What Does the Devil Want PDF Print E-mail
I.        What Does the Devil Want?
So, did you notice the title to this morning’s sermon, What Does the Devil want?     That’s easy, isn’t it?  You learned that in Sunday school.  The Devil wants to destroy you.  He wants to eat you up.  He’s an enemy, Peter says, who prowls the earth like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. 

When I hear that verse I think of the movie, Ghost in the Darkness. The story of the man-eating lions of Salvo who collected the bones of the men they ate in their lair like trophies.  Now that was a scary movie. 

But let me tell you something that may surprise you.  The devil doesn’t care about you.  Satan is not particularly hungry for human flesh.  It’s really God the Devil is after.  Let me offer an analogy.  Not just any analogy, but the analogy that God Himself gives.  The Bible says, in several places, that God loves you and me like a husband loves his wife or like a Father loves his children or a mother even.  Now if you wanted to hurt me, the best thing you could do would be to hurt my wife or my children or grandchildren.  That would be a pain that would pierce my soul.  But there is a pain even greater even than that.  If you could turn my wife and my children against me I would be undone. 

By devouring you the Devil strikes back at God.  By turning you against Him, the enemy thrusts a spear into the Father’s soul.  Make no mistake:  there is a devil and he is alive and well on planet earth.  No matter what the world around us may say.  No matter how invisible that devil and his dominions may be.  No matter how much we ignore him or deny him or act as if he doesn’t exist.  That devil is determined to take you down and to turn you against your God.   
   
II.    The Danger of Desire
How will he do it?  How does the Devil destroy a human soul?  How does he separate us from our God?  Well, oddly enough, he does it a lot like I do when I catch fish.  He tempts us.  He lures us away from God toward death by appealing to our desires, our ordinary human desires.  The connection between desire, the Devil and death is everywhere in Scripture.  Genesis chapter 3, verse 6, for example.  It was when Eve saw that the forbidden fruit was “good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable to make one wise” that she took it and ate, the rest is history.

James, the brother of Jesus, says that we are tempted to do evil when we are enticed by our inward desires.  When desire has conceived it gives birth to sin.  Sin, when full grown, leads to death.  The apostle John summarizes those desires that destroy in this way:  the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.  When we hear those phrases, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, we say yuck.  Lust, it sounds so dirty, so sordid.  We think of a person bound by his addiction to pornography, or driven by his love of money to do all kinds of evil things.  We forget that the word translated “lust” is simply desire.  We fail to remember that it was Eve’s desire to eat a beautiful forbidden fruit that just might make her wise, which started the snowball of human history down a hill toward hell.

Desire is simply that.  Desire.  It is the hunger that every human being finds in his soul.  And it includes hungers as innocent and natural as the hunger for food, or the hunger for love, or the hunger for meaning & purpose in life.  Satan does not come into our lives dragging the chains that will bind us.  He does not pound on the door of our hearts, and show us graphic pictures of fire and brimstone and people screaming in pain and then say, Come, give me a half hour of your  life so I can damn you!  No. He just quietly figures out what bait will lure us away from God.  Then he carefully cast those things in front of us, or draws our attention to them.  He keeps himself well hidden from our sight, as all good fishermen do.  He lets the desires, the hungers of our soul, draw us into his net.  That’s why the story of Jesus in the wilderness is so important and so instructive for us, especially the first temptation.

III.    Not By Bread Alone
By the third temptation the enemy has taken off his mask.  He’s thrown down the gauntlet, if you will, and put it all on the line.  He has offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, all the civilizations that have turned their back on God with all their power, all their glory, all their pleasures.  He has said.  Here.  You can have it all.  If you do just one thing: Bow down and worship me.  That’s all.  We say, That’s a temptation?
   
Jesus would never fall for something like that! That’s too obvious.  No, Jesus wouldn’t.   But we would and we do.  We sacrifice the sovereignty of God for much smaller things.  We deny Him and disobey Him for something more like a piece of fruit.  You know, the approval of a fair-weather friend; the pleasure of a passing moment, even the possibility of a higher pay check.  But guess what?  If we fail the test of the final temptation, the obvious one, how much more do we fall prey to the first temptation, the really subtle one? Matthew 4, verse 2:  After fasting 40 days and 40 nights Jesus was hungry.  Jesus wasn’t just hungry, like you and I are hungry for our next meal.  Jesus was starving.  After 40 days he had reached the human limit of food deprivation.  Verse 3:  So the tempter came to him and said, “If you are the son of God tell these stones to become bread.”

We wonder to ourselves, Why not?  I mean, what’s the big deal?  Jesus had a need, a real need, and not some frivolous or sinful desire.  Jesus had the power to meet that need.  So, why didn’t he do it?  Because He didn’t have the Father’s permission.  God didn’t want Jesus to turn those stones into bread.  God didn’t want Jesus to satisfy his very real & legitimate desire.  Now why do I say that?  I say that because of what Jesus himself says in verse 4.  Jesus answered the devil:  It is written:  Man does not live on bread alone; But on every word that comes from the mouth of God.  Jesus takes the devil, and us, back to another wilderness, in another time & place.  He takes us back to the 40 yrs when the children of Israel were wandering in the desert.  The 40 years when God tested them; and not just tested them, but taught them and trained them.  At least that is what Moses says in Deuteronomy chapter 8:  Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years…He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

You remember the story.  Every morning the people would wake up and walk out of their tents to see this stuff on the ground, these white, frosty crystals.  They called it Manna, which means “What is it?” because they didn’t know.  But whatever it was it was good to eat; and it’s what they lived on for 40 years.  God commanded them to go out every morning and collect just enough manna for that day.  He even told them the exact amount they could collect.  But some people weren’t so sure that was a good idea.  So they collected more; you know, to be safe, to be smart.  The only problem is that when they woke up the next morning what they had collected had rotted.  Just in case they missed the point.  On the day before the Sabbath, when they weren’t allowed to work, God commanded His people to collect a double portion of the manna.  On the Day of Rest the manna did not rot.

God was teaching them, and by extension, teaching us, to trust Him for their daily bread.  Give us this day our daily bread, we pray.  That’s Jesus turning the lesson of the manna into a prayer.  For 40 years God trained his people to trust Him for their daily bread, their every need.  He didn’t just train them through the manna.  He trained them through a word, a word of command.  Do this; don’t do that.  Collect this much, not that much.  Some 1300 years later Jesus is led by the Spirit into the Wilderness.  He is led by the Spirit to fast and pray, for 40 days and nights.  Then the Devil comes along, at Jesus’ weakest point, and says, Come on, man, enough is enough! God doesn’t want you to die.  He wants you to be happy.  Alive.  How are you going to be the Savior if you die? Turn these stones into bread.  Eat, man.  Eat!

Jesus listens, not to the Devil, but to His Father in heaven.  He does not hear his Father say, Eat.  He hears Him say, Not yet. Even though Jesus is so hungry he could die; not just feel like dying, but die, He says, No.  I will not satisfy even my real & legitimate hunger without the permission of God.  For it is written:   Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Every word of permission.  Every word of provision.  Every word of direction.  In other words, I don’t have an independent right to satisfy even my desire for food apart from the permission and provision of God.  Which means I don’t have an independent right to satisfy any desire apart from the permission and provision of God.  Do you believe that?  You should.  Especially in this world of ours; a world that has, in many ways, come under the control of the enemy of our souls.  And because of that is a world that appeals to our desires in a way that leads us to destruction.
   
Now, I could take any of our basic human desires to illustrate my point.  But let me take just two; you will have to think about the rest.  Let me take a young girl’s desire for love.  I am talking about the kind of love that leads to marriage, the kind of love that can be experienced in marriage.  Love that includes friendship and emotional closeness, and yes, sexual intimacy.  It’s something we all desire, and it is one of the deepest hungers of our soul.  To be united body and soul with another human being.  It is a good desire, created in us by God.  But look what happens to that desire in this world of ours.  Young girls, even before they reach adolescence, are taught to be sexy.  In fact, sexy is a good word in our world.  It means to be cute, but in a slightly alluring way.  To draw the attention of boys to my physical features.  Is that good?  Is it good to dress that way?  Is it good to get men’s attention by means of sexual attraction?  Well, where does it lead?      It can lead young girls to become objects, not persons.  To think of themselves and to be thought of by others in terms of their bodies, not their souls.  It can lead young girls to become sexually active, to give themselves away in search of something called love and intimacy, which they don’t ever find.  It can lead some to starve themselves to achieve some sought after body shape, the one they see on TV and in the movies, the sexy one.  Therefore, it can lead right into the hands of the devil, and it does, every day.

What about the desire for significance?  What do I mean by the desire for significance?  I mean the desire to be and do something that counts, that the people around us consider important.  That, too, is one of those deep desires we find embedded in the human soul, a hunger that drives us and shapes our lives.  But what shape does it give to our lives?   How about King of the Hill?  Did you ever play that game as a child?  Where you try to take a small hill, and throw every one else off, until you can establish yourself as king of the hill?  I sure did.  I learned to get on top and stay on top by keeping other people down.  I learned to measure myself by how many people I could exercise power over.  Just a childhood game?  Maybe.

But how much of our adult lives are spent trying to achieve a sense of significance by building little kingdoms, little hills we can climb in competition with everyone else.  Maybe we call it keeping up with the Jones’s now; or simply, succeeding.  But is it good?  Does it lead toward life, the life Jesus came to give?  How does it fit with the prayer Jesus taught us to pray?  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

You see, our desires can be good or bad.  Or more accurately, they can lead us toward God and his will or toward the devil and our destruction.  In this world of ours we better beware.  We better be aware that the enemy of our souls appeals to our desires to lead us to destruction.  To do what I want the way I want, without regard for God, is sin.  To sin is to take a path headed for destruction, however attractive or innocent it may seem right now.  Man does not live by bread alone, by the satisfaction of his desires, but by every word that comes  from the mouth of God. Every word of permission; every word of command; every word of counsel.  Every word.  So what then shall we do?

IV.    Following Jesus into the Wilderness
May I suggest that we follow Jesus into the Wilderness, for the next 40 days of Lent?  It is not by accident that Jesus’ victory over the Devil came when & where it did.  It happened in a desert.    And what is the Desert?  Well a desert is a place of scarcity.  It is by definition a place where our basic needs are not met.  It is a place where we can come face to face with our hungers and feel them not being satisfied.  In that place we begin to ask questions, like…Is this all right  Am I going to be all right?  Or is this really what my life is all about, satisfying my desires? Is there something deeper, something stronger, than my desire for food or safety, comfort or significance? Is intimacy with the Almighty more important than all this?     Do I even know what intimacy with God feels like?

The Desert is a place of scarcity where I come face to face with my inner being.  The desert is also a place of solitude.  A quiet place.  A Place so quiet I can actually feel my heart beat, and hear a cricket chirp, or the wind blow.  Perhaps in the desert we can finally hear the voice of God.  We can ask ourselves:  do I live by every word that comes from His mouth?  Do I desire to hear from You, Lord, and be directed by You, Lord, and taught by You, more than I desire my daily bread?  Jesus once said something, something fundamental to our faith.  He said, If anyone, anyone at all, wants to be my disciple, here is what he must do:  he must deny himself…I think that means, at least, place my desires under the rule of God.  He must deny himself, Jesus said, and take up his cross daily.  I think that means denying myself, dying to my selfish desires, must become a way of life.  He must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Do what I do; go where I go; which, of course, is revealed in His Words.  But how in the world do we do this?  How do we follow Jesus into the desert when we live such busy, noisy lives?   Not an easy question.

But let me suggest the three things I suggested Wednesday night, at our Ash Wednesday Service.
May I suggest that for the next 40 Day of Lent, leading up to Good Friday you do three things.
First, Unplug from something.  Follow Jesus into the wilderness by unplugging from the noise & distraction.  Maybe it is your TV, or a particular kind of program on TV.  Maybe it is your iphone in the evening or your facebook account.  Take 40 days away.  40 days without texting.  40 days without listening to talk radio in the car.  40 days in which you unplug from something so that you can focus on hearing the word of God.  Follow Jesus into the Wilderness by unplugging something. 

Secondly, follow Jesus into the Wilderness by fasting and praying.  Do without something you desire, preferably something you are attached to, something you turn to when your soul begins to churn.  Have you ever noticed how quickly we do that?  We feel this vague something in our souls, this feeling of unrest or ennui.  We’re not even sure what it is.  But even before we can figure it out, even before we feel it deeply, we reach for something, something to eat, something to drink, some knob to turn, some button to push so we can be distracted.  So I invite you to fast this Lent.  To feel your desires and to say NO.  Maybe it is your desire for sugar, maybe it is a sugary drink; maybe wine or chocolate; maybe chips or ice cream or maybe you need to do without food one whole day a week.  The purpose of this ‘doing without’ is to come face to face with your desires and to deny them.  To experience the tension between your desires and your desire for God and to choose God and His word above your desires.  To discipline your desire to the obedience of God.

The third thing I ask you to do this Lenten Season is to receive the Word of God, like a seed planted in your soul that will bring new life.  Fill you heart and mind with the words of God.  Meditate on them.  Maybe even memorize them.  In the absence of your TV or your evening meal, turn to God.  Follow Jesus into the Wilderness.  Engage in the battle for your soul at the level of your basic desires.  Deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him.  Unplug and hear God Speak.  Receive the word as a seed planted in your soul.  For man does not live by the satisfaction of his desires alone; But by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 March 2011 21:18