Stones
and Bread
The First Temptation
Deuteronomy 8:1-3; Matthew
4:1-11
Grace
Presbyterian Church
September
22, 2013
Rev.
Dr. Richard E. Miller
Was It Worth the Trouble? As a middle aged man and his wife were
shopping at a kiosk in a mall, a shapely young woman in a short, form-fitting
dress strolled by. The man’s eyes followed her intently. Without looking up
from the item she was examining, his wife asked, “Was it worth the trouble you’re in?”
This little story introduces our theme
for the next three Sundays - Temptation. More specifically, the three
temptations of Jesus.
Temptation is something we encounter
every day of our lives. It could be the temptation to seek revenge, or to be
proud, or gossip, or go off our diet, or be prejudiced, or envious. On and on
the list could go. As a result, it’s easy to agree with Oscar Wilde who once
quipped, “I can resist anything but temptation.”
Some of you older folks here this
morning will remember this song, “You
came, I was alone, I should have known, You were temptation. Your smile, luring
me on, my heart was gone, You were temptation.” [Composer: Nacio Herb Brown; Lyrics:
Arthur Freed, 1933 - in the Public Domain]
Times of Testing If we look at the
Bible, we discover that temptation was and is literally a time of testing. A testing of our priorities. A testing of our
values. A testing of our obedience to God’s commandments. A testing of our
faithfulness to our marriage covenant. A testing of the choices we make. Such
testing is not multiple-choice, but rather True-False. And when we are
unfaithful to commandments and covenants by making the wrong choices, we fail
the test. In other words, we sin.
First of all: Temptations are Very Desirable
Why are temptations so hard to resist? Because temptations are always very
appealing and desirable. If they weren’t desirable we wouldn’t pay any
attention to them.
For instance, when Eve saw “that the tree was good for food, and that
it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one
wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who
was with her, and he ate. [Genesis 3:6] If that fruit had been
worm-infested and foul tasting and would give her no benefit whatsoever, then
Eve would have refused to taste it.
When King David saw the beauty of
Bathsheba, he desired her. There was just one small problem. She was married to
Uriah. Solution? He sent Uriah to the front lines of the war where Uriah was
killed. [2 Samuel 11:2-3] Now if Bathsheba had been ugly, King David would not
have wanted her and her husband, Uriah, would have lived to old age. Both Eve
and David would agree with John Piper who said: "The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me
happier."
The Three Temptations of Christ
This morning and over the following two Sundays we are going to look at the
three temptations and times of testing that Jesus faced during the forty days
he was alone in the wilderness. All three of them took place right after Jesus
had been baptized by John in the River Jordan. As he emerged from the cool,
flowing water to begin his public ministry, God said “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)
Immediately following this divine pronouncement, Jesus was led by the Spirit
into a barren and foreboding wilderness where he fasted for forty days and
forty nights.
The First Temptation It was while he
was alone and very hungry that his struggle with the Tempter took place. The
first salvo of that struggle was fired by the Tempter when he said to Jesus, “If you are the son of God, command these
stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:3) Notice the ways the
Tempter tries to snare Jesus.
I Dare You
First he dares Jesus, “IF you are the son of God, change these stones to
bread.” In other words, prove to me and to the world that you are the God’s son
by changing these stones to bread. This wouldn’t be the last time Jesus was
dared to prove his sonship. While hanging on the Cross, the crowd cried out, “If you are the son of God, come down from
the cross.” [Matthew 27:41]
Being dared to do something arouses an
emotion within us that is hard to resist. How many times when we were young did
we rise to the taunt of the dare. “I
dare you. I double-dare you.” And the worst of all, “I double-dog dare you!”
Responding to dares cause us to say or
do many irrational and hurtful things. “I dare you to steal something from the
store.” “I dare you to chug-a-lug this bottle of wine.” “I dare you to go 100
miles per hour.” Jesus was dared to change stones into bread. But he didn’t
rise to the the bait.
Hunger
Secondly, the Tempter knew that Jesus was weak and hungry from fasting
for forty days. Thus the thought of turning stones into warm, fragrant loaves
of bread had to be very tantalizing. Even the stones that littered the ground
around him were little round pieces of limestone rock, shaped exactly like
little loaves.
As we all know, hunger can be a
tremendous, compelling force in our lives. It was hunger that caused Esau to
sell his birthright to Jacob (Genesis 25:29f). Hunger caused the Israelites to
wish they were slaves again in order to get food to eat (Exodus 16:23). The
prodigal son returned home because he was hungry. And Jesus fed the crowd fish
and bread because they were hungry. Jesus said, "I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for
three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry,
for they might faint on the way." [Matthew 15:32]
As we know, people will panic if they
cannot, or think they may not, get food. Some years ago there was a strike by
drivers of bread trucks. People stormed grocery stores and super markets and
bought every last bit of bread, buns and rolls they could find. Fyodor
Dostoevski paraphrased the Tempter’s thoughts in this way: “See these stones in this parched and barren
wilderness? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like a flock of
sheep, grateful and obedient, though forever trembling lest you withdraw your
hand and deny them your bread.” [The Brothers Karamozov, 1881, p. 7]
Even today, there are countries whose citizens obey their dictatorial leader
out of fear they will be denied the necessities of life.
Yes, Jesus was being challenged to
prove who he was by satisfying his own personal hunger.
Why Not?
Now what harm would
it have done, just this once, for him to change a few stones to bread? After
all, he was hungry, and he needed every ounce of strength he could muster in
his struggle with the Tempter. More importantly, by flexing his divine muscle, he’d
show that Tempter a thing or two! And besides, who’s going to know? There were no people around to watch. No
reporters or television cameras present.
Nobody would get hurt if he did it, would they? It would be a victimless
crime so to speak. Questions such as these are typical of the ways in which we
rationalize in giving into temptations. We try to find reasons why it is
alright to say or do something we know is wrong.
Response
Yet Jesus’ response to the Tempter was simple and direct: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” [Matthew 4:4]. These same
words are found in our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy. Jesus often used
the power of Holy Scripture against all temptation.
Priorities
Even in this time of testing, as hungry as he was, Jesus could resist
the words of the Tempter simply because he had his priorities clearly in focus.
His mission was to bring to the world something even more important than
physical bread - the living, spiritual bread of eternal life. Later on in his
ministry, after the feeding of the 5,000, the crowd said to Jesus, “Our ancestors ate the manna in the
wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses
who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true
bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world." They
said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them,
"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” [John 6:31-35]
Important to Refuse It was vital that
Jesus refuse the dare of the Tempter. For if Jesus gave in on such a little
thing as stones being turned into bread, the Tempter would have tried to take
over other aspects of Jesus’ life.
It has been said “If you’re driving down the road and you see Satin standing by the road
trying to catch a ride, don’t you dare stop the car, don’t you dare open the
door, don’t you dare let him in, cause it won’t be long until he’ll want to
drive.” This is the way the Tempter
functions. He starts out by testing us with small, seemingly insignificant and
harmless things, such as little white lies or lighting up that first cigarette.
Then, step by step, we slide down the slippery slope. Lies turn into betrayals
and one cigarette turns into an addiction.
Broken Covenant with God If Jesus had done what the Tempter had
suggested, he would have broken his covenant with God. He would have been
glorifying himself instead of glorifying God. He would have been satisfying his
own personal pride, ego and physical hunger and nothing else. But he remained
steadfast in his refusal to accept the dare. This prompted the writer of
Hebrews to say, Jesus “has been tempted
in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin.” [Hebrews 4:15]
Being Tested is not a Sin
We must remember that being tempted and tested is not a sin. We can’t avoid temptations. They’re all
around us. However, acting upon them is a sin. One way of putting it is “Temptation is the tempter looking through
the keyhole into the room where you are living; sin is your drawing back the
bolt and allowing him to enter.” And we have become quite good at drawing
back the bolt. Paul put it very bluntly: “all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23]
Final Thoughts This morning, we’ve seen that Jesus was
tempted, tested, and triumphed. He triumphed because he knew that no one can
live by focusing upon bread and material things to the exclusion of God’s Word,
the Bread of Heaven. Knowing scripture as he did, Jesus was able to reject the
idea of putting his physical hunger above God’s will. We, too, are put to the test
every day. It is very likely that some of you are facing times of testing and
temptation at this very moment. If they are small and seemingly harmless
decisions, it is imperative for you to turn from them at once. If you are in
the grips of more serious temptations, the struggle will be harder, but you can
be successful. The good news is that with the power of the Holy Spirit, with
the encouragement of friends, and being armed with Holy Scripture and prayer,
you can triumph and win the battle. Go forth this morning with the assurance
that God can and will turn your life around so that your future can be filled
with joy. And by the way, don’t forget, “When
we flee from temptation, it is important not to leave a forwarding address.”
Amen.
Deuteronomy 8:1-3 NRSV
This entire commandment that I command you today you
must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and
occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember the
long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the
wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart,
whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you
hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your
ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Matthew 4:1-11
NRSV
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and
afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the
Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered,
‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God.” ’ Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed
him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning
you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your
foot against a stone.” ’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is 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; and he said to
him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus
said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your
God, and serve only him.” ’ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came
and waited on him.
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