Why does God test us?

Why does that goldsmith take all the pains and spend time over his crucible in which gold is being refined? Because it is such a valuable thing he wants to remove the dross and have it of the finest quality. God permits His people to be put into the crucible and tries them, even by fire, but it is because faith in His estimation is a thing of exceeding value. So we are going to look at our testings in the light of this, God is dealing with us for the refining of faith, and to strengthen it. The fact of the matter is, if we Christians suffer no testings we shall never be anything but weaklings in a spiritual sense: It is the very testings that make us spiritually strong.

Faith's sphere is on earth, and God tries it. He never gives faith that He does not prove it; and this brings forth the fruit that will appear by-and-bye, when everything is made manifest, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

It is a fact that we shall never be in heaviness through manifold temptations except there is a "needs be" for it. God does not test us capriciously. It is not that He delights in our testings and our heaviness or even in chastening or rebuking or scourging; we are assured of that in Hebrews 12. So we each have to say to ourselves, If God did not see some spiritual need to be met I should not be face to face with, and under the heavy pressure of, this trial.

We do not get these temptations and trials unless there is a need for them. They are "for a season, if need be." Is there a weight on my heart? I ought then, evidently, in the light of this scripture, to turn to my Father and God and say, "There is a need for this, or I should not have it." There is never a trial nor a testing, never a heaviness in the hearts of God's people, but there is a need for it.

The Lord makes no mistakes. Whatever comes to us, then, let our hearts just revert to the Father, with this thought, "There is a needs be." Moreover, these trials are not always chastisement, they are His training of His children. There is such a thing as education, not instruction merely. He wants to draw out, to develop, to make manifest that which is the result of His own grace working in our souls, that which is the fruit of the Spirit, "love, joy, peace, long-suffering," etc., and He takes His own way to produce these lovely fruits.

Trials teach us submission to the Lord and deliver us from our own ways. They are God's way of developing patience in us. About the purpose of trials in our lives, James wrote: "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing" (James 1:2-4).

If everything went just the way we wanted, we would have nothing to be patient about. Patience requires setting aside our own will. Therefore trials show just how much we are willing to give up our own will to accept God's will for us.

We so often look at things from a "here and now" perspective while God works with eternal results in view. God may choose a hard road for us, not because He delights in our suffering hardship along the way, but because of the eternal blessing it will bring us.

"Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress" (Ps. 4:1 KJV). Distress is not sent from God for the sake of suffering but for the sake of enlargement.

Whatever cross or accident meets you in your path, you may put it down — happily put it down to the account of this — it is designed by your heavenly Father to try your faith. No matter how it may happen. The Spirit of God does not tell you to reason about it; but tells you to submit under it, and rejoice in the hope to which it is all leading.

"After these things," we read, God put Abraham to the test, and this is ever His way. Peter speaks of "the trial of your faith," and declares that it is "much more precious than of gold that perishes" (1 Peter 1:7). At the outset Abraham's faith laid hold of God as One who was able to raise the dead. Under test he was now to demonstrate that such was his faith, in a way that would be apparent to any thoughtful observer. He showed his faith by his works.

I believe the trying "by fire," spoken of in this verse, is a beautiful allusion to the three Hebrew servants who were tried by fire, whom, as you remember, Nebuchadnezzar cast into the furnace (Dan. 3:12-30). What was the effect of the fire in their case? It only burnt off their bonds, and set them free. The Lord lets us get into the fire oftentimes, and the effect of it is to burn off the cords that bind us, — in our case often self-imposed cords — and we come out free. But what have we had in the fire? A sense of the presence and company of the Lord, such as we never had before.

Your trials, your testings, which God sees to be necessary — they are only for a season, because He is going to reach His blessed and glorious end. He is going to make them efficacious. They are going to accomplish blessed results, and the faith that has been tested in the crucible, and like being lost, is going to be found: "found to praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

In the New Testament we have still greater triumphs: "We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope" (Rom. 5:3-4); "That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire," etc. (1 Peter 1:7).