Being the practical jokers that we were, we hid seven frozen cigar minnows in his car. By the time he got to back to college, he had to drive with all his windows down, spraying Lysol in the car with his head hanging out the window the whole time. He eventually found all the fish, but he never could get rid of the horrendous smell. Eventually, he had to sell the car for a cheap price, I might add. As you well know, dead things stink.
Nobody wants to be around dead things because of the stench.
In this chapter of James, he says that if you have faith and it is not accompanied by some action, then that faith is dead. After a while that dead faith becomes a stench to God. The smell is just too bad. In 1999, a gunman put a gun to the head of Cassie Bernall and asked her if she believed in God. But her actions proved her faith when she was martyred for her belief.