After appealing to devastating physical deprivation with the temptation of food, Satan is told that man lives on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God – our first weapon. So he tries a second attack using the same argument Jesus used to repel the first attack – the Word of God!
Quoting Psalm 91, Satan tells Jesus that, since the angels will lift him up so that he will not strike his foot against a stone, then Jesus should be willing to throw himself off a high place without harm!
We all have encountered this same temptation. Isn’t it often true that when a discussion of faith comes up with an atheist, a quote from the Bible is the first thing used to try and catch us in a contradiction? For example, haven’t you been challenged with, “If God is a God of love, how could he allow all the horrible things that happen?”
Here Jesus goes back, and so should we, to his first weapon in the wilderness. He did not say that man lives on any isolated, randomly selected phrase of God. He said that man lives on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God – that is, the entire Word of God.
Jesus tells evil himself that while Psalm 91 is a promise from God, Deuteronomy 6:16 says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”!
So our second weapon in the wilderness is this: at our moments of greatest weakness and anguish, we commit to not testing God. We cry out as a child to its parent, but we never doubt his love for us. We never say, “If you are real, take away this pain!”
Job’s friends told him to curse God and die when the worst of times befell him. But Job chose not to test God even in his darkest hour, and he was blessed beyond measure.
Think of all the ways we test God and put them away forever.
Then watch Satan flee!
Quoting Psalm 91, Satan tells Jesus that, since the angels will lift him up so that he will not strike his foot against a stone, then Jesus should be willing to throw himself off a high place without harm!
We all have encountered this same temptation. Isn’t it often true that when a discussion of faith comes up with an atheist, a quote from the Bible is the first thing used to try and catch us in a contradiction? For example, haven’t you been challenged with, “If God is a God of love, how could he allow all the horrible things that happen?”
Here Jesus goes back, and so should we, to his first weapon in the wilderness. He did not say that man lives on any isolated, randomly selected phrase of God. He said that man lives on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God – that is, the entire Word of God.
Jesus tells evil himself that while Psalm 91 is a promise from God, Deuteronomy 6:16 says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test”!
So our second weapon in the wilderness is this: at our moments of greatest weakness and anguish, we commit to not testing God. We cry out as a child to its parent, but we never doubt his love for us. We never say, “If you are real, take away this pain!”
Job’s friends told him to curse God and die when the worst of times befell him. But Job chose not to test God even in his darkest hour, and he was blessed beyond measure.
Think of all the ways we test God and put them away forever.
Then watch Satan flee!
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