“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Matthew 4:8-10). If we take Satan’s offer at face value and assume that it is in his power as the prince of this world to give to Christ or to any of us all of the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, if we will only fall down and worship him, even so, why would we make that deal? Christ certainly didn't see any merit in the offer. Satan was offering Jesus the whole world and all that was in it, but His Heavenly Father had already offered Jesus all that He had, even worlds without number. When Jesus told Satan to get thee hence, He was essentially telling him to go back to his little world with its telestial glory, because Christ was headed to the Celestial Kingdom. Satan told Christ not to bow down but to fall down and worship him. Christ's mission is to save us from the effects of the Fall, but Satan's mission is to keep us in our fallen state by tempting us to think telestial. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Satan wants us to try and gain the whole world, but Christ wants us to gain all of the worlds, and we can only do that if we hold onto our soul by worshipping the Lord our God and serving Him only. In the grand scheme of the eternities, the kingdoms of this world will pass away in the blink of an eye. In fact, we don't even need to zoom out that far. None of the kingdoms that existed at the time that Satan tempted Jesus are still around today just a couple of thousand years later. Why would we ever trade in the eternal splendor of Celestial Glory for the paltry and ephemeral glories of this world? Whenever Satan tempts us to think telestial, let us tell him to get thee hence to his tiny little world as we continue to think Celestial and worship and serve only the Lord our God.
