Temptation Two: The Show-Off (Matthew 4:5-7)

He stood on the Mount of Olives, looking over at the city of Jerusalem. Crowds of followers thronged around him. But he was no Prince of Peace. He was no Jesus. Historians never recorded his name. The only thing they call him is “the Egyptian.” A Jew raised in Egypt, who later found himself in the deserts of Judaea. He claimed to be a prophet. He likely claimed even to be the Messiah. And people listened by the hundreds. They found him compelling, convincing. He promised them quite the show. They came to him in the desert, and as they gathered, tbe Egyptian led them up the slopes of the Mount of Olives. He told his followers that he would call on God to display his greatness. That as Joshua marched 'round about Jericho and saw the walls fall, so the Egyptian would just say the word, and the walls around Jerusalem would crumble. Then his followers would rush into the city, storm the Roman garrison, and conquer the city by force. The Egyptian promised quite the show. And that would be proof-positive of who he said he was.

But it wasn't to be. Having heard reports of what was going on, the Roman governor Marcus Antonius Felix led cavalry and infantry alike to the Mount of Olives, catching the Egyptian's followers off-guard. In the fighting that followed, four hundred of the Egyptian's followers died, many fled, two hundred were captured, and the Egyptian escaped into the desert, becoming a wanted fugitive. It wasn't too many years before the military tribune intervened in a disturbance in Jerusalem's temple precincts and thought he'd finally caught the Egyptian. But the prisoner turned out to be some man named Paul instead.

Not quite two decades later, in the middle of a war, another man gathered followers. There was a tradition that the Messiah might announce his arrival from the roof of the temple. And so he declared in the streets of the city that, if people wanted to see the real show, they should join him in climbing onto the temple roof later that day, and would see a miracle promising their salvation. Men, women, even children began to gather on the temple grounds, in the assorted network of chambers all around. But whether the false prophet ever showed up, we don't know. For it was that very day that Roman soldiers set fire to the whole temple precinct, consuming the thousands who'd heeded the would-be deliverer who wanted to show a miracle from the temple roof.

We're told that those were times of false prophets and false messiahs (cf. Mark 13:22). But one thing they had in common was, they promised to put on quite the show. They promised to leverage their special role, their standing in the sight of God, into great displays that would persuade the masses. They would dare great things, risk everything, and win it all. And people by the thousands ate it up.

Four decades before the temple prophet, two decades before the Egyptian, another man went out into the desert just the same. But he went alone. No followers. And by the intrusion of a hostile spiritual force, he suddenly found himself – whether in vision or in the flesh – on the temple roof. “The devil took [Jesus] to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple” (Matthew 4:5). The same spot where, forty years later, a so-called prophet would promise to show off a miracle – and not deliver. But the devil wanted Jesus to deliver. The devil urged Jesus to announce himself as the Messiah through a great public announcement in the form of a great big flashy display. You see, as we heard last week, the devil has a theology of what it means to be a child of God. And in the devil's theology, being the Son of God, being the Messiah, should surely mean being able to count on God's protection, no matter what. So, the devil reasons, no matter what Jesus does, God can be counted on to make sure it goes smoothly. After all, God wouldn't dare let his millennia-long plans get derailed by a misstep, would he? And so, the devil says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” (Matthew 4:6). No one, gathered in the temple courts below, could miss the sight of a man plummeting in their direction. And God would surely intervene.

Having heard Jesus deflect the last temptation with scripture, the devil tries his hand at mimicry, plying Jesus with Bible quotes ripped from context to convince him that God would intervene, God would protect him from the fall, God would make sure the flashy display went off without a hitch. So the devil turns to Psalm 91, which is a blessing of protection. It's a really beautiful passage. But that stolen beauty turns sour on Satan's lips. The message is an assurance to the righteous that they have nothing to fear. “No evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:10-12). Those are the verses from which the devil quotes.

And the devil reasons: “Surely the Son of God must qualify to lay claim to that biblical promise! So then, Jesus, go ahead – name it and claim it. Prove that you qualify. Jump from this temple roof, with the priests and the crowds all watching, and trust that God will do as he said, sending angels to catch you in mid-air. A display like that will get your ministry off to a rousing start. Because, after all, if you're really who you say you are, if you really have title to call God your Father, then you're special. You aren't like ordinary people. You aren't like the riff-raff. You're entitled to so much more. If you're the Son of God, then you have a claim on God. He owes you something. He owes you special treatment. He owes you miracles, if that's what it takes to protect you. And you can use that to your advantage! Make the most of this resource, Jesus! After all, who doesn't like a good show? So be the show, be the spotlight, be the star! If you're really the Son of God, be impressive, be daring, make a big splash! If you are who you say you are, then God owes it to you to back you up with proof so that nobody could possibly doubt a word you say. If you're the Son of God, all eyes should be on you right now. If you're the Son of God, step out in faith and show it off.”

That's the devil's theology of sonship – the tempter's understanding of what it would mean to be a child of God. In the devil's eyes, to call God 'Father' should mean flaunting it as a mark of privilege. To call God 'Father' should mean leveraging it to our advantage. To call God 'Father' should mean getting him to back our cause and bolster our agenda with proof and support. That's what the devil tells Jesus it means to call God 'Father.' And if we're really honest with ourselves here, don't we sometimes take the devil's cue?

I mean, we want to impress. We want people to think well of us. If people doubt our goodness or our ability, we take it almost as an affront. And we want to show them they're wrong, we want to prove ourselves. And we want God to prove himself to us. So when we start thinking that way, we begin to imagine we can force God's hand. We can subtly shift ourselves into a position where we justify the expectation that God will act in the way we predict. And then we can take God for granted. Above all, we want God to be useful to us. We want God to go ahead and rubber-stamp our projects and support our self-defined mission in life, our dreams and aspirations. We want God to back up our plans and make sure they work out. We count on him to do that.

Have there ever been times in life you've done something not quite so bright and just banked on God to bail you out of the potential consequences? I've done that behind the wheel a few times. Or have there been times in life you've gone ahead with something your conscience told you was sinful, something you knew deep down was not the right choice to make, but you rationalized it as no big deal because you could always count on God to forgive you? That way of thinking perverts the gospel of grace, but if we're in a place of honesty, most of us probably have tested those waters at some point in our lives. We've done senseless things, even sinful things, and figured that God will have our backs anyway – because we're God's children, and bailing out the children is surely what a Father is for.

So when we get to thinking that way, we figure we can use that special relationship to our advantage. Or maybe the better way to phrase it is: exploit that special relationship for our advantage. We count so much on God wanting us, maybe even needing us, and so we consider that our faithfulness and service are prizes that God should want to win. And we try to use them as bargaining chips. And so we might pray, “God, if you don't do this thing, I just won't be able to believe in you anymore. God, if you don't do that thing, I just won't be able to love you like I used to. So if you really want my faith and my love, you'll prove your commitment by doing this or that thing.”

We might not say those words out loud. But there are times when that's the inner meditation of our hearts. We hold our faith hostage to try to force God's hand. “God, if you don't give me a new job so I can pay those bills, I won't believe you love me anymore.” “God, if you don't make people behave the way I approve of, I'll leave the church and won't believe you're there anymore.” “God, if you don't save my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, my son, my daughter, my friend, then I won't believe in you anymore, I won't love you anymore.” That is the next step on the path the devil wants Jesus to step down by stepping off the roof. Because the devil thinks that's what it means to be a child of God – that it entitles us to show off our relationship like a fancy accessory or use it to manipulate God into acting in ways that ratify our preferences.

But when the devil speaks out of that vision, how does Jesus react? Jesus resists the temptation. The devil may press him to prove himself, but Jesus doesn't get defensive. The devil may entice with flattering visions of crowds cheering in adoration, but Jesus doesn't take the bait. Jesus has been facing temptation in the desert, so he's still reflecting on the tests that Israel faced in the desert a thousand years before. And Jesus remembers a story of when Israel, called to live in the desert as a son of God, acted just like the devil now wants Jesus to act.

It was a time when Israel was camped at a place called Rephidim – though Moses would later nickname it 'Massah and Meribah,' “Testing and Arguing.” Israel was in the desert so that God could test them, but it was at Rephidim that they got the dim idea to turn the tables and test their God right back.

Rephidim was a dry place, where “there was no water for the people to drink” (Exodus 17:1). And the people could have waited in trust that God would give them water, without them taking any action to force his hand. Or they could simply have asked God politely for water. Or they could have asked Moses to check with God on the whole water situation. But instead, the Israelite crowds tried to bully Moses. They demanded water, or else. Moses warned them: “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” (Exodus 17:2). But they kept at it. They accused God and Moses of conspiring together against them, wanting them to die of thirst in the desert. They tried to guilt-trip deity and prophet, saying that the both were cruel and mean unless they ponied up the H₂O pronto. So there, in the shadow of the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, they had the gall to ask: “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7). The visible sign of his presence was right there, but they insisted that they be catered to. They said God needed to prove himself by their standard in the moment – he needed to pass their chosen test, or else he'd lose the 'prize' of their belief. What they're saying is, “Either God gives us water on demand, or there's no God here.” The Israelites cannot tolerate the thought of a God who might move in a mysterious way, a God not easily predicted or pressured.

The Israelites hoped that their scarcely veiled threats to hold their faith hostage would force God's hand and get them the water they want. They wished to manipulate God into supporting their agenda. And in that attempt, we're told that “they tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved” and by questioning him so as to incentivize him to want to prove himself by passing their test (Psalm 78:18-20). So “they tested God again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel” (Psalm 78:41). They got a response, to be sure. But it meant failing their own test.

Jesus knows that story. And he's read in Deuteronomy, how Moses explored the lessons of that day in the desert at Rephidim: “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God..., and you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 6:16-18).

Jesus remembers those words, and from them he sees one thing plain as day: Trying to 'test' God is not behavior befitting a faithful and loving child. That was not how Israel, saved through the waters of the sea to be called the son of God, was supposed to treat the Father who led them through the desert. Therefore, it was not how Jesus, the true Son of God, would be willing to treat the Father he loves and whom he knows loves him. Stunts not required. So Jesus quotes scripture to swat away the devil's temptation: “Jesus said to him: 'Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test''” (Matthew 4:7).

Jesus refuses to try to 'use' God to his advantage. He refuses to reduce God to a tool in the human toolkit for responding to life. He refuses to instrumentalize heavenly realities. And that's exactly what Satan's abuse of Psalm 91 is calling for. That psalm was, in all likelihood, originally a battle hymn that the priests would pray over the armies of Israel as they prepared to march out and fight in the wars of the LORD. And so the psalm assures an Israelite soldier that, if he was going on God's mission, then he would fight under God's protection. It's in those specific circumstances that God would “cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (Psalm 91:4-7).

That's armed forces talk. And the blessing blooms in the confident assurance of victory over the enemy: “You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot” (Psalm 91:13). And as Israel conquered the promised land under God's direction, they experienced that psalm's reality. But the psalm was never meant to turn God into a talisman to serve Israel's interests. Israel could not use the promises of this psalm to go out picking fights with everyone they ran across. The wilderness generation tried picking an unauthorized fight with the Amalekites apart from God's presence, and this psalm was definitely not a picture of how things went for them (Numbers 14:44-45). This psalm is entirely conditioned on God setting all the terms.

God is no talisman, he is no good-luck charm. And using the words of this psalm to try to make him one would be an example of putting God to the test. The psalmist's hope is based on an actual relationship of trust, living a life of faith under God. The psalmist himself calls it “abiding in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). That's how the psalm opens. That's its defining condition. They must treat the LORD, not as an excuse, not as a weapon, not as an instrument, but as a dwelling place and a refuge (Psalm 91:9). They have to “hold fast to [God] in love” (Psalm 91:14). In other words, they have to behave like a faithful son, a faithful child of God, or there can be no victory. Moses in Deuteronomy explicitly says that such victory is only possible once Israel stops putting God to the test (Deuteronomy 6:18-19)! So Satan's proposed use of Psalm 91 is self-defeating. Whoever tries to use Psalm 91 the devil's way is disqualified from being the kind of person it's for. And that's the trap into which the devil wants to lure Jesus into falling.

Which is why Jesus doesn't make that mistake. He doesn't let the devil's scripture-twisting sidetrack him. Jesus holds fast to God in love. Jesus cherishes the wisdom of scripture for the situation he's in. Jesus knows that a faithful child of God won't treat God like a product to be tested or like a power to be manipulated and harnessed for human advantage. That's not faithful sonship. The devil says a child of God is entitled to show off. But Jesus, the faithful Son of God, will live instead by humble faith. Jesus will never try to hold that faith hostage. Jesus will never issue God an ultimatum. The devil says a child of God can set the terms. But Jesus, faithful Son of God, refuses anything that doesn't come on God's terms. He wants to march forward on his Father's terms in his Father's mission, and nothing else will do.

The devil says a child of God should get something out of it – more presents, more protection, more popularity. The devil says a child of God can make death-defying leaps and count on God to mute the consequences. But Jesus declares, “The Son … came not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28). Jesus didn't come to turn a profit, Jesus didn't come to extort personal gain. Jesus came to be a blessing. His purpose isn't to use his Father, but to reveal his Father. Jesus is not here to entertain. Jesus is not here to dazzle. He comes, not with bread and circuses, but with the cross. He most certainly is not here to show off.

So Jesus commits himself. In quoting Deuteronomy to the devil, what Jesus is saying is, “I am a child of God. And that means I will not put conditions on my Father. I will not exploit that relationship to suit my own needs. I love my Father, and I know my Father loves me. So I will live in faith. I will live in humility. I will live in patience. I will trust my Father to ripen his purposes in his time. He will make them plain.” Jesus doesn't do what Israel did at Massah and Meribah. He doesn't take the path of the phony-baloney messiahs and prophets who came before or after him. Jesus is the real deal. But he's got nothing to prove, so he doesn't act like them. A faithful child of God loves his Father, not for what he thinks the Father can give, but for who the Father is. A faithful child of God doesn't use faith as a bargaining chip or a prize. A faithful child of God doesn't force his Father's hand; he holds it. A faithful child of God doesn't use God as an excuse to do dumb or sinful things, and a faithful child of God doesn't use God as a tool to further some other agenda or entertain the crowds.

And what a faithful child of God wouldn't do, Jesus never does. He was faithful in every test where Israel failed in the desert. Jesus is so faithful that, when the Father's terms call for it, he'll “humble himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8). And because he was faithful, he lived out Psalm 91 in his own way. He didn't have to jump off a roof to activate it. He just stuck to the Father's plan, and he did trample on lions and serpents (Psalm 91:13) – that is, on the lion that looks to devour us (1 Peter 5:8) and the serpent who beguiled God's children out of a garden (Genesis 3:15). Because Jesus was faithful, he did go on to conquer the land with the gospel – and his conquest is still being waged through the armies of peace who make up his New Israel, the Church. Because Jesus was faithful, God his Father answered him when he called (Hebrews 5:7; cf. Psalm 91:15). And because Jesus was a faithful child of God, he received the final promise of Psalm 91: for God the Father to save him from death and to satisfy him with long life, indeed unending life, in the resurrection (Psalm 91:16). Psalm 91 was absolutely meant for the likes of Jesus – but not at all in the way the devil meant.

And then there's us. When we are united to Christ through faith, each of us becomes a son or a daughter of God – a child of the same Father whom Jesus called 'Father.' Jesus calls you brother; Jesus calls you sister (Hebrews 2:11). And in our journey, we may well cross paths with the devil and his temptations. They may be bold; they may be subtle. And in that hour, in every hour of temptation, you must decide: What kind of child of God will you be? What does it mean to you, to be a child of God? Does it mean getting to show off? Does it mean having God's support for your plans? Does it mean being impressive and mighty? Does it mean acting with impunity and banking on a gracious bail-out? Does it mean the right to set tests for God to keep your faith? If so, you're in hearty agreement with the devil – Lord, have mercy.

Or, does it instead mean a life of humble faith without conditions? Does it mean embracing weakness, clinging to obedience, pursuing God's mission to bless your neighbors and your neighborhoods, even at a cost? Does it mean patiently waiting for the victory on God's terms, and chasing only the causes he chooses? Then, and only then, might you be in hearty agreement with Jesus, the Lord of Mercy. “And the God of peace will soon crush Satan,” that roaring lion and deceiving serpent, “under your feet” (Romans 16:20). And only through the faithful obedience of Deuteronomy 6 can we as God's children glory in the Psalm 91 victory of the gospel. Our Father's mission on our Father's terms. No stunts.

So, I ask: What does being a child of God mean to you? I hope we may all find ourselves imitating Jesus, “who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:5). “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens – Jesus, the [faithful] Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” and live accordingly (Hebrews 4:14). Hallelujah. Amen.