Tag: Satan Defeated

  • Matthew 4:1 

    “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” – Matthew 4:1 

    The idea that Jesus was intentionally led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil is one of the most profound and and thought-provoking moments in all of Scripture. It stretches our understanding because we see God intentionally guiding His beloved Son into a place where temptation would confront Him. Right after the Father publicly declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness 

    When the Scripture says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil,” the Spirit here is the Holy Spirit. He intentionally leads Jesus into a place of barrenness the very opposite of the environment where Adam was tempted. Adam fell in a garden — a beautiful, fruitful, watered, perfect place that God Himself planted.

    Adam had every advantage: perfect surroundings, perfect fellowship with God, no hunger, no pain, no dryness. Yet he fell.

    Jesus had every disadvantage in the natural: hunger after forty days, isolation, a place without life or fruit. But Jesus stood where Adam fell.

    This contrast is not accidental. When Adam was tempted, that moment became the beginning of sin entering humanity. But when Jesus was tempted and conquered it, that moment marked the ending of sin’s power in every human life who believes in Him.

    And notice where Jesus is led into the wilderness. That wilderness is more than a physical location, it represents our spiritual condition without God. Because of sin, we became dry, barren, fruitless, and isolated. Sin separates us from God and leaves the soul empty, thirsty, and without life.

    But after facing and defeating temptation, look at what Jesus offers to us:

    • “Come to Me… I will give you rest.”
    • “I am the Living Water” — He brings life to our dryness.
    • “I am the Resurrection and the Life” — He restores what sin has killed.
    • “I am the Good Shepherd” — He brings fellowship to the isolated.
    • “I am the Bread of Life” — He sustains the hungry soul.
    • “I am the Door” — He gives us access into the kingdom of God, if we believe and receive Him.

    He went into our wilderness were sin and satan trapped all of us so He could lead us out of it. He entered our barrenness so He could bring us into His life. He stepped into our isolation so He could restore our fellowship with God.

    Here we understand why the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. He was leading Jesus to restore everything we have lost. When God leads a testing, we do not lose, because God is faithful. He never allows a test that will destroy us. He uses it to strengthen us. We see this in the lives of Abraham and Job, both tested by God yet upheld by His faithfulness as the scriptures says, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it”. God-led testing never leads to defeat.

    But this time, I need you to pay attention to how the Holy Spirit moves. Because the Spirit we have is not the spirit of fear but the Spirit of power. The Spirit did not lead Jesus into temptation so He would be defeated. He led Him there so He would win, conquer, and take back dominion that Adam surrendered.

    I was once taught by a man of God something I will never forget: “God never plays defense like what we see in sports. God is always in attack mode.” Scripture says that God “prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies” (Psalm 23:5). That means God chooses the battlefield. God chooses the timing. God chooses the outcome. So when the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, God Himself was choosing the battleground where Jesus would defeat the enemy. God did not tempt Jesus (James 1:13), He positioned Jesus to conquer Satan.

    Throughout Scripture, when God calls someone, He rarely calls them to sit still or remain where they are. God often uses the word “Go” as a command for them to move forward, believe in Him, and exercise the authority He has given them. This helps us understand how God works, for He is King and LORD. God always advances His kingdom, takes territory, confronts darkness, and accomplishes His purposes through people who are willing to work together with Him. “Go” is a military term for command to pursue, take dominion, obey, and move forward.

    • Abraham — God commanded him to leave his land and go to the place He would show him (Genesis 12:1).
    • Moses — God told him to go to Pharaoh and deliver Israel from bondage (Exodus 3:10).
    • Joshua — God told him to go and take dominion over the promised land (Joshua 1:2–3).
    • Gideon — God commanded him to go and save Israel from the Midianites (Judges 6:14).
    • Elijah — God sent him to go confront King Ahab and call Israel to repentance (1 Kings 18:1).
    • Jonah — God told him to go to Nineveh and preach His judgment (Jonah 1:2).
    • The Apostles and all believers — Jesus commanded us to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15).

    Even when Elijah hid in a cave, God asked him, “What are you doing here?” (1 Kings 19:9). There is no place in Scripture where God calls His people to cowardice, retreat, or passivity. Even Revelation 21:8 says that the cowardly have no place in the kingdom of God.

    The Holy Spirit led Him there because the wilderness was not set up to defeat Jesus; it was the place God prepared for Jesus to win His victory over Satan (Matthew 4:1). He was not led there to make Him fall, but to confront the enemy and to begin restoring what Adam lost. When Adam knew that Eve had disobeyed, he did not confront the serpent who tempted his wife. Instead, he let his affection for Eve override his obedience to God, and he blamed her for what happened. Through that fall, he handed the dominion of the earth over to Satan, for sin entered the world through one man (Romans 5:12). But Jesus entered the wilderness to confront the enemy directly. Adam failed the temptation, but Jesus was “tempted in all points like we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

    Later, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18). Have you wondered why Jesus said this? It tells us that after His confrontation in the wilderness and through His death and resurrection He openly claimed the authority Adam surrendered. Through His death, He conquered death, for “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). Now Satan is totally defeated. His authority has been taken away, just as Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

    And this passage teaches us two things: authority was given to them, and to us, for Jesus said, “Behold, I give you authority… over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). This means that Satan has no authority over us. We have authority over him through Jesus Christ. Remember, we are not given a spirit of fear, but “of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). We are not called to stay where we are, but to go and conquer in His name, and to declare the salvation of the LORD Jesus so that everyone may be saved.