Last week, we took a look at the Wilderness Temptations where Jesus overcame Satan’s schemes three times. He battled and overcame in the power of the Holy Spirit and with the Word of God. I made the points that we must be Spirit led if we are going to live with victory over Satan, and we must know and depend on the Word of God to refute Satan’s lies.
In the wilderness, Jesus was isolated from people. Satan looks for those moments to get us alone, relationally alone, and away from people who can support us, cover us and pray for us. Jesus was also physically weak and emotionally exhausted. Satan understands how vulnerable we can be when our physical bodies and mental capacities are stretched thin. That is why Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:10 to, “Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.” Even when we are weak, we can be strong if we remain steadfast and centered on the Lord.
Satan tempted Jesus in the flesh. We know how hard it is to wrestle our flesh to the ground. We have natural desires. We have desires that become strong lustful cravings when we feed them. Satan wants us focused on the flesh. That was temptation number one for Jesus. The second thing Satan tried to get Jesus to do was to put God to the test. Instead of relying strictly on what God had said, Satan tried to get Jesus to put Himself into a situation that would test God. Jesus, instead, simply believed the Word of God. The third thing Satan did was to try to get Jesus to crave worldly power, worldly success which would be equal to bowing down to Satan. Satan is the one who manipulates the world’s systems. Jesus wouldn’t bow.
One thing I want to note is that in both Matthew’s and Luke’s account, Satan began his temptation speeches with, “If you are the Son of God…” He went right to an attack on Jesus’ identity. If Satan can get you to doubt your identity, your value, your worth, he can cause a disruption in your purpose. He can rock you at your core to the point where you don’t have the confidence in Christ in you (and that is where our confidence comes from, Christ in us) to do the things God calls you to do. Hold on to this scheme of the enemy, this attack on our identity. We will see it repeatedly show up in Jesus’ life.
When Luke tells his version of the Wilderness Temptations, he ends with a verse that would make for a great moment of suspense in a movie. Here it is: “And when the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Jesus until an opportune time.” Luke 4:13
When I read that, it is obvious to me that Satan isn’t easily deterred. He wasn’t finished with Jesus, and he isn’t finished with us. Oh, Jesus has secured Satan’s fate for eternity and has rendered him powerless against us when we stand in the power of the Lord, but we have to live wise to the devil’s schemes. If we give Satan ground, if we give him opportunity, if we invite him into our circumstances, he will gladly RSVP. Satan never turns down an invitation to wreak havoc in our lives.
What is meant here by an “opportune time?” Opportune times aren’t only connected to a window of time, but opportune times can involve other people. Satan is crafty at using other people. He attacks us, often through other people. Sometimes those people may be completely unsuspecting of being used like a pawn in Satan’s games. Sometimes, they have already compromised and given Satan a foothold in their own life.
Satan loves to sow doubt in people’s hearts. If he can get people to believe that the Bible is a fairy tale, that Jesus is a crutch, that he, himself, the devil, isn’t real, but is a fictional character, he knows he can lead people away from a fulfilling earthly life and away from eternal life with God. In three of the 4 Gospels, Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who sowed seed beside the road. In all three parables, Jesus referred to the same enemy. Satan is the enemy of the farmer in the story. Jesus is the farmer, planting the seed of the Word of God, and Satan is the one seeking to destroying the seed.
Matthew 13:19 explains that Satan is always trying to snatch the Word of God out of people’s hearts and minds. He doesn’t want you to receive the contents of this message today. He wants you distracted. He wants you confused. He wants you to minimize the importance of this message. We should not be unaware of the devil’s scheme to distort the Word, to distract us from receiving the Word and to destroy the truth of the Word as it is going forth.
What was one of Jesus’ main activities as He moved about in His earthly ministry? It was to preach about the Kingdom of God. It was to expound on the truth of the Old Testament. It was to preach about the ways God wants His people to live. It was to undo the extra, unbiblical, and burdensome teaching of the religious leaders at the time who were making it hard for people to be in a relationship with God. Literally, His life’s work was to reveal the love of the Heavenly Father. He explained through this parable that every time He taught, every time He went into the synagogue to teach, there was Satan, trying to undermine His efforts. Luke 8:12 says, “Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.”
All three Gospel writers paint the same picture. Satan doesn’t want people to believe God! He seeks to motivate people to doubt what they hear, doubt that Jesus performed miracles, doubt the biblical prophecies, doubt that Jesus died for their sins, came back to life, and ascended back into heaven. He wants people thinking that Jesus wasn’t even an historical figure. As I said, Satan wants people to doubt that he himself is real. That is the ultimate deception! If people doubt those things, Satan is able to operate with freedom in their lives.
In Mark 1:38, Jesus declared that He had come to preach. In Luke 4:43 He said He was sent for the purpose of preaching. Of course, there were other purposes as well, but a primary purpose was the preaching of the Gospel. We’re told in Mark 16:15 by Jesus to, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all Creation.” If Satan was at work to undermine Jesus as He preached, we ought not think that Satan won’t be creeping around to try to destroy the preaching of the Gospel through this ministry and through our personal witnessing. I personally believe Satan seeks to go to church every Sunday to bring disruption in ways that keep the seed of the Word of God from growing in people’s hearts.
Let me take it a step further. Perhaps it is a stretch, but not all of us are called to be full-time preachers of the Word. Some of us are called into Education or Medicine or Business or Banking or Engineering or IT or fill in the blank. If Satan sought to undermine Jesus in His work, know that he will also seek to undo what we do for the Glory of God at our workplace. Satan wants to minimize your productivity and snatch away the fruit of your labor. Let’s not live naïve to the reality that Satan shows up in our workplaces to stir up trouble. Because he is at war with God, he is at war with God’s people. We represent Christ on earth. We bear the image of Christ on earth. He couldn’t defeat Christ, but he keeps trying to pick a fight with God’s people.
So, Satan came at Jesus by attacking His identity, and He tried to undermine the work Jesus was doing through His preaching ministry. Satan also attacked Jesus through the Jewish religious leaders. Probably the most obvious passage is found in Matthew 12:22-30 where the religious leaders accused Jesus of performing exorcisms in cooperation with Satan. That is crazy, right? Why would Jesus be in cahoots with the devil to free people? That makes no sense. The devil incarcerates people. The devil binds people. Only Jesus frees people.
Matthew 12 tells the story. Jesus encountered a demon-possessed man, (Yes, it is a real thing. Don’t live naïve to the devil’s schemes. Don’t think demon-possession is out of the realm of possibility or only takes place in countries where voodoo and witchcraft are the go-to. Friends, it is real and is more prolific than you might think.)
Jesus encounters this man who is blind and mute because of demonic possession. Now, certainly not all physical challenges we have involve a Satanic component, but we have to understand that some could. It is in the Word. Jesus healed the man. After the encounter with Jesus, he could see, and he could speak. Healing meant that Jesus drove out the demon that was responsible for the man’s problems. And when He did, instead of praising God, instead of acknowledging Jesus’ Messianic identity, the religious leaders literally asserted that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Satan. Here is another one of the devil’s schemes. Satan was using people who were supposed to be trusted go-to’s for religious understanding, spiritual help and training, and he used them to attempt to poke holes in Jesus’ identity.
Do you remember what I pointed out about the wilderness temptations? In both Matthew and Luke, we read that Satan started by saying, “If you are the Son of God…” He didn’t want Jesus living with confidence regarding His identity. I think one of the main reasons we read that at Jesus’ baptism that the Heavens opened, and a voice spoke from the Heavens, a voice we know was God the Father, and He said, “This is my Son, whom I love. With Him I am well pleased,” one of the reasons that declaration was made was because God the Father knew that Jesus’ Sonship, His identity, would be attacked all throughout His life and ministry. Jesus went into that wilderness temptation battle with the enemy after having heard His Heavenly Father announce His Sonship, and He lived with a conscious and confident awareness of WHO He was.
When Satan couldn’t get Jesus to doubt His Sonship in those wilderness temptations, he thought, “I’ll at least try to get the religious leaders, the ones with influence, to discredit Him as the Son of God. If they don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son, then no one else will.” And he literally influenced them to try to link Jesus to Satan himself. I cannot give you a chapter and verse that explains my position, but there is no other explanation. Satan moved on the thoughts of the religious leaders to get them to identify Jesus with Satan. You don’t get any more Satanic than that.
Listen, Satan doesn’t want you to know or trust who you are as a Child of God. He wants you to believe that God could never love you and that God could never include you in His family. He wants you convinced that you aren’t good enough to be a son or daughter of God and that God could never use you. Listen, through Christ, you have been made the righteousness of God. It’s the whole reason Jesus came. II Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” You are who God says you are. Want a good study of what God says about you? Read the book of Ephesians. It says that in Christ you are blessed, you are loved, you are chosen, you are holy, you are adopted, you are redeemed, you are forgiven, you are included in God’s family, you are marked by the Holy Spirit, and you are called by God to belong to Him.
Just as Satan tried to twist Jesus’ identity in the minds of the religious leaders, he is good at twisting other people’s thoughts about who you are as a Child of God. He comes at you through other people who may say you act “holier than thou,” or that you are “judgmental” when you share the truth. He wants you discredited by having people label you as “intolerant” or “unloving.” Listen friends, there is nothing more loving than the truth. Don’t live unwise to the devil’s schemes. When people say those things about a sincere believer who is witnessing to the power of Christ in their life, Satan isn’t far behind!
Satan also attacked Jesus through Jesus’ own disciples. We’re talking about a Satanic attack that utilized Jesus’ inner circle. The first example is where Satan spoke through Peter. In Matthew 16 Jesus started telling His disciples, His closest people, what was going to happen to Him. He was preparing them for the crucifixion AND the reality of the Resurrection. Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Jesus. If that doesn’t make you stop in your tracks when you read it, I don’t know what would. How many of us could picture ourselves taking Jesus over to the side and rebuking Him? What in the world was going on? This was out of character for Peter. Matthew 16:22 says Peter said, “Never, Lord! None of this is going to happen to you.” Well, who was it that didn’t want Jesus crucified and resurrected? Satan, right?
Jesus turned to Peter, and looking at Peter, He said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the concerns of God…” Are you getting this? Jesus is looking at Peter, but He is speaking to Satan.
Listen, Peter was not demon-possessed, but he was influenced by Satan to speak those words. When someone comes at you and tries to influence you away from the plan of God for your life, your issue isn’t with that person, but with Satan who seeks to use people to move you away from God’s will for your life. You have every right to call Satan out when that happens. Sometimes that attack can come through one of your closest friends. Don’t be naïve to the devil’s schemes! It is right here in the Word. It makes sense that Peter, then, is the one who warns us: “Be sober minded, be alert: your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8).
I’ve told it before, but I’ll share again that when I was getting ready to graduate from seminary with my Masters in Church Music, an evil voice whispered to me and said, “There will be no place for you. You are young, you are single, and you are female.” I tell you without a doubt in that moment, I knew that was Satan himself, trying to discourage me from pursuing my call to full-time ministry. Now, in that instance, that message didn’t come through a human person, but trust me, there have been many instances when Satan has influenced human people to try to get me to run from my calling, especially since I was called to preach 20 years ago.
Of course, another time Satan used someone who had been close to Jesus was when he tempted Judas to betray Him. Luke 22 says that Satan entered Judas. Not only did he betray Jesus, but he also then took his own life. He succeeded in assisting Satan with two of his goals. Satan wants us disconnected from Christ, and he wants to steal our lives from us.
Satan was at work in and among the religious leaders of Jesus day to thwart Jesus’ mission and had even wiggled into Jesus inner circle to try to derail Jesus. I believe Satan followed Jesus all the way to the cross. Even in the trial before Pilate, much of the content was about questioning and mocking Jesus’ identity. Those who were questioning Him demanded He respond to being called the Son of God and the King of the Jews. Do you think in those moments that Jesus’ mind went to that early battle in the wilderness where Satan taunted, “If you are the Son of God?…” Satan had never given up.
He continued to try to get Jesus to prove Himself, even when Jesus was on the cross. I suppose he saw that as the most opportune time. Jesus was defenseless, vulnerable, weak, alone, beaten, bloodied, bruised, and hanging in shame like a common criminal. How much more vulnerable could He get? Sounds like an opportune time for an enemy attack.
Only this time, unlike the wilderness temptations, Jesus had an audience. There were spectators. There were Jewish leaders. There were Roman soldiers. All of them were pawns in Satan’s schemes. They were all used to tempt Jesus to “save Himself.” Scripture says in Luke 23:35-37, “35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” 36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” And verse 39: One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
Satan was tempting Jesus yet again, even on the cross, to defend His identity. But God didn’t send His Son to save Himself from death on the cross. Did you hear me? God didn’t send His Son to save Himself from death on the cross. God sent Jesus to save US from eternal death in Hell. Satan knew that a defense of Himself, a saving of Himself would mean death, instead of life, for us. If Jesus had saved Himself, we could never have been saved. But Jesus didn’t have to defend Himself or prove Himself because He KNEW Who He was, and He knew what He had been called to do. He never lost sight of His identity as the Son of God.
Jesus didn’t quote Scripture back on the Cross. He just fulfilled it. He didn’t save Himself. He saved us.
He actually proved He was the Son of God by staying on that cross!
Through various people, Satan tried to get Jesus to save Himself, to do what was best for Himself rather than do what God wanted Him to do. Y’all, I think he comes at us the same way. He wants us to do what is best for us. He wants us to “save” ourselves. He wants us to look for the easy way out of the will of God. Jesus didn’t lose anything by giving His life. He was raised from the dead, and He secured eternal life for all of us in the process. Satan doesn’t want you to believe that the call of God on your life is worth whatever sacrifice will be called for along the way. Don’t be naïve to the devil’s schemes. When you give up whatever God asks, to follow Him, you will gain what can never be lost.
Why does Satan go to all of the trouble of showing up at our workplaces and even in the church house from time to time, and why does he get into our inner circle of family and friends to try to stir things up once in a while? He does it to get us to question our identity. He wants to put us on the defensive because he knows when we play offense, we can’t lose, and he will be defeated every time.
Don’t be surprised if an opportune time for Satan involves someone close to you. Don’t be surprised if an opportune time comes when God is calling you to lay yourself down so that others can experience something supernatural from Him. Don’t be surprised if an opportune time looks like an attack on your identity. Jesus battled all the way to the Cross, and because He did, we never have to question WHO we are or WHOSE we are. You have nothing to prove. Just live as a son or daughter of God. Jesus battled and won. So can you.
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