Round two. In the first temptation we saw the Devil approached Christ and told Him if He was the Son of God he should use His power to get Himself out of His present circumstances. But Christ overcame the Tempter by using the Scriptures as His weapon. He lifted up the shield 🛡of eternal truth, blocked Satan's assault by telling him, " it is written, man shall not eat by bread alone but by every Word that come from the mouth of God. " The Devil received a severe blow in the first round. And so it is friends, every time we resist Satan's temptations by the power of God we get stronger.
So the Devil comes back now with the scriptures. The Devil is basically saying I know the scriptures too. Matthew 4:6,"And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." Now the Devil thought He is meeting Christ on His own ground, the scriptures. But He misquoted the scriptures. He is misquoting psalms 91:11,12. The Devil left out the part that says God will keep you in all your ways and focused on God will rescue you from the situation you put yourself in.
The Devil is persistent. Ladies, he is like that guy who keeps talking to you and you tell him you are not interested, you are not looking for a man at the moment, but he comes back saying can we just be friends. Or if you tell him you have a man, he comes back and say your man doesn't want you to have friends? All I want to be is your friend. The Devil is persistent. So he now attacts Jesus with the sin of presumption. The sin of presumption is putting yourself in a bad situation and hoping God will rescue you from it. It is an attempt to force God's hands.
If the Devil cannot get you on the first temptation. Telling you to change your situation by any means necessary, he will try to get you with the sin of presumption. Many Christians fall into the sin of presumption. It goes like this, because God loves me, I can keep playing with sin for I know God will keep me from harm or I can keep asking God for forgiveness for the same sin over and over. "Once saved always saved ,"theology leads many Christians into the sin of presumption. In thinking that they cannot lose they salvation, many cast themselves down into sin, thinking that God will still deliver them.
The temptation to cast yourself down is an attempt to get glory for yourself at the expense of God. The Devil tells us to cast ourselves down when it comes to Christians marrying unbelievers. You know that man is not a Christian, you know that woman is no good for you according to the Word of God and yet you stay in the relationship with him, yet you marry him hoping that God will bless your marriage, that God will protect you from all the dire predictions faithful Christians friends were telling you of. You cast yourself down by watching things you know you shouldn't watch and hoping that God will keep your mind from being corrupted.
Basically friends, to cast yourself down is to put yourself in situations God did not put you in and hoping to be rescued by Him. Imagine a man who who struggle with women, who used to be a womanizer, saying he is going to the strip club to preach the gospel to strippers. This guy is casting himself down and hoping the Lord will rescue Him. Satan tempts many of us to trust that because we are children of God, because God loves us, we can out ourselves in spiritually dangerous situations and God will send His angels to rescue us. Friends, this is a lie .
Jesus showed us how to deal with the sin of presumption. He told the tempter. He said, "it is also written you shall not tempt the Lord your God." It is a sin to tempt the Lord. To out yourself in situations he did not put you in, knowing you shouldn't and hoping He will deliver you. The key thing to notice in this temptation is the Devil knows the Bible and will use the Bible to His advantage in order to deceive. As a young Christian you may encounter that temptation when other Christians tell you it's okay to do a sinful act once because God is loving and will forgive you. Or we are all sinners anyway, one more sin won't condemn us.
Your boyfriend/girlfriend may come to you and say David was called a man after God's own heart and yet he committed adultery and murder, so God will still forgive us if we commit a little sexual sin. Friends, resist that tempter by saying "it is also written you shall not tempt the Lord your God. " Friends, never put yourself in situations contrary to the Word of God and hoping for God's deliverance. To do so is to put yourself on Enchanted ground and to give the Devil the advantage over you and you will surely fall. But let us resist the Tempter by saying it is also written I shall not tempt the Lord my God. Lord keep me from presumptuous sins 🙏🏾
Psalm 19:3
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
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