Imagine being in a desert fasting for 40 days without food. How hungry and thirsty would you be? Imagine the fatigue you would experience. For many of us, under these circumstances, we wouldn’t make the best decisions.
Jesus on the other hand was fulfilling a purpose greater than himself. Let’s take a closer look:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:1-4).
The first thing we need to know is that he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. The Holy Spirit had a purpose behind this.
Let’s compare Matthew 4 with Deuteronomy 8:
“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:1-3).
Notice the similarities? The Israelites were led by God into the wilderness and they endured for 40 years. During those 40 years, God provided for them but he allowed them to endure for a few reasons:
- That they would be humbled
- To test what was in their heart to know if they would obey God
- They were going to enter their promised land
Jesus in Matthew 4 is an image and fulfillment of this very event!
Jesus endures 40 days of fasting in the wilderness and the devil comes to tempt him to keep him from obeying God but fails. The Spirit led him there to be tested and endure to fulfill what the Israelites could not fulfill – making him our perfect redeemer.
Since Jesus endured, he exercised authority when he rebuked the devil.
Photo credit: Unsplash/Kyle Cottrell