Read Matthew 3:1-17, Mark 1:2-11 and Luke 3:1-22. These are the accounts of the ministry of John the Baptizer. John also gives an account of the Baptizer’s ministry in John 1:15-34, but this took place after our Lord’s Baptism by John and His temptation by Satan. Note that John mentions the Baptism of our Lord as having taken place. After introducing two of his disciples to Jesus, Jesus returns to Galilee with them instead of going into the wilderness for forty days.
1. What was different about John’s lifestyle?
He dressed in camel’s hair garments and ate locust and wild honey. Today this would have marked John as a nut case, yet in that day, although he was undoubtedly very different than most, it would not have been as strange as it seems to us. What he wore was not outlandish, but just the very poorest and cheapest clothing of that day. We might consider eating locusts disgusting and weird, but we must realize that they were (and are) utilized for food in many parts of the world. John was eating what he could find at hand. He was living off the land.
2. Why do you think he did this?
The fact that he dressed in the poorer clothing of that day and ate the food he could find was to show how important his message was. John was saying he did not have time to worry about acquiring what we would consider decent clothing and food, the most important thing was the message - The King is coming! Get ready!
3. Mark says John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Does this mean you have to be baptized to have forgiveness of sins? Explain.
The forgiveness of sins depends upon repentance, not baptism. The prepositional phrase, for the forgiveness of sins, is to be connected with the word, repentance, not the word, baptism.
THIS → a baptism of REPENTANCE for the FORGIVENESS OF SINS
NOT → a BAPTISM of repentance for the FORGIVENESS OF SINS
The baptism was to outwardly demonstrate repentance (inward attitude) and this repentance led to the forgiveness of sins.
4. Those who came to John to be baptized were not sinless. They came, confessed their sin and were baptized by John as a sign of their repentance in preparation for the coming of the King. Jesus Christ, however, was completely sinless, yet He also came to John to be baptized. Why do you think He did this? What did His baptism mean or symbolize?
Water baptism was then (and is today) an outward sign of identification with a person and his message. Those who were baptized by John were declaring they accepted and believed his message of the coming King and had repented in preparation for Him. While He had no sin to confess or repent of, our Lord also was declaring that He accepted and supported John and John’s message. It was our Lord’s stamp of approval. It also foreshadowed His identification with His people and with all of us in our sinful state. While He had no sin, He would indeed bear ours.
Read Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13 and Luke 4:1-13. James tells us that God is unable to be tempted. But man can be tempted. Jesus Christ is God, but He is also man. As God, Jesus Christ could not be tempted, but as a man, He could be tempted. Remember that when Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan, He was tempted as a man, not as God. In two of the three temptations, Satan says, ‘If you are the Son of God...’
5. What do you think Satan means by the title The Son of God?
It is a reference to the Messiah. Today we use the phrase ‘The Son of God’ to refer to our Lord’s deity. When we say, He is the Son of God, we mean He is God; He is divine. However, that is not what the writers of the New Testament meant when they stated that He was the Son of God. They did indeed believe that He was divine, that is certain, but it is not the emphasis of their statement. The phrase ‘The Son of God’ was a title for Messiah. This can be seen by studying the use of the phrase in the New Testament, especially in the temptation of our Lord to jump off the pinnacle of the temple. Satan says to him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’“
If the phrase ‘The Son of God’ means that He is God or divine, then Satan is saying, ‘If you are God, jump off because God will send His angels to protect you.’ But this makes no sense. If He is God, He doesn’t need any angels to protect Himself! But if the phrase means Messiah, then Satan is saying, ‘If you are the Messiah, jump off because God will send His angels to protect you.’ Indeed, this makes perfect sense of this temptation. Satan is not tempting our Lord to prove He is divine; he is tempting our Lord to prove that He is the Messiah. He is tempted in relationship to His humanity, His position as a man as Messiah.
6. List the three temptations through which Satan put Jesus Christ and our Lord’s response to each one.
a. To turn stone to bread - Jesus said there were more important things than satisfying your hunger.
b. To jump off the top of the temple - Jesus said God instructed us not to put Him to the test.
c. To worship him (Satan) - Jesus said God says You are to worship God alone!
The Applications:
What are the applications of these passages to our lives today? Identify as many as you are able.
1. Each of us is called to the ministry in some capacity. Each of us has been given a gift to use for the common good. How important do we consider the ministry that God has given us or the exercising of the gift that we have through the Holy Spirit? How much time do we devote to it? These questions could, for many of us, be very embarrassing. Do we consider it important enough to carve out an hour or two every week? Compare the time we spend in this ministry to the time we spend doing other things, television, video games, sports, etc. Where we spend our time and resources is a good measure of what we consider important. Food, clothing, shelter are all essential, to be sure, but even before these is seeking His kingdom. We are to seek His kingdom first, and all these other things will be added. We try to reverse this, and it never works.
2. We have all the power and might that our Lord used to defeat Satan’s temptations to defeat the temptations we face today! When we face temptation or trial, we often hear that we should resist it like our Lord resisted Satan. My response, at least mentally, is, “Yeah, right! He was God. I’m just a very weak human. There is no way I can do what He did!” Yet, I fail to remember that when our Lord lived His life here on earth, He did not do so using His own divine power but relied upon the power of His heavenly Father through the working of the Holy Spirit. And that same power is available to each and every one of us today!
Before we became His child through faith in Jesus Christ, we were slaves to sin. Nothing we did could measure up to God’s standards. We had no choice but to sin. But having accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, in Him we have now died to sin. Its power over us has been broken. We are free to choose. We may decide to serve sin still, to follow the old nature and its desires, or we may choose to serve our Lord. The power to carry out that choice is available. We have no excuse!
3. Our Lord had been fasting. He had been seeking God His Father and His will as He prepared to begin the public ministry to which God had called Him. Satan tempted Him by trying to divert His attention from the focus and purpose of that moment, the spiritual communion and sustenance to be had with God the Father, to a purely physical desire to fulfill His own appetite. Our Lord’s response highlights the importance of feeding the spiritual nature. We must indeed eat physically; our Lord’s answer indicates this. But we must also feed on all that God has said, His Word. What is the condition of our spiritual diet?
How often do we feed upon the Word of God? A person’s appetite is usually determined by their eating habits. If one consistently eats a large amount, that person will feel hungry even if he has had enough to eat. A person who does not eat enough will not feel hungry even though this person may be slowly starving themself to death. Your spiritual appetite works in the same manner. Many believers are on starvation diets spiritually without knowing it. We lack spiritual hunger for God’s Word because we fail to feed on it regularly.
4. Our Lord knew He was the Messiah. He knew God would protect Him. Satan’s temptation was, ‘Oh Yeah? Prove it!’ To tempt or put God to the test at this point would be calling upon God to do something just to see if God would do it. Our Lord did not need to be convinced, nor would Satan be swayed by any demonstration. There was no reason at this point to do this except to satisfy the pride of man, which says, ‘OK, I’ll show you!’ While there would be times our Lord would call upon His Father’s power to do miraculous things, walk on water, calm storms, heal the sick, raise the dead and so forth, He would never act out of personal pride just to prove a point, to show that ‘He was the Man!’ We, too, must be careful we do not try to put our Heavenly Father to the test, to do something just to gratify our pride.
5. Satan offered our Lord what was rightfully His. Someday every knee will bow to Him. What Satan offered to give Him rightfully belonged to Him. The temptation was to take a shortcut to achieve a good end, a desirable goal. God not only sets the goals and the ends but how these ends are to be achieved. The process of achieving an end is often more important and valuable than the end itself. God had ordained that our Lord would be the King of kings, but to become that, He must first be a servant and go to the cross to bear our sin. Satan was offering our Lord a way to achieve a good end without having to go through something He did not look forward to doing. In our lives, we are often tempted to take shortcuts to achieve a desirable goal or end. While there is nothing inherently wrong with choosing an easier method of doing something, be very careful that we do not bypass a needed or essential process in taking a shortcut.