“For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness…When your Fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof though they had seen my work.”
Psalm 95:7-9
When Jesus met his temptation in the wilderness to step into presumption he countered the temptation quoting scripture ~ “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
We don’t test God, but God does test us. All testing is an examination, a revealing. A search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my ways. We are either approved or shown where we are lacking; not for the purpose of condemnation, but for growth and ultimate approval. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Our need and ultimate demands on God to prove Himself is something understood in a child. It is the learning process. Every child must grow up. Every lesson must be learned to provide the stable foundation of God’s faithfulness. Each act is teaching us God can be trusted and when he instructs, we learn it is for our well being.
As I said last week, there is a learning process for all revelation and while God is patient with us there comes a time where we are expected to know and believe what has been decreed and displayed.
As parents raising children, we all appreciate the seasons where we know, they should know. The emotional dynamics that occur within correction and discipline is unpleasant. Hebrews reminds us that discipline is a must and while it’s unpleasant it will, when submitted to, yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness….. thus there must be seeing, hearing and obeying without a need for God to prove Himself.
“Today if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts….and put me to the test”
Hebrews chapter three and four reminds us of the spiritual implications of Psalm 95: They heard. They demanded proof. They saw. They did not obey. They hardened their hearts. All from an evil heart of unbelief which ultimately incurred the judgment of God.
“…none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.” Numbers 14:22-23
Where there is no revelation knowledge, Proverbs says, people cast off restraint. Where there is an evil heart of unbelief people simply cannot inherit the promises of God. Where we are unable to inherit the promises of God there can be no rest for our souls.
“Today if you hear his voice harden not your hearts…..and put me to the test”
We hear and then fear. We hear and then obfuscate. We hear but need another word. We see but want the confirmation. In hearing, we are pressed to obey but without yielding we ultimately harden our hearts. In seeing we are expect to believe. Apparently ten times was enough for the children of Israel ~ These men saw His glory and His signs and yet put Him to the test ten times and did not obey His voice.
As long as there is a willing heart to obey, God continuously reveals Himself. He wants us to increase in the knowledge of Him. Where I reject the workings of God, I delay the promise, delaying the promise carries the potential of never entering into His fullness.
There is only one right way and it’s His. There is only one path that promises abundant life and it’s His. What is left to us is our choice to believe.
“Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts….and put me to the test.”