Tag Archives: devil

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE SEED WILL GROW!

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THE SEED WILL GROW!

“His disciples asked, ‘Why did you tell this story?’ He said, ‘You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom – you know how it works. There are others who need stories. But even with stories, some of them aren’t going to get it:

Their eyes are open but don’t see a thing,

Their ears are open but don’t hear a thing.

“This story is about some of those people. The seed is the Word of God. The seeds on the road are those who hear the Word, but no sooner do they hear it than the devil snatches it from them so they won’t believe and be saved.

“The seeds in the gravel are those who hear with enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn’t go very deep. It’s only another fad, and the moment there’s trouble it’s gone.

“And the seed that fell in the weeds – well, these are the ones who hear, but then the seed is crowded out and nothing comes of it as they worry about tomorrow, making money and having fun.

“But the seed in good earth – these are the good hearts who seize the Word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until there’s a harvest.'” Luke 8:9-15.

When Jesus gives the explanation, the story is quite easy to understand. Just as it happens in nature, so it happens in people. There are different responses to the same message, and different outcomes.

Even among His own disciples there were different responses, although He was with them all the time and they watched and listened to the same teaching and the same demonstrations of the way the kingdom worked.

Take Judas, for example. How could a man who had been in close contact with Him for more than three years, turn on Him and sell His out to the Jewish hierarchy? What did he see but not see? What did he hear but not hear? Surely it was a matter of interpretation as well as expectation.

Why did Judas respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him? After the first flush of excitement, what was he expecting from this association? Did he have political aspirations, coupled perhaps with hopes of huge financial gain that made him stick with Jesus until he could see that there was nothing in it for him? Was he like the soil that was choked with weeds and had no place for the Word to take root?

Perhaps Judas had grown up in poverty and saw his opportunity to escape the cycle of need and want when he joined the group. Is that why he stole money from the common purse – just because he had access to more money than he had even seen in his life? Perhaps he came from a wealthy home and he just loved money. He loved to feel the weight of it in his bag, and to know that he always had resources to buy anything he wanted.

What about the other disciples? Jesus’ Word didn’t seem to make much impression on them, especially when the chips were down. They also had what we call “selective hearing”! There were certain things they chose not to hear at the time, especially when Jesus spoke about the cross. It took the terrible events of His arrest and death to open their eyes and ears to what He had been telling them for a long time.

But Jesus didn’t give up on them because He knew that the potential for growth and fruitfulness lay in the seed and when the time and the soil were right, the seed would germinate and grow. And so it did.

It’s like that in our lives too. We may be deaf to what God is saying to us, but He doesn’t give up because there will come a time when the hardness and resistance are removed and we become sensitive to what He is saying. He sometimes has to use drastic means to break up the soil, but He will do it so that we can become fruitful for Him.

Selective Deafness!

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SELECTIVE DEAFNESS! 

“Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.'” John 8:42-43 (NIV).

Now that’s a penetrating question! ‘Why is my language not clear to you?’ There is nothing complicated about the language Jesus used. He was probably speaking Hebrew, and His hearers would have understood His words but there was a reason why they did not understand what He was saying. They were not able to hear what He said.

Their ability to understand was connected to their belief and their choice. They had chosen not to believe that He was speaking the truth and they could therefore not understand what He was saying. They filtered His words through their belief system which was programmed according to a certain expectation — and Jesus did not fit their expectation.

The bottom line was that they did not want to believe Him because it demanded a different way of life. It didn’t suit them because they loved the money and the acclaim they got from their exalted position as religious leaders. If they accepted the truth of what He taught them, they would have to step down from their privileged position and place themselves under His authority, and that was unthinkable!

But there was an even more fundamental problem. “‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet, because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.'” John 8:44, 45(NIV).

Jesus zeroed in on the real reason why they rejected His words. There was no affinity between Him and them because they belonged to a different family. The nature of their source was completely different from His. They were the offspring of the devil because they were acting and speaking just like their father! The fruit reveals the root.

Jesus gave us the clearest thumbnail sketch of the character of Satan. He is a liar, the originator of lies and speaks only the language of lies. Therefore those who imitate him are aligned with him. That does not mean that he gave birth to those who resemble him. That would make it impossible for people to be rescued from slavery to him.

The Apostle Paul, quoting a Greek poet, declared that we are God’s offspring (Acts 17:28); we are God’s children, created in His image with the potential to reflect Him. When the devil lured Eve into disobedience, she was deceived. Adam disobeyed God, gave his allegiance to Satan and dragged the human race into slavery to the devil.

Jesus mounted a rescue from Satan’s dominion by buying us back from the slave market of sin but it demands our choice to walk away from our old master by believing and receiving our new Master, Jesus

Because these religious leaders chose not to accept Jesus’ offer of freedom, they remained under the dominion of their “father”, the devil and therefore could only speak his language — lies.

If we really want to get out of the devil’s clutches and live in the freedom of God’s loving rule, we will have to hate our sin.  As long as we love darkness rather than light because of our evil deeds, we will have the same attitude to Jesus as the scribes and Pharisees had. We will hate Him, reject Him and want to get rid of Him so that we are not accountable to Him.

The lie is that we can do that. We may be able to get away with it in this life, but the day of reckoning is coming when we will have to give an account of what we did with the lives God gave us. No one will escape that day. If we are foolish enough to believe the devil’s lies, we will have to pay the penalty of our foolishness.

Truth is truth. It cannot be tampered with or changed and it will never be destroyed. Jesus said, ‘I am the truth.’ Why not believe Him?

It Was All Lies!

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IT WAS ALL LIES!

“For the second test he led Him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, ‘They’re yours in all their splendour to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.’

“Jesus refused, again backing His refusal with Deuteronomy:

”’Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve Him with absolute single heartedness.'” Luke 4:5-8 (The Message).

Really! Did the devil really expect Jesus to swallow this one?

Luke reversed Matthew’s order, putting this temptation ahead of the devil’s attempt to lure Jesus into a suicide jump. It seems that, as a third attempt to get Jesus to fall in line with his suggestion, the devil finally played open cards with Him. Was he that desperate to lure Jesus off course that he thought he could actually induce Him into falling down and worshipping him?

What was the prize if He did that? All the kingdoms of the world? But wait a minute — before we think that it was worth a little homage in secret, let’s examine the devil’s claim.

Did he really own all the kingdoms of the world?

Firstly the devil only spoke lie-language. Jesus categorically stated that he was a liar and that the only language he could speak was lies. “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44b (NIV).

Lie number one: he does not own all the kingdoms of the world. If he doesn’t, who does?

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” Psalm 24:1 (NIV). The earth is the possession of the one who created it. It is His right to assign it to whomever He wills.

Lie number two: the devil does not have the right to give away what does not belong to him. “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth He has given to mankind.” Psalm 115:16 (NIV).

For what purpose? Not to abuse and destroy as we are doing now, but to manage for Him. “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in His own image…” Genesis 1:26, 27a (NIV).

Where does the devil fit into the scheme of things? His power lies, not in possession but in deception. Had Jesus capitulated to him, would He have become the proud owner of all the kingdoms of the world? Of course not. The devil would have become His slave-driver.

How was He to gain possession of everything the devil has stolen through deceit? “I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have become your Father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” Psalm 2:7-8 (NIV).

Jesus had already gained the prize through obedience. By His submission to the Father’s will, He would confirm what was already true from before the beginning of time. He was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast — all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world,” Revelation 13:8 (NIV).

He would worship the Lord — pledge His allegiance to the Father alone.

Sorry, devil, you lost that round too!

Daddy Didn’t Tell Me To Do That!

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DADDY DIDN’T TELL ME TO DO IT!

“The Devil, playing on His hunger, gave the first test: ‘Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread’. Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: ‘It takes more than bread to really live.'” Luke 4:3-4 (The Message).

What sort of test was this?

There are layers upon layers of significance in these devilish suggestions and the devil was smart. He started with the physical. Jesus’ most pressing need was for food. And there was nothing resembling food anywhere nearby, except a few rocks that looked like loaves of bread. The more He stared at them the more He could almost smell the delicious aroma of flatbread cooking on a heated rock. What harm would He do by using His divine power to do a little magic? No one would know…except the Father!

But underneath that there is another layer. Before He left the Father’s side, He had renounced His right to act as God during His time on earth as a human being — for the whole time — not only when it was convenient or when He was in the public eye. Would He go back on that?

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Philippians 2:6-7 (NIV).

But underneath that was another layer. If He made stones into bread, He would be acting on his own initiative and not on God’s instruction. That would be a denial of what a true son is. The nature of a son is submission and obedience — not doing His own thing like Adam did. If He was to have His needs met, the Father would meet them so that the Father would get the glory.

But underneath that was another layer. Satan was not stupid. He knew that it was his ultimate job to destroy the oneness between Father and Son. That was the secret power that got things done on earth. Right back at the beginning of history God knew that people could do anything if they were united.

“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.'” Genesis 11:5-6 (NIV).

Why was this? Because unity is the expression of God’s essential nature. It was the confession of the Israelites from the beginning of their nationhood. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV). Jesus would never accomplish anything outside of perfect oneness with the Father because what the Father decreed in heaven, the Son confirmed on earth.

And underneath was yet another layer. If Jesus had listened to the devil, He would have changed allegiance, just as Adam did. He would have acknowledged that “Satan is Lord” which is exactly what the old serpent wanted!

O yes, Satan was smart! But Jesus was even smarter! With one pithy quote from the Scriptures He knew so well, He cut down the opposition and demolished every subtle insinuation embedded in those words, “Since you are God’s Son…” Satan was saying, ‘Prove it!’ Jesus shot back, ‘I don’t have to. I know it!’ How did He know it? Daddy said it: ‘You are my Son.’ And that was enough.

“…Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV).

Translation: ‘Daddy didn’t tell me to do that!’

Untested!

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UNTESTED!

“When Jesus entered public life He was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph…son of Adam, son of God.”

“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days He was tested by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up, He was hungry.” Luke 3:23-4:2 (The Message).

I don’t know about you, but as I read Luke’s story, I am struck by the sober, down-to-earth way in which he reported the results of his investigation. There was nothing fanciful or imaginative about the details of his story. He was writing about things that happened.

At the age of thirty Jesus was eligible to enter the priesthood. But wait a minute. He was neither a Levite nor the son of a priest. He was from the tribe of Judah and His father was a carpenter and a builder. He had no earthly claim to priesthood.

But He had a connection with God the Father which overrode His human connections. As a twelve-year-old boy, He was already aware of His role as a Son, which took precedence over His obligation to be under the authority of Joseph and Mary. At the age of thirty He stepped into public view at the Jordan River to take up His office as High Priest, not in the order of Levi but in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20; 7:15).

He was baptised in the River Jordan by John; baptised into humanity, baptised into John’s ministry and baptised into His High Priesthood. After He was anointed by the Spirit and affirmed by the Father, He left the Jordan and made His way into the wilderness to be alone for a while. He had the connection with His Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now He needed the strategy for the huge mission that lay ahead of Him.

Satan needed no invitation to join Him! He was there, hovering in the background and waiting to pounce at every opportunity. And that was just what the Holy Spirit wanted him to do. The devil was playing right into God’s hands! If Jesus was to “get” God’s modus operandi, Satan would help Him to understand what it was not. Get rid of the alternatives and the right way would become crystal clear.

At this point in His life Jesus was untested. He had passed the test of infancy, boyhood and youth with flying colours and affirmed by the Father — “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased,” but, from now on it would be a whole new ball game. He was stepping onto the battlefield, and it would be a fight to the death, not just the death of His physical body, but either His own death if He went the way Adam went (and He was fulfilling the role of the “last Adam”), or the death of His adversary if He consistently lived as a true son.

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:7-10 (NIV).

What was the “death” this passage is talking about? If it refers to physical death, then it is not telling the truth. Was Jesus saved from physical death? No. But He was saved from eternal death because of His “reverent submission”. Does that mean that by becoming a man, Jesus risked eternal separation from God if He stepped out of line like Adam did? It surely does, otherwise He would not have been qualified to be the perfect lamb that took our place on the cross.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet He did not sin” Hebrews 4:15 (NIV).