The Triune God: The Son III

Jesus, weak and worn, sprawled in the shade
Of a huge rock, after forty long days
With the Spirit, plans for ministry made,
When He heard, "A heap of stone nearby lays;
If you're Son of God, nothing you can't do!
Use your power to turn them into bread!"
He almot did. "Satan is tempting you!"
Warned the Spirit. Appearing, Satan said,
"You need not hunger. Make bread from a stone!"
Jesus glared at him and sharply replied,
"God said, 'Man shall not live by bread alone!'"
For He would sin if on His pow'r relied!
As a man, He was bound by human might,
Else His sacrifice would not set things right!

Not much is known about the life of Jesus between ages 12 and 30. He lived in Nazareth, about 60 miles north of Jerusalem and Behlehem where He was born. Joseph, His stepfather, was a carpenter, and we assume Jesus was, too. He had several younger brothers and sisters. In 29 A. D., at age 30, He presented Himself for baptism to His cousin John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Immediately afterward, He went alone into the desert for forty days for prayer with the Father and sessions with the Holy Spirit, planning His upcoming 3-year ministry. He had little or no food and water, and at the end He was very weak. He was facing an awesome challenge--- to announce the beginning of the Kingdom of God, identify Himself to the Jews as their promised Messiah, to explain the good news of the gospel, to establish His church as the vehicle for telling the world how to be saved, and to suffer crucifiction for the sins of all the world. He had to walk a tight line with the Jews---to win followers to carry on His work, but to teach in a way that would bring rejection from Israel's leaders. That is why He used parables for much of His teaching. Satan picked an ideal time to confront Jesus.

Satan had not been very active since his success in the Garden with Adam and Eve. He didn't have to be, for the world was almost totally evil. Once God destroyed every human being except Noah and his family of 8. After that, He had to confound their languages to scatter them and keep them from building a tower to heaven to check Him out. Even when His Chosen People, Israel were a nation, most of them were very disobedient and very few followed His plan for them. He broke His covenant with them, because they thought He was their God only, not interested in the subhuman Gentiles. Satan had very little to do before the arrival of Jesus in the world. Now, he realized that he had a fight on his hands. At first he really wasn't sure that Jesus was God. This was going to be his toughest fight since Adam. He knew that if he could induce Jesus to sin, it would defeat His mission of providing man with a way to escape condemnation for Adam's sin. Jesus had to live a sinless life as a man to succeed, so Satan attacked Him at the end of the 40-day stay in the desert. He had three increasingly attractive temptations.

The first temptation is described in the poem above. As a human, Jesus had weakened Himself almost to the point of death. Satan, thinking Jesus was like all men---full of pride---used the same trick that had worked on Eve. He asked Jesus (paraphrased), "Are you the Son of God? Then prove it by changing these stones into bread!" Jesus could do it easily enough, and He was hungry enough to do it; most men would have done it just to prove they could. But not Jesus; He subdued His pride (which all Christians need to do) and quoted scripture back to Satan, telling him in effect that food is not as important to God as following all His directions. (See Luke 4)