Reverence for God

MEMORY SELECTION: “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 shalt thou serve.” —Luke 4:8

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: John 4:24; Matthew 6:24; Exodus 20:3-7; Luke 4:8; Matthew 5:33-37

IT IS essential that we recognize the power and influence of Satan and also his efforts to tempt and destroy God’s people. We are admonished by the Apostle Paul (Eph. 6:11,12) to “put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

After his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, our Lord meditated upon the Word of God and fasted for forty days and forty nights. We learn from the scriptural record that at that time Satan approached Jesus to tempt him and to lead him away from the work that he had come into the world to do. “And the Devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.” (Luke 4:3) Jesus was familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures, and his answer was a quotation from a portion of Deuteronomy 8:3, “that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” Satan had appealed to Jesus’ flesh, but the Master turned the temptation aside by a simple passage of scripture—a “thus saith the Lord.”

After that, Satan attempted to appeal to Jesus in a different way. “And the Devil, taking him up into an 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 I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.” (Luke 4:5-7) Jesus knew that he had to fulfill the Law and that his life must be dedicated to God and to the Heavenly Father’s will. Satan sought to turn his attention away from that objective by suggesting that he worship him instead. Recognizing the nature of the temptation, Jesus again turned to the Scriptures and said (vs. 8): “Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written [Deut. 6:13], Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Jesus had been born into the world for a very special purpose, and Satan knew that if the ransom price for sin was paid and the human race was released from the sentence of death, then God’s kingdom would be established on earth. Satan had attempted to destroy the Messiah from the time of our Lord’s early infancy but had failed due to God’s overruling providence in connection with the plan of redemption.

But Satan was allowed by the Heavenly Father to bring temptation before the mind of our Lord one more time, and that consisted of an appeal to demonstrate before men that he was the Son of God and could therefore count upon super-human power to keep him from harm. “And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”—vss. 9-11

We should note the severity of the temptation, for even Satan used scripture to tempt our Lord. He made reference to Psalm 91:11,12. The passage gives assurance to the fact that God had protecting angels who were commissioned to watch over Jesus’ life—and, indeed, over the lives of all God’s people throughout the Gospel Age.

“And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (vs. 12) Again Jesus had at his command the scriptures necessary to refute the Adversary. He spoke with authority as he recalled the passage in Deuteronomy 6:16. “And when the Devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.”—vs. 13

Jesus was fully devoted to God and understood the need to satisfy divine justice. He was capable of fulfilling the Law and could have gained everlasting life as a reward for keeping it, but he chose instead to lay his life down in sacrifice for the whole human family.

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