What is the Purpose of Fiery Trials
Fiery trials arrive without warning and are overwhelming. To live is to undergo seasons of fiery trials. They are unnecessary and the cause of extreme disruption, says our natural mind. Our faith may be more precious than gold, 1 Peter 1:7, but why does it have to be tested so fiercely?
God Permits Fiery Trials
Satan is the great tempter, but God permits fiery trials. Satan, our archenemy, delights in both temptation and fiery trials. His goal is to utterly destroy our faith in a loving Heavenly Father. However, God has a higher goal, in permitting us to be tested. Testing that results in an eternal weight of glory, 2 Corinthians 4:17.
To live is to know pressures and illness, tragedy and heartache, and irritations, big and small. Yet, there are times of joy and peace, but it always seems the tough things overshadow the good. So why do we have to go through fiery trials?
If we were never tested, we would never learn to trust in God’s abounding mercies. We would never learn to endure and have faith in Him, for He alone has the answers.
Types of Trials
The entire universe is a place of absolute chaos and our world is satanically energized. Every man does what is right in his own eyes, but God looks on the heart, Proverbs 21:2. Our own sins, wrong decisions, and mistakes, result in trials. A second type of trial happens because we live in a world full of humanity which has an inherent sin nature since the disobedience of Adam.
Another type of trial has a different characteristic, that is like birth pains. All major changes in society have been wrought through fiery trials, from women gaining the vote, to Israel being reborn as a nation. How many million Jews lost their lives, in horrific circumstances, for this to happen?
Maturity
There are also trials because God wants us to grow and mature into the fulness of the stature of Jesus Christ, Ephesians 4:13. Tranquillity and a life of ease, lull us into a false sense of safety, with no need to reach out to someone stronger than us.
No one says the trials are pleasant, but we can come out the other side stronger and better for having gone through the trial. For 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. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, Romans 8:25,26.
Job’s Trials
All trials have God’s permission before they come to us, Job 1:12. There was a plan and a purpose to Job’s nine months of agony.
Job lost everything. His wealth disappeared, the terrible death of his ten children and a painful sickness. Even his wife told him to curse God and die, Job 2:9. How do you recover from such a loss? Why wouldn’t you blame God for all your ills, after all Job was a righteous man? God could have stopped them from happening.
As you look at the behind the scenes you see that Satan mocked God, saying Job only had prosperity because God had a hedge around him, Job 1:10. As always, Satan was out to destroy Job’s faith in God.
Satan was permitted to test Job, for God knew Job would discover things he wouldn’t find any other way. God knows the end from the beginning, Isaiah 46:10. In the end Job had a relationship with God, he didn’t have at the start.
Does Satan Win?
Satan could not test Job without God’s permission, just as Satan couldn’t put Christ on the cross without God’s permission. Whenever it seems Satan is winning, take another look.
Satan and all his cohorts rejoiced to see God’s Messiah punished at the hands of mere mortals. Yet, the very thing Satan designed for evil, became his own undoing. Satan’s power over death was broken at Calvary, through the death and resurrection of Jesus. If the rulers of this age had understood they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, 1 Corinthians 2:8. Satan set out to kill the Messiah, but the Messiah crushed Satan’s head, Genesis 3:15.
Cup of Agony
God has an eternal plan, for God knows the end from the beginning. Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8. In doing the will of the Father, Jesus drank a cup of agony in our place, Matthew 26:29. A cup so bitter that we cannot comprehend the depths of it.
The wages of sin are death, 1 Peter 1:18. Jesus paid the price so the sins of whoever will believe are wiped out, and they receive the free gift of God, eternal life. 1 Peter 1:19. Animal sacrifices could not achieve this. The Son of God’s death and resurrection opened the way for sinful man to enter into a personal relationship with the Heavenly Father, John 14:6. There is no greater fiery trial than Calvary.
Reaction to Fiery Trials
The Christian walk is a process, where we grow precept upon precept, line upon line, Isaiah 28:13. Just as in the natural, we take baby steps long before we learn to run.
In all trials we have two choices. Job, in his agony of spirit, could have chosen to blame God. We can yell, “Why? Why me?” We can adopt an attitude of rebellion and anger against God, who allowed the trials to happen. We can look with envy at others, who don’t seem to go through the same fiery trials as us.
Or we can adopt an attitude of faith and lean into God, believing He has our best interest at heart. He alone can sustain, comfort, strengthen, and heal us, as our faith grows from strength to strength. Submit our hearts and lives to God, trusting only in Him, James 4:7.
Purpose of Fiery Trials
If we submit to the hand of God, trials will stimulate spiritual growth, just as regular exercise stimulates the body. Paul had a thorn in his flesh. A messenger from Satan to keep him from exalting himself, 2 Corinthians 12:8. He knew God’s grace was sufficient to get him through, for God’s power is perfected in our weakness. Diamonds are only produced under extreme pressure in the depths of the earth.
We are distressed with trials, but God will not despise a broken reed, Psalm 51:17. Trials often reveal a weakness in us, as it did in Job. It is fiery trials that cleanses our heart of wrong attitudes. Fiery trials are God’s way of getting our full attention, like a teacher calling at a truculent student’s name.
Trials Refine
If we allow it, trials will refine us and make us stronger. That which Satan designs for our destruction, God will use for our growth. Job said, When He has tested me I will come forth as gold, Job 23:10.
Trials come in all shapes and sizes, but no matter the nature of the trial, it is temporary. If a trial ends in the death of a believer, they go instantly into the presence of God. Many Christians are persecuted for their faith and lose their life. Yet, the mercies of God are new every morning, for great is His faithfulness, Lamentations 3:23.
Untested faith has little value. It is the reason Satan will be released for a little time, following a thousand years having been bound, Revelation 20:1. Natural people born during the millennial reign of Christ will be tested. Unbelievably, some will turn against the government of peace, just as a third of the angels fell and Adam disobeyed God.
God’s Perspective
We need to see our difficulties from God’s perspective. God believes in us, just as He believed in Job. Fiery trials and suffering prove the genuineness of our faith, as well as the faithfulness of God. It is through fiery trials we do our greatest growing. Though the mountain tops are majestic, lush growth is always in the valleys.
Job eventually saw his fiery trials as a gift, for through it all he learnt a priceless lesson about his relationship with God. Trials are not easy when you are going through them. However, if we look at trials from the realm of eternity, they are but a whisper in the night, for they result in eternal glory far beyond our comprehension, 2 Corinthians 4:17.
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Wendy Stenberg-Tendys is a freelance writer who enjoys researching a topic and sharing words of encouragement, particularly from the Word of God.
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