Today on Growing Through Grace You really don't want to bargain with the Father of Lies. And neither did Jesus. The Father's Way was through the cross. You want to find your life, the Bible says you shouldn't lose it. It isn't the easiest route to take, but the enemy always has a short track. He won't tell you where it leads. I love growing in your grace. You have your end on me. And all that I do want, will love keep me strong. I love being in your grace. You're listening to Growing Through Grace with Pastor Jack Abilim of Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, California. Have you been tempted lately? Seems like the devil and his demons are working overtime both in the world and in the lives of believers. Getting back to Luke chapter 4 verse 1 through 13, Pastor Jack has been showing us how Jesus faced temptation and that by the Holy Spirit, we too can use God's Word to fight the enemy. Our teacher will then move on to verses 14 through 20 and examine the beginning of Jesus' Galilean ministry. So here's Pastor Jack. Satan is here offering Jesus a shortcut. I'd give you what you want, the kingdom to the world and the people in it. All you have to do is bow to me. The price for man's redemption would be steep. The wages of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood, no forgiveness of sin, the cross and separation from the Father. "Look, I have a better idea," says Satan. "Why don't you just avoid the path of suffering, avoid the path of waiting and be immediately fulfilled in your desires." Just look at Jesus, you can have all this, the temptation of the eye, the lust of the eye. Isn't this what you want? I think Satan would say the same thing to you and I sometimes when we're stuck in the middle between doing things God's way which takes long, can be painful, sometimes isn't immediately so satisfying. And then the devil who says just get it now, drink some of this, take a few of these, lie a little bit, cheat a little bit, you'll get your head, you know everybody, you deserve it. It's not like you're living in a firm, people will rip you. If you don't rip them off, they're going to get to you. It's whoever rips people off first, you know, and then you can serve the Lord. You'll have a powerful place. Well, he's a liar. Why wait, get it now, no hassle, have it all. What does the cost of a shortcut? Well, here, Satan said it, bow down and worship me. You know, if you read Isaiah 14, which tells you the story of how this wonderful angel of God fell and became God's mortal enemy, if you will, go read of the devil's desire. He had everything he could have wanted except he didn't have what he really wanted to sit in the north and be like God and have people worship him and look up into it. He could be their God. That's exactly what he wants to do in your life, be your God. And he won't settle for anything less. And yet to follow Satan's shortcuts will take you from the path of the Lord into darkness and lost and you won't have what you want. It'll end up in disaster. Jesus said to his disciples very clearly one time, what good would it be if you gained the entire world and you lost your soul? Doesn't really help. There's no benefit if you will in that. God does have a way for us to go. It's a straight road. It's a narrow road. There are a few that be that find it. We are dependent upon his grace. It will lead to eternal life. You may not always get what you want. You may not have it in the timing that you wish. You might not believe it's always fair. But if you love the Lord and he loves you, then his ways are life. You really don't want to bargain with the father of lies. And neither did Jesus. The father's way was through the cross. You want to find your life. The Bible says you shouldn't lose it. So it isn't the easiest route to take. But the enemy has always an offer of a shortcut. It just, you won't tell you where it leads. This time Jesus quotes Aaron in verse 8 after saying, "Get behind me Satan," which I like. Take a hike, buddy. I think that's the original. Take a hike, pal. It is written, "You shall worship the Lord only. The Lord your God, and him only shall you serve out of Isaiah." Sorry, Deuteronomy chapter 6 and chapter 10. We just worship the Lord. He's the one that we honor. How do you keep from temptation? Make sure God is the one you're worshiping. And whatever it takes, he gets honored. Finally, verse 9, there's that third temptation that really is the temptation of the pride of life, like John mentioned there in John chapter 2. Then he brought him to Jerusalem, Satan did, and set Jesus up on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the son of God, against it the word is since, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you and in their hands they'll bear you up, lest you task your split against the stone." And Jesus answered to Sam who has also been said, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." So again in a vision, Satan takes Jesus to the royal portico of Herod on the south side of the walls of the city, above the Kidron Valley. He ever had a chance to go with us to Israel. One of our stops is the southern steps of the archaeological dig of the old city of Jerusalem that has dug down that southern wall to the steps that Jesus would have used to come into the city and that corner of Herod's temple is exposed. It's hundreds of feet high. It's a sure death if you're off. It looks huge. I should have brought a picture. But anyway, it's just a monumental thing, and this was his suggestion. But notice Satan not to be outdone, has heard twice now, you know, because it is written, so he thought he'd try that on his own. Jesus, come with me, jump off of here. Everyone will notice you in a minute. You want popularity, you're going to get it. Just jump because it says in the Bible that the angels will catch you and you'll be just fine. He'll give his angels charge. They'll set you down as soft as he could. We read part of this, didn't we, this morning in Psalm 91? He will keep you, what he left off was he'll keep you in all of your ways. He left that out because Satan, he can't, he can quote the Bible, he just can't quote it right. So Jesus, be spectacular. Show them your spirituality by your willingness to risk your neck like this, believing that the word of God is indeed to be trusted. Draw a great crowd for yourself when the angels catch you and everyone will know you. Or if you will, here's the temptation, bring glory to yourself, by acting in a spiritual way to draw attention to yourself and then say, I'm doing this for God. Let me give you some modern day example, three years ago, one of these snake handlers in the Midwest who was doing it for God, got bitten, died. No, that didn't work. Some of these drinking poison to show your faith. Some people foolishly trying to attract people for the Lord through sensationalism. Again, and the misquoting of the scriptures, like Satan does here. The Father had not told Jesus to go jump off the corner of the deal. In fact, if you read the Bible, God's desire for the church to be witnesses is that we're to call to follow the Lord with reasonableness and with normalcy, by faith, and more than anything else, by a love that the world doesn't have. To love them as we've been loved by the Lord. So Jesus, this time quotes out of Deuteronomy chapter six, suggesting this is nothing more than an action that really tempts God. God did promise to keep you in all of your ways. But the key is, if you're there because God put you there, then you should be fine. But if you're not, danger. Paul was on his way to Rome, having been arrested, you remember? And the boat all but crashed and they had to crawl out. Everyone was saved, God had spoken, and they landed on an island called Malta. It was raining, it was cold, Paul chipped in to gather wood to try to start a fire to keep people warm, and he stuck his hand in this wood, and he got bit by a snake and everybody was like, "Oh, he's dead." And Paul went, "No, I don't think so." And he just kept going. He wasn't looking to be glorifying himself. He was serving the Lord. He was right where God wanted him to be, and then God was able to keep him in all of his ways. But you don't need to needlessly risk your, or enhance your tense ceremony or your status and other people's lives. That's not a, no way do you accomplish God's will, then, ever. How do you do it? You obey the Lord. Don't tempt God, just be faithful. But hear the enemy again throwing, now he's throwing scriptures at you. "Well, you know what's said in the Bible." Yeah, it says in your Bible, you're a liar. And the father of lies. So for Jesus in our, in our example, here's three temptations, and they follow all their, "Oh, he's under those three categories." The lust of your flesh, or the lust of your eyes, or just that pride of life. What all we need to do is worship the Lord alone, not tempt God, believe his word and rely upon his spirit. And it'll keep us from what the enemy wants to do. Now this all is in preparation of what Jesus is about to face as he goes out publicly, to begin to declare who he is, why he's come, and what he wants to give to man. And the enemy will constantly be there. He'll constantly be showing up at synagogues and in roadways and in boats. And every demon that shows up will scream out, "I know who you are. You're the son of God, and Jesus will have to shut all of them up. I won't let any of them do any evangelistic work." But they'll always be there to attack and to oppose. And Jesus, before he steps out for this ministry, had to learn, or in his flesh, had to learn, if you will, how the battle would be fought, and so do we. The battle is not over, by the way. Look at verse 13. It says, "The devil now ended every temptation, and he departed from Jesus until an opportune time," which is likely in verse 31. Just keep reading. It didn't last her. He departed from him for 18 verses, just until an opportune time. And learn from this well that Satan is indeed an opportunist. When the Lord spoke to Satan in heaven back in Job chapter 1, the Lord said to the devil as he came to appear before him, "Have you considered my servant Job? There's none like him on the entire earth. He's blameless, he's upright, he fears God, he hates evil." And Satan said, "Yes, I have considered him." Interestingly enough, the word "consider" is a military term. It literally means to scrutinize a city to look for weaknesses before an attack, to look for vulnerabilities. And Satan's response to the Lord in his question of this godly man, Job, was, "Yeah, I've seen him and looked at him. In fact, I've come up with a view about him." Now, here's how God views Satan. Satan, from the Lord's perspective, is an opportunist who is forever looking to find a weakness in your life. For Job, he said to the Lord, "I have a theory that Job is a mercenary." Of course, he's going to serve you because you've given him everything. Why would he not serve you? It's in his best interest to do just that. Well, as you read the book of Job, you found out that theory is wrong. But here's one theory that's right. He is always looking for a way to take you out. He is watching to see where the vulnerabilities and your weakness are in your life. If you're someone who is prone to anger, you'll get a hundred opportunities today to get mad. It'll just be worse for you than somebody else because that's your weak spot. That's the place he seems to be able to get and manage him. If you're a warrior, oh boy, well, you have stuff to worry about. Everything will be the cares of this life that will take you out. He wants to find an advantage over you to look for an opening, which is why, you know, when you get to the first John book towards the end of your Bible, it is so good to be able to go there and read the Lord saying to us, "You are, you are of God, little children, and you have overcome them because greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world." So though the enemy would look to destroy, in the Lord God has also given you every resource to be able to stand against the enemy in seeking to destroy or take from you so that the Lord will one day present you with great joy before the Father. He'll finish the work that he has started. So we have an enemy that's relenting or unrelenting, I should say, that is cunning, but I have Jesus and I have his word and I have his spirit. Paul, when he wrote to the Corinthians in chapter 10, said, "No temptation has overtaken you except the kind of temptation that is common to man, and God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able to bear with, but with every temptation, he will provide a means of escape so that you might be able to bear." And if you will, you know, the person goes, "Well, the devil made me do it. That doesn't fly biblically because the Lord will give you the ability to say no, to refuse, to turn away. He will enable you." The opportune time for Satan, at least in Luke's gospel, moves us almost quickly forward to the second year of Jesus' ministry as he begins to more publicly proclaim the good news of his coming, but also the responsibility of the individual to turn to Jesus by faith. We read this in verse 14, "Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of him went out throughout all of the surrounding regions, and he taught in their synodogs being glorified by all." Now, I want to help you a little bit because you should put all of the gospels together to get an accurate picture of time. One of the reasons I wrote to Jesus Chronicles 10 years ago was because I think it helped me more than anything else to get a view of the first week, months, years, and then the final year, the last week, and it kind of helps just to see it in a bigger portrait. Luke's not interested so much in that. In fact, in verses 14 and 15, those are the two verses that Luke throws at you to cover the entire first year of Jesus' public ministry. None of the synoptic, the word synoptic means to see together. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all see together. None of them mention literally any of Jesus' public ministry for the first year at all. John covers them almost completely. Beginning in chapter 9, 1, chapter 9, verse 9, verse 9, to the end of chapter 4. Everything that you read there was really a part of Jesus' first year of ministry. It was Bethany, it was Canaan, it was Capernaum, it was Jerusalem, it was Corizon, it was Besseta, and you can follow Jesus' ministry in the first year after his baptism and then after the temptation. And you will find that Jesus' ministry early on was fairly quiet. Subdude, he was well-liked, he was embraced by most. There's a couple of miracles written. One was the wedding feast miracle at Canaan. The second miracle was the noble son who came to Jesus' same city. And he said, "Could you just heal my son?" And Jesus said, "Unless you just see a sign you won't believe." He said, "Please, Lord." And the Lord said, "You go home and your son's well." And he had someone come find him the next day and said, "Your son's well." And he said, "When did he get well?" I said, "Yes, to hear about this time." And it was exactly the time that Jesus was speaking. So John covers that first year. It was non-confrontational. It was embracing, if you will, as the Lord began to develop along its following. But when John the Baptist is arrested, and then a little bit later by Herod put to death, the arrest of John brought Jesus' full force into the north, into Galilee. And now the messages became more personal. They become more direct. They called for a decision to be made. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to realize that this was Messiah was not going to deliver them from the Romans. He had other things to do. And the opposition began to grow incrementally as the gospel of Jesus was preached. So when John the Baptist was silenced, Jesus came north into the jurisdiction, really, of Herod made that his base of operations. And would minister for most of that second year and two and a half, almost a year and a half, from the northern area of the Galilee. I want you to notice in verse 14 here that the ministry of Jesus is always connected with the empowering work of God's Spirit. You can jump back to verse one and you'll read that he was filled with the Spirit, that he was being led of the Spirit. In verse 14 that he came in the power of the Spirit. The word power there is the Greek word "dunamous." It is usually translated dynamic, if you will. Pastor Chuck used to say dynamite. He says he blew up. All his life told the Lord was upon him. And how tragic do you think it would be as Jesus is our example that we would go out even as a church or as God's people to try to on our own accomplish what God would want without relying on him to do the work? I think it was, I don't remember, I think it was Billy Graham who used to say, "You should pray. No, you should study and work as if everything depended on you and then pray knowing everything depends upon him." In other words, give your best, but realize that you can't do anything unless the Lord works with you. Unfortunately, so often even today there are people who try to substitute for God's formula. The formula is this, not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, say, of the Lord. It's God's work. The church is God's work. Your God's work. But so often people set aside the work of God and they begin to rely on other things. Their own genius, their own ability to do good advertising, personalities, and friendships. There was a church down the street from where I lived. I had a big sign up today. It said, "This is Philippu campaign week." Philippu. Oh, that's going to work, isn't it? Just see if you can Philippu and then you might be able to win a bike. Oh, my boy, the Lord is moving now. Argumentative skills, they lay aside the Bible for a social message or a political speech, less Bible, more fun. But that's really not the way Jesus went about things. The result of a church that sets the Holy Spirit aside is a church that's weak and ineffective and not able to reach the world. We need God's Spirit upon us. If Jesus is our example and he needed the Holy Spirit, how much more do we need the Holy Spirit to work? I think it was John, he was 90 when he wrote in 1 John chapter 2 verse 6. If we say that we abide in him, then we all saw to walk even as he walked. We should walk like he did, relying upon God's Spirit to do the work. In fact, Luke will write the book of Acts next. And he will start that book by saying, "The former account I have written to you O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day that he was taken up." And then he threw the Holy Spirit gave commandment to the apostles whom he had chosen. Jesus' ministry is always identified with the work of God's Spirit. So should yours be. I mean, we can do all the planning we want, but if the Lord doesn't move, we're going nowhere. We're going nowhere fast. So the first year of obscurity, we found much acceptance and Jesus caused a lot of stir, but not a lot of opposition. But now he's coming out to speak. John has been silenced, if you will, first imprisoned and then subsequently he'll be killed. So Jesus comes out to take that spot and he comes to Galilee and no doubt people in Galilee had been to the feast. They brought back reports of him from all of the areas. Notice verse 14, it says here, "He went out into all of the surrounding areas." Josephus, the Jewish historian, said, "In the days of Jesus, there were at least 204 cities that had at least 10,000 people as a population in the North." So there were a lot of really big cities and the Lord began to go around. And like I said, the year of acceptance, though, and ease would now become a time of hitting too close to home, calling for personal commitments. And the religious community began to be upheaval. And the people began to resist hearing the gospel and the opportune time for the enemy again set in. We read in verse 16, "And so Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. As his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And they handed him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had found the book, he found the place where it was written and then he began to read. After the account of the nobleman's son being healed there in John 4, Luke chronologically brings us to the second year of Jesus' ministry. So you can put John 1 through 4 right between, if you will, verses 13 and 16 somewhere in that area. And now Jesus is coming back to the place that he had grown up. And remember I said, narrative, you put yourself in the story. Imagine being one of the hometown folks in Nazareth and the reports of Jesus are coming from everywhere. And now he's coming home. This is his homecoming. Can you imagine how that might have failed or what you might have expected sitting in the synagogue that day? It must have been quite emotional. He was going home. Well, that unfortunately is all that we have time for today, but we'll pick up the balance of Luke chapter 4 verses 13 through 20, the next time we're together. This has been the second part of a three-part study taught by Pastor Jack Abilon. If you'd like to get the entire message, we do have that available for you. All you need to do to order? Simply contact us and ask for study number 42-44. And when you get ahold of us, be sure to mention the call letters of the radio station that you're listening to as we look around at our society or even closer to home within our own family members. You may come to realize that depression is very prevalent and has literally become an epidemic, leaving many to seek drastic measures for relief. Pastor Jack has written a book that's titled "Hope for the Hopeless." In this book, Pastor Jack uses the solid truth of God's Word to outline our hope during times of need, whether it be as a result of depression or fear. So if you'd like to get Pastor Jack's book "Hope for the Hopeless" for yourself or for a family member or a friend, or if you'd like to get today's study, just dial our toll-free phone number at 866-88-GRACE. That's 866-88-4-7223. 866-88-4-7223. You can also order by mail, just address your letter to growing through grace, PO Box 1954, Whittier, California, 90609. And as always, we have this and all of our resources online at growingthroughgrace.com. Just log on to growingthroughgrace.com. And that will bring things to a close for us today. We do appreciate you tuning in, so until next time, as you daily walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, may you continue to grow in His grace. Growing Through Grace is a listener-supported ministry brought to you by Morning Star Christian Chapel in Whittier, California. A coverage apple outreach. 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