The tempter's winning technique

“Years ago, when I preached on the street, I discovered a fascinating thing,” relayed Jordan in a recent study. “When people debate, if somebody says something and you answer them back, whether what you say is true, false, makes sense or doesn’t make sense, people in the crowd will think, ‘Okay, he answered it; now what do you say?’

“And if you say something back, then they’ll look back at the other guy and say, ‘Okay, what do you say?’

“The crowd says, ‘Okay, he answered it,’ but you say, ‘Wait a minute! That didn’t answer anything!’ But they don’t get that and that’s what Satan’s doing. He understands that, ‘If I just throw it out there, it doesn’t have to make sense; it doesn’t have to be true to what the text says because nobody’s really going to examine and study the text anyway, because if they did they’d find out the truth and I wouldn’t have my lie.’

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In Thessalonians 3, Paul talks to the Thessalonians about how, if ‘the tempter’ should come and tempt them, they’d be able to withstand him.

“The Thessalonians had learned what Jesus Christ knew; that the ‘sword of the Spirit’ was the Word of God and if you’re going to have victory over the Adversary, you have to quote Scripture,” explains Jordan. “You have to stand on the Scripture. You have to trust and rely exclusively, and completely, and totally on the truth of God’s Word, and it’s the source of victory in temptation.

“Jesus knew what God had told Israel through Moses in Deuteronomy 8 that the very lifeblood of contact and knowing God was His Word. You can’t live without the Word of God. So when Satan comes and tempts Jesus, He says, ‘It’s written. Here’s what the Bible says.’

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“There’s only two times in the Bible Satan’s called ‘the tempter’ (Matthew 4 and I Thessalonians 3) and the references represent two parallel situations.

“Matthew 4 says, ‘And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. [4] But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
[5] Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
[6] And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

“Jesus Christ quotes Scripture to Satan, so when ‘the tempter’ comes at Him the next time, what does he do? He cites Scripture. So just because somebody comes along and talks about Jesus and having light, and quotes Scripture to do it . . .  you see, sometimes if somebody quotes a verse of Scripture, everybody thinks, ‘Ooh, must be good.’

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“There was a lady who used to come here to church for a long time and she was about the most confused person you’d ever meet about Thursday or Friday of every week.

“She’d come on Sundays and get all adjusted around, but then about Thursday or Friday, she was confused again.

“Finally, after several months of this, I asked her, ‘You’re okay on Sunday, but then by Thursday your mind’s all messed up again. How does that happen? Tell me, what do you do on Monday?’

“She says, ‘Oh, I watch the TV preachers.’ I said, ‘Well, why do you do that?’ and she said, ‘Well, I’m trying to take in the Word.’

“She would sit in front of the television Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and suck in—blip, blip, blip, blip—all that stuff off the religious channels.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever sat and watched a day of TBN or The Word or the Church Channel or World Harvest, but you can really hear some weird stuff and one guy will be weird, and the next guy will be weirder, and the next guy will sort of be normal and the next guy’s weird again.

“She said, ‘Well, they’re all talking about Jesus and they’re all reading the Bible.’ You see, that’s what Satan’s doing in Matthew. He doesn’t mind citing Scripture. Now, when he did cite it, look what he does:

“Verse 6 says, ‘And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’

“Come to Psalms 91 and notice how Satan quoted that because he’s got a revised version there. He does what they do back in Genesis 3. He omits stuff, he adds stuff and then he ignores the real stuff.

“Verse 11 says, ‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’ Look over in Matthew 4:6. Do you see anywhere where it says ‘and to keep thee in all thy ways’? No, Satan just omits that. Would that make a difference to the way the thing read?

“Psalms 91:12 says, ‘They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’ So Satan says in Matthew 4:6, ‘Lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’

 “See how he added a new dimension to what’s going on with that ‘lest at any time’? Now he’s a got a new dispensation stuck in there. And then he just stops.

"Look what he omitted. Psalms 91:13: ‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.’

“Who’s the lion? That’s Satan. Who’s the serpent? Satan. What does the verse say? The Messiah is going to tread on them. You know what that means? He’s going to execute Genesis 3:15 on them and bruise their head.

“The next verse says, ‘Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.’ God promised to Jesus, the Messiah, that He was going to destroy Satan and you see what he said in verse 14? ‘Because he hath set his love on upon me.’ He said, ‘You know why I’m going to do that for you? Because I love you.’

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“Satan says, ‘If thou be the son of God, turn these stones into bread.’ In Matthew 3, at the baptism, the Spirit of God descends on Christ and the voice of heaven says, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I’m well-pleased.’

“But Satan doesn’t quote it that way. He knows that if someone lives in the reality of the Father’s love for them he doesn’t have a chance to tempt him, so Satan leaves out ‘the beloved.’ He doesn’t want Christ to live in the reality of who God says He is.

“The same thing happens with the second reference. He stops the quote before it reminds the Lord Jesus Christ that the reason the Father’s going to do these things for Him is because of God’s value and esteem for Him.

“So what’s Satan doing? He cites scripture but he omits the part that doesn’t fit his program. He adds stuff in that isn’t dispensational and then he changes stuff, but he’s quoting Scripture.

“It’s a technique to cite Scripture. But he’s not citing Mahatma Gandhi or the Bhagavad Gita or the Talmud; he’s citing Scripture because he knows that’s what’s going to hook people.”