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This week, I heard a message from Pastor Jack Hibbs in which he noted that Satan tries to project his greatest desire on everyone else- he believes that deep down everyone wants to "be as the Most High". You see it in everything he did, from Adam and Eve...
Gen 3:4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
Gen 3:5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
...to Jesus Himself...
Mat 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
Mat 4:9 And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
Mat 4:10 Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'"
And one way or another, it's how he tempts us. Every little bit of pride is, boiled down, exactly this. Satan is unimaginative; it never changes.
The best way to recognize Satan's trap is to recognize God AS God. That is what the Disciples teach us in the next 2 questions. Jesus had just took the 'Big Three'- Peter, James, and John- up on the mountain and revealed Himself as God in the Transfiguration. They could no longer doubt He was God. The other nine, however...
Mat 17:14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him,
Mat 17:15 said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.
Mat 17:16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him."
Mat 17:17 And Jesus answered, "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me."
Not a very kind and complimentary way to address them, right? But you see, the other nine didn't yet have the special revelation that the Big 3 did. Jesus sums up their problem quite clearly...
Mat 17:19 Then the disciples came to Jesus apart, and said, Why could we not cast him out?
Mat 17:20 And Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief. For truly I say to you, If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Move from here to there. And it shall move. And nothing shall be impossible to you.
Mat 17:21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.
Two factors- faith and prayer. Faith? It was weak because, like Peter earlier when he was ordered to "get behind Me", they just hadn't gotten to the point that Jesus=God. Prayer? Because of the first thing, they assumed, "Anyone can cast it out, if they have the right attitude/words/tone", and it don't work that way. They thought that they could be 'Jesus'- in effect, God- just by believing it so.
And the contrast comes with the next question, when Jesus treats another Disciple a whole different way...
Mat 17:24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, "Does your teacher not pay the tax?"
Mat 17:25 He said, "Yes." And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?"
Mat 17:26 And when he said, "From others," Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free.
Mat 17:27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself."
Now there's the kind, compassionate Jesus we expected! Why the change? Because Peter's error did NOT involve himself thinking he was God, or equal to Jesus- it was just an error of being put on the spot, of not thinking through the answer. And where the miracle was too hard for the 'old-minded' Disciples, Jesus gave Peter- the 'new minded' Peter- a chance to participate IN the miracle, because Jesus had 'leveled him up.'
In a way, that is prayer in a nutshell. Once you recognize God for who He is, He allows you through prayer to participate in His Works. But if you put yourself up on the pedestal and deem to COMMAND God- or even Satan, as we see- it ain't gonna happen.
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