Let's open our Bibles to the first chapter of James as we look together to the Word of God in verses 2 through 12.  While you're preparing for the study of God's Word together, let me just remind you that it is a common occurrence in life, certainly is in my life and I'm in little doubt that it is in your life as well as a Christian, to meet people who thought they were Christians.  I think that's pretty routine.  People who felt they were saved, believed they knew God.  And then some severe difficulty came into their life, exposed the reality that they didn't know God at all when they proved to be unable to deal with that severe trial.  Their faith was revealed.  It was found to be dead faith, not living faith, non‑saving faith.  They were unable to hold on to the resources provided in those who really believe in God and they forsook what appeared to be perhaps a genuine faith.

     The kind of trials that come into life all the time are intended to do that to sort of prod people out of their security, to awaken them to the fact that they either do trust God or don't in the direst of human circumstances.  Trials do serve a very helpful purpose in affirming to us, either legitimacy or the illegitimacy of our faith.  And that is exactly what James has in his mind in this opening section of this wonderful epistle.  He is concerned throughout the entire epistle with the matter of living faith.  He is concerned with the subject and the issue of genuine salvation.  And as we have noted, the whole epistle is a series of tests intended to reveal the legitimacy of someone's faith.  The whole epistle is a series of tests for living faith.  The first one is the test of severe trials.  When trials come into our lives, they reveal that our faith is real or it is not.  It holds or it does not.  We hang on to God and count on His resources or we don't.  And that is something we need to know.  We need all of us to understand the strength or the genuineness of our own faith.  We need not only to recognize it in our own lives but in the lives of other people as well.

     Now to kind of bring this into an illustration biblically, let me ask you a couple of questions.  How would you judge a person, the spiritual life of a person who...one, willingly heard the gospel, open ears, anxious, eagerness...secondly, received personally the Word without resistance...thirdly, responded with joy...and fourthly, believed?  Someone who willingly heard the gospel, received personally the Word, responded with joy, and believed...now does that mark genuine salvation?  Does that identify a true Christian?  Is that the characteristic of genuine saving faith?

     Well, let's find out by looking at a verse in Luke chapter 8.  Luke chapter 8 verse 13, and here is one verse that explains a portion of the parable of the soils, it has to do with the shallow soil that has rock underneath it, the ground.  And it says, "They on the rock are they who when they hear, willingly hear the gospel, receive the Word, received personally the Word concerning Christ, salvation, received it with joy and these have no root who for a while believe but in time of testing...what?...fall away."

     Now you'll notice here that we have those that heard the gospel, received personally the Word, responded with joy an