#080 "Why Was Jesus Sent into the Wilderness?" (Matthew 4:1)

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” (Matthew 4:1)

Why would the Holy Spirit lead Jesus—God’s anointed Son—straight into the wilderness to face the devil? In this episode, host Kate slows down Matthew 4:1 and teaches you how to read Scripture with clarity, confidence, and depth. Treating the passage like a story, you’ll learn how to identify characters, setting, and plot—and why those details matter far more than we often realize.

You’ll gain a deeper understanding of who Jesus is as Matthew presents Him—the promised Messiah and rightful King, A clear biblical picture of the Holy Spirit: personal, powerful, active, and trustworthy, A sober but hope-filled understanding of the devil and why knowing your enemy matters, Insight into why the wilderness is central to God’s redemptive plan—not a detour from it, and Fresh confidence that Jesus entered the wilderness for you and endured what you never could.

This episode lays the foundation for the entire Into the Wilderness series and will change how you read temptation, testing, and God’s purposes in hard seasons. Come learn what’s really happening in Matthew 4:1—and why it matters deeply for your life today.

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Transcript

Setting The Scene: Matthew 4:1

Kate 0:00

Hey guys, this is Kate from Abidable.com, and you're listening to the Abidable Podcast. I'm just a regular wife and mom who's had my life transformed by learning to study the Bible on my own. If I can, you can. On this show, I help you know and love God more by abiding in Him through His Word yourself. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. What in the world is going on? If we were to treat the beginning of Matthew 4 as a movie, it would be helpful to establish the characters' roles in the story as well as their backstories. If you don't know what's happening with the characters in a movie, it makes it really hard to follow the plot, doesn't it? We'd also want to really understand the setting so we could imagine or picture where exactly the events are taking place. Setting is always really important in any story and often can become as important as a character, acting as a powerful force that can establish mood, drive the plot, influence character actions, and even sometimes have its own personality. Perhaps the quote wilderness will be like that for us in this story. And finally, we must have a clear idea of the plot, what actually is taking place within the story. In one verse, we have a basic introduction to all three of these elements. We have characters, setting, and plot. I'll read Matthew 4:1, our verse for today again. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Who are our characters? We have three God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and the devil. What's our setting? The wilderness. And what's the plot? Well, the Spirit is leading Jesus up into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Pretty straightforward at first glance, right? But we need to know more, don't we? This verse names the characters, but it doesn't give us any backstory. Plus, it starts with then Jesus was led. What happened before the then? Could that be important? Maybe this is a sequel and we have to know what happened earlier in the story in the previous movie. We have the setting, but the wilderness is pretty vague. What wilderness? Up from where? Where had Jesus been before that? And finally, while we can understand maybe at a 10,000-foot level that the plot of the story involves the spirit leading Jesus to be tempted by the devil, there is a whole heck of a lot more that we need to know. Like, why is the spirit leading Jesus? Why the wilderness? Is Jesus going willingly? Why is the devil waiting to tempt Jesus there? And what is the relationship between all of these different characters? Having a lot of questions, as I said in my intro episode last week, is always a good thing. Ask them all. Have you ever heard someone obsessed with Star Wars or Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or any other movie series with a cult following give a rundown of the character's setting and plot in that story? It is always evident that they really know their stuff, right? That they've watched the movie a few dozen times. They're quasi-experts because they're big fans of that particular movie franchise. I want you to be a quasi-expert on the stories in the Bible. I want us to be able to give the full synopsis of what's happening to who and where and why. By the end of our episode today, I want you to understand and be able to articulate more than what's just evident on the surface here in Matthew 4.1. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Ultimately, by the end of today, I want you to be able to explain what's really happening here and why it matters. Using our Bible study tools, we'll begin by figuring out who our characters are: Jesus, the spirit, and the devil, and then we'll move on to setting and plot. But first, real quick, if you're a big fan of the Abidable Podcast, please check out the link in the show description to learn more about partnering with us by buying us a coffee. All right, treating our passage like a movie, let's begin with the first character introduced to us. In Matthew 4 1, we see this man, Jesus, being led up into the wilderness. Summarizing who Jesus is and his backstory in one podcast episode is a ridiculously impossible task. So I'm not going to do that on a comprehensive level. Instead, I'm going to do something you might not expect. To take you where I want to go, we're going to sort of think of Matthew as the director of this movie. He's the author of this gospel after all. Who does Matthew want us to know that Jesus is? We're going to see that he's framing everything from his own, albeit divinely inspired, lens. So let's look at how Matthew characterizes Jesus. Matthew opens his gospel with the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. He tells us the name of his story's main character. What's in a name? Well, even though sometimes our modern-day name choices have more to do with how they sound next to our surnames, in Jesus' time and throughout much of the Bible, names had meaning that mattered. The Greek Jesus was the historical everyday name for Jesus, which in Hebrew was Yeshua or Yehoshua, Joshua, meaning Yahweh saves. Christ, or the Greek Christos, came from the Hebrew Mashiach or anointed. When Matthew first introduces us to Jesus, he is purposefully and specifically designating Jesus as the Christ, and in so doing is making a bold declaration that this man is the Messiah who saves. And then throughout the rest of the chapters in his book, Matthew supports this claim with evidence. In fact, he does it more than any of the other gospel authors. Matthew uses Scripture to point to this man, Jesus Christ, as the fulfillment of all that his people had been waiting for. We need to understand how important a move this was on Matthew's part. Again and again, he tells an aspect of Jesus' story saying this was to fulfill, or so that what was written by the prophet might be fulfilled, or for so it was written. Let me give you some examples. This is so cool. I'll condense or summarize some of these verses, but I'll give you the references if you want to jot them down and look them up for yourself. Here are just some of Matthew's many explicit fulfillment citations. One, the virgin birth. Matthew 1, 22 and 23 says, All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Which prophet? Isaiah. In Isaiah 7.14 we read, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. 2. The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Matthew 2, 5 through 6 says of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, for so it is written by the prophet. Here Matthew is referring back to Micah 5.2. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrata, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. 3. Out of Egypt I called my son. When Joseph, Mary, and Jesus have to flee to Egypt because of Herod's murderous plot, they eventually return home to the land of Israel. And Matthew says in chapter 2, verse 15, this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. And Matthew here is applying a historical statement that God had made about Israel in Hosea 11:1 to Jesus, God's son. 4. Rachel weeping for her children. When Herod kills all the male children two years or younger in Bethlehem to try and destroy the promised Messiah, who he'd heard about from the wise men, the women wept bitterly, like what had been prophesied by Jeremiah in chapter 31, verse 15. And Matthew says so. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Rama, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be comforted because they are no more. And finally, he shall be called a Nazarene. Nazareth was in an area that was overlooked, despised, and mocked. Think of the disciple Nathaniel being told that the Messiah had come. We read this in John 146, and that the Messiah was from Nazareth. Do you remember how Nathaniel famously replied? He said, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? That demonstrates the perception that people had of this region. So when Jesus and his family returned from Egypt, settling in this despised region of Nazareth in Galilee, Matthew says in chapter 2, verse 23 that this was so that what was spoken by the prophets, plural, might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. Here Matthew is referring to a general Old Testament theme of the coming Messiah being despised and rejected. Something we find all over the Old Testament, but in places like Psalm 22, 6, I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people, which by the way, Psalm 22 is the Psalm of the Cross that Jesus quoted from the cross. We also see this theme in Isaiah 53. He was despised and rejected by men, he was despised and we esteemed him not. And finally, as well, we see it in Daniel 9:26: an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. From Isaiah to Micah, to Hosea to Jeremiah, to the Psalms and back to Isaiah and on to Daniel. These are just five examples of how Matthew points to this Jesus Christ man fulfilling ancient prophecies about the coming Messiah. He also references prophecies Jesus fulfilled about light dawning in Galilee, about the Messiah being a healer of illnesses and diseases, about him teaching in parables, being a humble king on a donkey, about the price of his betrayal, about his arrest and death, and even about Jesus' cousin, John, being prophesied as the messenger who would come as a forerunner before the Lord. And on top of all that, Matthew points to explicit Old Testament fulfillment by sharing the genealogy of Jesus Christ, namely that Jesus is the son of David and the Son of Abraham. This is yet another callback to the beginning of God's promises, to his everlasting covenants with David and with the patriarchs. When Matthew repeatedly calls Jesus the son of David throughout his gospel, he's letting the reader know that Jesus descends from the royal lineage of King David, the family line whose heir would re-establish the throne of David in Jerusalem forever. And Matthew points out that Jesus is also the son of Abraham, meaning God has blessed the whole world through this man Jesus, who, as promised, descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why do you think Matthew does all this? I think it's simple. Matthew is saying, This is the guy. As the director of this story, of this gospel, Matthew is repeatedly, continually, emphatically pointing his audience, first the Jews and then the Gentiles, to the Old Testament expectation of the promised coming Mashiach or anointed one. He's reminding them that this anointed Messiah, who would bring salvation and righteously rule God's people, had been very clearly and specifically and uniquely described. Ultimately, he's saying, Hey, if you know the scriptures, you'd know that this is the one that came and fulfilled them all. Pay attention, your promised king has come. William Barclay says, Matthew's picture of Jesus is of the man born to be king. Jesus walks through his pages as if in the purple and gold of royalty. And yet, this man, born to be king, is being led into the wilderness by God the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil alone. Not what you'd expect in the story of a much anticipated royal heir. Let's move on to the spirit. Who is the spirit in this story? All we know about him from this first verse is that he is leading the man Jesus up into the wilderness. That doesn't tell us enough. Using our tools, let's see if we can gather more information on this second character. First, the Greek word for spirit is pneuma, and when we look at the strong's concordance definition, we learn that this is the third person of the triune God, namely the Holy Spirit, who is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son. When we look at cross-references about who the Spirit is in just the book of Matthew, we find that the Spirit played a role in Jesus' conception, 1.18, and baptism, 316, that John said Jesus would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and fire, 3.11. As we see here, the Spirit is the one who leads Jesus up into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, that's 4-1, that the Spirit would provide words for persecuted believers, 10.20, that God would put his spirit on Jesus to proclaim justice to the Gentiles, 1218, which is actually a quotation from Isaiah 42, 1, that the Spirit later empowers Jesus to cast out demons, 1228, that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, 1231 to 32, and finally, that Jesus commissioned his followers to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That's 2819. If we extend our cross-references to the Old Testament, we see that this character, the Spirit, is not being introduced for the first time in Matthew's gospel. As we saw in our definition of Pneuma, he is co-eternal with the Father and Son. And we see this displayed in the second verse of the entire Bible, right? In Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters while the earth was without form and void. He was there at the beginning. So the spirit or Hebrew ruach Elohim is and has always been. The Hebrew concordance definition for the Spirit of God is identical to the Greek, but adds that he is never referred to as a depersonalized force, and that he inspires prophecy, impels prophets to utter instruction or warning, imparts warlike energy and executive and administrative power, endows men with various gifts, and is manifest in the Shekinah glory of God. Isaiah 11, 1 through 2 speaks of a coming shoot from the stump of Jesse, who would have the Spirit of God rest upon him. Isaiah describes the Spirit as the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, and of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. When Jesus begins his ministry, he steps into the temple, unrolls the scroll, and reads from Isaiah 61:1, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God promises a new covenant in Ezekiel 36, verses 26 to 27, one in which he would give his people a new heart and put his spirit within them. This is a future promise of God indwelling believers to enable them to walk in true covenant faithfulness. And finally, when referring to the last days, which some consider to be fulfilled at Pentecost, while others consider it to still be about the end times, God promised in Joel 2, verses 28 to 29 to pour out his spirit on all flesh. So the spirit is not new on the scene. As the Nicene Creed of AD 381 says, the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. God question says, He is spirit, that is, he is immaterial, and he is holy, that is, set apart and without sin. He is personal, divine, and active. Because the Holy Spirit is personal, we can know him and fellowship with him. Because he is divine, we can worship and obey him. Because he is active, we can rely on his perfect work in our lives. That's who's leading Jesus up into the wilderness. Now, I had a big question when I did annotation, and maybe you did too. We see clearly that the Spirit is leading Jesus into the wilderness, but did the Spirit stay with Jesus the whole time? Let's do some quick detective work. The same story can be found in John chapter 4, and verse 1 says that after Jesus' baptism, Jesus, quote, full of the Spirit, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So he'd been filled or sealed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, and then led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And then what happened? Did he stay with him? Well, John 4 14 gives us one final important clue. The temptation has ended, and Jesus now begins his ministry. How does he begin said ministry? Quote, in the power of the Spirit. Since we have no explicit words telling us that the Spirit left Jesus, and we see that the Spirit was with Jesus before and after and led him into the wilderness, I think we can safely surmise that the Spirit was present with Jesus, empowering him to endure throughout the entire 40 days. In this, we see the beautiful relationship between God the The Spirit and God the Son, which I'll touch on more in a moment. So, yes, I believe Jesus had the Spirit with him in the wilderness. Otherwise, though, he was left alone to face the final being in our cast of characters, the devil. And this is where I will pause to make an important point. We must know our enemy. And that's exactly what we're going to spend a big chunk of time doing in this series. He is real and he hates Jesus, as we'll see. If you belong to Jesus, that means he hates you too. Know thy enemy. Not to fear him or obsess over him, but to be prepared and equipped for all that he strategically and systematically tries to do to take you out. So, who is the devil? As we noted last week in our intro episode, Matthew refers to him several times as the devil and as the tempter once. When Jesus speaks directly to him, Jesus calls him Satan. The first mention of the devil in the Bible is in Genesis 3, when he described as the serpent, tempts Adam and Eve to doubt and disobey God, thus causing them to fall and sin and death to enter the human family. The devil was the author of the evil God described in Genesis 6:6 that led to the flood. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The devil also attacks and tempts Job. He's described in Isaiah 14 as the morning star, a powerful angel who fell from heaven and was cut down to the ground because he said in his heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars and the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High. And in Ezekiel 28, we see God say of Satan, the guardian cherub, present in Eden, You were anointed. You were on the holy mountain of God. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you. You were filled with violence and you sinned. So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God. Your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. So we see that Satan was a created being, a beautiful guardian cherub, wise and anointed and welcome on the holy mountain of God, until pride caused him to violently rebel against his creator. How is Satan described in the New Testament? In Luke 10:18, we see Jesus affirming God's story that we just read about in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Jesus says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe Satan as tempting Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus says in Luke 8.12 that the devil comes and takes God's word away from the hearts of people so that they may not believe and be saved. Jesus also says in John 10, 10 that the devil has come to steal, kill, and destroy. Paul said that Satan is the God of this world in 2 Corinthians 4.4. And 1 John 5.19 says that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 1 Peter 5, 8 through 9 warns us to be sober-minded and watchful because our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Revelation 12:9 calls him the deceiver of the whole world. And Ephesians 6.12 says that we battle against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Satan has demons and they are spiritual beings, but real beings nonetheless. Satan is not a personification of evil. He is a real, created being that James 4.7 says we are to resist. Most importantly, we are taught by Jesus and the apostles that Satan's power is limited in comparison to God's. Jesus says in Luke 10 19, Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. And first John 4 4 reminds us that we are from God and have overcome every evil spirit because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. And we know who wins in the end. But this being that Jesus is going to encounter once led up into the wilderness by the Spirit is not one to be ignored. He's real, he's fierce, he hates Jesus. In fact, he's waiting for Jesus on the prowl like a lion, and he seeks to kill, steal, and destroy. These are our characters. This is who our passage is about. But we're not quite done yet with the character piece because they each have a backstory. And I'm going to briefly share those stories now. Jesus and the Spirit, as we saw, are co-equal and co-eternal. They've always existed in perfect unity and love with the Father. There is an order within the Trinity that we should define here. It will help us understand why and how the Spirit leads Jesus up into the wilderness and why Jesus submits to that leading. I'm going to be referencing a few things from gotquestions.org and some of my information here. There is subordination in the Trinity, but this doesn't refer to rank or anyone within the Trinity taking on or having a weaker, lesser position. Write this down if you'd like. There is a relational subordination in the Trinity, but not an ontological one. The Bible teaches that the members of the Trinity submit to one another relationally, meaning in their respective roles that they perform in creation and salvation. The Father sends the Son into the world. The Son doesn't send the Father. Jesus submits to the Father's will. The Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus and proceeds from the Father to testify to the world about Christ. This relational subordination simply explains the perfect, loving, unified relationship among the three members of the Trinity. It refers to what God does. Ontological subordination, which is heretical, refers to who God is. It implies that there is a difference in the nature of the three persons in the Godhead, meaning that there are greater and lesser gods. The Bible clearly teaches that ontological subordination is an error. All three persons in the Trinity have the same essence, nature, and glory, and they are co-equal and co-eternal. So ontological subordination is an incorrect understanding of the Trinity, while relational subordination is biblical. Each person in the Godhead has different roles or activities when it comes to how God relates to the world, and they submit to one another in the carrying out of those roles. For example, our salvation is based on the Father's power and love, John 3.16 and 10.29, the Son's death and resurrection, 1 John 2.2 and Ephesians 2.6, and the Spirit's regeneration and seal, Ephesians 4.30 and Titus 3.5. So when we see Jesus being led by the Spirit up into the wilderness, we can be certain that both the Spirit and the Son are perfectly walking in their divine roles. The Spirit guided Jesus into the wilderness, and in perfect love and submission to the Spirit's leading and the will of the Father, Jesus followed. We'll get more into the why of that when we get to plot. For our final piece of character backstory, we must again point out that the meeting of Jesus and Satan in the wilderness is, as I said last week, the ancient duel foretold in Genesis 3. When Satan deceived Adam and Eve, God cursed him. And part of that curse was that there would be enmity between Eve's offspring and Satan's. This Hebrew word enmity means hatred and hostility, and it comes from a root word meaning to treat as an enemy. While Satan would strike the heel of one of Eve's descendants, a singular descendant, that same descendant would crush the serpent's head. This rivalry we're about to see in the desert goes back to the very beginning, and it's more hostile and contentious than anything we see on the big screen. It's way bigger than Darth Vader versus Luke Skywalker or Sauron versus Gandalf or Frodo. It's a fiercer battle than Harry versus Voldemort or Neo versus Agent Smith. Because when the credits roll on this rivalry, it's not just the end of the movie. All eternity is at stake. So these are our characters and their backstories. Now, where is all of this taking place? I want you to Google Judean Wilderness or Desert. I don't know what your picture when you hear the story about Jesus being led up into the wilderness, but I want you to have a correct image in your mind as we navigate through this story. As I said, setting is important. It dramatically impacts our characters and the plot. If you look at the topography of Israel, you'll understand why Matthew says that Jesus was led up into the wilderness. Jesus' temptation immediately follows his baptism, which took place in the valley, the Jordan River Valley. To enter the Judean wilderness, he would have had to climb. The Judean mountains lie east of Jerusalem and descend down into the Dead Sea. I'll describe it more for you in a second, but I don't know that I could do a better job than David. The wilderness of Judea is what the shepherd boy, turned King David, refers to as the valley of the shadow of death in Psalm 23. As this was also the location David ran to when he was fleeing for his life from Saul. That paints a picture for you, doesn't it? The spirit is not leading Jesus into a lush green wilderness like what we have here in the Pacific Northwest. It's not the rolling hills and streams of the Appalachian Trail, and it's certainly not the vast subtropical wetland of the Florida Everglades. The Judean wilderness that Jesus walked into was a rocky, dry wasteland. The word literally translates as a solitary, lonely, desolate, uninhabited place unfit for cultivation. There would have obviously been limited rainfall, so little to no access to water, and poor vegetation or availability of food. Not that it matters, because as we'll see, Jesus wasn't eating anyway. There were likely predatory animals like the Asiatic lion, the Syrian black bear, the Judean desert leopard, striped hyenas, wolves, jackals, fox, cheetah, snakes, scorpions, and even demons. This is the part in writing where I just started crying, imagining the son of David, the king of kings, God incarnate, walking submissively into this God forsaken place. Honestly, I started to feel sick to my stomach thinking about it. I'll wrap up my description of our story's setting with this. The prophet Jeremiah was born and grew up in the village of Anatoth, a village on the edge of the Judean wilderness. He obviously would have known how to describe wilderness regions. Though speaking here of the post-Red Sea wilderness, Jeremiah nevertheless is describing this type of region in Jeremiah 2.6, calling it a land of deserts and pits, of drought and deep darkness, a land that none passes through where no man dwells. Those who had gone through the Exodus through a similar wilderness region called this kind of topography a great and terrifying wilderness in Deuteronomy 119. It was so vast and dreadful that they were filled with terrible fear. My point is, whatever you imagine the wilderness to be in your own mind, make it 10 times worse, maybe a hundred times. That is where Jesus now goes. But why? It's time to wrap things up with plot. Why is all of this happening and how does it matter to us today? I'll get to that in just a moment. We'll be right back after this message. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up that our website is live with not only the digital and hard copy versions of our Enter the Wilderness study of Matthew 4, 1 through 11, but also a few meaningful lettered items to encourage you throughout our time together. You can find it all at Abidible.com. And now back to the show. Why is the anointed one, Mashiach, the son of David, who's come as promised to save the whole world, now following the Spirit into this Godforsaken place to face his ancient enemy, Satan? And how does this story matter to us today, right now? What do you think? How would you answer that question? If you want, pause for a minute and consider the reasons. Ask God to personally reveal to you the answer to this question. Why is Jesus going into the wilderness to face the devil? The full answer is going to come over the course of the next several weeks as we really study this passage. But as I pause to ask him, this is what he spoke to my heart. I asked, Jesus, why did you do this? And in my heart I felt him say, For you, because I love you. I'm going to do what the first Adam failed to do. He gave into the tempter in the middle of paradise. I'll defeat the tempter in the middle of hell. Because I'm coming for you. Because I want you to be free from the sin that enslaves and ensnares you. Because I want you to overcome the temptations and schemes of the enemy. Because I want you to be free. You are mine. And I go and I win because I love the Father and I desire to do his will. He has sent me on a rescue mission for you. And that's precisely what I'm going to do. You know, Israel spent a chunk of time in the wilderness. The book of Deuteronomy, which just so happens to be the book Jesus clings to in the wilderness, as we'll soon see, has a very important clue about why God led them in the wilderness for 40 years. Chapter 8, verse 2 says, Don't miss this. The Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. God was testing their hearts to see if they loved him, if they would choose him. The Spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness is a test from God. It's a test that Israel repeatedly failed and that we repeatedly fail too. To be clear, Jesus did not need to be tempted to help him grow. He was, after all, God. But he endured temptation in part to reveal more of his heart and character to us and to identify with us in our own temptations. I want to add an important observation from commentator David Guzick. Temptation is a certainty for everyone. Yet Jesus's temptation was more severe. It was more severe because he was tempted directly by the devil himself, while we contend mainly with lesser demons. It was also more severe because there is a sense in which temptation is relieved by giving in, and Jesus never did yield. Therefore, he bore levels of temptation we will never know by experience. Another important thing to note here as we read Matthew 4:1 is that God doesn't tempt anyone to sin. The Bible is clear about that in James 1.13. But for our good and our growth and our sanctification, God does allow us to be tested and tried. Think about Abraham with Isaac or Job or Hannah or King Hezekiah or David. The list goes on and on. Again, Guzak, since God cannot be tempted with evil and he is unreservedly good, he would never entice human beings to sin or seek to harm their faith. God brings us trials in order to strengthen the Christian's faith. Again, he never tempts because he never desires his people to sin. Christians should never blame God when they do wrong. The adversity that Jesus faced in the wilderness as he was tempted to sin by the devil, again, not tempted by God, was beyond what we will ever experience. But it does serve as an example of his heart for us. We don't serve an aloof Savior who is unable to sympathize with us, but who has been tempted as we are, yet is without sin. That's one of our cross-references, right? From Hebrews 4. Because we have Jesus' example to follow, we are going to grow exponentially together. As we study this passage, we will increase in faith and as citizens in his kingdom. We have his blueprint, the blueprint for overcoming temptation. Now I'll close with this. Having his blueprint is encouraging and helpful, yes. But the wilderness is, rightfully so, incredibly daunting, isn't it? It's not a place we would choose for ourselves. We might even be tempted to go as far as saying, How could a loving God lead me there? By the end of this series, we'll have the full answer to that. But for today, know this. The wilderness is not the place God chose for us. Us walking through it or having to stay in it for long periods of time was never a part of the original plan. The first installment of this series, setting 1.0 of The story was paradise, remember? We're the ones who decided God was holding out on us and that it would be wise to search for greener pastures. The broken wilderness seasons we face are a direct result of the fall. Our world is broken, and so are we. But for those who love him, God promises something shocking in Romans 8.28, that he will use all things together for the good of those who love him. God had to rewrite the whole script because we went off script. The new script is God's plan of redemption. It's God's rescue mission, sending his one and only Son into the world to save the world, to be and do what we never have been able to be or do on our own. Every step Jesus took was a critical one in the storyline of redemption. And it's important to our understanding of the whole story to pause here and realize that without Jesus successfully overcoming the temptation from Satan, we would have no cross, no empty tomb, no resurrection to eternal life. That is what Satan is after. His plan is to destroy God's plan. He tried it once in the garden, and his temporary victory there now empowers him to try again. The ESV notes say the temptations are a diabolical attempt to subvert God's plan for human redemption by causing Jesus to fall into sin and disobedience, thus disqualifying him as the sinless savior. Let me read that last part again. If Jesus had given into this temptation, he would have been disqualified as the sinless savior. Do you see how important this story is? Barclay says, here we have the whole essence of the temptation story. Jesus had to decide how he was to do his work. He was conscious of a tremendous task and was also conscious of tremendous powers. God was saying to him, Take my love to men and women, love them till you die for them, conquer them by this unconquerable love, even if you finish up upon a cross. Satan was saying to Jesus, use your power to blast men and women, obliterate your enemies, win the world by might and power and bloodshed. God said to Jesus, set up a reign of love. Satan said to Jesus, set up a dictatorship of force. Jesus had to choose that day between the way of God and the way of the adversary of God. Satan is God's adversary. He is the essence of everything that is against God. Had Jesus given in, the whole plan would have been ruined. But he didn't. Here's the big idea. Jesus didn't give in to temptation. How does that matter to us today? Well, the answer is coming in the weeks ahead, like I said. We're going to be given a most beautiful blueprint for how to resist the devil so that he will flee from us too. As you've already heard me allude, this blueprint will rely solely on the power that is available to us as we wield the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. So the practical peace is coming, rest assured. And before we rush too quickly to how Jesus resisted temptation, we need to also pause and ask a harder, more personal question. What are we tempted to believe? Because temptation doesn't usually show up as something obviously evil. More often it shows up as a whisper that sounds reasonable, familiar, even good. I'm tempted right now to believe that my body is never going to be free from pain again. I'm tempted to sometimes believe that this ministry, Abidible, is a disappointment, maybe even to God. I'm tempted to believe that I'll never really be free from numbing out on my phone, or that building deep relationships with other women will always feel too risky, too exhausting, or too vulnerable. What about you? What are you tempted to believe about God, about yourself, or about your future? What are the sins or coping mechanisms you quietly cling to because they feel safer than full surrender, because they feel safer than God Himself? What are the patterns that you hide from everyone else because you've started to believe this is just who I am now? What feels so entrenched that you've stopped hoping it could ever change? This is why Matthew 4 matters so much, because Jesus didn't just face generic temptation. We're going to see that he faced the same categories of lies that we do. Lies about provision, lies about identity, lies about control, lies about whether God can really be trusted when hunger, pain, loneliness, or fear set in. And the hope for us is not that we'll suddenly become better at resisting temptation on our own, but that Jesus has already gone before us, endured perfectly, and now invites us to abide in the same word that sustained him. Here's where I'll close. He went alone into the wilderness so that we'd never be alone in our own wilderness. He endured perfectly so that when we fail miserably, we'd have his record before the Father instead of our own. He modeled for us that if the word of God, the word in the flesh, needed to use the word of God to overcome the lies of the enemy, then we surely need it too. He hid it in his heart so that we would understand we must also hide it in ours. And ultimately, he came out on the other side of his wilderness with his eyes fixed on the cross, on the joy set before him, on you and on me, and the sure promise for all who belong to him that this world is the worst wilderness we will ever face. He endured the wilderness and kept right on walking. He obeyed, he taught, he healed, he prayed, he died, he rose, and he left to prepare a place for us that not only is not the wilderness, but is so radically incredible that even John's description of heaven isn't sufficient because no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. He went through the wilderness because he loves you and because he knew what was waiting for you on the other side if only he could endure. So he did for you. And that's it for this episode. If you know someone who would be blessed by what you just heard, please share the Abidable podcast with them. Keep spreading the word so we can make much of the word. Drop us a review, tell us what you love and what you're learning. Check out the link to learn more about partnering with us by buying us a coffee one time, by joining our Abidable Plus membership women's community for $10 a month, or by becoming a monthly supporter. For those of you following along in the workbook, go ahead and begin working on our next verse in the series, Matthew 4-2, on pages 12 to 15 in your study workbook. Ideally, you would have this section done before you listen to the next episode, number 81. In this episode, we'll get a little more information in our story. The verse next week is Matthew 4.2, and after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. Why was it 40 days and nights? Why was Jesus fasting on top of being in a Godforsaken place? Should we fast? And what about the other accounts of Jesus' wilderness temptation that we read in the Gospels of Mark and Luke? Do they contradict Matthew's account? We'll get into all of that next Monday. I'll pray for us and then close us out with our memory work for verse one. Father God, we thank you for your word that does not shy away from hard places but meets us there. Thank you for sending your Son, not into comfort, but into the wilderness, not away from the enemy, but straight into the battle for us. Jesus, thank you for going where we have to go, into broken wilderness seasons, for standing where we have fallen, and for resisting where we have failed. Thank you for obeying perfectly, for loving the Father fully, and for enduring faithfully, so that God's plan would come to pass, so that we could be rescued, redeemed, and made free. Holy Spirit, we acknowledge you as the helper, the same Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness and sustained him there and protected him from the enemy. We ask you now to lead and protect us. Give us wisdom to understand what we read, courage to face the wilderness seasons we're in, and humility to depend fully on you when we're being tempted by the enemy of our souls. God, help us to remember that we are never alone, not in temptation, not in testing, not in desolation. Help us hide your word in our hearts, wield it against the lies of the enemy, and trust that you are working even when the terrain feels barren and terrifying. Fix our eyes on Jesus, who endured the wilderness, overcame the enemy, and walked all the way to the cross for us. We praise you that because He endured, we have hope, not just for today, but for all eternity. We love you, we trust you, and we follow you wherever you go. In the name of Jesus, amen. Let's close by doing our memory work together. I'm going to repeat Matthew 4:1 five times. Say it out loud with me or quietly to yourself. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4 1. Remember, you are able to abide in the Bible. We'll see you next time. Until then, let's abide.