to pick out any one part of the world and make people think that one part's worse than another. Just the New York Times said, everybody's afraid that there's soon going to be more atrocities, more genocide in a particular country. It happens all the time.

It happens all the time. The river's run with blood. And then you pick up the paper and you just read about something that a parent did to a little kid in Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx or Manhattan. Or Staten Island. What's behind them? If you don't believe in the devil, you have automatically the most unbelievably low opinion of human nature. You're saying we're just capable of it.

Without aid, without aid. You see? Imperically, there's a lot of evidence for intelligent evil. And then, let me just talk to you about theologically, it's very difficult to say, well Jesus was right about most things, but not about devils. Jesus taught it, he taught it, he assumed it. Well, you know, Jesus was a man of his time. Let me ask you a quick question. What is the basis for Jesus' authority?

What is it? Does Jesus' authority in his teaching derive from his historical vantage point? If so, then our historical vantage point can trump his. We can say, well, from our vantage point, we see some things he was right on, something he was wrong on. Or does his teaching authority derive from his identity? And if his teaching authority derives from his identity as being who he said he is, if you believe he's the divine son as he said he is, then you have to accept everything he said. You see, historic vantage

point has nothing to do with it. And if you don't believe that he is who he said he is, you really shouldn't accept much of anything because he'd be a lunatic or a liar. I mean, in other words, you cannot pick and choose. You can't do it. But the most interesting thing, and I'll just say this one last time, because I'm glad we have skeptical people hanging around New York, and I'm glad we have them in Redeemer. Because skeptical people are very thoughtful people,

and they make awfully, awfully good Christians if they ever bite. But one thing, therefore, I expect, is there's some people who have been in a lot of trouble with this whole idea. Let me just suggest this to you. I've quoted him before, but last year, a man who says, I'm a secular liberal, I do not believe in religion, I'm truly a secular liberal, he teaches at Columbia, and his name is Andrew Del Bonco, and he wrote a book called The Death of Satan. And I actually recently heard him on a talk show, WNYC Radio Talk Show. And I got a tape of it and I relistened to it before I started to reaffirm it. The sermon, he is amazing in this.

He says, we have a huge problem as a society if we either believe that Satan is the whole problem with evil or that Satan is no problem. When he said this, I was amazed because you know, C.S. Lewis has always said, because he keeps on saying it every time I pick up a book and he read it, he says, there's two equal and opposite mistakes you can make when it comes to devils. You can either have an unhealthy interest in them, to sort of over-believe in them, or else you can have an unhealthy under-interesting,

I'm not believing them at all. And I had a professor of theology that once said, this used to say the devil is very much like a particular lizard in the southwest part of Arizona, who when he is confronted, we'll either puff himself up to look much bigger than he really is, or he'll play dead. And those are the only two things he does. Well, I sound a lot like C.S. Lewis,

but here's an amazing, here's a man, not C.S. Lewis, not my professor, a man who says, I'm a secular liberal, who says the same thing. Having studied society, having studied literature, he says, if you say the devil is all the problem, if you say the reason that things go wrong is because the devil makes people do it. On the one hand, you get rid of evil. You get rid. It's devil made me do it. It's not my fault. But if you say, and this is amazing, he says, if you get rid of Satan, if you get rid of the

idea of transcendent supernatural evil, if you don't believe that evil has a supernatural transcendent side, as well as a personal human side, he says, here's what your problem is going to be. If there's no Satan, if there's no supernatural, what are these atrocities? Why do, why does one nation wipe out another nation? Why does a mother, father, and queens starve a little child? Why? He says, if there's no supernatural evil, here's where you are. It's a product of their biology, or it's a

product of their social conditioning, or it's a problem of their psychological conditioning. In other words, evil disappears again. He says, without Satan, you can't really be outraged. You can't really, you don't have the moral vocabulary unless you believe in transcendent evil, as well as imminent evil, unless you believe in the supernatural, genesis of evil and sin. Don't you dare write off the enemy? Jesus says, there's an enemy.

You're in a battle, and if you don't believe these there, you're gonna lose. But let me be as practical as possible for those of you don't believe these there, you're going to lose. But let me be as practical as possible for those of you who do believe. Some of you say, I believe, I believe, what am I supposed to learn here? Well, who it is. Every time you make progress, there's going to be an opposite counterattack. Look what Jesus Christ does. As soon as Jesus Christ gets a word from God, there's a contradiction. We'll see that in one second. Why is it that every time you go on a retreat, why is it every time you have a weekend in

which you feel like, I see, I got it, and you make some resolutions, and you make some progress, and somehow it's all clear, and you say, now I know what I'm going to do, and you've never felt better. Why is it by Wednesday, you will do something the worst thing you've done in years. You'll fall into something. There's always a counter attack. Why? There's a battle.

And because evil has an intelligence behind it. They don't be surprised. Now secondly, so there's an enemy. Secondly, where's the front? Where's the front? As we said a minute ago, unless you know where the front is, you there's an enemy. Secondly, where's the front? Where's the front? As we said a minute ago, unless you know where the front is, you will lose as well. Because if you mistake a rear-guard action,

and I'm gonna say, when people do come into belief in the devil or belief in demons, immediately they begin, I think, to mistake the rear-guard action, the extraordinary stuff. Now, the Linda Blair kind of exercised stuff. They mistake that for the front. That's not the front. There was no people, boy, I'll tell you.

There was nothing here that Satan did extraordinary. Satan came inside Jesus head and He began to contradict every single thing that was sent in the baptism And let me show you what he did to Jesus and then that will tell you right away what the front is for us What is the frontal what is the essential what is the main thing that he does well first of all you have to see what he did to Jesus He says to Jesus, turn these stones into bread. He says to Jesus, throw yourself down in public off the top of the temple and float. And he says to Jesus, worship me and I'll give you all the kings of the earth. Here's what is he saying? Well, here's what, let's go back to the baptism.

When John the Baptist comes to Jesus, pardon me, when Jesus comes to John, he says, baptize me. Now everybody knows, and John knew that baptism is a sign of repentance. It's a way of saying, I'm sinful. Baptism symbolizes the cleansing a way of sin. And here's what John says.

What does he say to him? John says, wait a minute, I need to be in your place. Why am I baptizing you? It should be the other way around. In other words, he's saying, what are you doing in my place? And what am I doing in yours? Now listen, what are you doing in my place?

What are you down there submitting to the waters of God's judgment and repentance? What are you doing down there? What am I doing up here? Why am I in your place and you're in mine?" And Jesus says, this is not an anomaly, he says, this is for now. It is proper for us to do this, us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness. And he says, I am here as a substitute. My main mission in life is to not only get baptized like you should, even though I don't need it, I've come not just to repent in your place. I've come to live in your place and fulfill all righteousness, all, all, all, and I've come to die in your place so that you can stand in my John.

I'm going to take the curse you deserve so that you can have the blessing. Say, John, saying, what are you doing in my place and what am I doing in yours? And Jesus says, that's what I've come to do. Everybody thinks they know the Christmas story. Yet, while there are many Christian references all around us during this season, how closely have you examined what really happened that first Christmas night? In his book, Hidden Christmas, Tim Keller takes you on an illuminating journey into the surprising background of the Nativity story to help you better understand the

redeeming power of God's grace. Hidden Christmas is our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in life reach more people with the amazing love of Christ. Request your copy of Hidden Christmas today when you give at gospel in life.com slash give. That's gospel on life.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

And you know what, when the father says from heaven, this is my beloved son, this is my son, who my love, with him I'm well pleased. What many people don't know is that God was quoting scripture. And he was taking two Old Testament passages. And Psalm 2 is a passage that describes a Messianic king to come. And in it, God says in Psalm 2, this is my son. This is the king who's going to rule the nations.

He's going to rule the nations. The nations will conspire against him, but he will break them with a rod of iron. This is Psalm 2. This is my son. And almost all the people in Jesus' time knew that that was a Messianic Psalm, that that was talking about this Messiah who was going to come in strength and break the nations. But with whom I'm well pleased is a quote from Isaiah 42. And it's a description of this very enigmatic figure in what's called the servant songs of Isaiah. You can read them in Isaiah 42 and Isaiah 53.

And in that, those songs, there is this suffering servant that come. And this is what we're told about him by our, by his stripes, we are healed. He was crushed for our iniquities. He was bruised for our sin. And you know, the Jews did not really know what to make. Who was this figure? And they said, no way could the suffering servant of Isaiah 42 be the Messianic king of Psalm 2. And God from heaven says, yes, it is.

That the king is the servant. That the triumph will be a judgment. That the victory will be through a defeat. And that's the reason why John the Baptist says, I don't get it, you should be up here. You should be leading me. And Jesus says, no, I've come to be a substitute. I've come to take your place.

And when the devil says, I would like you to, now you have to follow me, I'm gonna go quick here. When the devil says, I would like you to, now, you have to follow me, I'm going to go quick here. When the devil says, I would like you to turn these stones into bread, that is an utter frontal assault on the whole idea of substitution. Because he's saying, I want you to use your divine power. I don't want you to depend on the Holy Spirit that just come upon you. I don't want you to depend on your Father, I want you to use your own. But Jesus Christ, at His baptism, put yourself in your and my place and He lived His life exactly the way we should, exactly, which means praying to the Father for everything, clinging to the Father in complete weakness on His own. In Acts 10, verse 38, it says the reason He was able to do the things He did was because

the Spirit was with Him and God was with him. And see, John the bad apart me, the Satan is coming and saying, I want you to no longer be a substitute. I don't want you in the way of weakness. I want you in the way of strength. And then he goes on and he says this. He says, you see, if you went into the middle of the tap of the temple, courts, and so to the top part, and through yourself down, and people saw you floating to earth, you

wouldn't need to go to cross the drawmen to yourself. They'd come right away, and you wouldn't have to go down there. And he takes them to the mountain and he says, if you worship me, I'll give you everything that God, the Father was gonna give you anyway. And what's he saying? He says, you can get to the mountain without the valley, you can get to the crown without the cross. And what he's actually saying is,

I want you to establish a religion like every other religion on the face of the earth. I want you to come down as an example, not as a savior. I want you to come down and strengthen, say, be like me and I will save you. Don to come down and strengthen, say, be like me, and I will save you. Don't come down and weakness and say, I will come and live your life so that you weak people

can be saved. In other words, Satan is saying, don't let people be saved by faith, let them be saved by emulation. Don't come down and weakness, come down and strength. Don't come down as a savior. Come down as an example. Be like every other religious founder.

Say to people, do this and you will live. Instead of coming down and saying, I will do everything. All, all, all. I will pay all of it. I will do everything that you owe God. Satan is hurling himself against the very heart of Christianity, which is, every other religion says, you live a righteous life and give it to God, and Christianity says, Jesus has lived a righteous life and he gives it to you, utterly different, totally different,

and Satan is flailing against it, and he says, don't you dare be a substitute. is flailing against it. And he says, don't you dare be a substitute. And therefore, I may ask you a question, how does Satan come against you? How does Satan come against me? What is the main thing that he does? Does he try to possess you? Does he try to imitate things, knives come at you?

I mean, I have a lot of movies I could quote, I won't do it. All the movies, every movie that I've ever seen practically that's dealt with the devil has dealt with a rear-guard action. Here's the front. What is the front? When you begin to treat Jesus more as an example than a Savior, when you fail to see that He is your substitute, when you start to say,

maybe if I live like He did, I will deserve God's favor and forget that if you receive Him, you are a Son or daughter of God today. Today, you are utterly pleasing to Him. Today, it says in John chapter 1 verse 12, for those who received Him who believed on His name, He gave authority to be children of God.

Past tense, gave authority. He gives it to us. It's now. And therefore, this is the quintessential demonic assault on your heart. This is the reason you have all the problems you have if you're Christian. He comes at you and he says this, if you are a son of God. See that? See, in the baptism, God comes and says,

this is my son. And what comes off of Satan's lips the first time and the second time? What does he say? What comes off of Satan's lips the first time and the second time, what does he say? If you are the son of God? In other words, look, what happens when you're suffering, what happens when you're in trouble? Do you know what your real problem is? It's not the circumstances. It's what you're telling yourself about the circumstances. Or better yet, what he's telling you about the circumstances. And here's what he's saying.

He is saying, if you're a son of, if you're a child of God, you shouldn't be doing this. This shouldn't be happening to you. You couldn't be. And here's what happens if you believe that Jesus is an example and not a substitute. When you get into suffering, you will say, either I deserve a better life than what I've got. So you'll be mad at God. Or you'll say, I don't deserve a better life than what I've got. So you'll be mad at God.

Or you'll say, I don't deserve a good life, I deserve this. This is why it's happening to me because I have not been a good person. And then you'll be mad at yourself. Do you hear me? Whenever troubles come, if you think that Jesus is your example, you'll be mad at God, or you'll be mad at yourself. But if you go to Jesus as a substitute, which is the thing that devil most of all wants you

to not see and grab hold and say, I am his beloved child. With me, he is well pleased. You know what that does? That transforms your attitude. You look out and say whatever this is, it's not punishment. And I see one who was well pleasing to him

and he led into temptation to test him and to strengthen him and to save other people through him. And if I'm in trouble today, I think of myself as his beloved child. And that means he is I'm here either because he wants his salvation to progress in me or he wants his salvation to progress through me, one or the other. And it makes all the difference in the world. That is the problem. He comes to you and he says, either he's going to keep you

from seeing that you can be a child of God, pleasing to him, received, welcomed, total, or else he's going to try to get you to forget it. And he's going to say, how could you be a child of God? That's the main one. That's the main thing. Anyway, now what are the weapons? The main thing he'll do, but what are the weapons? There's two. And you see Jesus got them in baptism. Let me just show you how he uses them. In his baptism he got two things. He got the Word of God.

The Word came down and said, you are my beloved child. I'm well pleased in you. And he got the Spirit of God. Now, first of all, let me suggest and remind you of something. When he comes to Jesus and says, if you could use your divine authority and turn these stones into bread, and that's a temptation, and some people maybe here are still struggling

with what was so bad about that now, remind me what was so bad about that? What does Jesus say in response? He says, this is not what satisfies me. It's the Word of God. Now, shall I live by bread alone, but by the Word of God? But he's thinking about the Word he just got. And that's what this means. Here's the way Satan comes after you. He will take something good. You know, there was nothing bad in Jesus' heart that, say, and could use to tempt him with. So what does he use?

He uses something natural. In Jesus, he's human, so he's hungry. And in Jesus, he's God, so he's powerful. And he takes the good things and he says, take the power and turn these stones into bread. And Jesus says, this is not what will satisfy me, but it's the word of God. Now what Satan does to you is he comes to you.

And if you're kind of messed up today, it's because he's coming to you and he's saying, you're afraid you're gonna lose somebody's love. You're afraid you're not gonna succeed in something. You're afraid because of this or that. You're losing someone's approval or you're losing someone's success, you're losing your success, something's going wrong in the job, and you're really scared. What did Jesus do? Jesus said, the word from God says, this

is what makes you pleasing to me. This is my son, this is my child, and whom I'm well pleased. It's God's word, not your performance. It's God's word, not your turning anything into bread. Jesus understood that the only thing that will satisfy your heart is God's word saying, you're pleasing. If you try to be pleasing some other way, Satan will have you wrapped around his little finger. Are you following me?

It means something very, very simple. It means the Word of God, which is a scripture, is something Jesus continually went to. Every single time he says, it is written. It is written. It is written. And what he does is he holds onto that word that comes and says, you're pleasing because I say so.

You're pleasing because of what Jesus did, you're pleasing. We're supposed to hold onto that. Forgive me, forgive me for suggesting here at the very end something that some people might think is kind of silly, but it actually works out quite well, stay with me. You know, the Star Trek movie is the second Star Trek movie, which is very popular. In the very beginning, the Star Trek people show up at this broken down colony, and they go into this place that looks like people have lived there. And they see a set of books up on this shelf, and one of the books is Moby Dick. Moby Dick. What Moby Dick's about? It's about a Captain Ahab who spends all his life in revenge against the white whale. He wants to go back the white whale who bit off part of his body.

And at the very end of the book, at the very end of Moby Dick, down goes Captain Ahab saying from Hell's Hard I stab at the, he doesn't care if he's killing everybody, he doesn't care, he's killing the boat, as long as he gets movie stick, it's a revenge book. Who's been reading that revenge book? Well, this great enemy, you know, of Captain Kirk Conn. He's been reading this because at the very end of the movie, did anybody ever catch this? At the very end of the movie, he's dying. He's at the very end of his life.

He's bleeding, he's a mess, but he starts to set off a bomb that's going to not only kill him, but his nemesis captain Kirk is going to kill everybody. And what does he say at the end? Do you remember? From Hell's Heart I Stab at the In the very beginning of the movie it shows you at the very end it shows you that what he has been meditating on all of his life He has become when you are in the extremity, when you are at the very, very bottom of your life, when everything has gone wrong, when you're about to die, who are you?

You don't have time to reflect. You are whatever is essentially you. And when Khan got to the extremity, he had become what he read. He had become the words that he'd read. He'd become Captain Ahead from Hell's Hardest Avenue. What was Jesus Christ on the cross? He was quoting scripture. Psalm 22, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?

And even as he says, why has thou forsaken me, he calls him, my God, my God, not true God, my God. At the Jesus Christ dealt with all temptations and all troubles and all problems with the Word of God. And he took hold of that. And every time Satan came at him and said, if you do this, if you do this, if you do this, Jesus comes back with a word of God and he says, this is not what will make me pleasing.

This will not satisfy my heart. Now let's just get down to it and finish it up. Here's the weapon, you can't just say no to the devil, you can't do it. If you're being tempted, for example, into what you would say, if you're being tempted, for example, into what you would say, if you're being tempted to go across a boundary, a sexual boundary that you have said no to, and you're finding yourself going over to it, why? Because the devil's coming to you

and he's saying, you need this in order to be pleasing. You need this in order to be pleasing. You need this in order to be pleasing. But Jesus says that will not make you pleasing. It's only the word of God that will make you pleasing. This will not, bread will not satisfy you. It's God saying, you are my beloved child. Anything, if you right now are in your job and you're doing something that you know is dishonest, why? You can't just say no to the devil. He's tempting you. Yes, the devil's tempting, but that's a rear-guard action. What's the front? The devil's coming to you and he's saying

You have to be successful. You've got to have this or you're not pleasing. Jesus Christ says no take a look It's this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. It's the word of God because of the substitute of Jesus, substitution of Jesus Christ. And when you look at that, you say, that's the only thing that makes me pleasing. And therefore I don't need that. As much as it's nice, I don't need that as good as it is.

I don't need these things. I'm free. You can't just say no to the devil. You've got to take the word. You've got to take the gospel. And you've got to say, get away from me. Because you can't just say, get away. Get away from me for it is written.

Deep down inside, what the devil gets us with is that we know we're not pleasing. And the only thing we can hear is because Jesus Christ will fill all righteousness. When you take that word down into yourself so that when suffering comes you don't say, from hell's heart, I stab it, but instead from you say, I know that I'm pleasing to you and you are still my God, no matter what happens. What do you see? That's what you have to take down into your heart.

There's one horribly moving part of a horribly painful movie, which I love so much. It's called Elephant Man. And it's about a man who is so unbelievably disfigured that his parents give him away and he's in a freak show and people treat him as an animal and some enlightened people bring him out and teach him how to speak and they try to treat him as a human being.

Do you remember that? And there's one incredibly poignant place. He's been rejected by his parents. Not only rejected by everybody, there's a very small number of people that try to treat him as a human being. And one point, he's sitting down to tea with some lovely people.

Tea, this isn't Britain. True story. You know, man with this terrible disease and so just figured, and he's sitting there, and they're serving tea, and he looks around, and I get break up every time I think about it. He looks around and he says, and he's talking about his parents who gave him away. He's never seen since. He looks around and says, you know, if only my mother could see me with such wonderful friends,

maybe she'd love me. I was such a disappointment to her. Now let me tell you something. That's pretty bad, but if the elephant man would hear what he really needs to hear is not look at these wonderful friends he needs someone coming out of heaven saying you are my beloved son with you I'm well pleased and if by the Spirit of God the elephant

man heard that even he could be healed now here's what I want you to say to come away with you are not in as bad a shape as that you don't feel as disfigured as he did he were never rejected the same kind of way as his parents, and yet to some degree, all of us suffer with this. We say, if only I had this, then I would be pleasing. If it would heal the elephant man, what came down on Jesus, because of his substitutionary work,

then when it comes down on you, it will heal you of anything, and you will be free. And until you do that, until you understand that, until you've mastered the word of God, and you've mastered the principles of the gospel, you won't be able to say no to the devil. There he is, the enemy, there he is, the front, there's the weapons. He's the pioneer and perfect of our faith. How should we escape if we neglects the greatest salvation? Let's pray.

Our Father, we've looked at a lot. We've tried to convince some people here, Lord, that don't believe in the devil, but He's here. And we've tried to look at some folks here, I'm sure, who do believe in the devil, that the way in which he confronts us is not in the extraordinary ways, not in fangmarks on the flesh, but through lies and the heart. And we pray that you would help us all see what he's got in us. Everybody in this room, there's some ways in which the devil is coming and saying right

now, you can't be a child of God. There's some way in which the devil is coming and saying, don't look to Jesus as your substitute, but as your example, there's some way in which the devil is coming upon us. And we pray that you would help us to turn them aside the way Jesus did. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people discover the transformative power of Christ's love through this ministry. Just visit gospelonlife.com slash partner to

learn more. That's gospelonlife.com slash partner. This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 in 1997. The sermons and talks you hear on the gospel on life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you