Okay, the Princess Bride sword fighting scene. There's all this stuff going on, and it's really fun, and everybody likes to quote it. But when they get to the part where they actually talk shop about fencing as they duel atop the cliffs of insanity, people quoting this at parties, we just fill it in with words because we don't actually know what they're referencing or what they're saying. The same way whenever we sing the circle of life from the beginning of The Lion King, everybody just makes up their own phrase, mass fence. And it just works. We all fill it in in our brain. But the actual dialogue there has Inigo Montoya saying, You're using Bonetti's defense against me. And then Wesley says, I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain. Naturally, you must suspect me to attack with the Capafero. Naturally, but I find that T-Bolt cancels out the Capafero, don't you? And then they jump around and stuff, and Inigo says, unless the enemy has studied Agrippa, which I have. I've heard a couple of these names before, but I had to Google all of this stuff to sort it out. So Rocco Bonetti is a 16th-century Italian swordmaster who had some kind of defense that he liked to use, and everybody thought it was completely pathetic, and so it makes sense that they open with this Bonetti defense, even though they would both know that that doesn't really go anywhere because it's easily countered. The next name they reference is Capoferro, Rodolfo Capoferro, another Italian swordmaster, was a linear fighter, and he popularized the lunge. Then, as they start to change elevation, they reference this Gerard Tbalt guy. He was Dutch and he was a big fan of apparently the whole high ground thing. I don't know how this actually works, but it makes sense that they reference that to somebody who understands fencing as the fight starts to change elevation. And then finally, they talk about Camill Agrippa, who I've actually heard of, and he was a 16th-century Italian swordmaster as well. And so like as they go along, they're getting into more and more complicated stuff. And I'm sure if you're somebody who knows things about fencing, it was really fun the first time you saw that to see how they were unpacking all of this stuff because what they're really doing there is they're doing the chess moves that you almost have to do. Okay, I'm gonna start with this. Naturally, you're gonna use the Benetti defense, then I'm gonna do this. Naturally, you're gonna do that, then you're gonna do this, then you're gonna do that. And I almost feel like, in a way, that's what we're getting in Matthew chapter four, with the whole duel here between Jesus and Satan. I I think both parties kind of had to know what moves and defenses the other was gonna do, but they still cycle through all of them. I don't know. Maybe the devil in this situation really thought that these things were going to work. But as we unpack the three specific temptations, I picture two masters, one more masterful than the other, in an age-old uh tension, an age-old feud that has been going on where they've been around the block with this a few times, but now it's the ultimate duel, and we're gonna see what works as they cycle through the dance steps, the offensive maneuvers and defensive maneuvers that they probably both expected. We open up with a scenario that involves complete vulnerability on the part of Jesus, especially for the human aspect. I mean, fully God, fully man. And so Jesus is fully man, is just very, very hungry. And 40 days of fasting, I don't know what that feels like. I mean, sometimes I do intermittent fasting for like 14 or 16 hours, and then I just really, really, really want waffles or twinkies or soda or something. But 40 days would be pretty punishing. I remember one time I got pretty desperate. I was on a hike with a bunch of friends, and we went up Grey Rock Mountain in the northern Colorado Rockies, and nobody prepared. And our kids were idiots, and we get all the way up there, and one dude had brought along like a two-pack of ding-dongs. Everybody started bidding on it because everybody was desperately hungry. And I don't know, I think I used to remember how much it ended up being, but it was like a steak dinner and a lot of money that ended up being the selling price for each of those ding-dongs. And basically, you just had a situation where uh scarcity made people desperate to act. And likewise, I think Jesus is in a very relatable position here as we pick up the reality of this duel between he and the devil, starting in verse two of Matthew chapter four. It says, After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, If you're the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. Jesus answered, It is written, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. What a nerve-wracking moment and what a brilliant move on the part of the devil to just go right at the thing that somebody's gonna be desperate for. If your belly's full and everything's fine, it's really easy to be like, uh, whatever, I'm not falling for this trick. But when every fiber of your physical being is begging for a thing, people have been known to do pretty desperate, pretty out-of-character things. Now remember, this week of the podcast is brought to you by Hebrews 4.12, which you know, maybe you might want to memorize and put in your brain. It makes the Bible make more sense, and it really makes sense of this passage. Jesus doesn't just say, nah, not into that. He counters with a defensive move, maybe quickly even into an offensive move using scripture. Hebrews 4.12, once again, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. And if you think that it's a coincidence that I talked about sword fighting at the beginning, and the Bible gets described in this verse as like a double-edged sword, you are wrong. It is not a coincidence. It was my master plan all along. So here's what he does: he throws it back to the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. And I wonder if the original audience, and maybe even some people in this audience right now, are thinking of another moment where people were out being tested for, I don't know, an amount of time and an increment of 40, and they started getting weird and desperate over physical needs, and then something crazy happened and a test didn't get passed. Like Numbers chapter 20, when the people of Israel are out wandering around and they get real thirsty, and it goes like this. In the first month, the whole Israelite community arrived in the desert of Zinn, and there they stayed at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. That is sad. Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. And remember, they just saw like the Red Sea part and fire tubes fall down from heaven. I mean, they these people know there's a God. They know something miraculous happened, but they're really thirsty, and their immediate physical need starts to trump the enormously shocking supernatural things they've seen. They quarreled with Moses and said, If only we died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord, why did you bring the Lord's community into the desert that we and our livestock should die here? Why'd you bring us up out of Egypt into this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines, or pomegranates, and there's no water to drink. Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell face down, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. Wow, that's a prompt answer. The Lord said to Moses, Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gathered the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water. You'll bring water out of the rock for the community, so they and their livestock can drink. So Moses took the staff from the Lord's presence just as he commanded him, and he and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock? Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out in the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you didn't trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them. That's kind of a tough pill. That's why Moses didn't get to go into the Holy Land. The whole quest that he was on was to accomplish that. And it's nullified in this one moment of weakness. Well, I get why he was mad. He's getting badgered and hounded. I get why everybody else was mad. I mean, they're real thirsty, but it seems like what God was setting up was an opportunity to demonstrate his continued faithfulness and for an opportunity for Moses and Aaron to demonstrate their continued literal obedience. But it looks like they wanted that glory for themselves, according to that text, when the glory for that was supposed to go to God. And so they make a big show of things, and as a result, they fail the test in the desert. Jesus is being tested in the desert under the same kind of circumstances. Will he bring glory to himself to point out how awesome he is, or will he continue to act in obedience to God? Well, he quotes that thing from Deuteronomy chapter 8, and I could just read your verse 3, but it is so smoking gun over the top. Whoa, I see what you're doing here. If I read the first three, or I don't know what we're gonna do, four verses, whatever. Deuteronomy eight, one, this is the context from which Jesus is quoting when the devil shows up and says, if you're the son of God, or some people think it's better translated, since you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread. I'm gonna quote the uh context. Here we go. Be careful to follow every command I'm giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, not a coincidence Jesus is quoting one verse away from a reference to those that amount of time, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. That's exactly what's going on with Jesus. That's why the Spirit led him out into the desert. Verse three, he humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Wow. This is the kind of stuff that gets me fired up about the Bible. This is the kind of stuff that melts my brain because we've got, you know, I I don't know. The most conservative estimate would be or liberal estimate rather would be 500 years. For a long time it's been held that we're talking about 1,500 years of writing here, all kinds of people contributing in different environments, in different places, at different times. And then you get amazing points of connection just like that. The original audience would have would have had their minds blown by what Jesus did there. If they hadn't already started to make the connections, upon him saying those words, they would have immediately fully made those connections. This is powerful for you and me as a secondary or tertiary member of the audience. I think it would have been mind-blowing and enormously persuasive to the people who were in the original audience. All Jesus has to do to screw up the entire redemptive plan is be like, you know what? Actually, I I am super hungry. Let's just do this thing. Give me some waffles or twinkies or ding-dongs or something. But instead he flips it around and points to dependence on his father, points to the authority and importance of the word of the Lord, and man, that's gonna start ringing some real bells here, and just a little ways down the road when we get into the Sermon on the Mount and we hear what Jesus says in terms of how to pray and all that stuff about giving us this day our daily bread. Trust me, we will revisit all of this when we get there. Man, I'm having trouble keeping this to 10 minutes right now. I will do better. I know this doesn't work for all your commutes if I get all windy and wordy like this. So much more to come on the next two temptations. I'm really enjoying this. Once again, Hebrews 4.12. That's the scripture of the week. Dig into that over the weekend if you have a chance. Put it in your hip pocket by the time we get back together on Monday. I'm Matt. This is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Catch you soon, friends.