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.)
Revelation 9 reveals the enormity of the assaults of our evil enemies at the end. Satan and the demons attack us now, too, and we need the entire “armour of God” (Ephesians 6:13) in this spiritual battle. We must use “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (verse 17). As we saw yesterday, “word” here does not mean all of the Bible; rather, it refers to individual verses or passages that we can apply to our lives when we are ambushed. The best example in Scripture of the use of this “sword of the Spirit” is found in Matthew 4:1-11. Here, Jesus is “tempted of the devil” (verse 1 – remember that “devil” means accuser or slanderer); verse 3 calls Satan “the tempter,” reinforcing that temptation is the Evil One’s modus operandi. Since Satan dared to attack Jesus (fully human but also fully God) this way, we can be assured that he will have no compunctions about coming after us hard and without respite. In fact, in the parallel passage in the Gospel of Luke, we find that Jesus had been “forty days tempted of the devil” (4:2). This relentless assault was intensified in Jesus’ moment of great physical discomfort: “When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungred” (verse 2). This almost casual understatement of Jesus’ physical needs reminds us that the spiritual conflict is always more demanding than the physical. Still, though, Jesus endured forty days without food, was tempted by Satan throughout, and was then subjected to further aggressive spiritual warfare while He was physically weakened by extreme hunger. Jesus said, “The disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his lord” (Matthew 10:24). Thus, we can reasonably expect Satan’s assaults – and be prepared with “the sword of the Spirit.”