Words of Jesus Podcast - The Man (Jesus) Passed the Temptations Eve Failed

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

In the Garden of Eden, Eve succumbed to the temptation of Satan to be "like god" through the act of disobeying the one commandment they had been given. This temptation occurred on three levels; the lust of the eye (the fruit looked good), the lust of the flesh (the fruit was good for food), and the pride of life (ego) (a tree to be desired to make one wise). Our Savior was tempted in these same areas as He began his ministry in the earth.***The Temptation of Jesus (Part 1)IMMEDIATELY after he had been baptized the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan. After fasting for forty days and nights he was hungry.           Satan came to him, saying:           “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”           Jesus replied:           “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”           Then Satan took him into the holy city and thence to a pinnacle of the temple and said:           “If thou aret the Son of God, sast thyself down; for it is written, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’”           Jesus replied:           “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’” Then Satan took Jesus to the top of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, saying:           “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”           Jesus repulsed Satan with these words:           “Get thee hense, Satan; for it is written, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’”           The temptation overcome, angels came and ministered unto him.***CHAPTER 3 SCRIPTURES (KJV):MATTHEW 4:1-11Then 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 was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made 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.Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus. Hello, I'm Don Harris. I'm excited to share this series, The Words of Jesus, with you. This book includes the story of Jesus, His life, His friends, His ministry, as recorded in the four Gospels. We're going to see how Jesus examines and instructs and corrects and even confounds the people of his day,

all the while loving them. Today we're going into the third chapter, and these scriptures are actually combined from Matthew 4, 1-11, Mark 1, 12-13, and Luke 4, 1-13. The Temptation of Jesus Immediately after he'd been baptized, the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan. After fasting for 40 days and nights, he was hungry. Satan came to him saying

if thou be the son of God command that these stones be made bread. Jesus replied it's written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Stopping here I'd like to cover a few things. One of them is that there's a reason why John is not included in this list of scriptures that I told you this came from. John excludes this event altogether.

John says that when Jesus was baptized he went directly out and called his disciples and went to work in the ministry. The other three, as we call them synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all record this situation. And although there are textual criticism arguments as to who copied who and what book was first and the hypothetical Q document and all those kind of theological first class seminary things, we're going to leave

to another forum. What I would like to take a look at are the actual words in our scriptures and derive from them some facts that perhaps you're not so familiar with. One of them was that this word that says immediately after he'd been baptized the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness. I think it's important that we understand that Jesus required the leadership

of God in his life. Jesus had a very peculiar existence here on the earth. He was not as we've been taught God on two legs walking around on the earth. He decided to empty himself of his power and glory and whatever it was that he enjoyed with the Father while he was in heaven with him. He decided to lay that down or lay that aside.

I don't know. When I say he decided I'm prompted also to say that this was not only a choice but it may very well have been a prerequisite for Jesus to have accomplished what He came to accomplish. To come to the earth as God and suffer temptation just doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

I don't know. The Bible says that God doesn't sin and that he cannot be tempted to sin and that he doesn't tempt any man. The Bible is trying to teach us that all temptation comes from our enemy. And so if it is true that he cannot be tempted to sin, had Jesus the attribute or characteristic or had he not laid down that part of him that makes him the preexistent God God and we use the word

pre-incarnate which means before he came and became flesh for us whatever he had before then was laid aside. Had that not been laid aside I don't know how any human being could take comfort in his temptation. As it is, Jesus having become a little lower than the angels. By the way you do understand you're lower than the angels

right? By him becoming one of us by his becoming one of us, by his becoming one of us and thwarting these temptations, he gives us hope that these kind of things are possible. Modern Christianity seems to spend a whole lot of inordinate time telling us that we're sinful, that we can't help it, you can't keep the commandments, you can't live a day without sin, all have come short of the glory of God, there's none righteous, no not one. They spend a lot of time talking about this. Look, I just want to tell the preachers out there, I got it. I understand.

I'm a sinner. I get it. I get it. But there also comes a time in a person's life, namely at that time when they have decided to become Christian, that they've decided to go God's way and not their way that a lot of these ideas and concepts simply don't apply anymore. One of them is the resistance to temptation. The inability, the Bible calls it, to sin. He that is born

of God doth not commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he's born of God, doth not commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he's born of God. Now that's a pretty strong statement. He goes on to say, don't you realize that that is the way we determine the difference between children of Satan and children of God? That's how we do it. How is what we do it? We determine that if this person is

in sin and they are a sinner and they sin they're a child of the devil. These people over here if they don't sin they're not disobeying God these are children of God. By this, the two are made manifest. You see, so if you want to say you have to sin, you're not speaking according to the scriptures. If you want to say you have to sin every day, you're not speaking according to the scriptures. If you want to say that you have no sin, don't get that mixed up with what I'm telling you before, that just because I don't sin,

I haven't sinned today, I haven't sinned this week, I haven't sinned this month, that does not mean that I am without sin. That is what the scriptures condemn. He that says he's without sin is a liar. You see, I'm not lying. I'm not telling you that I am without sin. What I'm saying is that Christians do not sin every day. They have power over sin. They don't have to. This is why

we're so responsible for our sin, especially as Christians. You know, there was a time when you were a lost man, a lost woman out there, and you were pretty much subject to whatever happened to you. And a certain situation could present itself to you. And in certain situations, certain people, certain things are said, certain things are done. And it sets up this situation where you find yourself in sin. And you hardly even recognize that you're headed that way or that you're in the middle of it. Usually it's toward the end of the sin when the consequences start happening that you realize, oh my goodness, I've done wrong. These kind of things don't happen to Christians.

The Bible teaches that when our ways please the Lord that the wicked one touches Him not. We're not subject to him. We don't have to sin. We don't have to yield to temptation. Somebody says, I've learned how to deal with temptation. Just yield to it and it goes away. Well temptation's not the sin, my friend. Temptation is not the sin. It's when you yield to it. That's when the sin takes place. I know. It was said tongue in cheek and lightheartedly.

But I think that the average Christian out there doesn't even understand what sin is. I think that they think that certain things in their life are sin and they're not. I think there's certain things in their life that are sin and they think they're not. Because think there's certain things in their life that are sin and they think they're not. Because we've just been taught a whole hodgepodge of little doctrines and little ideas and given little examples and stuff, you know, until our brains are

just, they're just so mixed up. We have just relinquished ourselves to our church leadership and we go to them and say, is this wrong? Well, if you're asking anybody, is this wrong? Chances are you're not the least bit spiritually developed. Do you understand that? It's one of the first revelations that occurs to us as we become children of God. And that is certain things that we do

that He does not allow and certain things that we allow that He doesn't. And that the disparity between our lives and His is a constant thing in front of our face. We can hardly live without it. I mean, it's just there. And it got put there when we decided to go His way. I don't want you to mistake this. A sin is a transgression against the law.

A transgression against the law. A transgression against the law. Now we've opened up another bag of worms, if you want to call it that. There are people who believe that there are hundreds of laws. Some people say thousands of laws. Old Testament law, That's Old Testament. Well, you have to understand that just because some rabbi somewhere says something is a law does not make it a law. It's not a law because some man said so. It's a law because God

has said, this is my law. There's only one list of rules, if you want to call them rules, they're guideposts, they're the words from God, and that is the Ten Commandments that he wrote on rock that day. Why did he write ten and not say eleven? Not eleven hundred, but not even 11 or 12, 13, 14, 15. Why didn't he write six?

Why didn't he just write two? Many people are very fond of saying, you know, well, I can't obey the Ten Commandments, but I can obey the two. Friend, you're deceiving yourself if you think you can obey those two. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. Do you really think you do that? Do you really think you obey that law? You don't. I assure you, you don't. Love your neighbor

as yourself. Do you think you obey that law? I assure you, you do not. And I'll tell you something else. Our father knew that we could not obey those two laws. So what did he do? He gave us a gift. He gave us a reprieve. He says, if you'll just keep these 10, I will attribute them to you as if you're keeping these two. That's why we have 10 commandments. If two were enough, they would have been enough. But Jesus said when they said, what's the greatest commandment? And he told him what the greatest commandment was, thou shalt love the heart, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor, the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two, on these two hang all the law. Now that is an important statement that you understand that he knows you can't keep that law. Now look, if he was trying to condemn us, some people have said the only reason he wrote the law was to condemn us, which is a silly thought. Because if he wanted to condemn us,

all he had to do was say, thou shalt walk on water. That would have done it. Now how many of you is saved? Do you see what I mean? It'd been simple to have made a law that was impossible. He didn't make laws that were impossible. He made laws that were possible. And soon as it was discovered that these laws

are an impossibility to keep, which is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. He says, well, I'll tell you what. If you'll honor my name, not have any gods before me, and just keep, what do I need here? Three? Just three little points here. This is what I want you to do. If you do that, I'll attribute this to you. I will impute your righteousness to do. If you do that, I'll attribute this to you. I will impute your righteousness to you.

And as far as loving your neighbor as yourself, look, can you not steal his wallet? Can you not steal his wife? Can you not lie about him in court? And so he starts writing the rest of the Ten Commandments saying, if you'll just do this, I know you can't love him as yourself. I know you can't do that. But you can do this.

Friend, you can keep the law. You can keep the law of God. No, you're going to have trouble keeping the law of the rabbis. You're going to have trouble keeping the laws of the synagogue, keeping the laws of the Jewish faith, keeping the laws of any denomination. Look, you have trouble keeping the laws of your own church. It's true. If you don't show up for church, what happens? You get a visit. If you don't pay your tithes in some denominations, you get a bill! Sometimes these laws are hard to keep.

But I'll tell you what, his are not. You can live without sin. Whoa, what about if you think about it? Where does the scripture say if you think about sin, it's as bad as doing it? Do you know how many arbitrary marriages have taken place because of that silly little rule that thinking about it is just as bad as doing it? Do you realize how many mistakes we make in life because we've been taught that thinking about something is as bad as doing it? Jesus never taught this. He didn't teach this at all. He was

only showing us the blackness of our own hearts. You have to understand that just because you have the will not to kill a man, you need to understand that hating him is not okay. Just because you have the will to not commit adultery and be faithful to your marriage vows does not mean that lust is okay that's all he was trying to teach um and we're going to get into this when we get to the sermon on the mount but we need not think that because we think about things that we're ashamed of that we're guilty of sin. Sin is a transgression against God's law. So here we have laws that are laws that people feel like they can keep them any way they want.

The Sabbath day is such a perfect example of, well, we don't keep the Sabbath when the Lord says to keep it. We keep it when the Pope says to keep it, to tell you the truth. That's where the idea came from, to move it from Saturday to Sunday. There are people who say, what difference does it make as long as you keep it? Well, you know, the Bible says, thou shalt honor thy parents. You're going to honor your father and your mother. You know, let's just say, you know, Joe Blow says, thou shalt honor thy parents. You're going to honor your father and your mother. You know, let's just say Joe Blow says, I don't have parents that are really worth honoring, so what I'm going to do is go down the street. There's a great old couple that lives

down there. I'm going to call him my father and her my mother, and I'm going to honor them. Has he fulfilled the law? Or has he just twisted it in such a way that makes it easy for him to keep? Look, you can keep the law of God. You can keep the law. You have to determine to do it. About 150, I don't know how many years ago it was, but somewhere around 100 years ago,

the American Bible Society decided to take about 14 books out of our Bibles. You realize, those of you who claim to read a King James Bible, chances are you don't even have one. When the King James Bible was first set up in 1611, it contained books that your Bible, that you call a King James, doesn't even have. One of those books is the book of Sirach, and I believe it's the 15th

chapter that makes a very concise statement about keeping the laws of God. It says that you can keep the law if you choose to do so. You know, that is very condemning. That means that if we are violating any one of the Ten Commandments, that we're doing so at our own choice. Do you know what the Bible calls that? It calls that willful sin. Willful sin.

It is your will to do it that way. Do you realize that if it is your will to violate one of the commandments of God, do you know the Bible says that if you do that with the knowledge that I'm trying to bring to you today, if we sin willfully after that we've received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for

of fiery judgment which shall devour the adversary. It's no wonder our church is full of hell dodgers. It's no wonder that there's people out there that go to church because they don't want to go to hell. They're a Christian because they don't want to go to hell. They do certain things and they act certain ways and they speak certain ways and they have added certain things to their life and taken away certain things of their life because they don't want to go to hell. Friend, what a lousy reason to serve God. You know, hell should be the farthest thing from your mind. You know, our reward with God to enter into the kingdom of God and to have His pleasure,

that should be our motivation. But it's not. You know what we're living under? We're living under that certain fearful looking for of fiery judgment, which shall devour the adversaries. That's frightening. But many people live right there. Many Christians live right there many christians live right there

why because they're disobedient and they know they're disobedient now jesus could have committed any sin he chose to commit he could have yielded to temptation on this particular day. He could have, there are people who are shuddering right now thinking, no way, no way could Jesus ever commit sin. Sure he could have. Sure he could have. Or what he accomplished in the earth is of little importance to us whatsoever. Because he has to be able to

conquer sin so that we can in turn conquer it for ourselves. I can think of nothing better, nothing more comforting than the fact that Jesus suffered these temptations and passed them with essentially no more power than I have within myself. Granted, Jesus had memories of living with His Father in glory in His pre-incarnate state. Granted

He has an incredible amount of mental information. I understand all that. But the spiritual power of temptation, the spiritual side of it which is more powerful than anything you can be convinced of mentally or intellectually. He was able to overcome that as a man just like me. That gives me an incredible

amount of hope. I want you to notice that in the garden situation where Satan showed up in front of Eve and said you see see that tree over there? And she said, yeah, it's beautiful. And he says, if you eat that tree wonderful things are going to happen for you. And she believed all this and later on you find the apostles dividing up temptation into only three areas. later on you find the apostles dividing up

temptation into only three areas. She saw that it was good for food, it was a tree to be desired to make one, it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise. So she took of it and ate of it. And the apostle in the New Testament describes that situation as seeing temptation in three categories.

The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. And in these three categories in which Eve was tempted and succumbed to that. Those are vestigial and residual even today. I happen to believe that they are the only three doors through which men can be

tempted because she opened them in the Garden of Eden. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. This is something that Jesus was trying to teach in the Sermon on the Mount when he was saying that if you have lust of the eye and you have lust of the flesh, you need to realize that you're on your way to sinning against God. But the sin is in the committing of those sins. No man hating another man causes his wife to be a widow or his children to be orphans. It's the man who pulls the trigger, who shoots the arrow, who places the poison, or who beats

to death the man that he hates. He's the one that causes children to be orphans and wives to be widows. You see, it's the committing of the sin that's the sin, not the thinking about it. But Jesus was trying to say that here's where you can be careful with this. Sin enters into our life through these three gates, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh,

and the pride of life. It's the only three gates it can enter because those were the ones that he suffered that day. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. All right, join us next time for more words of Jesus right here on this station. We'd like you to be a part of what we're doing in that we're in contact with you. You can email me.

You can find out everything you need to know at thinkredink.com or you can email me at don at thinkredink.com or you can write a paper letter. Think Red Ink, P.O. Box 718. Pytown, New Mexico. And we'll get you a letter, and we'll get in touch. All right.

Until next time, bye-bye. Thank you. ¶¶ you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you