After the devil’s first stratagem, his temptation of the first God-man changed somewhat (Matt. 4:5-7). He brought Jesus to the wing of the temple, a very high place. The tempter said to Jesus, “If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down; for it is written, ‘To His angels He shall give charge concerning You, and on their hands they shall bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone’” (v. 6). This was a temptation enticing Jesus to show that as the Son of God He was able to act miraculously. Many of the so-called healings in Pentecostalism are just for the purpose of making a show and are not genuine. We may be attracted by the Lord and react to His attraction by loving and following Him, but at the same time we may desire to have a name like the Son of God and a position like the divine position of God. This is our trouble.
The devil’s second stratagem was again based upon what God declared that the first God-man was. The devil then exercised his second stratagem. The first one was to tempt the Lord to ignore His position as a man and to assume His divine position as the Son of God by performing a miracle. When this did not work, the devil tried to make Him assume His position in divinity to display His power and His authority by having a miracle of protection by the angels. But the first God-man overcame His subtle tempter by saying, “You shall not test the Lord your God” (v. 7), indicating strongly that He was a man before God who should not test the Lord His God. Not to test means not to tempt. He, the first God-man, stood on the ground of a creature, recognizing that God was His Lord. He declared, “I shall not tempt My Lord. He is My Lord.” In being tempted the Lord had at least three statuses: first He was a man, second a creature, and third the Son of God. As a man, He could not test His Lord.
God in His eternal economy wanted to have a man as one of His creatures to deal with His enemy Satan, another creature, but the enemy tempted the first God-man to assume His divinity as the Creator of all things. By this subtle way, Satan mixed up the levels of God as the Creator and Satan himself as a creature. We can see this when Jesus indicated that as a man, God’s creature, He would not test the Lord, His Creator. Today we must realize first that we are a man of the flesh worthy of nothing and second that we are a creature. God desires to use a creature to deal with Satan, another creature. Here we can see God’s wisdom. God would never deal with Satan directly. According to Hebrews 2:14, the Lord Jesus destroyed Satan by partaking of the flesh. He destroyed Satan in His flesh. Christ, as a creature, not as the Creator, destroyed Satan. He destroyed Satan as a creature on the same level as Satan. By this, He honored God’s unique position as the Creator. Satan’s way was to uplift himself to the level of the Creator.
After his first two stratagems failed, Satan tried a third time to tempt the Lord to love the glory of the kingdoms of the world, worshipping him as God and serving him as his subordinate (Matt. 4:8-11; Luke 4:5-8).
The enemy would tempt us to love the world by getting us to consider how successful the people in the world are, while we are nothing. I began to serve the Lord with my full time in 1933. About ten years later, I was imprisoned by the invading Japanese army and afterward I contracted tuberculosis of the lungs. One day while I was still recuperating from my illness, I was walking with a stick on a bridge and a thought came to me saying, “You’ve been laboring for your Lord for ten years. What have you gained? All you have is a stick in your hand and nothing else. But look at how successful your classmates and other people have become.” That was a temptation. Many cannot overcome the third stratagem of the enemy: to use the world as a bait to hook us. I have seen many get hooked by this bait.
It should have been that in the preadamic age God appointed the archangel to be the head of the preadamic age (Ezek. 28:13-14), and the authority and glory of the kingdoms of the earth should have been given to him. After he rebelled against God and became God’s enemy, Satan, he was judged by God (Isa. 14:12-15), but the full execution of God’s judgment upon him will not be completed until the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:7-10). Hence, until that time he has authority over the kingdoms of the earth. In his subtle temptation of the Lord, he offered the earthly kingdoms and their glory to the first God-man as a bait to hook Him so that He would worship him as God and serve him as his subordinate. But the first God-man saw through the evil tempter’s devilish device and conquered him by chasing him away and telling him in a shaming way that as a man before God He would worship God and serve Him only.
I hope that these definitions will help us to see Satan’s stratagems. All of us are under these dangers. Every day our enemy is busy, and he is very diligent.