Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

We are here given some important insight into the role and function of Satan under the sovereign rule of God.  For reasons I cannot fully understand or explain, Satan clearly serves as a necessary antagonistic refining agent in the development of God’s servants.  Notice that it was not Satan who led Jesus into this desert encounter, but the very Spirit of God.

Three rounds of temptation are recorded in this account.  They may indicate three basic areas of our own temptation and development. 

1. FOOD.  This can be representative of our full range of physical appetites that men are required to satisfy, but not to the neglect or exclusion of priority spiritual needs, for which God’s Word has been given. 


2. FOOLISHNESS.  It really is dumb use of human intelligence to defy known physical and spiritual laws and presume on God’s intervention and deliverance. 


3. FAME & FORTUNE.  Men, who refuse to comply with their priority purpose to worship and serve God, naturally worship and serve themselves, with a continual striving.

To be sure, the same means Jesus used to defeat Satan and his schemes is the same means you and I use to defeat him…the “living and enduring word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23).