Prevailing Against the Ruler of the Fallen Kingdom

Matthew 4:8-9 

“Again, the devil took him (Jesus) up to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

This final temptation of Christ, is not for us only to learn of the actions of Jesus, but these actions are also the blueprints upon which we base our own decisions on. Jesus’s faith, as he rejects Satan's offer of inheriting all the kingdoms of the world is the absolute lesson of material rejection. Jesus does not care for wealth, Jesus does not care for ruling over the kingdoms, even if it meant owning the entire world, Jesus does not even consider this if it means to bow down to evil. This is an act of enduring faith, one that sits in total loyalty to God, the one and only Lord. Jesus rejects ruling over the kingdoms, he rejects all the money in the world, as he knows there is a greater prize, there is a bigger picture. This rejection of material wealth and power is echoed later in the Bible, it a key theme:

Matthew 16:26 

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Jesus as our shepherd demonstrates to us what we do in the face of temptation. We say no, for nothing compares to the glory of God. Worldly gains, material riches, governing the kingdoms of man, they are insignificant compared to the value of your soul and eternal life, which is offered to us only through Christ. With this teaching we are also to understand the opposite: to pursue earthly desires is to do so at the expense of one’s spiritual well being. Wealth is no more than accumulation of the treasures, treasures that man seeks to horde like the dragon in the cave. Treasure in our kingdom equals power, power leads to greed, greed leads to corruption, we are taught they this is one of many channels that we can be tempted by the devil, and with it comes the slope of sin that heightens the personality traits that pull each individual further away from the purity of a clean soul and instead increases the hyper-individualisation of the ego. It’s evident in the modern world as it was two thousand years ago to see how a rejection of wealth and material control is one of the many keys that opens a door to lead us towards to spiritual purity.

As we follow Jesus we are asked to self-sacrifice, we give up sinfulness attached with earthly pleasures and focus on the higher echelons, our true souls calling, to connect with God is to live a life of charity, to think and act in a way that puts the needs of others over the wants of our own. This is a starkly oppositional message to contrast with our world that is increasingly focused on profits, career and self-worth, and it is easy to see how an obsession with material possession is on the other end of the spectrum to emotional contentedness, for he who is happy with less, is happy regardless of what he has. But he who seeks more, will always hunger, for his worth is placed on possessions. People can be so happy when they get something new, but soon, the novelty wears off, and we seek something else new, trainers, cars, a house, it all becomes normalised and we quickly seek improvements.

Our Lord Jesus, the man who knows God more than all humans, rejects all the material wealth of the world, his eyes and heart are focused on that which is priceless and immaterial. The pearl of the universe, the waters of which we shall never thirst, this is not something you can hold, this is not something you can buy, it is spiritual.

Matthew 13:45

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls, Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”