Historian Shelby Foote tells of a soldier who was wounded at the battle of Shiloh during the Civil War and was ordered to go to the rear. The fighting was fierce and within minutes he returned to his commanding officer. “Captain, give me a gun!” he shouted. “This fight ain’t got any rear!“  That’s the way it is with temptation – it’s everywhere and we must be prepared to face it.

It comes at us in big and small ways, ranging from “Should I have another serving of the lasagna?…to really ugly things that shame us and rip away at our remaining shreds of self-respect. As we examine the experience of Jesus in Matthew 4 this Sunday morning, we discover how he handled real temptation and why that’s important to us.