The devil came to tempt our Lord Jesus at His most vulnerable moment, when the fast was accomplished and He had been endued with power (Luke 4: 1-13). Our most vulnerable moment is when we are up when we are at the pinnacle of success, spiritual height. Moments when we are accomplished, rich, powerful and famous. The devil is always the accuser of any accomplished human being. Job was an example, he was the greatest of all the men of the east; he was also perfect and upright and feared God and eschewed evil (Job 1: 1-3). You cannot get a better testimony of success than this. The devil sought to lay hands on him and to bring him down. Are you a minister of the gospel, a devoted believer or even someone outside of the faith, it matters not, the devil will seek to strike at you in the vulnerable moment of your success or acclaim. So watch out!
The devil always aims to destroy the testimony of man. Adam and Eve were in a world of such awesome privilege. They were made in God’s image and likeness and were called children of God. They were the height of God’s creation and they had the glory of God for their covering. Nothing compares with this but at the height of that uniqueness, the devil came and caused them to sin and their world came crashing down and all of the creation with them. The devil is an unrepentant foe of mankind. When God gave His only Begotten Son to be man’s Saviour, the devil came around again to tempt, in a bid to destroy God’s plan of salvation for man. But our Lord Jesus overcame. What lessons can we draw from the Lord’s temptation by the devil?
The first temptation. “If thou be the Son of God”. The devil always wants to flame up doubt against the word of God. Just like he told Eve, “Did God say”?. He was here stirring up doubt, are you the Son of God?, if you are the Son of God prove it, turn this stone into bread. In one singular move, the devil sought to bring doubt and accusation against God’s word and stir up pride, contest and disobedience in man. But thank God, our Lord Jesus does not need to prove anything, He is the Son of God, He knew this. We should always esteem the word of God above our success, our acclaim or even the promises we received while waiting upon the Lord and stay humble. Our success is not our purpose, our purpose is to be conformed to the image of Christ. Success is meant to aid the attainment of our purpose, we should not let it be a distraction to the detriment of our souls.
Success comes with its pomp and this is what makes us vulnerable. Successful people want to be recognised and where they are not so given, they get offended. They wrestle this recognition with all men and with God, recognition becomes an entitlement for them. The devil was trying to evoke self-glorification in our Lord. This is dangerous, for pride always brings about a fall. Our Lord Jesus did not need the devil for verification of who He is, He waited for God to show Him up. We read in verse 14 of Luke chapter 4 how our Lord returned in the power of the Spirit and His fame went out through all the region. It is always good to wait on God and let Him honour us. But if we seek to grab honour by ourselves, we have only signed up for debasement. Philippians chapter 2 verse 5 says “Let this mind which was in Christ be in you”, a meek and lowly heart. Our Lord Jesus did not see equality with God as something to grab out. He knew no man could receive anything except it had been given to him from above. We should not set our heart on our success or acclaim, or brag of the promises that we received in the secret place; rather we should be vigilant and watch our hearts, our motives, and our actions. What are our motives, and our actions all about, this should be our gauge.
The second temptation was the lust of the eye. The devil first fed the Lord’s eyes with the glitter, the beauty, the riches of the world, the Babylon which, represents the world and spiritual entities opposed to God and which God warns His people to flee from to save their lives in Jeremiah 51: 6; Isaiah 48: 20. This the devil said he gives it to whomsoever he wants, at a price. The price is to be worshipped instead of God. This is idolatry, this is covetousness, this is an abomination, this is worldliness, and this is the pride of life all rolled into one. Our God is jealous, He had forewarned man in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods beside Me” (Exodus 23: 3). The devil is openly affronting God’s prerogative. Success, fame, power, gifts, and money often replace God in no time. Also, the fact that we just completed days of fasting can make us become complacent and held sway by what we have denied ourselves during the fasting exercise. “Is not this great Babylon that I have built…by the might of my power and for the honour of my majesty”? Nebuchadnezzar said in Daniel chapter 4 verse 30. He was held in sway by the beauty of what surrounded him. His fame and power filled him up, he recognised not God anymore and great was his fall. The desire to accumulate more comes at one’s height of success; contentment becomes an issue, a stranger and we know that lack of contentment has caused many to be pierced with many sorrow. The Bible teaches that we should be content with such as we have (Hebrews 13: 5). Godliness with contentment is a great gain. Nothing must compromise our worship of God and this is one thing that success, fame or a little worldliness wants to take away from us. If our soul is not rich, enamoured with the Spirit life in Christ, success makes us very vulnerable. God will not take a second place in our life no matter our position, He is higher than us, He is God and demands our worship, our total worship.
The third temptation was a call to cast off restraint. For it is written, “He shall give His angels charge over you”. We cannot use the promise of God to cast off restraints or become presumptuous or openly defiant, this is what the devil was urging of our Lord. Presumption is not faith and anything not done by faith is a sin. The devil was outrightly asking the Lord Jesus to sin against God, how cheeky could he get? But it is a lesson for us, fame, success, power, money, and spiritual height often cause man to cast off restraints, put forth their hands into iniquity, no longer listen to instructions, and do what they want brazenly, in defiance of known laws or decorum. They shore up a sense of entitlement and always want to have their way. No matter the height of our success, we are still accountable to God. David prayed an all-important prayer in Psalm 19 verse 13, “keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me”. It is a prayer we should pray often. At the height of his rule as a judge, Samson cast off restraints and the end was not palatable. Whenever we walk in presumption, we walk in disobedience and fall into great transgression. Temptations are subtle and deceptive but we should learn from the way of the Master, His eyes were ever on the word of God and also the word of God never departed from His mouth because He kept the faith and was not presumptuous.
Our most vulnerable moments are times of our success, acclaim, power, money or authority. The degree of our vulnerability depends on how much we allow this success to fill our eyes and our hearts instead of God. The moment God becomes a blur to our eyes and in our hearts, we are on slippery ground. Times of success or acclaim is the critical time we should have our eyes more on God. The higher we go spiritually the greater our responsibility not to allow the world to impress itself upon us; if the salt loses its saltiness, how else will it be salted? We must lay hold of the word of God in our hearts, on our lips and in our prayers.
