Bread Alone - It'll Never Do
Matthew 4:4
By Alan Walker

"Even here, hungry, with the undisputed power to turn the stones into a marvelous meal, Jesus knows there is something infinitely more important than bread."

Jesus once said in a dialog with our adversary Satan a few words I have been thinking on this past week.

The words are as interesting as the story behind them.

In Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (NIV)

Do you recall the situation Jesus was in when He rebuked the devil with these powerful words?

Let’s take a look at this story, and then consider the truths of the passage.

This happened at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. His cousin John had immersed him. It was a wonderful time in Jesus’ life.

I remember when I was immersed as a 16-year-old. I went down into the water like many had before me, and came up feeling clean and new in the Lord. It was a wonderful moment, one I hope I will never forget, and one I hope all of you will experience in Jesus.

In Matthew 3:17 Jesus is blessed to hear the words of his Father….listen in as He comes up out of the water to the voice from heaven…

"And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'" (NIV)

From this pinnacle of delight Jesus enters the wastelands of the desert. The Spirit of God leads Jesus out into the wilderness to spend a month and a third… Alone.

No one except the devil that is there to tempt him.

To make the situation even more intense, Jesus either of his own volition or by the leading of the Spirit chooses to fast.

Jesus has had a powerful experience at his baptism surrounded by friends, his cousin John, and of course God the Father was there. But now, He’s alone - and He's been alone for 40 days. He’s been fasting for those 40 days. He's weak, lonely, tired, weary, and has experienced an incredible weight loss.

It’s at this juncture, perhaps the weakest point in the physical life of Jesus prior to the cross, that Satan comes calling with his bag of deceit.

Satan doesn’t always come when we are at the zenith of our spirituality - when we are strongly into our devotions, and our scripture reading.

Satan comes when we are the weakest and knocks at the door of our heart and hopes we will open the door but a crack so he can slip in.

It’s when we are alone and weary (spiritual/physical or both) that he comes to the door of our heart like the Avon lady and the Fuller Brush man of old.

Notice what its says in verse 2:

Hungry?

I’ve heard folks say they had to eat a lot of venison when they were growing up during the depression and they prefer not to eat it today…but thank God for the venison when they needed it.

I don’t suppose I will ever forget the lady who called the church I used to serve and said she and her family were hungry and without food. She wanted to know if we could help. I told her to come on over and look in our food cupboard. We had cans of beans, cans of vegetables, cans of soups, etc.

I asked her what she would like. She looked it over and told me that her family just wouldn’t eat that kind of food. Not because of a religious preference or due to a dietary restriction, but because they didn’t like it. My only comment to her - and remember I was young then - was that she and her family just weren’t hungry enough yet.

Jesus was hungry!

His stomach had touched his spine.

And here comes Satan with a plan.

Two people in the wilderness knew beyond doubt that Jesus was the Son of God. Those two people are in the dialog in this chapter. Jesus knew He was and so did Satan.

At this weary, tired, and vulnerable time, Satan’s words are chosen carefully to create within Jesus a desire to prove himself.

Turn these stones to bread…

The potato for us.

A bowl of rice to our oriental brethren.

A Tortilla to our Hispanic Brethren.

At the mention of bread my guess is Jesus could smell the bread baking. He could almost taste it. Perhaps his mouth had begun to water.

Every fiber in his wearied body said "yes" to bread.

Simply put He would not live much longer without it.

But He would not allow Satan to take advantage of his vulnerability and cause him to do something at a point of weakness that would later cause him regret.

Look at Jesus' reply. Let’s take it in two parts…

A guest in a seaside hotel restaurant called over the head waiter one morning and said, "I want two boiled eggs, one of them so undercooked it's runny, and the other so overcooked that it's about as easy to eat as rubber. Also, grilled bacon that has been left on the plate to get cold, burnt toast that crumbles away as soon as you touch it with a knife, butter straight from the deep freeze so that it impossible to spread, and a pot of very weak coffee, lukewarm."

That's a complicated order, sir," said the bewildered waiter. "It might be a bit difficult."

The guest replied, "Oh, but that's exactly what you gave me yesterday!" [James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 137.]

We must have bread to live physically. We are created with a need for fuel. We cannot survive long without the food groups. Bread is a part of our life.

In our home now we have a real variety of choices.

The wife likes white.

Our daughter goes for Potato bread.

I’m a wheat bread person.

Everyone likes a piping hot loaf of fresh baked bread with a dab of real butter on it and maybe some strawberry freezer jam.

Yes, we must have bread – the staff of life – to survive. Food is necessary.

The bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:13: "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"-- but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." (NIV)

Woman to neighbor: "I have a marvelous meat loaf recipe. All I do is mention it to my husband and he says, 'Let's eat out.'" [James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 109.]

Yes, we must have bread, but not bread alone.

Jesus continued by saying..

While the Word of God cannot fill our physical nutritional needs, the best of breads can never fill our Spiritual nutritional needs.

Even here, hungry, with the undisputed power to turn the stones into a marvelous meal, Jesus knows there is something infinitely more important than bread. That more important substance is the Word of God.

"Sure that easy for you to say, you’re stomach is full, tell it to a man or woman who hasn’t eaten in a week."

The reason I don’t have to say it to someone who hasn’t eaten in a week is because it was stated from a man who hadn’t eaten in well over a month.

There is a phrase here that we have to see again..

But EVERY one of the words of God.

J. Wilbur Chapman wrote, concerning Bible study:

Study it through. Never begin a day without mastering a verse from its pages. Pray it in. Never lay aside your Bible until the verse or passage you have studied has become a part of your being. Put it down. The thoughts that God gives you, put down in the margin of your Bible or your notebook. Work it out. Live the truth you get in the morning through each hour of the day. [Wm F. Kerr, Ed., The Minister's Research Service (Tyndale House, 1970), p. 31.)]

A Church that has potluck dinners and picnics on a regular basis will benefit greatly from times of fellowship.

But a Church that preaches from the Bible, teaches from the bible, lives the bible, breathes the bible, wears out their bibles, underlines in their bibles, hungers after the bible, thirsts after the bible, prays over the bible, digs into the bible, buys new bibles, takes notes in their bibles, talks about the bible, shares the bible, gives away bibles, loves their bibles, cherish their bibles, falls asleep reading their bibles, reads the bible to their children, weeps over the bible, laughs over the bible, and honors their bibles as the Word of God…

…Will be a church that will not only be in fellowship with one another, but in fellowship with God, and will be a church on the very edge of heaven’s gate, alive like few others, and growing like a church afire.

For a church to be like this, it requires the members of the body, the Christians, the followers and disciples of Jesus to immerse themselves in the bible - the very words of God that Jesus is referring too in this passage.

You can do this for you. You must do this for yourself. You, to experience Jesus and Christianity to the fullest, to be filled, must commit yourself to live by…every word of God.

The Bible is

Just as we cannot live without food, we cannot truly live spiritually without the nourishment from God’s Holy Word for our soul.

Oh my friends, when our congregation or we as individuals begin to weary, when we find ourselves depressed, when we discover our spiritual life sagging and becoming diseased with apathy, it is no secret what we must do.

We must once again remember, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God."

But why wait until we are at an all time low in our spiritual life?

Does this make good sense? Of course not! What makes good sense is that we begin and never cease spending time with the Word of God.

Howard Rutledge, a United States Air Force pilot, was shot down over North Vietnam during the early stages of the war. He spent several miserable years in the hands of his captors before being released at the war's conclusion.

In his book In the Presence of Mine Enemies, he reflects upon the resources from which he drew in those arduous days when life seemed so intolerable.

"Now the sights and sounds and smells of death were all around me. My hunger for spiritual food soon out-did my hunger for a steak. Now I wanted to know about that part of me that will never die. Now I wanted to talk about God and Christ and the church. But in Heartbreak (the name POWs gave their prison camp) solitary confinement, there was no pastor, no Sunday School teacher, no Bible, no hymnbook, no community of believers to guide and sustain me. I had completely neglected the spiritual dimension of my life. It took prison to show me how empty life is without God." [Howard Rutledge and Phyllis Rutledge with Mel White and Lyla White, In the Presence of Mine Enemies.]

Today, this moment, before we have a lot of time for rationalizing and excuses, before the devil has to the time to tempt us and tell us it is not necessary, let’s make a commitment to the One we call Lord that we will no longer simply live our life on…

And this moment make a commitment to once again dig into the wonderful book the Bible and begin to dine not only at our dinner table, but feast as well on His Word to nourish our souls.

Copyright © 1997-2004, The Preacher's Corner. Reprinted here by permission of the author (and our good friend) Alan Walker for the benefit of our subscribers. Alan may be reached at: sermonzzzz@aol.com. This message may be used by subscribers of The Preacher's Study in their local work only. It may not be published on the Internet, in a book, or anyplace else beyond the local congregation without the expressed permission of the author. All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.