You Are Not the Only One

Luke Chapter 4

Into the wilderness: temptations

40 seems to be the period of time that God used to prepare his servants for battle.

1. Forty days and nights it rained on Noah.
2. Forty days and nights Moses was on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments from YHWH.
3. Forty days and nights Goliath challenged Israel before David accepted the challenge to battle with him.
4. Forty days and nights the children of Israel searched out the Promised Land and wandered 40 years in the wilderness to compensate for their 40 days of unbelief.
5. In the Old Testament on the 40th day mothers were purified after giving birth to a son.
6. The 40 days offered to the Ninevites to repent in Jonah’s day.

Temptation comes.

³ And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. ⁴ And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone 9 (Deut. 8:3) , but by every word of God. ⁵ And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ⁶ 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. ⁷ If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. ⁸ And 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.  As Christians we must remember that we have power over Satan, in the name of Jesus. 

Hebrews 2:17-18 implies that this temptation would be so that He could better understand our temptations and be more sympathetic.

He brought him to the place where He will rule.

The enemy knew full well what God’s plan was for Jesus. He just wanted to tempt him out of it. Philippians 2:10-11 “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth;” “And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

⁹ 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: ¹⁰ For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: ¹¹ And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Power is an elixir that once drunk, for the wrong reason, is the undoing of the person who drank it. The Devil knew scripture. Psalms 91:10-12 “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” “They shall bear thee up in [their] hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.”

Response

¹² And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. ¹³ And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

Note that it says for a season. He is never finished with his work of tempting others. See (Heb. 4:15), and culminated in Gethsemane (22:39-46).

¹⁴ And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. It is interesting to note that the synoptic gospels are pretty silent about Jesus’ ministry between His baptism and His return to Galilee; however John recorded a fairly extensive ministry in Jerusalem and Judea (John 2:12 – 4:1).

¹⁵ And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.¹⁷ And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

NB: Hebrew children were allowed to go to synagogue at 5 years old. Hebrew boys, after completing Bar Mitzvah at 12, were expected to attend as an adult would. In the synagogue, it was the custom to stand and read from the Holy books.

Jesus cites the scripture that refers to Him.

¹⁸ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, ¹⁹ To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Isaiah 61:1-2

²⁰ And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹ And he began to say unto them,

This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. ²² And all bare him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? The people still believed that Joseph was Jesus’ Father. Even today, in general the world still says that Jesus cannot be God, He was just a man.  Jesus was in fact, God the Son. ²³ And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. John 4:46-54 describes how Christ as at Cana, He healed a royal official’s son who lay sick in Capernaum. We also know that Christ had already gathered some of His disciples, who were men from the North shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 1:35-42).

²⁴ And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

Jesus pretty much says it happened before so why not now. They did not believe before, so why not now. People did not believe before and still do not believe today, in 2020.

The Sidonian woman believe in the sustaining power of God.

²⁵ But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; ²⁶ But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon (a Gentile), unto a woman that was a widow. ²⁷ And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.

A guilty conscience can lead to anger

²⁸ And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, ²⁹ And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. They were planning to kill him, but his time was not YET come. ³⁰ But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

“filled with wrath”: Now Luke records the first mention of hostile opposition to Christ’s ministry. It appears that the Nazarenes’ were furious because Christ suggested that divine grace might be withheld from them, but would still be extended to Gentiles. That was an affront to them. After all they were the chosen people. The people were amazed because they had never heard scripture explained to them like that before. They were waiting for Messiah to come. Here was a man claiming to be the Messiah. You see, they were expecting to be delivered from Roman rule by the Messiah. Verse 30 demonstrates Jesus’ miraculous escape from the marauders.

³¹ And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days. ³² And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power. The leaders, and the people of Capernaum never accepted Him as Messiah. A handful of people recognized Him as such, but the majority of them did not.

Demons bowed down to the king of kings.

³³ And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, Now the demons speak to Jesus. They were like, “We know that it is NOT the expected time for you to throw us into the bottomless pit. So they said, ³⁴ Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. They didn’t want this to happen to them Revelation 12:9 “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceive the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” ³⁵ And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.³⁶ And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, They were amazed because their religious leaders were not able to cast out demons. saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.

All the cases of demonization that Christ dealth by Christ involved the actual indwelling of demons what completely controlled the bodies of their victims. They even spoke through the people (Mark 5:5-9). or derangement (John 10-20), horrible violence (Luke 8:29), or making people mute (Mark 9:17-22).

Healing the sick: is mission

³⁷ And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. ³⁸ And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a great fever; and they besought him for her ( Peter was married but we have no mention of who his wife was, see (1 Cor. 9:5.) ³⁹ And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them. ⁴⁰ Now when the sun was setting, (The people followed the Sabbath requirement and did not travel to Jesus on the Sabbath.) all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. It says every one was healed.

The people wanted to be healed so they willing came to the only healer of their time, Jesus, after the sabbath was over.

What did he preach and teach?

⁴¹ And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ. Once again the demons are telling the people and Jesus who he is..

⁴² And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. The people wanted to be healed ⁴³ And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. ⁴⁴ And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. He does not want to leave this group of people who wanted Him to stay, but He knows His ministry is for everyone; and He must carry his message to all the known world. His call is not for one people, but for everyone in the entire world