The Temptation to Test God

We often desire to choose the “easy” way rather than the “hard” way.  Sometimes we even twist reality in order to justify our choice of the “easy” way.  We might even ask God to justify OUR path by rationalizing that the outcome will be the same regardless of the effort expended.  

But often God’s plan for us is NOT the merely the outcome, but rather the experience of the journey.  As we have studied, God can achieve the desired outcome ANY number of natural or supernatural ways, but it is our “journey through the wilderness” that molds and shapes us to be more like Christ.

We look at Deuteronomy 6:16-25; Matthew 4:5-7 where we learn that we are to trust God without putting Him to the test.

We focus on the second temptation of Jesus. This time, the devil took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to tempt Him to test God. Satan once again raised doubts about the Son’s divine position and authority by asking Him to leap off the pinnacle and have God rescue Him. Again, Jesus quoted Scripture, thi time from Deuteronomy 6. 

Earlier in our study we learned that a “test” was an earthen vessel for assaying metals.  In today’s lesson we see the verb “test” indicating “to examine the correctness of;  put to the proof."  So we see the Devil tempting Jesus to have God “prove it”, that Jesus really is God’s son.

Silly devil…   

Matthew 4:5-7

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 

6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will give his angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

7 Jesus told him, “It is also written: Do not test the Lord your God.”

The devil then brought Jesus to the holy city, Jerusalem, and to the pinnacle of the temple. This was likely the high, flat-topped corner of Solomon’s porch that sat on the southeast corner of the temple complex and overlooked the Kidron Valley some 450 feet below him.  Or stated for our modern ears, “the devil took him to the top of a 45 story building, or the top of the tallest rocket ship in the world, and said jump off and see if God catches you.”

From Top to ground each of these images is approximately 40 to 45 stories tall.

   

This second temptation was for Jesus to test God.  To test the Lord your God is to basically to say “prove it God!”  When you stop and think about it this is just another way of stating “I don’t believe you God!”  

The devil may well have been reminding Jesus of a prophecy in Malachi 3:1; the prophet predicted that the Lord would come dramatically to the temple. Satan was simply challenging the Lord to do what the people were already expecting. The devil took a page from Jesus’s own playbook: he quoted Scripture. He chose Psalm 91:11-12, which states, “For he will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways. They will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” However, he intentionally omitted a phrase that is key to the verse: “in all your ways.” The danger was in the misapplication of the passage. The psalmist was clearly teaching that a person is protected only when he or she is following the will of God. By omitting the key component of the verse, Satan was setting up a false equivalence between the psalmist’s stumbling and Jesus intentionally jumping off the pinnacle of the temple. For Jesus to do this in some dramatic display to reconcile Himself with the people’s beliefs would not have been God’s will. 

Jesus was being asked to test God’s faithfulness and ultimately His position as Son by creating a situation that would require God to act in a certain way—to force Him to intervene. This temptation is not uncommon today. We are constantly being manipulated by Satan to put God into a box where we expect Him to act a certain way. 

Jesus rejected the temptation and once again quoted Scripture, this time from Deuteronomy 6:16. His response was straightforward. It would not be right to “test the Lord your God” and then expect Him to bail you out when you are disobeying His will. 

The power to do what He was being tempted to do was not in question. Even Satan knew the power He possessed along with the Father.  Try looking at it from this perspective.  Satan KNOWS Jesus is the Messiah, even Satan’s demons name him Messiah.  Satan KNOWS the power of God and knows that Jesus, the Logos of the universe who was with God when God created all, has the power AND the authority to do whatever natural or supernatural thing he desired.  Satan was primarily just tempting Jesus to MAKE God “prove it.”  It is still Satan’s old method:  God said XYZ, but is that really true?  Why don’t you just do ABC and have him “prove it.”

Jesus’ refusal to take matters into His own hands came because the Scriptures forbid putting God to the test. The original context of Deuteronomy 6:16 recalled an episode first recorded in Exodus 17. This was a time when the people of God rebelled against Moses and the Lord at Massah. There, the people argued with Moses and demanded water. Moses responded that they were ultimately testing God and not merely complaining to him, hence the naming of the place Massah, which means “testing.” 

Moses’s frustration grew from the fact that the people had been relying on God’s provision but neglecting to give Him proper thanks. Instead, they turned to grumbling and complaining. In both the case of the Israelites and Jesus in the wilderness of temptation, the demand was for miraculous protection as proof that God cared. Instead, God’s people are to be obedient and trust Him with all their hearts and minds. It’s also important to learn from this text the necessity of knowing Scripture, because there will be times when people twist the Bible in order to manipulate us into doing something contrary to God’s Word.  

Moses taught the “people who struggle with God” this.  Let’s read what he said. 

Deuteronomy 6:16-19

16 Do not test the Lord your God as you tested him at Massah. 

17 Carefully observe the commands of the Lord your God, the decrees and statutes he has commanded you. 

18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that you may prosper and so that you may enter and possess the good land the Lord your God swore to give your ancestors, 

19 by driving out all your enemies before you, as the Lord has said.

This section further expounds upon the covenant basis for Israel’s behavior in Canaan. 

• First, in verse 12, the people were commanded not to forget the Lord. 
• Then, in verses 13-15, they were encouraged to keep the first two commandments. 
• Now, in verse 16, Moses admonished them, “Do not test the Lord your God as you tested him at Massah.” 

Testing the Lord refers to the practice of placing demands or requirements on Him that display a distrust of God or his Word and basically asks God to “prove it to me.” Can you imagine verbalizing to God “God, I don’t really trust you.  I know that you said X, but I don’t trust you. I want you to do Y for me and PROVE to me that you are a God of your word.” No one in their right mind would dare to challenge God in such a manner.  

At Massah Moses feared for his life and asked God what he should do.  God then provided water. As mentioned above, Moses renamed the place Massah because the people tested God by demanding proof of His care and concern in the form of water to drink. 

Jesus quoted this verse in Matthew 4 because jumping from the temple in a spectacle designed to demonstrate God’s power to all those watching below was wholly inconsistent with God’s will. It would have been an attempt to force God into action. Sure, God could have rescued Jesus; it’s just that by doing so under those conditions, God’s power and love for His own Son would have been trivialized. 

The children of Israel set up a condition at Massah in which they would only recognize God’s presence with them and love for them if He jumped through a particular hoop they created. It was wrong and inconsistent with God’s will. In essence, they denied the Lord’s presence and demanded a miraculous demonstration to prove His concern for them. Today, we are lulled into this same trap when the devil causes us to doubt the certainty of God and His Word. 

Moses challenged the people to put their desires and ambitions into obeying the commands of the Lord. They were to “Carefully observe the commands . . . , the decrees and statutes.” The Hebrew word shamar could also be translated “diligently keep.” Moses juxtaposed the situation with the people at Massah with an exhortation to be diligent about walking in the Lord’s will. The image was of a person so intent on keeping the Lord’s commands that he studies the Word and continually asks whether or not what he is planning to do is consistent with what the Bible teaches. 

 The Bible is not just a book to be studied, but one to be studied with the intention of obeying it. We have no reason to doubt God or to put Him through unnecessary tests when we choose to trust and obey His Word.  This requires an intentional lifestyle that aims at godliness and glorifying God. It is not natural to put one’s trust completely in another. We are conditioned to look out for ourselves and not to trust anyone too much. 

Moses then further clarified his line of reasoning by telling the Israelites to “do what is right and good.” Right has generally been accepted to mean those things that are morally straight, upright, or innocent. Good means those things that are pleasing and desirable. The idea was that if the people did what was right and good in the Lord’s eyes, then they would accomplish what God had already promised to them. 

God’s original promise to their forefathers was unilateral and without condition. God had promised the land to them.  Subsequent generations of Israelites could obtain those same blessings through faith and obedience. In other words, future generations would be required to walk in covenant faithfulness if they were to receive the covenant blessings. 

Think of it as “God says your inheritance is the land. Your people already have it.  IF you continue to follow God’s lead then you will continue to have it.  If you don’t, then you are subject to being evicted, just as Adam and Eve were evicted; just as the Samaritans were evicted; just as the Hebrews were evicted.  We can see this being played out throughout the Old Testament, particularly through the era of the judges and with the exile to Babylon.  You might summarize it as “Do right and live well.  DON’T do right and you are on your own and subject to eviction.”

Moses also says that WE are responsible for teaching the subsequent generations 

Deuteronomy 6:20-25

20 “When your son asks you in the future, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ 

21 tell him, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand. 

22 Before our eyes the Lord inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household, 

23 but he brought us from there in order to lead us in and give us the land that he swore to our ancestors. 

24 The Lord commanded us to follow all these statutes and to fear the Lord our God for our prosperity always and for our preservation, as it is today. 

25 Righteousness will be ours if we are careful to follow every one of these commands before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’

Moses then turned the discussion to a hypothetical time in the future when children not present at the time the law was given would ask their parents about the meaning of it all. The children would want to know their heritage. They didn’t live through these experiences, so they would be curious what it all means. Second, they may think the laws were given just to the parents, but they were for them as well. The children would naturally wonder why they, too, must obey. 

Descendants of those who have been through special events must be consistently reminded of them so that the faith will pass from one generation to the next. This was especially important for ancient Israel because they had been called to the most important mission of all: to be the vessel through which salvation would be brought to all humanity. Therefore, it was crucial for Israel to reflect on its history and traditions, and then to pass the heritage down from one generation to the next. God even specified the manner in which this was to be done. He decreed a sort of sacred storytelling where the answer to the children’s question would be recited in story form, detailing all the formal, legal, spiritual, and covenantal aspects. 

Moses then gave a brief outline of what should be included in the story. He began by instructing parents to tell their children about Israel’s time in Egypt as slaves and how the Lord delivered them. Next, they were to include stories of how the Lord sent devastating plagues to inflict punishment on Pharaoh and all of his house. “‘Before our eyes’” was meant to convey the personal, eyewitness accounts of these events, since the children would have no recollection. Finally, parents were to tell children about being brought into Canaan and what a marvelous place God had prepared for them. This would be the equivalent of us telling our children all about our family history, especially the parts when God worked miracles in our lives. 

The parents should be specific with their children about stressing the value of keeping the Lord’s commands. The Lord commanded them to keep the statutes “‘for our prosperity always and for our preservation.’” The Lord who gave them the covenant and who had delivered them from Egypt led them into the promised land; the children were to be taught that the Lord is a God worth following. 

This is a sobering passage and one that reminds us that parents, in particular, and the church, in general, have a vital role in the lives of children. They are to be taught that God’s laws are for their righteousness and always for their good. If a person is not careful, he will begin to absorb many of the world’s ideas, namely that we are to look out for ourselves and try to make our own way, and that anything goes as long as it makes us happy. This ungodly wisdom directly contradicts the lesson Moses was teaching. He urges us, instead, to understand and teach subsequent generations that true prosperity comes only when we keep the statutes of God.

We as the heirs of God must teach our heirs what their inheritance is and what is required to maintain it.  We must teach them that we are to trust God without putting Him to the test; without putting conditions upon our love for God.