Matthew 4 and The Arrows of Satan

Introduction

The devastating effects of the Fall are among the most misunderstood phenomena in our world. Most Christians even fail to see how deeply the Fall affects every aspect of our life. The Fall is responsible for pain and disease, sickness and suffering, murder and death, carnivorous lions and viruses, the Grand Canyon and Mt. Everest. Since the Garden of Eden Satan has convinced mankind that we can be like God and do not follow His ways. He continues to use certain temptations in the form of ideas, suggestions, and thoughts to keep us enveloped in his web of lies.

Satan’s work at the Fall and God’s subsequent curse on His creation has ruined the perfect world that God once crafted. Since then Satan has attempted to use these arrows to keep us from the intended purpose of our design, to have a relationship with God. Although Satan has a bevy of options in his arsenal, I believe that there are three main techniques (although certainly not the only ones) that he uses to shape our stories. These three strategies are clearly visible in the episode in Matthew 4, in which Satan attempted to shape Jesus’ story.

In the Matthew 4 account, we find Satan using three of his primary temptation techniques. Often Satan only needs to use one method on humans (although he often will use several types of temptations all at once like he did with Eve in the Garden of Eden), but in crossing Jesus, who was no ordinary human, he finds his methods ineffective, and so attempts three separate types of temptations.

Satan knew well the promises of a Messiah. He was in the Garden of Eden when God first promised that a Messiah would come (Genesis 3:15). It seems likely, however, that Satan did not understand the precise nature of Jesus. He did not know the exact time or place that the Messiah would appear. Once it became clear that He had arrived, though, Satan set about to defeat this Messiah the same way he has defeated every human being. He certainly did not expect to be rebuffed as he was.

In his tempting of Jesus, however, we can learn about three ways that Satan will attack us. These three temptations are also connected to the three primary lusts that John describes in his first epistle:

For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world (1 John 2:16)

Admittedly, these three types of temptations are similar in many ways and can overlap in many senses, but they are different enough that they are worth considering separately. The real value in considering them separately is to learn from Jesus’ response to each attack as He overcomes the temptation.

Lust of the Flesh and Questions of Identity

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Satan comes to Jesus and continues his temptation by questioning who Jesus is: “Are you really who you think you are? If you are, prove it?” Satan does this to us all of the time. He puts thoughts in our head such as, “Do you really have a relationship with God,” “Does God care about you,” “Are you really a Christian,” “Would a real Christian do that,” “You’re the only one who has ever experienced that,” etc. Satan shoots his arrows into our minds in an attempt to separate us from God. He knows that this will destroy our soul. If we question who we are, we will never truly understand our importance to God and be forever limited in our relationship with God if not cut off all together.

This particular temptation is what John calls the lust of the flesh. Satan gets us to question who we are or who we want to be, but he also appeals to things that are flesh desires. He challenges Jesus here, taunting him, really. He knows that Jesus is hungry and that his flesh would love nothing more than to eat, so he attacks him with that arrow. He dares Jesus to prove who He is by turning stone to bread and satisfying what His lust wants so badly.

This same approach was used on Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan appeals to Eve’s sense of who she is, attempting to convince her that she is more than she is, and deserves more than she does. She can be like God, Satan tells her. Then the lust of the flesh kicks in as Genesis 3:6 tells us: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Satan appealed to her lust of the flesh through the lust of the eyes (which we’ll talk more about in a minute). Why should she deny herself when that fruit looked so good? And besides, she could be like God, she deserved to go ahead and eat.

The lust of the flesh manifests differently for different people. For some pride manifests itself through arrogance. For others pride manifests itself through low self-esteem. Both are equally manifestations of pride, however. It is here that Satan attacks so many. For many Christians, Satan’s attacks come through getting us to think that we are less than we are. For many others, it is suggesting to them that they are greater than they are. This was Satan’s approach with Eve in the Garden, convincing her that she could be like God.

Man is possessed by a nature that is characterized by its fleshliness: its appetite, desires, cravings and passions. Satan appeals to those desires of the flesh. With Eve, she saw the forbidden fruit was good for food. When Satan tempted the Lord Jesus, his first proposal was that He make stones into bread to satisfy His hunger. We don’t want to go through anything that is uncomfortable or causes pain of any type. Because of that, Satan often appeals to us, convincing us that we deserve to have our needs met immediately. This is often not God’s plan or the best things for us.

Jesus response in fighting this temptation is through his impeccable knowledge of the Word of God. Man’s true needs are not met by worldly visions of who we are, nor can they be met by partaking in whatever we desire at the moment. Our true needs can only be met by the Word of God. It has everything we need. Turning to another source will leave us with confused notions of who we really are and will never truly satisfy us. For us, the knowledge of the Word is the primary weapon we have. Our holiness and our ability to fight the assaults of Satan will always be limited by our knowledge of the Word of God.


Lust of the Pride of Life and Twisted Scripture

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Unsuccessful in his first attempt, Satan turns to the lust of the pride of life and scripture twisting. Satan abandons trying to cause Jesus to think that He is less than He is, so he turns to goading Christ into trying to prove it. Not only is He challenging Jesus to prove who He is, Satan is also tempting Christ to live it up and enjoy His power. ‘If you’ve got it flaunt it,’ is really Satan’s approach here.

To help in this approach, Satan turns to Scripture twisting. Satan is too smart to attack most Christians into trying to abandon God’s Word. He knows that this is a technique that will just not be effective. What he does, though, is try to twist Scripture in our mind. That we use Scripture, in effect, to justify what we really want in life. Satan begins to twist Scripture in our mind and suddenly a phrase like “all these things will be given to you as well,” become “God wants you to spend the money and have that big house and new car.” A Scripture like “all things are permissible but not all things are beneficial,” become “if it makes you feel better, then it is not only beneficial, it must also be permissible.”

If I had a treasure map that led to a treasure that I did not want you to find it, I could convince you that there was no treasure or I could make a million treasure maps that’s all looked convincingly close to the original. They would look close enough to fool people but would be changed enough that we would never really find the treasure. This is what Satan does to us with his arrows. He subtly twists God’s Word so that we will head down the wrong path, all the while justifying our behavior.

When we don’t know God’s Word, we are vulnerable to this attack. Sometimes we do the twisting ourselves and Satan need only confirm our convoluted interpretation and build upon it. In the Garden, when approached by the Serpent and questioned about the fruit, Eve says, “'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'” This is not, however, what God said. He actually told Adam, “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Eve added to God’s word by saying that if they even touched it, they would die. This is much more harsh and restrictive than God’s original warning. Satan capitalizes on this word twisting and goes on to appeal to Eve’s pride of life telling her that if she does eat from the tree she won’t in fact die, and she will become like God.


Jesus answers Satan’s attack by quoting Scripture correctly. The issue is not about whether Jesus can do something, the question is should He. Jesus realizes that putting God to the test is a more important Scriptural principle than exercising his freedom and seizing all that life has to offer. If the Bible accurately interpreted is our one and only source for knowledge, for standards, and for judging and determining what we do in life, then the attacks of Satan and the opinions of the world are completely inconsequential.

Lust of the Eyes and Having it all

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Satan took Jesus up into the high mountain and shows Him the power and glory of the kingdoms of the world. He offers them to Jesus if He will only worship him. Jesus was on earth to gain back the dominion that man had forfeited during the Fall. Satan here, offered Jesus this dominion without having to suffer. All he has to do is worship Satan. He offers Jesus the easy way out.

We see this so often in the way Satan works when it comes to the lust of the eyes. Satan will offer us things the easy way. It is often something God wants us to have but not in the way that Satan offers it to us. Usually it is because we are not yet ready and have not been prepared for what Satan offers us before we have earned it.

At other times, however, he boldly offers us things that he has no intention in delivering. He offers us things through the flesh of the eyes that we are convinced by Satan we can have, but we will never possess. It is this type of temptation, for instance, that convinces the 30 year old man that he can have the attractive 16 year old girl and have an inappropriate relationship with her. He becomes convinced that he loves her and they can truly have a relationship. This is a deception from the “father of lies” that simply has no chance to actually happen.

Through the lust of the eyes, Satan appeals to the sense of seeing and awakens desires through the eye. What we see we desire and covet, and then we attempt to obtain it for ourselves. Man is basically covetous or selfish by nature and Satan seeks to capitalize on that through the potentially unsatisfiable lust of the eye.

In this final scene, the “father of lies” offers Jesus the entire world. One thing that is important to remember is that not all arrows from Satan hurt right away. This is one of Satan’s deadliest weapons. We are hit with arrows but we think they are a good thing. They come in many forms: The promise of premarital sex, the adulation of others, the promise of a new car or house, a promotion at work, etc. These arrows don’t seem like they hurt, but the deadliest kind of wound is the one of which we are unaware.

In the case of Eve, she saw the forbidden tree and fruit was pleasant to the eyes. The second temptation (which the devil brought before the Lord as given in the moral order presented in Luke's Gospel) appealed to the eye. The lust of the eye often opens the door for us to entertain so many other lusts and temptations.

Jesus’ response to this attack is as interesting as it is powerful. Jesus says that only God is to be worshipped. Our eyes tell us that other things are worth having and put in a place of worship in our lives, but Jesus reminds us that only God is worthy of worship. Any time we are tempted to put anything first in our life, ahead of God, we can know without question that it is wrong and dangerous.