TESTING TO THE POINT OF DEATH
Being a son of God is not for wimps. Christians who doubt this fact only need to look at the life and death of Jesus for confirmation of the fact that life as a follower of Jesus is hard.
They should also consider what Jesus and Paul said about persecution. If their life does not line up with the life of Jesus or Paul regarding persecution, discipline and death they should begin to wonder if they are as righteous as they think they are.
Jews only need to look at the list of 613 mitzvah to be reminded that keeping all of God’s laws is a constant challenge that wears people down physically and emotionally. Christians do not follow the same list of rules, but each denomination has its own package of religious laws that keep people very busy with religious activity (e.g. going to church, praying, volunteering, reading the Bible, etc.). God symbolically equates all this activity with death because it exhausts the physical body but does not result in spiritual life. The only thing that gives spiritual life is the spoken word of God. In other words, religious activity does not produce life, but produces death.
More examples of death exist in Bible stories about conflict with enemies (e.g. Amalek, the Moabiites, Philistines, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, etc.). Often these encounters result in death by the sword. It is difficult for us in these modern days to find meaning in these scriptures, but, if we really believe that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for training in righteousness, we will search diligently to discover how to apply them to our personal lives.
What we need to learn from these stories of conflict with enemies is that God sent these enemies to afflict and humble his people because they sinned by not listening to his voice.
That God would punish his people seems inconsistent with what we might expect from a loving God until we remember that God tests and disciplines those he loves. And the reason he does this is to bring them to the point where they willingly choose to stop listening to false prophets and start listening to his voice. Therefore, anyone who has a sense of being loved by God should also have a sense of being tested, humbled and disciplined by him. And, people who do not have a sense of being tested by God need to evaluate their relationship with God.
Testing occurs in the heart and mind when God uses his enemies (i.e. religion) to punish, humble and discipline his people. When we look at the Biblical history of Israelites and Jews, we see a cycle of ongoing conflict with both internal and external enemies in whom religious motives were always at work to expand their kingdoms. This is all evidence that God was faithful to his promise that he would bring famine, pestilence and the sword on his people if they would not listen to his voice. And we see the same patterns in the history of Christianity from the beginning until the present day. Considering this Biblical record alongside actual history of inter-religious and intra-religious conflict, it is no understatement to say that being a child of God has never been easy.
Evidence that being a son of God is not easy exists in the fact that God is constantly testing his people to reveal what is in their hearts. And, mindful that all scripture is useful to training in righteousness, we should not be deceived or proud to think that God’s testing was limited to Bible characters. He is constantly working to tear down the religious structures of proud religious people so he can rebuild them into humble spiritual houses where he lives.
STUDY TIP: See Heart for understanding of the house where God lives.
The nature of testing is not well understood. Predictably, religious people think of testing in terms of physical circumstances (e.g. health, finances, relationships, jobs, etc.) that cause trouble and pain of one kind or another which the Bible symbolically calls death. Super-spiritual people tend to characterize testing as spiritual conflict perpetrated by the devil, demons or human agitators. The truth is, however, that God uses religion to create conflict that tests the heart.
STUDY TIP: See Religion is the Enemy, Gods at War, Sibling Conflict and Religion is Injustice, Slavery, Oppression and Affliction for more about how God uses religion to test the hearts of his people.
Even though religious people carry out the testing, God is responsible for all the conflict. He allows religion to exist because he knows that, sooner or later, the ever-present competition for power, authority and money by religious leaders and followers will bring people to cry out to him for deliverance from religion.
Every battle we see in the Old Testament is an example of good versus evil where Israelites are challenged to keep their hearts pure in the face of testing in which they either choose to practice religion or listen to God’s voice. Sometimes they choose good (i.e. listen to God’s voice) and win the battle. When they choose evil (i.e. listen to the voices of false prophets), they lose the battle. When they choose good, they are New Covenant disciples. When they choose evil, they are Old/First Covenant religionists. It is an ongoing cycle of conflict that still challenges people. These choices are ongoing replays of the temptations between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
STUDY TIP: See COVENANT COMPARISONS for more about New Covenant and Old/First Covenant.
But, while God is patient in allowing religion to enslave and persecute his people, he is quietly and invisibly at work disciplining individuals to provide a way of escape that delivers them from the sin of religion.