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-- THE SECOND TEMPTATION OF JESUS
And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve."
Following Jesus' refusal to prove his identity as THE Son of God by performing a miracle, the devil may well have concluded that what he was dealing with was in fact a mere man, and that he would now try to achieve his ultimate aim of securing his submission and worship by simply offering him the all and everything the world has to offer.
If only Jesus would kneel down and worship him, he would receive not only power and riches, but no doubt every earthly pleasure a man could wish for in abundance -- and the devil could then carry on "walking to and fro through the earth" (Job 1:7), looking out for other potential trouble makers.
However, Jesus refuses to obey the devil and accept his offer, and again responds by quoting scripture from the book of Deuteronomy, saying: You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve" (Deuteronomy 6:13)
We are not told how the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, and all in a moment of time, but it clearly involved some kind of miraculous vision. The fact that the devil even offered Jesus this temporal reward, suggests once again that he did not yet understand that he was actually dealing with the future Messiah, the Christ himself -- the future ruler, not only of the Earth, but also of the whole universe.
Perhaps this should not surprise us, since, as Peter later explained, there are matters concerning salvation, the Church, and the suffering of Christ, to which even the angels of God are not privy (1 Peter 1:10-12).
However, Jesus' reply: Get behind Me, Satan! must have made it very clear to the devil that his own identify was very well understood by this remarkably resolute and God-fearing person.