In Part One, we looked at the two kinds of patience, longsuffering and perseverance, and how longsuffering should be exercised towards people, and perseverance towards the devil and circumstances. We also saw that the Greek word peirasmos used in James 1 can be translated as a temptation, test, or a trial. And then we see in vs. 13:
James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, tested, or tried (peiradzomenos), “I am tempted, tested. or tried (peiradzomai) by God”; for God cannot be tempted, tested, or tried (apeirastos) by evil, nor does He Himself tempt, test, or try (peirazei) anyone.
It says right here that Gos does not send the trials.
“Oh, but God allowed it”. That is true in the sense that He didn’t prevent it from happening. But it doesn’t mean He commissioned it, in the sense that He has the devil working for Him to create the trials (another misconception – the devil does not work for God).
The Sovereignty of God
You see, God is not in control of every little thing that happens in this universe in that He directly causes it to happen. He is in control ultimately, in that history will follow the pattern He has planned and foreseen. One preacher put it this way: God is in charge, but He is not in control. Some people, when you make a statement like this, will spit and sputter and cry “Blasphemy!” But that is because they have a warped view of the sovereignty of God.
The meaning of the word sovereign is someone or some group that has supreme political power or authority. In the case of a person, a monarch or king is called a sovereign. In the case of a nation, it means there is no other group that has authority over them. The United States used to be made up of colonies of other nations, we were not sovereign. But through the declaration of independence and the American Revolution, we became a sovereign nation.
Under this definition, God is indeed sovereign. He is the supreme monarch, there is no other who is above Him that He answers to.
The next statement that usually comes, is that God is all powerful. He can do anything. That is not precisely true. There are some things the Bible says God cannot do. For example,
Titus 1:2 2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,
2 Timothy 2:11-13 11 This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him.
12 If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.
13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.
God cannot lie. Now if we were talking about a human being, we might say “So and so will not lie”. But in God’s case, He will not go against His own character, and there is nothing in this universe big enough to make Him do so. So since God will not lie, God cannot lie. His would not becomes His could not. He will keep every promise He has ever made.
Psalms 89:34 34 My covenant I will not break, Nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.
So, as the argument goes, since God is sovereign and He is all powerful and no one can withstand Him, then everything that happens must be because He wanted it to.
This is absolutely not true. There are plenty of things that happen in this earth that are not His will. He does not control everything. For example, His will for man is stated here:
1 Timothy 2:3-4 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Yet we know that some people will not get saved and will go to hell. Why? Because our will has something to do with it. We have to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
If you decide to rob a convenience store, it is not because God made you do it. You have a free will, and so your decisions are yours, although you can be influenced to do good or evil by God or the devil.
You can, by your own will, prevent the will of God from happening (at least in your life). Paul in Galatians 2:21 phrased it this way: Í do not frustrate the grace of God.
The earthquake or other natural disaster (misnamed “acts of God” by the insurance companies) that harms people and causes suffering was not because God reached down and shook the earth. There has been a curse on the earth ever since Genesis 3 when sin entered the world. Jesus even warned us in Matthew 24:7-8 that there would be earthquakes, famines, and plagues in the earth, like birth pangs – growing more frequent and stronger as we came nearer the end.
Romans 8:19-22 19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
The whole creation longs to be freed from the curse that it is under.
Here’s another verse that shows that not everything that happens in this world is God’s will:
Luke 11:2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
If everything that was happening on earth was God’s will, why would Jesus ask us to pray that God’s will be done on the earth?
If you want to see what it’s like when God is in control, where His will is being done all the time, you have to look at heaven. Question: how much sickness and disease is there in heaven? How much crime? How much poverty and starvation? Those things do not exist in heaven. And Jesus told us to pray that God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
You want to know what things will be like when God is really in control on the earth? Look at the descriptions of the Millenium: the lion will lay down with the lamb, there will be no thing that hurts on My holy mountain, if a man dies at 100 years he will still be considered a child (Isaiah 11:6-9, Isaiah 65:20-25).
The next argument that comes along is, “Well, maybe God didn’t do it, but He allowed it to happen.” And that has the same faulty reasoning. God allows, in that He doesn’t prevent, things that are not His will all the time.
All Things Work Together for Good
“But what about ‘God causes all things to work together for good’?” Let’s quote the whole verse:
Romans 8:28 NASB 28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Saying “God causes all things” is not the same as saying “God causes all things to work together for good”. In fact, most translations do not have the phrase “God causes” in there at all. God can bring things together to result in good even when He is not the cause of each of the individual things. It is only our finite minds that think in order to obtain a desired outcome, we have to control the paths of all the individual pieces. God is much bigger than that.
For example, take the life of Joseph. If you examine it, all the trouble that came to Joseph was the result of someone sinning: beginning with the gross partiality that Jacob showed the sons of Rachel, which motivated the hatred and jealousy in his brothers to sell him into slavery, then the lust of Potiphar’s wife and falsely accusing him when he rebuffed her advances. God had absolutely nothing to do with causing those things to happen. What we do see God doing in Joseph’s life was blessing him at every turn, so that even as a slave he was called a prosperous man. God brought Joseph into contact with the butler and baker, to establish his credentials as one who could interpret dreams. Then God gave Pharoah the dream, and Joseph the interpretation, which caused Pharoah to elevate him to second in command of all Egypt. God even used the experience Joseph gained as head steward in Potiphar’s house, and being in charge of things in the prison, to know how to manage the storage and release of the grain during the years of plenty and years of famine.
Here’s another thing to consider. Galatians 3:13 says that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. You can read about the blessing and curse of the Law in Dueteronomy 28. That is another whole subject, but you should find out what you are redeemed from. You’ll find that it includes poverty, sickness, and death. Then ask yourself this: is God going to put something on us that He redeemed us from, through Jesus Christ being made a curse in our place? That wouldn’t make sense. But there is someone who does seek to put these things on us, the thief who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
Our Response to Trials
The Bible contains promises that cover every aspect of our life, every need that we might have.
2 Peter 1:2-4 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
We have been given all things pertaining to life and godliness. “Things pertaining to godliness” would cover spiritual matters, and “things pertaining to life” covers everything else! These are given to us “through the knowledge of Him, by which are given to us …. Promises”. That is, you have to know about the promises in order to receive the benefits of them. Know about them and believe them.
The problems Christians have, the trials they go through, have promises that cover them. Are you sick? Do you have a lack of finances? Do you have some sort of bondage, or fear, or anxiety? Do you have a problem in a relationship? Is there some sort of attack coming against you? All these things have promises that cover your deliverance!
Psalm 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
If you are afflicted the Lord has deliverance. But as long as you are believing that the thing you are afflicted with is actually sent by God for your spiritual good, your deliverance will be hindered.
John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
This is pretty straightforward. If it kills, or steals, or destroys, it is from the thief (i.e., the devil). If it gives abundant life, then it’s from God.
I heard one minister put it this way: God is good, the devil is bad. Cancer – is that a good or bad thing? It’s bad. Then who do you think it came from?
Good things come from God. That is basically what James 1:17 is saying. If it’s not good, it’s not from God.
I’ve also heard people try to relegate the “abundant life” that Jesus brings to only apply to spiritual things. Actually, in every area in which the devil tries to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus comes to counteract with His abundant life.
Can you grow through trials?
Most emphatically yes! But it is not just the act of going through a trial that causes the growth, it is our reaction to it.
Can God use trials to teach us? Again, yes. As we saw before, God is a master at taking things – even those things meant for our harm- and gaining good out of it.
One common reaction to trials is that we seek after God more. We read the Bible more, we pray more, we fellowship with God more, we seek His wisdom – because we need help, we need answers! And it is that increased time and effort in spiritual things that really brings about the growth in character in us. The trial is only indirectly responsible because it drove us to God more.
It’s easy to “have faith” when everything is going right. It is when we are under pressure that we find out what we really believe.
Romans 5:3-4 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Notice the thought from James is repeated – we glory/rejoice in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces (katergadzetai – triggers or brings out as a result) perseverance. And perseverance brings out character.
The KJV uses “experience” instead of character. The NASB has “proven character”. The word in the Greek is dokimen, which literally means approvedness. It is from the same root word as test in James, as in the testing of your faith. It means passing the test, or being proven. I’m not a Greek scholar, but it seems to me that the KJV use of the word “experience” is more accurate than “character”.
The progression is this: we rejoice or glory when we encounter tribulations, and put perseverance to work. When we have successfully endured the trial by passing the test of our faith and we have been proven and are approved, that will produce hope – hope that the next time we encounter a trial, God will sustain us, uphold us, and deliver us also.
Conclusion
I will be the first to admit that what I have presented here may be controversial to those who haven’t heard anything like it. I have endeavored to base my arguments on scripture, and the meanings of Greek words that I looked up in various study helps.
With any subject over which there are varying opinions, you can think of it as a road with a ditch on either side. The ditches represent the opposite extremes, and the truth is usually somewhere in the middle of the road, taking some elements from both sides.
In one ditch, let’s call it the left side, we have the idea that trials are purposely sent by God to teach us and perfect us, and are the primary method He uses to do this. Every bad thing that happens to you was placed there by God for a purpose.
The ditch on the other side, the right side, says that trials are never sent by God, they are all from the devil sent to harm us and should be resisted, and God never uses them to teach us. They will say the judgments of God in the Old Testament were not really God doing it, but God allowed the devil to do it.
There are those in the Body of Christ that are thoroughly in the ditch on the left side. A greater number are driving on the shoulder on the left side, and some are driving European style on the left.
Myself, I started out on the shoulder on the left, and when I first learned what I am presenting here, I must confess that I transferred myself to the ditch on the right. But over the years I’ve learned more, and now I would say I’m driving American style on the right.
Where did I change? Now I believe that God can use trials to teach us, and in some cases it may be His will that we go through them. I would site Paul’s imprisonment in Rome as an example. That was God’s plan for Paul. But notice that on numerous occasions, the Holy Spirit warned Paul that it was going to happen. It was not some nebulous thing he wondered about.
I believe that many in the Body of Christ are too far to the left on this subject and need to come to the right. Specifically, in the belief that everything that happens to you was purposely sent and commissioned by God to teach you. People forget that there is a devil out there whose aim is to steal, kill, and destroy. They forget that many calamities in the earth are caused by people who have a free will to do good or evil. They forget that there is a curse on this earth that causes bad things to happen like natural catastrophes, and when God comes back to truly rule and reign on this earth during the Millennial Reign, those things will cease.
Let me end on a personal testimony. When I was a new Christian, “driving on the left shoulder”, I drove an Opel Kadet station wagon, my first car. I used it to commute to college (Pleasanton to Berkeley). I used to say “God is teaching me patience though my car” because it always had things going wrong with it. Most of the things were relatively minor that I could fix myself, the only major thing was caused by my own stupidity – I went to change the oil and couldn’t find the drain plug (which was on the side of the drain pan, not the bottom), and took the cover off the oil pump. When these gear things fell out I correctly figured that was the wrong place and shoved them back in and tightened the plate. But I had broken the gasket. So I figured out where the drain plug really was and changed the oil. But after driving the car for just a few miles, the engine seized up. Looking behind me, I could see a little trail of oil. My own ignorance caused that “trial”. Well, after that I took an auto shop class so I wouldn’t be so ignorant, and got so I could do some fairly complex things on that car.
But things kept breaking on it. I had to replace the clutch. I had a gasket between the carburetor and manifold that would saturate and cause the car to choke when you accelerated. I had to replace that about once a year. I rebuilt the carburetor. The manual transmission started clanking, so I pulled it and we found it just needed oil (this was during the auto shop class, the instructor helped me with it). The ignition coil went out once. The stickshift broke and I had to have it welded back on. There was a nut under the hood that would vibrate loose, and when it did the hood would pop open (luckily the secondary latch would catch) and I’d have to pull over and tighten it down.
When I started learning more about the source of trials, I changed what I said about my car. Instead of “God teaches me lessons through my car”, I started saying, “this car is going to last and run well until I can replace it”. I was in my last year of college.
A funny thing – the car stopped breaking down. That last year, I had no problems with it.
When I graduated, I got a job as an electronics engineer and saved up my money for a month so I could buy a new car. I found one, and my Dad cosigned on a loan for me. I put a deposit on the car, and my Dad was going to get the loan the next day so we could give the person we bought it from a cashier’s check. That evening, I drove home, and as I pulled into the driveway in my Opel, the stickshift broke off again, and the water pump went out.
I just sat there and laughed and laughed. I got exactly what I had been praying and saying – it lasted until I could get a new one. I think there must have been some angel holding the poor thing together. The next day, we went and picked up my new car.
