Matthew 3:10-4:11

Remember, we’ve already prayed that God the Father will enlighten us through His Word by the Holy Spirit and so, by faith we expect to receive that understanding.

We’re also going to accompany Jesus, through His Word, on his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness and see why he didn’t fall for the temptations bought to Him by Satan.

Before we begin, let’s be sure of the timeline that these events surrounding John the Baptist took place. The days that Jesus walked on this earth also fit into this timeline. Let’s also be sure of who John’s audience is.

John, as we’ve said before is the last of the Old Testament prophets. Although we’re studying the first book of the New Testament, the events that are taking place at this time are actually still taking place under the Old Testament. Everything that happens here is dealing with the Jewish nation just as every other Old Testament book. The audience is the Jews of Judea, and the time is before the age that we’re living in today known as the Church age, or the Age of grace, or the Age of the Holy Spirit or even the age of the Gentiles. This age that we’re living in today had not yet begun at the time we’re studying today. Jesus had not given up His life yet and was not yet buried and risen after three days according to scripture. Also, the Holy Spirit hadn’t yet come to indwell man and create the new birth that signifies this new age that we live in today. The Holy Spirit came upon mankind as God saw fit, but he did not indwell men as he does today to those who believe in the Lord Jesus, The Christ, The Messiah.

John’s call to these people to repent was a call to the Jews to turn back to God who they had largely rejected in favour of religious tradition and self-centred, self-righteousness.

God is sending John as a messenger to the Jews with the message to prepare for the coming Messiah which the entire Jewish nation were expecting. The trouble was that unless they turned back to God and back to His Word they were never going to recognise the Messiah when He came because in their natural thinking, they were expecting something quite different than what the Word of God said. Unless they “repented” or turned back to God, they simply wouldn’t recognise the Christ, The Messiah when He came and now His coming had arrived.

So, we see that although we’re studying the first book of the New Testament we’re still actually in the Old Testament age.

 

We’ll put in today at Mattew 3 verse 10 where John the Baptist is still talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Maybe we’ll start from verse 7 again to get the flavour of what John’s saying,

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 

Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 

And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 

 

The New Testament talks a lot about fruit bearing. Fruit bearing is the result of having the right kind of tree. Only a fruit tree can produce fruit. John the Baptist talks here about the axe being laid to the root of the tree, and the reason is simply that the tree’s not bearing fruit.

An apple tree bears apples, and an orange tree bears oranges, but when a tree bears thorns, or poisonous berries it’s not an apple tree or an orange tree or any tree that bears any type of good fruit, and it must be cut down. The root and the fruit go together.

A tree must have the right kind of root to bear the right kind of fruit and that’s exactly what John the Baptist’s saying to these religious leaders here. He’s telling them that the wrong kind of tree is going to be taken down and cast into the fire. He’s likening them to the tree that doesn’t produce good fruit. There’s no room for their useless pretending of holiness. Their self righteousness is as filthy rags to the Lord as we see in Isaiah 64:6.

Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down by irreversible judgment. The axe represents Divine Judgement and unless this demand is met, there’s no other alternative. The useless tree is condemned to be firewood and it relates to the unbelieving Jew who’ll be excluded from the kingdom of the Messiah.

Now to verse 11, and John is till speaking,

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 

 

John’s saying, “l baptise with water. But He is coming, meaning the expected Messiah, and when He comes, He’ll baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire”.

The “and” that’s used here “and with fire” is now nearly 2,000 years long.

You and I are living in the age of the Holy Spirit. Christ Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit in this present age. Now, when He comes the second time He’ll baptize with fire, and fire means judgment.

We really need to understand this difference here.

Many people, especially in Pentecostal churches, believe that on the Day of Pentecost, the believers were baptised with the Holy Spirit and with fire, because it says that tongues of fire sat upon each of them.”

My friends, we really need to read Act 2:2-3 properly.

Let’s read,

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 

Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 

The King James reads.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

See, it wasn’t wind, and it wasn’t fire; it was the coming of the Holy Spirit and it was likened to wind and fire. We must be specific with God’s Word.

When the Holy Spirit came, it wasn’t the fulfillment of the last part of that all-important sentence, the baptism of fire, only the first part. Let’s be sure to understand that.

 

Now someone might say, “Well why would John mean that these two events were at least 2000 years apart? Why would he not separate them?” Well, this is something that appears in prophecy and Jesus Himself did the exact same thing.

In Luke 4:17, we see that Jesus went up to the temple and the book of Isaiah was given to Him to read from. He opened the book at Isaiah 61 verse 1 and read,

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;”

Then He closed the book.

Now, notice something vital here. He didn’t read the whole sentence. He cut off in the middle. The rest of the passage continues with, “And the day of vengeance of our God”. That gap in Jesus’s reading is another 2000 year old gap. You see He came at that time to heal the broken-hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives (the liberty from sin), And the opening of the prison, (the prison of sin that we’re all in) to those who are bound (bound by sin); but HE DID NOT READ , “And the day of vengeance of our God”. That part is yet to come friends.

The baptism of fire will take place at the second coming of Christ. It’s the fire of Divine judgement, God’s terrible judgement.

 

In the present age of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes upon every believer. Not just some, but every believer is baptised by the Holy Spirit, which means that the believer is identified with the body of Christ; that is, he becomes part of the body of Christ. This is one of the great truths in the Word of God.

Now John continues to speak of Christ’s second coming in Verse 12

 

His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 

 

Chaff is the worthless residue of a wheat stalk after the kernel of grain’s been removed.

These proud and unrepentant leaders were just as useless to God.

 

Judgement and purification by fire is common in prophecy. We see it in Isaiah 4:4; Zechariah 13:8-9; Malachi 3:2; and Isaiah 1:25. John predicts a real cleansing that’s coming in the future, whereas his baptism is just an outward sign of it.

In this agricultural example John gives the wind blew the chaff away, and the heavier grain fell to floor where it was gathered up from the ground. The scattered chaff was swept up and burned and the threshing floor cleared.

The Jewish leaders thought that the Messiah would come with judgment, they had no problem believing that, but they thought it was going to be only against Israel’s enemies. They were blind in their self-righteous confidence that only others needed to get right with God, not themselves and boy do many of us today have the same idea.

Now, just a quick sidebar here referring to the judgement prophecy we cited in Zechariah 13 verses 8 to 9. It’s a terrible prophecy. It’s said that in Europe during the Nazi persecution of the Jews, one in three Jews died, but in this prophecy we see that two in every three will die.

My friends, we can’t really know God if we see only His love, mercy and grace without understanding His wrath and the awful power of His judgement as well, which will one day, possibly soon, come upon the world.

 

Matthew 3 verse 13 now,

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. 

 

Now we’re going to try to answer the question: “Why was Jesus baptised?”

 

Verses 14 and 15,

And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” 

But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.

 

So, why was Jesus baptised?

There may be several answers, but the main reason is already stated right here, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus is identifying Himself completely with sinful mankind. The prophet Isaiah prophesied in the immensely powerful verse in Isaiah 53 verse 12 relating to the coming Messiah, that He would be numbered with the transgressors.

Here’s a King who identifies Himself with His subjects. This’s actually what baptism means. Identification. It seems that identification was the primary purpose for the baptism of the Lord Jesus.

The reason Jesus was baptised was not to set some sort of pattern or example for us to follow today. Christ was holy, He didn’t need to repent. The Old Testament Jews needed to repent, to turn back to God, You and I do need to repent to turn TO God by believing the Gospel, but He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. He was baptised to completely identify Himself with humanity.

There was a second reason Jesus was baptised.

Water baptism is symbolic of death. His death was a baptism. When we get to Matthew 20 and verse 22 we’ll see what Jesus said to James and John when they wanted to be seated on His right hand and on His left hand in the Kingdom. In fact, we’ll read it.

But Jesus answered and said, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?”

He was speaking to them about His coming death on the cross. You see, Christ’s death was a baptism. He entered into death for you and for me.

There’s a third reason for the baptism of Jesus.

At this time, He was set aside for His office of priest. The Holy Spirit came upon Him for this priestly ministry. Everything that Jesus did, His every act, was done by the power of the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us,

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 

There was sin ON Him, but there was no sin IN Him, you see.

My sin was put ON Him, not IN Him. That is a most vital detail. He Himself was sinless but he bore our sin, it was put on Him, therefore, you and I are saved by being identified with Him. He identified Himself with us in baptism.

And Peter says in 1st Peter 3 verse 21 that we’re saved by baptism. How? By being identified with the Lord Jesus. To be saved is to be in Christ. How do we get into Christ? By the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment we believe.

Now the ritual of water baptism after we believe is still important because that’s the way we declare that we’re identified with Christ. It’s an outward act to represent an inward change.

The Lord Jesus Himself said in John 6:37

“the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”

We must recognise that we have to be identified with Christ, and that’s accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

Our water baptism is a testimony to this.

When we come to Christ, my friends, we should be baptised by immersion in water because it’s our duty and our outward testimony of our inward change from death to life, our salvation. By itself it’s not a part of salvation but it’s a necessary testimony to the fact that we’re now identified with Him, Jesus, The Christ who gave Himself for us.

The whole subject of baptism needs to be seen for what it is, identifying with and standing for Christ.

Let’s repeat Matthew 3 verse 15 But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him. John baptised Him.

 

Verses 16 and 17,

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 

And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” 

 

Here we have a wonderful picture of the Trinity, God as One God and yet in three manifestations. As the Lord Jesus is coming out of the water, the Spirit of God descends upon Him like a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven.

The Father says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Lord Jesus is now identified with His people. What a King He is!

 

We now come to the 4^th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew where we see the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, the beginning of His public ministry at Capernaum; and the calling of four of His disciples by the Sea of Galilee.

Before we begin let’s look at the movement or the flow if you like, of the Gospel of Matthew leading up to this temptation of Jesus.

Jesus came down to be born among us and to be identified with us. He grew up as any other child would, except that He was without sin.

In His baptism, He’s been identified with us, He’s put on our sin.

Now He’s going to be tested and the testing takes on a threefold nature physical, spiritual, and psychological. The testing covers each of the areas that we ourselves are tested in, that is each part of our triune nature or the trinity if you like that makes us a whole person, body, mind and spirit.

There’re some real questions that need to be answered in relation to this testing.

Is the King able to withstand a test, a tempting, and can He overcome that test?

You see if He couldn’t stand up to real temptation how could the sinner be condemned? How could Adam and Eve and all their children after them suffer the wages of sin, which is death, if it was impossible for even God in the flesh to withstand temptation and to not buckle under trials?

Now, the word tempt has a twofold meaning:

The first meaning is to “Incite or entice to evil or to seduce.” There’s something in each of us which causes us to yield to evil, but this wasn’t true of Jesus. In Hebrews 7 verse 26 we read that, He was “… holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners …”

And in John 14 verse 30 Jesus Himself taught, “… for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” As we’ve seen before the ruler of this world is Satan.

So, the temptation for Jesus had to be different from that which would cause you and me to fall. It needed to be a much greater temptation.

The second meaning of the word tempt is “Test.” God does not tempt men with evil as we read in James 1:13. That passage reads,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 

And yet, we’re told in Genesis 22 verse 1 that “… God tested Abraham …” or tempted Abraham as the King James reads. What does this mean?

Well, it means that God was testing the faith of Abraham.

Jesus is now to be tested. Could Jesus have fallen? We need to answer that with an absolute no! He could not have fallen. If Jesus could have fallen, then you and I don’t have a sure and certain Saviour.

Now we may ask, “Well then, if Jesus couldn’t have fallen, was His temptation a legitimate and genuine temptation? Because if it wasn’t and the temptation of Adam and Eve and by extension you and me was real it makes a mockery of the test.”

However, we can be very, very sure that not only was Jesus’s temptation real, but it was also much greater than anything that you and I’ve ever had to bear.

Our Lord, Jesus Christ was tested to demonstrate to you and me and to the entire spiritual and natural universe that He was exactly who He claimed to be, and that sin could not be a result of His testing and temptation.

Many years ago, I had a business making steel safety cabs for tractors. They were made under stringent safety rules because up to that time many farmers were killed when tractors rolled. So, each newly designed cab prototype had to undergo a test where the cab was fitted to the tractor, the tractor was then immovably fastened to the floor of a testing facility and a huge steel block was raised by a winch and dropped on the cab. The cab was required to have no more than a very slight movement and only a very small amount of twisting was allowed. You see the test was not to intentionally break the cab but to prove that it could withstand a real life accident.

Just like Jesus’s testing, It was to prove, to demonstrate, that He could not be broken down and He would not collapse under pressure. His testing, therefore, was greater than ours. There’s a limit to what you and I can bear. Give us enough temptation, and then keep building up the pressure, and finally we’ll succumb to it.

But Christ never gave in even though the pressure continued to increase.

Another really interesting feature of this temptation is the comparison and contrast with the testing of Eve in the Garden of Eden. Christ was tested in a wilderness while Eve was tested in a garden. What a huge contrast!

 

Now let’s look at Matthew 4:1,

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

 

He was to be tested by the Devil.

 

Matthew 4:3-4

And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 

 

This is the same kind of temptation that came to Eve. The first one was physical. She saw that the tree was good for food as we saw in Genesis 3:6. The Lord Jesus was told to turn stones to bread.

 

Verse 4,

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.’ ” 

This verse that Jesus is quoting is found in Deuteronomy 8 verse 3. Jesus absolutely knew Deuteronomy, and He quite obviously believed it was the inspired Word of God.

Now the second testing comes in verses 5 and 6,

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘HE SHALL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE OVER YOU,’ and, IN THEIR HANDS THEY SHALL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU DASH YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’ ” 

 

Now we see that the Devil himself is quoting Psalm 91 verses 11 and 12 but notice he doesn’t quote it accurately.

The devil left out the words, “To keep you in all your ways.” The “keep” here means to care, to preserve and guard. Notice the words “in all your ways”.

This is a promise of God to keep Jesus, and by extension you and I, as we go through the journey of life. We’re never promised that we’ll be “kept” if we intentionally put ourselves in harm’s way for no other purpose than to see if God’ll protect us. I doubt if there’s a person among us who’d purposely jump in front of a speeding semi-trailer just to prove God would supernaturally get him out of the way and yet this’s exactly what the devil’s trying to make Jesus do.

The devil’s intention here is the same as his intention always was and always is, deception. He’s trying to make this word a promise that’ll be fulfilled even if Jesus neglects his duty and voluntarily throws himself off the pinnacle. He’s trying to get Jesus to “prove” who He is by tempting God the Father with an unnatural act.

Now, this is the spiritual temptation. For Eve it was that she saw the fruit was “… to be desired to make one wise …” as Genesis 3 verse 6 states. For the Christian, it is the “… pride of life …” that we see in 1 John 2:16.

I don’t know about you but for me this particular temptation of Jesus by the Devil is remarkable because it’s such a weak, almost pathetic argument, but it also makes me ashamed of how quickly and easily I personally buckle under the same kind of deception.

 

Verse 7,

Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘YOU SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD.’ ” 

 

Jesus simply counters the devil’s attempted deception with the Word by quoting Deuteronomy 6 verse 16.

Now we come to the third testing in verses 8 and 9 which is psychological,

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 

And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” 

 

Satan showed Him the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

This, you see, is a psychological temptation. Man lusts for power, power and control. Eve was subjected to the same temptation in Genesis 3 verse 5 where Satan tells her “… you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Many of us buckle to this test. We crave for the things of this world.

Jesus came to win all the kingdoms of the world and their glory back from Satan’s domain, and now Satan offers them to Jesus, without needing to endure the cross, if He’ll only fall down and worship him.

We can’t exactly say how Satan showed Jesus this, but we can certainly say what Satan did not show Jesus. Satan offers the kingdoms of the world and their ‘splendour’ without showing their sin.

Satan says, “I will give You” and Jesus doesn’t challenge Satan’s authority over this world and its governments and his right to offer them. This temptation couldn’t have been real if Satan didn’t have the authority and the right to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

Adam and his descendants gave the devil that authority. God gave Adam the stewardship of the earth as we saw in Genesis 1 verses 28 to 30, and Adam willingly turned it over to Satan.

Ultimately, all things belong to God, of course, but God allows Satan to function as the god of this age for a purpose, His purpose, as we see in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4. This is why this fallen world is in the mess it is.

Notice the answer the Lord Jesus gives to Satan in verse 10,

 

Verse 10,

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND HIM ONLY YOU SHALL SERVE.’ ” 

 

Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy again, this time chapter 6 verse 13 and chapter 10 verse 20.

Notice friends, that our Lord answered each time with Scripture. Certainly, that ought to have a message for all of us today.

Why is it that many of us are having trouble living the Christian life? Well, we can’t soft soap it. It’s ignorance of the Word of God.

Our Lord always answered by giving the Word of God. The Word of God has an answer for our particular problem. God has an answer for your problem, and it’s in His Word. That’s the reason we should know the Book better than we do.

The Lord Jesus didn’t say to Satan, “Well, I think this” or “I believe there is a better way of doing it.” He said very definitely that the Word of God says this and the Devil seems to have got the message because in the next verse, verse 11 we read,

Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. 

 

We see here that after the third temptation, the Devil left the Lord Jesus for a while. He certainly didn’t leave Him alone permanently though. Luke 4 verse 13 tells us that the Devil left Him for a time. Quite likely he was back the next day and, in fact was testing Him throughout His life. We especially see that in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus endured indescribable suffering.

 

Friends we have a King who could and did withstand temptation. He understands our weaknesses, because he faced all of the same testings we do in spirit, soul, and body, yet he didn’t buckle, He didn’t sin. Until the next time may our Lord, who could not be tempted, be with you to comfort and guide you in your testing and trials.