How to Fight Temptation - Mark 1:9-15 - Elliot's BlogElliot's Blog

In the previous study (Mark 1:1-8 – “The Beginning”), we met John the Baptist whom God had chosen and sent to “prepare the way of the Lord” (v.3). Now, in this next study from the Gospel of Mark, we get to meet the Lord!

The Baptism, Mark 1:9-11

In the days that John ministered by the Jordan River, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v.4), Jesus Christ the Son of God “came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Many people over the centuries have wondered why Jesus had to be baptized, but all curiosity began with John himself who told Jesus flatly, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus responded, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:14-15).

The truth is, sinless Jesus did not need to repent for the forgiveness of sins—but He was baptized in obedience to his Father and in identification with this sinful world.

John fulfilled his calling here, having finally “prepared the way of the Lord” (v.3). He baptized “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), and what a scene it was: a sensory meeting of the Trinity as God the Son came out of the water, as God the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and as God the Father made his amazing declaration:

You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. (v.10-11)

The God-Man

There’s no denying the fact of the Trinity, even if our sinful minds cannot fully understand it. Any person or any religion that willfully rejects or denies this singular truth automatically places itself into the column of “cult”, as do those who deny either Jesus’ deity or his humanity. And in this passage we get a taste for both.

In his baptism, we witness Jesus’ deity. We see that He has the blessing and power of God the Holy Spirit. We hear that Jesus has the approval, love, and pleasure of God the Father. And we hear God say to this human who was born of a Mary thirty or so years before, “You are my beloved Son”—not “have become” or “will be.”

Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is God (John 10:30). He always has been, always will be.

The Temptation, Mark 1:12-15

In the temptation that follows his baptism, Jesus’ displays his humanity. He hungered. He suffered. He wore down. He faced temptations, both spiritual and physical. The Creator of the universe even required the ministry of angels when it was all said and done.

Tempted for 40 Days

It’s amazing to me, as we synchronize the Gospel accounts, that Mark leaves out what most would consider “the juicy details” of this event. In both Matthew 4 and Luke 4, the authors tell us of three specific temptations that Jesus suffered from the mouth of the Devil after He had gone forty days without eating.

At first glance, it almost seems as if these three temptations were all there were. In leaving these details out, however, Mark gives us a better sense of what actually happened: Jesus wasn’t tempted only these three times at the tail-end of his fast, when He was physically weakest. The tempter is more relentless than that. Satan tempted the Son of God throughout those forty days (v.13), though the three temptations we read of elsewhere were perhaps the climactic trifecta of this Satanic offensive.

All the power of Hell arrays against the Son of Man at his most vulnerable—and Jesus won.

Tempted Like Me?

Why is this fact of duration so important? You’ve read about Jesus in Hebrews 4:15, that:

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

In every respect? That’s a bit hard to chew, isn’t it? We know that Jesus was meek and showed anger only when it was righteous to do so. We know that people hated Him and said all sorts of horrible things against Him, and yet He remained silent. Yet knowing that my own experience is a whole lot more convoluted than that, isn’t Hebrews 4:15 still a little hard to accept?

I don’t know about you, but when I compare my day filled with temptations to the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness (or whatever else is recorded in the Gospels), I have a hard time believing that He knows exactly what I’m going through. I mean, let’s be honest: Jesus didn’t have a smart phone and a billion hours or worthless entertainment at his fingertips. He didn’t have junk foods and pornography like we do today. He didn’t have as magnified a means of displaying his pride, selfishness, or greed as we do with all our technology and materialism.

So how can I trust Hebrews and know that Jesus really was tempted in the same way as me? I think Mark helps us out here.

Yes! Tempted Like Me

First of all, let’s remember that none of the Gospel writers—especially Mark—sat down to write Jesus’ full biography, beginning to end with all its juicy details. John gave a clue about why not:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book… Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 20:30, 21:25)

These men wrote the briefest accounts of the most spectacular life ever lived, and you could probably finish reading all four of them in a day! Their main intent was not to show how perfect Jesus was, though they certainly do reference it. Instead, they showed us how this Man, normal by all other appearances, proved Himself to be God’s own Son—how He died a death He didn’t deserve and took God’s wrath while doing it, and how He rose again to defeat sin and death and the devil.

Secondly, Mark and Matthew tell us that the Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness “to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1). That was the point. For the next 40 days, Jesus would do nothing but pray and face The Tempter, Satan himself. We’ve got to believe that Satan pulled out all the stops, and yet Jesus laid Himself open and bare to the devil. He even put Himself at a disadvantage, refusing to eat and therefore becoming increasingly weaker in body as the days wore on. Yet the weaker He became in body, the more dependent He was upon the Spirit, and the more closely He clung to the Word of His Father.

Now contrast Jesus in the wilderness to us today in lock-down. We’re stuck indoors with high-speed internet and refrigerators filled with food. We’ve got a stack of Bibles over there on the bookshelf, and still we find ourselves feeling the temptation to do something stupid or to waste our time is just too much to bear. We can barely motivate ourselves to dust off and feed on the God’s Word to us, yet sin still comes so naturally. The Apostle John warned against “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life” (1John 2:16), and we find ourselves fighting against those things every single day of our lives!

I strongly believe that Jesus was tempted with the same types of worthless things as we are, those lusts which have captured so many Christian servants and ruined so many ministries. If you spend all your time complaining that Jesus didn’t have to deal with the temptations of the internet or with the problems inherent in a global pandemic, then you’ll never recognize the way He overcame the temptations He did face—through His dependence upon the Word.

Matthew and Luke show us that with every attack from the devil, Jesus responded with the Word of God. Paul later tells us that we are to defend ourselves from Satan’s fiery darts with the Shield of Faith, and we attack him right back with the Sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:10-18). The questions for us then in these times of temptation are, “Where the heck has my shield of faith gone?” and “How sharp is this sword in my hand?” There’s only one way to combat the temptations you face, and that’s to do what Jesus did: fight them with the Word.

Action Points:

1) Where has your shield of faith gone?

Write down or tell someone your Bible-reading habits for the past year. Don’t sugarcoat them. Be honest.
What holes exist in your reading, studying, and memorizing?
What distractions should you be aware of that will douse the flame of passion that you sometimes have for the Word?
What accountability can you find that will keep you more faithfully in the Word?

2) How sharp is that Sword in your hand?

Spend an few minutes quoting as many Bible verses as you can.
What verses automatically come to mind when sin is tempting you?
Create a list of fifteen verses that you can study and memorize this week, which will help you fight off the devil and his lies.
Find an accountability partner who will encourage you to do even more.

See Also:

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