The issue is not merely whether we believe that God will act. It is whether we have a right judgement concerning who God is while we wait for Him to act.

That takes us directly back to the garden.

Notice what the serpent does. He does not merely dispute a command. He gives Eve an alternative interpretation of God's motive.

The implication is that God is withholding something desirable from them.

So beneath the temptation to eat is a more fundamental temptation:

Can God really be trusted?

Is His prohibition actually good?

Is He withholding something that would benefit you?

The tactic is older than the act of sin.

The serpent creates a different picture of God, and behaviour follows that picture.

Once Eve accepts the possibility that God's command does not arise from perfect goodness, wisdom and truth, the forbidden tree can begin to look reasonable.

That gives us a very important principle:

If God is fundamentally good, His command can be trusted even when I do not understand it.

If I begin to suspect that He is unfair, withholding, arbitrary or indifferent, then disobedience can begin to appear justified.

That pattern continues throughout Scripture.

This is exactly why Psalm 73 matters.

Asaph's crisis is ultimately a crisis concerning God's moral government.

He begins with the correct foundation:

But then his experience attacks that conviction.

The wicked prosper. The righteous suffer.

And eventually he says:

Look at what has happened.

His circumstances have almost persuaded him to reinterpret righteousness itself.

If wickedness prospers and righteousness suffers, perhaps serving God is pointless.

But verse 17 corrects the interpretation:

Asaph had accurate observations, but he was moving towards inaccurate conclusions because he did not yet possess the full perspective of God's justice.

God's authority is not arbitrary power.

The seat of His authority is righteousness, judgment, justice, mercy and truth.

Abraham understood this when wrestling with God's judgement of Sodom:

Abraham does not fully understand what God is about to do, so he reasons from God's character: the Judge of all the earth must do right.

When we cannot reconcile what we see with what we know of God, we must begin with what is fixed.

Satan repeatedly attacks this point.

Satan does not merely attack Job. He challenges the integrity of Job's relationship with God.

The accusation is essentially that Job's confidence in God is transactional.

Remove the blessing and Job will reinterpret God.

That makes Job particularly relevant here. The test is not simply:

What began to collapse was Job's previous understanding of how a righteous God should govern His world and deal with a righteous man.

Job knew God to be righteous, yet what God had permitted in his life appeared irreconcilable with that conviction.

His experience and his theology seemed to collide.

The danger, therefore, was not merely suffering. It was allowing an experience he could not explain to become the basis for a new judgement about God's character.

This also explains why the wilderness temptation matters.

Satan approaches Jesus with:

Immediately before this, the Father had declared:

Again, revelation has been given. Circumstances then appear inconsistent with it.

If He is the beloved Son, why is He hungry in the wilderness?

The temptation invites Christ to make the circumstance the interpreter of the Father's word.

Jesus refuses. He governs His experience by revelation rather than making revelation submit to experience.

Sarah:

The crucial judgement was not merely about whether she could conceive. It was about Him.

Faith made a judgement concerning God's character before circumstances supplied confirmation.

That means the real contest during the gap between revelation and manifestation is often: which interpretation of God will I accept?

God has revealed Himself as faithful.

Circumstances may suggest otherwise. The flesh may interpret the delay. Fear may interpret it. Other people may interpret it.

And, biblically, the adversary seeks to produce unbelief and deception.

Faith says:

If our basic premises about God's character are corrupted, our interpretation of His actions will become correspondingly distorted.

There will therefore be moments when I must say: I do not yet understand what He is doing, but I cannot conclude from my limited perspective that He has ceased to be what He has revealed Himself to be.

I call this the Job conclusion.

If you sign up to believing in the one true God of the Bible, there are certain judgements and conclusions you cannot legitimately come to about His government of the earth simply because you do not understand what He is doing. You were not there in the beginning when He created it, and you do not possess His perspective.

Principles to live by:

The garden is the prototype.

God says one thing. The serpent supplies an alternative interpretation. Eve's understanding of God's motive changes. Then the command appears differently.

That is misinformation at the most consequential level.

The defence against that deception is not merely becoming more sceptical or better at argument. It is being anchored in God's revelation.

Jesus answers Satan with: It is written...

The Spirit is:

Christ Himself says: