#testing god

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

When you can’t pass your own test.

[quotesfromscripture]

'Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.' But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask, nor will I test the LORD!' Then he said, 'Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well?'

Isaiah 7:11-13 NASB

[mandronia]

[quotesfromscripture]

You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, 'How have we wearied him?' By saying, 'All who do evil are good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.' Or by asking, 'Where is the God of justice?'

Malachi 2:17 NRSV

[bldgrelationshipwgod]

What does it mean to test God? | Gotquestions.com

Answer: In the Bible, there are examples of both an acceptable & unacceptable kind of testing God. It’s acceptable to “test” God in regard to tithes & offerings, for example, but unacceptable when the test is rooted in doubt.

Malachi 3:10 says, “‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘& see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven & pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.’”

This is the only situation given in the Bible in which God tells His people to “test” Him. Interestingly, the Hebrew word used for “test” in this verse is bachan, which means “to examine, scrutinize, or prove (as in gold, persons, or the heart).”

Just as gold is “tested” with fire to prove its quality, God invites Israel to test Him in tithes & offerings & see that He proves His faithfulness in response.

There is another Hebrew word for “test” used elsewhere in the Bible. Nacah means “to put to the test, try, or tempt.”

It is used in Deuteronomy 6:16, where God commands Israel to not test Him: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.”

2nd unacceptable kind of testing is when doubt leads us to demand something of God to prove Himself to us.

Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:16 in the wilderness, in response to one of Satan’s temptations. “The devil took Him to the holy city & had Him stand on the highest point of the temple.

‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written: “He will command His angels concerning you, & they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”’” (Matthew 4:7–10).

Essentially, the devil was telling Jesus to “prove” God’s Word was true by forcing God’s hand—if Jesus was in peril, God would have to save Him.

Jesus refused to test God in such a way. We are to accept God’s Word by faith, without requiring a sign (Luke 11:29).

God’s promises are there for us when we need them; to manipulate situations in an attempt to coerce God into fulfilling His promises is evil.

The occasion where the Israelites tested God at Massah is found in Exodus 17.

As God was leading Moses & His people toward the Promised Land, they camped at a place where there was no water.

The Israelites’ immediate reaction was to grumble against God & quarrel with Moses (Exodus 17:1–3).

Their lack of trust in God to take care of them is evident in their accusations toward Moses: “They said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us & our children & livestock die of thirst?’” (Exodus 17:3).

The Israelites were obviously in a situation where they needed God to intervene. The point at which they tested God, though, is when doubt & fear overtook & they came to the conclusion that God had abandoned them (Exodus 17:7).

They questioned God’s reliability because He was not meeting their expectations.

The difference between these two kinds of testing God is faith.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for & the assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).

The Israelites at Massah tested God because they lacked faith in Him.

The Israelites in Malachi’s day were invited to test God because they had faith in Him.

Faith, by definition, takes risk.

When true faith is present, obedience follows.

It is that faith-inspired action of obedience that God loves.

As seen in the example of Israel’s tithes & offerings, when we give out of our faith in who God is, He proves Himself to be faithful.

By contrast, when we view God through our doubt & demand something of Him as a way of determining whether or not He can be trusted, we’re in danger of testing God (see Mark 8:11–12).

Recommended Resource: Knowing God by J.I. Packer

[thatancientfaith]

The Temptations of Jesus: Testing God

Here we are at the final temptation that the devil directly attacks Jesus with (I say directly, because next week I’m going to look at the more subtle attacks and temptations we can face).

There’s quite a few things wrapped up in these few short verses (Matt 4:5-7), so let's explore them a little and see how we can face this temptation!

Continue Reading at That Ancient Faith →

[trueconservativepundit]

Trusting God? Or Testing God?

Trusting God? Or Testing God?

By Greg Laurie

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust.”

—Psalm 91:1-2

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he quoted the Scriptures—but he left something out. He said, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He…

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[180brg]

Judges 6

Gideon 1 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.

7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”

11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”

17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”

And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”

19 Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah[a] of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.

20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”

23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”

24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

25 That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old.[b] Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole[c] beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of[d] altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second[e] bull as a burnt offering.”

27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.

28 In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!

29 They asked each other, “Who did this?”

When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”

30 The people of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”

31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” 32 So because Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal[f] that day, saying, “Let Baal contend with him.”

33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.

36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

Footnotes:

Judges 6:19 That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms Judges 6:25 Or Take a full-grown, mature bull from your father’s herd Judges 6:25 That is, a wooden symbol of the goddess Asherah; also in verses 26, 28 and 30 Judges 6:26 Or build with layers of stone an Judges 6:26 Or full-grown; also in verse 28 Judges 6:32 Jerub-Baal probably means let Baal contend.