The Devil and His Empty Promises

Rebecca Sheridan
February 22, 2026
Matthew 4:1-11

This Lent, I’m encouraging us to focus on the conversations Jesus has in our gospel readings, and then see what we can learn from Jesus for us today.  As you know, I’m a big proponent of cultivating a regular prayer life.  The definition of prayer is a conversation with God. That is what prayer is:  we speak with God, and we listen to God, just like we have conversations with our closest friends.  In our gospel for this morning, we hear Jesus speaking with God and listening for God as he fasts to spiritually prepare for his ministry out there in the wilderness.  Even for people who feel comfortable praying daily, we can get into a prayer rut with God – basically going through our list of people who need prayer and asking God for help. We can think of prayer a bit too one-dimensionally. So this Lent, both on Sunday mornings and with our Pause & Pray times on Wednesday nights, I’d like to have us think about different aspects of our prayer life – to deepen and enrich our conversations with God.
We began Lent on Ash Wednesday with a focus on the prayer of confession and forgiveness.  We start our conversation with God by being completely and totally honest with God, because God knows us completely.  We can tell God anything, and in fact, just as in our relationships with others, honesty is the best policy to move forward in a healthy way.  Confessing our sins and asking for God’s forgiveness helps us restore the relationship between God and ourselves.  Today, we turn to this conversation Jesus has with the devil to talk about temptation and prayer as resource for both being aware of and resisting temptation.
Just like sin, temptation is a universal human experience.  It goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, as we heard in our first reading.  We all know what it is like to struggle with temptation, and we know the regret of giving into temptation or how hard it is to resist.  We may identify with some of those temptations we see in our scriptures for today – when someone says, “Don’t touch!” don’t you just want to reach out and touch it?!  Don’t we, like Adam and Eve, want to be like God – to be totally in control, to know everything, to have people like us to the point of worshipping us, to have it all?  Or the temptations we struggle with may be more basic – wanting to eat food we know we shouldn’t, or drink or sexual temptations, to name a few common temptations.
Jesus shows us today how prayer – a conversation with God – can help us with these temptations.  First of all, this is how Jesus begins his public ministry.  He is baptized, and then he goes into the wilderness for forty days to have a long conversation with God.  In this time away preparing in prayer for his ministry to come, the devil shows up.  How many times have you sat trying to be intentionally quiet in prayer, and you get distracted?  You start thinking about all of the things you should be doing.  You find it difficult to keep talking to God.  That’s the devil at work, trying to distract you from your focus on loving, serving and praising God!  Jesus is trying to have a conversation with God to prepare himself for powerful ministry, and the devil tries to interrupt Jesus’ focus on God’s mission.  He wants Jesus’ attention, because he is afraid of what Jesus will do with God’s spirit empowering him. 
Three times, the devil tries to interrupt Jesus’ prayer with God:  “aren’t you hungry?” He asks Jesus. “Is God really there to catch you if you fall?”  the devil asks Jesus.  Maybe this whole fasting in the wilderness prayer time with God is a waste of time?  And finally, the devil questions Jesus’ power and glory.  Three times the devil says, “IF you are the Son of God” to try to plant a small seed of doubt in Jesus that maybe he isn’t actually who God has sent and promised him to be – God’s beloved Son.  This is the root of temptation.  The devil brings derailing questions and empty promises so that we start to listen more to him (which could be the voice in our head or other people or unspoken) than to the true promises of God for us.  These questions tempt us to look for quick fixes and easy answers – to pain, to self-doubt or low confidence/self-esteem, to basic hungers of our bodies and souls.  Instead, a regular prayer life helps us to be honest and aware of temptation and the devil and all his empty promises AND listen to God more than the evil within and without.
So, after we begin by praying to God for those who are in particular need on our personal prayer lists, we can follow Jesus’ example here in our gospel for today.  We name the temptation we are facing.  A journal can be helpful.  Write down or even say out loud what it is you are struggling with.  Talk to God.  Don’t give the devil any more attention than necessary.  If you are facing a major decision, for example, write down or reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and possible directions.  Ask God this very important question – is this thought or feeling I have coming from you, or from somewhere else?  What does you want me to do with this feeling or thought, God?  What do I need from you, Lord, to help me through this particular situation?  And of course, this prayer may need to be repeated several times, to reinforce our return to the Lord and his strength!  This is a prayer of discernment.
Like New Year’s resolutions, many of us make Lenten resolutions to give something up or take something on (like a devotional reading plan) for Lent.  At the beginning of this year with the help of my spiritual director, I will be honest with you and tell you that I wrote down one major goal for myself:  Tell the devil to go to hell.  Maybe you struggle with the personification of evil – the idea that the devil exists like Jesus as a human being.  I find it helpful to call the devil out as a person. It makes evil smaller, more manageable.  Defeatable.  The beginning of Jesus’ ministry started at his baptism – THEN he went into the wilderness where he encountered evil personified as the devil.  At his baptism, God said, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Equipped with that declaration and the word of God revealed in the holy scriptures, Jesus easily dismisses the devil in the wilderness and resists temptation.  
We are not Jesus. We sometimes give in to the devil and all his empty promises.  We are more like Adam and Eve, giving into sin and temptation.  This is why we need Jesus, after all, to save us!  However, we are Christians – we have that same name of Christ, and we too, are baptized in the power of his name.  We, too, have conversations with God.  And we know, like Jesus knows, that the devil has no ultimate power.  He has already been defeated, crushed underfoot, by the power of Christ’s death and resurrection.  
So I tell the devil to go to hell because that is where he belongs – less in my head and more not anywhere near me.  I don’t want to give those thoughts of self-doubt, selfishness, overblown worries or worst-case scenario anxieties any more attention than they deserve, and I am quite confident Jesus doesn’t want any of us to do so.   I try my best to take it to the Lord in prayer, listening for God to help me discern what is of God, and what I can ignore because it’s not from God.  As we strive to make time for regular prayer with God, may the Holy Spirit help us pay attention to what is of God and what is not, strengthening us to resist temptation.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.