Testing YHWH

Once heavy rain flooded a town, everyone fled by cars, buses, boats, and helicopters to escape drowning. A religious man waited for God to protect him. He refused to seek help. The flood filled his first floor, and he fled to the second floor. Waters filled the second floor, and he climbed the roof. There he prayed, “God, help me.” Just then, a boat came by and asked him to jump in. He waved them off, saying, “God will help me.” He repeated these two more times, and sadly, he drowned. At the pearly gates, he asked Peter, “I asked God to deliver me three times. Why didn’t he?” Peter said, “Fool, he sent you three boats. What more did you want?”

Refusing to get on a boat or jumping off a bridge and expecting God to help one is nothing but testing God. It’s not faith; neither is it wisdom. If, however, he asked someone to jump off a bridge, saying he would carry him or stand alone in a tempest because he would rescue her, that would be different. Faith must have a promise to believe in for it to be faith. Otherwise, it’s just “blind hope,” the same as buying lottery tickets week after week, hoping we would win millions.

The devil gave Jesus a third test.

“He led him to Jerusalem and stood him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, ‘You are God’s Son. Cast yourself from here since it is written: “He had instructed his angels to guard you; they will carry you in their hands, and your feet shall not strike against the rocks.”’” (Luke 4:9–11)

The devil cited a psalm the Hebrews sang in their wilderness wandering. God protected them in their journeys despite all the harmful things around them, like cobras and vipers, rocks, cliffs, and lions. Night and Day, he stood on guard of them. They knew the Highest God was watching them and were in his shadows. He was their refuge and fortress (Ps 91).

The devil reminded Jesus that since he was God’s Son, he could jump off the pinnacle of the temple, and the angels would carry him to safety. He was right. God’s angels would have protected Jesus. But for Jesus to take that risk when God hadn’t told him to take that leap of faith was testing God, questioning his integrity, and putting him in an awful place of obligation. He said to the devil,

“It is said: Do not test the Lord your God.” (Luke 4:12).

Jesus, too, cited the Old Testament. At Massah, the Israelites didn’t have water, and they murmured, wanting to return to Egypt. The Lord took offense at their lack of faith but provided them with water. As Moses recollected the commandments in Deuteronomy (“the second recitation of the law”), he referred to this incident and said,

“Do not put your Lord God to the test as you did in Massah. Instead, obey his laws” (Deut 6:16)

Jesus saw him jumping off the cliff like the Israelites murmuring at Massah and questioning God’s faithfulness. He refused to do it. At this, the devil stopped testing him and left until an opportune time (Luke 4:13).

We, too, can take unnecessary risks or commit wilful sins with consequences and then expect God to deliver us. That would be testing him. We take risks only when he asks us to.