In the sermon titled 'The Temptation of Jesus Christ' by Peter Allison, the narrative from Luke chapter 4 is explored, where Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness and faces temptation by the devil for forty days. The sermon draws parallels between the temptations of Jesus and the fall of Adam, highlighting Jesus as the last Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed. Jesus' responses to Satan’s temptations are rooted in scripture, demonstrating trust in God’s provision and the purpose of His ministry. The sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding God's Word, maintaining the distinctions established by God, and living in obedience to His will. It also highlights the role of fasting and prayer as tools for believers to prepare for spiritual battles. Ultimately, Jesus' victory over temptation reaffirms His role as the Messiah and the redeemer of creation, offering believers a model for resisting evil and living a life of faith and obedience.

Our scripture reading today is from Luke chapter 4 as we have completed the second section in the book of Proverbs. We take a break from there for a few months and resume our study in the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 4 beginning with the first verse. Let's begin with the first verse. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.

In those days he ate nothing, and afterward when they had ended he was hungry. And the devil said to him, If you are the son of God, command this stone to be come bread. But Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, All this authority I will give you and their glory, For this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours.' And Jesus answered and said to him, Get behind me, Satan. For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve. Then he brought him to Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, You are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, He will give His angels charge over you to keep you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. And Jesus answered and said to him, It has been said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed him until an opportune time. May the Lord grant faith to believe His commandments and that He would teach us good judgment and knowledge in them. Almighty Heavenly Father, your Word is truth and it will endure. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, your Word endures forever. It is your Word to us, and we ask that you would enable us to hear it, to receive it with faith and love, to lay it up in our hearts to practice this in our lives.

We ask that you would give us this morning a right and true understanding of it and that you would set apart this vessel of clay to proclaim what is good and holy. In Jesus' name, amen. The Scripture is open with these remarkable words in all of literature in the beginning in the beginning not once upon a time not in it not in some indefinite time but in the beginning in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There was a beginning of time. There was a beginning to this creation Before that beginning it didn't exist There was no time before that God brought all this into existence by the word of his power.

He spoke and it was. God created out of nothing everything that we see around us and even everything that we cannot see, the visible world and the invisible world. God created all of the animals in their kind. And last of all, when all the rest of the earth had been created, the heavens and all that is in them, the stars, the planets, the earth, the dry ground, the sea, the firmament, the waters, and the animals, and the plants that He created on it. Last of all, God created man in His own image.

And God created us, man, in male and female. And He put them in a beautiful garden to tend that garden. Put them in paradise, the Garden of Eden. He filled this garden with beautiful trees of every sort that bore beautiful fruit, many different kinds of fruit. And he called Adam to rule over this earth and all that was in it.

He put it underneath him. Called Adam to exercise dominion over it. Now that word dominion is not domination or subjugation for one's own pleasure as the word can mean today. But rather the dominion that Adam was given was to order the creation to explore it to name it to Transform it to express and even fuller and greater and more wonderful ways the beauty and the function For which God had created it. That's a godly sort of dominion.

Adam was to use this creation for the purposes that God intended. And he was to follow God's example in creating works of beauty with the tools and the means that God had given. God created out of nothing. Adam was to take what God had already created and further transform it, further extend its function. He was to use the wood of trees and the ore of the ground, the metal oxides in the ground, to make things of beauty, tools to work in the earth.

He was to harness its energy, the energy of the world for useful purposes. He was to explore this world. He was to study it. Because it was a perfect world. When God created it, it was perfect.

There was no sin. God looked at everything that he had made and said, it's good, it's very good. And Adam was given all of this as a stewardship to exercise this dominion, to take iron oxide and make steels and tools, to take the wood and make further other things of beauty. He was to investigate and study all the works of God, something that We still do today. Adam was called to discern and to maintain the distinctions that God created.

There was light and darkness. There was good and evil. There was male and female. Genesis 1 makes a big point of that. God created man, male and female.

There was a distinction. God created man in his own image. Knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. He created man with this distinction between male and female. Adam was to recognize that, discern that.

He was to maintain that day and night. The heavens and the earth. The sea and the land. These are separations, these are distinctions that God made and Adam was to know these, to discern them, and to maintain them. He was called to worship God, to praise God.

He was called to give thanks for all that the Lord had done for him. The Lord was very gracious to Adam in giving him all of these things. In creating this world and this garden, this beautiful garden and putting him in it. All of these works of God proclaim his glory and his wisdom. Adam was to live in fellowship with God.

He was called to know the will of God as God had expressed it to him, and he was called to uphold that Word of God, to live in fellowship, to have conversations with God. And Remember Genesis speaks of God coming in the cool of the evening. So the days were hot, the evenings were cool. Days were ruled by the sun, right? Nights were ruled by the moon and the lesser lights, the stars.

The days were warm, the nights were cool even then. God came in the cool evening to talk with Adam, to fellowship one friend to another. The creator God with what he had created in his own image. He created Adam with the ability to have fellowship with God. Adam was to worship God, to praise Him, to give thanks to Him, and to walk in His ways, to know His Word.

Zemes said, surely the Lord God does nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants, the prophets. Adam was to have this fellowship with God, and God spoke to him friend to friend. But as the father of all mankind, Adam was a representative of all people. Adam was a representative. The word you may hear today for that is Federal head.

We have a federal government. It's called federal because it is supposed to represent us. Now it doesn't do a very good job of that anymore. But the name federal is a good name. It's a biblical name.

It's to represent. Adam was a federal head and now he represented all of the human race. And as this representative of the human race, God tested Adam. God tested Adam. We saw that in our book in Proverbs that God tests people.

God tested Adam as the federal head of the human race. God put him in a garden with all of these beautiful trees and said, you may eat of any of these trees, you may eat the fruit of any of these trees except You may not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You may not eat that fruit, but of any other tree you may freely eat. It's yours to enjoy. And you know this story, how Satan, in the form of a serpent, came to Eve and he deceived her.

Paul said that Eve was deceived. He came and planted doubts in her mind that what God had said was true. Doubt, doubting the Word of God. And Eve began to look at that tree and its fruit. And she believed the lie of Satan because she was deceived.

And she took that fruit and ate. And she gave it to Adam and he ate. And God had said that in the day you eat of this tree, you will surely die. In the day that you eat this tree, you will die. And they did.

That very day, they died. Because you see, death is to lose that fellowship that was given to Adam. It's to lose the fellowship with God. It's to become ethically alienated from God. That's death.

The loss of this communion and fellowship and friendship with the Lord and becoming his enemy, becoming an entity, being alienated from him. And that happened the day that Adam and Eve ate this tree, the fruit of that tree. They died. The death of the body where the spirit is separated from the flesh, what we think of as death, that's simply a consequence that happens from the spiritual alienation, From the ethical alienation, from the cutting off of this fellowship with the God that created us, we die. So Adam and Eve died that very day.

Adam was given a test of obedience and he failed He's and because he was our federal head Because he represented all of the human race, that sin is imputed to all mankind. It's imputed to us and we call that original sin. We bear the guilt of that sin in a very real way. Because Adam was our federal head, he represented us. And when he sinned, we all did too.

And as the one under whose dominion God had placed the creation, when Adam sinned, the creation itself began to experience the effects and the fruits of that sin, the effects of God's judgment upon man for this sin. The whole creation groans now. Paul says like a woman in childbirth, laboring, groaning under the weight of this judgment of God for man's sin, waiting to be redeemed. Even though Eve was the first one to eat this fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it's called Adam's sin. Because Adam sinned.

Adam failed as the head to lead his wife, and instead he followed the one that he was to lead. Paul says Adam was not deceived like Eve was, but he nevertheless sinned. In one sense it was the greater sin. And they lost fellowship with God. They were put out of this garden.

And God put a flaming sword there to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Now that is the background for our text this morning. That is the context, the greater context into which this passage sits. Now the immediate context is immediately following this genealogy that Luke gives of Jesus. We looked at that, it's been some time ago that we looked at that, but you remember there Luke gives all of these generations beginning with Joseph, the legal father of Joseph, the legal father of Jesus, and going all the way back to Adam, who was the Son of God.

If you remember, everything in the Old Testament, pointed to Christ and points to His work. The promises, the covenants, the flood, which was a type of baptism, the temple, which was a type of the heavenly temple. The sacrificial system which pointed to Christ and His sacrifice. The Levitical priesthood which pointed to Christ as our great high priest who offered of Himself this sacrifice. The ceremonial cleansing, the baptisms point to Christ's work.

The Kingdoms, and David's throne pointed to Christ's eternal Kingdom. All of it, all of the Old Testament points to Christ. Christ is the greater Son of David. Christ is the Lamb of God. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Christ is our High Priest intercedes for us even now. He is the temple that was torn down and rebuilt in three days. He is the light of the world. There was no need for the sun in the New Jerusalem and so on. And even in this genealogy, you remember we saw how this I think, We don't have time to look at it again, but this genealogy gives to us a lever it marriage, at least one, maybe two.

Remember a lever at marriage was where when a man died without any descendants, His brother was to marry his widow and the first child would be his heir so that his name would not be blotted out. You remember this blotting out. This is what God does to the wicked. This is what God was going to do to Israel when they rebelled against him. He was going to blot their name out and he was going to raise from Moses his own people.

Revelation speaks about God blotting out names of the book of life. So this lever at law was to ensure that no Jewish, no Israelite man was cut off. So his name was blotted out. And so God ordained that to be an amazing symbol pointing to Christ. And this genealogy showed us how where David's line was cut off.

Remember Jeconiah. So he had all the kings that we, David and then Solomon and then Rehoboam, and Bidja, Asa, Jehoshaphat, and on down the line until you get to Hezekiah, and Ammon, Manasseh, and Josiah, and his sons, Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin, and then this Zedekiah who was probably a son of Jehoiakim and of Josiah. This line is cut off right there at that generation with Josiah's sons. God disinherits them because of their wickedness. They are said to never bear rule again.

This was the line of Solomon. But what Luke shows us is that there's another line through Nathan, another son of David that we read about actually this morning, was born to David. Another son like Solomon. And there is a line that came through Nathan. And through a lever at marriage, a seed is raised up So that David's line is not blotted out.

Jesus Christ is that seed that was promised in Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman. See, Adam corrupted his seed and he was disinherited. He died taking all his heirs with him. And God would have blotted His name out, except Jesus Christ has come as the seed of the woman. And where Adam brought death, Christ brings life.

So, Luke gives us the legal genealogy of Joseph, Joseph being the legal father of Jesus. And even as Solomon's line is cut off as covenant breakers, Joseph through a lever at marriage regains the title to the throne of David through Nathan's line. So that we, who are the physical descendants of the disinherited Adam, are given a new inheritance through Jesus Christ as his adopted children. So that this line that God created is not blotted out, but it's redeemed in Jesus Christ. And that's why the Word of God speaks of Jesus as the last Adam.

The last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15. And in Romans 5 This parallel is also drawn. Let's just look at 1 Corinthians 15. However, the spiritual, speaking of the spiritual, let's see, start in verse 42. So the body is sown in corruption and it is raised in incorruption.

It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, it is sown in natural body, it is raised in spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body and so it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit. Verse 45, however the spiritual is not first but the natural and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, Adam, made of dust.

The second man is the Lord from heaven. Adam is the first man, Christ is the second man. Adam was the first Adam, Christ is the last Adam. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly.

And as we have been born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. The heavenly man. Jesus is the last Adam. Jesus came to redeem not only the descendants of Adam from their name being blotted out, but he came to redeem all of creation, to restore the world to what God intended for it when he created it. And so Christ here in this lever of marriages that are represented in these genealogies.

Christ who is the son of David, the son of Adam, and the son of God enters Adam's lineage to stand against the evil and the destruction and the condemnation that were brought by Adam. He came to bring obedience where Adam brought disobedience. He came to bring justification where Adam brought condemnation. He came to bring life where Adam brought death. So that's the first context of this temptation.

Luke has it following immediately This genealogy of Jesus that highlights this legal lineage that Jesus restored in a sense the seed of David and Adam. And So Christ's temptations here in chapter 4 are unique to His office as our Messiah, as God's anointed. You see, Adam was called to a priestly office. He was called to discern and maintain the distinctions that God had created. He was called to worship God, to praise Him.

And in these temptations, Satan tries to get Christ as our great high priest to offer worship to himself instead of God. And Christ is tempted. As a prophet, Satan tries to make Christ misuse and misapply the word of it. He quotes scripture to Christ and seeks to get him to misuse it. As a king, Satan seeks to get Christ to misuse his authority as creator, God, for his own personal benefit.

You see, in these temptations, Christ as our King goes forth to battle against the evil one, against Satan, against the prince of the power of the air. As we see, Christ is victorious. Christ defeats Satan in each of these encounters. The text opens with these words that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. He returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

So we've looked at the context here this we see now Jesus is being prepared for This battle he's being prepared for his work as the last Adam It's the spirit That leads him into the wilderness for 40 days of prayer and fasting. You see if we are to be set free as Jesus taught, somebody has to enter the house of the strong man and bind him. And this is what Jesus is preparing to do. His first great task as our Messiah is to deal with the devil. It's to deal with Satan, the accuser of the brethren.

The one who tempted Adam and Eve and caused them to fall into sin. Jesus promised Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, which was Satan. Satan came disguised as a serpent. God promised that all the way in the Garden of Eden. Christ is now preparing to do that very thing.

He's preparing to go to battle against the evil one. And Christ, the God-man, the sinless one, spends 40 days without food, fasting, and praying, preparing to battle this evil one. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into this wilderness. The Holy Spirit is the one who led Jesus into this time of preparation. The Holy Spirit is the one who was leading Jesus into this temptation.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray that the Lord would lead us out of temptation and deliver us from evil. Well, Christ is our King. He's preparing in this time in the wilderness, In this spirit-led time in the wilderness, to face temptation and to defeat Satan, to be victorious over him. You know, fasting is something that God has given to us as well, to actively remember God. Fasting.

Jesus said that some demons could only come out by prayer and fasting Prayer and fasting this is a tool for us today to use A tool for us to prepare ourselves to follow Christ's example. Because we too are called to battle the world, our flesh and Satan. But it's because of Christ's victory, because of Christ's work, because of Christ's tools and resources, that we are able to battle Satan and be victorious. But fasting is one of those means, those tools, that God calls us to use and gives to us for that purpose. So the first temptation then, after Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and has had nothing to eat, Luke tells us that he is hungry.

No surprise there. But he is telling us to remind us that Jesus is man. He has a human nature, a true human nature. And humans get hungry when they don't eat for 40 days. Humans get hungry when they don't eat for 4 hours.

And Luke is reminding us that Jesus was hungry because he was a man, just like us. These temptations are not just hypothetical things. Jesus has a true human nature like we do. He experienced hunger. He experienced the intensity of hunger.

He experienced the intensity of being tired and not having sleep. This is very real. We don't want to miss and think well Jesus is God, you know, he can go without food for 40 days. No big deal No brothers and sisters Jesus has a human nature just like ours and it needs to eat just like ours and Jesus was weak very weak from not eating for 40 days. Because the Spirit came to him afterwards and ministered to him.

Jesus is weak. He is feeling intense hunger. And it is at this moment that Satan comes to him with a rather innocent sounding request. You are hungry. That is obvious.

You are the Messiah. You are the Son of God. Just Turn one of these stones into bread and you can satisfy your hunger. You see, it's an ingenious thought. Satan is cunning.

It's a very real temptation. As the Son of God, Jesus is God. He owns everything in the earth. He created it. He has a right to eat of it.

He has a right to do whatever he wants to do with what he's made. If you make a loaf of bread, you can do whatever you want with it. If you want to give it away, you can give it away. If you want to eat it, you may eat it. Jesus is God.

He made the stones. He can do whatever He wants with them. They are His to use as He sees fit. He has the ability, the power to make those stones into bread. After all, he made those stones out of nothing.

He spoke. We know Jesus had the power because he turns, he makes bread out of nothing. He takes a couple loads and fish and feeds 5, 000 people with what would feed one person. He obviously made some food out of nothing there, out of those loaves and the fish. Jesus has the power.

Jesus has the right. Jesus has the authority to do what Satan is asking him to do. And Jesus has a human need here at this point. He's very hungry. But Satan is seeking to divert Christ from the purpose of his ministry.

Christ came as a man to, he took human flesh to live as a man, to live in a state of humiliation, to suffer as a man, to suffer to no hunger, so that He could be our great High Priest and be tempted in all points even as we are. He came so that as a human He could render perfect obedience to Jesus Christ. And that means doing it with all the weaknesses and limitations that a human body brings. He came as God's anointed. God sent him.

God sent his son to live under the law, to live as a human. That was the eternal agreement in the Trinitarian covenant that Christ would redeem his people and take to himself a human flesh and live as a human. And Satan is here seeking to divert Christ from that purpose. Satan is seeking to cast aside these human limitations and to turn stones into bread to satisfy his hunger, Instead of trusting upon the Heavenly Father to provide for his human needs of food, clothing, and sustenance. See, it's a very subtle temptation.

It's a very real temptation because Jesus is really hungry. But had Jesus done this, he would have been casting aside his role as our Messiah to live under the law, to live as a human, to be humiliated, to live in a time of humiliation, Because that was the path that God set for him. It would have been doubting God's power to provide for him. It would have been not trusting in the Lord to care for him. You see, Satan's appeal had this assumption that in order to stay alive you have to have bread.

But is that true? Brothers and sisters, is it true that in order to stay alive we have to have bread? Well, no. It's not. Jesus, God led the Israelites into the wilderness and they had no bread there.

And God provided from heaven a bread every day for 40 years. They ate manna to show that God is able to provide for us. God is able to provide for Christ in his hunger. Jesus answers, sainting with the very words that Moses instructed Israel in out of Deuteronomy chapter 8. I like to read just that context because Jesus quotes just a piece of that passage in answering Satan.

But this is a lengthy segment where Moses is reminding people of God's covenant with them. And in chapter 8 verse 1 he says, every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land. You need to be careful to keep my commandments so that you may live and you may possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers. And this is what you should remember, that Jehovah, your God, led you all this way, 40 years in the wilderness, to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. This was a test of Israel.

So he humbled you and he allowed you to hunger. Why did he allow them to hunger? To test them, to see if they would trust in the Lord to provide their food, if they would recognize that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Moses goes on to say your garments didn't wear out for 40 years their shoes didn't wear out Their feet didn't swell because God is our provider and He is able to feed us. He doesn't need bread to feed us.

Ordinarily, yes. Ordinarily, God uses bread to feed us, but He doesn't need to. And Satan's question here to Jesus was to see whether Jesus would trust in the Father to provide. And Jesus, knowing this scripture, said to Satan, man does not live by bread alone. I don't need this bread to live.

I need to live by the word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We are sustained and We are kept alive by the power of God's Word. God ordinarily provides our food through a job, through bread, through crops. What would happen if God took those things away? Would you be afraid of how you're going to eat?

Would you be tempted to do things you shouldn't do? Would you be afraid where you would live? Or would Christ trust in the Or like Christ, trusting the Lord to provide. The second test of Jesus by Satan is that After he showed them all the mountains all the kingdoms of the earth from a high mountain at once he showed him all The nations of the world in a moment in time Then he said to Jesus all of this can be yours All of this is yours All this authority I will give you and their glory, for it's been given to me. All you have to do is worship me and it's yours.

Satan is specifically appealing to Christ's office as King. Christ came to take those kingdoms back. The Psalm 2 that we sang says that God has given the nations of the earth to Christ as his inheritance. Those were Christ's kingdoms and he came to earth to get them. Satan is offering to Christ these kingdoms.

That was why he had come. Remember Daniel has this vision of the Messiah coming to the Ancient of Days and receiving his Kingdoms. Remember, he saw the visions of the statue that was made of the head of gold and silver and bronze and so on. And then the stone cut without hands smashes that statue and it grows to fill the whole earth representing the victory of Christ's kingdom over all the other nations of the world. And God indeed brought that exactly to pass.

The Roman Empire was defeated by Christianity within three centuries. The world has been conquered by the Gospel. And in Revelation we see this image of this vision, John sees this vision of Christ Receiving his kingdoms that the the hosts of heaven proclaim you are worthy to receive blessing and honor and glory and power and You have taken your scepter and you have begun to rule See Christ came to get all those kingdoms that Satan was promising him. But Satan was trying to get Christ to obtain those kingdoms without the cross. This was also a real temptation to Jesus.

Christ spoke many times, several times, of the distress that he would experience at the crucifixion. The distress. Christ was distressed. Remember at the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ is deeply distressed and he is praying and the sweat is falling from his brow as drops of blood. He is that distressed.

This was a very real battle for Christ. Satan is offering him The kingdoms which were his by right God had promised them to him He was their inheritance and Satan is saying you can have them without the cross you won't have to suffer Jesus came as a suffering servant He came he said he Isaiah said that he would sprinkle many nations. Kings would shut their mouths at him, for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. That is Christ, but Satan is offering it without the cross. And Jesus points Satan back to the Scriptures in the exact same chapter that we looked at before.

He says that you are only to worship God the Father and him only shall you serve In Chapter 6 and verse 13 Moses say You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. You shall not go after other gods. Jesus summarized that second verse by saying, worship and serve God only. Him only shall you worship. So Saint Hinen takes him to a high point on the temple and says, Cast yourself off of the temple and God will give, And now St.

Tim quotes scripture. And God will give his angels charge over you, lest you dash your foot against a stone. He's basically calling on Jesus to play in God's creation, His creation. To jump off the temple. You can imagine little children, they like to climb up on things and jump off them.

They just like to have fun. And St. John is essentially calling Jesus to do the same thing. This is his world. He's made it.

This is his temple. You can cast yourself off. God will take care of you. He's appealing to Christ as a ruler. God can do as He pleases in His creation.

And that's true, He can. But God did not come into the world to play in the world that He created, but to save the world. And Satan is here again trying to divert Christ from what He came to do. He as the Son of God has come to save the world at great cost. Satan is trying to divert him from that mission and to play.

Jesus has come to bear the long years of humiliation, to live under the law, to be rejected, to be alienated, to be crucified and to die. Because that's the only way for sinners to be saved. He didn't come to jump off of temples. And Jesus looks back to the Scriptures and he says, Satan, you're not quoting the Scriptures right. You're not comparing the Scriptures with Scriptures.

You're not taking all of the Word of God into its rightful context in your misusing, your misquoting the Scriptures. You're taking them out of context and you're missing the bigger point. God also says we're not to tempt the Lord our God. The Father had said to Jesus, You are my son, but only by stepping through death, only by living the life in a state of humiliation and under the law, can you succeed where Adam failed. Jesus unmasked Satan and his misuse of the Bible.

Jesus Christ is God's anointed. And he, as God's anointed, is victorious in this encounter with Satan in each and every case. He defeats him. He defeats him with the sword of the Spirit, with the Word of God. He defeats him because he knows what his mission is and He is not about to turn from it.

He knows what the Father has sent Him into the world to do, and He is not sidetracked, despite His great hunger, despite all that Satan seeks to offer him despite the fact that Jesus could have done Any one of these things he certainly had the right to do them But he to do so would have Would have diverted his Him from his calling He would not have been fulfilling the purpose for which God had sent him into the earth. And that's what he came to do. Jesus came to do the will of the Father. He came to do what the Father had sent him to do, not his own will. And to do these things Satan was asking him to do what had been done to do his own will, and not the will of the Father.

So Jesus begins his ministry then as the second Adam, and he succeeds where the first Adam failed. He comes to us in our humanity, and He comes to make us new creatures in Christ so that we can enjoy what Adam had in all of its fullness. Amen. Let's pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have the right man on our side, the man of your choosing, the one who has gone toe to toe with Satan and emerged victorious, The one who has crushed his head upon by his death on the cross.

The one who holds to us victory, this victory. Father, we want to walk in this victory. We want to walk in the power that you give us, in the life that you have purchased for us. We want to walk in the Spirit even as Jesus was led by the Spirit. And we ask, Lord, that we might know you and the power of your resurrection this week.

We might know your power over Satan, over this world, for you have overcome the world, and that we might also be victorious over our flesh and putting to death the sin that dwells there. So Father, we offer our whole bodies this week as living sacrifices to you, which is but our reasonable service. We ask that you would lead us, that you would fill us with your Spirit, that you would guide us, that you would strengthen us, that in our weakness your strength might be made perfect. Through Jesus Christ we ask all of this. Amen.