2 CHRONICLES 32:31 God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.
The system of passing tests is a kingdom principle which we need to understand. However, it is somewhat different to the secular educational system that often requires a student to just memorize information.
Most of the tests we face in the Kingdom consist of learning to trust God and developing fruit in our lives through experiencing adverse circumstances.
God removed His presence from King Hezekiah to see what was in His heart.
The Wilderness
We see in the Scriptures that the Lord uses the wilderness principle to test us in order to develop inner spiritual character. Jesus was taken by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to test His submission to His Father’s will.
His forty-day experience was a test to see if He would act independently of His Father (turn stones into bread and cast Himself down from the temple, and so on).
Jesus would not turn the stones into bread because He had not seen His Father do this. Remember, Jesus said that He only did that which He saw the Father doing (John 5:19).
JOHN 5:19 The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
Jesus was undergoing a test — the test of submission to His Father and when He passed these tests the Scriptures record this:
LUKE 4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
LUKE 4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.
Jesus went into the wilderness, filled with the Spirit and returned in the power of the Spirit. After passing this wilderness test, Jesus could say:
LUKE 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
You Must Pass the Tests Before You Can Graduate with honors, from this life into the next with the honor of ruling and reigning with Christ.
And he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
The inner qualities developed in Jesus while in the wilderness, qualified Him for this external anointing; the spirit of the Lord came UPON Him.
There is an internal anointing that teaches us all things, and there is an external anointing in which we work miracles for the glory of God. It is called the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
Moses was forty days in the wilderness learning to pass the tests. Israel was forty days in the wilderness learning to pass the tests. Jesus was forty days in the wilderness learning to pass the tests. Now, if you don’t pass the test, you get to take it again sometime later, but time is being cut short in these last days. We cannot keep going around the mountain because there comes a day when God says you are going to die in the wilderness and not inherit the promised land.
Most Christians see their wilderness experiences as the work of the devil, and they try in every way to get out of it. Their finances dry up, so they ask for prayer to escape the crisis, not realizing that it is a trial that has been set to take them to another level in their finances.
They must pass the test by learning to put their whole trust in the Lord. Tests and trials are not of the devil; they are tailor-made by God in order to bring believers into a larger place.
Often, God will allow a church to go through a time of testing in order to position them for a new move in Him.
During these times, many will leave the church as God begins to prune and remove those who cause problems or are a hindrance to what He has for that particular body. Often, we have to lose in order to gain.
During long periods of corporate prayer in a church, God will prune and prepare the people to handle a move of God.
Pride and lust for personal glory, along with ambition and the temptation to use the opportunity to build one’s own kingdom, must be removed.
God is seeking to bring us to our high calling in Him, which is to conform us to His image. This means to become like Him.
In order to bring us into rest, we have to face circumstances where we find ourselves in situations that are just the opposite of rest.
These circumstances are set up by God to allow us to pass the test by putting our whole confidence and trust in the Lord and coming into rest.
When we pass these tests, rest is established within us as a permanent grace. This rest becomes part of who we are.
Life is a series of tests and graduations, and if we do not recognize this, we will go through life frustrated and miss out on the purpose of our existence.
In short, this earth is a schoolhouse designed to prepare us to rule and reign with Jesus, and we must learn to recognize the tests that we are given and to pass them.
ROMANS 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did pre-destinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
We want to pass our tests with honor, attaining the stature or maturity of the fullness Christ and graduate, being qualified to rule and reign as the Bride of Christ.