Turn These Stones to Bread

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. (Matthew 4:3 KJV)

There is a depth to this first temptation that we cannot fully grasp. The nature of temptation is to strike us at our weakest point along the lines of whatever logic or spiritual reasoning is weakest in our thoughts. In Christ there was no weakness in His faith, no missing element in His spiritual reasoning or spiritual thinking. He was the complete man. No chinks in His spiritual armor, no wobble in His spiritual gait.

How do you know the voice of God? But Christ was still fully man, and He hungered like all men. There is no direct command in Scripture that we enter into forty day fasts. We have two other examples in scripture of Moses (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8) taking forty days fasts. But no place does it command such a thing.

But clearly the Spirit led Christ to undertake this fast. So, if there was any weakness here it simply lay in the fact that this fast that Christ was on was not one commanded in the Book of Moses, but rather it was one impressed upon His mind by the Holy Spirit — which was to Christ, since He constantly lived in the fullness of the Spirit, as binding as the written Word of God. So in that sense the temptation asked that age old question that was posed to Eve, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1 NASB).

The subtlety of the temptation shows the intellect of Satan. He is a formidable foe. He goes right to the core of the matter with obedience: How do we know this is right? How do we know what God’s will is? We read in scripture how King Saul unwisely commanded a fast for his troops, and unevenly announced it to them, so that they lacked the strength to pursue their enemy. His son Jonathan also was the one who had broken the fast, because he had not heard the command of his father Saul (1 Sam 14:24–45). The whole situation shows how we may take measures upon ourselves, even make vows and enforce them, when God has never commanded us to do.

It was as though Satan was saying to Jesus, “Aren’t you being just a little silly out here in the wilderness?” And there was the seed of doubt, “Did God really insist that you should be fasting for such a long time?” It went to the core of all that Christ would do and achieve in His earthly ministry with the question, “Do you really hear God correctly?” If Christ the Son could not hold the line of both hearing and obeying the inner voice of the Spirit, then the cross would never happen, the leadership and the power of God would be removed from His life. He would have been like we are, even the best of us are, obeying but sometimes stumbling, the sin nature having created a constant static in our reception of God’s voice in our hearts.

There is for us the Word of God that is made to be a safeguard so that we might know what His will is. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). But we must also develop the spiritual habit of listening constantly to the Spirit’s voice. There are leadings and urgings of the Spirit, “drivings,” that we are as solemnly obligated to obey as the written Word of God. We must be careful to distinguish between the inner leadings of the Spirit and our overactive imaginations, for we can, like Saul did, make unwise and inaccurate demands of ourselves and others.

How do we know the voice of God? How do we know what God has commanded? When we venture into an area that the Word of God is not clear on, how can be be sure that God is leading us?

One simple way is to simply ask God to clarify what we think He is saying to us. To ask Him, “God, did I hear you correctly?” is not an act of rebellion or disobedience. It is simply a desire to be sure. In my own calling into the ministry, both at the original call and several times over the course of my life,I have prayed and asked God for clarity. When I was sixteen and first called into the ministry, I was at my church Youth Camp. I surrendered one night in the larger meeting and it was quite an emotional moment. I prayed the next morning, “God, perhaps I made a mistake and it was just emotion I felt last night.” God seemed to say to me, “David, you are right that you are capable of imagining that I have called you, but this was not your imagination but My Spirit who spoke to you.”

In my own life several years ago, we were called from Austin, Texas, to Singapore. The circumstances of the call iinvolved both the long-term and general calling on our hearts as cross-cultural missionaries, and the short-term and specific urgings by the Spirit to accept this call to serve in Singapore. We also had numerous other things to affirm the call, too many to mention all: the church in Singapore had voted over 95% in favor of our coming. They had examined our calling and felt that the Holy Spirit had put it on their hearts to ask us to serve. So there was (1) the Biblical command to go into all the world, (2) the inner voice of the Spirit in our lives to accept this position, (3) the voice of the church body in Singapore affirming our hearts’ conviction, and (4) favorable and encouraging circumstances.

One of those rare circumstances was that the Sunday before I was to preach in Singapore, we had in our church in Austin five people who had at one time or presently were members of the church in Singapore. Two of those were a couple that had formerly been very involved in the church and had since retired. They had had car trouble that Saturday as they were passing through Austin and had had to spend the night. And they happened to come to our church because they had family members in our church. They had no idea that I was going next week to interview there.

Another circumstance was the selling of our house, and I thought that if all of this came merely from our imaginations that God could block the sell of our house. To make a long story short, the next day our nineteen-year-old neighbor walked over and offered to pay cash for our house! We thought that this was proof enough that God was in this. I said to God, “If You can make a nineteen-year-old kid come over and pay cash for my house, I am afraid NOT to go to Singapore!”

These four issues, (1) God’s Word, (2) His Spirit’s voice, (3) the wisdom of God’s people, and (4) circumstances He uses to affirm His leading, are key issues to determine His will. Circumstances, however, are the most difficult to ascertain, and cannot be trusted by themselves alone. It was convenient for Jonah to catch a ship for Tarshish. It was convenient for Christ to turn stones into bread. It was convenient for Jacob to deceive his father Isaac. It was convenient for Abraham to impregnate Hagar. We must first have a clear knowledge of God’s Word, then establish the habit of listening to His Spirit, and being humble before God’s people. Certainly we must also know who of God’s people is worth listening to, who is wise and spiritual among the redeemed.

It was American Frontiersman, Hero, and U.S. Congressman Davy Crockett, who said, “First, be sure you are right, then go ahead.” Rudyard Kipling, in his classic “If, for Boys,” said you should “Trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting, too.” As inspirational as these quotations are, there is infinitely better advice given in God’s Word: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths” (Prov. 3:5–6). There are always many twists and turns to doing the will of God, so we must constantly hear His voice and daily be sensitive to His leading.