Gospel of Matthew Chapter 4 Vs. 10

 The Temptation of Jesus

Matthew 4:10 “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

Get thee hence... Sometimes, it is difficult to recognize the enemy. Jesus had no trouble recognizing him, standing against him, and removing him. Get thee hence Satan. We should take a lesson from this. Anything, or anyone, who compromises with the devil in sin, has sold out to sin. We must not fellowship with those who continually practice sin. As Jesus did not stay in this place with the tempter, neither should we.

for it is... Here Christ was citing and paraphrasing (Deut. 6:13-14). Again, these relate to the Israelites’ wilderness experiences. Christ, like them, was led into the wilderness to be tested (Deut. 8:2), unlike them, He withstood every aspect of the test.

Thou shalt worship... Anything that is not pleasing to God is sin. In the statement made by Jesus, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”; we see we must not serve Satan or sin. We must walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Of course, we are not perfect; we will stumble and fall, but we must not be a servant to sin. The desire of our hearts must be to please God. Quoted from Deut. 6:13.

We can see, from these Scriptures above that Satan increased what he offered each time. He thought that if he offered Jesus the whole world as His kingdom that Jesus would jump at this. Along with the greater offering came an even more blatant sin. Jesus had to fall down and worship Satan to receive the world and all that was in it (Satan’s belief).

What Satan did not realize was that Jesus would take the earth back for mankind. He did not take it back by compromising with the devil. He took it back through the victory of the cross.

His response, once again from Deuteronomy (Deut. 6:13 and Deut. 10:20), was that God alone should be worshiped and served. Jesus resisted this temptation also.

Interestingly Satan’s temptations of Eve in the Garden of Eden correspond to those of Jesus in the desert. Satan appealed to the physical appetite (Gen. 3:1-3; Mat. 4:3), the desire for personal gain (Gen. 3:4-5; Mat. 4:6), and an easy path to power or glory (Gen. 3:5-6; Mat. 4:8-9). And in each case Satan altered God’s Word (Gen. 3:4; Mat. 4:6). Satan’s temptations of people today often fall into the same three categories (cf. 1Jhn. 2:16). The One who had identified Himself with sinners by baptism and who would provide righteousness proved He is righteous, and revealed His approval by the Father.