The Temptations of Jesus

Today I read Matthew 4 which contains the temptations of Jesus and the beginning of His ministry. I have always found it amusing that people have said that after fasting for 40 days Jesus would be at His weakest and most vulnerable state. I often wonder if the people who say that have ever fasted before?

Now, I will admit that the first temptation to create food would probably be very tempting, but the whole fact of Satan choosing this particular time to tempt Christ makes no sense to me. The Savior had just spent 40 days fasting, in other words, letting His Spirit have dominance over His body, and communing with God the Father. We can assume He has been conversing with angels and perhaps even Heavenly Father Himself. I assert that Jesus would be at His strongest that He had ever been up to this point in His life. It is very similar to Moses, why would Satan choose that moment to try and tempt Him when He was coming down from such a spiritual high? I have no idea honestly.

Nevertheless, we have a record of the temptations that Satan tries to tempt the Savior with. First and foremost, they are all a temptation against the Savior's pride. Two of them start off with "If thou be the Son of God" trying to make the Savior rise up and prove that He is the literal Son of God I suppose. I've often wondered why Satan would try and use this tactic to tempt the Savior? I have always thought of Jesus as the most humble man to ever walk the earth, without an ounce of pride in Him, why go for the pride angle? I am quite confident that the Savior was very similar to me in that He understood that no matter what people say about Him, He knows who He is and doesn't need other people to validate who He is. Now, I am in no way as humble as I'm sure the Savior is, that is not my point, but ever since I was a teenager, I have realized that it doesn't matter what people say about me, it won't change who I am. Only I can control that. It always amazes me that so many people will let the people around them dictate who they are by trying to let others have good opinions of them. I learned long ago that people are going to think what they think and I can do very little to influence that and so I don't really try. The one exception being my wife. There is something about her that just changes all the rules for some reason. The rest of the world can go do it's own thing and think what it wants about me, but for some reason I have discovered that I very much am concerned with my wife's opinions of me. A flaw in my otherwise perfect armor, ah well. Luckily for me, she is only concerned about my welfare and that I am doing what is right.

The second half of the first temptation is about the Savior's physical hunger, His appetites if you will. He tells the Savior to use the Priesthood and turn some rocks into bread to ease His hunger pains. This might actually have been tempting for the Savior given how hungry He was. We face similar temptations daily, to overeat, to drink alcohol or partake of illegal drugs or to engage in sexual relations outside of marriage or to view pornography, all are temptations of the flesh and our appetites that we must overcome if we are to be perfected. How will someone who has a weakness for overeating feel when they have no body to eat? Or someone who is addicted to pornography feel if they are exalted and suddenly sees men and women naked and having sex? Such people are not ready for exaltation, none of us are in our present state. Only through God's help can we overcome such issues.

The second temptation is all pride as far as I can tell. Satan telling Jesus that if He is the Son of God to through Himself off of a tower and angels will catch Him. Again, I find this incredibly silly because Jesus had perfect control of the Priesthood and perfect faith. All He would need to do is make a staircase out of air by hardening the molecules of the air so He could step on them. You would really think Satan could have come up with better temptations.

The final temptation was about power. Satan claimed that if Jesus would worship him, he would give the Savior all the kingdoms of the earth and make Him a ruler over them. As of they were His to give! And as if Jesus would want them. The kingdom of the Jews was His by birthright, He could have been King of the Jews, literally, if He had so chosen. He did not want it though, that was not in His Father's plan this time. Once again, Jesus rebuffs Satan with scriptures and the power He had gained through fasting and communing with God.

The rest of the chapter we will cover more fully in Luke where the Savior calls men to be His disciples. It is important to note that at this point they are only disciples, He has not yet chosen His Apostles, although the men He chooses in this chapter, Peter and Andrew, will go on to become His Apostles but that is not until later.

We can take away many things from the Savior's temptations. We can learn to quote scriptures when we feel tempted, we can learn to not fear the world and it's judgements. We can learn that Satan has no real power beyond what we give him. There are many lessons to be learned from this chapter. The real question is, which one do we each need to learn? Until tomorrow.