Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Three)
Matthew 3:13 - 4:23
#BS-MA03
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 29-Jul-81; 78 minutes
description: Jesus was baptized, not because He had committed any sin, but in order to fulfill God's commandments of righteousness. Baptism is used symbolically to represent one's total commitment. When Jesus was baptized, He was demonstrating His total commitment to what was laid out before Him. Jesus had to overcome, defeat, displace and disqualify Satan as ruler as part of His commission as Head of the body. As we are joined to the Body, it is part of our commission also. We also wrestle with spiritual wickedness in high places. We are in a war with an enemy we can't feel, see, or touch, an enemy who is trying to take control of our thinking processes. In order to win the battle with Satan, we must counter his deceptive arguments, not with human reasoning, but with the knowledge of God. Satan broadcasts attitudes into our minds, tilting them in certain directions. God uses Satan as an instrument to test for weaknesses, enabling us to be strengthened. In our struggle with Satan, we are admonished to be sober, exercising control over our minds. If a person is under the influence of the world, he is not able to resist Satan. Familiarity and usage of God's word along with yielding to Him and drawing close to Him will help us resist Satan. Jesus resisted Satan with the knowledge of God, resisting appeals to vanity, using power selfishly resisting to lust of the flesh, eyes, and pride of life.
transcript:
We left off last time in Matthew the third chapter. Now the main subject in the third chapter—at least as far as history is concerned—is the preaching of John the Baptist and the introduction or announcement of Jesus Christ just prior to the beginning of His ministry of preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Spiritually, without a doubt, the big subject is repentance. We went through that, I think at least reasonably thoroughly the last time, but the essence of repentance is such a thorough change of mind that it produces a change in one's life.
If you can just hang on to that, I think that you will understand repentance about as well as anything. It involves such a change of mind, such a change of attitude, such a change of inclination, that it produces a change in a person's life.
We went briefly through the baptisms that are mentioned; but I want to get to chapter 3, verse 13 in the baptism of Jesus Christ and mention just a couple of things here very briefly. He was immersed in water, I do not think that there is any doubt of that. In verse 16, it says that when He was baptized, He went up straight out of the water. That certainly sounds to me as though He was covered by the water in order to come straight up out of the water.
There is a question in some people's minds, I do not think there is much of a question in your mind, but some question as to why He was baptized. Now, when we are baptized, we are baptized for the remission of sins. But He never committed any sin, so why get baptized? He was in no need of any forgiveness at all, but He did get baptized according to His own testimony here, when John refused at first to baptize Him and He said in verse 15,
Matthew 3:15 But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed Him.
Now righteousness according to Psalm 119:172 is keeping the commandments of God. So I think that we do have a tendency to lump commandments into the Ten Commandments and fail to realize that all of God's commandments are righteousness, whether it is the command to repent, or whether it is the command to be baptized, it is righteousness to do so because God commands it.
Well, Jesus was going to fulfill all righteousness. He was going to do everything that was going to be required of His people. He was going to set an example as the Captain of our salvation and therefore He fulfilled even that portion of it and got baptized when He did not actually have to do so. Maybe it is part of the principle of going the extra mile of doing more than is required, but He did do it nonetheless. It served a second purpose that I think is important to us, and that is that baptism is used in a figurative sense in the Bible as a means of conveying one's total commitment.
Remember back in Matthew 20 when James and John, along with their mother, came to Jesus asking that they be allowed to sit on one on His right hand and one on His left:
Matthew 20:21-22 And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him, "Grant that these sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom." But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" They said to Him, "We are able."
I do not think that they understood what they were saying. I am sure they did not. I think that it is good that when we get baptized, in a way we do not realize what we are doing either. I think if we did, there would be a lot fewer baptisms. We understand at least the overview. We understand that we are committing our lives to God, committing them in submission to His government, to His law. But I will tell you, we do not realize when we get baptized the detail and the degree to which God is going to bring us in this commitment.
Every thought, He says in II Corinthians 10:5, is to be brought into obedience to Him, and if every thought, then every action and every attitude. I will tell you, that is quite a commitment. And I do not believe that we really understand that most of the time when we get baptized. It would be good if we did, but we do not. Baptism symbolizes a total commitment.
Now, Jesus was just about ready to begin His ministry. And so the baptism here was a good way to demonstrate to these people, who were witness of it, that He was totally committing Himself to the job that was set before Him at this time. And that was going to be the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And really, when any of us get baptized, this ought to be our thought: that we are committing the totality of our life for whatever God wants to do to it—with it, through it, in it, or whatever—and that we are totally committed to it. And we are demonstrating it by burying ourselves in that responsibility.
Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
It says here that He was led. It says in Mark that He was driven into the wilderness. So take your pick. At any rate, it makes me wonder about something. I think there is no doubt that Jesus from His study of the Old Testament scriptures, knew a great deal about what was going to be required of Him. What He would have to do would be to study very thoroughly and very prayerfully, all the prophecies that involve His life and the things that He would do. Yet, in most cases, there is no detail, there is only the skeletal framework of what His responsibilities are going to be.
A good example of that is in Isaiah 53 which prophesized of His death. It does not go into much detail. It only says that He was going to bear the sins of all of us and that He was going to spill out His blood on the ground. In Psalm 22, it gives a little bit more detail in regard to some of the things that He was going to go through. But still, even putting both of those together, there is not a lot of real intimate detail of the particulars that He was going to have to go through.
Now, I wonder if there is any place that you know of in the Old Testament where it said that He was going to have to face Satan the Devil in an all-out war? Well, I do not know, there might be some place, but I do not know. That is why it makes me wonder about that word in Mark where it says that the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. Matthew and Luke both use the word led and it kind of softens it, but He was apparently led of God directly from His baptism out into a place where there was going to take place the greatest battle that has ever been fought on the face of this earth. No doubt, I feel that God had things in mind that had to be accomplished. One of these, of course, was that He was going to have to overcome Satan in order to qualify to be the ruler. That is the subject material of the first part of chapter 4, this great battle that took place.
Jesus is described back in the book of Ephesians as being the Head of the church. In that particular section Paul is using an analogy of a human body. That Jesus is the Head and therefore He is the part that does the thinking. He gives the guidance and the direction and He makes the plan. It is from Him that all other parts of the body respond. And so as the Head, He had to overcome and defeat Satan the Devil.
Now Mr. Armstrong has in the past made the statement (and I know that I have made the statement to you too), that as a part of that Body, and because we are going to be a part of the first resurrection, that even as the Head of the Body, the rest of the Body also has to overcome Satan in much the same manner.
Ephesians 6:11-13 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Now, there is no battle taking place between God and Satan. That has already been decided in the past when Satan challenged God, mounted up an attack against His throne (as Isaiah 14 described), and was cast down to the earth, defeated. Satan made one more attempt or maybe he is in the process of making it, the one that is described in Revelation 12. But again, the outcome is already determined. It is a foregone conclusion that he is going to lose. But there is a war that is going on constantly between you and me and wicked spirits that are directed by Satan the Devil, and this is where most of our spiritual battle takes place.
How often are we confronted by him? I do not know. How often we are influenced by him I feel sure is far greater than the number of times that we are actually directly confronted. But nonetheless, the fact remains that the Bible shows very clearly that we are in a war. We are in a war against an enemy that we cannot see. We cannot feel him, we cannot touch him, and we cannot hear him. But it is a war that we know is going on by faith because God's Word says it.
The war is going on in your mind and is for control of you, for control of the members of your body, for the control of your attitude, for the control of your mind and thinking processes. Paul says,
II Corinthians 10:3-4 For though we walk in the flesh [that is, we live in the flesh], we do not war according to the flesh. [Our warfare is spiritual. It is a battle that is taking place in our minds.] For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal [the word is carnal, but it means physical] but mighty in God to the pulling down strongholds . . .
That word stronghold, I am almost sure implies a fortress, a citadel of strength. And that citadel of strength is Satan the Devil, the spiritual wickedness that is in high places.
II Corinthians 10:5 . . . casting down arguments [or as the margin says, reasoning] and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
You can see where Paul is saying that the war is taking place, it is taking place in your mind. Satan and all his minions are striving to influence you to make decisions, and they are influencing our mind. What Paul is saying here is that in order to overcome Satan the Devil, we have to cast down and destroy arguments that he puts into our mind. Arguments that run counter to the knowledge of God, or we might say the knowledge that is revealed in this Book of God's righteousness.
Let us go to another place here in Matthew the 16th chapter. There is a very vivid example of one of your brethren and what happened to him. Notice how these factors are brought into play, the factors that we just read of in II Corinthians 10 and also Ephesians 6. This took place right after Jesus said, "I will build My church".
Matthew 16:21-23 From that time began Jesus to show to His disciples [He was showing them the knowledge of God. He was revealing to them the interpretation of Old Testament Scripture.] that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. [Now Peter was reasoning. He was using carnal reason.] Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" [Peter exalted himself against the knowledge of God.] But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!"
Now what Jesus did was rebuke the source of it because He knew where the inspiration for those words came from.
Matthew 16:23 "You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."
"Of men" is that carnality that Paul is talking about in II Corinthians 10:5, that is, human reason. There in a nutshell is an explanation of the field of battle and where it is going to take place and how the attack is going to be made. You see, the field of battle is your mind. The attack is going to be against the knowledge of God and the purpose of it is to get you to disobey. It is that simple: submit to Satan and to his reasoning, which is carnal, and resist the spiritual reason, which would be the argument from God's Word as to what you really should do.
Mr. Armstrong has shown us how Satan will broadcast an attitude. The reason he does that is really very clear. An attitude is an inclination of mind. It literally means a leaning, an inclination. If you have ever listened to those broadcasts of those men we shot out into space, every once in a while Houston control would say, "What's your attitude?" And they would tell them from the spaceship what the pitch of the ship was and the answer would come back. They would say so many degrees, they would say like 15° to whatever. And they have to do that every once in a while to check their instruments because there is no horizon to check it against up there. So they have an artificial horizon and what they were asking them was: what is the inclination of their spaceship? Which way is it leaning? Now, in terms of your mind, an attitude is an inclination. It is the way that your mind is programmed to go. You see, it will tilt in a certain direction.
We all have certain prejudices about things. Some of us have very quick tempers or very quick tongues, we get angry and heated up very quickly. Some of us, on the other hand, may not tend to get that way, but we might get frustrated or get depressed or discouraged very easily. Well, that is the very way that Satan is going to hit you, because if he can get you that way, he is more likely to be able to bend you to his will. If he can get you in that position, leaning in that direction, that is, negative, away from God, then he is more likely to be able to get you going in the direction that he wants you to go in and it makes his job much easier.
It says back in Matthew 4:1 that Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Now, the word tempted here in English has a uniformly bad meaning. In English, it means to entice a person to do wrong, to seduce. But in the Greek, it does not mean that at all. It simply means to test for the purpose of evaluating. To test as in a laboratory one would test metal to see what kind of properties it had within it. Or to test in the sense of the way you would a used car that you are thinking of buying. You know, you go around and kick the tires and gun the engine and do certain things to test it out. Well, that is what God was doing here with Jesus. He was using Satan the Devil as an instrument to make the test. So He was testing Him to evaluate certain properties that were in Him.
So whenever God gives you a test, since Jesus Christ is the example for us, if He gives you a test or allows one to come upon you, its purpose is never to seduce you to sin. It is never to entice you at all. It says very plainly back in James the first chapter that God tempts no man. And there the word tempt is used in the sense of enticing. God never entices somebody to sin or seduces anybody to go in that direction. Rather the kind of test that God either brings upon a person or allows to come upon a person is put there or produced to enable us to conquer sin. So actually, a test is not a penalty at all, but it ought to be looked upon as something that is to our glory. That God should think that we are even strong enough to resist this thing and then it is going to be used for the purpose of building and of strengthening so that we can be used to a greater extent.
It says that Jesus was driven into the wilderness or He was led into the wilderness. The word here is Jeshimon which is translated wilderness and it is that area that is east and a little bit south of Jerusalem. If you can just picture a map of Palestine, Jerusalem sits on a low mountain ridge of about 2,200-2,400 feet high that runs up the center of Palestine. Looking up from the South, Jeshimon would be that area between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Sometimes the area is called Engedi in the Bible. But it is that area that apparently was devastated by the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and those two other towns that were destroyed at the same time.
I have seen pictures taken fairly recently (within the last 15 or 20 years) and it is a land that looks like it has been devastated by a volcano. It almost looks like molten lava came shooting up out of the ground and then thrown and solidified very quickly. There is real crazy, twisted, and warped shapes to all the rock. But it was into this area that Jesus was driven. Nobody lives there, it is too desolate. There is no soil. It is an empty waste, a devastation.
It is also the area that David spent some time in when he was fleeing from Saul. Perhaps the last time you might have heard of it to any extent was regarding Bishop Pike. Bishop Pike was the bishop from San Francisco I believe it was; he was an Episcopal Bishop. And he went out to Jeshimon and he died out there. I believe when they did find his body, it was all blackened and burned from the sun because it is scorchingly hot out there.
So, can you imagine fasting for 40 days and 40 nights in an area where the temperature routinely gets up to 110 and 120 degrees? You know how hard it is to fast without any water, even in an air conditioned house, let alone to be out on the desert in a desolate wilderness like that. He would not have any trouble being alone because nobody went out there unless they had to go out there. But at any rate, He went out there for that test. I want you to look at another scripture, just hold your finger there and go to Luke 4:13. In Luke's account of the same occasion, verse 13 is after the testing was over:
Luke 4:13 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.
Do not ever get the idea that this was the end of Jesus' temptation by Satan. But it is, I think without a doubt, their most important encounter. I feel that first of all, the result of it was that Jesus proved both to God and to Himself that Satan was not going to rule this earth. And that any temptation that Satan would put to Him could be overcome. To me that would be very confident building to feel that no matter what Satan would throw at Him, He could overcome. Now, we still have to continue to face it in this warfare that we are going through.
I Peter 5:6-9 Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Now notice that advice: be sober. Many times this instruction will come from God to be sober, that is, to have control of your faculties, especially of course, your mind. He uses the obverse side of the coin in other places when He talks about the condition of the people in the world, that they are drunk with the wine of the wrath of the whore's fornication. Now, those people are not prepared to withstand Satan because they are drunk.
All you have to do is begin to think about a drunk person's mind and you begin to get an understanding of what God means about being sober. A drunken person is not in control of himself. He thinks he has everything under control. But to everybody who is sober, he is silly, he is staggering around. He is dangerous in the condition that he is in. He is making silly statements, blurring his tongue, swinging from the chandelier, dangerous on the highway. You get the idea. But you see, the key thing is what the alcohol does to the mind. It deludes the drunk into thinking that he has actually better control than he does. If a person is under the influence of the world, he is not going to be prepared to resist Satan. If a person is thinking carnally, he will not be prepared to resist Satan, if he is thinking like a human being thinks, like Satan thinks.
A person who is under the influence of alcohol cannot possibly be vigilant. So it is only going to be a person who is making use of the Word of God on a daily basis, who is in contact with God, who is praying to God daily, who is studying His Word, who is going to have his mind filled with God's words, that is going to be able to be prepared. I also should add here: making use of God's words in his thinking processes which are going to be able to resist Satan.
Turn to James the 4th chapter, verses 7 and 8 where James says basically the same thing:
James 4:7-8 Therefore submit to God [That is, he is saying, obey Him, yield to Him]. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Now there in a nutshell, along with what it says in I Peter, is why we have so much trouble with Satan and why we are led into sin. It is that we are not submitting to God as we should, we are not drawing near to God, we are not purifying our hearts. We are double-minded. Maybe that last one is the most important. Double-mindedness is going to become very important in the battle that Jesus has with Satan the Devil. It is, in one sense, the key to His success against Satan. Jesus was totally committed to God in every way. There was not one iota of disloyalty in Jesus Christ.
Back to Matthew the fourth chapter. Those verses also show us that Satan is to be respected, but he is not to be held in terror of. Because if we resist him, he will leave us.
Matthew 4:2-4 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
You can see there that immediately Jesus came back with the knowledge of God. Satan exalted himself against the knowledge of God, he twisted the scripture.
Matthew 4:5-10 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things will I give you if You will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.'"
We all know that fasting can be used as a spiritual tool to draw us close to God. To humble us, that is what James said. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Draw near to Him. That is what Jesus was doing here. He was drawing near to God for 40 days and 40 nights, especially near to Him. And that is, whenever Satan made his attack, Jesus was at the very peak of His spiritual strength, at least up to that time. There was no doubt that He was at the peak of His strength.
I want you to think about these tests, because there is a lesson in these tests that we have a tendency to overlook. How do you think that Satan is going to attack you? Is he going to attack you in your weaknesses? It is plausible that he could attack in your weaknesses. But he did not attack Jesus in His weakness. He attacked Him in His very strength. He did not wait until Jesus was weak. Spiritually, Jesus was not weak at all. Maybe in Satan's carnal reasoning Jesus was weak because He was hungry, but He was not weak.
Think about these tests. Would it be a test if Satan came to you and said, "I want you to turn those stones into bread" or "I want you to jump off the roof of this building." That would not be a test for you, would it? It would not be a test because you would say, that is stupid, buddy. I cannot make bread out of stone. I cannot jump off the roof of this building, I will break my neck. What I am saying is that Satan actually attacked Jesus in areas of strength, not weakness. He attacked Jesus in areas where he knew Jesus had the power to do what he was going to ask Him to do.
You know, there is a scripture back in I Corinthians 10:12, it says, "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Now, Satan is really tricky. He is so tricky that he attacked Jesus in an area where he knew that Jesus could fulfill what he was going to ask Him to do. It would have been no problem at all. We are going to see just a little bit later in the chronology of events that Jesus had already done at least one major miracle by this time. That was the one of turning the water into wine. If Jesus could turn water into wine, He could certainly turn stones into bread.
What I am saying is that these tests were designed to be used against somebody who has the power to do what is being asked. Do you think that it is impossible that Satan would attack you in your strengths rather than your weaknesses? That is where you tend to let down, in the areas where you think you stand. If you know that you have a weakness, like jumping off buildings, you would never do it. Something like that would be so obvious that you would resist it, but if he tempts you in an area that you have a tendency to be strong in, then he can kill two birds with one stone. He can prove that you have not overcome him yet. And he will also break your back, in terms of confidence, by breaking you in an area where you thought you had strength.
In each one of these tests, there was first of all an appeal to vanity for Jesus to elevate Himself and also there was an appeal for Him to use His powers selfishly. Turn with me back to I John 2. All sin falls in these general categories that are listed here by John in I John 2. And so do the temptations that Jesus went through.
I John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
There is wisdom there. What is it that that grabs your attention? What is it that gets you thinking? What is it that you are driving towards in your life? Who is it that you are trying to please? Is it the world? I am not talking about the normal things of having to work for a living. Rather, I am talking about the emphasis in your life. Because if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
I John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
All those things are going to pass away and they will produce nothing; they are vanity.
Back to Matthew 4. In the first test, there was the temptation of satisfying His hunger, so there is the lust of the flesh. The temptation could have been in other areas. It could have been a sexual temptation which would still be lust of the flesh, that is, to satisfy one of His sensual desires.
In the second test, the temptation was made to receive public acclaim. Can you imagine anybody jumping off a pinnacle of the Temple which is 10 or 12 floors off the ground? The acclaim that He would get when He hit bottom and nothing happened? He just landed very nicely on His feet. That is the acclaim, stardom, the lust of the eye. Then finally to have power, having all the kingdoms of the world would be the pride of life.
How would you do it? If you were in Jesus' position and you had the opportunity, the freedom, the liberty from God to decide how you were going to do the work of God. How would you attract a following? What ploys would you use? How would you do it?
Mr. Armstrong has stated in regards to the doing of this work, there might have been a dozen different ways that it could have been done. He feels that God gave Mr. Armstrong and also led him somewhat to use the means that he did. Through the Plain Truth magazine, by using radio and television, by using the Good News magazine, all the booklets and articles, Ambassador College, and all the other facilities that have began and been maintained through the means that Mr. Armstrong has done.
Remember, Jesus was going to preach. He needed to attract a certain amount of attention so the people would listen to Him. He was going to gather a group of disciples around Him that were going to be the beginning of the church. Let us suppose that He decided that He would give people bread, that He would satisfy their hunger. He could have done it; He proved that later on whenever He fed the 5,000 and then it seems shortly after that, He fed the 4,000 people. When He did that, huge droves of people followed Him, so many that He had to get out of the area. These types of acts are guaranteed to get a man a great following.
This is incidentally the direction by which many, we will just call them socialist oriented—welfare oriented—governments or political parties have attempted to go in. This is one of the major reasons that Rome fell: bread and circuses, keep the people entertained, give them the food that they need, have a big welfare system, and that will keep them happy and that will keep them behind the ruler. It was guaranteed to gain a great following. Jesus could have done that, but is it right?
Really all this amounts to is nothing more than a bribe. Not only that, but the people would not be following Him for what they could give to Him, they would only be following Him for what they could get. And Jesus ran into that. When He fed the 5,000, He then went across the Sea of Galilee and was in a different area, and when He confronted some people He says, "Why are you following Me? It's because of the food that I gave you." They were after food and that is the way it is with politicians. They can get a big following if they give the people what they want.
Jesus—God—can heal us any time He wants to. He has the power to do it. There is a danger even in healing us, that we will take it wrong the wrong way. If you give a person what they need all the time, are you really addressing cause and effect? In fact, no, you are not. All you are dealing with is the fact you are not dealing with the causes. Why are people hungry? Well, in the larger sense, the reason people are hungry and need food is because of sin. In individual cases, it may be because of foolishness. It may be because of laziness. It may be because of selfishness. It may be because of carelessness. And as long as a person is just getting what they want through a welfare system, it never solves the problem.
So for Jesus to get a following, that would be let us just call them true blue—those who would really be behind Him and with Him and would be being prepared for the Kingdom of God—Jesus could not supply them anything that could in any way be construed as a bribe. That would not work.
Now, what about the second test? If Jesus had jumped off a pinnacle of the Temple in full view of a lot of people and hit the ground in just as good a shape as He left the pinnacle, with no broken bones and did not even break out in a sweat, that would be a fantastic sensational thing that would draw people from all over the place.
What would be the end result of doing something like that? God gives us an excellent example of it in the Old Testament. Do you know what would happen? What do you think would happen if Jesus did something like that? They would want another trick and then another one and then another one and it would be just like that old program that used to be on radio, "Can You Top This?" Can you remember that program that used to be on radio where one guy would tell a joke and they would get a laugh and they measured it on the laugh meter and then another guy would tell a joke on the same subject and they would gauge his laugh. And each guy tried to tell a joke that would get a bigger response from the audience. That is the way it is when a person attains stardom through sensationalism. How fleeting is fame?
Now, the example in the Old Testament is God with Israel. God split the Red Sea. God provided the manna. God kept their shoes from wearing out. God caused water to come out of the rocks. God fought their battles for them on occasions and on and on, but it was never enough. It did not convert anybody. You see? So Jesus would not have had a following that would have been with Him; He would have had a following that would have been demanding greater and greater sensationalism. Solomon says that the eye is never filled with seeing or the ear with hearing. That is the way we are.
What about the third method, the method of using power? Well, there is one more thing on this. I think that it is important because Jesus' own answer was, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. We are not to see how far we can go with God. We should not put ourselves into threatening, needless, reckless situations. It is all right to take risks in order to be true to God, but not to enhance your prestige. And that is what Jesus would have been doing. It is okay to take risks with your life and limb in order to be true to God, but not to enhance your own reputation.
One more factor here is that if He gathered a group of people about Him that were dependent on signs and wonders, that would not be faith, because actually what it is, is any time a person is dependent upon miracles, even in the case, let us say, of healing, that is not faith. That is doubt looking for reassurance. It is just the opposite. It is not faith at all. It is doubt. If a person needs a miracle to convince him, you know, seeing somebody get healed, that is not faith. That is doubt.
The third test. What Satan was saying here was to compromise. You know, serve me and compromise with evil. I will tell you, you can never defeat evil by compromising with it. That would work counterproductive to Jesus' whole purpose. So that would never work. Jesus' purpose was to not stoop to the world's level, but to bring the world up to His level. And if He stooped to their level, do you not think that they would very soon find out? And then what would He have? Well, they would say, You are just like we are. And then where would His following be?
So you see, Jesus Christ is somebody that you and I can put on a pedestal. Because He is perfect and we can look up to Him because our God never sinned. And so we have the very best example in a leader and we have every reason to follow Him because He is exactly what He says He is. So His following will not evaporate because He was just one of the boys.
Matthew 4:12 Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, He departed to Galilee.
Now that verse contains or hides or whatever, some fairly interesting things. Now hold your finger there and go with me to Mark 1, verse 14, we will compare it:
Mark 1:14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.
He agreed with Matthew that Jesus began preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God after John was put into prison. Now let us go to John 3, verse 22.
John 3:22-24 After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea; and there He remained with them, and baptized. Now John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized. For John had not yet been thrown into prison.
Here we find Jesus and John preaching together. I mean chronologically at the same time and it seems to contradict what Matthew says and what Mark says. That Jesus did not begin to preach until after John was put into prison. John, the gospel writer, says that Jesus was very definitely preaching while or before John was put into prison, no doubt about it at all.
Now, I will cut a long study short for you. All the events of John 1, 2, 3, and mostly chapter 4 take place before Matthew 4:12 and before Mark 1:14. That includes in chapter 2, for example, the turning of the water into wine. That took place in Cana of Galilee and took place before Jesus was baptized. So it shows there that He definitely had an awareness of His power and that His mother had an awareness of that power before He was even baptized.
In chapter 2 came the time when He went into Jerusalem, went into the Temple, and overturned the tables. In verse 15 of chapter 2 and He threw the money changers out. That took place before His baptism. In chapter 3, the occasion with Nicodemus, where Jesus told him you must be born again, that took place before His baptism. In chapter 4, we begin to pick up the story.
John 4:3-4 He left Judea and departed again into Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.
John 4 and the events that take place in it, occurred just before His baptism or right about the same time. It could have taken place right after His baptism and on His way back to Galilee to begin preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And actually the event of John 4 with the woman at the well and continuing all the way up to John 4:43, you can parallel that with Luke 4:16. That was immediately before He began preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. You know where it says that a prophet has no honor in his own country? That corresponds with Luke 4:16 and also with these events here in Matthew the fourth chapter and beginning in verse 12.
So you can see that Jesus had a fairly extensive ministry prior to Matthew the fourth chapter. Now, how long of a period of time it was is very difficult to tell, but it may have been all the way up to about a year before the events of Matthew 4 actually took place. He was preaching, but He was evidently not preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. This is because it says very plainly in Mark 1:15 "the time is fulfilled"—that is immediately after John was put into prison—"and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." So apparently the signal to Jesus that He was to begin preaching was when John was put into prison.
There is that principle again, that God only works through one man at a time. And as soon as Jesus understood that John's ministry was concluded, then He knew that it was time for Him to begin His ministry. And up until that time, he evidently was not preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God in its fullness. He was only preaching isolated sermons about things that no doubt had to do with the Kingdom of God. No doubt had to do with the gospel, but He did not preach it in its fullness and relate things all together in one package.
Matthew 4:13 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, . . .
Now, Matthew 4:13 is parallel with Luke 4:16. Incidentally, the word "leaving" here is a very intensive verb and you can understand why it is intensive when you look at the events in Luke 4. Jesus went into the synagogue and He preached to those people and after He was done preaching to them, they rushed Him out of the synagogue, took Him to the top of the hill, and were going to throw Him over. Jesus was intensive about leaving Nazareth. He was almost, you might say, fleeing for His life. So it is no wonder that Matthew used a very intensive verb and it means that He was utterly leaving. He was forsaking it. And that is why He said a prophet is not without honor, but in his own city or his own country, in his own family.
Matthew 4:13-15 And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum [which began the center of His operations when He was in Galilee], which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulon and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "The land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles:
Apparently, God had prophesized that the gospel was going to begin to be preached in Galilee and so Jesus made His way back from Judea after His baptism. He went to His hometown and after He got thrown out of His hometown, He went to Capernaum in the area of Galilee and began to preach the gospel and thus fulfilled that scripture.
Matthew 4:16 The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned."
That light is God's Word. There is an interesting little thought that is in here that you can just think about. Matthew quoted this from Isaiah 9:2, but he changed the words, which is kind of interesting. He changed at least one word. You see that word sat in verse 16 of Matthew 4?
Isaiah 9:2 The people who walked in darkness. . .
Why did he change it to sat? Those things worry me for some reason, they bug me. Why did he change the word? Was Matthew indicating that the people were even more passive? That they had just completely fallen down on the job? I do not know. It is no big deal, but he did change the word anyway.
One thing that I want to interject here about Galilee. We are able to tell from the writings of Josephus that in Jesus' day that area was very heavily populated. In the days of Josephus, he writes that there were nine large cities that were on the coast of the lake or the sea. Today, there is only one and it is not even a large city. We would call it more a village or a town, it is called Tiberia.
But in that day, there were sufficient people to have nine fairly large cities that ring the outside of the Sea of Galilee. Josephus was a general in the Roman army, he was a Jew in the Roman army, and somehow or another, he got himself a generalship. But for an expedition that he was leading at one time, they had to go across the Sea of Galilee and he reports in his book that he had no trouble getting together 240 boats to transport his soldiers in no time at all. The way he tells it is that they got them together very quickly. Now that seems to indicate that he probably got them all from one region; from one city and that there were sufficient fishermen that to get 240 boats together was no big deal. So it seemed to indicate almost a teeming population.
It is also at the very end of the Valley of Jezreel through which the way of the east ran through, and also that was the most fertile area of Palestine. So it was an area that was rich, populated, very busy, a cosmopolitan area. Capernaum is on the south end of the Sea of Galilee and that became the center of Jesus' activity.
Matthew 4:17-22 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; where they were fishermen. Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
I want you to go to Acts the fourth chapter, verse 13. Now the occupations of every one of Jesus' apostles is not given. We know that Matthew was a tax collector and that these men mentioned here were fishermen. It is quite possible that others were fishermen, but it seems to indicate from the ones whose names and occupations that He does give that they were, by and large, common men.
Acts 4:13 Now when they [the scribes, the Pharisees, the people who were involved there at the Temple] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
The King James gives the indication that they were uneducated. I do not believe that that was true at all. I think that a good bit of the evidence for that is right in the Bible itself, the fact that these men wrote it, but they were not uneducated men. Now, what it means there in Acts 4:13 is that they were not educated in the rabbinical school, that is, that they did not have the kind of education that would lead to scribes and Pharisees to put any credence in what they would say. If they had been educated in rabbinical schools, then they would not have called them unlearned and uneducated.
So I do not believe that they were unlearned and uneducated. They simply did not attend the rabbinical school. They were common people. But the implication is that they were of what the Jews even today call the Am há aretz, which means the people of the land. If you look in John 7:49, that very word appears there where the scribes call a crowd of people the Am há aretz, that is, the common people.
Now, there is something in this that I think is very interesting and that is that the very men that Jesus chose to be the ones who would be the foundation of the church were not the kind of people who are educated in the normal religious seminaries or schools. They were not even men who for the most part were highly educated in secular universities. Now, apparently the most highly educated of the group that He called was Paul. There seemed to be sufficient evidence to know that Luke was also highly educated, but Luke apparently was a man who was called after Jesus' death. But nonetheless, He did not choose men who were highly educated in the world's university.
There is something in this that I think is important to you and me to understand. And that is that His choice of these men who were not apparently trained in religious matters, not deeply schooled in the Scripture, proves that this knowledge must be revealed. Now, if it depended upon the powers that were inherent within a person's mind by nature, then would you not suppose that the highly educated among the religious would be the ones who would discover the truth of God's Word? I think that that would be a natural assumption.
But yet God's Word reveals that they are the very ones most likely to reject it because Jesus' enemies all through His work were the religious people. And when Jesus died and was resurrected and went back to His Father, the enemies of the apostles were the religious people. Now, you ought to be able to conclude by that that the things of God must be revealed by God's Spirit from above. And that is what I Corinthians 2 is about. You see, it is just another piece of evidence that you are here by design, that God purposely called you, chose you, revealed these things to you, opened your mind. He has given us a fantastic opportunity! He wants to see what we are going to do with it.
And so what happened then, of course, was that very lowly men accomplished a great work and God gets the glory. Because they did not find it on their own, it was revealed to them and they responded.
Let us go to John 1, verse 35. Now remember the time sequence, the chronology here. John 1 takes place before Matthew 4, maybe as long as a year before.
John 1:35-40 Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said [that is, John the Baptist] said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" They said to Him, "Rabbi" (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), "Where are You staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour). One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
Now here we have Andrew, a disciple, one of the original Twelve, about a year before the events of Matthew 4, already being in contact with Jesus.
John 1:41 He [Andrew] first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ).
So now we have Andrew and Simon Peter about one year before Jesus actually began preaching the gospel also in contact with Him.
John 1:42-45 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus looked at him, He said, "You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas" (which is translated, A Stone). The following day Jesus wanted go to Galilee, and He found Philip [another of the Twelve] and said to him, "Follow Me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. [So there are three of them now from the same town.] Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
It says there in John that there were two of the disciples. Now, who was the other one? It was probably John. So by the time Matthew 4 occurred at least six of the original Twelve apostles knew Jesus, maybe up to a year before these events take place. So they had listened to Him for quite a while.
Now, it is evident from the book of Matthew that Matthew was called later, after Jesus had already begun His ministry. So not all of the original Twelve were called this early. But apparently the ones who were going to be used and be sort of an inner circle. And of course, Peter, James, and John became the real inner inner circle with Jesus that they were called earlier and even had a longer period of training than the others.
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