Imagine if Satan tried Luke 4:1-13 on me:
Temptation 1:
Curse you devil! You know I've been suppressing my powers of food alchemy.
Temptation 2:
Thou diabolical tempter! You know how I crave the world's government on my shoulders!
Temptation 3:
Damn and blast! You know how I love to abandon my life to the care of my Father!
Hmm.
Magical bakery, world domination and celestial bunjee jumping...
Preachers have to work pretty hard to make this passage a model for our own spiritual battles. But they manage it. The great majority of sermons I've heard on this have seen the episode as basically exemplary.
But the preacher's WWJD goggles have to be welded on pretty tight and their seminary-taught zeal for "personal application" must be turned to red-hot to make it work.
Here's one excellent exception:
It's a hard text to preach as a model, sure. Not so hard to preach as, "Christ overcame more temptation than you ever face as He lived the life you couldn't live."
Thanks Glen, this is wonderful stuff.
Its done well here: http://beginningwithmoses.org/bt-briefings/174/three-sons-the-devil