A Vacation from Temptation

            “The devil … departed from him for a season” (Luke 4:13).

            It’s in the Gospel of our Lord’s humanity (Luke) that these words are recorded.  Luke calls repeated attention to the “humanness” of Jesus—His weariness, His dependence on His Father, His need for prayer, His prayer struggle in the Garden.

            Jesus was human enough to be tempted.  We know that “God cannot be tempted with evil” (Isa. 1:13), but in the Incarnation God placed Himself within range of Satan’s darts.

            Jesus felt the dead weight of temptation; He “suffered, being tempted” (Heb 2:18).  Temptation is no picnic or midsummer night’s dream.  And it is only fair to add that Jesus knew the force of temptation to a degree that we shall never know it.  He could bear the heaviest thrusts of evil which Satan did not hesitate to launch against Him.

            Jesus knew the sustained power of temptation—“forty days tempted of the devil.”  I don’t know that I have ever suffered that prolonged a season of unrelenting satanic pressure.  It must have seemed to Jesus that it would never let up.   To make it more severe, that unceasing attack had three separate and sharp spearheads, all-out blitzkriegs!  Let us be reminded that Jesus never won a cheap victory, never got off easy, never avoided the inevitable clash between Himself and the devil.

            But Jesus resisted the devil.  That is precisely what we are to do:  “Resist the devil” (James 4:7).  Put up a fight.  Launch an all-out counter offensive at Satan’s first assault, and never waver (“stand your ground,” as Ephesians 6:13 may be translated) in the faith that complete victory is yours for the taking.  Jesus resisted evil even unto the cross; we “have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Heb 12:4).

            Jesus’ courage and faith wore out the devil.  Satan retreated!  And Jesus enjoyed a well-earned vacation from temptation “for a season.”

            You can say “No” to the devil, and mean it so wholeheartedly and so persistently that Satan will have to yield on that particular point.  Satan had two great tries at Job and retreated in confusion after each struggle.  You don’t have to fight the same battle indefinitely—you can fight it out and remain victor on THAT battle field!

--Oliver G. Wilson, 1959