You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.
You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies,
and His statute, which He has commanded you.
I have often spoken to church family and friends about putting God to the test, for does not the Bible say, “Taste and see that the Lord, He is good.”? So reading a text like this in Deuteronomy 6:16 in the morning is eye opening for me; another catchy factor is that Christ used this verse in His time of temptation in the wilderness. I do not think that the two verses mentioned have the same meaning. The prior has the idea of seeing the goodness of the Lord, his mercy and grace, and understanding that, as the Psalmist says, His “loving-kindness is better than life.” This is the “taste” test. To know the grace and mercy of God is to know the greatest thing in the world; this is the tasting or testing of the first verse. But the latter reference in Deuteronomy 6:16 is not referring to a pleasant tasting or testing, but to an arrogant, corrupt flaunting of human “liberty” (quotes because our liberty is not as free of God’s sovereignty as we think it is).
O how quickly I test God!
Why? Why would I, the creation, be so quick to test the Creator when I come to know His laws and testimonies? The answer is in one word – depravity. I am completely sinful, when I am born into this world (Psalm 51:5); I live my life completely in sin (Rom. 3:10,23); without a change, a cleansing, I will die in sin (Rom. 6:23). All of this depravity comes because of Adam’s fall in the garden (Rom. 5:12), and there is nothing that I can do to change this. So I arrogantly, sinfully, and quickly (because it is my nature) put God to the test by not keeping His commandments.
An example of this could be found in the nation of Israel in Exodus 32. Moses has been in Mount Sinai for forty days talking with God and receiving the law of God. He has already given the people a glimpse of the law, and when he comes down, Moses finds that the people have already transgressed the commandments, “Thou shalt not make any graven images” and “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” God says to Moses on the mount, “Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them….” We are so quick to put God to the test by our transgressions of His law.
O, how corruptly I test God!
How arrogant, that I would think that I have the right to transgress the commandments of my Creator! Shall the creature command the Creator (Rom. 9:19-20)? Is it right that I question the righteousness and exactness of the commandments and testimonies of the Lord by my sin against Him? Abolutely not!
And the key to all of this is that it is an abuse of the grace of God. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid? How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?” This is ultimately the testing of God that Moses speaks of in Deuteronomy – it is testing the grace of God that withholds the wrath of God for our sins. “How long will it be until God will judge me for this sin? I keep doing it, but nothing ever happens to me.” This is the mind of the arrogant tester of God.
You may have had a parent that you recall saying, “Don’t test me!” What did that mean? It meant that you were getting dangerously close to punishment of some sort, and you better get your life in order before the righteous judgment of your parent falls in your life, or perhaps on your back-side. This is exactly what God is telling us. “Don’t test me!”
Sobering Fact –
You never know when the judgment of God may fall in your life to chasten you severely for sin. The test that this passage is talking about is like playing a game of Russian Roulette with the holiness and chastening of God. We know at some time God will judge our sin, yet we continue in sin believing that God’s grace will abound; and it does abound, but it may abound unto chastening. If you are God’s child, He will chasten you according to Hebrews 12. As I tell my own children, “If you would just obey, you would not have to be disciplined.” But because we are so quick and so corrupt to put or Maker to the test, many of us experience the chastening hand of a loving Father.
“You shall not put the Lord your God to the Test!”
O God, help us to esteem Your commandments and testimonies higher than our own choices; help us to just obey, and spare us the chastening hand and glance of Your love, until it is needed in our moments of weakness.
