Put the Pasta to the Test...

I thought that Sunday's discussion of Jesus' final temptation in Luke 4 was interesting and thought provoking. Let me quickly recap before I make my main point of this entry....

We talked about how one rather remarkable thing about this final temptation was that the devil used scripture this time. Having been thwarted by scripture on the two previous occasions, Satan now tries to "beat Jesus at his own game" and use scripture to coax a quick response. (Shoulda known betta...)

The devil takes Jesus to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple, and asks Jesus to throw himself off. He then proceeds to quote Psalm 91 that talks about how "you will not strike your foot against a stone." The Jews, and apparently the devil interpreted Psalm 91 as a messianic prophecy, meaning that it was pointed exclusively at the one who would be the Messiah. Modern day scholars are not so sure and I am not either. When you read Psalm 91, there is nothing about it that is quite as specific as most messianic prophecies. It is more of a general promise about the protection of God for all who love Him.

It is interesting to note here that there was a Jewish thought and tradition that said that the Messiah would manifest himself by throwing himself down from the highest point of the temple. We did not talk about that on Sunday. I ran across that little fact in several sources, but could never find out much about where that idea came from or why they thought that. But it is interesting to see that what Satan was asking Jesus to do was something that the Jews would have identified as being associated with Messiah. If anyone has information about where that tradition came from I would love to know.

Anyway, Jesus responded to Satan's scriptural challenge with scripture- no surprise there. And the scripture Jesus used is the key to the lesson and to my main point today.

Jesus answered Satan with Deuteronomy 16:6 which says, "Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah." In Luke, the "as you did at Massah" is not included- most likely because Jesus was not inclined to go into long explanations with the devil. Jesus went straight to the point as He had in all of the other temptations as well.

But that phrase, "as you did at Massah" is what I want to concentrate on today.

At the end of our discussion on Sunday I asked the group, "Why is putting God to the test a sin?" We discussed it a bit on Sunday, but I just want to offer this clarification to my thought today. What I want to communicate is that I did not mean to say that I think "testing God" is ALWAYS a sin.

When a new believer is struggling and cries out to God and says, "God if You are there I need for you to show me..." I don't think that is sin. It is the cry of the heart of someone new to the faith.

Even those who have deep faith in God cry out in the middle of their distress and ask for God to show Himself. I don't think that is sin.

We all desire God's guidance and there are times when we pray for direction or some kind of indication from God because we truly desire His involvement in the course of our lives. I don't think that is a sin.

Pslam 34:8 even says "taste and see that the Lord is good..." We are invited to "test out" life with the Lord and give Him the chance to prove Himself to us.

So how and when and where is putting God to the test a sin? I think that it comes with that phrase, "as you did at Massah." We discussed it on Sunday. What happened at Massah? The incident that the Deuteronomy scripture is referring to is found in Exodus 17. It is an occasion when the Jews were about to "pitch camp" and there was no water. Now I have to say that I would have likely been concerned too, but the Jews began to argue with Moses and say, "You led us out of Egypt for this? We should have stayed."

And here is where we find the problem. The problem lies in attitude and motive. The Jews, who had recently witnessed miracle after miracle, could not see beyond the moment and put their trust in God. God had delivered them time after time already, and still they could not put their hearts and their minds at ease and trust Him to provide. Could not the God who parted the sea provide water for His people in some way?

These are people who should have known better. When their temporary circumstances did not meet up with their criteria of what was "right" or "proper" or comfortable, they wanted to go back to their old life. They wanted God to meet their conditions. They wanted everything to be easy and comfortable.

And that is the manner in which we must not test God. We must never think that we know better than God. We must never look back at our old life- before we were saved- and think it was better. We must never lose sight of the fact that God is leading us where we need to be and where He wants us to go. If it is a little tough along the way, then so be it. He knows what He is doing and He knows where we are going. He would not bring us here if He did not know how to finish the trip.

Just Keep Swimming...

Jon