The Battle Lines are Drawn

“And lead us not into temptation,

    but deliver us from the evil one.”

Matthew 6:13

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness

to be tempted by the devil.

 

It would seem to be a contradiction.

We are taught to pray that we are not led into temptation.

Yet just a couple of chapters earlier we read that Jesus was led, by the Holy Spirit, into the wilderness specifically to be tempted by the devil.

I don’t think God was sitting in heaven worried about the devil or saying to His Son – “O.K Son, let’s get this part over with.”

On the contrary, He knew His Son would triumph over the enemy.

Scripture had declared no less way back in the Garden!

Perhaps in the wilderness temptation God is pulling back the curtain

(so to speak) and demonstrating Colossians 2:15

“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

 In any event, Jesus was victorious in the wilderness just as He would be on the cross and just as He would in rising from the grave.

Like a man hungry for vengeance, Luke’s account of the temptation tells us that the devil left Jesus “...until an opportune time.”

He was planning on coming back.

He was not through.

His schemes are still used today against you and me.

But we are not left powerless.

We have the victory through Jesus Christ.

Let’s look, over the next several days, at some of the strategies the enemy might use against God’s people.

Let’s be wise to his ways that we might not be caught in his trap!