The question that's before us,
isn't it, is that God's people, according to verse 16, can be
deceived. Beloved brethren can be deceived. And the aim of One of the aims
of spending time together in God's Word and rubbing up against
each other as believers is that God would actually bring correction
to us, and God would show us His ways, and God would bring
the Gospel to life in our lives, and we would bring the Gospel
to each other. But we have a great description
in verse 17 of our Father in Heaven, but
we have even more than that, an amazing description of the
Lord Jesus. Every good gift and every perfect
gift. Who is the good gift? Who is
the perfect gift? Every good and perfect gift is
from above. John 3.16 isn't it? God the Father
gave is one and only Son, is from above, and has come down
from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or
shadow of turning. Like all good things, all antidotes
to deception start with the character of God, who He is and what He
has done. And to have the Lord Jesus is
to have Him and all the gifts that He provides. Believers must have the Lord
Jesus. We cannot function in this world without Him. We cannot function in this world
without His gifts and His blessings. And He has blessed us. Simon's
been going through Ephesians and He has blessed us. with all
spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms. We have nothing lacking
as God's children. All of what Jesus is to God,
God's children in Jesus are to God. We lack absolutely nothing. His divine power, according to
2 Peter, has given us all things. that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
by which has been given to us exceedingly
great and precious promises." And isn't it wonderful that this
verse tells us that in a world where everything changes and
everything moves, there is a rock. with whom there is no variation
or shadow of turning. This is our God, isn't it? Just
turn back a page in your Bibles into Hebrews chapter 13. The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man
do to me? Verse 6. For he himself has said,
verse 5, I will never leave you nor forsake
you. Never leave us nor forsake us. In verse 8 we have another description
of the Lord Jesus. In a world where everything changes,
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. all that he is as God for us. It's the same yesterday, it's
the same today, and it will never ever change. There's no variation
in God because there's absolutely no need for there to be any variation
in Him. There's no shadow of turning.
The illusion is the fact that in this world everything moves,
the sun moves, and the moon moves, and everything else moves, and
the most stable thing that they can possibly imagine and see
are the stars. But even the stars move. But God who is above the stars,
Our God who reigns over the stars and over this universe doesn't
move, doesn't turn. the mountains shall depart and
the hills be removed but says God my loving kindness shall
not depart from you nor shall my covenant of peace be removed
says the Lord who has mercy on you in verse 18 we have a description
of what the Holy Spirit does. So God, in Christ, is every good
and perfect gift. He comes down from the Father,
who doesn't vary at all, and of His own will, the Holy Spirit,
He brought us forth by the word of truth. We're born again by
the word of truth. And one of the discussions we
have with people is that they want to tell us that people can
tell lies about Jesus, and out of those lies about Jesus will
come spiritual life. I can't see where in this book
that is ever, ever allowed at all. Many of us here will attribute
what's happened in our lives in the last little while to being
born again and again. But really, it's being born again,
first time round. Seriously, it is. That's what's
happened in the lives of people, because we've actually had a
real gospel delivered to us by the grace of God. And not a gospel
that takes away from the divinity of the Lord Jesus and puts him
up in this world to be auctioned as an offer, that his success
is based on the free will of man and men's activities if they
do something. Look what it says in verse 18.
By whose will? His own will. He brought us forth
by the Word of Truth. As we saw in Colossians a couple
of years ago, it's just beautiful isn't it? It's the Word of the
Truth of the Gospel. It's all definite. There is one
Word of one Truth of one Gospel. And the result of it is that we might be a kind of first
fruits. James again and again, like many
of the New Testament writers, alludes to farming analogies
again and again, doesn't he? And they were agricultural people. They knew about first fruits. They knew how to grow things. They lived
in a world where, unless there was fruit, they died, and so
those things were incredibly significant to them. But they
were also, by the Holy Spirit, led to see that the first fruits
come from a root. It's just a natural thing, isn't
it? We spend so much time as Christians looking at the leaves
and the branches and the things waving around, and the Scriptures
take us back to the rock, and back to the root, and to the
things that can't be seen by men. Simon has some big trees
in his garden. It takes the tiniest puff of
wind to blow them over, unless they're rooted in the ground.
When they're rooted firmly in the ground, you can have the
most enormous winds, and the leaves and the branches can blow
all over the place. But because of where they are
attached, they don't fall over. But in fact, so much of our Christianity
today is about the opposite of that, isn't it? He brings first
that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Where the spirit dwells, life
comes. where God, who is life, comes
and enters into a person, there is real spiritual life that comes
out of it. As Jesus says in John 6, they
will be taught by God. God's children will be taught
by God. Will they get the lesson if God
is the teacher? Will they have a confused message
if God is the teacher? I figure that when God says he
will teach people, his people will, as Isaiah says, see eye
to eye. Because if they have had one
teacher, they will have one gospel. They will declare things about
Jesus. They will declare things about
God that God says about himself. they will go to this book and
this book and the words of this book will be their guide. As
Isaiah 54 says, all your children shall be taught by the Lord. And what's the result in Isaiah
54, 13 of being taught by the Lord? And great shall be the
peace of your children. When they are taught about the
Prince of Peace, by He who is Sovereign God, peace is what
they have. And the remarkable thing is that
the new creature formed is formed after the image of the One who
created him. Our destiny is not here on this
earth. Our destiny is not a hole in
the ground in this earth. Our destiny is to be like Jesus. 1 John 3 says that when He appears,
when He returns, we will be like Him. No longer will we see Him
through these eyes. We'll see Him through regenerated
eyes. And we shall be like Him, says
God, for we shall see Him as He is. We will see Him as He
really is. We will be able to see Jesus
as He was on the Mount of Transfiguration, instead of being like Peter,
James and John, terrified and bewildered. For God's children
it will be a time of deep and devout love. He will captivate
his bride by his beauty. He does now. We walk by faith
and not by sight. So then, this is the verse that's
been on my heart a fair bit. Let every man Be swift to hear. We encounter many, many situations,
troubling situations, all sorts of situations. The first thing
I want us to hear I want us to say, in all of those circumstances,
in every situation in life, it's a simple one, isn't it? What
is God saying to me now? No matter what the circumstance,
what is God saying to me now? Swift to hear. We want to hear
what God has to say to us. He is sovereignly working all
things, every little tiny insignificant thing for our good. We want to
hear what God says. And therefore we are slow to
speak. We need to wait. We need to just wait. The big
message of James's book, His Patience, is waiting for God
to do what he alone can do. As I keep saying, spiritual life
has to come from God. I spent an hour almost with a
fellow yesterday and we had a long and deep and serious and I thought
really fruitful discussion and it was warm and friendly but
we talked deep and serious things about the Gospel and our involvement in things
that we are now thankful that the Lord has rescued us out of.
And after an hour of discussion, the guy said something that showed
me that all of what had been said at that moment had absolutely
no impact on him at all. If you think back on the discussions
that you've had with people, how often, how seldom, how rarely
did the discussions you have actually have an impact on people?
It is remarkable, isn't it? When I was first converted, I
thought, this is just so simple. This is such good news. This
is just absolutely wonderful. There I am. My sins are gone.
I'm heading for heaven. And I thought, all I have to
do is tell people. And I went around, and I scurried around Tererra.
And I told my brother and my sister, and I told everyone I
could get. And I thought, surely, like, all you've got to do is,
this is just such good news. It's very simple. I'm just going
to tell you about Jesus, and this is how it's going to pop
salvation. And I went round and round and I thought, oh wow,
and what happened? Instead of out-popping salvation,
which I'd sort of assumed was going to happen, out-popped animosity
and bitterness. And I sat there absolutely stunned. Stunned I was, trying to work
out why. Like it's so simple, there it
is, it's logical, it's truthful, it's historical, and it's about
the salvation of your soul. Nothing could be more important. By His own will, He brought us
forth by the Word of Truth. The salvation that you have,
the salvation of your soul, is the most incredibly precious
gift that God can ever bestow on anyone. So we're swift to
hear, slow to speak, and we are slow to wrath. Because when God speaks to us
in his word, as well as these great and comforting promises,
God speaks tough things in his word. We have to be very careful about
being angry with God. We need to be very, very slow
when sin is exposed. When we're admonished by God,
admonished by our brothers and sisters, admonished by the circumstances
around us, we need to be swift to hear what God is saying to
us. Slow to speak. We don't have to defend ourselves. God's children's defense is in
heaven, and we need to be slow to wrath. And so when the distinguishing
doctrines of grace are presented, and people are angry, we need
to just wait. For the wrath of man does not
produce the righteousness of God. The scriptures are just
full, from Cain through to Moses to Naaman are full of examples
of people who have encountered God, and God has spoken to them,
and they have turned in anger to God. Why was Cain angry with
Abel? But Abel was presenting the gospel,
wasn't he? He was offering to God the one
thing that pleased God. He was offering to God the Lord
Jesus. And Abel, I mean Cain, was angry
with God. And Cain, God didn't respect
Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and his countenance
fell. So the Lord said to Cain, Why
are you angry? What is there to be angry about? Why has your countenance fallen?
Sin lies at his door. Its desire is for you, but you
should rule over it. and Cain's response to God's
words of kindness was to go and murder his brother Moses was
angry with God and because of that he wasn't allowed into the
promised land in Numbers Moses lifted his hand and struck the
rock twice he was angry but he disobeyed God And God
calls anger at him disbelief. He said, because, verse 12 of
Numbers 20, because you did not believe me, and then something
more important, to hallow me, to set me aside as holy in the
eyes of the children, therefore you shall not bring this assembly
into the land which I have given them. So even God's children can be
angry and unnecessarily angry. Naaman was saved. Before he was saved, Naaman was
angry too. Elisha didn't even come out of
the house. There was this famous general,
surely this prophet of God will come out. and honor him in some
way. He just tells him to go and wash
in the, go and wash in the Jordan. So he turned, he says, I've got
wonderful rivers back where I came from, I don't need to wash in
this dirty thing down here. You haven't even come out to
speak to me. Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned
and went away in a rage. Mercifully, words of wisdom were
spoken to him, and Naaman repented, and did wash, and was cleansed,
and was saved. See, one of the things that in
our flesh happens, isn't it? and it becomes more difficult
as we come closer to the truth in doctrine, is that we can just
get angry with people. And I have been guilty of it
many, many times. And you keep thinking, surely
these people, surely they can see. Surely God has written it. It's plain and surely they must
see. He brought his own forth. by his own will, by the word
of truth. Spiritual life has to come from
God, and so God's children are called upon by God, and only
by his grace can we do it, is that I desire, as Timothy is
instructed by Paul, therefore that men should pray everywhere,
lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. 2 Timothy chapter 2 is a verse
that I quote often regarding disputes and things.
Verse 22 it says, flee from youthful lusts. But pursue righteousness,
faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a
pure heart. But avoid foolish and ignorant
disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the
Lord must not quarrel. but be gentle to all, able to
teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition,
if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know
the truth. We are continually, by God's
providence in our lives, continually reminded that Jesus' words are
very true. Without me, you can do nothing. Man says, I'll do as much as
I possibly can, and when I've reached the end of my limit,
I'll go and ask Jesus to do something. Without him, we can do nothing. We have to cease from anger.
It mightn't appear so, but I'm actually a very bad-tempered
person. It's just remarkable. This old age probably causes
it to be covered up in lots of ways, but it just flares up all
the time. It's shocking, isn't it? And
I'm so quick to get angry with people. who stand opposed. And there's a real sense, and
we'll explore it if the Lord wills in the next couple of weeks,
there is a real sense in which God's children are called upon
by Jude and others to actually contend for the truth. There
is a real point at which we have to say we cannot bend from what
God says. I am not going to allow my husband
to be spoken of like that. and do nothing. We must speak. We must speak out. But the questions
that are before us tonight are questions about how we actually
do that when we actually encounter these situations. We keep thinking that by our
argumentation and by our efforts God's kingdom is going to come
in power. But it's going to come in such
a way where God gets all the glory and man is humbled and
we're put in our right and proper place in the dirt where we belong
and we look up and see God and we wait for God to do what he
talks about. If you turn over in James to
chapter 3, he has a summary of two sorts of wisdom. There's
wisdom from above, in verse 15 of chapter 3. Wisdom from below, in verse 14. But if you have bitter envy and
self-seeking in your heart, do not boast and lie against the
truth. See, God says that that sort
of activity is earthy, comes out of human hearts and human
thinking. It's sensual. It appeals to our
flesh and our desires. Next word is really challenging,
isn't it? He says it's demonic. And it leads to confusion and
every evil thing. The wisdom from above? Let's listen to this in verse
17. What's the wisdom from above? It's first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without
partiality and without hypocrisy. See, it's God's will that has
to prevail, not our purposes. It's God's grace that has to
prevail, and not our deservings. That's the standard. Standard
for God, isn't it? It's His love and favour and
His grace shown to us. ultimately what he's doing in
all of these circumstances, like mine yesterday and like the ones
that are going to confront us and have confronted us in the
past, but even in this room. Verse 10 of chapter 4, humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. Peter quotes almost the exact
same words in 1 Peter 5-6. He says he will lift you up in
due time, in his time. So the message that I take away
from this in my humility is to wait." He finishes the book in
verse 7 of chapter 5 by saying, Therefore be patient, brethren,
until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for
the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently until it receives
the early rains and the latter rains. It needs the early rains
for it to be born and it needs the latter rain for it to bear
fruit, doesn't it? Alan lived up near Walgut for
a long time and the farmers east of Walgut used to talk about
a disaster that they had quite regularly up there and they'd
have this magnificent wheat crop and it would be up and it would
be almost nearly ready to harvest, ready, the grain was setting
and they'd have what they call a Walgut finish, Craig would
probably know about it, which means hot westerly winds, 100
degrees from the west, only needs to blow for three or four days
and instead of getting tons of wheat, they just get a pittance
of pinched grain. And so we have to wait for both,
don't we? We wait for God to bring birth
by the word of truth. And so the big lesson is, isn't
it, is that if God would allow us to make sure that the Word
of Truth, the Gospel, is not hindered by anything else that
happens in our lives, then we'd be patient, we'd just
wait. And He'll establish our hearts. And we need to keep remembering
that the great gospel calls on us to wait on God, but in a wonderful,
wonderful way. Just turn to verse 25, it's on
your notes there. This is what waiting's about
for Christians, isn't it? He who looks into the perfect
law of liberty. The gospel is the law of liberty
and continues in it. We keep looking to the Lord Jesus
who set us free from sin, set us free from Satan, set us free
from the law, set us free from death, set us free from religious
bondage. We just keep looking to the Lord
Jesus. One of my favourite verses in
Galatians 5, it says, in the transliteration of it, it says,
We, by the Spirit, out of faith, that by God's Spirit acting,
producing faith, the hope of righteousness wait. But the law of liberty is described
in Galatians that same chapter. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision avails anything. What you do doesn't avail anything,
circumcised or uncircumcised, but the law of liberty is faith
working through love. So my beloved brethren, let every
man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not
produce the righteousness of God. Is God's righteousness going
to be produced? It's going to be produced through
the gospel. Is it successful? Is it going to work? Is it going
to produce faith? Is it going to produce love? Is it going to change wicked,
bad-tempered, angry people like me into someone like Jesus? In His good time. In His good
time. That's right.