Mark 1:12  And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.
13  And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

One of the sad realities of life is that we are all born as lost sinners. As lost people, bad decisions are often made. No one can attack God. Most people hate God and desire to be free from Him. They would rather serve under the murderer – Satan. Since lost people cannot attack God, they go after His servants. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, became a man so that He could lay down His life and shed His sinless blood for sinful mankind. He was hated by the false religious leaders of His time. Those false leaders stirred up many of the people to hate Jesus as well. Jesus warned that those who would follow Him would be hated by the world.
We are witnessing this hatred all the time. People that despise the truth, try to silence those who would speak the truth. Those who love the truth need to be stedfast in the faith. We need to be strong in the Lord and seek to help others to see the blessing of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
In our text we see that immediately after Jesus was baptized, the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. We noted yesterday that Jesus’ baptism was a picture of what He would do just a few short years after that event. He would lay down His life and die on the cross of Calvary. He would be buried in a borrowed tomb. He lay in that tomb for three days and three nights. At the end of that time, He rose again, victorious over sin and death. He spent another forty days on this earth after His resurrection and then He ascended back up to heaven. He is in heaven today interceding for us. A person can know His peace and His blessing if that person will humble himself and turn to God in repentance and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
As we see in our text, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness immediately after He was baptized. We read that He spent forty days in that wilderness, without any food to eat. He spent that time with His Father in that wilderness. He was the eternal Son of God then and He still is now. During His time on this earth, He set aside His glory and He became subject to His Father in all things. It was a unique situation that He went through during His time on this earth. We cannot fully understand that. We do not know what that was like, because we are not Jesus. We can read about it, but we will not fully grasp the depth of what Jesus Christ did for us. It was because of His love for us, that He was willing to become a man and be abused by man — His creation.
We read in our text that after Jesus spent those forty days in the wilderness, the devil tempted Him. We are not given much detail of that temptation here, but we have that information in Matthew’s Gospel account of the Lord Jesus Christ. There we read that the devil had three temptations that he put before Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4 tells us that Jesus was tempted like as we are, yet without sin. We should not listen to those who would like to suggest that Jesus was not tempted in the same way we are. To suggest that is to suggest that God is a liar.
We know that after the forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry. He would have been quite hungry. The devil knew that and he came with a suggestion for Jesus. He tempted Him to turn the stones before Him into bread. Jesus could have done that. He made the stones. However, there would not have been any good purpose in turning those stones into bread. Jesus never submitted Himself to obeying the devil. He taught us how we, those who are truly saved, need to deal with temptation. Jesus was the Word and still is. He quoted from the Word of God. He reminded the devil and us that man does not live by bread alone. There are countries where people are starving now. That is not true of Gaza. The media is lying to us when they try to show pictures of starvation in that region. They want to try to make Israel look bad. God is judging them for that lie.
In Yemen, which is controlled by Iran, there are many starving people.
Jesus reminded the devil and us that man lives by every word that prodeedeth out of the mouth of God. Our country does not believe that. That is why our country is in such a mess. We are so deep in debt that we will never see our way free of that. Our federal government thinks that because they can print money any time they want to, things are alright. They are ignoring the fact that eventually debts need to be paid. When there is no money to pay with, then the collateral that is pledged to back the debt is claimed by the creditor.
Born again Christians need to be reminded that we do not live by bread alone. As the governments implement man-made shortages, we will need to learn how to get by with less.
The devil was not stopped by one rebuke from the Saviour. Next, He took Jesus to the city of Jerusalem and took Him to a high place on the temple. He challenged Jesus to throw Himself down from that high place. He corrupted the Word of God to suggest that God’s angels would protect Him. The devil is the father of lies. He has convinced men and women to print many perversions of God’s Word. They are corrupt and yet many people are willing to read and follow those perversions, rather than the truth.
Jesus once again correctly quoted His Word and reminded the devil that it is wrong to tempt the Lord thy God. The devil is a created being. He will be cast into the lake of fire one day. In the meantime, he is limited in what he can do. Those who are saved, need to be in the Word of God and thus not deceived into following a lie.
The third temptation was to take Jesus into a high mountain. From there Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. He promised to give all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus if He would just bow down before the devil. We need to remember that Jesus created all things. He knew all about the world. He limited Himself while on earth. The devil was a liar. Jesus knew that and He did not entertain his lies.
Jesus once again answered the devil with Scripture. He reminded him that “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” Jesus knew that better than any mere mortal would know. The devil had already chosen to reject that fact. He had convinced a number of the angels to follow his lies.
Mark tells us that after the temptations, the angels ministered unto Jesus. Jesus knew that He needed to be strengthened by His heavenly Father. The good angels are His servants and they ministered unto the Lord Jesus Christ while He was on this earth. They are also sent to minister to the needs of the saints during this time.
Angels are not to be worshipped. We do not see them. We do not imagine a favourite angel, if we are saved. There are lost people that do that. They are idolaters. Jesus Christ was being prepared for the ministry that He would be involved in for approximately the next three and a half years. He would be able to fulfil His work as the Son of God.
We are not called upon to replicate what Jesus did. We are called to know the true God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We, those who are saved, will also be tempted. We do not communicate with the devil. We are commanded to draw nigh to God and resist the devil. Notice the order. We draw nigh to God and in that place we can resist the devil. We can serve God faithfully if we know Him as our God and Saviour. Lost people assume they can command the devil. They are deceived and he is laughing at them. He will gladly play games with them. He is content to keep people in bondage and headed for hell and the lake of fire. Don’t be deceived. Be sure that you know the true God and are following Him.
Pastor Bartel