Matthew 431-11 - The Supreme Temptation

From oub of obseurdty came a Jewish carpenter ta be baptised by John. As

he entered the river a dramatic incident oceurred; there was a dove, the heavens
opened and a voica said {This is my Son, with whem I am well pleased." } In this
manner Jesus of Nazareth began his ministry as the Christ, tha annointed one

ef the Lord, It was both a call from God and a coronation, surely a time for

jubslation and celebrating. What followed, however, is one of the most pro~
found incidents recorded in the gospel narrative.

Jesus retired to a lonely spot in the wilderness for forty days. 1%

Was 4 gr eat thing that had happened to hin, a tremendous responsi bility that

had been dain upon his shoulders. There could be no doubt / he had a mission
to accomplish and it would require his all to perform it./ And so for forty

Gays and nights he thought, and reasoneds questioned and doubted—and when

it was over he was reno prepared and determined to carry out bis agsigned
task. :
livery father knows that there comes a time in nis son's life when the son

mist go it alone, must face life's alternatives and make adeoision. In this

way only does a boy reach the maturity of manhood. This is precisely the
experience that Jesus here encountered. He 2 was a man with a job to doz there

were many different ways of going about that jobs had to sit and think,

to elimingte the inferior ways and to finally make his deci sion.

The forty days in the wilderness hap @been called the period of temptation —
and a trying forty days it vas./ As he pondered his mission, the power that

was his, our Lord, was truly tei pted to choose di fferjnt teans with which to

accomplish his goal, | For him it was like a fork in the road, he must go one

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way or the other, he had to make a decision. It was a chance for success or

taiture,| one road was the way of truth, the other wag not.

Tae doubts and temptations that beset him were very nemal, personal and

human phenomena. They anpealed to those desires whi ch are supreme in the

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hearts of men~~the desire for mtatial comfort, the desire for popularity,

and the desire for power and influence./ These are not sirange desires, they
are present in the hearts of each one of us~~and the ton ptations that

inflame then plague us day after day. / As a matter of fact the man who is

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comfortable, popular and influential has become the mpdel for our culture,/ 80

we need not think that Jesus! temptations were unique and occurred only to
him; worded slightly diffcrently they apply to our odtuatd ons ana we do well
to observe the reaction tiey prompted in our Lord,

To this we will return{ but for the moment let ug! iook at the meaning and

significance this story sheds on the word temptation. . we often think that

ifwe are good, if we truly try to be Christians somehow we wlll be immune

from teuptation. wWe think thet if our faith is strong enough we wlll nab

question or dowt. | For some, questioning and doub ting. have besome the

marks of weak faith, Christianity has become blind, wathinking acceptance,

there is no place fo the terptation to ask questi ons, to think and te
reason./ To these, the story of Jesus! forty days of temptati ons speaks loudly.
Our Lord himself, before he could fully perform his task, had to fase tempta-
tions. /Doubt, and questioning were a necessity, they were the necessary

steps of preparation on the way to his goal.
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No good cause, no trubh is available wicss first there is doubt and

questi. on./ Religion that refuses to face the teuptatdéns to doubt and questin

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cannot be called Faith. / This story, from the beginning of Jesus! minist

demonstrates finally that doubt is an integral part of faith.

In the wilderness Jesus pondered one thing--his lack and how best to
go about it. He mist decide the right way, the most Lrsentsve way to serve
his father. Food was scarce in Palestine; in a land where only 1/5 of

the countryside was@able bread was precious indeed. Jesus knew the misery

of the peasantry, he knew how often they went to bed with no bread at all.

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By using his power to miraculously turn racks into loaves of bread he

could feed ktre Palentines! hungry multitudes while at|the same tine drawing

attention to himself and ‘is gospel. out, "Mian shall|not live by bread

alone." / He was taupted, it scemed like a good idea, but something important
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was inissing, it wasn't the right wey. |

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Perhaps the best way would be for him to start a insurrection against

the government. /ralestine and many other _homan Provinces were seething emildrons

of hatred and resent. Together, under common Leadership they could probably

overthrow Tiberius Caesar, It wuld be effective all aright--the whole warld

would know the name Jesus, crowds would shout their ises to the Liberator _

and emanciipa tor. Certainly in the position he could pateneeley capry out

his Father's will. And yet here too something was mipsing. It was a good

cause and Jesus was tenpted by it, but it was not the true way either.

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A little less extrane is the temptation te popularity, There would be

no miraculous creation of food, no revolution and bloodshed, just a startling

feat—like jumping down of f the high pinnacle of the tearile, He wuld imagine

he

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the crowd that would quickly gather below, pbinting and hurmuring, specu-

lating whether he would jum or not, And when he did

throw himself in their

midst and get up _eharmed they would know _that the power of God was with

him. The word would soread quickly, his fume would extend throughout the

land. Surely he could better save his father after he had made his name

mean something. / After all the people were —" needed to be

wakened up, to be startled_into belief.

And yet there was something here that caused Jesds to refuse it. The

teaptation was creat, it was not a difficult or complicated titing to do, and

what is more it was a good cause he was thinking ide a Did it really matter 7

which way he went about it, so long as he accomplished it?/ What did it matter
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je the people heard the Pespel all else was unimportait! /It is a question of

ends and means: /do worthy ends justify any means? In

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not-~that the means are just_as important as the ends{

his answers Jesus said

that a workhy goal

the goal is achieved.

dees not open the field to any alternative/ so long as

what is the danger scones! tw Six, iantt it most

iaportant that the ends

be accomplished? wasn't the important thing }hat Jess spread the word regard-

less of the way he chose to do it? the danger here 18 subtle and hiddeg fand

perhaps invisible to most of us.
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when so much emphasis is put on getting something sone ft signifi cance

of the meanss-and the way we do it,-easily becomed enlarged and exaggerated.

Many a good cause has been lost or dirtied by the way

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olished, Hany a worthy cause has been forgotten ae

in which it was accom—

man become so enfatuated
YSERA SE Sea ae

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with the means by which it is carried out.

Jesus saw this subtle danger, he knew that if he

made himself popular

by performing a miraculous feat that people would be $0 interested in him they
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would neglect to Look beyond to his gospel.

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ais gees,

would be Lost amid the

attention he had won-the ends did not justity Bp GENS » /

worthy cause, but who somewhere along the—Line have e

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troyed the truth and goodness of the original idea b

History is full of incidents where men have take

nh up a splendid idea, a

lther forgotten or des-
the way they were

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carrying it out.

In an i2th century the church decided to purify

itself of ren The original idea was a true and

the historic faith, to rid the gospel of Jesus Christ

question the walidity of this idea and this goal? Bu

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Spanish Inquisition had become a tool of the state,
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and lying, it's mthods were cruel and barbéf{dn; its

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at the stake and countless others deformed and tortur

the goal was a good one but the means became so hideo
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quickly forgotten.

In the late twenties and the early thirties a 4 feated,

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the gospel by ridding
noble one--to vreserve

lo perversion. who would

tb in a very_few years the

it operated by subversion

toll was thousands burned

It was uninbentional,
ug that the goal is @°

ied.

dis

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usted and
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poverty stricken German nation gave_ear to.a rising young raggiee

promises were msic to their ears; he promised to restore their land to its

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proper rank as a leader along nations, he promised ta restore the country's

economy to a sound basis., he promised jobs to hundreds of thousands of

unemployed laborers.

He promised security and happin

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ess, pride and prestige.

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6.

His gals were noble, his aims struck a spirit of nationalism in every

German. His prontises wére so sweet that an entire nation was whlling to turh

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its head as he went about accomplishing those alms. / He] wan crude at times,

his party had shown signs of prubaltty Pout what did that matter if he fulfilled

his promises. For those ends | any means would be justified.” And from those
penance

means came Adolf Hitler, from his manner of doing things came the nightmare of

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the Nagi era. / The sweetness of his early promises had disappeared in a few
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short years, fais goals were long forgotten in the midst of the barbarianism

he ignited. / History shows that the ends, no matter wad noble, do not justify

any means. |
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We do not have to go back eight Eytics in histary or across the ocean

to find an illustration of theggroblem Jesus encounterdd in his wilderness

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temptation. The issue of ends and means is present in jour own nation. it

involves a moral question of the same degree Jesus faced and in resolving it
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4n our own lives we may gain help from his decision.” In the past few months

much has been said about the movement to rid our socieby ef all subvergive

characters « The mvenent has for Lts sing, goals that are of the highest and

most honorable nature. Few Americans would hesitate tp agree that our

named

liberties ere precious, that they deserve defending and poecerings No one

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would argue that freedom is a wonderful thing and that; it ought to be protected.

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These are the goals, or the ends, of the movement § tage is no doubt that

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the goals are noble and noobie, |

The movenent is very similar to that surrounding tne late Senator, icCarthy,
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a men whose life was dedicated to defending the nation he Loved and to pre-

serving the freedom he held dear.

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But do these goals, even these foals, justify a campaign of slander

and libel? Do these goals justify a barrage_of undounfied, unproven and

totally irresponsible name calling? Do these high and| mighty goals recbhify

any verbal a:tack on any one—-even if it is a1 ex_Presjdent, or a late

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Secretary of State, or the Chief Justice of the | Court?
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Do these goals validate causing a man to Lese his| job, his friends and

social status merely because his brother-in-law's best| friend attended a

leftist political rally in i936 Do these goals justify firing a widow

secretary from the State Department because her husband long ago was ta@-
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pereraly sateressas in socialisa?

These are the tacties, the means, that have grown| out of the goal of
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defading our nation. They oresent a question of ethits of morals; the

question of ends and means that was faced, struggled with, and answered by

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Jesus Christ. |

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The ends, even if they be the most noble the human mind concBives, never

justify any odd means. Perhaps Jesus would have been @ more influential
preacher had he embarked on his ministry by heccunaly jumaping from the

temple. / But he did nots] He realized that these means) would quickly grow

out of proportion and overshadow his real goal. Men would faii to see and

hear the Word of God in their cW¥flous faith in 4 man who had jumped from the

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temple. |
He faced this temptation, and an attractive one if was, and refused

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ite Instead he chose the hard way, the way of teubinne way of love and

suffering. / The means he chose did not overshadow his goed —~but enriched it.

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He chose means that grew out of his goal. We have seen that his choice

was an accurate one.
The temptation to let means overshadow ends is present in the lives of

every one of us; the story of Jesus in the wilderness speaks directly to us.
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Tt is not just en academic question to be debated in a books and classroom.

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when the end is last in the means, whenoble caused de rioratesamidst unethical

practices it becomes a personalrdligious question.
Most of us are not _involved_in the causes I have = as illustrations.

But everyone_of us has some cause, some ultimate goal bo woiech we are de-

voted. It may be the efficient operation of the P,T,A}, it could be the

suecess of a local. fund raising caupaign, it could be the effective ministry
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of the Dyer Union Church, it may be the ereati on and, intenance of a home

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and family. |

Regardless of the sped fic goals, we are called ubon to exauine the vay

in which we are going about the achievement of that gobi. Have we lest sicht

of it, have we sguqumbed to the temptation to let the heats bew@me our ultimate

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mui Have we chosen an easy way that appears on tf e surface to be right
and effective?

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Tt is not an easy cuestiop, and there is no ready answer for anyone.

we can, however, consider the decisiveness of our Lord. For lis cause, the

means could not be allowed to destroy the ends. For Gam the means of his

ministry were so closely tied to his goal that no conflict arose. He chose

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the difficult » path, there was no easy Way.

Our prayer mu: must be that we J like hin,/will have the strength to turh_our

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backs on the wrong way and to cheose the right, no matter how didfiecultj--

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that we, like him, might have the power to resist taka the Supreme Temptation. /