Luke 4:8

And Jesus answered and said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

It is written ... Jesus took no notice of the extravagant promise of the devil, rejecting it out of hand as being merely something which God had forbidden in the sacred Scriptures. The reference was to Deuteronomy 6:13. By his ignoring the promise, disregarding either its truth or falsity, Jesus' reply had the effect of saying, "Even if what you say is the truth, my answer is the same; I will not do what God has forbidden."

In a world so filled with evil, and with the power of Satan admittedly a fearsome thing, which even an archangel dared not take lightly (Jude 1:1:9), the devil's arrogance in the claim that he could help wicked men achieve their goals certainly had an element of truth in it, as far as men are concerned. Many a man, through the sacrifice of principle, has moved into some position of power or authority, only to find that the true power lay with Satan and not himself. What was true of many men, however, was in no wise true of Christ.