Lent 1a Matthew 4:1-11 Temptation

Genesis 3:1-21 Romans 5:12-19

I want you all to image that you are a teenager once again. You have just come home from school and you are terribly hungry. So you go into the kitchen and there on the table is your favorite dessert which happens to be a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Now that cake looks beautiful and you know that since your mom has made it, that cake will taste better than anything you have eaten in a long, long time. But as you approach the table, you see a note that says in very large unmistakable letters, “I have gone to the store. Do not eat this cake. Love, Mom.”

You read the note, but you know that cake is pleasing to your eye and you know that it is very, very good to eat. So you tell yourself, that your mom won’t mind if you have a little taste. After all, it’s just a cake.  Surely your mom will understand if you tell her how hungry you were. Why even in her note she says that she loves you. So what could it hurt if you have a tiny piece?  So you slice off a piece and eat it. To your delight it tastes so good that you have another piece and another and, before you realize it, there is not much cake left and it’s no longer a pretty picture.

Just as you are realizing the extent of you damage, your mom walks in the door carrying a bag full of birthday candles and other party supplies. Following her in the door are all of your father’s friends. At that point that you realize that the cake was meant for your father’s birthday party which is about to start. It is only now when it is too late, that you realize the consequences of your actions. Your mother is heartbroken and disappointed; your Father will be angry.  Soon your father will walk through the door. Don’t you want to go and hide somewhere?

Now this story was only about a cake, but it illustrates the fact of what happens to you whenever you are tempted into sinning.  Our human nature leads us to believe that sin is something we only do when we are full of anger and have lost our temper. Sin is something we do that is hateful and spiteful. While this is true there is a more insidious side of sin that begins with temptation.

You are never tempted by something ugly and unpleasant. To the contrary you are tempted by things that are beautiful and pleasurable with little regard as to the consequences of your action.  Consequently your desires lead you to doubt God’s authority and can even make you suspicious of God’s motives. Temptation causes you to ignore His commands while at the same time you justify your own actions because of the temporary pleasure you will get. When you have convinced yourself that you are right and God is wrong, you give into temptation, fall into sin and set the consequences of your sin into action.

In our Old Testament lesson we see the consequences of what happened when Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent to doubt God’s word and fell into sin.  But let’s back up a moment and look at Adam and Eve’s life in the garden. Adam and Eve have eternal life. They live in a paradise where there is no sin sickness or death.  There are no earthquakes, storms or cold weather. They are living in a tropical paradise where clothes are not necessary. Every living creature has eternal life, every tree is pleasant to look at and good for food.  Among those trees are the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had spoken to Adam and given Him his word saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17 ESV) 

The words God spoke to Adam were plain and simple and very similar to the cake story, “Do not eat this!” Adam was given the charge and the responsibility to teach Eve and all of his future offspring the word of God. Adam was the first pastor and he was to be father and eternal shepherd over all of God’s children. Adam now has a calling to: out of love for his family, he is to tell them to stay away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Because he desires to love and serve them, he is to preach God's Word to them, repeating the command that God told him: stay away from the tree. But why would God place such a tree in the garden?

Because giving Adam a choice is what makes him human. God set Adam above all animals by giving him the ability to make choices. He could obey God and live eternally or he could choose to disobey God and die. God loves this man but love never forces its way. Paul summarizes love for us. He says, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:4-7ESV) 

Therefore, a loving God does not keep Adam on a leash as if Adam were a pet dog.  The gate is open for the man to leave paradise. If Adam doesn't want to be loved, the tree is the exit door: he can choose the consequences of sin; darkness, sickness, decay and death for himself and all his descendants. Clearly, this is not a good choice; but it is there. God does not force His love upon him but the Lord wants Adam alive and holy, and so He warns the first man about the consequences of eating from that tree.

Adam has faithfully told Eve about God’s commands and they are living in paradise preparing to be fruitful and multiply. Life is good, in fact life is perfect.  Into this paradise enters the great liar Satan. The serpent slithers into the garden and tempts Eve. "Did God really say, 'Don't eat from that tree?'" "Did God really say that, if you do, you'll die? You won't, you know." God Loves you doesn’t he?  Or is God holding something back? "Don't you want to be like God, knowing both good and evil?"

The devil has a way of making sin sound better than paradise, and Eve begins to doubt God’s word. She eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil while Adam is standing right there. There stands Pastor Adam, entrusted with God's Word, listening right along as the serpent tempts his little congregation. But rather than preventing Eve from disobeying He watches while she falls into sin, and when he sees that nothing bad has happened, he participates in the sin. As the first pastor, Adam fails to preach the Word, and so sin comes into the world and they realize they have caused sin, death and destruction to enter into the world.  

So now they hide from God. They have lost their spiritual connection and feel naked and ashamed. The consequences of their actions are that their souls are disconnected from God. God is heartbroken and He tells them what will happen on account of their sin. It is not so much that God curse them as they have brought about the curse upon them selves. But because God loves His creation, He makes a promise to send a Savior into the world, a new Adam will arise from the seed of the woman who will conquer sin, death and the devil and restore a right relationship with their Heavenly Father. But Adam and Eve and all of their offspring no longer live in paradise.

We see the new Adam in our Gospel lesson for today. He is not in the garden, but rather He has left His heavenly home to come into the earthly wilderness. He who has eternal life has set His immortality aside to become a mortal human being. He is not surrounded by fruit trees, but is out in the desert fasting for forty days. He's the Son of God, but He is also fully human, and according to that nature He is weakened by lack of food and the heat of the desert by day and the cold by night.

It is during this time of human weakness that Satan comes to tempt the Savior. Scripture plainly teaches that He has come to do the will of His Father by redeeming sinners. But the Savior is not to fight the battle by using His divine power. Rather He is to fight the devil armed only with the full armor of God; the same armor which is available to God’s people. That armor is the very word of God.

The devil tempts Jesus to use His heavenly power to prevent Him from during His Father’s will. If he can prevent Jesus from doing God’s will just one time, he will have victory. If He can get Jesus to avoid hunger, to take the easy way or to avoid the suffering of the cross, then Jesus would fail to win the souls of all people. If Jesus would use His divine power to satisfy His hunger or to become an earthly king or even to put God the Father to the test, Satan would succeed in His temptation and Jesus would fail.

But Jesus demonstrated his complete trust in his Father to keep His body and life by quoting scripture. Jesus saw the consequences of failing to obey His Father in Heaven and He rejected the temptation of the Devil.  While our gospel only lists three temptations, Saint Paul tells us in Hebrews (4:12-16) that Jesus was tempted in every way and yet He did not give in to sin. But Jesus also saw the consequences of His perfect obedience to His Father. Clearly Jesus remained obedient to God even unto death on the cross thereby winning victory over sin death and the devil and giving eternal life to all who would believe in Him.

None of us can resist every temptation as Jesus did. But when we are tempted to sin, we need to turn to God’s word in order to fight off temptation and to pause and look at what may result from our disobedience to Gods’ word. There are always consequences for our sinful actions, even when we do not see them ourselves.  Fortunately for us however, Jesus has restored our connection with the Father through His suffering.  Therefore, when we sin, we can come before Him with repentant hearts, confess our sins and receive forgiveness because Jesus suffered the eternal consequences for us on the cross.

Saint Paul says, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:12-16 ESV) 

In Jesus Name, Amen.