"It is written"
12/29/2019
Matthew 4:1-11 (KJV)
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
(I bold typed the devil quoting scripture.)
While doing my Bible Reading in Matthew, I ran across some many times read scriptures and I know you have read them many times and mayhap have even preached on them. Jesus being tempted of the devil.
Jesus was led by the Spirit – to be tempted of the devil. To me this means that sometimes we get in a hard place spiritually because we did not follow the leading of God. However, it also shows that we sometimes get in that hard place because of the leading of God. We have things that we need to learn, spiritually. We learn them because they are needed in our walk with God down the road of life to either:
1 To make it over some future hurdle,
2 To be able to help someone in their journey,
3 To show the devil we are stronger in our faith,
4 To be a witness of our faith to those watching our lives.
We do not know why we face these temptations here on earth. We do know that it helps to be knowledgeable about the Bible, because the devil does not like it when we quote God’s Word to him. However, we need to be aware that the devil will quote the scriptures to try to lead us astray. Matthew 4:6 shows us that the devil even used scriptures to Jesus just before tempting Him again. Notice that Jesus turned around and quoted the written Word of God right back.
Let me state that this is a prime example of why we need to learn God’s Word. Why we need it in our mind. Why we need to live what the Bible states and not what some preachers says or our parents said or our friends say is in the Bible. We need to follow the example that Jesus set for us in this portion of the Bible.
C.I. Wilson