Perception

     God made a covenant with Abraham, the Israelites, and even Christians who were to come later. Specifically, because of the covenant, God kept the Hebrews safe. As they were still in the wilderness, they were not yet saved, but like Job long before, God put an invisible hedge of safety about them until they were clear from Satan and his demonic angels. Christians, if truly faithful, to this day are safe from the hand of Satan, although like Job, Moses, and the wandering Hebrews; they were tested.

     I have written before that life is tribulation, not the Great Tribulation, as at the end of days, but it's a time for testing the faithful. The faith of the Hebrews was tested for forty-years while they wandered in the wilderness until death swallowed them up - some in victory - some not. (1 Cor 15:54). "That is why "to live is Christ; to die is gain" (Phil 1:21). Death is escapement from tribulation. Life is safety in Christ.

     Examine the Abrahamic Covenant - the deal God made with Moses to keep the Hebrews in safety:

And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. (Deut 29:2-5)

     First off, "temptations" in the that passage is an archaic term. The better definition is "testing" (Strong's Dictionary). God tests in various ways; the most obvious are trials and the other - miracles. He allows Satan to do the trying, and He does the miracles.
     The dictionary meaning of "miracle" is not exact enough; it is a natural effect without an obvious natural cause, although nature can be used for the miracle. Science refers to effects without causes as "discontinuities" - physical processes which are not continuous (i.e., do not adhere to the physical laws.) The Big Bang was a "discontinuity," for instance - its effect (bang) occurred without a cause (catalyst).
     Thus, the Big Bang was a miracle, and its "catalyst" was the intervention of God. (John 1:3). Satan is allowed to test faithful people - tribulation - and God tests them by annulling tribulation - miracles. Tests are natural causes, and miracles supra-natural. For instance, when Pharaoah pursued the Hebrews, the Israelites fled toward obvious peril to the Red Sea. The pursuit was a cause for what followed. Waters don't part at the whim of mankind. Just at the right time, the wind parted the sea and the Israelites passed unharmed as the Egyptians were trapped and died. Safety for the Hebrews and destruction of the Egyptians were the effects of a miracle. God was the catalyst which caused the sea to part and recede at specifically appropriate times.
     In today's passage, God recounted all the trials which the Hebrews had encountered and all the miracles they had seen, but they still did not believe. Moses pointed out that their clothing and shoes had not even worn out! Notwithstanding the parting of the Red Sea which some attributed to nature, Moses was asking, What about your like-new clothing and shoes after forty years of use? Use your heads, people, are these not miracles?
     Moses accused them of not believing their own eyes. They could see their good apparel but never perceived why they had not worn out! Nobody even questioned why; Moses had to point it out!
     A portion of the Covenant was "prosperity" for the Hebrew people. They looked at acquisition of and safety in the promised land as that prosperity. They failed to understand, except for Moses, that the prosperity that God promised was the Messiah. "Prosperity" is Jesus's salvation of mankind.
     When the time came, God attained flesh without a natural catalyst. The Holy Spirit came down on Mary and later a child was born called Jesus. There was a discontinuity with that conception; there was no natural intercourse. The conception of Jesus was the most important but next greatest miracle in which God was the "Intervener." The greatest miracle God ever did is from the first verse in the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen 1:1). The "heaven" is the void of space, and the "earth" is all the matter within that void. God generated the material and the void in which it was placed.
     Generation is a process. At the start, there was nothing with the exception of a "Catalyst" who is called "God." Everything, void and all, occurred spontaneously - the effect, seemingly without a cause. In evolution theory, no one was there in the beginning, but there was a "thing". Somehow the Higgs Boson pre-existed existence. From where did the boson originate?
    Explaining natural phenomena for the origin of the universe always ends up creating a new origin. In my lifetime, the origin was once the Big Bang, and now is a boson. The mystery keeps getting more mysterious with each level of human reasoning! Einstein quit pursuing an explanation for the discontinuity and attributed it to God. Just recently, a world renowned scientists came to the same conclusion - Michio Kaku. Although God and now Kaku credits God, many Christians do not!
     Yesterday, I wrote of Christianity as the religion without a God. That is just as the Jews before them, Christians do not perceive miracles. Many Christians know of the discontinuity of the Big Bang, yet fail to realize it was caused by the same miracle as the parting of the Red Sea and forty-years old shoes on doubters' feet! 
    What is the "temptation" or testing in the origin of the universe? Scienctists attempt to provide natural explanations for supra-natural causes. They conceal their explanation with words like "discontinuity." Scripture uses the word "miracle" in its stead. The origin of the universe was a miracle, which have not been satisfactorily explained by human minds. Many Christians still do not perceive the origin of the universe to be a miracle worked by God, yet even non-Christians such as Einstein and Kaku do! Where is the faith that generates a Christian. If God did not generate the earth, He certainly cannot regenerate it nor you! To be born again requires belief in the Creator God and Re-Creator God; that there was a genesis and hence there can be a re-genesis.
     God scoffs at false perceptions. The Hebrews looked at their feet and body and saw clothing still in great condtion, despite forty-years of wear. The did not perceive that a miracle or even the parting of the Red Sea. Many Jews and Chrisitians to this day look at the Creation and still do not perceive that it was a miracle. God scoffs at their lack of perception! Just as the safe Jews who all eventually died in the wilderness, safe Christians can still die while wandering in the world. Nobody is saved until they are in the real promised land - Heaven!