“Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him.
-Mark 4:10
This morning as I was reading my Sun Stand Still devotional by Steven Furtick, he used Matthew 4:1-11. Now I have heard this passage probably over a hundred times, and no that’s not an exaggeration! It was used as the Gospel message last year by one of my teammates on tour. I have heard it at a countless number of shows and run throughs. So Lord knows that I could almost quote it to a tee, but I know that He always has a way of revealing something new through scripture, even if I have heard it hundreds of times, because “…the word is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12)
So if you don’t know what this passage of scripture is about, let me tell you! It starts off explaining how Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil and He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and became very hungry. Well yeah, I would think so! He didn’t eat for 40 days! So throughout the next 9 verses it goes on to explain all of the temptations the devil used to try and draw Jesus away from His purpose of being there. He started off by telling Jesus that if He was truly the Son of God, just turn these stones into some bread. But Jesus says, “Nah son!”…well maybe not like that. But He throws scripture at the devil and walks away. Then the devil takes Him to the highest point of the temple and tells Jesus to jump off and he quotes scripture to Jesus saying that the angels will catch Him and not even let His foot be hurt on a rock. But Jesus counteracts his scripture and says “The scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.'” (Matthew 4:7) Boom! Take that devil! You can’t beat Jesus in the Bible Bee! It’s all about Him anyways! Finally, the devil gives it one more shot and takes Jesus to the highest mountain and offers to give Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world if Jesus just bows down to satan and worships him. But then comes my favorite part! Jesus says, “Get out of here, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10) Jesus exercises His divine authority and the devil runs away like a little girl!
It’s easy to just look at this passage and think, “Wow that’s great! Jesus is so legit!”
And then we go on living our lives! And day in and day out we are tempted by things that the devil tries to throw in our lives saying, “Come on, you think you’re a child of the King?! Pshhh, if you’re so great and powerful, stop looking at the stuff on the computer! Ha! Told you, you couldn’t do it!” Or, “You think you have crazy audacious faith? I bet you can’t go out and heal the blind or the deaf!” And day after day, week after week, we go on believing his lies and living in fear that we’ll never amount to anything or that we’ll never have an effect on God’s Kingdom!
But if we would just take a closer look at the passage and look at what Jesus did, it’s so simple! He really only did two simple things: quoted, trusted, and believed scripture and told the devil to scram! That’s really all He did. Now if we could only learn to apply this to our lives! If the devil is hitting you left and right with discouraging thoughts or telling you that you can’t do something, look up scripture that proves that God promises those things to you! Whether it’s finances, purity, or simply knowing that you are loved by the King of Kings! And once you have all of that, just remember that you have Jesus living in you and He has “…been given all authority in Heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18)
