By Xiaoyu

The Bible says, “Again, the devil takes him up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And said to him, All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me. Then said Jesus to him, Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil leaves him, and, behold, angels came and ministered to him” (Mat 4:8-11). I believe everyone who has read the Bible knows that Satan tempted Eve into sin in the beginning. Here Satan tempted the Lord Jesus several times but the Lord Jesus used a sentence “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” to counterattack Satan powerfully to make it fail in humiliation, turn backward and stray away from the Lord Jesus. From this, I saw the evil and shamelessness of Satan and that God Himself is the truth and can triumph over all of Satan’s temptations and schemes. After reading these scriptures, I pondered: What are other actual meanings of the Lord Jesus being tempted? What kind of inspiration can this matter bring to us believers in God? I discussed these issues with some brothers and sisters in the Lord but I didn’t quite understand them. Afterward, I read a passage of words in a spiritual book and it made me reap great benefits.

The spiritual book says, “Therefore, the Lord Jesus said this phrase which is important for each and every person: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve,’ which states that except for the Lord, except for God Himself, if you serve another, if you worship Satan the devil, then you wallow in the same filth as Satan. You would then share Satan’s shamelessness and its evil, and just like Satan you would tempt God and attack God. Then what would your end be? You would be loathed by God, struck down by God, and destroyed by God, isn’t that right? After Satan had tempted the Lord Jesus several times without success, did it try again? Satan did not try again and then it left. What does this prove? It proves that Satan’s evil nature, its malice, and its absurdity and preposterousness is not worth a mention before God because the Lord Jesus defeated Satan in only three sentences, after which it scurried away with its tail between its legs, too ashamed to show its face again, and it never tempted Him again. Since the Lord Jesus had defeated this temptation of Satan, He could now easily continue the work that He had to do and assume the tasks that lay before Him. Does everything that the Lord Jesus said and did in this situation carry some practical meaning for everyone if it is applied now? (Yes.) What sort of practical meaning? Is defeating Satan an easy thing to do? (No.) What would it be then? Must people have a clear understanding of Satan’s evil nature? Must people have an accurate understanding of Satan’s temptations? (Yes.) If you ever experience Satan’s temptations in your own life, and if you are able to see through to Satan’s evil nature, will you be able to defeat it? If you know about Satan’s absurdity and preposterousness, would you still stand by Satan and attack God? (No, we wouldn’t.) If you understand how Satan’s malice and shamelessness are being revealed through you—if you clearly recognize and know these things—would you still attack and tempt God in this way? (No, we wouldn’t.) What will you do? (We will rebel against Satan and abandon it.) Is that an easy thing to do? (No.) This is not easy, to do this, people must frequently pray, they must often place themselves before God, and they must always examine themselves” (“God Himself, the Unique V”).

From this passage of the words, I understood: When Satan tempted the Lord Jesus, because the Lord Jesus has the truth, and can recognize the evil nature, malice and absurdity of Satan, He triumphed in the temptations of Satan and Satan felt disgraced to show its face and then left with its tail between its legs, no longer blocking God’s work. Meantime, through this matter, God wants to let us know: On the path of believing in God, we often face different kinds of temptations of Satan. God wants to save us, Satan wants to fight over mankind with God and isn’t willing to see us come into the presence of God to receive His salvation, so it does everything possible to interrupt and stand in the way of God’s work of saving people with various means. In this way, we will encounter different tests, such as the temptations of money, fame, gain and status, various evil trends of the world deceiving us, the unbelievers dragging us into doing some things God doesn’t like, we encountering some of illness and adverse events that happen in our houses and so on. At this time, only if we go before God to pray to Him, seek the truth and use God’s words as the weapons can we defeat Satan, stand by God and stand firm in our testimony to God. Take when Job was tempted by Satan, for example: His flocks and herds all over the hills were carried off by the robbers, his servants were killed, his children lost their lives and his whole body became covered in boils. However, facing being tempted by Satan time and again, Job had a heart that revered God to pray to God and to seek His will. At last, he could say, “the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). Job’s testimony made Satan ashamed and defeated. Also it made Satan see that a person whose heart was occupied by God’s words could prevail over any evil forces and bear witness to God.

Now is already the last days and is the time in which the spiritual struggle is tensest. I read some words of exhortation and warning in this book: “On earth, all manner of evil spirits are endlessly on the prowl for a place to rest, are ceaselessly searching for the corpses of men to eat up.” “You must be awake and waiting at every moment, and you must come before Me more. You must recognize the various plots and cunning schemes of Satan, know the spirit, know people and be able to discern all kinds of people, matters and things….” These words make me understand: We must be awake at every moment because Satan is by our side and will tempt us into committing a sin and being distant from God at any time. We may fall into Satan’s trickery from the slightest carelessness and be exploited by it to do evil things that resist God. Therefore, the secret of we overcoming Satan’s temptations is reading more of the word of God and praying to God in all things. Only if we rely on God’s word can we discern all of Satan’s tricks. And no matter what kind of things we encounter, we should use God’s word as the basis. When Satan carries out the ruses, we should use God’s words as the weapons to do battle with Satan. Only in this way can we have the strength to overcome the various temptations of Satan. Especially, we should always remember the Lord Jesus’ word: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve” (Mat 4:10). This is of the utmost importance to each of us who believes in God.