Stalking The Enemy

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.   Matthew 4:1

It was the Spirit of God that led Christ into the desert. Christ was stalking the enemy. His first move was to confront Satan and triumph where Adam had failed, so he went looking for him.

Contrast the circumstances in which Adam failed and Christ triumphed: Adam and Eve were tempted in a garden where their hungers were fully satisfied. Christ was tempted in the desert, and he had been fasting for forty days—his hunger was raging. Adam had the company of his wife; Christ was completely alone.

When Jesus found his enemy, Satan’s first strategy was to create confusion in Christ’s mind about his identity. “Are you really sure you’re the Son of God?” Satan was asking. “If God is your Father, he doesn’t really care for you. Take matters into your own hands. Tell this stone to become bread” (see Matthew 4:3).

Then Satan moved on to his second strategy. Instead of questioning Christ’s identity, Satan affirmed it: “Given, then, that God is your Father, you can be sure he’ll take care of you. You can do anything you want! Throw yourself down from here, and God’s angels will float you to the ground. Go ahead . . . do it!” (see Matthew 4:5-6).

Obedience to the will of God would be incredibly costly for Jesus, and Satan used this in his third strategy: “Think of what this will cost you—your own life! There must be an easier way. Just worship me, and it will all be yours!” (see Matthew 4:8-9).

Satan was doing what any general would do when faced with overwhelming odds—offering a truce. Satan would have settled for anything—except Christ proceeding in full obedience to the Father’s plan. That plan would end in Satan being crushed and the people he’d enslaved for so long being set free by the ultimate sacrifice.

But Jesus was not negotiating. The strategy that worked so well in the Garden failed completely in the wilderness. Where Adam collapsed in defeat, Christ rose in triumph over the power of our enemy.

For further reading, see Matthew 4