Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Unity in Worship”. There are quite a few different topics I could write upon from this week’s lesson. Those topics that pique my interest. I could write on what “worship” really means. Is it merely “gratitude to God expressed in community worship” (Sabbath’s lesson)? Is it “a response of our faith in God for His mighty works: first for creating us and second for redeeming us” (Sunday’s lesson)? Are we united in worship “because of the truths we proclaim, truths that we find in the Word of God” (Wednesday’s lesson)? Is worship merely about prayers, exhortation and proclamation? Or is true worship more than that? “Faithful work is more acceptable to God than the most zealous and thought-to-be holiest worship. It is working together with Christ that is true worship. Prayers, exhortation, and talk are cheap fruits…” (2 Testimonies pg. 24). Working together with Christ is “true worship”. All else is merely profession and not real worship at all. But this is not what I want to write upon today. I thought I’d write upon the text and question in Monday’s lesson… “Read Matthew 4: 8, 9. What was Jesus’ third temptation in the wilderness?”
Satan’s temptations, like those that tempt us, are precisely tailored to the tempted-one’s own proclivities. So what tempted Christ? Was it merely about giving “honor and respect to the rightful owner of the universe” (Monday’s lesson)? I suspect not. We see Jesus’ “Achilles Heel” in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the Garden, Jesus’ humanity recoiled from the cross. But His love for the Father and mankind far outweighed His own security. The love of God is such that it will sacrifice itself in reaching-out and doing all to save and retrieve the lost. The demonstration at the cross was a demonstration of God sacrificing His very existence to save and retrieve the lost… even for one. Satan knows this about God. Satan knows the self-sacrificing nature of all heaven’s inhabitants because he was once one of them. He knows the willingness of the Godhead to sacrifice all for others.
So Satan crafted a very special temptation for the Son of God… for that self-sacrificing Son of God. Satan tempted Jesus at the beginning of His ministry in the wilderness with the same temptation at the end of His ministry in the Garden. Satan tempted Christ to save mankind without having to endure the cross. Without having to come in man’s shoes and die to self, so that mankind can die to self with Him. Satan offered to Christ another way to save mankind.
“It’s obvious that the world chooses me,” says Satan. “I will give you the world and all these worthless little human beings you seem so infatuated-with, on one condition. That you acknowledge my way of serving-self is the way of life. If you but acknowledge that serving-self is superior to self-less love. If you will but acknowledge the supremacy of self-serving, than sacrificing yourself to these humans is really unnecessary. After-all”, Satan lied, “the Father Himself is actuated by His own selfish pursuits. He demands that all must worship Him or He will kill them. The Father is really a megalomaniac intent on His own supremacy. All must bow to Him, obey Him, worship Him, and even love Him or else He will burn them to death”.
And so the temptation came to Christ. Weakened by hunger and weakened by the wilderness, the temptation to doubt the Father came to Christ. To doubt the very foundation of heaven and its inhabitants. To doubt the supremacy of love that will sacrifice all… love that will sacrifice everything. Is it necessary to go so far? May I not keep some shred of self and still love? And the conviction also came to Christ. The conviction that “Love” that will not give all is not really love. “The only hope for us if we would overcome is to unite our will to God's will and work in co-operation with Him, hour by hour and day by day. We cannot retain self and yet enter the kingdom of God. If we ever attain unto holiness, it will be through the renunciation of self and the reception of the mind of Christ. Pride and self-sufficiency must be crucified. Are we willing to pay the price required of us? Are we willing to have our will brought into perfect conformity to the will of God? Until we are willing, the transforming grace of God cannot be manifest upon us” (Mount of Blessing pg. 143).
The temptation in the wilderness does involve “worship”, rightly understood. It involved who you trust. To all appearances to Christ in the wilderness, the Father had forsaken Him… led Him to the desert, the stones, the beasts. To all appearances, Christ was abandoned by the Father to fend for himself. The temptation to save mankind by avoiding the cross was almost overpowering. The temptation to acknowledge what Satan said was true. To acknowledge that the “way of the cross” is not the “way of love” at all. To acknowledge that God the Father is an arbitrary, vengeful severe God and that Satan’s charges against the Father and His love-filled ways are true. To acknowledge that the love that will give all is ineffectual. All this was wrapped-up in Satan’s temptation. Tempting the Son to abandon the sovereignty of true love that will give all for the “other”.
But God-the-Son did not succumb to Satan’s spurious charges, Satan’s false interpretation of the Father. True love reigned supreme in the heart of the Son. And praise His Holy Name for it. May it reign supreme in our hearts, too. Because we, too, are tempted to exalt self. Tempted to not sacrifice self for the good of others. We, too, are tempted to not go to the cross daily and be crucified daily. We, too, are tempted to retain self, and yet have heaven, too. But these temptations are but echoes of Christ’s temptation and are all false. Let us cling to our God of Love… and not fall victim to Satan’s temptation to honor all his self-centered ways. For that is the essence of worship… to follow that one in all your thinking and acting. As EGW quoted above states (my adaptation) “working together with (Satan) is true worship (of Satan)”… and “working together with Christ is true worship (of God)”. Who do you work together with (worship)?
With brotherly love,
Jim