#086 "Don't Test God: Jesus Answers the Second Wilderness Lie" (Matthew 4:7)

"Jesus said to him, 'Again it is written, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."'" (Matthew 4:7)

In this episode, host Kate traces Jesus’ response to Satan in Matthew 4:7 back to the wilderness story at Massah — where Israel demanded proof that God was really among them. Through cross-references and careful study, you’ll see the shocking pattern of forgetfulness, the danger of unbelief, and the absurdity of testing a God who has already demonstrated His faithfulness again and again.

You’ll gain: A deeper understanding of what it truly means to “test God", the backstory behind Jesus’ quotation from Deuteronomy, insight into how Satan fuels unbelief through repetition of lies, and practical encouragement for resisting doubt by remembering the cross

If you’ve ever found yourself quietly asking God to “prove it,” this episode will lovingly confront, comfort, and point you back to the unshakable evidence of His steadfast love.

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Transcript

Unconditional Love And God’s Steadfast Heart

Kate 0:00

Hey guys, this is Kate from Abidible.com, and you're listening to the Abidible Podcast. I'm just a regular wife and mom who's had my life transformed by learning to study the Bible on my own. If I can, you can. On this show, I help you know and love God more by abiding in Him through His Word yourself. In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest loves Jenny relentlessly. From the moment they're children on that dusty Alabama road, he chooses her. He protects her from bullies. He sits beside her when no one else will. He prays for her when she's scared. He runs across football fields and across battlefields, and later across the whole country, carrying her name in his heart. He never stops loving her. Jenny leaves. She rejects him. She runs toward men who use her and toward places that wound her. She ignores his steady, faithful presence, and she calls him only when she needs him and then disappears when she doesn't. And even though she pushes him away, Forrest stays the same. Kind, faithful, ready. He never forces her to stay, and he never stops loving her. It's heartbreaking to watch, isn't it? To see someone who loves so steadfastly not receive love in return. But it's also beautiful. That kind of unconditional love, it calls to something deep inside us. The way that Forrest Gump loved Jenny is just a minuscule shadow of the perfectly steadfast way that our God loves us. We are like Jenny, sometimes oblivious to the depth of God's love or forgetful about all the ways he's proven it to us. We fail to recognize how he's protected us or provided for us. We think we're alone when he's been right there all along. We say we're unloved when the God of the universe carries our name engraved on the palms of his hands. It doesn't matter to us sometimes that he's never stopped caring for us. We reject him anyway. We say it's not enough, and we chase after things that wound us and run into places of danger. But when we realize what we've done, when we return to him, there he is. Kind, faithful, ready. He never forces us to stay, but he's always ready to welcome us back home with open arms. How? Because it's who he is. He tells us in Exodus 34, 6, I am the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. So he tells us, and he shows us who he is in the Bible, and in a million different ways in our everyday lives. But if we aren't looking for it, we'll miss it. And if we aren't intentionally remembering, we will forget. And instead of believing he is who he says he is, we'll put him to the test. We'll require, even demand, a further confirmation of that which is already so well confirmed. Real quick, if you want to be a part of what God is doing here at Abidible, you can be. For just a few dollars a month, you can be a part of our mission to help people know and love God more by abiding in him through his word. Check out the link in the show description to learn more. All right, so today we're talking about testing God. Our verses from Matthew 4, 7. Jesus said to him, Satan, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Satan just misquoted Psalm 91 to Jesus, as we saw last week, in an attempt to get Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple. Satan wanted to make Jesus make God prove himself, prove his love, prove his care, prove his goodness by commanding angels to catch Jesus before he plummeted to his death. Jesus' response to this second temptation is short and sweet. Don't test God. How many of us have heard this verse or this phrase before? What does it come from? And what does it mean? Is it as straightforward as it appears? We're familiar with how a mother might use it saying, Ooh, don't test me, child. But what does it mean in this context? What would you say if you were asked that question? What does it mean to test God? Well, this week we get to go on a little fun adventure. We're going to follow a cross-reference for Matthew 4.7, which is going to lead us to another cross-reference in order to find our way to the original backstory. Let's see what we can learn here. When Jesus responds to Satan here in Matthew 4.7, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. He is actually quoting Moses again from the book of Deuteronomy, this time Deuteronomy 6.16. There Moses says, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Masah. Hmm, okay. What happened at Masah? Well, guess what the name Masah means? Temptation. What a perfect story for Jesus to reference here in his own wilderness temptation. Masa is known as the place in the wilderness where, quote, the Israelites tested Jehovah. That's the actual definition of the word for this place in the concordance. Masa is also known as mereva, which means strife or contention. Both of these words refer to a spot at Rephidim beyond the wilderness of sin, pronounced sin. This is where the Israelites mumbled against God. Yikes. We need more to this story, don't we? We can find it in our next cross-reference, Exodus 17. For context, here the Israelites are fresh out of Egypt and brand spanking new to the wilderness. Just three chapters ago, they were crossing the Red Sea. Exodus 17 tells us about a problem the people were having. And by people, according to Exodus 12, 37, there were 600,000 men plus women and children. So most scholars estimate that there were two to three million people now following Moses here in the desert. Exodus 17 begins. But there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water to drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. It's hot. They've been walking for days and days. They're thirsty. There are two to three million of them. They don't see water anywhere in sight. Now, water, of course, isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. So it seems justifiable for them to be concerned. Without it, they'll die. So what's the big deal? How is that testing God? Well, we have to read between the lines a little more carefully, and we need more backstory. First, this isn't just a story of the people politely asking Moses and God for water. It says they're accusing Moses of bringing them out in the wilderness to kill them and their children. They're so thirsty and so mad at him, Moses said that they were ready to stone him, to kill him. They're threatening, two to three million of them, to murder Moses. This is a chaotic mob scene. And in verse 7, they challenge God's very existence among them. It says they tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not? They're asking, Is God even with us? and implying, it sure doesn't seem like it. And here's the forgetful, stubborn, human condition piece that we can relate to. They're looking at their present circumstances, hot desert, no water in sight, and forgetting everything that has just happened. Now, if we aren't careful observers, if we don't look into the full backstory here, we might side with the Israelites in thinking their outrage was justified. But we must remember, before they test God, asking if he was even with them, and before they threatened to murder Moses by stoning to him, listen to what God had just done on their behalf. He had brought ten supernatural plagues on Pharaoh and Egypt, delivering them out of 400 years of brutal slavery. He led them with his very presence, manifested in a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day that they could see with their own eyes. Psalm 105.37 says that there was not one feeble person among them, and Exodus 19.4 explains how that could be. And it's because God bore them, all of them, on eagles' wings. He sustained them and kept them healthy on the way out. Deuteronomy 8.4 says their sandals didn't wear out and their feet didn't swell. When they were pinned between Pharaoh's army and the depths of the Red Sea, God sent a pillar of fire behind Israel to keep the army back, and Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. And when the cloud finally moved and the Egyptians followed them, the Lord threw the Egyptian army into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels until the Lord returned the waters to normal, covering and destroying the entire army of Pharaoh. Listen to what Exodus 14, 30 to 31 says. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses. Oh yeah, they did, huh? They feared God and believed in him and his servant Moses. Massah is just four weeks away, okay? This grumbling and mumbling at the Lord, this testing that we were just talking about, it's coming in about 25 to 30 days, like a month after what they just saw at the Red Sea. They are going to question God's existence and Moses' anointing, despite having just seen, right? It says they saw the great power of the Lord. Yeah, they're going to mumble and question and doubt after seeing God literally part the sea and destroy the most powerful army on the planet. Well, you could say they were thirsty. They're in the desert. They're panicked because they don't see water anywhere. And what if God doesn't give them water? Well, let's keep going with context. Jesus refers to this story in his wilderness temptation, so I think it's important that we understand it in its entirety. So what happens immediately after the Israelites leave the Red Sea? Remember, this is still all before they grumble at Massah. Exodus 1522 tells us that they walked for three days in the wilderness and found no water. They stop at a place called Marah, which had water. Yay! Not so fast. The water was bitter, probably due to a high concentration of minerals, so they couldn't drink it. Sad. Not so fast. God shows Moses a log and tells him to throw it in the water. He does, and the water becomes sweet, and the people are able to drink. Immediately after Marah, God leads them to Elim. What do they find in Elim in the middle of the desert? Twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, an absolute oasis, where they had plenty of water to drink and shade from the sun. As soon as they leave Elim, guess what happens? We're told in Exodus 16:2, the whole congregation, again, two to three million people, grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. First of all, they were in slavery and captivity, and they are, and we do this, they are absolutely like rewriting history about how wonderful life was in Egypt. It wasn't wonderful, and they didn't eat bread to the full. So this is like a delusion, even a distraction and a delusion from what the Lord is doing in the present moment. They're wanting to go back to their slavery, back to their bondage, because they are being deceived into believing it was better. So what does God do? He rains down meat in the evenings, quail, and bread from heaven in the mornings, manna, more than enough daily sustenance for millions of people. A total miracle. And this brings us, 25 to 30 days after the Red Sea crossing, to our original story, to Massah. The people don't see water again, so they rage against Moses again, threatening to kill him, and they ask, Is God among us or not? Now, do you see the absurdity of the question and the audacity of their doubt after all that they'd seen, after all that God had done for them through Moses, his appointed servant, God would be justified in leaving them right there on their own in the middle of the wilderness. I would have. Their ingratitude is offensive, their demands audacious. Imagine seeing again all that they've seen and experiencing all that they've experienced. Now remember, this is again not some previous generation, not decades ago. The Red Sea Crossing is not the story of their ancestors. They were all there with their own eyes. They saw the power of the Lord a month ago, and yet here we are in Massah. What will the Lord do? Exodus seventeen goes on. And the Lord said to Moses, Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horov, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, and he called the name of the place Masah and Meriva, remember, temptation and strife, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, Is the Lord among us or not? God brings water out of a rock. He splits a massive boulder in two and springs from the deep gush forth. Now this is no mini fountain and no small miracle. Remember, like two to three million people needed water. I've seen videos of this potential location for Horev, and the rock itself is like 60 feet tall. That's as big as the presidential faces on Mount Rushmore. And all the rocks around it are smooth, as if they'd been transformed by some kind of gushing water. This is the middle of the desert, okay? Gushing water that flowed continuously. The plain around this rock is over 18,000 acres, large enough to house the entire Israelite encampment and is at the base of Mount Sinai. Well, we know what happens there, don't we? They just didn't get it, did they? Jesus said to him, Satan, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Why do you suppose Jesus quotes Deuteronomy here in his second temptation? Why do you think he points to Massah? I mean, I think he's pointing back to the absurdity and audacity of testing God in the context of God's absurd, audacious provision. How ridiculous does testing God look when we remember all that he's already done, when we look at this whole story? It's pretty ridiculous, right? Why did Israel do this? How could they be so forgetful, so ungrateful? Why do we do this? How can we be so forgetful and so ungrateful? Jason and I were wrestling through this together today. We were trying to figure out how in the world the Israelites could have forgotten so quickly when they literally saw all of that with their own eyes, experiencing all of it firsthand. Was the demonic attack more intense on them because they were a people who had experienced such profound glory and power for themselves? So did Satan just come at them more aggressively to steal what God was trying to seal in them? Was it the stress of the circumstances? You know, they'd left everything they'd known. And even though it was miserable captivity and slavery and bondage, it was still familiar, like I was saying, you know, it was still known. Now they're homeless and hot and exposed and dependent not on routine and familiar things, but on God. They were previously dependent on their taskmasters and Pharaoh. So the enemy you know is better than the deliverer that you don't know as well? Were they just out of practice in trusting in God? You know, was there an element of couldn't you have brought us out and delivered us to a different place? Why did you bring us here to this desolate place? Without foresight of what awaited them in the Promised Land, were the current circumstances choking their faith and feeding their doubts? Maybe it's a combination of all of the above. Certainly their innate sin nature didn't help, right? The idea of forgetting God in the middle of abundant provision wasn't a new one. That's a tale as old as time. It's the story of Adam and Eve reaching for their apple, even though they were surrounded by paradise. So, what does God have to do? I guess this is the question, right? What does God have to do to prove he's worthy of our trust and worship and obedience? What would be enough for us to no longer put him to the test? To no longer demand or require that he give us more proof, more evidence, more provision, more deliverance. Nothing was ever enough for Jenny with Forrest. Will anything ever be enough for us with God? We'll be right back after this message. Today we're seeing how absurd Satan's temptation was. Telling the eternal son to test the Father as if Jesus didn't already know him completely. And here's the truth: the more we abide in God's Word, the more absurd doubt becomes for us too. That's why I created the How to Study the Bible course. In this 20-lesson video course, I teach you the simple, repeatable steps that I use every week: annotation, cross-referencing, word studies, all of it, so that you can know the whole story for yourself. And I don't do it by myself. My husband Jason does the whole course with me. Not just talking with me about what God says, but who he is. This course is rich, practical, beginner-friendly, but also incredibly helpful to longtime believers who want to know how to more consistently abide on their own. It's yours for life. You get household access forever. So if you are ready to stop second guessing and start abiding in God through his word, click the link in this episode's description and begin your journey today. And now, back to the show. Will anything ever be enough for us? That was my question before the break. This is hard to hear, but guys, testing God is a sin. We are commanded against it. It's a shall not. The scriptures strictly forbid it. Because testing God is an act of disobedience. It demonstrates lack of trust in Him that is rooted in unbelief. Unbelief is a sin. It's saying that God has not done enough and is not enough. Listen to how Matthew Henry explains the attitude behind a heart of unbelief that tests God. He says, if we expect that because God has promised not to forsake us, therefore he should follow us out of the way of our duty, that because he has promised to supply our wants, therefore he should humor us and please our fancies, that because he has promised to help us, we may willingly thrust ourselves into danger and may expect that desired end, our desired end, without using the appointed means. This is presumption, this is tempting or testing God. And it is an aggravation of the sin that he is the Lord our God. It is an abuse of the privilege we enjoy in having him for our God. He has thereby encouraged us to trust him, but we are very ungrateful. If therefore we tempt him, test him, it is contrary to our duty to him as our God. This is to affront him who we ought to honor. Yikes. Testing God is an abuse of the privileges we enjoy because we belong to him. It's a demonstration of ungratefulness and we offend him instead of honor him. This is no small thing Satan was trying to get Jesus to do. When we walk in unbelief, testing God, it's no small thing either. It's sin. It is not nothing to require that God do something more in order to prove his worthiness to us. Why do we do it? At the root of the test is unbelief. There is something that we aren't believing to be true about God that is causing us to demand more. Now, just as a quick aside, this is not going to God and asking for his help, asking for his blessing, asking for his provision, when it's coming from a heart of understanding that he is your good God and generous Father who loves to give good gifts. This is a totally different heart attitude. This is when we are demanding, expecting, requiring him to do something to prove himself to us. Do you understand the difference? Okay, so in this setting of what we're studying, we must realize that when we are experiencing unbelief toward God, again, it is because we are believing something the devil is whispering to us. It's the old adage that's sometimes wrongly attributed to Lenin, which is repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it. Just say it over and over and over until it becomes true. This is the MO of our enemy. Repetitive, incessant lies to try and get us to be dissatisfied and to stop believing God in order to believe the devil instead. He wants to get us to walk in unbelief toward the one who has given us infinite reasons to believe, to look right past the gifts and the giver and demand something more, something bigger, something new. What lie does Satan repeat to you? I don't know what yours is. You may not even know. In our group this past week, our ladies' study group, we talked about the fact that there are lies that we are able to identify, and then there are the lies that we don't even hear anymore. These are the lies that have become so familiar and so comfortable that they just are a part of us. They've been repeated so many times over the years that they are part of our identity and who we believe we are or who we believe God to be to us. And so we operate out of those places of unbelief, built on that lie, that foundational lie. And this is a danger zone for us where testing God becomes acceptable. Again, I don't know what that lie is for you. I don't know what the devil argues against you and against God. It may be that God doesn't really love you, or that God wouldn't really move heaven and earth for someone like you. Maybe it's that he's removed his presence from you or that he doesn't hear your prayers anymore. We can often tell other people about his goodness all the while, not believing it to be true for ourselves. In this series, we are uncovering the reality that we have a very real enemy who continually argues against the goodness of God. So what should we do? Keep testing God with our unbelief or what? Charles Spurgeon says, if the devil comes to you and you get into an argument with him, he will beat you. For he is a very ancient lawyer and he has been at that business for so many ages that you cannot match him. Send him to your advocate. We can beat him if we know the scriptures. I love that. Send Satan to your advocate. Our advocate, Christ, can help us. Hebrews 2.18 says, For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. How does he help us? One of the ways, the primary ways that he helps us is through his word. When we know the scriptures, testing God becomes absurd. When you know the full story, this light and momentary affliction, this current trial, this waiting season, this present temptation, they're irrelevant. Israel knew the full story to a point, but they still forgot. And even though we didn't see the miracles firsthand like they did, we have the knowledge of what all the miracles were pointing toward. We have the end of the story. Commentator David Guzak says that testing God is demanding something spectacular from God to prove his love or concern for us. He has already given the ultimate demonstration of his love for us at the cross, and he can do nothing more spectacular than that. We, friends, are on this side of the cross. That's different than Israel. We have the promised indwelling help of the Holy Spirit. The law has been written on our hearts in the new covenant made through the blood of Jesus. There is not only knowledge for us of the full story, but also the power of our risen advocate who embarrassed the devil in the wilderness. That's what we're seeing. He literally embarrasses him. Satan came at Jesus with his worst, and our advocate Jesus didn't flinch. You know, something powerful is happening to me as I study this wilderness temptation story of Christ. Maybe it's starting to happen to you too. The devil is starting to look dumber and dumber. This temptation, this thing that he's saying to Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple is make God prove himself to you, Jesus. Are you kidding me? Jesus has not missed a thing that the Father has done ever. There has not been a single thing created, any miracles worked, a story redeemed, or a promise delivered that Jesus has not seen and been a part of. He knows it all. He knows the full context of not only Scripture, meaning what had been written up to that point about his Father, but everything not even written in Scripture. Things that you and I don't know and maybe never will. No one could be more certain of the Father's dependable character than Jesus. And Satan is saying, make your father prove himself to you. It's like insanely laughable. Satan is telling the eternal son, who has shared glory with the Father before the foundation of the world to double check whether the Father is trustworthy. It's cosmic level absurdity. Jesus was so certain of the Father's trustworthiness, so confident in his goodness, so secure in his love, that he left heaven to accomplish the Father's will. He left his seat upon the pinnacle, you know, of the courts of heaven to be tempted by his great enemy here on the pinnacle of Jerusalem's temple. And while the devil is a formidable opponent to the man who is unaware, he is woefully inadequate next to Christ. Because this temptation was ludicrous to Christ, it can also be absurd to the one who belongs to Christ. That's you and me. If you know the whole story, if you remember all that God has done, being tempted to test God will be laughable to you too. Here's the big idea. Don't test God. He has already proven himself. It's absurd to test somebody who has already aced all the tests. But you know what's even more astonishing? I was thinking about this. God didn't just pass the test, he willingly stepped into the testing arena in front of us. The story of Scripture and the story of our own lives is filled with evidence over and over and over again. God has revealed himself through his mighty hand and outstretched arm. He didn't have to, he owed us nothing. He could have remained hidden or distant or unknowable. And yet he chose to be known. Why? Because he wants us to trust him. He wants us to love him, and he wants to be known by us. He has proven his character, his power, his mercy, his faithfulness, all culminating at the cross. He's already done the spectacular thing. He has nothing left to prove. So the question for you and I is this where are we putting God to the test? Where are we maybe withholding obedience and love from him because we're waiting for more evidence? Where are we choosing, like Jenny did with Forrest, to ignore God's love or to take it for granted? Where are we maybe completely blind to the things that he's doing on our behalf that are greater than we could even imagine? You know, there was a direct route that God could have taken. It was a merchant route to bring the Israelites to the promised land. But he didn't go that way on purpose. He led them south out of the way. He turned them by way of the sea, and he did that to test himself and to prove himself to his people in a great and mighty demonstration of his power by parting the sea in front of them. They stood in awe, didn't they, right? We saw that they worshiped God, they believed him for a few days, and then they were back to grumbling. Where are we doing the same? Where are we putting God through test after test with nothing ever being enough? Where are we saying, maybe not out loud, but in our hearts, prove it. Prove you love me, prove you'll provide for me, prove you're near, prove that you see me, prove you're good. Where are we demanding something from God that he has already demonstrated in so many ways and most powerfully at Calvary? Imagine a life where instead of testing God, we trust him, where instead of demanding a sign, we stand on what he's already said, where instead of rehearsing and agreeing with the enemy's lies and accusations, we rehearse the evidence of God's faithfulness, where obedience and love flow not from pressure or obligation, but from settled confidence that says, He has already proven himself to me. That is what Jesus modeled in Matthew 4. When Satan tells him to throw himself down, Jesus answers, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus refuses to demand proof from the Father. And here's the glory of it. Jesus never once tested God. So when we do, and we have, and we will again, Jesus's perfect obedience stands in our place. Israel tested God in the wilderness. Jesus is referring to that story. He knows it happened, and he knows that we test God in our wilderness. But our Jesus, our advocate, never tested God. He couldn't, he knew too much, he knew the Father too well. So he trusted, he obeyed, and he stood firm. And because he did, if we are in Christ, we will never be crushed by our failure to trust. We are covered by his faithfulness. So look out, look back, remember, and you won't be tempted to test God. Look to the cross, look at the empty tomb. He has already proven himself. Our question should never be about whether he will prove himself again. The question is whether we will believe what he has already shown us. And that's it for this episode. If you know someone who would be blessed by what you just heard, please share the Abidible Podcast with them. Keep spreading the word so we can make much of the word. Drop us a review, tell us what you love and what you're learning. Check out the link to learn more about partnering with us by buying us a coffee one time, by joining our Abidible Plus Women's Membership community for $10 a month, or by becoming a monthly supporter. For those of you following along in the workbook, go ahead and begin working on our next verse in this series, Matthew 4.8, on pages 44 to 47 in your study workbook. Ideally, you would have this section done before you listen to the next episode, number 87. In this episode, we'll see the devil change the setting of the temptation yet again. We've gone from the wilderness to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, and now we're headed to a brand new location. The verse next week is Matthew 4:8. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of their world and their glory. What will the setting have to do with this next and final temptation? We'll dive into that next week. I'll pray for us and then close us out with our memory work for verse 7. Father, you are the God who has never failed a single test. You are the God who split seas, rained down bread from heaven, brought water from the rock, and kept covenant with a stubborn and forgetful people. You are the God who revealed yourself again and again and again with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. You have never once been unfaithful, never once been absent, never once been untrue to your word. And in the fullness of time, you proved yourself in the most spectacular way possible at the cross. You did not withhold your own son. You did not remain distant. You stepped into our wilderness and bore our sin. You have given us more than enough evidence of your goodness, your love, and your nearness. We praise you because you are trustworthy. We praise you because you are consistent. We praise you because you have already proven who you are. And yet, Lord, we confess that we still test you. We demand more proof. We withhold our obedience while we wait for more evidence or reassurance. We rehearse the enemy's whispers instead of remembering your faithfulness. Please forgive us for our unbelief. Forgive us for treating the cross as if it were not enough. Forgive us for asking you to prove what you have already demonstrated beyond measure. Thank you for Jesus who did not test you in the wilderness. Thank you that where Israel failed and where we fail, he stood firm. Thank you that his perfect trust now covers our imperfect hearts. Father, please teach us to remember. When we are tempted to demand signs, anchor us in what you've already done. When the lies grow loud, bring your word to mind. When we feel uncertain, remind us of the empty tomb. Make us a people who trust instead of test. Make obedience our reflex. Grow us in a deep, settled confidence that you have already proven yourself. In our wilderness places, help us stand as Jesus stood, not because we are strong, but because he is faithful. We ask this in his powerful and perfect name. Amen. Let's close by doing our memory work together. I'm going to repeat Matthew four, seven, five times. Say it out loud with me or quietly to yourself. Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Matthew four, seven. Remember, you are able to abide in the Bible. We'll see you next time. Until then, let's abide.