Episode 62 Matthew 4:1-11 The King’s Victory

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I am your host. Dan. I am joined by my father, David Jackson. We are continuing to look at the book of Matthew. We are up to chapter four. We look through the first 11 verses of chapter four today. Now chapter four, Dad is the temptation. It comes straight after Jesus’s baptism. Now Jesus, his baptism he’s given the holy spirit. You said in the last episode that it empowers him for his ministry, why is he then straight away off into the desert? Yeah, like it’s not even, it’s not even a wilderness, like, you know, a nice tree wilderness where there’s lots of pine trees or anything he’s in the wilderness, which is, you know, of banks outside of Israel towards the Jordan. That’s really dry, very deserted. I’m sure there’s probably photos in something somewhere that people could go and have a look at, but it is, it is a Barren land. It is a over there land. Why is he going there? There’s no people there for his ministry. What’s he doing out there? Yeah.

David: (00:59)
If you’re actually go and subscribe to the podcast, you can go and get the notes and in the notes I’ve put the photographs. and if you stand at Jerusalem and you look east, you’re looking over, what’s called the wilderness of Judea and it’s these, it reminds me of Broken Hill, except it’s a lot more hilly. Yeah. But it’s as dry as a bone it’s sheep country. and down the bottom of the gullies, you know, you might get a little bit of grass where the out where the Creek might run. Mm. but it’s, it’s terrible country. It’s, it’s very difficult to walk and it’s for the 10K east of Jerusalem, down to the Jordan river. It’s just dry dust. and Jesus has just come out of the Jordan river down there. And he’s now crossed into the promised land. And he’s been given the gift of the holy spirit.

David: (01:54)
So he is working within the same limitations that you and I have. So except that he’s born without sin. So he hasn’t got our bad habits, but he’s, he’s not using his God-ness. He is working as a human being within those limits. And that’s why until the age of 30, he hasn’t done anything. until he receives the gift of the holy spirit, he is not empowered to go out and do this job. and you’ll see the same pattern happening. Acts two. When he says to the disciples, you go wait in Jerusalem, hide out, keep your head down, wait for the coming of the holy spirit. Then you can get out there and be my ministers to the Jerusalem judea to the earth. So the, the mission starts with the holy spirit. And I would suggest that when you read the new Testament, you read the Bible.

David: (02:47)
Uh, the kingdom of God is co-extensive with the gift of the holy spirit, wherever you have the holy spirit, the kingdom of God has arrived. God is there, the king is there. So now that he has that power, what’s the first thing he has to do. And as you go back through the old Testament, these are the steps of appointing a king. So this is the next step. And the next step is so you’ve, the prophet has been told there’s a king, go find him. if you remember, that’s what he did with Saul, Samuel did with Saul and David. Then when you find him, you pour oil on his head in Jesus’, that was a symbol. And it’s a symbol of the anointing of the holy spirit. Yep. So John, the Baptist has found Jesus, Jesus comes down to the river, dunks him.

David: (03:40)
He gets up, he’s got the anointing. Yep. Which makes him the anointed one. So he becomes the anointed one when he receives the gift of the holy spirit before that he hasn’t been. And now that he’s anointed and he’s got the power of the holy spirit in him, the next job is, and you’ll notice Saul and David both do this as soon as they have the God with us, it’s off and dong your enemy on the head. Now, you know, Saul goes out and fights the Philistines. David goes out and slays Goliath, Jesus comes out and takes on the ultimate enemy. Uh, the guy that’s the cause of the whole business Satan. Yep. And so the holy spirit says, right. I’m with you. Let’s go, let’s do the business. We’re here to do time to go dong Satan on the head. And that’s why he’s in the wilderness and it’s a one-on-one battle.

Dan: (04:30)
Okay. So these 11 verses then are essentially describing the battle between Jesus and Satan. Yep. Okay. so there we, another description of a future battle, I guess, in the revelation. Yeah. But same outcome, just spoiler alert there. Uh, so as we go through here, there with the temptation, uh, you know, Jesus is in the desert 40 days, he’s hungry, he’s thirsty. Yep. as you are, when you’re there and that’s when, the devil appears he’s called the devil a lot of times a, the tempter, it’s only really Jesus who calls him Satan, through this little passage. so why is, I mean, obviously this devil is coming to this battle and what, what are these three temptations? Is there something significant about the three? Is there, something significant about what is actually addressed in each temptation? Or is it just a general, you know, you’re hungry, let’s tempt to you.

David: (05:26)
How Many different ways can I get you to say yes. Yeah. Um, so I, I like this to look at the contrast between, this is what happened to Adam, right? Adam’s in a paradise, surrounded by food and it’s beautiful Jesus, 40 days in the desert and he’s fasting. Yeah. so the visual image is absolute contrast. The, the physical challenge is absolute contrast. Satan hits him three times in three different directions and it takes 40 days to knock him, to try and knock him over Adam from the account in Genesis three, the whole thing would’ve been over in a minute. Um, it’s it, the contrast is shockingly, how easy Adam fell and how long Jesus stood up to this guy. So, you know, we’re gonna tempt him in terms of his food. We’re gonna attempt him to test God. and then finally, we get to the see, and both of those temptations really are masking.

David: (06:26)
The ultimate agenda. The agenda is, I want you to disobey God and serve me as your king, and, and tell God to go jump. So don’t have God as your Lord here. I am bow that you need him and kiss my foot., and that’s Satan’s agenda. So he, he goes through this process, he tries using the Bible. He tries working on his fears, his faith, his, his hunger, whatever it is, but the scene where he shows him all the kingdoms of the world is where we finally get to the truth. So Adam, when he bowed the knee and accepted the fruit from Satan, from his wife, he said no to God. And he said yes to the devil. Yep. And at that point, Satan now rules all the kingdoms of this world. And the kingdoms of this world are now in revolt.

David: (07:23)
The Vassal has changed sides and left this kingdom to go serve that king. Well, Jesus has come back to bring humanity back onto God’s side. And Satan’s saying, if you bow down to me, I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world. They’re mine, and the real temptation of that is, and you can skip the cross. I’ll just give you the whole package right now. But if you wanna serve Yahweh, if you wanna serve God and do his bidding, well, I’m gonna kill you. So this is, this is powerful temptation. and I just love the way he ends it. One of my favourite Greek words, and I still remember Les Sloat, dear old, Les, our Greek lecturer, and you were going through this passage and he says, when you get to this word, you’ve gotta pronounce it with passion. Jesus says to Satan hoopagay. Yeah. And hoopagay means get outta here. And it sounds,

Dan: (08:27)
You’re not quite that nice.

David: (08:28)
It sound well. It’s beautiful. It sounds like a Maori Haka, you know, just waiting, get lost. Yeah. This is, this is the king ordering the enemy off the battlefield. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s done with some rage, I think.

Dan: (08:44)
Yeah. And with authority, cuz it, ultimately Jesus has the authority over everything like as, as God. Yeah. Yeah. That’s

David: (08:53)
But as the man, yeah. As the man who’s put aside all of that feeling the weight of those temptations, we look at that and go, yeah, well that’s fine for him. He was God, forget that. He was just like us when he said no to Satan. and he’s saying to us can do this. You’ve got a new nature as a human, as born again. People, no temptation can overtake and you, one Corinthians 10:13, you can do this. You can say no to this beast. Yeah. Um, and therefore we are free. Uh, and our king led the way defeated Satan. So we talk about him defeating Satan at the cross. He defeats Satan from the beginning to the end. And the first defeat of Satan happens right here. Yeah. And I like the way Satan, slinks away looking for another opportunity someday.

Dan: (09:50)
Yeah.

David: (09:50)
Yeah. You go. Yeah. Good luck pal.

Dan: (09:53)
Well, he essentially goes the other route of, you know, if I can’t get him to sin, let’s see if I can get him to die. Which is the consequence of sin. Yeah.

David: (10:00)
Let’s go kill him. If, if I can’t persuade him, I’ll just shoot him.

Dan: (10:04)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, now that brings us to the end of this episode. If you would like your daily notes for this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/62. You can get everything there. If you enjoyed the episode, we would love to hear from you in terms of a review. So please review us on any podcast platform you’re on. And we would also love it. If you would hit the subscribe button to come back and join us next week, when we continue to look through chapter four,