09-29-23-ENG.

"The ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. " 

John 14:30
NO CONTEST 

Read It: Matthew 4:1-2 
We've saved the best for last. In this final week of our current series, we want to study the triumph of Jesus Christ over the prince of darkness ness himself, "the great dragon ... the serpent of old ... the devil and Satan" (Revelation 12:9). There are so many good things to enjoy in these verses that it's hard to know where to begin. The greatest benefit of Christ's victory in head-to-head to-head spiritual warfare with Satan is that it confirmed the eternal victory tory of God's kingdom. When the Old Testament closed, it was still not clear who the winner was, because Israel was so inconsistent and unfaithful. ful. But when the book of Matthew opened with God becoming a man in the Person of Jesus Christ, the battle between heaven and hell became personal. And it was no contest. Along with the cosmic consequences of Jesus' triumph in the wilderness, ness, His temptation holds very crucial lessons for us in our battle against the enemy of our souls.We want to focus on these lessons this week. Please note what led up to this event. Matthew 4:1 begins with the word then, which points back to the end of chapter 3. 

There we find the account of Jesus' baptism, His public "coming out," a victorious moment. That often happens to us as well. Right on the heels of a victory comes a satanic attack. So we need to understand the context in which the battle was launched. Notice that it was God's idea for Jesus to go into the wilderness. That is, Jesus is on the offensive, not on the defensive. God set out to demonstrate strate Christ's superiority. This event wasn't the Devil's call, but his opposition sition was still real. You know, I'm awesome when I play basketball by myself. I can win when I play by myself, because there is no competition. Put someone in front of me waving his hand in my face, though, and it's a different ball game. The proof of how good you are is when you are opposed. Do you quit when the Devil starts waving his hand in your face? Think About It God allows you to be tempted so that you might prove that "greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).