I want to use the temptation of Jesus to bring this together; so in Matthew 3:16-17, then it goes straight into Matthew 4. It says this: “As soon as Jesus was baptised, 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 alighting on Him. A voice said from heaven: this is My Son whom I love, with whom I'm well pleased”. So you have this huge fireworks show at Jesus' baptism.
If you're a dad, and you made this big of a deal at your son's baptism, the church people would just go nuts. “What - do you think he's that special?” I mean there's lightning, thunder and birds - all kinds of things happening. “This is My Son whom I love, with whom I'm well pleased”.
Next sentence: Then, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil - which is kind of an odd sequence of events, isn't it? “This is My Son, I love Him, I'm so proud of Him. Now come on, you’ve got to be tempted by the devil”.
You can see why, in two chapters, when He's teaching His disciples to pray, He says: and when you pray, part of what you say is: please lead me not into temptation - lead me not into temptation. Why? Because Jesus was led into temptation - and it just is hard work.
After fasting 40 days and 40 nights He was hungry, and the tempter came to Him and said: “If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread”; and Jesus answered: “it is written: man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”.
Then the devil took Him to the holy city, and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. He said: “if You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: He'll command His angels concerning You, and they'll lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your foot against the stone”. And Jesus answered him: “it is also written, don't put the Lord your God to the test”.
And again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of this world and their splendor. “All this, I'll give to you, if you'll bow down and worship me”. “Away from me Satan! For it is written: worship the Lord your God and serve Him only”. Then the devil left Him, and the angels came and attended Him.
This is such an odd passage of scripture; and the truth is, the first time I ever read this, with the exception of the last temptation, I couldn't figure out why the first two were sin. The last temptation was: worship Satan - that one's obvious okay.
The first two temptations: “turn stones into bread” - what's wrong with that? Who gave Jesus the power to turn stones into bread? God did. Has Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights? Yes. Was He hungry? Yes. Would God want Him to be hungry? No. Would God be okay with Jesus using power He gave Him to meet a legitimate need? You'd think.
The second temptation was: “throw yourself off the mountain, and believe angels to catch you”. Odd yes; but sin? I realised that none of us will be tempted like this - none of us. You will never, within reason, be tempted to turn stones into bread. You'll just go down to New World, and buy you some bread!
You'll never be tempted to throw yourself off of a mountain. Imagine that: “hey, got an idea - throw yourself off a mountain, and believe God to see if He'll catch you”! Probably won't happen. Most of us won't be tempted to worship Satan - most of us. That kind of, is just too obvious.
So in a way, none of us will be tempted like this; but in another way, every one of us will be tempted like this. Turn stones into bread - every one of us are tempted daily, to meet legitimate needs, in illegitimate ways. It's a huge one: meet legitimate needs - in illegitimate ways. Your needs are legitimate; but you have an illegitimate way for you to meet it.
All of us, particularly people who call themselves ‘faith people’, there's a fine line between faith and stupidity; and so particularly ‘faith people’ were tempted to presume upon God's power. We just presume upon it. Throw yourself off that mountain, and believe God to catch you!