Who Do You Have in Your Corner?
Feb 29, 2016 925
Finally, the devil took Jesus up on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of earth and their power. The devil said to him, ‘I will give all this to you, if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus answered, ‘Go away Satan! The Scriptures say: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve only him’ (Matthew 4:8-11 C.E.V., quoting Deuteronomy 6:13).
Jesus did not contest Satan’s claim to be the prince of this world (John 12:31), a title he wrested from Adam in Eden. But the kind of world that the devil offered Jesus had no appeal to the Lord. It was a world mortally infected by sin. The “power” of earth’s kingdoms was the power of force; the might of armies and weapons controlled by sinful men. Jesus would establish a different kingdom: a kingdom won, not by shedding the blood of others, but by shedding his blood for the entire human race.
Jesus’ kingdom would be a kingdom that would be established by his death on the Cross; a kingdom of people saved from the power of sin. The devil tried to sell Jesus a shortcut to this kingdom; a shortcut that would save him from going to the cross. But Jesus declined Satan’s offer the third time by quoting Scripture.
Jesus defeated the devil with God’s word and his reliance on the power of god. And that is the weapon we too must use when attacked by this already-defeated ruler of this world. Satan was defeated by Jesus’ death on the cross (John 12:31-33), his power was broken once and for all. We can be confident that we have the true ruler of the universe on our side when we have accepted Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. We can remind Satan of that when he comes to attack us.
Leave a Reply