Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love

by Edward T. Welch

Jesus, the second Adam, walked out into a deadly wilderness, which is a garden cursed. He was showing us how to combat Satan’s schemes. Where everyone else had failed, a new champion had accepted the challenge and was committed to changing the master story. The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. (Mark 1:12–13; also Matt. 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13) Jesus then did what no one else had done: he trusted in the words of God and dismissed the lies of Satan, even when it meant more suffering and even death. Satan’s strategies were variations on his old ways. He appealed to Jesus’s senses—his desires—and he suggested that God the Father was the one who needed to be tested. Although forty days without food, Jesus never wavered. He knew exactly how suffering works. Suffering has the old scent of rebellion in it. Whenever Satan smells it, he comes to stir up trouble and hover until the body is dead so he can claim it as his own. Jesus was prepared and armed. He knew Scripture. Now, since we have the Spirit, the Word, and prayer, we can be hopeful and stand firm against Satan as we go through our daily wildernesses.