Well, we were just talking with our team here about the idea of:
"Test or Temptation"!
Does God even test us?
We're talking about when we pray everyday in Matthew 6: "The Lord lead us not into temptation."
I just realized I don't even believe that!
I don't believe that God leads me into temptation.
But it says that obviously He does.
And then we thought about that in Matthew chapter 4, it said that
"the Holy Spirit led Yeshua into the wilderness to be tested by the devil."
OK who did this? Was this God or the devil? So we realize that there is such a thing as testing.
But there's two sides of it.
There's a positive side to tests, in which God wants to lift you up up up up up...
and there's a negative side to tests, in which the world, the flesh, and the devil want to bring you down down down down.
But all the people of God, from the beginning in the book of Genesis to the end in the book of Revelation -
there's nobody, I can't think of anyone in the whole Bible that didn't go through testing.
Testing is part of our faith because God wants to increase our faith.
I'm thinking maybe it's like somebody that's training to be a good boxer.
What you do is you give them a small opponent and then a bigger opponent and then a bigger opponent and then a bigger...
You're not doing that so the guy will get knocked out. You're doing it so that he can win the gold.
So God gives us these tests.
And I thought about it in sort of a little ladder of five steps.
The highest step is that God wants to glorify us with light and fire and power and beauty, Hallelujah!
And one down from that - the second level - is that He wants to give us victory.
Give us tests so we can win and have victory.
The next one down after that - the third rung - is He wants to purify our hearts.
He wants to give us a pure heart in our attitude and in our desires.
And then the fourth level down is if we're sinning,
He wants to bring us to repentance of that sin.
He can give us a test to show us the bad results - the damage of our sin - to make us stop sinning.
And then you have the fifth level down - which is the worst level - which is punishment.
God brings punishment on someone who is past the point of even being willing to repent.
So when we think about that, we saw:
what's an example of somebody getting punished?
That lowest level is like Pharaoh after he had been tested ten times to repent and he didn't do it.
God opened up the Red Sea and said "Hey you want to attack?
You're going to do it, not Me."
And Pharaoh failed even that test, and he got punished.
God was not trying to make him repent at that moment.
He was making him repent during the ten plagues. That was the repentance test.
This was a punishment test.
And when God says "I'm going to bring all the nations against Jerusalem
on the day of the Second Coming, I'm going to bring them." That's His test.
Not to get them to repent, but to destroy them.
The step up we then - from the fourth level - is when we're doing something wrong, and...
...we're not repenting. What does God do?
The test is basically just to let the results of what we're doing happen to us.
He just takes His hand off of us for a moment to let you see what you're doing.
"You drink all the time and you still drive?
"I'm helping you not to have an accident, but sooner or later, getting you to stop drinking is more important to Me."
So it's not that He makes you have an accident.
But He just allows you to see the results of what you're doing wrong.
And the next level up is to be purified.
I like something that Liat said about that, it says in John 15 that those who are bearing fruit
He prunes you and purifies you.
It's not because you're doing something wrong, but it's because you're doing something good.
And that purifying has to do with our heart. That's for people that are not sinning.
And God says "It's not enough that you don't sin. I want to have not just 'not sinning.'
I want you to have a pure heart. I want you not to want to sin."
There's a lot of us that we don't sin, but we want to sin. Now He says "That's not good enough."
He said "That's that third level. I want to get to purify your heart."
Now when your heart gets pure,
then He can give you the next level of a victory.
Like we saw David and Goliath.
He brings Goliath. It's a monster, cursing, it's a test!
And David: "But why did God bring that?"
"Because you know, here's My boy David.
He's going to knock that giant down. You know the bigger they come the harder they fall, come on!
And so he knocked him down. That was an opportunity for victory.
And then there's a level even above that,
which is Glorification.
And that's what Yeshua did on the Cross.
And He said "Father not My will. But if this is what You want, I'll do it." And He said "In this I will be glorified."
And when you give yourself totally to obey God, it's even more than victory.
It's even that you're willing to go through
difficulties, attacks, persecution, suffering to get to the victory.
You come out of that so pure that God can give you glory and power and honor,
and it's not even going to bother your heart, Hallelujah!
So these are the tests of God
God brings everyone into tests, and it's better that you know it so you can pass the tests.
You can sometimes pass a test if you don't get prepared,
but usually you get a better chance to pass a test if you prepare yourself.
So let's see this: God tests everybody.
On every test there's two sides.
God wants to bring you up up up up
and the world, the flesh, and the devil want to bring you down down down.
And the worst level is punishment.
If you're not punished, you can repent.
If you've repented, then you can purify your heart.
If your hearts are pure, then you can have victory.
And if you even had the victory, God can bring you to another place:
of being glorified with His honor and power.
Amen.
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