3rd Temptation of Jesus - Lent 3 - 2026
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3rd Temptation of Jesus
Lent 3 - 2026
(Satan says worship me)
(Matthew 4:8-10)
1st Stone to Bread…
2nd Throw yourself off the Temple…
3rd Temptation
(Worship me…)
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
–Matthew 4:8-11
[Luke 4:13 adds; “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.”]
Lessons From This Kind of Temptation
The Core Issue
1.Satan offers Jesus something that would one day be His anyway.
2. Satan offers a shortcut, but through the wrong path.
Popularity without truth
Success without integrity
Pleasure without boundaries
Influence without surrender
“Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. ‘Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,’ declares the Lord. 13 ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’”
- Jeremiah 2:11-13
Q: Where do we have the same problem
as Israel in the OT?
Empty cisterns were used as prisons.
Example:
Joseph was cast into a pit. (Gen. 37:22)
“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.”
-1 John 5:15
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. [grace] Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”
- Isaiah 55:1-2
Examples of Shortcuts in the Bible
1.Peter rebuked Jesus.
Peter said:
“This shall never happen to You!”
Matthew 16:21–23
Jesus responded: “Get behind Me, Satan!”
Because Peter was unknowingly offering the same thing Satan had offered in the wilderness:
[A crown without a cross.]
2. Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:3–6)
Hoped for political power, or personal advancement.
30 pieces of silver
[Financial reward]
3. The Crowd at the Cross.
“If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”
-Matthew 27:40
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst [The Gk forms of the words are “Completely” hunger and thirst] for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
-Matthew 5:6
Winning God’s way is better than winning the easy way.
No short cuts.
Jesus said, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.”
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