Yes, certain kinds of tests are OK.
(wet/dry wool test)
36 Then Gideon said to God, “If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken,
37 behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken.”
38 And it was so. When he arose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water.
Judges 6:36-38 (-40) NASB
(light-my-fire test)
36 At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word.
37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.”
38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and …
1 Kings 18:36-38 NASB
(turn-the-sun-back-ten-steps test)
8 Now Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day?”
9 Isaiah said, “This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?”
10 So Hezekiah answered, “It is easy for the shadow to decline ten steps; no, but let the shadow turn backward ten steps.”
11 Isaiah the prophet cried to the Lord, and He brought the shadow on the stairway back ten steps by which it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
2 Kings 20:8-11 NASB
No, God doesn’t like to be tested or tempted.
3 But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.”
Exodus 17:3-4 NASB
You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, [as you tested Him at Massah.—Not in the SAB quote].
Deuteronomy 6:16 NASB
5 Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,
6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning you’; and ‘On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Matthew 4:7 NASB
(Luke 4:12)
Direct contradiction?
The critic supposes that there are several examples in the Bible showing God has been tested in the history of Old-Israel which is in direct contradiction to the rule “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Is the critic right in his criticism?
At Massah
The key text is Deuteronomy 6:16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, …” The critic carefully quotes the key text only partially, without the addition: as you tested Him at Massah. What happened there? (Exodus 17:3-4) The Israelites went to Moses blaming him because there was no water: “Why did you bring us in this desert?” This was quite unfair. When they went out of Egypt everybody knew that they were going to face a period in the desert. Or: hardship was to be expected. Moreover they seemed to have forgotten that it was God who had brought them out of Egypt with great wonders and signs.
If they had simply come to Moses telling him that they had a problem: Lack of water, and if they had asked to pray to his God for relief then no temptation would have occurred, as God is the Helper of Israel in times of distress (Psalm 34:5; Jeremiah 14:8).
The story concludes with Moses was reportedly striking a rock with his staff and water coming out. This was the example for all times that God meet prayers (though not always as we want or expect), but direct challenges to test God are simply unacceptable. It is significant that this is exactly the confusion the critic tries to create. All his examples in the list ‘Yes, certain kinds of tests are OK’ are actually prayers and not temptations.
Gideon
Gideon said to God “If You will deliver Israel through me …” (see the quote). That’s no problem, he made a deal with God. He was confronted in his time with the slaughters by the Amalekites who burnt down farms and villages making the people to refugees and the Amalekites disappeared with the cattle left behind. Something had to be done to stop this. Gideon started to speak with God about it. He had to be certain before he approached the Amalekites, that was his real need.
No temptation of God
Elijah
He lived in the time of king Ahab and Jezebel. She was from Sidon and through her Ahab dedicated himself to her god Baal. When she came to North-Israel she took an army of Baal priests with her who installed the new religion in the land. She organized special forces of apostate Israelites to persecute the original believers of Jahweh, so severely that Elijah could say that no prophets of Jahweh had been left in the country (1Kings 19:14). In this treacherous atmosphere Elijah prayed that God would reveal himself as the true God. Elijah did not blame God that He had left the people, no he brought them back to God again.
No temptation of God
Hezekiah
When Isaiah brought Hezekiah the message that God wanted to heal him, he was so filled with faith that he gave Hezekiah the choice of a sign. Would the shadow of the sun go forward or backward. No blaming of God at all. Hezekiah as a king needed certainty about his pronounced healing as so much was involved: preparations for his succession and instructions for the army against the Assyrians who formed a permanent threat. Hezekiah followed easily the faith of Isaiah, who some time earlier caused the great army of the Assyrians to flee by the will of God, and said “… let the shadow turn backwards …”
No temptation of God
Jesus
Being in Jerusalem at a high point of one of the buildings around the temple house Jesus received the suggestion from the devil to throw himself down. It was prophesied that angels would bear him? Wasn’t it? Jesus rejected this as a temptation of God. There was clearly no necessity for Him to do so.
No Bible Contradiction