Looking in the book of James, and of course last week we saw
that what a little, what a great fire
is kindled by the tongue which is set on the fire of hell, the
scripture says. and we are warned about it. And he closes the chapter three
with this verse. Well, let me read, let me start in verse 14, actually. And then we're gonna read chapter
four. But if you have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from
above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and
strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the
wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle
and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without
partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace of them that make peace. From whence come
wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence? Even of
your lust that war in your members? You lust and you have not, you
kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight and war and
yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive
not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your
lusts. You adulterers and adulteresses know you not that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the
scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth
to envy? But he giveth more grace, wherefore
he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh
to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye
sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted,
and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of
another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his
brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and
judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou
art not a doer of the law, but a judge. For there is one lawgiver
who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgest another? Go to now ye that say today or
tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year
and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall
be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is
even a vapor that appeareth for a little while, little time,
and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, if
the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now
ye rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore
to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is
sin. You know, I believe that a true
thing is this, and James certainly, I believe, understood this and
declared it, is that while we don't take any delight in being
told that we are great sinners, in other words, we're not looking
forward to somebody pointing out our sin, It's never a thing
that we want to do. We don't want to point it out
to someone, nor do we want our sins pointed out to us. But I
believe this is true, that when those things are brought to our
awareness, we have to confess, well, that is right. You know,
a man who's been convinced of his sin by the Spirit of God,
he doesn't have any excuse. I mean, he doesn't have anything
he can say. He might not like what he hears and wishes he could
hear something else, but the fact remains that he knows that
what he's hearing is indeed true. And, you know, as we read what
James, I mean, he says some pretty strong things here. And some
people, you know, would take issue with this. I mean, the
modern day view of things that would kind of look at this and
say, wow, that was pretty strong, wasn't it, James? I mean, couldn't
you kind of lighten up a little bit, you know, be a little bit
more positive and, you know, you can get more flies with honey
than you can with vinegar and all that kind of stuff, you know. But the truth of the matter is
what James does is he describes the truth of what we are by nature
and he knows the nature of men and he knows the way we will
always go unless the Lord restrains us. And our desire is that the
Lord might show grace to us and keep us back from this description
here that we know to be true. We know we're headed in that
direction if the Lord doesn't hold us back. And that's the
only thing that makes a difference in us. And so he said here, this wisdom descendeth not from
above. We wouldn't really consider that
to be wisdom, what he's talking about, envy and strife. But he's
saying that's the wisdom of the world. Because the world believes
the law. The Lord said that the law was
written in the heart of men. Now, a lot of people think, well,
wait a minute. No, that's not true because men hate the law.
No, men love the law. What are we talking about? Well,
the essence of the law is this. An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. In other words, if you do this,
this is gonna happen. That's what the law says. It
brings out threatenings and slaughters. And men like that. Because when
somebody does something to us, we want something to happen to
them. Just something as simple as you're driving along and some
guy whips over in front of you in a car and puts on brakes.
And what's your immediate thought? You know, you just wanna, you
wanna run into him, but you know, well, I don't wanna mess my car
up, you know. I mean, those thoughts rise up
within us. Now, by the grace of God, you
know, we don't necessarily carry through with that, but we do
think it. Because that's just the way we are. That's the wisdom
of the world. And this wisdom, he says, descendeth
not from above. In other words, it's in us. You know, as old Flip Wilson
used to say, the devil made me do it. Because that's a good
excuse, is it not? But the devil doesn't make us
do stuff. He might present us some things
from time to time, but he doesn't make us do anything. You see,
the desire for sin is right here. Nobody has to stir it up within
us or anything. It's right there at all times. For where there's envy and strife,
there's confusion and every evil work. envy and strife, and that's
born out of the concept that we have that's wrought in us
by nature that we have a right to not be bothered by other people. Don't you believe that? What
are you doing? I mean, you shouldn't do that. If you wouldn't do that, I wouldn't
do this. No, we don't have the right not
to be bothered by other people. The Lord put other people in
the world to bother you. We don't like to think of it
that way, but that's the truth. See, he puts people into our
lives that cause us great grief. Now, why does he do that? Well,
if we belong to him, he does it to help us. Now, we don't
look at it like that a lot of times because we think, well,
it'd be easier. See, one of the ideas that the Catholic Church
promoted and promotes, I guess, still, is that, you know, that
of, say, being a monk or a, you know, if you take a guy and you
put him over here and you just put him where he's all by himself
and he's totally away from all other influence on that, well,
he'll just live, he can just, then he can live a holy life.
But, you know, just like Martin Luther found out, I mean, it
doesn't make any difference where you're at. You are your own worst
enemy. You don't have to have anybody
else to bother you to be bothered. You know, that's just nature,
and that's what he's talking about here. But see, envy and
strife is born in us, and confusion and every evil work, and that's
the way we want it. Now, no, we don't want strife
against us, but we want strife when we don't get our way or
when things aren't going like we are. I mean, that's the way
children are, isn't it? They want everything to go their
way. That's just the way we are. And unfortunately, we don't grow
out of it. We just learn other ways to manipulate
it and work it as we get older to get our way. But the wisdom
that's from above is pure. First pure, and then peaceable,
gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality and without hypocrisy. The Lord Jesus Christ,
he had no desire for strife. No, he had no desire. He sought
peace. He walked among men as a peaceful
man. And the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace of them that make peace. God's people blessed
are the peacemakers. Oh, that we might be men of peace. Not seeking something from other
men. See, not seeking comfort from
them, not seeking anything. Our comfort comes from the Lord.
And surely the Lord has given us one another to bring comfort
to one another, but see, we can't demand that somebody else give
us something that only the Lord can provide. He's the one who
can give us peace. He's the one who gives us satisfaction
in the world in which we walk. And without Him, we're never
gonna be satisfied. There's nothing in the world
that can ever be given to the children of God in this world
that will bring them peace, satisfaction, and happiness but the presence
of the Lord. I mean, that's the one thing
they desire. And he alone can apply that. And it doesn't make
a difference what else you might have in this world if you belong
to Him and He's given you His Spirit to dwell within you, you'll
never be satisfied except to be in communion and fellowship
with Him. From whence come wars and fighting
among you? Come they not hence even of your
lusts that warn your members? That's where strife comes from,
it comes right here. It doesn't come from without,
it comes here. You lust and you have not, you
kill and desire to have. Now you can kill somebody without
taking out a knife and stabbing them or a gun and shooting them.
You can kill them in your heart, in your mind, through hate. You
know, men, We're so foolish, you know, quite
often we hold a grudge against somebody. And who does that affect? You ever had a grudge that you
held against somebody? You know, somebody you just,
every time you saw them, you just, you know, something just
was ticked off within you. And they was just going about
life. But every time you saw them, you couldn't stand it.
It's all that his brother Al's been teaching us about. I mean, here was a man that was
eating up with envy. And he had a grudge against David.
Why? David didn't do anything to Saul. David was Saul's best subject. I mean, he would have done anything
for Saul. And yet, Saul was eaten up inside
with his hatred for David. That's what James is talking
about here. You fight in war, yet you have
not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because
you ask in the midst that you might consume it upon your lust.
And you know, it's quite a common thing today as men talk about
prayer. I mean, there's just been volumes
and volumes of people that's written books on prayer about
going out here, buddy, you ask God, you just get anything you
want. You know, if you just meet the conditions and everything,
I mean, you know, God'll open up the windows of heaven and
He'll pour out blessings on you, and if you want a new house,
He'll give you a new house, or if you want a jet airplane, He'll
give it to you, and all this kind of stuff. That's exactly
what James is writing about here, about asking amiss. Brethren, the Lord said He would give us
the desires of our heart. And he will. But you see, the
thing that the Lord does is he works in his people to give them
a desire after those things that are useful to them. Now in the
flesh, we want many things. But God is not a vending machine. You know, I mean, isn't that
the picture that men have? Well, if you've got these faith
coins here, and you'll drop enough of them in the slot, then the
vending machine in heaven, it'll just give you, just pick out
what you want and you'll get it. How foolish. Because you see, when men seek
the Lord, how do they pray? Father, not my will, but thine
be done. Now you see, the man that receives
everything that he always asks for is the man that seeks the
will of God. I mean, if you seek the will
of God, you're gonna be blessed. You know why? Because the will
of God is gonna be done. He's gonna do that. See, the purpose of prayer is
not to get what we want. The purpose of prayer is to bring
us into conformity with the will of God. That's why he brings
us to prayer. Because you know, when we pray
for somebody that's sick, and we desire, Lord, would you heal
them? Or would you heal us? He may
or may not do that because it may or may not be in keeping
in consult with his will and purpose of how things are going
to go in the earth. But he will bring his people
by his grace to the place where they rejoice that his will is
done. Even if the result, if you want
to call it that, winds up being the death. of the person who's
ill, we can be satisfied and be at peace because it's not
asked to miss. Lord, there's only one thing
on earth that's gonna satisfy me and it's gotta be that this
is gonna be the way it is. More than likely, you're gonna
be saddened. Because if you belong to the Lord, he's probably not
gonna give you that thing that you desire. The Lord Jesus Christ
gave us the example. He taught us how to pray. May
thy will be done in the earth as it is in the heavens. Now
you look at that language. May thy will be done in the earth
as it is in the heavens. See, the will of God is set forth. I mean, you're not going to change
it. And you can fight against it
or you can desire that the Lord will be done. And he will bless
his people that pray in such fashion as that. I believe that.
It's what he says here. Ye adulterers and adulteresses.
No, we don't like to be called such things as that. No, you're
not. Friendship of the world's enmity
with God, but is that not what he's talking about, about having
fellowship? Didn't Paul say to the church
at Corinth, you know, what fellowship hath light and darkness? What
fellowship hath people of God in the world, the ways of the
world? See, men, men adopt the ways of the world in many ways. And pretty soon after a while
that they've adopted the ways of the world, they become to
think that these things are the ways of God, or that it doesn't
make any difference. But the ways of the world are
never the ways of God. There's only one way, and that
is the way of Christ. He said, I'm the truth, the way,
the truth, and the life. And so that is the way that we
desire to go. Whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God. That's pretty simple language,
is it not? I mean, if you wanna be a friend of God, you gotta
be an enemy of the world. That's the way it is. Now that
doesn't mean we go out here and fight against people. or become
those that do everything we can to destroy society. That's not what he's talking
about. He's talking about we don't adopt those ways of the
world and the mindset of the world. We desire purity of mind,
spirit. We desire that the name of Christ
be exalted. And we can't take any delight
when it's not. We can't take it lightly when
God's blasphemed. I mean, you know, if we hear
somebody preaching something that is contrary to the Word
of God, we can't adopt it and say, well, that's great. No.
We want that truth which belongs to Him and Him alone. Do you think that the scripture
saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? I mean, is that not an apt description? Do you think that's wrong? But
he gives more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth
the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. That's a principle
of truth. The Lord is going to humble his
people, and they are going to be manifested by that humility. He giveth grace to the humble.
He doesn't see an humble man and gives him grace, but a man's
humble because the Lord gives him grace. See, men try to get
the cart ahead of the horse. They say, well, if you go out
here and be humble, you know, and some people are so proud
of being humble. I mean, isn't that the way of
the flesh? Be proud to be humble. Oh, you know, we're just the
poor, afflicted people of God. We're walking through the earth.
No, dear brother, the Lord said when you fast, don't put sackcloth
and ashes on so that men know that you fast. He said, wash
your face. Put on some cologne. I mean, you know, be happy. Now we're not talking about fake
happiness, but dear brethren, the point is that our happiness
is contrary to the way of the world. We're not happy in the
things the world's happy in, but we're not miserable in the
world. You know, this world's not my
home, and I long to be set free from the bonds of sin, but I'm
not miserable in the world because I have a savior. and he has promised
to go with us through the valley of the shadow of death. This
is the valley of the shadow of death. I mean, you know, and
the older you get, the longer those shadows are, and the harder
it is to get, you can't get out of them. You know, when the shadows
lengthen, and you keep going, you can't outrun your shadow.
You know, if your shadow's out in front of you and you are going
towards it, it'll always be a little bit further ahead of you. You
can't miss it. But see, the blessing of the
people of God is that He is with us in the midst of these things. God resisteth the proud, but
he giveth grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil, and he shall
flee from you. Didn't the Lord give us that
example? He said, get thee behind me,
Satan. Resist the devil and he'll flee
from you. And we know that to be true.
Do we not? You know, when the tempter comes
and we start having a conversation with him, we're already in trouble. Is that right? I mean, Eve was
in trouble from the get-go, wasn't she? When the devil came to her and
he said, you know what the Lord said, if she'd have resisted
the devil, she'd have ran away. She said, I ain't listening.
But she said, hmm. And isn't that the way of all
temptation? I mean, it's when we say, hmm,
that sounds like that might be, but maybe I need to think about
that for a minute. Of course, we get, you know,
we have the example of Joseph in a very practical sense. When he was at Potiphar's wife,
when she tempted him, she said, come lay with me. And he ran. He didn't stop because he wasn't
going to wait around to see what was going to happen because he
knew what would happen. So he ran. It was the only thing
he could do. Resist the devil and he'll flee
from you. Draw an eye to God and he will
draw an eye to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners.
Purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Now he's not prescribing the
notion that we can somehow purify ourselves, is he? No, how are
the sons of God purified? By fleeing to Christ. I mean,
we're not purified by something we do or something we don't do.
See a man doesn't become pure because he avoided something.
He's given a desire to avoid the pitfalls of the world because
he's been given a pure mind. I mean, it's not vice versa.
He doesn't gain a pure mind by avoiding these things, but it's
that the Lord works in him and gives him a desire to run from
them. Purifying your heart, you're
double-minded. Of course, what are we? We are
double-minded, are we not? I mean, the flesh wars against
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Paul said, you know,
the good that I would, I do not, and that which I would not, that's
what I do. I mean, we know that, see? He
doesn't tell us that so we can just relax. He tells us that
so we can be mindful of it, and that we can war and enter into
that warfare. And not just be carried, as we
sang there a moment ago, must I be carried to the skies on
flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sail
through bloody seas. I mean, our daily life is, there
are many bloody seas around us. The unfortunate thing is sometimes
we get kind of satisfied with the bloody seas. I mean, we kind
of just, We give up fighting. And what I'm talking about, I'm
talking about the internal conflicts that we have. May the Lord give
us grace. And see, that's why we come together,
is to encourage one another in the fight. Because we all are
weak, dear brethren. There's not one of us in here
that can stand the onslaughts of Satan. Not one in here that
can resist the devil. It's impossible. He has far more
power and ability over you. See, he had no power at all with
Christ. See, when he said, you know,
I'll give you all these kingdoms in the world if you'll fall down
and worship. There was never even a moment's thought in the
mind of the Lord Jesus Christ to take him up on that. Now,
every one of us, by contrast, that would, we'd have had to
thought about that for a minute. You know, well, maybe, you know,
I mean, that sounds pretty good. I mean, can I really get away
with that? Who would ever know? You know,
I mean, isn't that how our mind works? Let's be double-minded,
dear brethren, but that's the way we are. Now, knowing that, He encourages us to stand in
those things that we know. And we exhort brethren. You know,
I've been around brethren that said, well, you shouldn't ever
exhort sons of God because you know, God's gonna work in them. If he's going to, if he's not,
he's not. Well, how does he work in his
people? Through exhortation. That's how the Spirit of God
works. That's why He brings us together, that we might build
one another up in the most holy faith. So it is the work of God
to exhort one another through the people of God. And that's
what James is doing here. He's not telling them what they
can do and how much power and ability they have. He's saying
this is where you need to be. Humble yourselves. in the sight of the Lord and
he shall lift you up. You know the people of God as
they walk through this world are exalted but not in their
pride. The Lord will never lift up a
man in his pride. He'll lift up a man in his humility. He said that let him that is
the greatest among you be the servant of all. See that's what
it is to be exalted in the kingdom of God is to be a servant. Now
that doesn't make sense to the world is that's not the way of
the world. I mean the way of the world is
to gain power and then you'll be great. The Lord said the way
to gain power is to be humble. And only he can work that in
us, because that is the work of God. Speak not evil one of
another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his
brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and
judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou
art not a doer of the law, but a judge. The Lord never called
us to be judges, did he? Now, God's people are to be judges of all things. We are
to judge all things, but not to judge men. He didn't send
us into the world to judge men, he sent us into the world to
be circumspect, to look around ourselves, and to look for those
things that may cause us or others to stumble, but he never told
us to go out here and condemn other men. Because who makes
us to differ from another? What makes us any different than
somebody else? It's not our place to condemn
men. Now, can we condemn the things men do? Most assuredly. I mean, the Lord condemned the
things that men did. He never approved of adultery.
But He didn't condemn the woman that was taken in adultery, did
He? He never approved the wickedness
of the Roman tax collector system. He never said this is great.
But he didn't condemn the tax collector. You know, oh, may
the Lord give us a mind, the mind of Christ. All of these
things, It doesn't make any difference where you go in the scripture.
If you want to find the proper conduct of the people of God,
look at Christ. I mean, you always find it. He's
our example. If you would be perfect, then
you must be like Christ. I mean, that's the only way to
be perfect. He is the perfect one. Now, will you ever achieve
that in this life? No. But you see, you don't have
to because He has done it for you. He is our righteousness. He is our justification. He is
our sanctification. We're not trying to be sanctified. And you know, a lot of people
are. They think this is somehow their
effort in the world is to be sanctified. Well, dear brethren,
if you're not sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ, you'll
never be sanctified by anything that's performed in you, through
you, or by you. Can't happen. Christ is our sanctification. He set us apart. And that's why
we're not friends of the world. We can't be. If any man be in
Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Old
things will become new. And sometimes it takes us a while
to realize that. But the peace that passes understanding
is given to the people of God as he works in them and brings
them in the way of Christ. What a glorious thing. What a
glorious Savior. some other stuff here, but we
don't have time really to get into it. But I would like for
you to think on this, and we'll talk about it next time that
we look at this, speaking about if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or
that. Now you often hear people say, it's pretty common, Somebody'll
say, well, I'll do this if the Lord's willing, and the creek
don't rise. Now, usually, when somebody starts
saying, well, I'll do it if the Lord's willing, what they mean
is, I probably am not gonna do it, because the Lord probably
won't be willing. That's not what James is saying
here. He said, this is what you ought
to say, if the Lord wills that we should live. Now there's a
big difference in telling somebody, I will do something if the Lord
wills that I should live, than it is to say, well, I'll do it
if the Lord's willing. Because if you say, I'll do it
if the Lord's willing, what you're really saying is you're giving
yourself an out. Isn't that true? I mean, I've
had people say it, and really what they meant to say, what
they really wanted to say, well, I ain't gonna do it, but, you
know, I'll tell you that, and then I can say, well, I guess
it wasn't the Lord's will. Well, we know that, you know,
we don't know what the Lord's will is. But by His grace, we
can be men of commitment. And we can say, I will do this,
unless the Lord takes my life before I can do it. See, that's
what James is saying. You should say, rather than saying,
we're gonna do this. I don't know if I'm gonna do
it or not, but I can tell you this, I will commit myself. See,
that's what marriage is, is it not? I mean, you know, we don't know
if we will do something or not, but we can commit to this. If
the Lord wills that I should live, I will. to commit myself
unto you. That's what the marriage is.
It's not until death do us part. I mean, that ain't always a simple
thing, is it? But may the Lord give us a mind
to be trusting him because that's all we can do, brethren. And
by the grace of God, that's all he calls us to do. Cast all your
care upon Him, for He careth for you. What a glorious Savior
He is.