"Jesus Crushes Satan With Three Simple Words!"

There is no easy way to say this, "If you haven't endured at least one wilderness experience in your life as a Believer, you might not be saved!"  Hold on before you stop reading this post. Please hear me out!

In the Gospel of John, Chapter 4 Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and verbally confirmed as the Messiah by God to the entire world.  The voice of God ordained Jesus as having spiritual authority in the earth realm. Then the Word of God says, Jesus was "driven" into the wilderness ( a place of suffering, adversity and desolation) by God (Himself) and "led" by the Holy Spirit. In other words, God was pushing and the Holy Spirit was pulling Him into exile! He did not chose this path. He didn't even get to enjoy His "anointing service."

So for 40 days and 40 nights (the number "40" represents, trials, testing and probation. It is the period of chastisement (training) for God's people. It is not judgement in the sense of punishment, but a protracted period of preparation. By man's clock, 40 "years" is the age of a generation) Satan tempted Jesus in every way imaginable. God was not only training His Son how to "resist" the devil, but He also demonstrated an unbreakable covenant and allegiance to God's Word.

Have you been driven into adversity by God? Are you giving the devil credit for the work of God's hands? The Bible clearly states that it was God Himself who turned Jesus over to Satan! Surely if God would serve Jesus up on a "silver platter" as His only begotten, what chance do you think you or I have in avoiding tumultuous storms in our lives? The problem is that too many Christians "shrink and cower" when adversity strikes. I say it all the time, "The thing that we have most in common with Christ that is seldom preached from the pulpit is our identification and association with His suffering, conflict and adversity." It is this adversity the "qualifies us for kingdom service!"

Believers must embrace the hard stuff. The devil only has one cheap magic trick: DECEPTION! He used the same tricks on Jesus in the wilderness as he did in the Garden with Adam. He tried to rope Him in with the lust of the flesh (turn this stone into bread); the lust of the eyes (the devil...showed Him all the kingdoms of the world) and the pride of life (throw Yourself down from here). Each one of us who has declared that Jesus is Lord of our lives has experienced the constant attack of the enemy in these three areas.

The gospel or "good news" is that Jesus has also given us the prescription for resisting the devil and his imps with three simple words, "It is written..."