Don't test God

Read Matthew 4:5-7

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The second test (in Matthew; the third in Luke) also challenged the truth of Jesus’s Sonship. It would have been a spectacular and impressive miracle but that was not the point which is made by the devil. Rather the test was to prove for sure that Jesus really was God’s Son, by compelling God to act to save him just as he has promised (Psalm 91:11-12).

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But that would have been to test God just as Israel had done in the wilderness. Once again Jesus’s reply was drawn from the account of Israel’s wilderness experience: “Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah” (Deut.6:16). Massah was the place where Moses had brought water from the rock, in response to the people’s demand (Exod.17:1-7). It was a mighty miracle but with an unhappy outcome, rooted in the doubt, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (17:7; Ps.95:8-11).

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Jesus refused to manipulate God by pushing him into an action not of his choosing. Instead, he quietly trusted in his Father and in what the Father had said. Putting God to the test by artificially creating a crisis is very different from praying with faith for God’s help when problems arise. “Faith is for ways of obedience, not for flights of fancy” (Spurgeon.)