Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our first reading. James chapter
4 and reading for our text, verse 4. James chapter 4 and verse
4. Ye adulterers and adulteresses,
know ye 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. James 4 and verse 4. It is a Christian's relationship
with God, either friend or enemy. We gather this morning remembering
the wars that this nation has had with other nations, times
that they were our enemies, and they threatened us here. We were
fighting against them. And the Lord wonderfully delivered
us, he saved us, and has given us the nation that we have, and
the peace that we have, freedoms that we have at this time. And we remember those that laid
down their lives so that we might have these freedoms that we have
today. But our chapter where we have
our text, it speaks of another conflict, and it is a conflict
within the church. James says, from whence come
wars and fightings among you? Civil war, as it were, and fightings
even amongst the people of God, the Church of God and he traces
the roots of this conflict and these divisions that were within
the Church to their relationship with the world and hence their
relationship to God himself. Our text uses the illustration
of adulterers and adulteresses not speaking literally of those
that walk in that way, but of a people who were joined to Christ,
of whom he was their bridegroom, and they are the body of Christ,
they are his bride, and yet they have gone away to that which
is against Christ, joining with one that is not Christ, and committing,
as the Old Testament saints were accused of, and God said that
they committed adultery with the stones and stocks, with the
idols, those other gods that they made, the Baal gods and
other gods, and he uses again that same illustration. The Jews would be very familiar
with that throughout the writings of the prophets, how the ancient
nations so often went away from the Lord and joined themselves
to idols. Well here, he's not speaking
directly of idols, but he's speaking of the world and the friendship
of the world. And saying very clearly, whosoever
therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. In the conflicts of the Second
World War, when we were at war with Germany, if someone from
this land started up and they were friends with the enemy,
then we would say, well, if you are a friend with the enemy,
then you are an enemy of us. And we read about that happening
even in Ukraine at this time. Those Ukrainians that were friends
with Russia, they found out that they were actually really spies
or fighting on behalf of the enemy. And so what James says
here, that this is a situation with the church and with the
people of God, those whom he has redeemed and saved, that
if they are friends with the world, and we explain what that
means in a moment, then the implication of that is that they are an enemy
of God. Our Lord is very clear in Matthew
6, He cannot serve God and mammon. And here the inspired word of
God is very clear as well, that whosoever therefore is, will
be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God. If you want
to look in the Lord's Help, three points. Firstly, the world spoken
of in our text. And then secondly, what friendship
with the world is and its implication for us. And then lastly, how
we are to act and walk consistent with not being a friend of the
world, but of God. And that follows in the remainder
of this chapter. Word of God doesn't leave us
in any doubt of the actions, the course that we are to walk
to avoid being a friend of the world. Firstly, what is spoken of here,
the world, in our text? Do not we read in John 3 that
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but should have eternal
life? How can it be that God loves
the world but here He says that we are not to love the world?
Then we compare that with our Lord's Prayer in John 17. He
speaks of his people. I pray for them. I pray not for
the world, but for them whom thou hast given me out of the
world. And then he says of himself and
his people, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world. And so we start to have a picture
of a world, a world that lieth in sin and wickedness, a world
in which God's people are, every one of them, are born into this
world, and they're born in as sinners, and born in as those
of the world, have fallen and lost. But we have the Lord coming,
and that he might save them and deliver them, so that they be
in the world but not of the world, that they be redeemed out of
the world and saved out of this world. When our Lord came to
this earth, the angels bore the witness from heaven of the good
tidings, the glad tidings of salvation. And it was said, there
is not peace on earth, there will not be peace on earth, but
on earth peace. On this earth, God's people shall
have peace. And the Lord made it very clear
where that was. He said, in me you shall have
peace, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good
cheer, I have overcome the world. And we get a picture of the world,
the world that is under Satan's dominion. The world that is where
people that are dead in trespasses and sins and in enmity against
God. It is a world that we read in
the epistle to John, and what is in the world, and we're exhorted
there. Love not the world, as in verse
15 of chapter 2, 1 John 2 and 15, Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. It's the same message of
our text, this time brought by John or by James. And the reason
is, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the
lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father,
but is of the world. And that verse there has a direct
a correlation to the temptation that Satan tempted Eve with. And Eve was not to eat of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that in the
midst of the garden. And yet Satan, he said, the serpent,
you shall not surely die upon eating that, directly contradicting
God, For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's, knowing
good and evil. Let me read this in Genesis 3
verse 6. When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, there's the lust of the flesh, and that it was pleasant to the
eyes, and the lust of the eyes. There's the lust of the eyes
that John speaks of. And a tree to be desired to make
one wise. And John says, and the pride
of life. That answers to that. She took
the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were
opened, They knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves aprons. The fall of man was through
the enticement to the very things that are symbolizing the world
today. And Satan still says, and this
time it is not to those that are unfallen and innocent and
pure, were capable of falling, but now to fallen men he sets
before them the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life. That is the world. He's entering
into a world which Satan's first temptation, and now the world
is characterized by that. What did the world say of our
Lord? crucify him, crucify him, away
with him. They did not want the Lord of
life and glory. The Lord said, if they have done
this in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If they've
kept my word, they will keep your word. Of course, we must
balance this. The Word of God says that as
much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. We are not to be of those that say,
stand by thyself, we are holier than thou. We are not to walk through this
world like the scribes and the Pharisees that made out. They were very religious and
godly men. and would have men in admiration
that that was the case, despise others, and not to walk in that
way. But when we view the world that
is without God and without Christ, which is the description of all
the people of God before the Lord begins with them, they are
of the world. And John, he says of those that
are of the world, Those, they have an ear for the word, for
the world, they listen to the world, the world bids them and
they follow and they go. In verse 17 of 1 John 2, there's
the reminder of really what the world is. It is that which passeth
away and the last thereof. All that shall pass away, All
of our riches, all of what we are in this world, all passing
away. I've been to funerals this week,
two funerals to take place next week. And those that have died,
if they have nothing more than what they had in this world,
they have all men, most miserable. But if they have a hope beyond
the grave, The Apostle Paul says, absent from the body and present
with the Lord. It is that world that is to come. And so we are to view the world in a right way. A world that is so contrary to
the law. A world that the Lord says, I
have given them that is thy people, my people, thy word, and the
world hath hated them. A real test to the world is that
they do not want the word of God. And what a solemn thing
it is when that is the case. If we have the people of God
going to the world and saying, I want you, I want your pleasures,
your maximums, your teaching, your guidance. I will take of
you. But the world is saying, we don't
want you. If you come and bring the word
of God, we don't want you. In that way, the world is more
consistent, so often, than the people of God. People of God trying to woo the
world, trying to make the truth acceptable to the world, and
trying to become like the world, but whenever the word of God
is faithfully set forth, the world is very clear, we don't
want that, we don't want that. So the world spoken of in our
text is really a world that does not want God, a world that follows
Satan, that would counteract all that God says. It was the
word that God gave to our first parents, and it was the word
that Satan said, hath God said. And it is that same word that
the world today will hate the people of God for, because Satan
does not like the word of God. When Satan tempted our Lord Jesus
Christ each time the Lord answered him with, It is written. And
Satan even tried to use that same word to tempt the Lord,
but took it out of context, so the Lord must say to him, It
is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. On to look then, secondly, at
what friendship with the world is and the implication for us. In our text it's put in those
two different ways. Know ye not that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God. It says all that as a statement
that when we join as friends with the world and the spirit
of it, In its anti-God, in its walking separate or contrary
to the Word of God, or defiance against the Word of God. The friendship of the world is
enmity with God. Then there's the implication,
whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is, the enemy of
God. It's very, very definite, isn't
it? Very, very clear. The implication of this is not
something that we can just look at and just dismiss and say,
well, we're not a friend of the world. It's something that we
need to really search our hearts and minds. What is our relationship
with the world? We read in the letters to the
Corinthians, the people of God, come ye out from among them,
touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and you
shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. We think
of the case of the typical Israel when they were formed into a
nation in Egypt. And God would bring them out
of Egypt so that they would worship him. and that they could not
worship God in the face of the abominations of Egypt. They could
not just say, well, we'll have a part, and we'll just stay in
Egypt, and we'll stay in the midst of all of their idols and
all of their gods, and we will just worship God here. No, there was separation. And that separation wasn't easy. Nine great signs God brought
in Egypt before Egypt would let them go, before they could be
set free from it. You know, when we are quickened
into grace, quickened into divine life, the world doesn't let us
go easy. It won't. You know, there'll
be those things that we love doing, people that we love, people
that we walk with. Our Lord so clearly says that
If any man love and the nearest relations more than me is not
worthy of me. All the time there is a separation
that grace will make. God makes a difference and it
is only the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ typified
in the Passover that will ever separate a soul truly from the
world. It is the redemption of the Lord
Jesus Christ that they are to look at Him who is lifted up
above the earth. You think of the two attitudes
of the two thieves on the cross. One said, if thou art the Christ,
come down The other one said, Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom. He was looking at that
world to come. In Hebrews, Hebrews 11, which
we have a list of all of those that walked by faith and various
acts and things that they did by faith that they're known by,
but not all made acts like Noah did all were brought out of earth
Chaldeans as what Abraham was. But there is that which is very
common to them all, which is set forth from verse 13 in that
chapter, that all these died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them afar off, were persuaded
of them and embraced them, and confess that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth. That is, in this world, they
were strangers and pilgrims. They were like the children of
Israel going through the wilderness. This world is not their rest.
It is polluted. They feel it. They feel Satan
is very active in it. They have a wicked, evil heart
themselves. They're in the midst of men that
hate the things of God. And they speak against it. It's
in a foreign land. And they feel it so. They feel
that this is so. But we read this, that they had
embraced these promises. They saw them afar off. And it
was because they saw these promises in Christ and the hope of heaven,
a hope of mercy and forgiveness in Christ, that then this world
was to them vain and empty, and they saw it in its true light.
And then we read, for they that say such things declare plainly
that they seek a country. And we read, and truly if they
had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, They
might have had opportunity to have returned, but now they desire
a better country that is a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God. Everyone that is called by grace,
born again of the Spirit, quickened by God, they're still physically
in this world. They could go back, and we know
many that have gone back. said for a while they were Christian,
changed their lives, attended a place of worship, paddened
across the Word of God, and then they've just given it all up. They've turned back, gone back
to the world and the things of it. It's still there. It's still
beckoning. It's still calling to each one
of them. And James could see in this church,
in the churches here, the reason for their fighting and conflicts
and all that was going on within them There were those that really
in heart, they were following the world, they were going after
the world. And so the invocation, and it's
very, very strong, he says before them, that whosoever therefore
will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Sometimes in the Word of God
it's not so much as clearly setting forth who the Lord's people are,
but who they are not. And that's where it is here,
who they are not. The Lord's people are not those
that are hand in hand with the world and all its lusts and all
its fashions and all its ways and all the things that it loves.
And sometimes you can look at a newspaper, and a lot of pages
of it might be, might be a local newspaper, and it's full of all
the sports that are going on, all of the TV programs that can
be looked at, all of the radio programs that can be heard, and
you can see pages and pages which you could actually stamp over
at this, this is the one. is wanting to know. If you filled
those pages with the word of God, people wouldn't buy that
paper, they wouldn't want that paper. But when you fill it with
the things that they want to know about, then they will buy
it, and it directs them to all that is happening, the amusements
in the world. Years ago in Australia, when
they tried to bring in the Sunday trading, it wasn't our representations
from the churches that we might keep the Lord's Day special that
prevailed. It was the sporting community. The people of Melbourne, they
did not want to lose their sports day. And so the shops, they still
stayed closed because of that. Of course, we had the benefit
of that as well. lovers of pleasure more than
lovers of God. I want to look then thirdly at
how we are to act, how we are to walk consistently with not
being a friend of the world but of God. Now there are seven things that
are set before us from the verse of our text right through to
the end of this chapter. The first one is in verse 7. And it is submitting and resisting. Submitting yourselves therefore
to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And immediately
you really have the two captains that are set forth. The captain
of our salvation, our God, and then the Prince of this world,
the Devil. And one it is submitting to,
the other is resisting. The Devil who goeth about a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour. The deceiver, the one who is
the God of this world. And the very first direction
given to the Church of God On one hand, submit to God. On the
other hand, resist the devil. It's a blessed thing to be given
faith and given the grace of God so that we don't just flow
along with the tide of wickedness and sin of the world, but submit
to God. And what does it mean in that? It means submit to God's word,
to his counsel to his direction, to his governance, which is the
word of God. That's why we said before, our
Lord said, I've given them thy word and the world hath hated
them. We are to be submissive to the
word of God. So that is the first thing. Submission
to the word of God and resisting the devil. Something that Eve,
our first parents, they did not do. They did not resist the devil. They believed him. They did not believe to the word
of God. They let that go and believed
the devil instead. The second thing is to pray. Verse 8, draw nigh to God and
he will draw nigh to you. It's a path of prayer the people
of God are to walk, that men pray always. that we are to continue
in prayer, watching the same with thanksgiving. This is vital
for the people of God. Our Lord spoke of it many, many
times, and that men ought always to pray and not to faint. If this warring, fighting church
and people that James is writing to were a praying people, then
those prayers would have put a stop to all of that conflict
as they came before God, as they humbled themselves before God
in prayer. The third thing is going in verse
8, to cleanse our hands and our hearts. Cleanse your hands, ye
sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. He is a people
referred to again that is Trying to serve both, trying to serve
God and trying to serve the world as well. Now if something is
pure, it's not got two things in it. My wedding ring, you might
say it's gold, but it's not pure gold. It's an alloy to make it
stronger. It's got two things mixed with
it and you get something like brass or bronze and they're alloys,
they're alloys of copper and tin or copper and zinc, two things
that are joined together, they're not pure, there's not just one
item in it. And so when we read here, purify
your hearts, hearts not divided, not trying to serve one and the
other, to have two parts in it. The great blessing for the Church
of God, God gives them grace, He gives them faith, He gives
them His Word, and He gives them the path that they are to walk
in. In chapter 5 of Ephesians, He
speaks of the Church of God, which are sanctified and washed
with the washing of water by the Word, And it is through the
word of God that God's people are cleansed. Wherewithal shall
a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according
to thy word. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
a light unto my path. And so that then is the third
direction given Then we have in the fourth place, in verse
9, a direction to be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to
mourning and your joy to heaviness. Now, obviously, when the Lord's
people are blessed, they are to rejoice, but rejoice in the
Lord always. and I say again, rejoice. The
worldly laughter and worldly rejoicing, you think of when
Moses had been up in the mountain and been given the tables of
stone, the Ten Commandments, and they came down and the Lord
said, get thee down. The people, they had made themselves
idols, and they heard singing and dancing. but they weren't
dancing and rejoicing in the Lord, they were dancing round
the idols. And this is the reference here,
is for a people that are not joyful and rejoicing in the Lord,
they're rejoicing in the world, they've got the world in their
hearts, and joy of the world in their hearts. And so the direction
is the opposite way, that is our heart, If that is our joy,
then be afflicted and mourn and weep, and let your laughter be
turned into mourning. There's a mark to be set on the
foreheads of those that sigh and cry on account of the abominations
done in the land. And that will be in the land,
will be in our hearts also, because dear people are to be a people
that does reflect a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a
man that bore our sins in his own body on the tree. We are to remember his sufferings
and his death, and in this world we are to reflect that. And our
joy, when we have joy, is to be in the Lord, and not in the
empty, vain laughter of the world. The amusements of the world are
designed to blot out God from thoughts and to forget the reality
of eternity and the needs of our souls. The fifth is to humble ourselves
before God. Verse 10. Humble yourselves in
the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up. The cause of The conflict in
the Church of God and in the world is pride, and Satan is
given this title as king over all the children of pride. But for the people of God, their
path is to be a humble path, brought under the Word of God,
under the Lord, in that which He sets before us in His Word,
that which he brings us into in our providences, knowing that
the Lord is Lord of all, and who is he that saith, and cometh
to pass when the Lord commandeth it not. He is the righteous judge
of all the earth, and the true path to peace in the church of
God. And how many times we've heard
it, when there's been a conflict in the church of God, is a little humility, and it
sums it up, and that is what is set before us here. Opposite
to pride, humble, not just before men, but in the sight of God,
a real humility. And then we have in the sixth
place, in verses 11 and 12, is not to speak evil one of another,
Very often it is when we lose sight of our own sin and what
we are that then we start judging another. Of course, this is the
employ that God used through Nathan to convict David of his
sin. He made him view, as it were,
another person as walked in this way. And David could see his
sin and condemned him. And then it was turned around,
thou art the man. I'm here to remember that it's
said before us here, every one of us shall stand before God. The Church of God is not the
judge of all the earth. They are under the Lord himself,
and we must stand before that judgment seat. God the world,
of course, will accuse, as they did to the disciples, as they
did to the apostles, that we are judging just because we bring
the word of God. And even sometimes just by walking
in a different way, their own conscience will accuse them and
they're not like the people of God and accuse them of judging.
But our spirit must be to cling to the word of the Lord and to
know that we ourselves must stand before God. All of the conflicts
in the earlier part of this chapter, they were fighting against one
another, speaking against one another. And we may say they
weren't faithfully setting forth the word of God or the truth.
They were conflicting on many minor and all sorts of different
things. Then we have a lust. direction
and that is all our plans are to be subject to the will of
God from verse 13 to the end go to now ye that say today or
tomorrow we will go into such a city continue there a year
buy and sell and get gain This is the world, they say. This
is our plan. This is what we're going to do.
We're like the rich man whose fields have brought much. We're
going to bring down our barns and we're going to build up greater
and make ourselves a nice easy life. But for the people of God,
whatever we do, whatever our plans, it is to be subject to
the will of God. For that he ought to say, if
the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. And so we have set before us
that path that we are to walk that under God's blessing, as
obedient to his word, we shall be delivered from the friendship
of this world. And as we seek his word, as we
seek the gospel, as we seek that way of escape from the wrath
to come, and have a sight of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read
in verse six, he giveth more grace. Therefore he saith, God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. By grace ye are saved through
faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. May we
be of those that are truly in possession of the grace of God. that makes this difference between
us and the world. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world, but the Lord has chosen them, and
he will have them to be with him. He prays later on in John
17, Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with
me where I am, that they may behold my glory. and we never
lose sight, the Lord suffered, bled and died, came to this world
to offer himself a ransom, to pay the debt that we owed, and
to redeem us from this world, not to allow us to live on in
sin, but to be saved from it. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save to us and grant that we might
clearly be a friend, not of the world, but a friend of the Lord. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever
I command you. May the Lord add His blessing. Amen.