Temptation: Jesus' Strategy For Resisting Temptation

Real life presents the Jack Hibb's podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. What if I were to tell you that Jesus Christ from the Word of God has the answer to temptations, temptations that lead us into the worst of life's troubles? What if God's got the answer? Stay tuned, we're going to find out what it is. So in any strategy, there's a plan. For any strategy, there is first the deliberation, there is the plain it out, there is the what could go wrong. For example, our U.S. military forces, especially our special forces, before they ever go into the battle, did you know that they know very well where they're going to such a point that what is known as intel on the ground intel, we wind up here, stateside, building a replica of that town, building, or that little city, and our special forces rehearse and rehearse and rehearse again until they've got the strategy nailed down so well that when they are deployed into that hostile environment, it's second nature. And that's the point I want to make today, that Jesus Christ Himself was tempted and Jesus gave us the very technique, the very order, the strategy, the plan on how to deal with temptation. Every time Jesus was tempted, guess what He did? It's recorded in the Bible. He quoted the Scripture. He quoted the Bible and He stood resisting Satan's temptations. Can you imagine? Head on, meeting Satan Himself, you and I have never done that. Satan took on Jesus in his earthly form, Jesus is standing there, and what does He do? Having all the power in the universe, right? Jesus could have said, you're gone, over for you. He didn't do that. This leaned back on the Word of God and brought it forward, right in full face of Satan's attack. The strategies of spiritual warfare are no secret. The Bible tells us, then Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Imagine that, the Holy Spirit, and being tempted 40 days by the devil, Luke chapter four, verses one and two, that's remarkable. The Bible tells us, here's the strategy, fight the enemy that's coming against your marriage, your children, your husband, your wife, your mom, your dad, your kids, your job, your witness, your country. Fight by knowing the strategies of the enemy. Satan, the Bible tells us, Jesus said it so clearly. It's amazing. He said, Satan has come to rob us, to kill us, and to destroy us. But I have come to give you life. So the fact is that temptation, and the temptation of Jesus himself, was a test to prove that he was the very perfect, sinless Lamb of God. And if you think about the beauty of that, as Satan is really laying on Jesus, these incredible temptations, they come at a time when Jesus was at his weakest, having been tempted by hunger, exposure, 40 days in the wilderness, then the Bible tells us that at an opportune time, Satan comes. So remember that, to resist temptation and to fight it is to know the strategies Satan will seek to come after you at your weakest point. I like to put it this way to you. Satan is a great devil. Lucifer is the best devil they'll ever be. He knows our weaknesses, and you and I might think that, because Jesus was God in addition to all of that being a man, that he wasn't really tempted, that it's just a story, that the gospel's it's a story, that he's God, true. But the Bible says he's man, but we begin to think that he's some sort of a superhuman in the sense that he wasn't really tempted, that's just for the narrative to make us feel good, not true. There's a tremendous doctrine known in the Bible as Kenosis. The word Kenosis means that Jesus Christ took upon Himself flesh, that He was 100% God, 100% man, but Jesus chose to be exposed just like you and I are. He chose to not pick up supernatural powers to blow the devil up like some action figure. Jesus chose to be tested so that you and I would know what it's like to experience the attacks of the enemy. When we pray and cry out to God, Jesus knows exactly what's going on. So my friend, listen, make no mistake about it, that the onslaught against Jesus was entirely real. It was a fact, it was powerful, more powerful than what you and I will ever experience. Satan hit Jesus with every bit of temptation that he could throw at him to entice Jesus to disobey the will of his father. And Jesus did firm to the Word of God. You go back in the gospels and you read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and see how Jesus fought. That's what he tempts you and I to do as well. The exact same tactic, strategy of Satan, he will launch against you and I. It may not be with the intensity that he did against Jesus, but it doesn't matter. It's absolutely crazy intense for you and I, right? And so the more that we have Scripture, the more that we know it, the more that we're able to use it against the enemy. That's vitally important. So know this, that the strategies of Satan's attack against us are answered with the strategies of Jesus using the Word of God. It's remarkable. The very same Word of God, he's given to us in print so that we can utilize this Word, this sword of the Spirit, which now brings us access to the faith that you and I have, the Word of God. And by knowing the Word, we go forward in this battle, understanding Satan has his strategy. Well guess what, we've got ours and we pattern ours after the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So we're looking at what Satan did to our Lord Jesus Christ, which, listen, had to happen. It's interesting to us and we take great, great encouragement to know that when Jesus was in his most vulnerable state, the attack came. After 40 days of fasting, the Bible tells us that Jesus was weakened. Imagine 40 days that he had been brought to this place of extreme thirst and extreme hunger, then Satan attacks. We always want to be careful that we do not put ourselves in a vulnerable situation. I like to put it this way, where we leave the door open for Satan to come on in. For too many times we do that. Whenever you and I are in a vulnerable situation, Satan will leverage that to his advantage. Frankly, he's not dumb. He's very, very smart. And he expects to succeed. Satan won't give up. It's an interesting truth. He is defeated, the Bible says so. You say, well, Jack, if he's defeated, why did he just go home? Because Satan hates your guts. Satan hates me, Satan hates you. And he wants to inflict pain in the heart of God. That's how much you are loved, by the way. If Satan's defeated, why did he just quit? Because he delights in hurting the heart of God. How does he do that to try to lure away you and I? Because we are the focus of God's love. But our Savior showed us how to fight by His example. This is absolutely important. Jesus fought with the Word of God. He leaned upon the power of the Holy Spirit, and that He looked to God His Father in His flesh as it were, like you and I, to be the power to get through the temptation of the enemy. So never forget that. Jesus Christ showed us how to fight by example. Next we want to understand that Jesus made this incredible statement that we need to always keep in the forefront of our spiritual lives. In Luke chapter 4 verse 4, Jesus said, it is written. That's how we fought. He answered Satan by saying, it is written. It is written. It is written. What's he doing? Jesus, listen, friends, this is so important, because I hope I don't hurt anybody's feelings, but if look, if the shoe fits where it, or change it, if you're going to a church, and there's not a high view of the Bible, if you're being told that, well, there's some parts of the Bible that are inspired, others we don't know about. This part of the Bible is poetic, or it's somehow typological. It's not real. Listen, you need to get out of that church. You need to get back to the Bible. You want to know why? I'm not telling you why. Jesus is telling you why. Jesus said it is written. Our Jesus used the word of God in his battle. You and I need to do the same thing. So we move on to the next thing, and that is that our strategy if we want to overcome the temptations of the devil. This is critical. It's to utilize the sort of the spirit. The sort of the spirit, the Bible says, is the word of God. That is our strength, the sort of the spirit. The word of God, imagine that. Think of Roman days, think of Roman times. The sort of the spirit is the word of God. Can I ask you how sharp is your sword? Do you have a sword? See, what do you mean by that? When Satan's tempting you, what do you do? Crack open a fortune cookie. When Satan's attacking you, do you look at the horoscope which is paganism? When Satan's attacking you, do you have a wishful, happy thought? Is it like a Jiminy cricket moment where you just think a happy thought? Listen, or do you go to the word of God? To do the word of God properly in spiritual battle is to do this. The word's a macaera. It's to take the word of God and it's to use it accurately. And I gotta be honest with you. When God says, take up the sort of the spirit which is the word of God and use it. My friends, listen, we're talking about bloody, bloody hand-to-hand combat. That's the only way that we can win is by using the sword of the spirit, God's word. By using the sword of the spirit means we take this word and we use it against every attack of the enemy. Friend, let me tell you what William Grinnell had to say about this. He was a tremendous author. He knew something about spiritual battle and let me give you this quote from his great book, The Christian Classic, that is the Christian and complete armor. He said the sword is the weapon of most universal use in battle. And also that whereby the greatest execution is done in battle. Now such a weapon is the word of God Grinnell said in the Christian's hand by the sword of this, his enemies fall, and all his great exploits are done. That is an awesome statement. That is a tremendous quote from this man who knew something about warfare. And by the way, he wrote that so many centuries ago and it is true, think about that, that if you are skilled and equipped, you can fight the battle. So this is why it is so vitally important for you and I to memorize and internalize scripture. There's no substitute for this. The Holy Spirit will use what's inside of us. Supernaturally, Christian, listen, I know this sounds so simple that it's not workable. No, listen, it's simple and that's why it works. God does not complicate this life and death moment and this life and death battle. He will take the supernatural word of God that you've simply put inside of you and that he will use it coming out of you to deal with the attacks of the enemy. It's so absolutely essential that for you and I, as Christians depend upon the Holy Spirit, the word of God as we fight to honor and glorify Jesus Christ in this world. This is how we bring our minds to this place of being used by God. It's most needed, memorize, scripture. There's no substitute for that. So friends, listen, here's what I want you to watch out for. And by no means is this an exhaustive list, of course not. But Satan is going to try to tempt you to get your mind and your spirit, your thinking away from God, not only away from God, but what he tries to do is he tries to insert doubt or try to accuse the authority of God. He'll say something like this to you. You know, you could do it a lot better if you just did it this way. You'd be done quicker. Yeah, you know what, God will forgive you. I know the Bible says this, but why don't you try it this way? He will launch at you things like this. Oh, I don't have the time. I know I should pray, but there's so much going on. I got to get it and go. That's an attack of the enemy. It doesn't seem like it, right? Because we deal with that every day. Well, the enemy's attacking us every day. Anything that he can do to get you and I to lean on our own strength, that's when we get into trouble. When we lean upon our own wisdom is when we begin to trust in ourselves. And look, the more miles you have behind you as a Christian, doesn't make you invincible against Satan's attacks, but it does give you great wisdom on how to detect his attacks, whereby the fight, the warfare becomes incredibly intense. Because now you've got a mature, strong Christian believer that we're all striving to be. And at the same time, Satan ups his game by tempting us in very subtle ways. When we are young in the Lord, or we don't know much about the Bible, he will come very, very obviously. But I've noticed in my own life, 45 years plus of being a Christian. Now, everything that comes in my life, I've got to stop, take a breath, pray, ask God for wisdom and discernment. Why? Because I notice in my life, he's not coming with these obvious temptations. He's not coming with money, or like Billy Graham said, girls, glory, and gain. He doesn't come like that. Now it's much more subtle. He brings things out that look like it comes from God. Do you remember when Joshua was tricked? Joshua, the wonderful general of the Israeli army, leading the children of Israel into the promised land. There was that group of people who were terrified of Israel, terrified of Joshua, and they lived only over the hill. But they dressed themselves up as though they traveled from a great distance. They took moldy bread and they put it in their backpacks and they put on their junkiest shoes. They went over this top of the hill and they said, hey Joshua, we know that God's with you. We've come from a long journey. Look, when we left, this bread was fresh and our shoes were brand new. Look at them, they're thrashed. We've come all this way to make a peace treaty with you. Joshua didn't pray, he didn't stop, he didn't pause. It looked good, everything looked fine. And by the way, can I add this? Looked kind of flattering, felt flattering. Wow, instead of having to fight everybody, these guys have come a long way to make peace with us because they're afraid of us. That's amazing. So Joshua signs a peace deal with them and gets in a whole lot of trouble with God because he didn't consult with God. Friend, as you grow along, don't ever think for a moment. Well, I've been a Christian for years. I can kick back a little bit, watch out, be on guard. Today, you and I live at a time where the Bible tells us that there are spirits that are out there teaching doctrines of demons and leading people astray. It's happening now. Jesus said these days would be coming. We wanna be watchful. Just the very fact that in our world today, all of us can see and hear about fake news, fake posts, websites, Facebook pages, articles being mimicked or corrupted, duplicated, and used to rob or to pillage. All kinds of things are going on right now. There's something that is, for example, called deep fake. It was created by the CIA and we've used it for decades and it tricks people. It's crazy, it's amazing. But if you look at deep fake, how it's used today in movies and in presentations, you're like, what is going on? Listen, Satan is a master at deep fake and he'll even use the Bible to try to trick you so know your Bible well. So think about this level of deception that was used by the enemy. When the Greeks were tired and worn out, they didn't think that they could in any way defeat the Trojans. What they wound up doing was presenting a gift that gift was the Trojan horse. Receiving that gift brought it in past the gates into the enemy capsule to speak, right? But inside that Trojan horse were the famed warriors that wound up defeating the enemy. Today in combat and it's always been the same, if you can deceive your enemy before the war ever begins, half your battle is over. And if that's true in our world around us, how much more so is it true in the spiritual realm for the enemy to come alongside you? Maybe even try to gift you something to wrap it up in such a way that it's so appealing or it's such a nice gesture, something to let your guard down. Oh, she's just a friend. Oh, he's just an old high school buddy. Whatever it might be, it seems so innocent. But things happen. Christian, be on guard, stand strong, assume nothing. Don't be paranoid. No, we've got God on our side. We're with him. And he's given everything that you and I need to be successful warriors against temptation. We just need to get into the battle and to use his strategies that we might live and conduct ourselves in a way that honors God, brings about the victory. And I might add, cause others without hope to look to us and say, I want to know your God too. This Jack Kibb's podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, are listener supported. 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