Piper's Notes

March 18, 1984

Bethlehem Baptist Church

John Piper, Pastor

CHRIST IN COMBAT: DEFENSE BY THE SPIRIT

(Luke 4:1-14 ESV)

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the

Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate

nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The

devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become

bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread

alone.’ ” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the

world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority

and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If

you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is

written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” 9

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and

said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it

is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and “

‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to

the test.’ ” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from

him until an opportune time. 14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to

Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country.

Jesus said in John 8:44, "The devil was a murderer from the beginning and has

nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him." A murderer and a liar

by nature -- that's Satan. But we don't always see our enemy so clearly.

Last Thursday Noël and I took about three hours of our day off visiting computer

stores to find out what sort of word processing possibilities we might be able to

afford. We went to the library and read the latest Consumer Reports and then went

to four stores downtown. It was an amazing experience. I came home with a stack

of literature and with my mind reeling. Here's what I learned. Computers are like sex.

There is something in us that they can hook and hold. Computers are like a

romance or an epic or an adventure which has come true before our very eyes. They

combine mystery and power and precision and beauty. They are exciting and new

and with open-ended possibilities. Our culture is in for unimagined and irreversible

effects from the micro-computer revolution. I don't doubt that virtually everyone of us

will have one at home by 1994. The uses will expand, the prices will fall and they will

be as common as the telephone.

But for now they are unusual and wonderful and so real in their strangeness. One of

the effects that they can have on a Christian is to make us feel like spiritual things

are very unreal and unexciting. You can see a computer, you can handle a

computer, a computer can give you immediate feedback and solutions; they hold a

powerful fascination. But the Bible speaks largely of unseen things; things that don't

force themselves onto our senses; things that are sometimes far away in the past.

You all have had these experiences with some new gadget or toy or appliance. How

easy is it to come home with a bundle of colorful brochures about word-processing

and lay them aside half-read in order to enjoy the voice of God in Scripture?

But put beside that question another one. If you were laid low by kidney failure and a

congested heart and were told by the doctors that you have only a few days to live,

would you want your family to sit by your bed and read to you from the latest

systems developments of IBM, or from the Bible? What happens in those minutes

after the doctor walks out of the room and leaves you with the imminency of your

own death? What happens to the gripping fascination of RAM, ROM, CPU, CP/M,

PC DOS, Profit Plan, Perfect Writer and tri-color monitors? What happens is that

here at the end of your journey through the valley of life the low-lying haze of the

computer craze is blown away behind you and you stand perhaps for the first time

before the lucid reality of the mountains of eternity. You look back on the fog falling

away in the valley and you wonder how you could have ever been so entranced, so

captivated, so swallowed up by the mechanical functions of a man-made machine.

You look at the spectacular peaks and awful ravines and unapproachable crags in

the mountains before you, and you wonder how the mystery and power and beauty

of this reality could have been so insignificant in your life.

But not only the mountains.

In the short distance that remains between you and the foothills of eternity you look

around on what the receding haze has exposed and see this world for what it really

is. On the one side thick green grass and trees with luscious fruit and crystal

streams with darting fish and over it all a great white dove, hovering in mid-air. But

on the other side, a wasteland of smoldering ashes and cracked riverbeds and half-

eaten corpses, and in the midst, a huge, gaunt, starving lion, crouched with his

shoulder blades protruding under the mangy fur and looking you right in the face. In

one immeasurable moment you awaken to the awesome fact that what was really

happening in the valley of life was a combat between the life-giving dove and the lion

of destruction and your life was (and is) the issue.

So this morning I have come to proclaim to you that whatever has entranced you or

captivated you or swallowed up your attention, it is the haze of illusion, if it

desensitizes you to the combat between the Holy Spirit and Satan for your life, and

if it diverts your solemn attention from the mountains of eternity just ahead. To help

us see things like they really are, let's look at Christ in combat -- this week on the

defense, next week on the offense.

In Luke 3:21-22 we have the record of Jesus' baptism when he was thirty years old.

"Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized

and was praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in

bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son;

with thee I am well pleased."'

When Jesus was baptized along with all the repenting people who wanted to be on

God's side, it was as though the commander-in-chief had come to the front lines,

fastened his bayonet, strapped on his helmet, and jumped into the trench along with

the rest of us. And when he did that, his Father in heaven, who had sent him for this

very combat, signified with the appearance of a dove that the Holy Spirit would be

with him in the battles to come.

Then in 3:23-38 Luke inserts the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew records Jesus'

genealogy at the very beginning of his gospel and takes it back only to Abraham.

Luke, however, records the genealogy here just after the baptism of Jesus (where he

is announced as Son of God) and just before the temptations of Jesus (where he is

attacked as the Son of God); and Luke takes the genealogy all the way back to

Adam (whom he calls a son of God). This arrangement is all very important in

communicating Luke's message about Jesus. I think the message goes like this:

Adam had a unique relation of sonship to God in that he was directly created. But

Jesus has an even greater unique relationship to God as the virgin-born divine Son of

the Most High (1:35). Adam had a unique relation to humanity as the head from

which all of us came. But Jesus has an even greater unique relation to a new

humanity which he creates and redeems. Adam was tempted and failed, bringing all

of his people into misery. Jesus is about to be tempted, but will not fail; so he will

bring all of his people to victory. By taking the genealogy of Jesus all the way back

to Adam and making Adam a son of God, and by inserting this genealogy between

the announcement of Jesus' sonship and the testing of Jesus' sonship, Luke shows

that Jesus is like a new Adam, entering a new battle to redeem a new people.

So when we read the account of Jesus' temptations we must realize how much is at

stake here. If he fails he will be in the same class as the old Adam and there will be

no new people, the lion will devour the world and all the green grass and fruit trees

and crystal streams and darting fish will be burned up in the fire of judgment. But if

Jesus succeeds in combat with the lion, he will be able to liberate a new people who

learn from him what is truly real on Nicollet Mall and what is illusion, a people who

learn from him how to do battle with Satan and escape the fog of his falsehoods,

and a people who will live with him some day in a world just as securely renewed as

the base of Mt. St. Helens, where the trees are sprouting and the animals are

returning and the lakes are pure again. Here in Luke 4:1-14 in the wilderness beyond

the Jordan our Commander-in-Chief, fighting in a trench just like ours, turns back the

enemy and teaches us how to do the same.

Let's watch him in action. Luke 4:1-2 , "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned

from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted

by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days." Jesus is thirty years old. He has

just been acclaimed by God to be his Son. Three years of mounting conflict lie

before him which he knows will end in his torment and execution. How shall he

begin? Verses 1 and 2 tell us four things.

1) He begins full of the Holy Spirit. There is a great mystery here of how the

persons of the Trinity inter-relate. But the least we can say is that the divine nature

of Jesus did not cancel out his human nature; and therefore as a human in the

trenches with us he availed himself of the same power offered to us in the Holy

Spirit. He was filled with the love of his Father, with the marvel of his own mission,

and with the hope of his own destiny.

2) With that fullness the Holy Spirit led him into solitude for forty days. He

went away from family and friends and crowds and lived in the desert for forty days.

That's almost six weeks. No radio. No television. No computers. No billboards. And

this wasn't the only time: Luke 5:16 shows that other times Jesus went away alone.

It must be that preparation for ministry demands significant times of solitude. We

simply can't maintain a radical God-centeredness under an unbroken barrage of

human interaction. The depth and value of what you bring in your heart to other

people will depend on what you do with your solitude.

I regard Sunday morning from 8:30 to 12:15 as the most important hours of my life.

The main purpose of my life can be defeated or fulfilled by whether or not I come to

these hours in the power of the Holy Spirit and with the anointing of God. And so

woe to me if there is no wilderness of solitude on Saturday. Except for unusual

crises most of Friday and all day Saturday are given to solitude to prepare for

Sunday's ministry of the Word. And Saturday night is especially sacred to me. I

urge all of you to find a pattern of personal solitude.

3) During these forty days of solitude Jesus did not eat anything. He fasted.

Why? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. God richly furnishes us with

everything to enjoy! (1 Tim. 4:4-5). Why should the perfect Son of God go without?

To demonstrate that he was not enslaved by anything but God. Your spiritual power

will be weakened to the degree that you can't say no to your bodily appetites.

Physical appetites are not evil (Jesus was hungry!). But when they usurp the rule in

your body your spiritual power will decline. Paul said in 1 Cor. 9:27, "I pommel my

body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

For forty days Jesus pommeled his body to certify and demonstrate that his

appetite for food and for sex gave no foothold to Satan in his life; for he was

mastered by a superior appetite for God. "My food is to do the will of him who sent

me" (John 4:34). This is what it means to be filled with the Spirit -- to be so full of

God and his purposes that food, even after forty days of fasting, does not control us.

Paul said (in Eph. 5:18), "Do not be drunk with wine … but be filled with the Spirit"

(see Luke 1:15). Conquer your physical addictions with spiritual addictions. No other

way will bear long-term fruit. Drive the demon of gluttony out the front door and seven

more will come in the back unless you fill your house with the Holy Spirit. Jesus

was full from the start and no demon ever had a toehold in his marvelous life of

discipline.

4) Notice that verse two says Jesus was tempted by the devil -- not just at the

end of the forty days but during them, too. "… for forty days in the wilderness,

tempted by the devil." For forty days Christ was in combat with the enemy,

defending himself in the power of the Holy Spirit against the fiery darts of self-pity

and loneliness and fear and the pain of his fasting and the awful temptation of

murmur against God like Israel did in the wilderness.

You can count on it. When you have opened yourself to the fullness of God's Spirit

and have disciplined yourself to simplicity and self-denial and have resolved to give

yourself to the liberating work of the gospel -- you will be attacked by the gaunt lion

of destruction day in and day out.

Luke gives us three examples of the temptations Satan threw at Jesus.

First, in verse 3 he says, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to

become bread."

Then in verses 5-7 Satan shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says, "To

you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me and I

give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours."

Finally, in verses 9-11, Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and said,

"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written, 'He will

give his angels charge of you' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you

strike your foot against a stone."'

These temptations are amazingly relevant for American Christianity.

Satan skips over adultery, fornication, stealing, lying, murder -- those temptations

are too obvious. Those are the games that sub-devils play with weak saints. Jesus

is no fall guy. When Satan means business with a strong saint he sticks with

religion and he makes the Bible his textbook. See if this doesn't sound

contemporary. "If you are a child of God, why are you living like a pauper? If you are

a child of the king, why don't you live like a prince? The children of the king don't eat

casseroles, they eat steak. The children of the king don't drive second-hand

clunkers, they drive new cars. The children of the king don't shop at Rag Stock, they

shop on the Mall. The children of the king don't throw their lives away in Liberia or

Cameroon or Ecuador or Japan, living on a shoestring, building no reserves. If you

are a child of the king, claim your blessings. God has promised to send his angels

to make you healthy, wealthy and prosperous. Throw yourself into these blessings.

The best testimony you can be to your status as an heir of God is to be wealthy and

have the best of everything."

If only we today could see this new "gospel" as a species of Satan's temptation to

Jesus. Satan had one aim in the wilderness: to do whatever he could to keep Jesus

from suffering. He was willing to let Jesus have all the glory and authority of a world

ruler if he just wouldn't gain it through suffering. He was eager to let Jesus use his

divine power if he would just use it to relieve his suffering. He was willing to let all the

worshipers in Jerusalem see and acknowledge his divine sonship if only the angels

of God would keep Jesus from suffering.

Do you remember when Jesus said to the disciples that he had to go up to

Jerusalem and suffer and be killed, and Peter said, "God forbid, Lord"? Jesus

responded to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me" (Mt. 16:23).

Satan's aim in the wilderness was to hinder Jesus from suffering. Because the

suffering and death of Jesus meant the final destruction of Satan and the salvation of

you and me. And Satan's aim in this church today is to hinder you from following

Jesus when he says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take

up his cross daily and follow me (in the path of suffering)" (Luke 9:23).

People sometimes ask why if Satan is real we don't see more demon possession

and exorcisms in America. I have an idea. Satan holds American Christianity so

tightly in the vice-grip of comfort and wealth that he's not about to tip his hand with

too much demonic tomfoolery. What Satan fears most in this church is an

outpouring of the Holy Spirit that causes us to say with Paul, "I count everything as

refuse that I might gain Christ … that I might know the power of his resurrection and

the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."

Lest there be some misunderstanding, let's go back to the hospital bed. The

shocking news of your imminent death has caused the haze of the computer craze

to clear. The mountains of eternity lie before you. The dove hovers over the grass

and trees and streams on the right, and the lion of destruction crouches in the

wasteland on the left. Do not think that if you are filled with the Spirit your call is to

sit under the fruit trees with your feet in the water. Nothing would please the lion

more. No. Those who are touched by the dove and filled with the Spirit, take heart

from the taste of paradise, but then they turn to the wasteland of the world and

follow Christ.