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Why wasn_t Satan AFRAID to tempt JESUS after FORTY DAYS without food · truthunedited

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Satan knew exactly who Jesus was. He knew he was
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  Speaker 1: the Son of God. He had watched him be baptized.
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  Speaker 1: He had heard the Father's voice from heaven say, This
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  Speaker 1: is my beloved Son. He knew, and he still attacked him. Why?
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  Speaker 1: Why would the most intelligent being ever created walk up
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  Speaker 1: to God in human flesh and think he could win?
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  Speaker 1: What did Satan know that we don't that made him
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  Speaker 1: so confident? And what did he not know? That God
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  Speaker 1: was hiding from him. Because this was never a test.
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  Speaker 1: This was a trap. And the Spirit of God himself
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  Speaker 1: drove Jesus into that wilderness to set it. If you
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  Speaker 1: are new here, please subscribe and let us begin. To
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  Speaker 1: understand why Satan walked into that wilderness with total confidence,
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  Speaker 1: you need to understand his resume. Because it was flawless.
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  Speaker 1: Start at the beginning. Adam, the first man, placed in
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  Speaker 1: a garden that lacked nothing. Every fruit, every tree, rivers
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  Speaker 1: running clean in four directions. No disease, no death, no entropy,
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  Speaker 1: no decay. God himself walked with Adam in the cool
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  Speaker 1: of the day. That is how close the relationship was.
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  Speaker 1: There was no distance between the man and his creator.
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  Speaker 1: And Eve was beside him. Companionship, purpose, abundance. The man
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  Speaker 1: had literally everything a human being could ever need. Satan
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  Speaker 1: needed one conversation, one question. Did God really say? Three
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  Speaker 1: words aimed at the hinge of everything. The trustworthiness of
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  Speaker 1: God's word. And Adam, with a full stomach, in a
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  Speaker 1: perfect world, standing next to his wife, with God a
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  Speaker 1: short walk away, chose the fruit. He fell in a garden.
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  Speaker 1: Satan filed that away. Noted Humans are vulnerable even in paradise,
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  Speaker 1: even when they have everything, especially when they have everything.
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  Speaker 1: Then came Abraham, the father of faith, the man God
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  Speaker 1: chose to begin an entire nation. And twice, not once,
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  Speaker 1: but twice, Abraham lied about his wife Sarah, telling foreign
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  Speaker 1: kings she was his sister because he was afraid they
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  Speaker 1: would kill him to take her. The man who believed
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  Speaker 1: God's promise about the stars still could not trust God
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  Speaker 1: with his own safety. Moses, the deliverer, the man who
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  Speaker 1: stood before Pharaoh, who stretched his staff over the Red Sea,
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  Speaker 1: who climbed Sinai and spoke with God face to face.
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  Speaker 1: The text says face to face, the way a man
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  Speaker 1: speaks to his friend. And at the waters of Meribah,
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  Speaker 1: in a moment of frustration... Moses struck the rock in
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  Speaker 1: anger instead of speaking to it. One act of disobedience,
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  Speaker 1: one flash of rage, and because of it, the man
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  Speaker 1: who led Israel out of Egypt was denied entry into
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  Speaker 1: the promised land. He saw it from a mountain. He
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  Speaker 1: never set foot in it. David, a man after God's
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  Speaker 1: own heart. That is not a casual title. God himself
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  Speaker 1: said it. And David, the shepherd boy who killed Goliath,
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  Speaker 1: the poet who wrote the Psalms, the king who danced
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  Speaker 1: before the ark, one evening on a rooftop, one glance
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  Speaker 1: at a woman bathing, and the man after God's own
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  Speaker 1: heart fell into adultery, deception, and murder. He had Uriah killed,
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  Speaker 1: sent to the front line with sealed orders guaranteeing his death.
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  Speaker 1: The greatest king in Israel's history became a murderer because
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  Speaker 1: he could not govern his own eyes. Solomon David's son,
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  Speaker 1: the man who asked God for wisdom and received it
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  Speaker 1: in a measure no human being has matched before or since.
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  Speaker 1: Kings and queens crossed oceans to hear him speak. And Solomon,
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  Speaker 1: the wisest man who ever lived, married 700 wives from
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  Speaker 1: foreign nations, and they turned his heart after other gods.
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  Speaker 1: 1 Kings chapter 11 says it plainly, His heart was
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  Speaker 1: not fully devoted to the Lord his God. Wisdom did
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  Speaker 1: not protect him. Wisdom never protects anyone when the will
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  Speaker 1: surrenders first Elijah. The prophet who stood alone on Mount
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  Speaker 1: Carmel and called fire from heaven in front of 450
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  Speaker 1: prophets of Baal. Fire fell. God answered. The prophets of
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  Speaker 1: Baal were destroyed. And then, one message, one threat from
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  Speaker 1: Queen Jezebel. May the gods deal with me if I
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  Speaker 1: don't make your life like one of them by this
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  Speaker 1: time tomorrow. And Elijah, the man who had just watched
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  Speaker 1: God light a soaked altar on fire, ran, ran into
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  Speaker 1: the wilderness, sat under a broom tree and asked God
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  Speaker 1: to kill him. Fire from heaven one day, suicidal despair
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  Speaker 1: the next. That is how quickly a human can break.
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  Speaker 1: And then there was Israel as a whole, an entire nation,
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  Speaker 1: three million strong, delivered from Egypt by plagues and miracles,
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  Speaker 1: led through the sea on dry ground, fed from the
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  Speaker 1: sky with manna every morning, guided by a pillar of
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  Speaker 1: fire at night. And they spent 40 years in the wilderness,
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  Speaker 1: failing every test God put in front of them. They
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  Speaker 1: grumbled about food They grumbled about water. They built a
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  Speaker 1: golden calf at the base of the mountain while Moses
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  Speaker 1: was still up there receiving the law from God's own hand.
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  Speaker 1: Forty years. Constant failure. An entire generation died in the
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  Speaker 1: desert because they could not trust the God who was
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  Speaker 1: literally walking beside them. Satan had watched all of it.
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  Speaker 1: He had been there for every failure, every compromise, every collapse.
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  Speaker 1: And the pattern was always the same. It did not
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  Speaker 1: matter how much a human being had been given. Did
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  Speaker 1: not matter how clearly God had spoken. Sooner or later,
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  Speaker 1: the flesh cracked. The will bent. The fall came. 100%
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  Speaker 1: win rate. No exceptions. So when he saw a man
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  Speaker 1: alone in the Judean wilderness, 40 days into a fast,
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  Speaker 1: body consuming its own muscle to stay alive. He did
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  Speaker 1: not pray first. He did not consult anyone. He walked
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  Speaker 1: in like a closer, walking to the mound in the
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  Speaker 1: ninth inning with a ten-run lead. This was what he did,
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  Speaker 1: and he was the best at it. Now, here is
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  Speaker 1: what made this target look particularly vulnerable. The man in
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  Speaker 1: the wilderness was not operating the way Satan expected God
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  Speaker 1: to operate. Something was different. Something was off. Paul would
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  Speaker 1: later describe it in his letter to the Philippians, chapter 2,
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  Speaker 1: verses 6 through 8. Christ Jesus, though he existed in
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  Speaker 1: the form of God, did not regard equality with God
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  Speaker 1: as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, the Greek
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  Speaker 1: word is canoe, taking the form of a servant, being
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  Speaker 1: made in the likeness of men. He emptied himself. This
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  Speaker 1: does not mean he stopped being God. It means he
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  Speaker 1: set aside the independent exercise of his divine privileges. He chose, voluntarily,
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  Speaker 1: to operate within the constraints of a human life. Real hunger,
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  Speaker 1: real fatigue, real pain. He did not walk through the
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  Speaker 1: wilderness in some kind of divine force field. He was
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  Speaker 1: dependent on the Father and the Holy Spirit the way
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  Speaker 1: any obedient human would be. He was not operating in self-sufficiency.
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  Speaker 1: He was operating in trust. And after 40 days without food,
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  Speaker 1: that trust was being tested at the cellular level. Here
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  Speaker 1: is what happens to the human body after 40 days
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  Speaker 1: of fasting. For the first few days, the body burns glycogen,
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  Speaker 1: stored sugar in the liver and muscles. That runs out fast.
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  Speaker 1: Then it switches to fat reserves, breaking down adipose tissue
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  Speaker 1: into ketone bodies for fuels. That can sustain a person
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  Speaker 1: for weeks, depending on how much fat they carry. But eventually,
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  Speaker 1: typically between 30 and 40 days, the fat reserves are exhausted,
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  Speaker 1: and the body, still needing fuel, turns on itself. It
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  Speaker 1: begins breaking down skeletal muscle, organ tissue. The body is
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  Speaker 1: eating itself to survive. Matthew 4, verse 2 says, After
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  Speaker 1: fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The
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  Speaker 1: Greek phrasing there, hysteron epineson, carries more weight than the
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  Speaker 1: English lets on. It does not just mean he felt
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  Speaker 1: a pang of hunger. It suggests he reached the critical threshold,
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  Speaker 1: the point of danger, the moment when hunger stops being
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  Speaker 1: discomfort and becomes a medical emergency. And the location was
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  Speaker 1: no accident. the Judean wilderness, the same barren wasteland where
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  Speaker 1: Israel wandered and failed for 40 years. This was Satan's
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  Speaker 1: home turf. He knew every dune, every dry riverbed, every cliff.
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  Speaker 1: He had broken an entire nation here, three million people.
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  Speaker 1: And now there was one man, alone. The number 40
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  Speaker 1: appears throughout scripture like a thread stitched into the fabric
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  Speaker 1: of testing itself. Forty days of rain in Noah's flood
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  Speaker 1: Forty years Israel wandered in the wilderness. Forty days Elijah
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  Speaker 1: walked to Horeb. Forty is the Bible's number for trial,
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  Speaker 1: for proving, for testing. And Jesus was not avoiding the test.
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  Speaker 1: He walked directly into it. Mark chapter 1 verses 12
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  Speaker 1: and 13 uses a word that stops you if you
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  Speaker 1: are paying attention. The Spirit drove him into the wilderness.
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  Speaker 1: The Greek is ekbalo, It is the same word used
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  Speaker 1: when Jesus casts out demons. It does not mean the
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  Speaker 1: Spirit gently led him. It does not mean the Spirit
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  Speaker 1: suggested it. The Spirit thrust him into the confrontation, forcefully, deliberately.
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  Speaker 1: This was not wandering. This was deployment. And Mark adds
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  Speaker 1: a detail the other Gospels leave out. He was with
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  Speaker 1: the wild animals, alone, exposed, no shelter, no protection, no
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  Speaker 1: human presence, just a starving man, the beasts, and the adversary.
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  Speaker 1: Satan knew who Jesus was. He was not confused about identity.
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  Speaker 1: But knowing someone's identity is not the same as understanding
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  Speaker 1: their plan. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 8 says it clearly.
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  Speaker 1: None of the rulers of this age understood it. For
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  Speaker 1: if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord
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  Speaker 1: of glory. Satan had information clearly. He did not have understanding.
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  Speaker 1: He saw a target. He did not see a trap.
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  Speaker 1: Three temptations. Three rounds. And every one of them was
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  Speaker 1: engineered with surgical precision. Round one. The stones. Satan opened
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  Speaker 1: with the most obvious angle. The body. Since you are
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  Speaker 1: the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.
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  Speaker 1: Matthew chapter 4, verse 3. Notice the word if in
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  Speaker 1: most English translations. The Greek construction is EI plus the
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  Speaker 1: indicative mood, a first-class conditional. It does not express doubt.
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  Speaker 1: It expresses assumption. Satan was not saying, if you really
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  Speaker 1: are the Son of God, prove it. He was saying,
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  Speaker 1: since you are the Son of God, act like it.
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  Speaker 1: He was not questioning Jesus' identity. He was weaponizing it.
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  Speaker 1: The surface offer was bread. Satisfy your hunger. Eat. You
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  Speaker 1: are dying. No one would blame you. You have the power.
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  Speaker 1: Use it. But the deeper offer was far more dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: Provision without patience. Act independently of the Father. You do
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  Speaker 1: not need to wait for God to provide. You do
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  Speaker 1: not need to trust the timing. You have divine power
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  Speaker 1: inside you. Use it for yourself. This is the exact
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  Speaker 1: temptation Israel failed in the wilderness. Exodus chapter 16. The
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  Speaker 1: people grumbled against Moses and Aaron. If only we had
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  Speaker 1: died by the Lord's hand in Egypt, where we sat
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  Speaker 1: around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted.
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  Speaker 1: They could not trust God to feed them. They could
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  Speaker 1: not wait. They had seen the Red Sea split, and
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  Speaker 1: still they could not believe God would provide bread. Jesus answered.
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  Speaker 1: Three words from Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 3. Man shall
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  Speaker 1: not live by bread alone, but by every word that
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  Speaker 1: comes from the mouth of God. The exact test Israel failed. Past.
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  Speaker 1: Round two. The temple. Satan adjusted. He changed terrain. He
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  Speaker 1: took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, the highest
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  Speaker 1: point of the temple complex in Jerusalem, overlooking the Kidron Valley.
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  Speaker 1: a drop of hundreds of feet. And here, Satan did
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  Speaker 1: something brilliant. He quoted scripture. For it is written, He
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  Speaker 1: will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift
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  Speaker 1: you up in their hands, so that you will not
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  Speaker 1: strike your foot against a stone. Psalm 91, verses 11
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  Speaker 1: and 12. Word for word. Accurate citation. Satan can quote
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, He can quote it fluently, but watch what
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  Speaker 1: he did. He left out three words from verse 11.
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  Speaker 1: The full text reads, He will command his angels concerning
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  Speaker 1: you to guard you in all your ways. In all
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  Speaker 1: your ways. That qualifier matters. It means God's protection extends
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  Speaker 1: to those walking in obedience in their God-appointed path, not
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  Speaker 1: to those who manufacture crises to force God's hand. and
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  Speaker 1: Satan skipped the next verse entirely. Psalm 91, verse 13.
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  Speaker 1: You will tread on the lion and the cobra. You
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  Speaker 1: will trample the great lion and the serpent. He left
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  Speaker 1: out the verse that prophesies his own destruction. He quoted
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  Speaker 1: the psalm and carefully edited out the line where he loses.
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  Speaker 1: The surface offer was spectacle, jump, angels will catch you,
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  Speaker 1: the crowd below will see it. Instant messianic credentials. No
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  Speaker 1: question about who you are. Public, dramatic, undeniable. But the
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  Speaker 1: deeper offer was spectacle without suffering. Force God's hand. Create
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  Speaker 1: a sign. Bypass the slow, painful road to the cross.
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  Speaker 1: Become the Messiah through a stunt instead of through blood.
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  Speaker 1: Israel failed this same test. Exodus chapter 17. At Massa,
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  Speaker 1: the people tested God. demanding water, demanding proof. Is the
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  Speaker 1: Lord among us or not? They had the pillar of cloud.
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  Speaker 1: They had the manna. And still they demanded more evidence.
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  Speaker 1: Still they required God to prove himself on their terms.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus answered from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 16, You shall
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  Speaker 1: not put the Lord your God to the test. Past.
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  Speaker 1: Round 3. The Kingdoms. Satan dropped every pretense, no more subtlety,
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  Speaker 1: no more theological chess. He took Jesus to a high
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  Speaker 1: place and showed him all the kingdoms of the world,
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  Speaker 1: their power, their wealth, their glory. And he said, All
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  Speaker 1: this I will give you, if you will bow down
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  Speaker 1: and worship me. This was the deepest temptation, and you
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  Speaker 1: will miss it if you do not understand what was
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  Speaker 1: really being offered. Jesus already owned every kingdom. Psalm 2
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  Speaker 1: verse 8, the Father's standing promise. Ask of me, and
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  Speaker 1: I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of
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  Speaker 1: the earth your possession. The kingdoms were already his by right.
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  Speaker 1: Satan was not offering Jesus something he could not have.
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  Speaker 1: He was offering him something he could have without the cross,
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  Speaker 1: a crown without a crucifixion. every kingdom on earth, without
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  Speaker 1: a single nail. No Gethsemane, no betrayal by a friend,
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  Speaker 1: no scourging, no thorns, no mocking, no six hours hanging
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  Speaker 1: between heaven and earth while your mother watches you die.
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  Speaker 1: Just bow, once, and it is done. That is the
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  Speaker 1: most terrifying shortcut ever offered. Not because the kingdoms were
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  Speaker 1: not desirable, they were, but because the cost of obtaining
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: them God's way was Golgotha, and Satan was saying, You
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  Speaker 1: can skip Golgotha. Israel failed this test too. Exodus chapter
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  Speaker 1: 32 While Moses was on the mountain receiving God's covenant,
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  Speaker 1: the people melted their gold and built a calf. They
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  Speaker 1: worshipped something other than God. They traded the Creator for
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  Speaker 1: a creation of their own hands. Jesus answered from Deuteronomy
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  Speaker 1: chapter 6 verse 13, Worship the Lord your God and
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  Speaker 1: serve him only. Three rounds, three answers. All three from Deuteronomy,
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  Speaker 1: the book where Moses recounts Israel's failures to the next generation.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus did not reach for exotic texts. He did not
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  Speaker 1: pull from obscure prophecy. He used the passages that documented
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  Speaker 1: exactly where humanity broke. And he stood precisely where they fell.
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  Speaker 1: And here is what should stop you. Satan used the
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  Speaker 1: same three categories he used in Eden. The fruit was
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  Speaker 1: good for food, the flesh. It was pleasing to the eye. Desire.
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  Speaker 1: It was desirable for gaining wisdom. Pride. 1 John 2,
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  Speaker 1: verse 16. The lust of the flesh, the lust of
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  Speaker 1: the eyes, and the pride of life. The same categories.
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  Speaker 1: Bread for the body. Spectacle for the eyes. power for
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  Speaker 1: the ego. Satan had no new moves. The playbook that
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  Speaker 1: worked in the garden was deployed in the wilderness. Same angles,
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  Speaker 1: same pressure points, and for the first time in human history,
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  Speaker 1: it failed. There is a reason. Jesus answered exclusively from Deuteronomy,
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  Speaker 1: and once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Deuteronomy
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  Speaker 1: means second law. It is not new legislation. It is
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  Speaker 1: Moses standing before the next generation of Israelites, the children
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  Speaker 1: of the ones who died in the wilderness in and saying,
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  Speaker 1: Here is where we failed. Here is what went wrong.
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  Speaker 1: Do not repeat it. The entire book is a memorial
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  Speaker 1: of failure and a plea for faithfulness. And Jesus chose
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  Speaker 1: it as his weapon. Not Psalms, though he knew them.
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  Speaker 1: Not Isaiah, though he fulfilled them. He reached for the
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  Speaker 1: book of second chances, the book that recorded every place
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  Speaker 1: Israel broke. And he quoted from it, Because he was
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  Speaker 1: reliving Israel's wilderness experience in concentrated form. Forty days standing
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  Speaker 1: in for forty years. One man standing in for three million.
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  Speaker 1: This is what theologians call recapitulation. Jesus did not simply
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  Speaker 1: resist temptation as an individual. He reversed Israel's failures. Point
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  Speaker 1: by point. Test by test. Verse by verse. Where they
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  Speaker 1: demanded bread, he trusted the word. WHERE THEY TESTED GOD,
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  Speaker 1: HE SUBMITTED TO GOD. WHERE THEY WORSHIPPED IDOLS, HE WORSHIPPED
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  Speaker 1: THE FATHER ALONE. HE IS THE TRUE ISRAEL. THE FAITHFUL SON,
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  Speaker 1: WHERE THE NATION WAS THE FAITHLESS SON. THE ONE WHO
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  Speaker 1: PASSED WHERE EVERYONE ELSE FAILED. AND NOTICE WHAT HE DID
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  Speaker 1: NOT DO. HE DID NOT USE DIVINE POWER. HE DID
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  Speaker 1: NOT SPEAK THE UNIVERSE INTO TREMBLING. HE DID NOT REVEAL
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  Speaker 1: HIS GLORY OR SUMMON LEGIONS OF ANGELS. He fought with
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  Speaker 1: the same weapon available to every human being alive, the
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  Speaker 1: written word of God. Three texts, three responses, no miracles,
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  Speaker 1: no displays of divinity, just scripture spoken from a cracked
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  Speaker 1: mouth in a body that was failing. That matters. It
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  Speaker 1: matters because it means the victory was genuinely human. He
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  Speaker 1: won as a man, dependent on the spirit, armed with
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  Speaker 1: the word, trusting the Father. And if he had used
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  Speaker 1: divine power, if he had stepped outside the limitations he
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  Speaker 1: had voluntarily accepted, the test would have been meaningless. It
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  Speaker 1: would have proven nothing about what a human being can
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  Speaker 1: do in the power of God. Matthew chapter 4 verse 11.
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  Speaker 1: Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
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  Speaker 1: The angels waited. They did not intervene during the fight,
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  Speaker 1: They did not step in when his blood sugar was crashing.
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  Speaker 1: They did not appear between rounds to offer water or encouragement.
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  Speaker 1: They waited until it was over. Why? To preserve the
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  Speaker 1: integrity of the test. If angels had assisted during the confrontation,
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  Speaker 1: it would not have been a human victory. It would
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  Speaker 1: have been a divine rescue. And here is the irony.
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  Speaker 1: Satan's second temptation was precisely this. Throw yourself down, and
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  Speaker 1: let the angels catch you. Premature angelic intervention. Force God's hand.
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  Speaker 1: Make the rescue happen on your schedule. Jesus refused. And then,
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  Speaker 1: after obedience, after endurance, after the adversary left, the angels came.
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  Speaker 1: Not because Jesus tested God. Because Jesus trusted God. That
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  Speaker 1: is the pattern. For Jesus, and for everyone who follows him.
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  Speaker 1: God does not remove the trials. He sustains after the trial.
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  Speaker 1: He does not pull you out of the wilderness. He
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: meets you when the wilderness is over. Set these two
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: scenes side by side. Let the contrast speak for itself.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Adam was tested in a garden. Jesus was tested in
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a wilderness. Adam had every tree of the garden available
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to him, fruit for the taking, abundance in every direction,
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  Speaker 1: beauty as far as the eye could see. Jesus had
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  Speaker 1: no food for 40 days. His body was consuming itself.
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  Speaker 1: Adam had companionship. Eve beside him. The animals he had named.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: God walking with him in the cool of the evening.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Jesus was utterly alone. Mark says he was with the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: wild animals, not named companions, not tended livestock, predators, scavengers.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: The wilderness stripped bare. Adam had abundance. Jesus had nothing.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: The tempter said to Adam, Did God really say? A question,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a seed of doubt aimed at the reliability of God's word.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: The tempter said to Jesus, Since you are the Son
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of God, not a question, a statement. He was not
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: undermining God's word this time. He was weaponizing it, turning
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: identity into leverage. Adam heard the temptation and added to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: God's word. God had said, You must not eat from it.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Eve told the serpent, We must not eat it or
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: touch it. God never said anything about touching. They began
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: editing God's word before they disobeyed it. That is always
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the sequence. Revision, then rebellion. Jesus heard the temptation and
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: quoted God's word precisely. Word for word, no additions, no subtractions,
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  Speaker 1: No paraphrase. The text as it was written. Adam fell,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and his fall brought sin into the bloodstream of every
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: human being who would ever live. Death entered the world.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Condemnation spread to all men. The curse touched everything. The ground,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the body, the relationship between man and woman, the relationship
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: between humanity and God. One act of disobedience fractured creation itself.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Jesus stood, and his standing began the reversal of everything
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Adam broke, righteousness where there had been sin, life where
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: there had been death, justification where there had been condemnation.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: After Adam fell, he was driven out of the garden.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Angels were posted at the entrance with a flaming sword,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: barring the way back to the tree of life. After
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Jesus stood, angels came in to minister to him. Adam's
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: failure brought angels as guards to keep him out. Jesus'
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: victory brought angels as servants to attend him. Romans 5.19
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Through the disobedience of the one man the many were
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: man the many will be made righteous. 1 Corinthians 15.22
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: In Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Two men, two tests, two outcomes that determine the fate
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of every human being who has ever drawn breath. Adam
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: had every advantage and fell. Jesus had every disadvantage and stood.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And this is where the story stops being about two
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: men in two places and starts being about you. Because
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the contrast reveals something that the human heart does not
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: want to hear. Conditions do not determine outcomes. Adam had
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: paradise and chose rebellion. Jesus had a wasteland and chose obedience.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: The difference was not in the circumstances. The difference was
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: in the will. Every excuse you have ever made, I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: was tired, I was lonely, I was overwhelmed, I was provoked,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't have enough support. Adam dismantles all of them.
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  Speaker 1: He had every possible support. He had no excuse, and
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  Speaker 1: he still fell. which means the problem was never the environment.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: The problem is inside. And every reason you have ever
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: given for why obedience is impossible, the pressure is too great,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the temptation is too strong, nobody could resist in my situation.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Jesus dismantles all of those. He was starving. He was alone.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: He was at the edge of physical death. And he stood,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: which means obedience is not a function of comfort It
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: is a function of who you are trusting when the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: comfort runs out. The cross that awaited Jesus on the
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: other side of this wilderness was not a surprise. He
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: knew what was coming. He chose it anyway. And that choice,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: made in the dust with a failing body, against the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: most skilled adversary in the universe, is the choice that
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: saved you. Luke chapter 4 verse 13 says, records a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: detail that changes everything. When the devil had finished all
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. Until
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: an opportune time. Satan did not quit. He retreated. He
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: withdrew to regroup. He would be back. And he was.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: He came back through Peter. When Jesus told the disciples
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: he must go to Jerusalem, suffer and be killed, Peter
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: pulled him aside and rebuked him. Never, Lord, this shall
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: never happen to you. And Jesus turned and said, Get
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: behind me, Satan. The same voice, the same offer. Avoid
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the suffering, skip the cross. Spoken this time through the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: mouth of a friend. He came back through Judas. Luke
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: chapter 22, verse 3. Satan entered Judas. The betrayal in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the garden, the kiss, the arrest, Satan engineering the chain
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of events that would lead to the cross. He came
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: back in Gethsemane, the same temptation at maximum intensity. Jesus,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: face to the ground, sweat falling like drops of blood. Father,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: The full weight of what the cross would mean, not
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: just physical death, but the sin of the world laid
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: on him, separation from the Father and pressed against him
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: so hard his capillaries ruptured. And still he said, Not
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: my will, but yours be done. He came back one
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: final time at Calvary, the crowd shouting up at the cross,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: If you are the Son of God, come down from
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the cross. The same Greek construction, the same first-class conditional.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Since you are the Son of God... the same challenge,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the same dare. Use your power. Save yourself. Prove who
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: you are. It was the wilderness temptation one last time,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: delivered at the moment of maximum pain. And Jesus stayed
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: on the cross. He did not come down. He did
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: not call the twelve legions of angels that were his
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to command. He did not speak a word of power
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: that would have unmade every Roman soldier standing at his feet.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: He stayed. He bled. He suffocated. He died. And in dying,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: he won. This is the truth Satan never understood. 1
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Corinthians 2, verse 8. None of the rulers of this
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: age understood it, for if they had, they would not
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: have crucified the Lord of glory. Read that again. If
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Satan had understood what the cross actually was, he never
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: would have pushed for it. He would have done everything
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in his power to keep Jesus alive. He would have
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: protected Jesus from the Sanhedrin. He would have stopped Judas.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: He would have prevented the arrest, the trial, the scourging,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the nails. Because the cross was not Jesus' defeat. The
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: cross was Satan's. Colossians 2.15 Having disarmed the powers and authorities,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: by the cross. The very instrument of torture that Satan
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: engineered became the weapon that destroyed his kingdom. The death
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: he orchestrated became the death of death itself. God didn't
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: just allow Satan's confidence. He required it. The wilderness was
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: not merely a test of Jesus' faithfulness. It was the
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: opening move in a war God had already won. Every
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: temptation Satan threw, every angle he pressed— Every shortcut he offered,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: all of it, was driving toward a confrontation Satan believed
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: he would win. And God let him believe it. God
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: needed him to believe it. Because if Satan had ever
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: suspected that the cross was his undoing, he would have
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: run from it. And humanity would still be under the curse.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Satan walked into that wilderness thinking he was the hunter.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: He walked out not knowing he was the prey. And
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the five lies he whispered to Jesus in the sand
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: are the same five lies he whispers to you. Your
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: needs justify any method. Make God prove himself before you
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: trust him. The ends justify the means. Take the shortcut.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Avoid the suffering. He has not updated the playbook. He
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: does not need to. Those five lies have worked on
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: almost every human being who has ever heard them. Almost.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Because there was one who heard them all and did
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: not move. He did not argue with the adversary. He
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: did not debate theology in the dust. He did not
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: access divine power to win a human fight. He opened
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: his mouth and he spoke the word. Three temptations. Three texts.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Three victories. And if you are standing in a wilderness
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: right now, if something is offering you bread that God
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: has not provided, a shortcut God has not sanctioned, a
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: crown that skips the cross you have been asked to carry,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you have the same weapon he used, the same word,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the same spirit, and the same outcome is available to you.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Not because you are strong enough. You are not. Neither
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: was Israel. Neither was Adam. Neither was David or Solomon
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: or Elijah. But the one who stood in that wilderness
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and did not break is standing with you now, and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: he has never lost. Be still and know. If this
• 34:59
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• 35:04
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• 35:07
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