Day 40 - Matthew 4:2

A Fasted Journey for Spiritual Renewal

Day 40

“And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” -Matthew 4:2

Like Jesus, I am hungry. Like Jesus. Ha. What a laughable notion. I may be hungry, but I am nothing like Jesus. If anything, my own 40 days and 40 nights of fasting has shown me that. 1 John 2:6 says, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” I say I abide in Christ. I can’t say I walk in the same way in which he walked, far from it; although I ought walk in that way.

James Coates, a Canadian pastor whom I have learned much from has said, “I am not yet all that I ought to be, but I’m not what I once was and the Lord is still working on me; and I want him to be evident in my life and so I’m grateful for all of your support.” I echo that sentiment to the letter. This time of fasting has been remarkable. It has not come without sin. It has not come without error. It has not come without unrighteous word, deed, or thought.

It has come with tremendous learning. It has come with tremendous dependence on God. It has come with tremendous graciousness; both from God and my immediate family. It has come with tremendous temptation. Yesterday I touched on one of the temptings of Christ at the end of his 40 day fast. But there were two others in short order. If you’re anything like me, you may be able to look at your own life and recognize that at times of hunger, at times of restlessness, at times of anxiousness, at times of anger, or at times of tiredness, you too have been more susceptible to temptation. Some of those times may have even been where you succumbed to temptation, as have I.

I’m sure I will succumb to temptation in the future too. Sometimes we are deceived which can lead to sin, and sometimes we deceive ourselves to plunge into sin. Satan tried to use God’s Word to deceive Jesus. In Matthew 4:6 Satan quoted from Psalm 91:11-12 when he told Jesus to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple by saying "“He will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Satan, however, left out the part of that passage which says, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Satan intentionally distorted God’s Word here in his attempts to cause Christ to sin. A fruitless endeavor if ever there was one.

Psalm 91 is about God’s protection of His people. Verses 9-13 explicitly point to the fact that no harm or disaster can truly befall those who have made the Lord their refuge. Sure, sickness or disaster may befall us on this temporal earth, but we are to look at the things which are eternal. The things of this earth are not. Scripture can be misapplied, foolishly interpreted or directly twisted, as Satan and those who follow his ways often do. Satan distorted Psalm 91 in an effort to test God, when in actuality it is a psalm of trusting in God’s sovereignty.

Jesus responds by telling Satan, “Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” His response comes from Deuteronomy 6:16. That passage, where the command to not test the Lord, comes from Exodus 17 when the people of Israel were in a place that Moses named Massah and Meribah. That land area had no water so “the people quarreled with Moses” and tested God. It is not our place to test God, just as it was not the people’s place to do so at Massah, nor Satan’s place to do so.

Nonetheless, Satan tempts Jesus one more time. Satan takes Jesus up to a “very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Satan then tells Jesus that he will give them to Jesus if he “will fall down and worship” Satan. Satan knows the power he has on this earth. He knows that the kingdoms of this world belong to him. He knows that he has “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). He knows that the whole world lies in his power (1 John 5:19). He knows that he is constantly on the prowl, “like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And he knows that many, if not most people, seek to do what he desires, that he was a murderer from the beginning, does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him, that when he lies he speaks out of his own character because he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).

Satan also knows that Christ is the truth. Shortly before Jesus was crucified he told Pilate, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Satan is a liar and the father of lies. Jesus is the truth. This third tempting was Satan’s effort to thwart the truth and the salvation that is only in Christ through his work on the cross to cleanse all who believe of our own unrighteousness. Jesus again responds from Deuteronomy. This time from 6:13 and 10:20 when he said, “You shall worship the Lord your Hod and him only shall you serve.

Satan’s temptations of Jesus correlate to those of Eve in the Garden of Eden as well. To both Eve and Jesus, Satan appealed to the physical appetite, the desire for personal gain and easy path to power/glory. In each case Satan altered God’s Word. Our own temptations often fall into the same three categories, which essentially are the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life as described in 1 John 2:15-17.

Jesus also commanded Satan to “be gone” with his final rebuke from Deuteronomy and then angels came and ministered to him. Although we cannot be perfect like Christ, we too can resist the devil. James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” I certainly have not successfully resisted the devil throughout my life, or even in the last 40 days, but if we follow the simple, although not always easy, mandates here to submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us.

I am not a medical professional. This journal is about my spiritual path and about that which the Lord has placed on me. This is not medical advice, nor was this fast done for any medical purpose. If you have a medical interest, seek medical advice. If you have particular health concerns, seek medical advice and/or conduct your own research. Any fasting advice, effects, realizations or anything else related to my fast come from my personal reflection and experience. If you are considering fasting, consulting with a healthcare provider may be appropriate for you.