Christian Living

Are You Learning Anything from God’s Tests?

by J.W. Phillips
05/01/25
Not For Sale

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

Are You Learning Anything from God’s Tests?

We live in a day where not even educators want to test. One reason they don’t is because the range of scores after testing discriminates; and that’s deemed unfair to these little darlings.

This is not how God thinks.

From the beginning of human history, God tested man.

Scripture’s report card for Adam and Eve informs us they both failed their test and got kicked out of their home as a result.

Oh, that must have hurt their feelings! So says the sentimental softie. Stop the testing!

But God didn’t stop.

You’ll recall that God then tested Adam and Eve’s two sons, Cain and Abel, by stipulating requirements for worship. The result of that test? Cain failed, Able passed.

Once again we see the trauma of testing when Cain gets so upset he kills the one who tested better than he did.

Stop the testing!

But, again, God didn’t stop.

There are many verses in both Testaments of Scripture to prove he didn’t. God tested Abraham (Genesis 22:1), he tested Joseph (Psalm 105:19), he tested Israel in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 8:2). Moreover, we see God testing in the Psalms (Psalm 26:2; 139:23), in the Proverbs (Proverbs 17:3), and in his church (I Thessalonians 2:4).

Why all this testing?

Well, it isn’t so we’ll be traumatized. The real purpose of testing is to show the current condition of our heart so we can see what needs to be strengthened.

If we’ll focus there, gain progress there, we can eventually move into the destiny God intended for us.

It is said of Thomas Edison that he conducted three thousand tests before he succeeded in inventing the light bulb. That’s a lot of testing!

I love the spoof one comedian did on this as he has Mr. Edison holding a light bulb to his mouth as if it were a microphone, saying, “Hello! Hello! This is a test! Can anyone hear me? Hello!”

Funny.

What isn’t very funny is repeatedly failing the tests God gives—and learning nothing from any of them!

That’s what the wilderness-bound Jews did. Did you know that God tested Israel ten times before they got their chance to go into the Promised Land?

But they failed every test! Little wonder, then, that they never made it into the Promised Land.

God got them out of Egypt, but they wouldn’t let Him get Egypt out of them. It was insane! So soon after the exodus, they wanted to go back into bondage (Numbers 14:3)!

C.S. Lewis acknowledged that there comes a time when the good teacher realizes it is useless to administer the test again.

As failures of every one of God’s tests, those in that generation of Jews were left to die off in the wilderness like a bunch of flies on a hot August day.

In the pedagogical practice of God, it is how we do on tests that determines promotion or demotion.

The social promotions in our day won’t ever find sponsorship from God. In today’s system, if you keep failing, it doesn’t matter; you get promoted anyway. God won’t do that.

Same thing in sports: Achievement is minimized. So, instead of selecting an all-star team based on achievement, that is thought to be regressive. Far better, the progressives say, is that they are all stars. So let’s give everyone a participation trophy. How sweet!

Joseph, you remember, failed his first test when he declared his destiny to the brothers with the braggadocio swagger of an immature adolescent.

That’s why Joseph was subsequently tested and re-tested for thirteen years!

To his credit, Joseph passed each of those test splendidly; and in the process, Joseph became the most Christ-like man in the Old Testament.

It was only then that Joseph was promoted, and ascended to the role of the mighty pharoah's right hand man.

David also saw a long interval of time between the day of his announced destiny and the day when he finally became king. Significantly, there were many tests throughout this interval.

For more than a decade during these rag-tag days of cave-dwelling existence, David was hunted down by that mad man, the king of Israel.

Saul wasn’t the only one who did this. What happened to Jesus centuries later, happened to David, too; he was rejected by nearly everyone around him!

True, David did have a band of 400 men who followed him, but then came that day when they rejected him!

The scene was this. The place where they lived, Ziklag, had been routed by the enemy. Their wives and children had been kidnapped. Their homes had been set on fire. It was devastating!

With nothing but ashes left, David and his men sat down among the smoldering fires of the city and cried until they could cry no more.

It was then that the only ones loyal to David decided the unthinkable—to revolt against their leader!

They had suffered enough! David’s days were done!

Anyone else in such circumstances would have given up, blamed God, accepted defeat, retreated to a place of shameful hiding, and let the story end that way.

David didn’t do that.

Instead, David humbled himself before God, received, as requested, instructions from God, rallied those who rejected him to be on the Lord’s side once more, chased the enemy, defeated them soundly, and recovered everything!

Significantly, it was right after this last test that David finally became king!

The journey to the throne for David wasn’t one of ease and privilege. So why were these tests from God so hard?

One of the reasons God tests us is to refine us (Psalm 66:10), to approve us (I Thessalonians 2:4), and to see if we have a life suitable for our destiny.

If this proves not to be the case, which is true of many, the outcome changes.

G.D. Watson wrote, “Some who desire to be saints of the larger magnitudes, when the testing adequate to those magnitudes are brought to bear upon them, fail, and dwindle down to lesser ranks.”¹

It’s not that these tests reveal our hearts to God, he already knows them. It is we who need to see where progress must be made.

So, good news! If you’ve been tested 100 times, that means there’s yet hope for you—get ready for test 101!

In his book, Jesus, Author of Our Faith, A.W. Tozer wrote:

I can only hope that you are wise enough, desirous enough and spiritual enough to face up to the truth that every day is another day of spiritual preparation, another day of testing and discipline with our heavenly destination in mind.²

We do need to take all these tests seriously. They have consequences, after all. Consider some of them.

Our first parents failed their test, and were banished from Eden.

Cain failed his test, and became a vagabond on the earth.

Joseph failed his test, and became a slave in Egypt.

The Jews in the wilderness kept failing their tests, and forfeited the Promised Land.

Joshua and Caleb, the only two Jews to pass their tests,  entered the Promised Land.

Joseph later passed his tests, and became the second in command to Pharoah.

David passed his tests, and became the king of Israel.

These tests matter!

Israel learned too late. After God finally denied them entrance into Israel, they changed their mind and decided they wanted to go.

They were told that God would no longer provide his power, that they would be defeated.

So what did they do? They went anyway, and were defeated!

These flunkies then spend decades in the wilderness chewing on that! "We said we couldn't enter in, and we were right!"

This murmuring multitude had learned nothing! What about you?

Are you learning anything from God’s tests?

Notes:
1. G.D. Watson, Tribulation Worketh, (Hampton, TN., Harvey Christian Publishers, 2000), p.14.
2. A.W. Tozer, Jesus, Author of Our Faith, (Camp Hill, PA., WingSpread Publishers, 1998), p.94.