Matthew 4:1-3 states, \u201cThen was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.\u00a0 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.\u00a0 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charles Finney, the great evangelist of the early 1800s, was 29 years old when he got saved and almost immediately filled with the Holy Spirit. He was a young lawyer, working for Judge Wright. On Sunday evening, October 7, 1821, Finney made up his mind to settle the question of his soul\u2019s salvation at once. Monday and Tuesday the law office was not busy. He struggled with the Lord, reviewing his sins and dealing with conviction.\u00a0 Wednesday morning he rose early and headed to the office. He knew he needed to accept Christ. A voice came to him saying, \u201cWill you accept it now, today?\u201d He entered into a wooded area. It was as if \u201cThe Spirit drove him into the wilderness to pray.\u201d It was there, and later that day in the back room of the law office that all was settled. He later said, \u201cMy sense of guilt was gone; my sins were gone\u2026I felt justified by faith\u2026I was in a state in which I did not sin. My heart was so full of love that it ran over.\u201d (Taken from \u201cCharles G. Finney, He prayed down Revival,\u201d by Basil Miller.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus did not go into the wilderness to see how long He could do without food, neither did the Spirit drop Him off and leave Him. In Matthew 3:16 it says that John saw \u201c\u2026the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him (Jesus<\/em>).\u201d I don\u2019t believe the Spirit ever left Him. The forty days were a wonderful time of prayer and fasting. How could He ever forget that voice who said, \u201c\u2026This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased\u201d (Matthew 3:17). \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps you can remember the day you made peace with God. What a wonderful thing to be born again into the family of God. I like the way Haldor Lillenas put it in his hymn, \u201cGlorious Freedom.\u201d \u201cOnce I was bound by sin\u2019s galling fetters; Chained like a slave, I struggled in vain.\u00a0 But I received a glorious freedom When Jesus broke my fetters in twain. Glorious freedom! Wonderful freedom! No more in chains of sin I repine! Jesus, the glorious Emancipator\u2014Now and forever He shall be mine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can tell you right now, Satan doesn\u2019t like that hymn. He doesn\u2019t like the day you became a Christian. After Jesus heard the glorious voice\u00a0 declaring His Sonship, and prayed and fasted for forty days and nights with the Holy Spirit, the devil still had the audacity to say, \u201cIF thou be the Son of God.\u201d He said it twice. In Luke 4:13 we see that the devil then left Jesus for a season. He no doubt planned to come back to Jesus. Finally on the cross the devil spoke through one of the thieves, \u201c\u2026 if thou be the Christ\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n All through your Christian walk don\u2019t listen to the devil\u2019s line, \u201cIF YOU\u2019RE A CHRISTIAN!\u201d\u00a0 Matthew 4:1-3 states, \u201cThen was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.\u00a0 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.\u00a0 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/vitaly-gariev-lLLZkSmxe7A-unsplash-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2103\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coalmanpublishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"