Why Did Satan Quote Scripture?

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the gospel of Matthew 4, and we left off with verse 5, so I am going to read verse 5.If you have your Bibles and you’re home it would be great for you to follow along with us.Matthew chapter 4, verse 5:“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee:and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”Interesting, the devil is quoting Scriptures to Jesus.

Dave:

Oh yeah, he’s already quoted it twice and this is the third time.The consistency of the Bible is another one of the proofs that this is the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation.This is a particular theme that goes from Genesis to Revelation.You would get it laid out for you in 1 John chapter 2, where John says, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he says:“All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world, the world passeth away…” and so forth.Okay, the lust of the flesh, what was the first thing that Satan said to Jesus?Well, you’ve got to be really hungry 40 days.If you’re the Son of God why should you be enduring this torment?You can turn the stones into bread, and that’s when Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8.He says, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”Okay, so we’ve got the lust of the flesh and you have the same thing in the Garden of Eden when she looked at this and saw that it was good to eat, lust of the flesh.The lust of the eye, well, she looked at it, a thing to be desired, and then now we are going to get the pride of life.We’ve already had both of these because Satan took Jesus on a high mountain, shows Him all the lust of the eye shows Him all the kingdom of the world.I give these to you this if you just bow down and worship me.Now Satan, he must be the god of this world, it’s what the Bible says.In other words, he could deliver on this!Jesus didn’t say, You don’t have those kingdoms to pass on to me.

Tom:

Dave, how many, down through history, how many have actually made this pact with the devil, received what he offered, and of course their lives have been destroyed?

Dave:

Many, many.Now we come to the third one, the pride of life, and in the Garden of course it was you would be like the gods, this fruit will make you wise.So here we are, the pride of life.Well, he’s on the pinnacle of the temple, I’m sure he must have been visible.Maybe nobody looked at Him at that moment or saw Him there, but if He threw himself down, this is what Satan is counting on, you will, I mean, people will see you falling and then the angels will catch you and let you settle down very gently, and they will say, O, this must be the Messiah.So, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life, that is everything that Satan has to offer and he never changes it, he cannot get beyond that.And so we have it right here.

Tom:

Dave, this isn’t anything that we don’t see today.There are those who would take the scriptures and use them in a legalistic fashion to try and control the situation, or manipulate things.This is exactly what the adversary is doing here.

Dave:

This is what he is doing, but you can twist the Scriptures also, and we have a little confusion on “tempt” and “test”.Here it means to test or to try, like trying someone’s patience.God cannot be tempted with evil, James 1 says.God cannot be tempted with evil, neither “…tempteth he any man.”Now tempting means to try to get someone to do something.Jesus was tested in all points like as we are, yet without sin.He was not tempted. In other words, Jesus didn’t say, “oh, I would really like to do that, I mean, just get away from here, Satan.”

Tom:

That’s what you said, the lust of the flesh, that wasn’t a part of Jesus’ character, He was perfect.

Dave:

So you can’t tempt God to do evil.

Tom:

Because there is no attraction there for Him.

Dave:

Right.So Jesus was not tempted, He was tested.We need to get that clear, but we can be tempted:Lead us not into temptation, we pray, but deliver us from evil.Now, in the Old Testament God says, You tested me, you tried me, the waters of Meribah, and so forth.Here’s another way of looking at it, Tom.I think a lot of the charismatics, or other people, they are testing God.There are some people who think that, well, if I’m going to really follow the Scriptures it says you go without clothes or you go without anything to eat or, I mean, any provisions, you have no money in your purse and so forth, and you’re going to trust God.Now, there’s a distinction we’ve got to make. If you have money in your pocket, you’ve got money in the bank and you say well, I’m just going to go off on a faith journey and I’m not going to rely on any of that.I have friends who would take me in, but I’m just going to go out there and walk and see what happens.I think you are testing God.In other words it like saying well, Lord, in order to really demonstrate the faith that I have I’m just going to close my eyes and I’ll walk across the freeway at high noon in the midst of the traffic and I will just trust You not to let me be knocked down and killed.Now there you are testing God.In other words, you are putting God in a position where he has to come through in order to back you up.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

I wouldn’t want to do that.But anyway, Jesus was not tempted at all.It was not a situation where He wanted to be known, in fact, He said to his disciples in Matthew 16.They are telling Jesus what people say.Well, some say you’re Elijah, and some say you are this and that, and Jesus says:“Who do you say that I am?”Peter says, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “…flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.” We have to make a distinction here, a very important one.I can’t just recklessly launch out and God is going to have to come through to rescue me. But if He has led me to do something, and I’m certain that this is His leading, then you can walk into the lion’s den.Now of course Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, but there are those who—for example, let’s take the snake handlers back there. That was popular in the Southern states.

Tom:

Dave, I grew up in Southern Ohio and across Brush Creek there was a HallelujahChurch and they were, you know, I mean, I was a Roman Catholic at that point but I used to be fishing and listen to those guys.There was yelling and snake handling and the whole nine yards, it was unbelievable!

Dave:

See, it says, if they take up serpents, it doesn’t say when they take up serpents, and I don’t know exactly what that would mean.If, is it some occasion where you’ve got to take up the serpent?But it’s not you’re going to demonstrate now and I’m going to—now you are testing God.Oh, God has got to come through now for me.No, that’s very dangerous business.

Tom:

Verse 8:“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.”

Dave:

In another gospel it says, “In a moment of time,” and that’s all they will last.

Tom:

Verse 9:“And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”

Dave:

I’ve already commented on that before we got here, but we had better come back to this.Jesus is not going to worship Satan, “thou shalt worship the Lord thy God.”Now He quotes Scripture, “at any moment shalt thou serve.”But why does Jesus want these?He wouldn’t want these kingdoms, furthermore they all belong to Him and they will all be His through the death that He will die in payment for our sins.But He doesn’t want the kingdoms in the world and if there are Christians who think we’ve got to set up the kingdom for Jesus then He’ll come back, not biblical!