Luke 4:8

Luke chapter four, I want to read the first eight verses of the chapter. Our focus this morning is going to be on verse eight. And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the spirit into the wilderness, being 40 days tempted of the devil, and in those days he did eat nothing. And when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, if thou be the son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. Jesus answered him, saying, it is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said, unto him, all this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me. and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou therefore will worship me, all shall be thine. Jesus answered and said unto him, get thee behind me, Satan. For it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve. I bless to us his sacred and holy word this morning. In the New Testament, the word, translated temptation, Pari-Razzo, has a twofold meaning to it, or two shades of meaning. When God is tempting, and literally more, maybe better translated, testing, when God is testing, man, it carries a positive indication. However, when it refers to the temptation by Satan, it has a negative, implication to it. The second idea might be likened to a green group that decides that they’re going to take a GM car and run it through a group of tests. Now, the emphasis and aim of the environmental group is to show you how bad this car is for the environment. So they don’t want to find any positive things. They want to find some kind of way to condemn the car. However, if GM were conducting their own test, on their own car, they would want to find positive things because they want to promote the car and sell it. And so what we have here, when we look at Christ’s temptation in the wilderness, Christ is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. But God has a good purpose in this temptation. And that is to demonstrate the holy character of Jesus Christ. Whereas Satan has a bad purpose, and that is the fine thing. some flaw, some way to cause Christ to falter, to tempt Christ to sin. We’ve been looking at the second temptation of Christ here in verses 5 to 8. We’ve considered several lessons with regard to how Satan operates, how he tempts people in verses 5 to 7. And we mention these things. You should be aware that many temptations come by way of the eye. He showed unto him all these kingdoms of the earth. It’s through the eye that Satan gets to the soul. It often tempts us in this manner. Secondly, we said, you find the offer of riches and glory of this world a very powerful temptation in verses 5 and 6. We talked about Gahazi in the Old Testament. We talked about demons in the New Testament, having loved this world. And cast aside. the faith for what they can gain in this world. We said you should realize that Satan often promises what he cannot deliver. In verse 6, he seems to indicate that he has the power to give these nations to whom he wills. Whereas we know that Christ is promised by the Father that he will have the heathen for his inheritance. And it’s not Satan’s prerogative. It’s God’s prerogative. And finally, we said, you may be. Tempted by the most vile sort of sin. Here is the Son of God being tempted to worship Satan. You would think this would be something that wouldn’t even come up. But we see how Satan sometimes will tempt even the most godly Christians with the worst possible sins imaginable. But we have Christ victory here in verse 8 over the second temptation of Christ. That’s what we’re going to look at this morning. Now let me begin by saying this. You need to have an abhorrence and detestation of sin. Get thee behind me, Satan. You know, Jesus has shown great patience in answering these temptations by Satan. However, the base suggestion that he would fall down and worship Satan is provoked the Lord to anger here. And thus get thee behind. me, Satan. He can endure Satan only he commands him to leave his presence. In verse 13, he does. Christ here abhors any suggestion that anyone but the Lord God be an object of worship. His anger is roused. Now, friends, it’s good for us. when we’re tempted by Satan to resist temptation immediately. It is important that we stop up our ears the Satan’s outrageous suggestions and don’t give place to him. We banish him as well. Get thee behind me, Satan. There’s an old Arab proverb. You’d never even let the camel put his nose into the tent. Because he gets his nose in if you don’t stop him before you know it the whole camel will be in the tent. And that’s the same way of Satan. If you give him a little opening, he’ll take advantage of it, and be on you full force. You have to learn to detest and abhor sin so that you are repulsed by his suggestions. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, but I’ve actually done this before. I’ve actually said out loud, get me behind me, Satan, when a temptation has come upon me. And I don’t have the power or the authority of Christ, but in a sense in Christ’s name, I’d like to ban it. him. I’d like to get thee behind me, Satan. Get out of here. Whatever is an abomination, which you’re assured that God hates, you’ve got to have to hate it also. You have to abhor it also. We need to learn to be provoked to righteous anger at times. And here, Christ is provoked by this suggestion. We shouldn’t give place to these temptations. I’ll look with me at Deuteronomy if you would. Chapter 13. There’s several passages I want to look at here, but Deuteronomy 13 verse 6 to 8. It says here, if thy brother, the son of thy mother or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known thou nor thy fathers, namely the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth, even under the other end of the earth, thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shalt thine I pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him. Don’t even look. Listen to these suggestions to worship another God. Don’t give place to it. Look at Galatians Chapter 2, if you would, in the New Testament. First five verses. Then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus also with me. And I went up by Revelation and communicated under them that gospel, which I’ve preached among the Gentiles, but privately to them that were a reputation less by any means I should run or had run in vain. But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they may bring us into bondage, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for our an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. Paul says, we refuse to listen to Jews that would teach circumcision that being necessary for salvation. We didn’t give place to them. Look at Matthew chapter 16, if you would, in verse 21. 1821. From that time forth, Jesus began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priest, scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord. This shall not be done unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, say, for thou art an offense unto me, for thou savers not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. He stopped. Peter’s suggestion. that he not go to the cross, that he not suffer and die on the cross. And you’ll notice that he points out it’s Satan that’s actually making this suggestion, through Peter, evidently. Suggested it, and Peter took it up. And so here we have this idea of the Lord saying, get thee behind me, say, you don’t understand the things of God, as you should. And so he stops Peter’s suggestion. My friends, it’s important that we love what God loves and hate what God’s hates. You know, Peter, Paul had to rebuke the Corinthians for tolerating those who came along and preached another Jesus and another gospel. He says in 2 Corinthians 114, for if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom we have not preached or another gospel, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted. You might well bear with him. He’s condemning them. He said, you’re listening to these people. You’re giving them in ear. And they’re preaching a different gospel than you know of. Why are you doing this? If someone denies the deity of Christ like the Jehovah Witness, do you listen to him? It’s a satanic lie. You don’t listen to him. If someone comes, proclaims, a gospel of faith and works for salvation, you stop your ears. Satan is behind that. May the Lord give us a holy anger, which refuses to entertain anything that is opposed to sound doctrine. So you need an abhorrence and detestation of sin. Christ here is provoked by Satan’s suggestion. Secondly, you must worship God alone. Thou shalt worship the Lord by God and Him only shall thou serve. Now Jesus’ response here is actually a quotation, it seems from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13, having to do with the First Commandment of the Ten Commandments. It contains the fundamental principle of the whole law, which is Jehovah alone, is to be worshipped. Jesus tells Satan it’s unlawful to worship a creature. such as you are. It violates the very first commandment God gave. Even if it were true that the kingdoms of the world belong to Satan, even if he were classified as the God of this world, he’s still a mere creature. He’s an angelic being. And even worse than that, he’s a fallen angel, corrupt, an evil, in the eyes of the Lord, rebealious against the Lord God, certainly not worthy of worship. As related in Exodus 20, the First Commandment is thou shall have no other gods before me in my presence. You know, the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans and they all have their gods. They had all these multitude of gods because they were polytheistic in their belief system. But God’s law teaches several fundamental points in that is this. One, you must know and acknowledge Jehovah God as the one, true, and living God. There are no one, there is no one else. And I take that to mean the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It’s a rejection, a repudiation of any other one who would claim to be God. Secondly, you should worship Jehovah alone. not a creature, not an angel, not a man, and certainly not some type of animal. You should exercise faith or trust in Jehovah. You should love Jehovah. You should place your hope in Him. I think all that is connected with the worship and serving of Jehovah God alone. Atheism is forbidden. You must believe there is a God who rules the God. this world by his province. Also, polytheism is forbidden because God is the only one to be worshipped of the exclusion of all other so-called gods. I like what he says in Isaiah 45-21. There is no God else beside me. There is no other God. The great sin against this commandment is the giving of some type of honor or worship to a mere creature. And that honor and worship is due to God alone. This is why the worship of angels, Mary, and the saints, promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, must be utterly rejected. It should be repulsive to us. There are four instances of possible creature worship in Scripture. And in each case, there is a rebuke. Don’t do this. One. here is in our text where Jesus is not going to worship Satan. But look at Acts Chapter 10 with me. Acts 10 verses 25 and 26. Here, Peter is going to Cessaria and he’s going to Cornelius’ house and he’s going to proclaim the gospel to Cornelius. Cornelius has had an angel visit him and tell him to send for Peter and he’s sent for Peter and some of his companions have come up to Cessaria. And we read here in verses 25 and 26. And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshipped him. But Peter took him up saying, stand up. I myself also am a man. Don’t worship me. I’m just a human being like you. Stopps him. Look at Acts chapter 14. Beginning with verse 12. Here we have Peter, or excuse me, we have Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journey, and they come to Listra. And in verse 12, we read this, and they called Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker. Now, you have to realize, these are gods. These are gods. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands. onto the gates and would have done sacrifice with the people. Unto Paul and Barnabas. Which, when the apostles Paul and Bartas heard thereof, they rent their clothes and ran in among the people crying out and saying, sirs, why do you these things? We also are men of like passions with you. And preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities into the living God which made heaven and earth, the sea and all things therein. who in time past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, he have not left us without witness, and that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, and with these saying, scarce, restrained the people that they had not done sacrifice unto them. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We’re not gods. Don’t sacrifice unto us. And then if you would, Revelation, Chapter 19. Well, how about chapter 22 would be a little clearer in that passage. Chapter 22, verses 8 and 9. And I John saw these things and heard them, and when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things, and he said unto me, see thou do it not. For I am thy fellow servant of thy brother and the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book, worship gum. Like fourth one. time. Each time, stop, stop, stop. Can’t have this. Creatures are not to be worshiped. My friend, Satan is always the one who is behind any attempts to draw us away from the worship of the true and living God. He would have you worship some kind of created being rather than the creator himself. Here’s what God says in Isaiah 42.8, I am the Lord. that is my name, and my glory will I not give unto another, neither of my praise the graven images. Any worship of Mary, of a saint, or an angel is theft. It’s stealing the glory of God. And you have no right to do it. Millions of people worship Mary as the co-redeemer, the mediator, and direct their daily prayers to her. This violates the very first commandment. and it provokes God to anger. It’s a theft of God’s glory. Now, God expects from you sincere worship. Joshua 2414 says, Fear the Lord and serve, worship him in sincerity and in truth. The word sincere means without mixture. The origin of the word is interesting. It was associated with honey. Honey that was clear that didn’t have any sediment, in it or wax. To describe such a jar of honey in Latin, you would say sign Sarah. Thus would get the word sincere. It’s without contamination, without wax. From this, the English word comes. And so when it comes to the worship of God, Him only shall thou serve, is what we’re commanded to do. It’s what we’re commanded to do. We can’t mix in anything with that. It has to be pure. We can’t have the wax of creature worship mixed in with it because it corrupts and spoils your worship of the Lord God. Now, there are more subtle ways of violating the First Commandment, hidden ways of doing so. In the book of Ezekiel Chapter 8, there’s an interesting passage where Ezekiel’s given this vision where these characteristics, where these characteristics, back to Jerusalem and he gets to look through this hole in the wall and he is brought to the outer court of the temple. Along the sides of this court is where the priest’s lodgings were located. As he’s looking through this hole in the wall and he sees that, God tells him to dig through the wall. And so in his vision, he’s digging through the wall and getting inside. and he’s to keep digging, and he comes to a door. And when he opens that door, we find he sees what’s happening inside where the priest’s chambers are. And the wall was built to keep the priest’s apartments more private, so that those who passed by wouldn’t see their private goings on. But they were doing things in private which were opposed to their public image as those who were priests of Jehovah. So here, Ezeko gets the look into the priest’s chambers. What’s going on inside the priest’s chambers? What were they doing in the seclusion of their dwelling places? Well, lo and behold, these temple priests had idolatrous pictures or images on their walls. They were worshipping, bowing down before them. These represented all the idols of the House of Israel, which they worshipped gods of the heathen nations around them. The 70 men of the elders of Israel were with them. And they were worshipping, these abominable ones, abominable ones, offering up incense, using a censor, probably one from the temple. The priest, the great Sanhedron, the leaders, whose duty it was to curtail and the punish anyone who will worship any other God are themselves worshiping false gods in the secret of their own home. It was done in the dark, so to speak. But God is showing Ezekiel what they’re doing. He’s given them a glimpse of what’s going on. They didn’t want the public to know. Maybe they thought God himself wouldn’t know, but he does know. And so the omniscient God reveals everything. to Ezekiel. And the thinking is, well, God has abandoned us. We have to turn to these other gods. Now, secretly, they had other gods that they were serving. They didn’t do it publicly. They didn’t do it openly. They did it secretly. Now, you can be like these priests, publicly participating in the worship of the Lord God, but privately violating the First Commandment. Pride, makes God of self. And if you worship self, you’re worshipping another God. Covetousness makes a God of money. Unless if we put money first, it becomes our God. Overeating makes a God of the belly. Therefore, it places that eating before the eating before the true God. Whatever is esteemed or loved served or depended upon more than God makes that, in effect, a God. now you may delight in keeping your violation of the First Commandment’s secret, but God does all about it. You can’t keep it secret. Be sure God won’t cover it. Nothing’s hidden from him. So you must worship God alone. That seems to be an obvious and very plain teaching of Scripture. Jesus emphasizes it here. The third point is this. Your worship is to be regulated by God’s Word. It is written that you shall worship the Lord God and Him only shall thou serve. It is written. All worship Jesus said is regulated by the Word of God. What he does with regard to worship has to be what the Scripture said. Who is to be worshipped? Jehovah God only, not angels, not men, not beasts, not the sun, moon, or stars, or other God. That’s the first commandment. How is God to be worshipped? Well, not with images, not with idols, not with pictures. God is a spirit. He’s not to be visibly represented. That’s the second command. When is God to be worshipped? He’s to be worshipped on the Sabbath day. The principle is one of seven belongs to God. That’s the fourth command. The Baptist Confession of Faith 1689. And by the way, the Savoy and the Westminster, I think the wording is almost exactly the same in these. The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan. Wow. Under any visible representation, or in any way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. I find answers these is not by any suggestions of Satan, because all these other ideas would be suggestions of Satan, wouldn’t they? The principle is obvious. You need it is written in order to worship a right. G.I. Williamson says this. What is commanded is right, what is not commanded is wrong when it comes to worship. This is known as. the regulative principle. It’s founded upon Deuteronomy 1232. What things, soever I command you observe to do it, thou shall not add there to, nor diminish from it. It is God’s prerogative alone to tell us how to worship him. We don’t get to choose and pick how to worship God. We don’t get to say, I think I’d like to do this or I’d like to do that. That’s not how we worship God. God says, this is how I want to be worshipped. Well, it’s not glamorous enough. It’s, you know, we need more pomp and circumcision. God says, this is how I want to be worshipped in a very plain, ordinary manner. Extra-biblical practices undermine gnaulify God’s appointed worship. The sufficiency of Scripture is at stake here. Because when we added unappointed elements to worship, we’re saying, well, God didn’t tell us enough. So we’re embellishing, we’re adding to. If God says it is written, this is it. This is how I want to be worshipped. You know, most churches today follow a different principle, and I’m biblical one, and that is, if God doesn’t forbid it, you may do it. That’s how most people worship God. What we have to begin to realize is not all worship is pleasing before God. You can’t just decide I’m going to worship and think he’s going to accept it. everything you offer. Why, I read in Isaiah chapter 1, that God upbrates the Israelites for sacrificing unto him. he rebukes them for their temple services. He says that he’s displeased with their holy days. that their prayers anger him. Why? Weren’t they doing what God commanded them to do? They weren’t doing the way? They weren’t doing the way. God had commanded them to do it. They may have been attempting worship, but they weren’t doing it in a manner that he is commanded and therefore it was unpleasing me. He’s opposed to the kind of sacrifices and prayers and holy day observances and worship at the tabernacle and offered by the Israelites that deviated from God’s way when their heart is far from him. The reformers rightly condemn the extra-biblical practices of the Roman Catholic Church. the use of images, the worship of Mary, the sign of the cross, the holding up and adoring of the elements of the Lord’s supper, the bread and the wine, the mass as a sacrifice of Christ, the worship of angels and saints. All these things are condemned. Why? Because God does not command it. Sadly, evangelical and reformed churches can also be guilty of violating the regular principle of worship of worship as well. We have introduced new holy days that we’ve made out of whole cloth that are not mentioned in scripture, and we’ve made them up, whether it be Christmas or Easter or whatever. God didn’t say, you know, this is the day we should celebrate Christmas, or this day we’re supposed to celebrate Easter. Testimony times during worship. Special music, solos, cantatas, man-made hymns, and not used. using of the psalm, not singing of the Psalms. Sacred drama, religiously based skits during the worship service. Pictures of Christ in the worship place. Stain glass windows with pictures of Christ on it. Paintings and so forth. We get somewhat provoked. We have to vote at a Jehovah Witness church. We go into this church. Every time you go into this church, every time you go into church. It’s a big picture of Christ on the wall right as you come in to church. It’s aggravating, you know, to see that. It’s a violation of the commandments of the Lord. Here is what is written. Here’s what we can do in worship. The reading of the scriptures. Remember, Paul says, you know, I want you this epistle to be read by so-and-so, or book of Revelation we talked about. The Blessed is the one who reads it and hears it and so-for. the preaching and the hearing of the Word of God. The singing of Psalms. Ephesians 519, Colossians 360, prayer, the observance of the ordinances of the church, the Lord’s Supper and baptism. And on special occasions, there may be times of fasting, and times of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. These are the things that God allows us to do. Jesus calls for us to follow the regular principle here. It is written. This is how you worship. When people test cars, they can have a negative or positive purpose. Either find fault or to find just the positive aspects. God leads Christ into this temptation. because he is going to show the holy character of the Lord God, and it’s going to shine forth. Satan has a completely different purpose in his temptation, and that’s to bring Christ down, if it all possible, it’ll cause him to fold. Here are three basic lessons. We need to have an abhorrence and detestation of sin. We must worship the Lord God alone, and your worship should always be regulated by the Word of God. That’ll keep you out of trust. These things. And these are the temptations that we could be tempted with, but we need to follow the same principles here that are laid out in our text. Let us close.