Matthew 4:1-11
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
February 22, 2026
Whether or not you believe in the reality of the devil, can you doubt that there’s afoot in this world a force of evil that opposes the work of justice, love and witness to the grace of Christ?
That force of evil attacks anyone and everyone intent on advancing those godly purposes; and a deep devotion to God does not exempt you from those attacks. In fact, the stronger your commitment to serve God and His purposes, the more you should expect such battles.
Here is Jesus, fresh from His baptism at which the Father declared Him His beloved Son and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. And what was the first thing the Spirit did for Jesus? “Drove” Him (to use Mark’s verb in His Gospel) into the desert wilderness to battle the devil! While in that test the devil meant to “tempt” Jesus in order to derail Him from His mission to fulfill God’s will, the Father set up the test in order to make Jesus stronger than tested steel. As is often the case, the devil was duped and ended up serving the God He hates!
Jesus, in His sinless perfection, endured the full force of the devil’s warfare because, unlike a fallen human being, Jesus kept resisting everything the devil threw at Him. Jesus was more than the devil’s match, and thus underwent his fiercest and most persistent attacks until every last element in his arsenal was used up.
Yet, after the devil departed in defeat at the end of those forty days, the attacks would resume. For Luke in his Gospel tells us that Satan left only to watch and wait until the next “opportune time”. The battle would be endless.
For all his faults, you’ve got to give Satan credit for good timing. At the moment of this attack, Jesus was at his most vulnerable. For nearly six weeks, He’d been without human company or food, and He must have been severely exhausted and weakened.
You’ve also got to give Satan credit for being a smart strategist. For he tempted Jesus by appealing to His deep desire to do good. If Jesus turned stones into bread, He could feed the hungry. If He jumped from the pinnacle of the temple to ride to safety on the backs of angels, He could provide evidence by which to make a case to convince people to believe in Him. If He gained political control over the nations of the earth, He could stop war and prevent the exploitation of the weak by the strong.
For us too, the most potent temptations are those that offer an opportunity to do good, and the most dangerous ones are those that appeal to our higher self as much as to our lower. Such temptations dress up to look like a step up in righteousness rather than a step down into wickedness. Remember, in the Garden of Eden, Satan seduced Adam and Eve into disobeying God with a promise that they’d become “like God”.
Jesus was, and is, God! Nevertheless, as the Son of God, He was dedicated to revering God the Father by always submitting to His will. That meant Jesus was committed to doing everything the Father had told Him to do and nothing but what the Father had told Him to do – which meant that, without explicit instruction from the Father to make a change, Jesus would not improvise and veer from the course on which the Father had put Him. He’d stay the course no matter the cost. He’d not take things in His own hands and devise His own plans.
As it turns out, each of the three temptations here was designed to get Jesus to assert His independence and to go His own way rather than God’s.
Each temptation was then a test of Jesus’ hierarchy of values and His commitment to it. With Him, the issue was never the presence of bad desires He had, but the prioritization of the good desires He had.
In the first temptation, while Jesus desired to take proper care of His body and eat, He continued to deny Himself food, because He desired even more to live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” – and God had given Him the word that He would save the world by engaging in self-deprivation for its sake. Jesus had already deprived Himself of the glories and pleasures of heaven to serve on earth, and thus would not balk at depriving Himself of food. He would, in surrender to God’s plan, forge ahead down the road God had sent Him. He would not second-guess God His Father and end what God had led Him to endure. Jesus chose to honor God by not using His power to alleviate His suffering before the Father said it was time.
In the second temptation, while Jesus desired to win people’s trust of Him, He said No to trying to manipulate the Father into putting on a show of a miraculous rescue and so give a sign for persuading people to believe in Him, because Jesus desired even more to respect God’s authority and to leave things up to God’s determination. Thus, Jesus wouldn’t consider making things easier for Himself by seeking to paint God into a corner and attempt to force His hand to put on a spectacle to save Him. Jesus, like every potential follower of His, was called to live by faith and not by sight; and thus Jesus would not put God to the test. He’d just trust God to do what’s best.
In the third temptation, while Jesus desired to repair everything in this broken, sin-sick world, He said No to obtaining political power by means of making a deal with the devil who could give Him “all the kingdoms of this world and their splendor”, because Jesus desired even more to give only to God the worship only God deserved and to show His steadfast faith that God, at His own initiative, would do every right thing at just the right time in just the right way.
We must note one more commonality in all three of Jesus’ battles with Satan. He never argued with him. He just cited scripture, and concluded the discussion.
Finally, we must note something that is true for us just as it was for Jesus. The devil may leave us alone for a time to catch his breath, but He’ll always return when his prospects look good again. The battle against temptation is then endless for us as well.
May we therefore keep solid in God’s word and keep our desires rightly prioritized by it, that when tested we may fight the good fight – and win!
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