Jesus answering, said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'"
Now a couple of weeks ago when we were closing out Mark's gospel, we find that it was written there that these signs should follow them that believe. "In my name," He said, "they will cast out devils, they will speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them." Again, this other written word of God applies, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." You are not to put yourself deliberately into jeopardy to prove anything. Jesus doesn't need to prove that He is the Son of God by putting His life deliberately in jeopardy by jumping of the pinnacle of the temple to create a spectacular scene among the crowd below, by the angels bearing Him up, lest He dash His foot against a stone.So it is not right to just take scriptures and say, "Well, it says if they drink any deadly thing," so just drink cyanide and show that we are real believers. No, that's tempting the Lord our God.I know of missionaries who have been bitten by poisonous snakes without any harm at all. I know missionaries who have drunk poisonous swamp water, because of their intense suffering of malaria, and just so thirsty, they had to drink something, and put a straw down into that poisonous swamp water, and drink it without any harm. But for you to just go out and deliberately jeopardize yourself is manifestly wrong. Tempting the Lord our God.