Free Bible Commentary
“Luke 4:1-13”
Categories: 50 Days with Jesus“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry. And the devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live on bread alone.”’ And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.”’ And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written, “He will command His angels concerning You to guard You,” and, “On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.”’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”’ When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.”
---End of Scripture Verses---
No Bible study of Jesus is complete without learning about the adversary that He came to the earth to destroy. Let’s focus on some things we learn about Satan from this passage.
Satan is real. The devil is not nearly as powerful as Jesus, but he is just as real as Jesus is. Satan appeared to Jesus, he talked to Him and showed Him things in order to tempt Him to do wrong. The devil was not merely a hunger induced hallucination in the Lord’s mind. Satan is real and opportunistic and he strikes at the times we are most vulnerable.
Satan knows the truth. With the third temptation he hurled at Jesus, Satan quoted Psalms 91:11-12. Our adversary knows the Bible very well, but he uses his knowledge in an attempt to thwart the efforts of God, not to advance them. Please understand that just because someone has the ability to quote Scripture from memory, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can trust them to lead you in the way you need to go spiritually.
Satan perverts the truth. The devil quoted the Old Testament and twisted it out of context in order to try and trick the Lord into disobeying God’s will for Him. The word of God is very powerful (Hebrews 4:12), but that kind of power in the hands of the wrong people can cause considerable destruction. Please don’t take another person’s word for truth. Search the Scriptures for yourselves (Acts 17:11), and prove what the will of God is for you in your life (Romans 12:1-2). Satan will use the word as a weapon against you in an effort to upset your faith (Galatians 1:7). But...
Satan is no match for the truth. Jesus shows us that the greatest arsenal at our disposal to defeat the devil’s onslaught is a good working knowledge of God’s inspired word. Jesus responded to each of Satan’s three revealed temptations by accurately handling the Holy Scriptures. God has chosen to convey His will for us through the written word, so we need to spend considerable time immersed in the Bible or we will be no match for Satan. Our enemy desires to destroy us, but when we are empowered by the truth we can resist the devil and he will flee from us (James 4:7).
Jesus resisted Satan and he left in frustration…for a while (verse 13). He keeps returning so we must keep resisting.
Please read John 2:1-11 for tomorrow – Jesus’ first miracle.
Have a great day!
-Louie Taylor
