22. Wala ka sa Lolo ko. He survived the testing in the wilderness, he survived the refiner's fire.

14 September 2020

Matthew 4

Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness

1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 

3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 

6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

    and they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 

9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

The Lord Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness.

Christ in the Wilderness by Ivan Kramskoy, 1872

Ivan Kramskoi • Public domain

The Lord Jesus dismissed the tempter with the word of God. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit.

Ephesians 6

The Armor of God

 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Hebrews 4

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

The wilderness is a place of testing, spiritual wilderness is a place of spiritual testing.

I had my testing in the wilderness in my personal spiritual journey.

One day my children's children will say, wala ka sa Lolo ko. He survived the testing in the wilderness by the grace of God, he survived the refiner's fire. Amen.

After the Lord miraculously rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt in Exodus, He tested their hearts. 

The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love.

For 40 years, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, eating quail and manna. They were led into the Promised Land by Joshua; the victory at Jericho marked the beginning of possession of the land. As victories were won, the tracts of land were assigned to each tribe, and they lived peacefully with each other.

The Grapes of Canaan by James Tissot. 

James Tissot • Public domain

Internet Archive Book Images • No restrictions

Although the spies brought back a cluster of grapes so large that it took two men to carry it (Numbers 13:23), only two of the twelve brought back a good report of the land.

The Exodus from Egypt.

Exodus 13:21-22. By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

The Pillar of Fire by Paul Hardy, The Art Bible (1896)

Internet Archive Book Images • No restrictions

Sadly, two generations failed the test, except Joshua and Caleb, two of the twelve sent to spy on the good land, flowing with milk and honey, the Lord promised the Israelites as their inheritance. Even Moses can just get a glimpse of the Promised Land before passing away, after charging Joshua his assistant as the new leader.

Deuteronomy is reiteration of the laws given by God to the Israelites previously.

Deuteronomy 1

Spies Sent Out

23 The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe. 

24 They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshkol and explored it. 

25 Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

Deuteronomy 1

Rebellion Against the Lord

26 But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. 

27 You grumbled in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.

Deuteronomy 1

34 When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: 

35 “No one from this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, 

36 except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.”

37 Because of you the Lord became angry with me also and said, “You shall not enter it, either. 

38 But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it.

Deuteronomy 4

Obedience Commanded

24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 

30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.

Deuteronomy 8

Do Not Forget the Lord

1 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 

2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 

3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 

4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 

5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

One of the blunders of the Israelites was idol worship.

Idol worship is rebellion against the Lord.

Exodus 20

The Ten Commandments

1 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 

6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Exodus 32

The Golden Calf

1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 

3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 

4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

The Lord is a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate him, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

At age 40, I considered myself accomplished, until my next five years altered that, I went through severe testing in spiritual wilderness. I would say even part of my first 40 years was a testing in spiritual wilderness.

One of my personal blunders is idol worship, I idolized myself, my achievements, not conscious that it is the Lord who gave me abilities. I would know later that abilities are spiritual gifts when harnessed for the glory of God.

I grew up in the tradition of religious images which is clearly forbidden in the Ten Commandments. I had a wooden image I bought in Paete, Laguna. Before I went through water baptism in 2006 at Lipa Bible Christian Church, I told our three children who were in college and high school that I would be surrendering the image to Pastor Dan. Our children grew up seeing the image in what is the altar at our livingroom.

Isaiah 44

The Lord, Not Idols

14 He cut down cedars,

    or perhaps took a cypress or oak.

He let it grow among the trees of the forest,

    or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.

16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire;

    over it he prepares his meal,

    he roasts his meat and eats his fill.

He also warms himself and says,

    “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”

17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol;

    he bows down to it and worships.

He prays to it and says,

    “Save me! You are my god!”

18 They know nothing, they understand nothing;

    their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,

    and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

My spiritual journey led me to know that the Lord God is not a god created by human hands.

John 4

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Acts 

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 

23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 

25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 

In 2006, I was baptized in water and spirit. It is the culmination of my being born in the spirit, 44 years after I was born from my mother's womb.

John 3

5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 

6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

Malachi 3

1 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.

Job 23

1 Then Job replied:

10 “But he knows the way that I take;

    when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

11 My feet have closely followed his steps;

    I have kept to his way without turning aside.

12 I have not departed from the commands of his lips;

    I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.”

Indeed, I survived the testing in the wilderness, I survived the refiner's fire, not on my own, only by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of the Heavenly Father. Amen.