The devil often uses scripture to tempt us. However, he never quotes it accurately to us. He always distorts it or leads us to interpret incorrectly or in part only. He uses this tactic against the living, breathing, walking, and talking Word of God in the flesh, Christ Jesus. The devil tempts Jesus to jump from the highest place on the Temple and quotes scripture to coerce Him to do such with the expectation that God will catch Him.  This would be a display of pride to go to the pinnacle of the Temple and jump off. This would be a gross attempt to temp of the Lord.

Christ rebuked the devil and made a claim to His deity in the same rebuke. He rebuked the devil for his attempt to tempt the Lord thy God! Wow! What a rebuke. Satan is tempting the Lord God in God’s very written word! Dr. Adrian Rogers once said in a sermon: “Satan is hideously beautiful and brilliantly stupid.” We see the brilliantly stupid side of him in this passage.

We are never to presume upon the Lord in tempting Him. We are not to do unwise things both physically and spiritually, all while presuming that God will catch us following our premeditated actions. This is not wise. Too often, we make sinful decisions in pride and then question God as to why He is allowing the consequences of our choices. We are never to tempt the Lord our God.

Matthew 4:5—7 “⁵ Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, ⁶ And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. ⁷ Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

Reading the creation account of our God, it’s amazing to try and comprehend all that He did in creation. It’s a whole other thing to try and comprehend His creation being completed in 6 literal days. He spared us no opportunity for amazement on the sixth day.

God created every other beast and everything that creepeth upon the earth. This is all animals and insects. There are five types of animals: Mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. The insect group alone is made up of some 900,000 different types. This is amazing!

The greatest of all His creation was created on this same day, mankind. As if all the animals created were not enough, He finished off day 6 with man! Man is the superior creation of God because man is created in the image of God! Every human is fellow image bearers of God. This is another reason we should take to heart the value of human life.

The things that we love the most in life were created on day six of creation. The animals that we grow so fond of whether in the wild or our very own pets, God created them all. Our greatest love and fondness are for our loved ones and fellow man. Thank God for family and friends. We have companions, children, and friends to love and be loved by in this life. This is all because of God’s thoughtful and master plan of creation.

Genesis 1:24—27 “²⁴ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. ²⁵ And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. ²⁶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

After Jesus was led of the Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose of temptation, the devil began his tactics of temptation. Jesus was fasting while practicing solitude in the wilderness. What happens when a person fasts? Hunger! A fasting person begins to think about food as their hunger pains begin to arise. It’s very difficult not to eat when your body is telling you to.

Jesus was hungry because He fasted forty days and forty nights. I have never fasted anything like that. A week is as long as I can ever remember fasting. There are so many things that go on within your mind and body during fasting a week, I cannot even begin to fathom fasting for forty days. Jesus was hungry and Jesus was demonstrating for us spiritual discipline. Who comes along when we are vulnerable and when we are attempting to practice a spiritual discipline? Yes, the enemy! He is there with his tactics of temptation.

It will serve us well the sooner we realize that Satan’s tactics have not changed. He will attack us in our weaknesses. He will tempt us to sin in our most vulnerable areas. If we are practicing spiritual disciplines to feed upon God’s word, commune with Him in prayer, and mature in our faith, He will attack us! The devil does not fight fairly! He is a sly and mischievous foe.

The devil used the very stones on the ground where Jesus was as a tactic to get Jesus to stumble. He questioned Jesus’ deity and Sonship by essentially daring Him to turn the stones to bread. “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made to bread.” Christ combatted Satan’s tactics with the. Word of God. We too must build our spiritual house on the Word of God. This must be our tactic against the devil’s tactics of temptation.

Matthew 4:2—4 “² And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. ³ And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. ⁴ But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Temptation is a struggle that every human being deals with. We all have struggles and hang-ups and Satan knows this about us. He hits us with temptation in these very areas of personal struggle. Why do you think it is a constant struggle the moment we attempt to bring our flesh into submission to what is right and best for our well-being both spiritually and physically? It’s because Satan is behind the scenes working diligently to coerce us to fall to his tactics of temptation.

As Jesus is marching towards His earthly ministry following His baptism, Matthews’s gospel tells us that Jesus was “led up of the Spirit” into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. This was part of God’s plan for His Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus, for His redemptive plan and Christ’s rightful place as our great High Priest.

It is important to note that God’s word tells us that we are not tempted with anything evil by God. James 1:13, 14 “¹³ Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: ¹⁴ But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” Any temptation to do what is sinful and wrog comes from the enemy, ALWAYS! This truth is the first step in overcoming temptation as a Christian.

When we are tempted and drawn away, the devil uses our Adamic flesh against us. If it is sinful and wrong, the enemy is always behind it. Christ was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He withstood his tactics because God can’t be tempted with evil. He is our High Priest and the One that we look to who can identify and sympathize with all things that we face. He has faced it all and never succumb to any temptation. He is our Holy God and Savior. He is how we overcome temptation.

Matthew 4:1—” ¹ Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”

They tell us that the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and its hangs suspended in the center of the solar system some 93 million miles away from the earth. It has a radius of nearly 433,000 miles. It provides most of earths energy and has for thousands of years. Our God created the sun in one day.

On that same day, God created the moon; The light by which illumination is given by night. The moon is some 238,000 miles from the earth and is 30X the size of the earth. The illumination from the moon is actually the sun. The light from the moon is the sun reflecting off of the moon. Depending on which phase the moon is in, the light will vary.

On that same day, God created the stars in the sky! On a clear night, one can try really hard to count the stars, and it is an impossible task. Astronomers estimate that there may be septillion stars. That number is so high, the mind cannot comprehend. It looks like this numerically:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. In our galaxy alone, there is believed to be one billion stars. The farthest star from earth is believed to be 28 billon light-years away from earth.

The vastness of these 3 means of light that God created is more than any human can fathom. We haven’t been able to study and know all there is no know about them. And yet, our God created all of these in one day.

When you take a problem, care, or concern to Him in prayer, just remember, He made the moon, sun, and stars in one day. There is no problem too big for our God. If His creation has all the many intricate details  that it does, He surely cares about all of our intricate details. If His creation is as complex as it is, He certainly is not overwhelmed by our complexities. When the moon, sun, and stars are the farthest thing from our mind, He is always our Light by day and Light by night. No telescope or rocket can reach Him and yet He abides in the heart of every believer.

Genesis 1:14–19 “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”