The Enticement

 Then the devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6“I will give You authority over all these kingdoms and all their glory,” he said. “For it has been relinquished to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish.… Luke 4:5-6 "Jesus had come to die for the world. Satan offered Him the world without dying." Alicia Britt Chole

The Scripture from Luke 4 details some of the exchange between Jesus and the devil during His temptation in the wilderness. The devil's ploy throughout all of it was to try and entice Jesus into rejecting His Father's commands for what He was sent to do, die for the sin of the human race. He culminated his temptations by showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, offering them all to Him if He would just bow down and worship him. Jesus is the King and the ruler of His Kingdom. That Kingdom would be offered, through His death and resurrection, to all who would believe upon His name. Satan was offering Him the rulership of the world He'd come for without the suffering involved in dying for it. This is always the devil's way. He offers us illegitimate means of having things that the Father has promised us. Illegitimate, and almost always counterfeit. Shortcuts to what he's told us, and we believe, is "best." Shortcuts that will always lead to destruction.

Jesus asked, and continues to ask, "What does it profit a man (or woman) if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?" I don't think we contemplate these words very deeply, especially if we make a profession of faith in Him. If we have done that, we tend to think we've made the choice, and we will never need to make it again....but we'd be wrong. That choice still stays before us every day. And sadly, too often, the enemy entices us to make the wrong choice. The choice that goes against the Lord we say we follow and serve.

Alicia Britt Chole asks a chilling and penetrating question; "What could the devil offer that would tempt us to bow down and worship him? Where does he take us to entice us to forfeit our soul?" Our knee jerk reaction is that we would never worship our great enemy Satan. We would never forfeit our souls and follow him. I believe that, but I also believe that we can, in many of our choices, give some small part of our life, our soul to him. He may not ever be able to get all of us, and if he can't, he'll be satisfied with getting pieces.

He came to Jesus in the desert. Someone said that the devil always finds his way into our deserts. He does. As he did with our Lord, he will tempt us there, offer ways out of the desert, and the pain, hardship, and difficulties that go with it. He will also offer illegitimate means of meeting longings and desires we might have. In the midst of a difficult ministry, he entices us to look for a better, more rewarding place, even if it is not God's place, giving us unending rationale for doing it. He does the same in marriages, parenting, stewardship, and any and all circumstances of life. In contrast to what we know in our hearts is the Lord's way, he offers something counterfeit to it. Something that fulfills a fleshly, often sinful desire. A shortcut.

We all find ourselves in deserts at some time, and often, for a long time. When the devil comes, and he will, where are we vulnerable to his enticements? Is there something, even a small thing, that he can offer to get us to go against His will and purpose for us? Is there a point, a place, where he can put something before us that we so desperately want that in that moment, in that place, we do bow down before him?

Jesus defeated his enemy because He was fully yielded to His Father and His will for Him. He sent the devil off because He was rooted in His Truth and Word, and defused all the devil's half truths and outright lies. He had no open vulnerabilities. Do you and I? We would do well to know the answer to this....before our own desert time. A time that will come to each of us, along with the enticements of our enemy.

Blessings,

Pastor O