“And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Matthew 4:6-7). God sends His angels to catch us when we fall, but there is a big difference between stumbling and tripping because we are weak or clumsy and deliberately taking a nosedive just to test our Guardian Angels’ response time. The Lord is quick to forgive the mistakes we make that come from the fact that we are flawed creatures living in a fallen world, lacking wisdom and limited in our capacity. But He is much more aggrieved when we transition from the tempted to the tempter. Tempting the Lord our God is when we willfully choose to rebel against the light and knowledge that we have received and deny the promptings and warnings of the Holy Ghost, not because we were distracted or fatigued, but because we heard the warnings but chose to heed them not. In the battle for our souls, it is perfectly understandable that from time to time we succumb to the temptations and wounds inflicted upon us by the fiery darts of the adversary. But when we choose to tempt God, we are not losing a battle against Satan but are instead defecting to His side. Anyone engaged in temptation of any kind is serving their master Satan. We should think very carefully before switching sides. Our Father in Heaven sends down His angels to catch us when we fall. The father of lies, on the other hand, is more apt to let his angels drag us down and trample us underfoot. Let us place our trust in the Lord and rely on Him to catch us when we fall and never try to tempt Him by jumping off the cliff just to see if He's paying attention.
