Luke
By Joyce Webb 2019
Chapter 4 Vs. 1-4
Jesus has just been baptized in the river Jordon —by John the Baptist.
As Jesus came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, and God the Father’s voice spoke from heaven.
Verse 1 Jesus —being full of the Spirit—-is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. A wilderness is fields of land, nothing much out there, wild animals, a few trees, a few bushes, tall grasses–rivers.
Verses 2 Jesus was in this wilderness land for 40 days. He ate nothing. Drank water from small rivers.
All this time, the devil (Satan) was tempting Jesus to sin and do wrong.
The Bible tells of 3 of the big temptations that the devil put before Jesus.
Verse 2 The devil said: “If you are the Son of God—make these stones turn into bread.”
Jesus has not eaten anything for 40 days and he is very hungry.
It would be easy for Jesus to turn stones into bread.
Jesus was not going to try to “prove” anything to the devil.
Jesus knew he was God’s Son—and the devil knew he was God’s Son— doing what the devil wanted him to do—-would not “prove” anything.
The devil was trying to get Jesus’ human pride to prove who he was.
The devil was trying to get Jesus to give in to the needs of his body and hunger.
Jesus did not need to “prove” who he was. Jesus was not going to give in to his body’s need for food to please the devil.
Jesus said to the devil—the scripture says that man does not live by bread alone—but we live by every word of God.
This means that feeding our body’s hunger—-is not as important as obeying every word of God.
Jesus was talking about Moses’ words to the people —-Deuteronomy 8:3—-Moses reminds the people that when they were walking around in the wilderness for 40 years—the Lord let them be hungry—-to test them—to see if they would trust God and obey Him.
The reason they were in the wilderness for 40 years—is because—they were not willing to trust God and believe he would help them fight against the giants that they saw in Canaan.
Because they would not go in and take the land with God’s help—they were afraid—-then God said—you will not go in—you will stay in the wilderness for 40 years. When all the older people have died off, —then I will lead the younger ones into Canaan.
During all these years of living in the wilderness—they were often hungry. So God began giving them food. It came down like dew on the ground. It was small and white and like a large seed—the people called it “manna”.
They were given rules about it. They were to gather only as much as they would eat that day, because if they kept it until the next day—it would get worms in it.
So every day—they depended on God to give them their food for that day.
On Friday, they were to gather enough for Friday and Saturday.
Saturday was the 7th day and their holy day of rest.
They were not to work on the 7th day.
Some people did not obey, and they did not gather extra on Friday and they went out on Saturday to gather manna—but there was no manna on the ground that day.
The people had to learn to trust God for their food—for every day.
They had to obey what God said, or they would not have something to eat on Saturday.
So Moses told them, you do not live by “bread alone”—you live because you have learned to obey and trust God to give you food to live.
So, Jesus is telling this to Satan. Jesus is in the wilderness for a test of his faithful obedience to God.
If he thinks his stomach is more important than obeying God—he will have failed the test.