Jackie Hill Perry - Dealing With Spiritual Warfare

to get straight to the point um tonight even though my story is uh about a particular topic I'm not really going to venture into that if you would like to learn about it more I do have a book that's at every Lifeway store that you could ever imagine um that you could have access to it's called Gay girl good God but tonight I really just want to open up the scriptures and talk about the concept of spiritual warfare um I want to talk about that because I I think it's always around us and it's ever

before us and I think the reason we PE see people continually falling is because of spiritual warfare the reason that there is tension in our marriages is because of spiritual warfare because there are uh people who are unwilling to trust God in their singleness or whatever season God has them in is because of spiritual warfare we have a real devil who does not want us to be faithful and so because of that I want us to open up the scriptures and see how Jesus defeated him and learn from him but can we pray let's pray

oh God I just pray peace for my mind um that you would give me just focus in this moment I pray God that you would speak that you would use your word to do what your word does which is to convict us of sin and to give us hope and to show us Jesus I pray God that those of us who are blinded to the kind of particular ways in which Satan is tempting us I pray that you would show us today but I pray that we would all leave here encouraged by the gospel that

we really can be victorious over all sin because you were I pray these things in Jesus name amen glory I'm glad you're excited the way spiritual warfare is talked about sometimes can be a bit weird weird as in you have those folks that when they talk about spiritual warfare they talk about it like everything is a spirit everything is a demon uh but I think on the other end of the spectrum you have those who those Christians who act as if spiritual warfare is not a reality at all and I think that that extreme might

be the one that concern turns me most but tonight I just want to spend some time dealing with the topic because we have a real enemy as I said crouching at our door who is seeking to devour us there are three people to consider or to be considered an understanding spiritual warfare there is God there is Satan and there is You Now understand that there is not some war between Satan and God anymore because God defeated Satan a long time ago way before you were born that was handled but this Warfare has a lot to

do with God because Satan is not after your house Satan is not after your ministry Satan is not after your marriage Satan is not after your children all of those are mess with as a means to an end but it's not the means itself God Satan is ultimately after your faith in God where do I get that from I get it from Ephesians 6 I'll read it for you you Ain got you got to turn to your don't even trip finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the

whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic Powers over this present Darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the Heavenly places therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand stand firm stand therefore having fastened on the belt of Truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet

having put on the Readiness given by the gospel peace listen to this in all circumstances take up the shield of Faith with which you can extinguish all the Flaming darts of the evil one here we see that it's faith that extinguishes meaning to put out to quench to suppress the darts of the evil one imagine now that you're at War and you have your belt cuz we need those um you have your breastplate you have your shoes you put on your helmet amen you got your Little Weapon your sword the Bible all that you have

this entire armor except your sword not your sword your Shield so imagine and you have all this stuff on but you don't have your shield and you walk out on the field and there are darts with flames on the ends of them coming your way the question should be how will you protect your body from the darts that you can and cannot see if you have no Shield to hide behind the thing is the belt of Truth the breastplate of righteousness the shoes of gospel peace the helmet of salvation will do you no good if

you don't have the faith that produces what these pieces of armor represent so if there is anything that Satan wants you to let go of it's your Shield because once your Shield is gone on you are surely dead Romans 14:23 says that forever for whatever that that does not proceed from faith is sin then Romans 6:23 tells us for the wages of sin is death so for Satan to come for your faith is Satan coming for your very life and that's exactly what happened to Adam and Eve they believed the wrong person and it killed

them spiritually it separated them from God because they were no longer holy as he is Holy but after God confronted Adam this is Genesis 3 after God confronted Adam then Eve then Satan he dispenses some curses to all of them but what's interesting to me is that inside of the curse that God gave towards Satan we find something intriguing you don't have to turn to this either just listen God says in Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your Offspring and her Offspring he shall bruise your head you shall

bruise his heel what is the Lord talking about with all of these male pronouns he's letting Satan know that someone is coming that through this woman that he deceived will come a single man that Satan will try to do the same to but this man will actually triumph over him unlike Adam did I love how in Satan's judgment God gives us a promise so who is this man that God is talking about you wern't supposed to give that away yet but clearly it ain't Jacob it ain't Abraham it ain't Isaac it ain't Moses and it

surely ain't David it is Jesus the son of the Living God so in Luke chapter 4 we're going to figure out how he did what God prophesied that he would do please turn to Luke or click should I say you know we don't turn anymore we just scroll Luke chapter 4 this is where we will be camping for the rest of our time we will see the beginning of how Jesus would crush the Serpent's head and we will learn from him how spiritual warfare is to be won in Luke 4 we have just left the

scene of Jesus's baptism the Holy Spirit has descended upon him and bodily form the father has confirmed him audibly by saying that you are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased then from that point is when we come to verse one and Luke chapter 4 it says and Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil and he ate nothing during those days and when they were ended he was hungry the devil said to 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 will then will worship me it will all be yours and Jesus answered him 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 and when the devil had ended everything Temptation he departed from

him until an opportune time Jesus has just left his baptism and after being dipped not sprinkled he if you caught it you caught it uh he goes straight into the Wilderness this is not a random decision Jesus isn't lost Jesus isn't roaming he is actually following the spirit's lead scripture says that he was led by the spirit Into the Wilderness the spirit had filled him the father had confirmed him and now it is time for this son of God this long awaited Christ or Messiah to be tested and what better way to test the Christ

than by placing him in the wilderness if you know anything about the Old Testament and you know that God has led his own Into the Wilderness many times after setting the people of Israel free from the bondage that they were under an Egypt God guided his people where not into the palace but Into the Wilderness but sadly due to their unbelief God judge them causing them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years here we have Jesus being led into the Wilderness for 40 days coincidence I doubt it for 40 days Jesus ate nothing shout

out to you if you ever done a 40-day fast I'm sure you are spiritual than all of us to me the equivalent is Whole 30 but I'm not even going to go there ain't got no sugar no nuts that's a lot after 40 whole days of no food his muscles are most likely weak his energy low the his body was probably considerably thinner due to the loss of fat and muscle and not surprisingly him being so very human at the end of 40 days verse two says that he was hungry it is then that the

devil continues his temptation notice I didn't say starts his temptation verse two says that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by the devil this testing this temptation this Warfare had already been going on so not only is Jesus weak physically but he has been in enduring spiritually Eve couldn't endure past one question but this son of God is all together different verse three it says the devil said to him if you are the Son of God command this Stone to become bread if why would he question the deity and sunship of

Jesus you may be wondering the thing is he's not the devil and demons are very clear on who Jesus is he is not casting doubt here this if is to be understood as since since you are the Son of God command this Stone to become bread Satan is aware of what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God he gets the implications of this title that it would mean that he was the one in the beginning who created the heavens and the Earth with a word that he is the one who made man

out of dust with a word that he is the one that caused man to fall from Heaven and feed the people of Israel while in the wilderness he is aware that his sunship makes him equal with God and therefore more than able to provide for other people through Supernatural means so it's as if he's saying you have always been a person who speak things into existence Pro to provide for other people so now do it for yourself be selfish for once Jesus you're hungry we're in the wilderness pick any stone and tell it to become

bread and don't hear him saying bread as if he's offering slices to Jesus by Bread he actually means loaves be a glutton out here in this Wilderness Jesus you have a habit of using your words to do crazy things so do it right now as I mentioned earlier I don't think I did mention it but I'll mention it now all of Satan's suggestions have motives the thing about Satan is Genesis 3 says that Satan is Crafty to be crafty means that you are able to accomplish deceptive Wicked means while seeming sincere so when the devil

is making suggestions to Jesus on the surface they actually look nice it looks considerate but he has another motive there is something about God that Satan doesn't want Jesus to believe in this first Temptation Satan wants Jesus to distrust the satisfaction of God on the surface his suggestion seems reasonable thoughtful even you're hungry so feed yourself but Satan doesn't really care if Jesus is hungry or full what he cares about is if he can keep Jesus from trus in God to provide his sustenance Jesus was a man he had had to eat that is natural

but he was being tempted to decide when and how the food would come Jesus had come to do the will of his father he did not move beyond what God sent him and led him to do so this test here this temptation is to not depend on God for what is necessary for survival but instead to give into the desires of the body and satisfy self don't that sound like us and we all tempted to do the same if you ever talk to a single Christian woman who has ended up with someone who didn't have

a lick of the Holy Ghost because they just couldn't imagine being single their standards were lowered because their faith was tested their faith in the providential provision of God to either Supply a Christian husband in his time or to supply the joy that can accompany purposeful singleness by God's grace many haven't seen this as a hindrance but as a beautiful cross to bear but for others the idea of trusting God with their love life is rejected so they pursue sinful relationships instead to satisfy their desires instead of being satisfied in Christ what is the point

Jesus has made us for Community for relationship he is by nature a god of community he is one God and three persons so to want a relationship is to actually be the image bearer of the Living God but just like being hungry is natural Satan will consistently leverage what is natural to bait you into what is sinful and unnatural so the sinful woman or the single woman who has rejected Jesus because they cannot fathom the thought of being alone has made bread out of stone when God has provided another means for their human needs to

be met the same can be said of a man even though we don't have men in here unless they're engineers working sound or something but may the Lord reach you here um Holy Ghost just flow over there the same can be said of a man who continues to justify his Lust by appealing to how God made him as a man just because it's natural doesn't mean that you need it to live and Jesus believes this verse four and Jesus answered him it is written man shall not live by bread alone you see how quick Jesus

is he ain't here to have a whole conversation with bezel buug Jesus immediately says it is written Jesus quickly quickly references scripture because he trusts it it's written in his heart he easily discerns the lies of Satan and he knows how to respond because he was repaired so many Christians might possibly quickly give into temptation because they have not hidden the word in their heart mainly because they don't spend time in it they can easily recollect everything else but the word of truth but Jesus depends on the word because he depends on God and His

dependence on God has prepared him for this fight Jesus says man shall not live by bread alone he quoting something he's quoting Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 8:3 to be exact all of Jesus's responses to the Devil by the way are from Deuteronomy when the people of Israel were in the wilderness coincidence I doubt it in Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses is in the wilderness during the 40 years and he is warning and encouraging and reminding Israel of God's work and chapter 8 in particular he brings up how in the Wilderness God humbled them by letting them hunger then he

fed them with mana mana was like a bread likee wafer that tasted like honey that fell from heaven so that they would know one thing and that this one thing was that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord Satan wants Jesus to believe that he needs bread to live Jesus affirms the truth that bread is not what would keep him alive it is the god who provides the bread that does we give a lot of credit to our food for feeding us or our

jobs for providing for us or our gifts for making room for us or our homes and our relationships for comforting us but the thing is they do sure but if God did not want you to eat you wouldn't if God did not want you to receive Comfort want you to have a platform to use your gifts you wouldn't the reality of what these things provide is not owe to the things themselves but the God who gave it to us this is why we lose our minds when these kinds of things are threatened because we started

believing that we needed thieves to move and live and have our being and not God and Jesus refuses to give into such a lie he is confident that his God will supply all of his needs and that his God will sustain him and that when it is time for him to die it won't be because he starved to death but it'll be because he laid his life down verse five I hope you like going verse by verse I enjoy it 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 to whom I will if you then will worship me it will all be yours Satan is dramatic with this second Temptation Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms in the world and what Luke describes as a moment of time we know from Matthew that this temptation is taking place on a mountain it seems as if Jesus was being shown a visual a vision or Supernatural like images

in quick succession with is highly feasible seeing that Satan is a supernatural being he is able to move in and out of Dimensions that we have no idea about seeing that at one point he had access to the throne of God to accuse job and now he is on a physical mountain with Jesus Satan in some way displays all of these kingdoms before Jesus and says that they have been given to him and that he will be a nice little demon by giving it to Jesus when reading this text you you have to ask yourself

is Satan telling the truth has he been given authority over the kingdoms of the world scripture says that Satan is the prince or the ruler of this world the God of this age the prince of the power of the air so hearing the titles Prince and God being ascribed to Satan could affirm what he's telling Jesus about himself but we must understand that Jesus or what Satan is PR Prince over and God over is all that is like him all that is dark all that is wicked all that is demant all that is ungodly all

that is untrue he is no God or Prince over the kingdoms of the world but he is the god of the people that occupy these kingdoms he is the god of every human being that is a slave to sin a commentator said it this way the name God is given to Satan not because he has Divine attributes but because he actually has the homage of the people of this world as their God as the being who was really worshiped or who has the affections of their heart so is Satan telling the truth to Jesus here

partially remember Satan is a liar and a good one at that he will tell you a lie with a smidge of Truth he does indeed have a measure of power but this power has nothing to do with having authority over entire Kingdom so he is ultimately lying to Jesus because a half truth is no Truth at all the interesting thing about what Satan is offering is that the language is very similar to a prophecy by Daniel in Daniel 7 I know I'm getting deep but it'll bless you you don't have to turn to it I'll

read it for you just like you do with your podcast I want you to pay attention to the language used in Daniel and I want you to see how similar it's sounds to Satan's temptation to Jesus I'll do it with inflections and everything it says and behold with the Clouds Of Heaven There came one like a son of man Jesus and he came to the Ancient of Days God and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples Nations and languages should serve him Daniel is prophesying

that one day the son of man will be given dominion and glory and a kingdom and here Satan is saying that he has it that he has the authority and the glory in his back pocket and he tells Jesus that I showed it to you and he tells Jesus that he can have supposedly this Glory that he holds on one condition Jesus has to worship him to get it if Jesus gives into to what Satan is say saying there will be something about God that Jesus chose not to believe and what is that Satan is

tempting Jesus to distrust the worthiness of God how do I know this look at Jesus's response verse 8 it says and Jesus answered him it is written you shall Worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve a major difference between us and Jesus is besides him being a Jewish man um is that Jesus was not born in sin sounds simple but it's actually profound Jesus did not come into this world under the Dominion of its God because he has always known known and loved the true God perfectly he was and is God

In the Flesh so he is able to experience Temptation while at the same time never get in so maybe Satan had some delusions of grander where he thought that he could do to Jesus what he's always done to us which is to trick us into believing that he could give us something that he doesn't even have and that by our faith in his lies our worship towards God that it would be R redirected towards Idols Satan has done this to you if you've believed that a sinful relationship would give you Joy or when you thought

that unforgiveness would pacify your pain or maybe you can relate to the lie that you can get away successfully with serving two masters that as long as you're a good person you don't really have to repent because God is a god of love and not also Grace and judgment and Wrath if this describes you what you have believed as rational ways to live your life are lies that you have believed from the mouth of Satan himself he has offered you something that he doesn't own so that you will lose what you've always needed which is

God Only God Can Heal you of your pain the sin of unforgiveness will never be able to do that God is the source of all comfort not a human being hypocrisy is not the path to life but death it is only the surrendered heart that will ever know what it means to be free when we live as slaves to sin we live under the Dominion of Satan himself you don't have to wear 666 or go out and tell people that you're a worshipper of the devil you just have to go through life rejecting the commands

of God to repent and believe and you will be just that already but Jesus is so different from us that he is only going to Worship the Lord his God and he is only going to save serve him even if it hurts to do so this is the beginning of Jesus's Ministry he ain't even met Peter and them yet so before Jesus's Ministry Begins the devil was saying that he will give Jesus authority over kingdoms if you keep reading Matthew and you get to chapter 28 after Jesus's bodily Ministry is completed he comes and meets

the disciples on a mountain and he says that he has Authority remember he says all authority and heaven and on Earth has been given to me so we know that Jesus didn't give in to Satan's Temptation so the question should be now how did he get this Authority if it wasn't by way of the devil the answer to that is that in between the Temptation and the exaltation was suffering listen to Isaiah 53 surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken Smitten by God and Afflicted but he was

pierced for our transgressions he would he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace with his wounds we are healed Satan would have preferred if Jesus got his authority through Disobedience he would have preferred if Jesus Took the easy way out but God was too valuable for Jesus for him to skip his cross before he got his crown Philippians 2:8 says and being found and human form he humbled himself I'm talking a lot about Jesus ain't it good by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on the

cross therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every name should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to glory to the god of the Father the authority and the glory and the Dominion that Jesus received came by way of obedience Jesus had come to do the will of his father and that meant that he was there to serve him to worship him like he had been doing

in all of eternity why because no one else is worthy who else is like him who else is more deserving of Glory than him who else can say that all things were created through him and for him nobody but the Lord of hosts the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the Alpha and Omega don't let Satan deceive you into believing that a created thing is more worthy of your glory than the one who created it sin will never be able to give you what it promised because it can't you shall Worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve verse n 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 yourself down from here for it is written he's bringing scripture in now 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 Satan is Relentless first he wanted Jesus to turn stones into loaves of bread then he wanted Jesus to worship him now he wants

Jesus to jump off the top of the temple he is getting more obnoxious as is expected so don't be surprised when the spiritual war that you're fighting feels continual they have now moved from the Wilderness to the temple in Jerusalem this is the temple that the people of Israel thought very highly of animal sacrifices were done at this Temple atonement for sin there was a high priest uh who made atonement from sin there simply put this Temple was the center of Jewish religious life and this is why Satan wants Jesus to jump from it because

all the Jews are always there this time though Satan backs up his temptation with scripture he quotes Psalms 91 you probably got it on some of your bathroom walls the interesting thing is you got it from Hobby Lobby you [Laughter] know that was a good one um the interesting thing is Psalms 91 is a Psalm of trust he must have gotten tired of Jesus firing back with him with scripture so he needs to remind uh Jesus that he knows scripture too and that he will use scripture when it best suits his purposes he says to

Jesus since you are the Son of God since you seem to trust God so much since you keep using the Bible to dictate how you going to respond to me I have some encouragement for you jump off the temple show the people who you really are because God has said in his word that the word that you really believe that he will command his angels concerning you they won't let you die Jesus that's if you trust God enough to prove that his word is true so jump do you hear the Demonic rationale if there has

ever been a time that this kind of Temptation is relevant it's now Satan is still using and twisting scripture in such a way that it deceives million and the blame really isn't on Satan it's on us because Romans 1 says that we suppress the truth by our unrighteousness and that we are the ones who accumulate teachers to suit our passions we as in humans are prone to deception because we like what it offers we don't choose deception for deception sake we don't even give it those kinds of names we call it Prosperity Gospel we we

say things like God turned water into wine Grace is free I am free in Christ so drunkenness is all right right God is gracious so I can send this time I know he'll forgive me the Bible says that God is loved so surely everyone should be able to love whomever they want there are millions of people in bondage to sin not because they don't read the Bible but because they've made the contents of the Bible mean something that it doesn't this is a continual scheme of the evil one and we know because he used it

on the word himself Satan is using a Psalm of trust to tempt Jesus not to trust and what exactly does he want Jesus to stop remembering about God remember his entire aim is Faith he doesn't want Jesus to believe I believe that he doesn't want Jesus to believe that God is faithful this is how I came to that conclusion by listening closely to Jesus's response I believe that the scripture he uses to rebuke Satan expose is the lie that Satan is trying to conceal verse 12 and Jesus answered him it is said You shall not

put the Lord your God to the test this response comes from Deuteronomy 6 when Moses is telling the people of Israel not to put God to the test like they did in Exodus 17 if you don't know what happened here it goes the people of Israel had been delivered out of Slavery to the Egyptians they came to a point in the wilderness when they got thirsty they start talking to Moses like he was crazy and thus they was talking to God like he was crazy they said why did you bring us up out of Egypt

to kill us with thirst so Moses being the meek and gentle person that he was started to pray instead of fighting I would have fought but I ain't him God answered cuz they was just irky they just always complaining God answered by giving them water out of a rock then the end of The Narrative Moses says this and he called the name of the place Massa and mebel because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying is the Lord among us or not God had delivered them out

of slavery and promised promised to deliver them into a land flowing with milk and honey and they are now accusing God of delivering them for the sole purpose of killing them and Moses says that it was the same as them saying God is surely not with us in other words testing God is to doubt him with a heart of accusation that says I don't think God will really do all that he said he's going to do will he keep his promise will he be good to us will he Deliver Us will he protect us these

are the questions that come come up in our heart when we are trying to test God will he sustain us or not and Satan wants Jesus to doubt God in the wilderness in the same way that Israel doubted doubted him in the wilderness by testing him when Satan told Jesus to jump off the temple he also wanted Jesus to believe something else he wanted him to believe that jumping off the temple was the way that he would be glorified and seen as the true Son of God in front of his people but if Jesus would

have obeyed he would have killed himself but Satan he doesn't care if Jesus is Jesus dies he cares if Jesus dies according to the will of God remember I said you could pause cuz I I still got a couple more minutes I'm sorry I'm sorry cuz you was going to be up there playing for a long time and I don't even want to do that to you that's called love you know you start playing them pads I'm like H I ain't even got to like the the part where he Satan left yet um it's all

right first time doing it um as I said before Satan doesn't care about your marriage he cares about if you do the will of God in your marriage if you trust God enough to obey God in your marriage Satan doesn't care about your money he cares if you obey God with your money Satan doesn't care about your ministry he cares about if you obey God with your ministry Satan doesn't care about the what as much as he cares about the heart and the how now Satan wants Jesus to jump off the top of the temple

and inevitably kill himself Jesus has come to Earth to die so Satan presents his method for how Jesus death could come to pass and that the exaltation of Jesus could receive uh would come from the people seeing him fall but God has already determined that the Son of God will be exalted and that it won't be by jumping off of the temple but it would come through a beaten body on a Roman cross even though the ministry before him was not going to be easy he trusted God's will Jesus won't put his Lord to the

test because he knows that God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent what he said he will do he will do so Jesus doesn't have to do Satan's will as if it's a better option Jesus knows that God is faithful just as much as he knows the psalm that Satan is trying to quote in Satan's Temptation he quotes verse 11 of Psalm 91 but Jesus loves context he doesn't pick and choose what part of God's word he's going to rest in he trusts the entire verse

but for the sake of time I'll only read the first and the last you last you can read the left uh the rest of them when you get home and look at your AB W verse one of Psalms 91 it'll sound familiar when I say it he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty I will say to the Lord my refuge and my Fortress my God in whom I trust the last verse God speaks about this person that trust him he says because he holds fast

to me in love I will deliver him I will prot protect him because he knows my name when he calls to me I will answer him I will be with him in trouble I will rescue him and honor him do you see how manipulative the devil is that he would take a verse that describes faith in God and the faithfulness of God and use it to tempt Jesus towards unbelief in God this is why we got to study the scriptures for ourselves because there's plenty of preachers doing this exact same thing and many of us

can't discern it but it's okay cuz Jesus wasn't here for it so we don't have to be either for Jesus he believes that because God can and will command his angels concerning him just like he did in the garden when he needed to be strengthened to sacrifice his his body for Sinners that he will go to the Cross because they will bear him up lest he strike his foot against the swn he will trust the faithfulness of his God the scripture that Satan thought he could use to destroy the son of God contain the promises

that actually sustained the Son of God listen Satan is after your faith in the god that these scriptures are about every single day there will be circumstances and trials that arise in your life that you will be tempted to trust go test God in but I beg you trust his faithfulness even when it don't make sense those trials are refining you we don't get gold in the p pal we get gold in the wilderness I know some of you might have been walking with the Lord for a while now but that doesn't mean that you're

done keep believing God because everything that is happening is working together for your good so that you may grow in the knowledge and in the image of your creator he is your protector he is your provider he is your comforter he is your healer he is your peace he is your Refuge that's a fact and I am grateful that Jesus trusted God instead of testing God because now we can to I'm almost done verse 13 and when the devil had ended every Temptation he departed from him until an opportune time do you know why this

message this text this this narrative matters why the temptation of Jesus and the Victory of Jesus against Satan matters because I know we've all heard it before to the point of apathy maybe but this is huge with the first Adam Satan was able to tempt him and succeed through Adam's Offspring he was able to work their sin nature for his purposes through adultery through murder through rape through Pride so God had consistent ly revealed himself as being worthy of their affections his people always found themselves kneeling at the feet of Idols to get something that

only God had in himself everybody has turned Stone into bread everybody has jumped off of the Temple of their making to be exalted through sin and not obedience everybody has tested God God has commanded and every single person alive at one point or another has failed to obey but here for the first time in history there is a human man on Earth that has obeyed everything Satan wanted Jesus to prove his sonship through sin but Jesus proves his sunship through his sinlessness and because of this he was able to be the sacrifice that we all

who have broken God's law needed he was qualified to take our sin and their judgment on himself because he was indeed the Spotless lamb without blemish and the perfect Lamb of God this lamb was slaughtered for all of the times that we have taken Satan at his word and all of the times that we have refused to endure temptation all of the times that we have tested God all of the times that we have worshiped Idols outside of Christ and in Christ and when his work was done Jesus said it is finished he laid his

life down and he rose three days later crushing the Serpent's head once and for all Satan has no power over you and if you have trusted the Son of God you have received the power of the Holy Spirit who will help you to resist just like Jesus did please Saints who are fighting what seems to be a consistent War do not be discouraged resistance is hard resistance is exhausting but remember you have a great high priest who has been there done that and he is working in and through his church to strengthen and sanctify you

and it is most likely his time in the wilderness that take that allows him to look at you and say I get it he sympathizes with you and he is interceding for you he has a throne of grace that he beckons all of us to come to and receive in our time of need and if you're honest with yourself your time of need is always we're talking about rhythms right get this rhythm in you the rhythm of Faith the Rhythm to believe and fight and take up your cross daily and die the Rhythm to remove

whatever is in your way that is keeping you from fighting well lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us the r them to put God's word before your face so that you know him and have his words in you so that you can resist whatever and whoever would keep you from him get this rhythm in your system and the devil can't touch you and that doesn't that doesn't mean that he won't try it means that he won't succeed and at the end of the day we all have two choices here we

can believe God's word is true or we can trust Satan and said let's [Music] pray God help us trust you help us trust you all of us got doubts and our doubts SE seem legitimate but help us to believe that you are who you say that you are help us to believe that you will do what you said that you will do help us to trust that you have done what you said you did which is to die for our sins and raise for our life we have more power in us than we know because

we have you in us God I pray that we would resist the evil one and that you who said in Jude 24 to him who was able to keep us fall from falling and to present us faultless and blameless that you would do just that and we would trust that you are the one who will preserve us to the end I pray these things in Jesus name amen [Applause]