James chapter 4. This message
has been coming for two or three weeks now. But this past weekend, I believe the Lord really gave
me the message for the passage. What is your life? That's the
question, what is your life? He says there in verse 14, it
is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes
away. He said there in verse 13, go
to now or come now you that say today or tomorrow we will go
into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell
and get gain. He's not condemning buying and
selling but resolving to do this or that without acknowledging
the frailty and uncertainty of our life and without acknowledging
that we can do nothing but by the will and power of God. Life
is not in our power. The things we do is not in our
power. It's by the will and power of
God. We depend on the providence of God and the blessings of God.
He says, you say these things, verse 14, whereas you know not
what shall be on tomorrow. We don't know if God will give
us tomorrow. He knows the time. He's appointed
the day, the hour, the second, but we don't know. We don't know
if He will give us a tomorrow, and we don't know what tomorrow
will hold if He does give us tomorrow. Solomon said, boast
not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may
bring. He said there again in verse
14, for what is your life? It's even a vapor that appeareth
for a little time, then vanisheth away. You think how weak vapor
is. Just think how weak vapor is. That's our life. That's this
natural life, this flesh, It's a vapor. It appears for a little time
just like vapor and then it vanishes away. You see the dew on the
grass in the morning and the sun comes out and it just begins
to vanish away and in no time it's gone. That's our life. That's our life. Verse 15, he
says, for that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live
and do this or that. When we consider how frail our
natural life is, we say in our heart, if the Lord will, we shall
live. If it's His will, we shall live.
And if it's His will, we'll do this or that. What is your life? What does scripture say about
our natural life? What does scripture say about
this flesh, this natural life as we come into this world? Let's
go to Job 14. We come into this world sinners. Sinners. That's what Job declared.
That's why this life is so short and vanishing and so full of
trouble. Job 14 verse 1. Man that is born of a woman is
a few days and full of trouble. He's a few days and he's full
of trouble because man that's born of woman comes forth guilty
by Adam's one transgression. Sin has shipwrecked these bodies. By one man's disobedience, sin
entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men for that all have sinned. Everybody that's born of Adam,
Adam made them sin by one transgression. He made us sin. That's why God
imputed sin to us. He made us sin. And then sin
was imparted to us. in our first birth. Sin was imparted
to us. David said, Behold, I was shapen
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. And due to
sin, due to sin, man that is born of a woman is a few days
and full of trouble. Had sin not entered, there would
be no death. There wouldn't be a few days.
But sin entered and death entered. to a man born of a woman is a
few days, and those few days are full of trouble. Trouble
happens to the righteous the same as to the wicked. Solomon
was given great wisdom by God, and this is what he wrote in
Ecclesiastes 9, 1 and 2. He said, For all this I considered
in my heart, even to declare all this, that the righteous
and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. No man
knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them. All
things come alike to all. There's one event to the righteous
and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean and to the unclean,
To him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not, as
is the good, so is the sinner. And he that sweareth is he that
feareth an oath. Job was a righteous man. Job
was a man made righteous by the Lord Jesus Christ. He was given
faith to trust Christ. He said, though he slay me, yet
will I trust him. He said, I know after I go to
the grave and worms destroy this body, I'm going to see my Redeemer.
In my own body, with this body right here, glorified, made new,
I'm going to see my Redeemer. He believed Christ. He was a
righteous man by the righteousness of our Lord. And I'm sure he
had many plans. many plans for the days ahead. And I'm certain that Job knew
and prayed, Lord, if it's your will, I'll do this or that. And then God sent the trial and
interrupted his plans. And God took everything from
Job, including his health. But here's the difference between
something like that happening to the righteous and it happening
to the wicked. Both happen. Both happen. Trouble comes. Man that's born
of woman is a few days and full of trouble. But here's the difference. God did this for Job and God
made Job know why he did it. God blessed Job and increased
Job in understanding to know that his life was Christ. His
life was not in those temporal blessings that God gave him.
His life was Christ alone. That's what God's teaching you
and me every day. He gives you some temporal blessings,
we're thankful for those, but our life is Christ. Our life
is Christ. And so Job said of a man's natural
life, he said there in verse 2, Job 14, 2, he cometh forth
like a flower and is cut down. Think about a flower. A flower,
where does it come from? It comes from the earth. Earthy,
that's you and me, by nature. Our Lord said, in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground,
for out of it was thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return. We come out of the ground, we're
earthy, just like the flower. And then a flower grows up from
a tender plant, just like a baby grows from a young infant up
to a young person. And then the flower blooms. And we men and women reach the
prime of their life and they bloom just like a flower. And
then the flowers cut down and so is man. Isaiah 40 verse 6,
the voice said, cry. And he said, what shall I cry?
All flesh is grass. And all the goodliness thereof,
the very best goodliness that man can achieve and work out
is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely
the people is grass, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth,
but the word of our God shall stand forever. You take one of
God's saints and they get troubling news, just like this troubling news
came to Job. Either God will make his child
a little better, for a little while and then he'll bring us
home to glory perfectly well, or he'll bring us home to glory
right now and make us perfectly well. That's so of God's child. Our flesh is grass, it's going
to be cut down, whether it's today or some years down the
road. But those that are born again
of the Spirit of God, They're born of the Word of God that
liveth and abideth forever, and therefore that new man God has
created, liveth and abideth forever. That's the real life. The new
man, the real life. Robert Machein said, set not
your heart on the flowers of this world, for they have all
a canker in them. Prize the rose of Sharon and
the lily of the valley more than all, for he changeth not. And
McShane died at 29 years old. 29 years old. Job says what James is telling
us. James said, what is your life?
It's a vapor that appears for a little time, then vanishes
away. Job said there in Job 14.2, man's
life fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. You think
about a shadow. It's just like a vapor. It has
no solid substance to it. It's weaker than weak. Can't
do anything with a shadow. You can't sit down in a shadow,
you can't lean against a shadow, it's weak. So is our flesh, so
is our natural life. That's what God means when he
said, man at his best states altogether vanity. It's lighter
than light, lighter than a shadow. A shadow flees away. You watch
the shadows on the yard, they just flee away. They flee away
and they don't leave a trace of where they've been. When they're
gone, they're gone and you don't see a trace of where they've
been. That's what God says about our life. We like to think we're
going to leave a legacy and we're going to leave something behind
people are going to remember. Here's what God says. He says,
it's a vapor that appears for a little time, then vanisheth
away. He said, a shadow that fleeth
and continueth not. This is what it says later in
Job. They which have seen him shall
say, where is he? He shall fly away as a dream
and shall not be found. Yea, he shall be chased away
as a vision of the night. The eye also which saw him shall
see him no more. Neither shall his place any more
behold him. He said, the psalmist said, as
for man his days are as grass and as a flower the field so
he flourishes for the wind passeth over it and it's gone and the
place thereof shall know it no more. Just like a shadow when
it's gone. It's just gone. That's the case,
brethren. So what ought to be our preeminent
concern? What ought to be our preeminent
concern all the time? How ought we to spend this very
brief, fleeting, vanishing life? What ought we to be taken up
with? This is what David prayed to God. He prayed in Psalm 39,
4, Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days
what it is, that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days
as a handbreadth. Mine age is as nothing before
thee. Verily, every man at his best
state is altogether vanity. You go home, you read Genesis
5. You'll see this repeated over and over. It'll say all the days
that Adam lived were so and so many years, and he died. And all the days of Seth were
so and so and so many years, and he died. All the days of
Venus were so many years, and he died. On and on it goes down
the page. So many years, and he died. Scripture
says this life passes like a tale that is told. like a tale that
is told. My first chapter in this tale
was 24 years in South Arkansas. The second chapter was 13 years
in Tennessee. Third chapter, it'll soon be
16 years here in New Jersey. And it went by faster than a
Weaver shuttle. like the wind. Yesterday, I'm
telling you, it was just like yesterday. I was standing at
the end of the driveway at my mom and dad's house, waiting
on the school bus to take me to school. I got to thinking on this, because
Emma turned 22 last month, and Willa turned 20 Sunday. And it
was just yesterday, on a Sunday, right before midnight, as she
came into the world. Just like that. If God's pleased, my life might
be over tonight. It might be over tomorrow. But
if not, the days of our years are threescore years and ten.
And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, You
know, from 53 to 70 to 80 years, that's not very long. And if by reason of strength
they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow,
for it soon cut off and we fly away. That's what this life is,
this natural life is. That's all it is. Well, what
about the life God gives his people? What is it? What's the
life God gives his people? Well, first of all, it's eternal
life. It's not a vapor. It's not a
shadow that flees away. It's not uncertain. It's not
changing. Eternal life is Jesus Christ
the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is our eternal life. John said in 1 John 1-2, the
life was manifested. The life was manifested. We've
seen and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which
was with the Father and was manifested to us. He's talking about our
Lord Jesus. Our Lord said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. The life. No man comes to the
Father but by me. After this brief life is over,
we just sang it. There's a judgment coming. There's
a judgment coming. It's just one. Men want to talk
about half a dozen different kinds of judgments. It's just
one judgment. You don't want to be found trusting
in your works. There's a judgment coming. There's
just one judgment coming. It's appointed unto men once
to die, and after this, the judgment. There's one death coming, there's
one judgment coming. Nobody's gonna skirt around it. And there's no being accepted
of holy God except in the Lord Jesus Christ. You think about
the seraphim, the angels in glory. When Isaiah saw the Lord, the
angels covered up their faces and their feet before the Lord.
crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of heaven and earth.
There's going to be no way to be accepted of holy God that
knows everything there is to know about us. You don't even
remember your sin, much less know all of it, but God does. And there's no way we're going
to stand before God in anything we've done. No, none at all. That's what Christ meant when
he said, I'm the way. I'm the truth, I'm the life. We're not the way, we're not
the truth, and we're not the life. Christ alone is. Christ
alone is. The Lord Jesus bore the judgment
of his people on the cross. That's what Calvary's cross was.
The judgment day for all God's elect was Christ on the cross.
That's what it was. Hebrews 9, 26, Now once in the
end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered. That's how you know there's one
judgment. He was once offered to bear the sins of many and
unto them that look for Him, that look for Him, shall He appear
the second time without sin unto salvation. In Christ is no sin. He put away all the sin of His
people. We're sinners and we cannot meet
God in our righteousness or our works. It's altogether vanity. We must be found in Christ alone. What think ye of Christ? That's
the question. What think ye of Christ? Job 25 verse 4 said, How then
can a man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that's
born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon, and
it shineth not. The stars are not pure in his
sight. That's a holy God. How much less man that is a worm.
and the son of man, which is a worm, the word is a maggot,
feeding on death. We're going to stand before holy
God in something we've done. Only through God-given faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way we'll be
accepted. But that, He's eternal life. He's eternal life. Secondly, eternal life is the
gift of God. How are you going to get this
eternal life? It's the gift of God. Thanks
be unto God for His unspeakable gift, His only begotten Son. Listen to Romans 6.23, the wages
of sin is death. Men that are going to stand before
God in the judgment day boasting of their works and their holiness
and their personal sanctification and what they did and all their
benevolent deeds, they're not going to be thinking that they've
earned death. But they've earned death. But the gift of God is eternal
life. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. When you give a gift, you purpose
to whom you're going to give the gift. Our God, our Father,
purposed from eternity who he would give this gift to. He chose
a people by his free and sovereign grace that he would give the
gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God purposed
who he would give this gift to. And when you give a gift to somebody,
you purchase the gift. You pay everything there is to
pay on it or else it's not a gift. If you gave a gift to somebody
and then they got to go down and start making payments on
it, that's not a gift. You just put it down payment
on something for them. And if this thing of salvation requires
you to add your work to it to pay for it, it's not a gift.
That's works, not grace. Christ Jesus came into this world,
the only begotten Son of God, and He obeyed God in the perfection
that you and me couldn't even think about obeying God. And
God who won't even, the moon can't shine before Him, the stars
are not pure in His sight, He looked at the obedience of His
Son and He said, I am well pleased. And He put away the sin of His
people forever. He purchased eternal life for every one of
His people. When you give somebody a gift,
you give it to the person who you purposed to give it to. Christ
sends this gospel, this good news, that's how he purposed
to give this gift to us, and he sends this good news, and
eternal life is given through the preaching of the gospel in
spirit and in truth. It is the message that gives
all the glory to God, not half poison and half bread. It's all
the bread. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. And when that Word comes forth,
the Holy Spirit regenerates His child, and He gives His people
faith to believe that Christ is our life, and we trust Him,
and that's when we have eternal life. Faith is absolutely, thoroughly
the opposite of you and me doing anything. Faith is trusting Christ
has done it all. Look at 1 John 5.11. 1 John 5.11. Look at verse 10. He that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. That's what I just
said. The spirit bears witness with the new spirit he's put
in you. Makes you know. He that believeth not, God hath
made him a liar, because he believes not the record that God gave
of his son. What's the record? Just what
I just said. Look at it. This is the record
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his
son. That means it's not in your hands,
it's not in my hands, it's not in a preacher's hands, it's not
in a priest's hands, it's in his son. He that hath the Son
hath life. He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life. Look down at verse 20. We know
that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true and we are in Him that is
true even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Keep yourself away from ever
idle. Don't look anywhere but to Christ
alone. Don't listen to anybody that
wants to mix anything together with Christ and say, yeah, but
you got to add this. They don't believe the record.
But they're calling God a liar. This is the record. Christ is
eternal life. If you have him, you have eternal
life. How do we have it? Christ said this in John 3.14.
He said, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have eternal life. It's a look. It's a look. You picture them
in the wilderness. There they are bitten by the
serpent. And what do they do? They look to that one maid to
be the thing that was killing them. And you look to Christ
on the cross, made sin, he who knew no sin, made sin in the
place of his people that we might be made to righteousness of God
in him. When you look to him, you have eternal life. And three,
eternal life comes with this promise that God shall keep us
and that God will provide for us until the end of this natural
life. He'll keep you and He'll provide
for you all the way to the end of this life. That does not mean
that you're not going to suffer what Job suffered. That does
not mean that you may watch wicked men prosper and have everything
their heart could desire while you don't and you suffer. That
doesn't mean that God might give you a disease and it might have
entered in you tonight and within a year you might be like a shadow
that vanishes away. It doesn't mean that at all.
What it does mean is 1 John 2.27, the anointing which you have
received of him abideth in you. And you need not that any man
teach you. They were being seduced away and seduced, saying that
Christ wasn't enough. That's why the Lord Jesus said,
he that doesn't believe on Christ, he doesn't have the Father. Well,
they were rejecting Christ, but they were claiming to be children
of the Father. Christ said, if you don't believe on me, you
don't have the Father. And then John said, and if you don't believe
on Christ, you're also transgressing the old law. That's what they
were rejecting Christ for, keeping the law. Oh, but we're children
of the Father. Christ said, no, you don't have
Christ. You don't have the Father. You've
transgressed against the Father, and you've also transgressed
the law. Only one way to be made the righteousness of the law,
that's Christ. That's he that has Christ has
Christ and he has the Father. And the way you have that and
know that is that anointing abides in you and teaches you this.
And he's going to teach you this. He's not going to let this, you're
not going to let this slide. He's going to keep you knowing
this. When everybody else is turning and running and the whole
world is going after their works and going back to Baal and going
to glory and to shame, the anointing is going to keep you knowing
Christ is it. He's only. Him only. Eternal
life. And the same anointing teaches
you of all things and is truth and is no lie and even as it
is taught you, you shall abide in Him. That's what we're talking
about when we say He's going to keep you. He's going to keep
you. Swift to its close, ebbs out
life's little day, its joys grow dim, its glories fade away. Change
and decay in all around me I see. O thou that changest not, abide
with me." And that's what he's saying. He will abide with you.
And because he will abide with you, you're going to abide in
him. You're going to abide in him. He promised it for the sake
of Christ our righteousness. The Lord will provide everything
you need in this life. He'll provide you with everything
you need in this life, and he'll keep you from everything that
is spiritually harmful to you. Christ said, don't worry about
the things of this life. He said, your father knows you
have need of them. He'll provide you your temporal needs. He said,
the life's more than meat, and the body's more than raiment.
but seek preeminently, constantly, all the time in everything the
Lord our righteousness. Live for his kingdom and his
cause and his people to serve him and spread this gospel and
preach this gospel. My life's pretty simple. I get
up in the morning, I open this book, I start praying for God
to give me a message. I pray for you and I study this
book and then I come here and preach to you. And I leave and
I go do it again. And then I might every now and
then go somewhere and preach it to somebody. And I thank you and I thank God
that he's given you a heart to support the work, to keep us
all having the gospel and sending it forth into this world. And
so do your brethren. I hear it everywhere I go. Brethren
say, thank the brethren there for putting the messages online
and for sending them forth. We thank you. And they're grateful. Because this is life to his people.
This is not life to just folks that are trusted in a system
and a creed and studied themselves into thinking they're in the
kingdom of God. But it's life to you who have Christ. He's
your eternal life. You seek him. I've seen a lot
of ants crawling along in the ground or somewhere along the
edge of a wall or something. You know, even that little ant
is under God's sovereign rule. That little ant, when next time
you see a little ant crawling, you just, that little ant right
there is taking his next step by God. And you and me, we're just like
that little ant. God, you can reach your hand
down and a little line of ants and you could put up a mound
of dirt in front of them and they got to go this way. You
could put something to block that way and they got to turn
and go that way. You could just stop them all together and they
got to go backwards. God can do the exact same thing. He does
the exact same thing with all men in this world. He can edge
up our way to go to the left or to the right or backwards
or wherever he'll have us to go and he's ruling everything
just that diligently, just that intricately. He is ruling everything. He said a hair don't fall from
your head without him. My times are in thy hand. That's
what, that's what, that's how David said it. My times are in
thy hand. Which one? Every second of your
life are in his hand. Listen to 1 Samuel 2, 6. The
Lord killeth. Well, they had an untimely death.
No, they didn't. The Lord killeth. And the Lord
maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave
and he bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor, and maketh
rich. He bringeth low, and lifteth
up. He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the
beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to
make them inherit the throne of glory, for the pillars of
the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world upon them."
And you know what? Everything he does, he's done
all things well. We got no reason to be sad about
a thing. He done all things well. He did
all things well yesterday, He did all things well today, and
He'll do all things well tomorrow. If you then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. What about my bank account? We
just read, He makes poor and He makes rich. Set your mind on things above
where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection
on things above, not on the things of the earth, for you're dead.
You're dead. That's how much of a shadow our
life is. Before God, you already died.
You already died. We just got to lay it down. That's
all. It's a tent. That's what they say. It's like
a shepherd's tent. We're just traveling along, pilgriming
along, and we're going to just lay this shepherd's tent down.
But we already died in Christ. And your life, your life, what
is my life? Your life is hid with Christ
in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.
So stop regarding the flesh whatsoever. It's not our life. We look not
at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not
seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house
which is from heaven. The things that are seen are
temporal. The things that are unseen are eternal. So what is
your life? What is your life? Your natural
life is a vapor. It's a shadow. It's vanishing
away. And it'll be over like that.
Might be tonight, might be tomorrow, might be 10 years, 15, 20, 25. But they all died. But spiritually, what is your
life? Christ is my life. Well, what else? Christ is my
life. Well, you better add, Christ
is my life. Plus nothing, minus nothing. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you appear with Him in glory. If
you have the Son, you have life. And I pray God make it so for
every one of us. Amen. By closing him will be number
56. I am his and he is mine.