In this segment of the Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 Project, we are still implementing soap but in a “devotional manner.” We will still look at the text and draw our observations from the text and seek to apply faithfully. However, the whole segment will be done in a prayerful manner, seeking to engage our hearts and our minds upon Christ and His truth.
SOAP: Read Scripture > Observations on the Context > Apply Faithfully > Pray the Scripture
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
Our Lord Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights and as a result, he was hungry. Look at what Satan tempted Christ with as extremely sharp hunger pangs were shooting through his body:
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Satan told Jesus to prove that He was the Son of God and use His power for His own comfort—to turn stones to bread to satisfy His hunger. As we saw in previous lessons, Jesus did nothing of His own will—Jesus was completely devoted to His Father. His Father’s will, empowered by the Holy Spirit, directed Jesus Christ’s every action, decision, and word.
Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted…and what we see is that Satan tries to first of all to get Christ to yield to using God for His own comfort and ease. How often today have American Christians attempted to make their Faith comfortable and declare that because they serve the Lord that they will receive health, wealth, possessions, marriage, or some other selfish motive? Their goal and prayer is not crying out the Lord for a marriage partner or for the healing of a dear friend because they know God alone has the power to heal and surrender their will in submission that the Lord’s will be done, but rather they presumptuously attempt to use God’s power to make their own will (desire) come to pass.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
How did Jesus answer? With truth: man does not live by bread (the physical needs) alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The prophets in the Old Testament almost always had hard lives. People were seeking to kill them, they wandered around in deserted places, they didn’t have wealth usually and depended on God for everything they had; but they truly had abundant life because they lived by the words that came from the very mouth of God. Too often we attempt to substitute material things for the real prizes God offers us: a relationship with Him, His Body, and slavery to Christ. Jesus passed the test in this temptation by clinging to the truth of God and not acting because of His own physical desires, but rather, submitting Himself to God and quoting absolute truth (the Bible) back to Satan, thereby resisting devilish temptation and submitting himself to God’s will.