Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
The wicked warfare of Satan and the demons (Revelation 9) necessitates a forceful response from each Christian (Ephesians 6:10-18). We need “the whole armour of God if we are to “withstand” and “stand” (verse 13). “The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (verse 17) is the ability to apply individual verses or passages of Scripture to any situation. The finest example of this usage, of course, is Jesus. His successful stand against Satan in Matthew 4:1-11 employed this “sword of the Spirit.” In verse 6, “the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple.” Verse 6 records the second temptation of Jesus: “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.’” The devilish deviousness of sly Satan is on display here. First, since Jesus had rebuffed the first temptation with Deuteronomy 8:3, Satan also quoted from the Bible (Psalm 91:11-12). Second, he cleverly misquoted by leaving out the key phrase “to keep Thee in all Thy ways.” Satan’s attempt to appeal to the authority of Scripture to support his temptation of Jesus lost its force only because Jesus knew the full quotation. Third, Satan was aware of the erroneous expectation of the people that the Messiah would descend from the sky into the temple. Yes, he was using the powerful lure of popularity, a temptation to all humans. The pithy response of Jesus in verse 7 shatters Satan’s flawed premise: “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’” This quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 (again, everyone’s favorite book of the Bible) is a principle that is always applicable to all circumstances: we can never pretend to be following God’s plan by pushing against His revealed will. Jesus taught us what our attitude must ever be: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Anything less is rank rebellion against our good God.