Where Do Trials Come From?

An Exposition on the Book of James Part 4.

If you haven’t yet, please check out part 1 of this series, The ideas of James are all centered around the idea of a perfectly forged faith that makes us perfect.

In today’s world, bad things happen all the time. A little over a week ago, a young man in his thirties was shot and killed at an event he organized. while I don’t pretend to know the details around that event, or even if Charlie Kirk had a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, (and I hope he did) I do know that God allowed that event to take place. I don’t think anyone with a biblical world view would say that God made that event take place, but for reasons hidden from us God did not stop that event. He could have. There have been many assassinations attempts that have failed. We can go back to November 5th 1605, when the gunpowder plot was discovered. If God had allowed the explosion than many people would have died including King James the VI of Scotland and the I of England.

We don’t have to look at individual acts of violence, we can look at natural events. Tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. Just this year Texas was flooded and hundreds of people died and many more were affected. God could have stopped all of these events. He controls the winds and the waves. He created them he could have stopped them. Why did he allow this to happen?

I cannot answer this question completely, because I can only see from my very limited perspective. The bible does address these types of events, and yes, God can choose to intervene and change the course of events, however God does not violate our free will. We are not chess pieces that God moves at his will, we are solders who are looking to our commander for orders so that we voluntarily submit our will to his. However, what about the things God can and does control? What about the floods? The God of the Bible is not the god of the Deists who think that God created a word like a clock maker created a watch and then just lets it run its course, uncaringly watching until it stops working completely. No God made the world and by it all things consist. He is the glue holding everything together and he intervenes on man’s behalf all the time. This is why we pray.

James gives us a great clue into why God allows trials to come, and where they actually come from. But we must look at this question from a Biblical perspective. Remember that the temptation of our faith is to work patience and patience is there to work in us to make us perfect or complete. Therefore, to the unbeliever trials and temptations are like seeds. they are planted to start faith to work. Some end up rejecting God because they cannot see past their own struggles and perceive God as either uncaring or nonexistent. Because surely a loving God would never let this kind of thing happen. But he does. The faithless cannot understand this, but God is not calling us to understand he is calling us to trust.

I don’t fully know why God let the floods take hundreds of people. I don’t know why God did not intervene on the behalf for Charlie Kirk. I do know that God is good, that he is faithful, that he is all-powerful, that he is all-knowing, omnipresent, and perfect. I do know that his ways are higher than my ways and that his wisdom is greater than my own wisdom. Can trials cause us to doubt the goodness of God? absolutely, but they shouldn’t. James tells us what happens to those who endure temptation. He says that they receive a crown of life. To endure temptation means that the object of your faith has proved itself faithful. If you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ and him only for salvation than he will see you through all the trials, no matter how hard. Blessed is the man – a happy man. Isn’t this the whole point? James said to count it all joy when temptations come. I am not saying that we should be happy that people have died in a flood, we should weep for lost people and souls that have entered into Hell. We should be moved with compassion for those effected by trials. However, we should always have an understanding of the goodness of God even in the trials. We should never lose our joy, even in sadness.

The crown of life (by this name) is only mentioned twice in the Bible; here in James and in Revelation 2:10. “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” We should also see that God has the final say. God has allowed the Devil to have power to try us. It is always the Devil that brings the temptation. He is always trying to get us to doubt the goodness of God. He is always trying to defame God’s character. But God will always use the temptation of the Devil to bring about a perfect work in us.

James tells us that God is not the one tempting us. God does not want us to doubt his Goodness or his faithfulness. God is not intentionally making things come into our lives to try our faith in him because he wants us to trust him. But we are drawn away of our own lusts. That word means desires. Desires are not always sinful in themselves. Sometimes they can be if the object of desire is forbidden. God has given us desires. HE gave us the desire to eat and made good food for us to eat, but when we desire to eat that which is forbidden or eat to much it then has become a wrong desire. When Eve was in the garden, she had a normal desire. She desired wisdom, not food. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat…” Gen 3:6

It was that she thought she could become wise like God. She lost faith in the goodness of God. She was enticed to believing that her desire for wisdom could be gratified outside of God’s design. She could have asked God for wisdom, or believed that God was wise enough to give them what they needed. But instead her faith was tried, she was drawn away of her own desires (lusts) and enticed by Satan. Her unchecked desire caused her to sin. Her sin was a lack of faith, She did not believe God but she trusted in her own desires. And her sin lead to death.

We are in the same boat as Eve. We have God given desires. Desires to get Married, desires to have children, to eat food, to make money, to have nice things, to have good friends, to have people like us, to have wisdom, the list goes on. But do we go about fulfilling our desires in faith, trusting in God’s goodness? God said do not commit adultery – it brings death. God said do not steal – it brings death. God said don’t look on a man or woman in lust – it brings death. God said if you need wisdom ask of me – don’t make your own choices – it brings death. Every sin we commit starts with a lack of faith in God. We sin because we do not see that it brings death, but God is true, and everyman is a liar. We sin because our desires are different from God’s desires for us. It is like the little child that won’t eat their dinner because they want ice cream. The child can want ice cream, but they need to submit their will to their parents who are hopefully wiser and want what is best for the child.

Sometimes God gives us a great big portion of things we do not like. We only want the sweet and tasty, but God knows that will not make us mature Christian; just as only ice cream does not help children’s bones and muscles grow like good food. The trial we are going through is only a trial because it goes against what we desire for ourselves. If we wanted our car to break down, it wouldn’t be a problem when it did. If we wanted to get sick, it wouldn’t be a problem when we got sick.

Sometimes we cause our own trials by the choices we make. We got into a car wreck because we were texting while driving. It is true that God still allowed that wreck to happen but the lesson should be learned to do the things in our power to not let the trials come. I believe James is talking about the things we don’t have control over. When we have done everything in our power and even sought God in helping us, and the opposite seems to be happening. when we are following the word of God and something that we don’t want happens. This is the temptation to doubt the goodness of God.

James then says: “Do not err, my beloved brethren.” What is that err? To doubt God; To lose faith. James is talking to people who have a saving Faith in Jesus Christ. He is talking about our sanctification. Saying this is the reason we sin, it comes from a lack of faith in God and doubting his goodness. Infidelity to God’s desires leads us to following our own desires. God wants us to have a perfectly Forged faith, so that we can trust him and not fall into sins or temptations. He wants us to follow his desires, and not to lean on our own understanding.

We are then reminded of the goodness of God, and his character. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” God gives good gifts. sometimes we see the effects of sin, the trials of life, and the bad things people do and think this is a reproach to the character of God. But, really, this is a testimony of his goodness. It is by his goodness that all of us are not consumed in a flood like he did thousands of years ago. He is still giving space for some people to repent and be saved and trust in his goodness. God has never changed. He is always the same. God is not bipolar. One day he is mean and the next he his kind. No, God is always kind, but do not take his kindness for granted because one day you will give an account. Even if your life is cut short from our perspective, he was still kind to give you the time that you had. He never changes. He has always been the same. This is one of the reasons that we can place our full faith and trust in him. He has never broken a promise.

God did not have to create any of this. He did it because his nature is good. God made us and gave us life out of his goodness. It is man that corrupted this world. It is man’s sins that caused death to happen. It is our lack of faith that still causes so much of our problems. “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” We were created to serve God and bring him glory. When we rebelled against his desires to pursue our own God could have whipped us out with a single word. Instead, God, in his love wherewith he love us, wanted us to be restored. He choose, before the foundation of the earth, that he would become the sinless sacrifice for our sins. He wanted to walk with Adam in a restored relationship that he promised right there that he would send a Savior. Jesus Christ would be that savior. He was God in Heaven and came down to earth through a miraculous birth and took on flesh. He became acquainted with our sufferings and our pain. He was affected by sin in the sense that he knew what it meant to suffer hunger and pain and sweat. He saw sickness and death, and he took it all on himself when he died on the cross. He suffered for our sins. He died for our transgressions and at every move his desire was to please his father in Heaven. His will was in complete alignment with the Father because – even as he said – “I and my father are one”

Yes, God lets bad things happen, but this doesn’t make God evil. He has allowed it for a reason. It is caused by man’s sin, not by God. However, God is wanting us to have a more perfect faith in him, and he will use the trials that come to work in us patience and he wants us to let patience have her perfect work so that we will be perfect. He wants us to have a perfectly forged faith in him.

James 1:12-18 KJV

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

Do not err, my beloved brethren.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

S.T.
Acts 20:24
"But none of these things move me..."