May You Come Out Clean When You're Tested

FROM: APRIL 18 - 24, 2017

Topic: "May You Come Out Clean When You're Tested" Matthew 4:1-11

Matthew 4:1 "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." The word "TEMPED" appears in the original as "PEIRASEIN", which is the same as "TESTED." Tested and tempted is the same to this day. There is a saying from the Jews: "The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, does not elevate a man to a dignity until after testing and analyzing him; if he resists the temptation, then it is that God will elevate him to dignity (such as to be able to exercise a ministry or service in the kingdom of God). "That dignity is attributed to one who has asserted himself as a person having shown respect for himself and towards others. Each person responds to that test according to what is inside him. To Jesus, the devil offered Him to satisfy His hunger, the kingdoms of the earth and more, but the Lord defeated him and went forth clean. Matthew 4:2, 3 "And after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came to him..." This happened to the Lord Jesus after a great fasting. The temptations, the tests, will come to you, either YOU OVERCOME THEM OR THEY BREAK YOU! We should know that the tempter comes to attack our thoughts. He throws us darts like fire to our minds; he throws them, but those temptations or tests are not a fact. The devil will seek allies and weapons between our own innermost thoughts and desires. We see how Peter was tempted by the devil and tried to keep Jesus from going to the cross (Matthew 16:22, 23). "Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord! he said. This shall never happen to you! Jesus turned and said to Peter: Get behind me, Satan!" Luke 22:42-44 "...saying, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done. An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." Never, in all human history, has there been a struggle with a temptation like the one Jesus maintained in Gethsemane with the tempter who tried to take Him away from the way of the cross. But, we see that CONTINUOUS VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF FREEDOM. In the Christian militia there are no licenses to be free from these temptations and trials, nor are permits given like to be able to get out of that battle. Sometimes we worry about seeking the unattainable, because we even believe that we could reach a stage where we would be beyond temptation. We delude ourselves by believing we can reach a spiritual stage where the power of the tempter would already be broken forever, but it is not like that. Every believer is required to continually watch until the end of our journey to Heaven. Jesus Himself never reached that stage. From the beginning to the end of His career He had to stay in the struggle, that is why He can help us fight ours. We are attacked in our gifts and ministries. Jesus was attacked, He was the Messiah. The devil to tempt Him suggested that if He was the Son of God He had all the permission to do what He wanted. Matthew 4:3 "The tempter came to him and said unto him: If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, in Vs. 4, "...Man does not live on bread alone…". The devil continued the temptations, he took Him to the top of the city, to the pinnacle of the temple (Vs. 5, 6) and said to Him: "Throw yourself down, that the angels will deliver you! He proposed, like a capricious

game, to throw Himself from the highest point. In addition, he offered the kingdoms of the world and their glory. (Matthew 4:8, 9 "Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All of this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me."). Jesus had the power and Satan asked Him to worship him, it was what he longed for. But, Jesus responded (Vs.10): "Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." The devil tried to deceive our Master, it was like saying: "What the Father has given you I offer you." The offering already belonged to the Lord Jesus! When famous preachers fall into temptation and sin, they know how to defend themselves because they are endowed with many words. Then, to justify their bad behavior they use their "nonsense" to present all sorts of "apologies." When one is tempted one has to fight to come out clean. The person with a living and graphic imagination will suffer agonies of temptation more than a phlegmatic person who will never experience them. The person with great mental talents will be tempted to use them for his own benefit and not for the benefit of others. He will be tempted to be selfish so that he will not be able to become a servant of humanity. There was no one in the desert with the Lord Jesus when He was waging this battle with the devil. Jesus later told His disciples. And He let us know in His spiritual autobiography in the Gospels. He wants us to know that He wants to help us with our temptations. The temptation was to divert Jesus from the Father's plan. That was Satan's main goal in tempting Jesus, to divert Him from the plan that the Father had planned for Him. The devil wanted Jesus to transform and eat bread from those stones; but, better to starve than to live in sin! God would give Him the bread! The devil seeks for the children of God to distrust the kindness of their Father. He can tell you, "Throw yourself down," but, he cannot push you! It is we who decide whether to fall or stand firm. If we don't harm ourselves, no one will harm us forcefully. We need to know the Scriptures clearly to succeed! The temptation is: to see, to covet, to take and to hide. In Genesis 3:6-8 we read that Adam and Eve saw, coveted, took and hid. Also Achan in Joshua 7:21, saw, coveted, took and hid. In Job 31:1 we see the importance of making covenant with our eyes to avoid the beginning of many temptations. Jesus said in Matthew 4:10: "Go, Satan ..." It is precise to reject temptations forcefully if we want to succeed in them. Negligence, to leave for later, causes temptation to take on the strength within us until we weaken and make us fall. This is a point of supreme importance; most of our falls occur because we do not oppose with a resounding NO to the temptation's appeal and we maintain a secret complicity with the sin that we do not decide to abandon. You have to say: Go away! Let's be wise, let us watch at all times, let us use the Scriptures to come out clean when we are tested! Amen.