THE TEMPTATION OF POPULARITY

The second temptation to which Jesus was exposed was the temptation to do something spectacular, something that would win him great applause and popularity. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the highest point of the temple and let the angels catch you and carry you in their arms, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Matthew 4:6)

Henri Nouwen maintained that Jesus refused to be a stunt man. He did not come to prove himself. He did not come to walk on hot coals, swallow fire, or put his hand in the lion’s mouth to demonstrate that he had something worthwhile to say. So he replied, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

His contemporaries were always looking for a sign to prove that he was the promised Messiah who was to come. He gave them plenty of signs in the miracles but they were not persuaded by them. They were looking for bigger and better proofs. Initially the crowds flocked around him for the miracles but gradually fell away as the demands of his teaching sunk into them. He was popular for a season, but popularity is always hungry for more and more results.

Sceptical, secular rationalists challenge Christian faith for many reasons, not least because of unanswered prayer. Michael Shermer, the founder of the Sceptics Society, points to a single event in the late 1970s as his breaking point with the Christianity of his youth. The “final straw,” as he calls it, was finding himself at the hospital bedside of his college girlfriend, who had been a passenger in a van that rolled off the side of a hill, breaking her back, and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. He prayed fervently for her recovery, to no avail. “If anyone deserved to be healed if was her, and nothing happened, so I just thought there was probably no God at all.”

The temptation is with us too as we seek to validate our faith. We pray seeking answers, sometimes for healing, sometimes for the transformation of the lives of our loved ones, sometimes for financial or material success, sometimes for friendships. We want to see results for our devotion. We put the Lord to the test. We want to be able to live on the mountaintop and not have to descend to the valley. We want to be seen as being always on top of our circumstances and always to be able to praise the Lord for his provision for us.

But life is not always sunshine. Suffering comes. We lose our friends and loved ones. Prosperity isn’t our constant companion. Our health is not always good no matter how hard we exercise and watch our diet and daily habits. We don’t always feel good. Our feet do strike against the stones of life. We cannot always be heroes who overcome all adversaries. We are vulnerable to tragedy. We fail and make mistakes. We do not always choose wisely. We often feel alone. We certainly do not feel popular. Putting on a show does not alter the facts of our need to trust in the Lord.

Charles Farah in his book, “From the Pinnacle of the Temple”, in his study of the Second Temptation contrasts true faith from presumption. What the Devil was doing to Jesus was tempting him with presumption.  “Presumption is a sin that particularly tempts bold, courageous men of faith who are eager to accomplish something for God. If even Jesus was tempted by the sin of presumption, then surely it was a possibility for us all….If Jesus had jumped from the pinnacle of the Temple, and had lived, it would have been a fantastic miracle, proof positive that God was with him…The devil had played a trump card. He presented Jesus with a bona fide shortcut to success. Jesus could have gained instantaneous recognition as the great miracle-worker. Nothing could have stopped him. The people would gladly have recognized him as the Messiah. His kingdom would have been a cinch. But…. God never performs miracles to prove he is God. God performs miracles to meet the needs of his people and for his own glory.”

What was Jesus’ response? “It is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” (Matt.4:7) “No one has the right,” Jesus says, “to put God presumptuously to the test. No one has the right to force God’s hand.” There is a vast difference between tempting God and proving God. Israel went through the Red Sea, proving God. The Egyptians did the same thing, and they died for their presumption. What was the difference? Israel heard a word from God; Egypt did not. Israel moved forward at the spoken word of God, but God did not speak to the Egyptians. When they moved, they perished.

Luke the physician records the incident of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth where he read from Isaiah. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” He went on to say that they wanted him to perform the miracles in his hometown that he did in other places. They wanted to see him do something spectacular to prove that he was indeed whom he claimed to be. But he answered them by pointing out that God does not do miracles through him indiscriminately. “I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elijah the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.”  The miracles were selective, they were rare, and they happened, not to the People of Israel, but to foreigners.

The reaction of religious people in the synagogue was fury. “They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” (Luke 4:16-30) Whereas the devil wanted him to throw himself down from the highest point of the temple to prove that he was the Son of God, those who knew him best from his childhood wanted to throw him down a cliff because he would not do his miracles amongst them.

What does it take for people to believe in Jesus and follow him as their Savior and Lord? Are unbelievers looking for a miracle, looking for some undeniable proof, looking for an irrefutable answer to the problems of the world, reasons for suffering, cures for diseases, something to make them absolutely sure that the Gospels are true, that there is life beyond the grave, the resurrection of the dead to judgment, and the life of the world to come? Will it take something spectacular to persuade you, or does it take coming to the end of yourself, to find that your doubts and denials are excuses and that you must want to open yourselves to the love of God that is found in Jesus. What are you looking for? Do not put the Lord your God to the test.