Satans to Give

Matthew 4:7-11 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.' " [8] Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. [9] And he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." [10] Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

" 'You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.' "

[11] Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
The peculiarity of this passage is that all the nations, and presumably Israel too, were Satan’s to give. Satan rules this world, and Jesus wants nothing to do with it. It was his for the taking and he rejected it. To be an earthly king, to rule in the way of the gentiles and lord it over, was not his desire. And it isn’t that Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics etc. They most certainly should. But we should know that setting up heaven on earth through the use of law just won’t happen. Jesus didn’t come to do this sort of thing. When we serve in government whether as a cop or president, we as Christians do so, not to Lord it over, but to serve. We realize though that law is needed in this world. Laws are needed even to serve. But we might be smart about what laws we pass. We might realize that laws have limitations and they can’t make bad people good.
Only Christ can do that. And he does so not through the laws of this world, not by trying to get some sort of messianic thrown to live on and reign from Jerusalem like any other tyrant of this world. But through the forgiveness of sins, and his death on the cross. The Cross is the throne for which he rejected all the nations of the world. He rejected them outright there. He has no plans of an earthly kingdom, not then, not now, not never. But through the cross he transforms the world, he overcomes it, conquers it, and claims us as his own.