May the Lord bless us this evening
as we consider his word. Let's turn to the general epistle
of James, chapter 1, and we'll read verses 5 and 6. The general epistle of James,
chapter 1, and reading verses 5 and 6. If any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth
not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith nothing
wavering. For he that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea, driven with a wind and tossed. The Apostle James is very direct in the words that
he speaks in his epistle. They are very clear words, they're
very direct words, and they're very important words. And so
we have these words before us here this evening, which are
important for us all. And it's a question that James
really asks when he says, if any of you lack wisdom. Well,
the truth is that that really applies to all of us. And wisdom
is knowledge and understanding. And if we think of that in two
ways really, first of all, we tend to picture this as referencing
a difficulty or a situation in our natural life which we may
not be able to really work out. The problem may be too difficult
and we're thankful therefore for a word like this which is
encouraging for us to come and bring that situation unto our
God. But on the other hand there is
also the far more important really and relevant situation with regard
to our spiritual life. If this question is asked, if
any of you lack wisdom, and if any of us lack understanding
or knowledge with regard to our spiritual life, and I'm sure
we will all have to acknowledge that we have a lack of wisdom
and knowledge and understanding with regards to many things in
our spiritual life. So surely here is a wonderfully
encouraging word for everyone. No matter what situation we are
in, what position we exist in, in our spiritual life, whether
we've, as it were, just begun on the pilgrimage of a Christian,
or if we're coming towards the end of our pilgrimage, this word
is still correct. And it still has an application
to us if any of you lack wisdom, to think that In that situation,
again bringing it generally, either in providence or in grace,
we can come to our God. And what an encouraging word
it is. Because if we do have this lack,
and we do, what should we do? Here's the answer. Let him ask
of God. Let him ask of God. That's the
great secret, isn't it? because God doesn't misunderstand
us. We may sometimes ask other people
and they might not understand what the question really is and
may give us a really wrong answer. But the Lord God knows what we
need before we ask. And therefore we can come to
him confidently believing that he understands all about us,
all about our natural need and all about our spiritual need.
And so this is a word really that we should often ponder and
recognize how relevant it is to our daily life as we continue
through this earth to realize here we have a God who speaks
to us in such encouraging words if any of you lack wisdom. There are many things aren't
there in the Word of God, in the truth of his word, which
are difficult perhaps to understand, and especially when we begin
our spiritual life, there are many hard things to understand,
many perhaps things which may appear contradictory, sometimes
may appear confusing, sometimes may not appear clear at all,
and we just cannot understand them. Here's the answer. Let us ask of God. Let's ask
God himself. God wrote the Word of God. And
God's made everything. And God's ordained everything.
And God knows the end from the beginning. And therefore we can
come to this God. And the Word of God encourages
us, doesn't it, so beautifully, when we're told to come boldly
unto the throne of grace. And come just as we are. In all
our rags, as it were, in all our needy condition, we can come
just as we are, as God knows what we know and what we don't
know. Sometimes we may be too embarrassed
to admit our ignorance in certain things, because we might think,
well of course we should really know the answer to such questions. We can come to our God. Our God
is full of compassion. He remembers that we're dust. He remembers we're just flesh,
sinful flesh. He knows our weaknesses. He knows
our lack of understanding. He knows our lack of appreciation
of the great truths of the Word of God. And therefore we can
come to Him. if any of you lack wisdom. We come with our spiritual requests. It may be very simply to give
us a right understanding that we do possess his work, the work
of grace, in our souls. We may perhaps fear that we lack
understanding and knowledge as to whether that's true or not.
well we can come to our God and we can ask the Lord whether what
we are trusting in is true, whether it's come from his mouth, from
his good hand, whether it's that which he has done for us. We may perhaps wonder where we
can come to our God and the truth is that the Lord can confirm
such words, can confirm his work, and the Lord does hear. And so,
as we may feel our lack of understanding, with regard to these great important
questions, let us come, let us ask of God. We have a God, you
see, who does hear and answer prayer. And we have this great
statement here, ask of God that giveth to all men liberally,
liberally, and not stintingly, but liberally. He explains things,
explains to us through his word, enables us to meditate upon the
truth of God so that the spiritual things are open to our understanding. And the Lord deals with us so
graciously. He's liberal in giving answers
to our requests for that knowledge that we need. See what a great
God we have. What a merciful God, what a kind
God. What a wonderful thing it is that the Apostle James really
commences this chapter with these words, my brethren, count it
all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. And we might consider
that to be the temptation of the devil, pretending to us that
we really have no knowledge of spiritual things, and really
we're out of the way, we don't understand the way of God, In
actual fact, we are lacking in all that knowledge, and all we
possess is that which we've thought of ourselves. There's no spiritual
part of it. Well, what does the apostle say? Count it all joy. All joy when
you fall in a diva's temptations. And he gives us some reason for
that. And it's this really, he's knowing
this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. What it means is that the devil
tries to uproot us out of the truth of God. Well he'll never
be able to, but sometimes we have these temptations and the
devil thinks that he's dragging us onto his side. But in actual
fact, he's establishing us more in the truth. You know, with
a tree or a bush or whatever, as it's blown about with the
wind, and what happens? Well, the roots take root deeper
downward. That's the effect. If there's
no winds, there's not much need of a root. If there's lots of
winds and gales, then there's need of a root. And God has ordained
that when these things occur, the root goes down deeper. And
that's just so in our spiritual experience. We may come into
great temptations, many temptations, and we may feel in that condition
that we really are lacking wisdom, and lacking understanding, and
lacking knowledge. And then as God gives us that
grace, as God turns us to himself, perhaps as we remember such a
word as this, it's a wonderful thing when God brings his word
to our remembrance. He brings it in our time of need.
He doesn't bring it before, although we would obviously read the word,
but when we have a real time of need and God then causes us
to consider And he brings us to this situation so that we
come with this lack of knowledge and we ask of God, what has occurred? Our faith has been tried. Our
religion may have been tested and we may have had to examine
it. It's a good thing to examine our religion. Because if you
and I examine it under God's light, that which is pure and
right will shine brightly. And that which shines brightly
is that which God has done and God has given. And so in this
testing time, this trying of our faith, it will have the greatest
effect of worketh patience. Patience is a gift of God. We, by nature, are often impatient.
We want things to happen now. God tells us, your time is always,
but my time is not yet. God has a perfect time. Our time is imperfect. And therefore,
in everything really in our lives, we need this patience. And it's faith that worketh patience. It makes us then willing to wait
for our God. To wait for our God. Because
what have we done? We've asked of God. We haven't
asked men or women to intervene and to deliver us and to help
us. We may have done, but you know the secret, the real secret
is, is to ask of God. Ask of God who giveth to all
men liberty. And there's no charge. There's
no charge. Natural learning often involves
a charge. God teaches us freely. Out of his storehouse, what a
wonderful storehouse there is, which God gives in times of need. Think of that occasion when there
was that famine in the land in Egypt, when Joseph was in charge
of all the corn in Egypt. There was a famine and Joseph
opened the storehouses. He came to Joseph to ask for
that food so needful. There was no alternative. They
hadn't got anything. They had to go to Joseph. My
friends today, you and I have to go to none other than our
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the picture is very beautiful,
isn't it? That's a great storehouse that was in Egypt for all those
people, starving people. It's a great storehouse that
our God distributes to his needy people. And so may we be blessed
with that faith. Remember, here we have this great
secret that we are to commune with that faith. Your faith worketh
patience. It really intimates to us that
the life, the Christian life, is therefore not an easy one.
Things don't just happen. Things don't just fall into place
without any prayer, without any testing. There are testing times
and the benefit is it works for our good. God brings things into
our lives to work for our spiritual good. If there weren't things
coming into our lives, if there weren't temptations, if there
weren't trials and difficulties, then our faith wouldn't be tested. Our spiritual life wouldn't,
as it were, go through the fire. There wouldn't be that testing
time. but the Lord causes us to be
brought to these places. And then the Apostle says, knowing
this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let
patience have her perfect work, that she may be perfect and entire,
wanting nothing. That means really to be totally
dependent upon Almighty God, casting all our care upon him,
for he careth for us. That's a familiar word, it's
one which we perhaps recognise and may speak often, but when
the Lord applies the word to our needy case, our needy soul,
then we recognise the importance of it. And then it is a wonderful
relief to be able to come to our God, to cast all our care
upon him. and a blessing to realise that
by His grace He cares for us, casting all your care upon Him. And so if any man lack wisdom,
let him ask of God. So often we, as it were, forget
to ask, don't we? We try naturally to figure things
out for ourselves, And yet here is the answer. Here's the blessed
solution. And here is that which we should
do really automatically, but how we fail so often to come
asking of our God. Let him ask of God. That's the immediate thing. If
any lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Ask of God. And we know that the door of
his mercy stands open all day to the poor and the needy, let
not by the way. And in giving answers, the Lord
is so liberal that with regard especially to our spiritual needs,
we find the Lord leads us into all truth as it is in Jesus. And we find that as the Spirit
of God directs us to one avenue so it broadens out. And we observe
the mercy of God. And as we observe the mercy of
God toward us, we understand it's because of His grace toward
us. Otherwise we would not have received
His mercy. as we perhaps then understand
what the blessing is of grace, the free, unmerited favour of
God. To then have that understanding
that the Lord has come and dealt with us, not according to our
sins, but according to his mercy, according to his favour toward
us. And we then recognise, well, it's all a grace. There's not
a works lest any man should boast. It all emanates from the greatness
of our God, His mercy, because of His grace. And then we might
think, well, why does that grace come to me? And the Lord then
opens our understanding and He shows to us it's because of His
great love toward us, that love which was in eternity past. Yay,
he loved the people. My friends, what a mercy it is
then to have our spiritual understanding open to observe. Yes, the Lord
has loved us with that everlasting love and therefore with loving
kindness he's drawn us. You see the opening up of this
spiritual wisdom the Lord gives to us And as the Spirit then
directs us more, we think, well, and how did that come to us? How did we receive that love?
How did we receive His grace and His mercy? It was through
His great salvation. It was through His death upon
the cross at Calvary. And we understand now a little
more of how we were saved. was only because the Lord Jesus
Christ took upon Himself the punishment due to us. He bore the punishment instead. Every bit, all the punishment,
He took upon Himself. Well, is this not blessed spiritual
wisdom? If any of you lack wisdom, spiritual
understanding, spiritual knowledge, to come to God and ask him to
give you an understanding. And sometimes we need this wisdom
and understanding to be renewed, so that once again we may come
perhaps to the foot of the cross. We may stand and view the suffering
Saviour bearing the curse for us. The Word of God tells us,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. The Lord Jesus Christ
hung on that tree, that cross, to take away the curse that was
ours. Oh my friends, what love! And so we see here, do we not,
then our spiritual wisdom, the lack, the lack of spiritual wisdom. The Lord then opens our understanding.
He comes to us and he's heard our cry. The real truth is that we are
to pray for these things. We are to ask God for them. We
should not just expect they come without any prayer. In coming and praying for these
things, there will be those temptations that you're wasting your time
and in actual fact there's no value in it anyway and you may
as well give up. No, you see there's a perseverance. In the things of God there's
a perseverance in prayer. As we encounter these divers,
these many temptations, to be blessed with that patience to
carry on, to pray on, to pray on. against storm and wind and
tide, there will always be opposition when you attempt to seek God's
face with a great desire like this. You will always find opposition,
but my friends, we are to pray on. We are to pursue. Hymn writer says, to pursue the
narrow way till hymn I view, to pray on that Christ will reveal
himself unto us as he does not unto the world. You may think,
well, I don't seem to get any answers. Patience. Pray on. Hear the word. Let him ask of God. Let him ask
of God. My friends, remember, this is
a gracious invitation. to ask of God. And what a favour
it is for us today to be able to come to that throne of grace,
to realise that whatever condition we're in, wherever we are on
the face of this earth, God is everywhere. And God knows where
we are. He knows where we are physically.
He knows where we are spiritually. And therefore He can come exactly
where we are. And he can give to us that which
we really need. And we will find his part of
God's gracious, perfect work. Perfect work in our soul's experience. Let him ask of God, that giveth
to all men liberally, all those who ask of God. And then he says,
and upbraideth not. You may think, well, what does
that mean? Well, it really means this. God doesn't reproach us,
or God doesn't chide us. And that's very comforting. If
perhaps we've listened to the Gospel for many, many years,
and now we come and realise we don't understand. We don't know. We may think, well, how can I
go to God? Because I've turned my back on
him for so many years, I've ignored the gracious words of God. How
can I come to this God? Well, here is a very encouraging
word. It tells us this. He says, he
gives to all men liberty and upbraideth not. He doesn't chide
us. for our unbelief. He doesn't
chide us for our lack of knowledge, but the word is still wonderfully
true. He'll come and he'll give to
us liberally, because it's confirmed like this, and upbraideth not,
and it shall be given him. Now, we must, of course, come
to our God in faith. How important it is. The Lord
blesses us with living faith to come in that right way. And
the psalmist in the 110th Psalm, he tells us, without no doubt,
fairly familiar words, sorry, the 111th Psalm, the fear of
the Lord. What is it? is the beginning
of wisdom, the fear of the Lord. We are to come in faith, it will
be like this, in the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom. And he tells us this, a good
understanding have all they that do his commandments, his praise
endureth forever. And if we think of it in this
light, The encouragement here is, if any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God. That's really the command, isn't
it? So if we lack wisdom, we are
to ask of God. And remember, the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So again, looking back in our
lives, or perhaps look at our lives today. Do we have, have we had, do we
have a fear of the Lord? A fear of the Lord. And I believe,
as I've said sometimes, I think that's in two ways really. The
first is a fear of God as a righteous judge. When the Lord comes and
convicts us of sin and we realise we've sinned against a holy God
and we deserve his righteous judgement. And if my soul were sent to hell,
my righteous law approves it well." Now, that is the effect
of the work of the Holy Spirit of God. To bow down and fall
down before God and acknowledging that he has a perfect right to
do that to us because of our sins. Fear of the Lord. And then I believe when there
is that true following of the Lord, there is that fear of offending
Almighty God. The fear of doing those things
which are against Almighty God. The fear of walking contrary
to his will. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. Well, what a blessing tonight
if you and I are favoured to have the evidence of the beginning
of heavenly wisdom, which it is. Heavenly wisdom, because
it's God that gives us that true fear, that fear which enables
us to bow down before our God. and to worship him. If any of you lack wisdom, well, think of that. We've spoken quite
a bit about this wisdom. The question is, if, do we? Do we understand our lack of
that wisdom? Do we? If any of you lack wisdom,
If so, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and
upbraideth not. And then we have this very positive
statement, and it shall be given him. That means we do not pray
in vain. Again, the effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man avoideth much. We do not pray in vain. But the truth is as to whether
we do pray. That's the question, isn't it? Whether we do pray. We speak
words, many words perhaps, but do we pray? Do we pray? Well, we have the answer really
in the following verse. And how we are to pray. And we're
told, but, and it shall be given him, but, there's a but you see,
with regard to this answer, but, let him ask in faith. Let him ask in faith. And that
really means that we are to believe that we are coming to our Father
in heaven through the merits of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ, as our gracious and glorious High Priest, who presents our
prayers unto his Father and our Father. To believe that whenever
we come to our God in prayer, believing that we do come to
a great and glorious God, a God who hears and answers prayer,
We're not coming like the Athenians came to the unknown God, but
by his grace we're coming to the God that by faith we know. And so these words come, but
let him ask in faith. And even that is qualified like
this, nothing wavering, nothing wavering. These words are really quite
searching, aren't they? We might think they're familiar words
but they are really searching as to whether our prayers are
right. Whether our prayers are right.
And of course we must always pray in accordance with the will
of God. Nevertheless not my will but
thine be done. Remember the words of the Saviour
and that's a precious example for us. So when we pray for these
things and I suppose the The qualification is that in prayer,
asking God to appear for us and do things for us, will the end
result be for his honour and for his glory? It's really a
vital question, isn't it, to be able to answer. That as we
come, as we ask of God for this wisdom, Whether if it's answered,
it will be for his honour and for his glory. Or whether we'll
think, well I could do with knowing that bit of knowledge so that
I can vaunt myself and show how good I am. Not at all. The opposite is the effect. To
show us how ignorant we are and how kind it is of Almighty God
to reveal himself unto us as he does not unto the world. And so let him ask in faith,
nothing wavering. Not to waver, but to come in
that humble confidence. And it must be in that humble
way. Not in any proud way, because
we are unworthy of any favour. Unworthy of the least of the
Lord's favours or blessings. And that's how we should come,
in a very humble way. recognising that we don't actually
deserve any answer. We come, as it were, pressing
through the crowd, like that woman in the Word of God. She had that issue of blood that
needed to be stopped, needed to be healed, and she pressed
through the crowd that she might but touch the hem of his garment.
And the spiritual sense that's pressing through all the opposition
in prayer, that we might by stretch out our arm with precious faith
and lay hold of the precious promises of God. And you see there was a blessed
outcome and a blessed effect. So here we have the encouraging
truth. It shall be given him, but let
him ask in faith, nothing wavering. Nothing wavering. And then the
apostle tells us, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the
sea driven with a wind and tossed. We know what a wave's like, don't
we? Goes all about, disappears, doesn't it? You see, God gives
faith, living faith, which remains. And that faith brings honour
and glory to Almighty God. And then he says, for let not
that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord,
whose like the wind blowing the waves, a double-minded man is
unstable in all his ways. A double-minded man. We could
really think that in these ways. We pray, and then we think, well,
I don't think God will answer. Surely that's a double-minded
man, isn't it? On one hand, we're praying to
God. On the other hand, the devil's saying, well, of course that
won't be answered. And then the temptation is to
think that it won't be answered. Well, we are to be aware. of
our great enemy of souls who will always come alongside us
and cause us to doubt. Remember that's probably one
of his greatest weapons to the Christian, to bring them into
that place which John Bunyan calls Doubting Castle. Yes, that
place where we may be housed up and we doubt God. My friends, God is able, God
is willing, he's a great God. But do remember, we must come
in our prayers for this heavenly wisdom, seeking in a right way
that it might be for his honour and glory, and it might be for
our soul's eternal good. And so it comes for us with spiritual
things, but also it addresses us also in natural things. The Lord does hear and answer
prayer, regard to our natural requirements. And they are very
many, aren't they? And perhaps we might think, again,
grace and providence unite. They often come together, they
join together. And perhaps it is through a thing
in our natural life, our providential life, that we need to pray to
God for, because there's a great need and We know no one else
can deliver us, no one else can come, no one else can give us
wisdom, no one else can help us. When the Lord answers it,
then the Lord shows us something of his greatness, of his majesty,
and his love to our souls. And in that situation, what does
it do? Well, it humbles us. We're humbled. We're humbled then under the
mighty hand of God. you realise it's God that's done
it, and it's God that's had mercy upon us, and it's God that's
looked upon us that we didn't deserve anything, and yet he's
heard an answer in our prayer. Great is the Lord, and greatly
to be praised. And that will be the effect when
the Lord hears our prayer for this wisdom, that he gets honour
and the glory. Well, my friends, whatever it
is in our life, our natural life, our spiritual life, and I'm sure
every day there are many times when in actual fact we do lack
wisdom. Well, let us hear the gracious
words of the Lord speaking to our hearts. If any of you lack
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberty, and
upbraideth not and it shall be given him. But let him ask in
faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let
not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Amen.