January 11, 2023
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
January 11, 2023
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was
led by the spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the
devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended,
he was hungry. The devil said him, “If you are the son of God, command
this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, man
shall not live by bread alone.” And the devil took him up and showed
him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him,
“To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been
delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will
worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is
written you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you
serve.” And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the
temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down
from here, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning
you, to guard you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you
strike your foot against the stone.” And Jesus answered him, “It is
said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Luke 4:1-12
This past week we focused on Proverbs 4:23. The whole matter of
keeping your heart with all diligence. And sort of like the soldiers who
are to the guard the castle or guard the crown jewels, we are to guard
our hearts. We emphasized the priority, you can translate that Proverbs
4:23 ‘Above all things’, keep and keep on keeping your heart. Then we
considered the difficulty of keeping the heart. We focused on three
major sins ignorance, sloth and pride and just plain old business. Now
Flavel, if you’ve ever read Mr. Flavel, he has maybe four or five
sermons that he preached on keeping the heart. It’s put into a book
form, but he has quite a lengthy section where he deals with what are
special seasons or occasions that require greater diligence or greater
awareness or alertness when it comes to keeping the heart. And we’re
always on the battlefield but he says there are times when the devil
knows that we are more particular vulnerably or that we are weaker,
whatever and he's always on the prowl looking for those occasions.
And
again, go back to Luke chapter 4 the devil attacks Jesus at the back
end not the front end but at the back end of his 40 day fast. So, it’s
obviously a time where Jesus would be more vulnerable, more challenging
time for our Lord when it comes to this epic encounter with the devil.
But Jesus was ready for him and on a red alert. Jesus always kept his
heart he kept It perfectly. That’s why those grenades you could save
those grenades of temptation never landed on his heart and imploded and
left him mortally wounded. He resisted the devil at every turn. But
notice what Luke says in the very back end he knows the devil’s coming
back. He says the verse 12 “Until an opportune time, until an opportune
time.” So, if you follow the story, fast forward and you can see the
devil coming again and again against our Lord. And there’s at least two
very clear occasions where the devil comes after Jesus. Remember enroute
to Jerusalem. He uses Peter-Jesus’ own disciple and Jesus knows it,
“Satan get behind me Satan.” And then later on in the upper room he gets
into the heart of Judas. So, the devil is on attack again.
Some
think the devil is in Gethsemane, at least Jesus makes reference to the
fact that this is now the devil's hour or the hour of darkness, at
least at the back end in the garden of Gethsemane. But there are
occasions obviously in the life of our Lord and even in our lives where
we are more particularly vulnerable to sin and temptation. And Flavel
gives at least eight or nine different occasions. I won’t mention them
all I’ll mention three of them. One of the times in which we are
vulnerable is times of prosperity and wealth. He believes that is a very
vulnerable time as Christians and believers. When we are doing well
financially when we have temporal blessing. He says when the providence
of God is smiling on you that could be a dangerous time. I think
of David, when did David fall and stumble? Not when he was in those
caves but he when he was on a throne in II Samuel 11, it was at the
prime of his career when David was at the top of his game. David suffers
a grievous fall. So that that’s one occasion, that’s when enjoying
wealth prosperity and success that’s a time where we need to be on
alert. That’s what Flavel is saying.
The second season is
that of adversity or trial. You could think of people in your Bible
where that was certainly the case. I think of when Job is in his intense
period of trial, his faith begins to waver he begins to have a
suspicious attitude towards God. He views God as his enemy. Then Asaph
in Psalm 73 he’s going through a hard time remember. He begins to have
some heart struggles and says he became envious of the wicked, Psalm 73.
So again, that’s another season, another occasion where we can be
vulnerable, and we need to keep special alert.
Towards
the back end, John Flavel points to another occasion, and this is really
where we’re coming tonight. He talks about times of religious duty,
times of worship. He said we can shuffle over religious duties. We can
have a loose and careless spirit. Haven’t you found it sometimes to be
tempting when you pray, not even five minutes after you start praying
you your mind Is wandering somewhere else? It’s easy to go to through
the motions. And we all know that we can come to worship on Sunday, and
we struggle just to keep attention. We find that in personal devotions
but even in public context. That’s the point he’s making it’s hard to
give a serious attention to prayer, to hearing the word of God. And
that’s one of the times in which we are vulnerable, one of the times we
have to be on alert and guard our heart. And Jesus had that in mind when
he talked about the parable of the sower. When he talked about the
devil’s activity under the analogy of birds of the air that come and
take away the seeds that is sown, by distraction. That is one way the
devil seeks to get our minds off the Lord. He’s crafty, he knows when we
are vulnerable. He can distract us by distractions, taking our thoughts
somewhere else even by captivating shiny objects to lure us away from
worship. So, all I’m saying brethren this is we need to be careful
whenever we come to prayer, private prayer and corporate prayer be on
special alert.
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