"Deal or No Deal?"

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11
Preacher: Elder David Lessley
Date: July 16, 2006

There is a new game show on TV that began in December of last year called "Deal or No Deal?"   It features Howie Mandel as the host.   How many of you have seen it?   For those who haven't, let me explain a bit about how it works--

The host, Howie Mandel, calls forth 26 beautiful models who stand on risers so each can be seen; each one holds a silver briefcase with a large number on the front.   The numbers range from 1 through 26.   On the side there is a lighted panel with 26 amounts of money, ranging from 1 cent to 1 million dollars; each case held by the models corresponds to an amount on the side panel, but the amount in each case is unknown until that case is opened.

The contestant on this game show begins by selecting one of the cases held by the models; that becomes their case throughout the game.   No one knows the amount of money represented by that case.   The player begins by selecting six cases to be opened, one at a time.   As each case is opened, the amount inside is eliminated from the side panel.   The object is to open the lower amounts on the side panel and keep the higher amounts in play.   After each round of opening cases, a mysterious "banker" hidden in a high booth will make an offer to buy the player's case--the amount of the offer depends on the amounts still in play on the board.   So, for example, as the game progresses and the amounts for $750,000 and $1 million are still in play, the banker will offer a high amount to "buy" the player's selected case.   Sometimes the offer is very high--as much as $200,000 or $300,000.   At that point, Howie Mandel turns to the player, calls them by name and asks, "Deal or no deal?"   The player, with advice from some friends or family members, along with shouts from the audience, has to decide whether they will take the "deal" offered by the banker; if not--if they say, "No deal"-- they have to open some more cases.

I know that sounds a bit complicated if you haven't seen the show, but what we want to do today is look at the Biblical version of this show, "Deal or No Deal?"

Matthew tells us that Jesus was "led by the Spirit into the desert."   In a sense, when Jesus went into the wilderness (the desert), he became a contestant on a Biblical version of "Deal or No Deal", but the stakes for Jesus were much higher.

Some background will help to put this in context:   Jesus has just   been baptized by John the Baptist and now has a full understanding of who he is--the Son of God.   Matthew records in the previous chapter that when Jesus came up out of the water, "he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.   And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'"   So he knew he had a job to do and needed the time to pray, meditate and, with God's help, set the course for the next three or so years in preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God.   He would probably be tempted many times during that period to change the course on which he was headed--so he needed to deal at the outset with the tempter, the devil.

The First Temptation

"Jesus", says Matthew, "was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil", or as some translations put it, to be "tested".   The Greek word used here can be translated as tempt, try or test.   The testing may have a good intent--to prove the true nature of a person; or it could have an evil intent--to cause a person to sin.   Some sources distinguish between the two--that God may test or try us to enable us to prove faithfulness to God's will, whereas a temptation is an enticement to get a person to go contrary to God's will.

Then verse 2 is a bit of an understatement and maybe there is a touch of ironic humor:

"After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry."   You think?!!

As you know, the number 40 is often used in the Bible as a symbolic or sacred number and designates a long period of time--usually in days or years.   The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible says:   "Forty days...was a common duration of critical situations, of punishment, fasting, repentance, vigil."   Or, as in the case of Jesus here, preparation.   You can find similar periods of time applied to other Biblical figures:   Moses, Elijah, Ezekiel.  

So, after being in the wilderness without food for such a long time, certainly Jesus would be--not just hungry, but   famished!!   Now the devil "came to him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.'"

Well, he wasn't telling Jesus anything new.   The devil said "if"--Satan does not really doubt who Jesus is; he's trying to get Jesus to misuse his privilege as the Son of God.

That he was the Son of God was not in question in Jesus' mind--he already had confirmation of that at his baptism.   Here the devil is tempting him to use his miraculous powers to benefit himself, and now Jesus has a choice to make.

In this Biblical version of "Deal or No Deal", the devil is tempting Jesus to use his powers for his own benefit--the "offer" is "turn these stones to bread."   The devil says, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, deal or no deal?"   Unlike the contestants on the TV program who confer with family and friends and agonize over their response, Jesus, the Son of God, knew what was in those cases and he responds immediately.   He quotes from the book of Deuteronomy (8:3):  

It is written:   "Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."

In this and the two temptations that follow, Jesus responds by quoting Scripture--Jesus was a man of Scripture (what we call the Old Testament), and in all three temptations he quotes from the book of Deuteronomy.   According to popular Jewish belief, someone familiar with the Book of Deuteronomy is someone familiar with God's message.   In fact, a person who reads the book through three times was sometimes considered Jewish simply for that reason.   Jesus is grounded in the Word of God for his response, and does not give in to the   temptation to use his miraculous powers to meet his own physical needs.

He also says, in his quoting Deuteronomy, that people do not live by bread alone .   Does that mean we don't need to have bread?   That we don't have physical needs? No, we do need bread, but we don't live only by bread or other physical hungers.   When we are really and truly alive, we find our source for living in the Bible--the Word of God, which satisfies our spiritual hunger.   We find life in God's will and in God's Word.

So, to the question of the tempter--Deal or No Deal?--Jesus, the Son of God, replies, "No Deal!"

The Second Temptation

"Then", says Matthew, "the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.   '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.'"

Notice here that the devil is quoting Scripture (Psalm 91:11,12), but this is what Dale Bruner says is a perverse use of Scripture.   Jesus has just fended off the first temptation by referring to the Word of God.   Now the devil tries to play on that same Word.   As Dale Bruner imagines it, here's what the devil, in effect, is saying to Jesus:

            You believe in the Word of God?   Then step out on it.   Dare the risk of faith; live by faith.   I do not ask you on my own authority to do this, nor do I invite you now to get anything for yourself.   I only ask you to glorify God by showing that you really do trust him.   And I am not asking you now to trust him generally or theoretically.   I am asking you to trust him specifically and practically, where you and I know he can be trusted, in his "every Word".   Surely God's promises to his people will hold for you , his own Son!

What the devil is doing at this point, says Bruner, is trying to hit Jesus at a point of strength (the first temptation struck at weakness--his hunger).   His strong spot is faith in God's Word and his complete trust in his Heavenly Father.   Now Satan is suggesting that he prove--or test--that trust by throwing himself off the top of the temple.

Again, in our Biblical version of "Deal or No Deal", Jesus doesn't hesitate; he quotes Scripture right back at the devil:

            It is also written:   Do not put the Lord your God to the test.   (Deut. 6:16)

The way "testing" works is that it is God who tests us , not we who test him (as mentioned earlier, there is a purpose in that testing he brings to us--to prove our faithfulness to his will).   Here Jesus rejects the temptation to force God into a spectacular display, to require a further sign that he is the Son of God.

So the devil's offer to Jesus is to prove he is the Son of God by testing God and he asks the question:   "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Deal or No Deal?"   And the response from Jesus is a firm "No Deal!"

The Third Temptation

Finally, the devil took Jesus to "a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.   'All this I will give you', he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.'"

Now keep in mind that it was the world that Jesus came to save, and here was an easy way to do just that.   Jesus was not being asked to spend his whole life worshipping the devil, but with just one momentary bow he could accomplish the whole purpose for which he came--the salvation of the world.   All he had to do was compromise a little and he would have power over the world.

So, in our Biblical version of "Deal or No Deal", the devil is saying:   "Jesus Christ, the whole world is yours if you just bow down to me--Deal or No Deal?"

Jesus again responds with Scripture from Deuteronomy 6:13.   He says, "Get away from me, Satan!   For it is written:   'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

No Deal!

Matthew then records that the devil left Jesus and angels came and attended him.   William Barclay points out that this does not mean the devil left Jesus for good and that he was never again tempted.   We have other instances recorded where Satan sought to divert Jesus from his mission.   One was through the disciple, Peter, who tried to dissuade him from going to the cross--and Jesus said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!" (Virtually the same words spoken directly to Satan in the third temptation.)   He saw Satan trying to work even through Peter who just earlier had confessed Jesus as "Christ, the Son of the living God."   Again, when Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed for God to "take this cup from me", but then went on to say, "yet not my will, but yours be done."

Jesus was focused on his mission--and in spite of various attempts to move him off that path, he resisted.   That's why we can say that, though he was tempted, he was without sin.

Conclusion

So we have Jesus being tempted three times by the devil.   What lessons do these temptations have for us as his followers?

Note that the three are representative of the kind of temptations we face:  

• the temptation to ignore our spiritual needs in favor of our physical needs,
• the temptation to put God to the test for the purpose of self-display or promoting our status with God--we go to church every Sunday and to Bible study every week and surely, we think, that gives us high standing before God, and
• the temptation to achieve power over our world, which usually means power over others--to control or manipulate them.

Often the temptations that come to us are very subtle; that's the way the tempter works.   Temptations that are tailored to the areas where we are vulnerable or weak may be more obvious to us, but sometimes we are hit at our points of strength--as Jesus was in the second temptation--and that is not as obvious.   Dale Bruner says, "Perhaps we sin as often through attempting strong or great things as we do in succumbing to sins of weakness."

What are we to do then?   We are admonished in James 4:7 to "Submit yourselves, then, to God.   Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."   And we take great comfort in Hebrews 4:15 where we read that Jesus "has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin."   This gives us assurance that we can, as the Hebrews writer says, "approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

We also have the assurance given in I Corinthians 10:13:   "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.   And God is faithful; (now listen to this ) he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.   But when you are   tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

When (not "if") we are tempted, we have the example of Jesus and the promise of God to help us.   When we are approached by the tempter and are asked "Deal or No Deal?", we can respond as Jesus did, with a resounding "NO DEAL!!"

                                                                                                                                    Amen