Mounting Trials concluded

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, All these things I will give You if You fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Away with you Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve. Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. Matthew 4: 8 – 11. NKJV.

We conclude straightway, with the final two trials from this Third Big Trial as written above.   

Trial C – The devil proposes to Jesus on this high and lofty place.

And he said to Him, All these things I will give You. Hearing the term proposes, I’m sure, if you are of my vintage, your first thoughts are of a man proposing to a woman, to have her hand in marriage.  As I was about to dismiss the thought, I heard, in very quiet, soft and almost whispery tones, these words. That is exactly what the devil was doing to Jesus. It straightened me up forthwith. Think of it with even more amazingly enlightened eyes. The devil wants Jesus to be one with him, to be his partner and be unfaithful, disloyal and disobedient to God the Father. Remember, the devil is doing his best to woo Jesus to be his partner, his friend, his own.

I’m sent to look at the previous two trials or temptations and I am shown that Satan never made a single proposal of giving anything, any gifts to Jesus. In the first trial, Jesus was the person doing the work Himself. He had to perform the miracle of feeding or helping Himself. In the second attempt of the devil, God the Father was the One to help His Son, by sending angels to protect Him. However, in this final attempt to have Jesus, Satan is the person who is offering to give to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  

Aren’t you receiving a great lesson from Jesus about not being wooed by the riches, the brilliance, the opportunities and even the blessings of God that are not coming to you from Him? Does it not make you prepared to shun all that is good and helpful, edifying and enhancing, when you know deep within that all this is not of God? Be not one who lives an ostrich-type life in this deceitful world. The Holy Ghost is present all the time to help you and to help me, to always test the spirits, so that in the Name of Jesus neither of us will yield to the most generously proposing devil.  Not every wooer is a suiter – Test the spirits!

Trial D - The devil makes condition with Jesus.  

If you fall down and worship me. Now that we are on the final bit, the final tributary of the Sea of Trials of the Third Big Trial, it all comes out. The reason or motive for the temptations has come out. And here is where the Holy Ghost has given us extremely powerful hearing, seeing and understanding. It is here that as our eyes are opened to the full exposure of the deceiver that we cringe, yet give unceasing honour, power, glory and unshared might to our One, True, Sovereign and Father God. It is God and God alone who has brought the devil to unclothe himself, to throw off his mask, and to lay his true motive before Jesus. If you fall down and worship me.

The devil wants all of Jesus as he wants all of you, not part of you. He wants you entirely, for his one mission is to steal God’s own. Since he has no power to get you, but through trickery, cunning and deceit, he has honed his evil skills perfectly and is the master deceiver. Now listen! He never fails to have God’s disobedient, disgruntled, complaining children bow down to him and worship him. He targets them on their wills and desires that are not God’s desires. It is precisely because the sly, slick tempter knows what he is doing, in our haughtiness, arrogance and foolish pride, we are enticed and do exactly what the deceiver wants.

What exactly does the deceiver want? Jesus spoke it most clearly and candidly. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. John 10: 10a. I know this passage well, but it is here, as enlightenment is being bestowed freely upon us, that I am hearing what I have never heard before. The thief - who is the devil, the deceiver, the serpent, the wolf, Satan – only has one single mission. It is a three-in-one mission. He steals, then kills then destroys. It’s exactly like what many of us observe in those television nature documentaries. The lion stalks the herd of sheep. He knows that to get one sheep he has to surreptitiously go to the pack and use his prowess to steal a sheep. It is usually a stubborn, own way sheep, who is doing as it wants and is not following the shepherd’s rules or orders.

When the lion steals it, he takes it away and kills it. After it dies then it does what it wants with it. It destroys it in many ways, even to the point of not just tearing off limbs, but leaving it for carrions to come and feast. Awful and totally horrendous, I hear you say? Well this is exactly what the devil’s motive is, for each of his victims.

Aren’t you being edified and enlightened in unfathomable ways? The devil knows that he simply cannot walk into the Lord’s fold and take His sheep out of His Hands. So he has to steal sheep and he does this through temptations and trials. When he tempts us and we give in, we leave ourselves wide open to the devil, who wastes no time in killing us. He kills us when he gets us to leave Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and turn to other ways and that apartness from God is death. It is in our dead states, dead to the things of God and to God Himself that we are destroyed. We are destroyed in terms of all our ways of thinking, speaking and acting. We are destroyed in that we are no longer in the vine and are heading to eternal damnation. We become partners of and with the devil and our service is to the one to whom we now bow and worship.

Look and learn from our undefeated Victor, Jesus Himself, who had to face these deeply disturbing trials, during some of His weakest human moments. See how He depended heavily and solely on the Holy Spirit, who took Him through triumphantly. We look carefully at Jesus’ response as His Words did exactly what they set out to do. Jesus, knowing who He was, and not doubting His relationship with the Father, had enough of the devil and, we note Jesus' authority and ownership as He takes full charge.  

Jesus speaks a Command to the devil. Away with you Satan! Jesus uses His Divine Authority to command the devil to leave forthwith. The devil has no choice but to obey the Voice of God in Jesus.

Jesus cites a Commitment to the devil – For it is written. Jesus uses His Holy Righteousness to speak words which are alive in Him. In other word, He is letting the deceiver know that, it is written, is what is from Him, as God the Son.  The devil can neither refute nor refuse. He has to abide by what the Son says.

 Jesus endorses a Commandment to the devil – You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve. Jesus uses His Oneness in the Trinity to speak of the One True God who is to be worshipped. The devil has no choice but to accept his total defeat and leave Jesus.

The trials end with two huge victory banners – one of defeat and one of triumph.

Defeat - Then the devil left Him. The powerful cunning devil, has tried and tried and tried again to get Jesus to be his subject. He has not been a match for the Almighty, God the Son, Jesus – He is defeated. Hallelujah!

Triumph - Angels came and ministered to Him. The divine appearing and ministering to Jesus, by God’s angels is not just wonderful, but it shows the faithfulness and trustworthiness of The Father to The Son – He is triumphant. Hallelujah!