An alternative foundation

The Sermon on the Mount can provide an enduring foundation for our life. An alternative foundation is offered by the devil. Just as the Sermon on the Mount addresses life in three levels, the devil seeks to direct us in three levels as well. The temptation of Jesus illustrates the alternatives.

The devil came to Jesus when He had been fasting for 40 days, and had become hungry. The devil spoke to Jesus about the hunger, suggesting that as the Son of God Jesus could turn the stones into bread in order to meet satisfy His hunger. The temptation was to use the things of this world to satisfy the hunger in the heart. In His reply, Jesus did not address food in terms of the needs of the body, but food to satisfy the needs of the heart. "...Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.."

The second temptation was to test God's faithfuness to provide for our body. The devil used Scripture himself to state that the angels would protect Jesus if He threw Himself off the top of the temple He was standing on. In His reply, Jesus did not disagree with the Scriptures used, but quoted again from Deuteronomy. "...You shall not put the Lord your God to the test..." The rest of the quote says "...as you tested Him at Massah." Israel had demanded that Moses give them water; they were trying to compel God to provide.

The third temptation was to submit to the kingdom of darkness to gain the desires of the soul. The devil showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world, offering to give Jesus authority over them, if Jesus would accept the devil's authority over Him. Jesus again quoted from Deuteronomy in reply "...You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only." Jesus not only rejected the offer of the devil as wrong, but He did the opposite. Instead of accepting the devil's authority, He took authority over the devil, commanding him to leave.

The same pattern of three points is addressed in the temptation of Jesus as is addressed in the Sermon on the Mount. The devil offers us an alternative foundation for life, either in part or in whole, based on what he offers in these three points.

We are tempted, whether we recognize it or not as temptation, to use the things of this world to satisfy our heart. This is much more a part of our life than we want to acknowledge.

We are tempted, and we do not see it as temptation, to use prayer as a means to force God to provide for the needs of the body. Prayer was not meant to be a means of manipulating God; prayer is meant to be a confession of trust in His faithfulness.

We are tempted, and we certainly do not recognize that this is true, to accept the devil's authority over our life in order to gain the desires of our soul. We do not take authority over the devil, forcing him to leave, at the cost of what he offers our soul.

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, and did not sin. Jesus rejected each temptation. But we have not. We have been tempted and failed. We have built our life on our failures in these three things. We use the things of this world to satisfy our heart. We seek to manipulate God in prayer to meet the needs of our body. We have another master who promises to give us our soul.

We do not come to the Sermon on the Mount as free men; we come to the Sermon on the Mount as those who have been taken captive. We have built our lives on a foundation of the devil's design. We don't know why our house can be swept away in a flood of worthlessness; we don't know why we are bound by failure. And we don't know how to change it.

We need to build on the Rock; we need to first dig deep to find it.