Anyhow, if you'd like to follow
along, I'm going to be in the book of James chapter four. James chapter four. I'm just gonna read, what is it,
four verses? James chapter four beginning
in verse five. Do ye think, that the scripture
saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace. Wherefore
he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Resist the devil, and he will
flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will
draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners,
and purify ye hearts, ye double-minded. I'm just gonna stop right there. Now, I'm willing to bet fake
money, not real money, okay? that anytime any preacher ever
read that in just about any other church, they're gonna spend a
message on resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Well, that's
not what I'm gonna do. That comes in. But it only comes
in after these words, submit yourself therefore to God. And
that's the name of this Paul, submit to God. Because I wanna
speak this morning on this command This is not a request. This is
James writing a letter under the inspiration of the Holy spirit. And he says, submit to God. Walter and I were talking about
this. We've talked about this on and off. Uh, a woman has heard
our broadcasts and somebody told us that she don't like that submission
stuff. She don't like that submitting
stuff. Trust me, she's not alone. I can guarantee you that much.
That's just the only one we heard about, okay? But it is, in a sense, Walter,
a response to our broadcast, so I thought I'd do something.
Here's my answer. More submission stuff. Because
I'm gonna tell you something, when you see it, In the scriptures,
when you actually see it and you gather it in your head, you'll
see it everywhere in the scriptures. But where I started here was
do you think the scripture saith in vain that the spirit that
dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace? Wherefore he saith God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Listen, we are not
naturally humble. If you're humble, it's because
he made you that way. You understand? You're not gonna
see, you're not gonna have any idea of how low you are till
you begin to see, he reveals to you how high he is. Because
right now, we measure pretty good against other worms. But
guess what? We're still a bucket full of
worms. You know, we might be one of the better worms. I think
rather highly of myself at times. I don't know about you people,
you people are more humble than I am, I'm sure. But this is the thing,
that's worms. Guess what? It don't count. But here, our spirit, I love
it, our spirit's not good, okay? Just plain say it straight out.
I mean, can we agree on that? Because this is more than the
simple fact that Paul quoted, there's none good, no not one. That's not what James is writing
about here. Because Walter has said it so wonderfully and it
just grabbed a hold of me when he said it. He said, we are never
neutral. Unbelief is not neutral. Our
flesh is not neutral. It's against God. So what does
James say? The spirit that dwelleth in us
lusteth to envy. That's where we live, in our
flesh. And that's where the unbeliever
lives, because the flesh is all he's got. And what was it, Earl, you say
it's in you and it's going to come out. It'll leak out on you. It will leak out on you. What does this mean, though our
spirit lusts to envy? It means that we covet. Very powerful word, one of the
commandments. Matter of fact, this is the commandment
that hit the apostle Paul right between his eyes. It's what he
said, not quite in those words. Romans seven and verse seven,
what shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but
by the law. For I had not known what? Lust. What? The spirit that dwelleth in us
lusteth to envy. Paul said, I had not known lust,
except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. And
I can never say that word right. For without the law, sin was
dead. Now, concupiscence, there you go. Give me three or four
tries, I'll get it. Concupiscence, what is that?
That's desire, that's craving, wait a minute, for that which
is forbidden. What's Paul saying? The law made
me see I was wanting unlawful things. And you understand, this
is not an outward deed. This is just in his mind. I didn't
know lust until I knew thou shalt not covet. Covet's not taking,
that's stealing. You understand? Covet's not doing,
that's adultery. But covet is thinking about it. And that's what the Apostle Paul
said, and that's what James is saying here. Our spirit naturally,
naturally lusts to envy. Paul recognized lust in himself
in his covetousness. Now there is none good, no not
one. But we are not neutral. Not even close. And what did
James say right after that? But he giveth more grace. Oh,
whoa, that's good. How much grace you want? More. I want more. He gives more grace. to those that, I'll put it this
way, he has humbled. He humbled himself when he came
down, and now he's in the process of bringing in his sheep, but
his sheep is a rebellious lot. You know, they won't come naturally.
The shepherd has to go out and get them, pick them up on his
shoulders, and bring them into the fold. Not only that, he's
gotta keep them there. Why? Because we'd wander off
again. He giveth more grace to the humble. I like that. Then this next verse,
this is where I wanna be. Because this is what I wanna
do. Submitting yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and
he'll flee from you. But here's where we are, submitting
yourselves therefore to God. All right, up front, let's be
honest. Man hates submitting. We absolutely hate it. You know
why? Because we have to do it every
day. And it doesn't matter whether
you're this big or whether you're this big. You know, it don't
matter if you're poor as a church mouth or you're a billionaire.
There's somewhere, some way you're going to have to submit yourselves
every day. And this is just in the natural sense. I mean, we
submit to our parents and then we go to school. We got to submit
to teachers. We submit to our government because
if you don't pay your taxes, they might come looking for you. We submit to our bosses. In the service industry, you
submit to customers. We submit to friends. We submit
to peer pressure. We submit to girlfriends, boyfriends,
spouses. There's a lot of submitting going
on, and sometimes we don't even realize it. James wants us to
realize, to understand fully as best you can in your mind
that you need to submit yourselves to God. And that's the point that I'm
trying to speak to you. I want you to realize it's necessary
to submit yourself to God. James is not submitting you to
God. I am not submitting you to God.
You are to submit yourself to God. Because I can be equally
clear here, I can't submit you to God. I can't make you submit
to God, I can't submit you to God. I can pray and I can preach
and I can sing, and that's about it. We can talk. Because here it is, James couldn't
make you submit to God. And that fact that neither he
nor I nor anyone else can make you do it, does not make it optional. You still got to submit to God. Submit yourselves to God. Don't try to submit anyone else
to God. Because submitting yourself to
God when you actually come around to it and you figure it out,
that's a full-time job. That's a full-time job. That'll
occupy you. And if you're concerned about
you, I can tell you, people will feel better about you. Because I mean, there's sometimes,
never mind, I'm not gonna go into that. This is how the apostle
Paul described himself. The title he took unto himself.
He would say that he was an apostle, but he said he was appointed
that by Jesus Christ. But here's the title he took
upon himself and he named it in a couple of places. I'm a
servant of Jesus Christ. Okay. Another place, I think
his first Titus chapter one, one, I'm a servant of God. Okay. You know what that word means?
Earl taught us. So I'm going to say it again.
Slave. That's what that word means.
Literally and figuratively, a slave of Jesus Christ. A slave of God. Now, listen to Strong's definition
of this, because I found this wonderful here. That's what it
says, a slave, literally or figuratively, involuntary or voluntary. Don't
matter whether you volunteered for it or you didn't, you's a
slave. Frequently, here we go. This
is the blessed part here. Frequently therefore in a qualified
sense of subjection and subservience. I like that. That's what it means
to be a slave. You are subject to your master. You are subservient. to your
master, and this is what the apostle to the Gentiles, the
man who wrote more books of the New Testament than all of them
put together, almost. He called himself that. A slave
of Jesus Christ, a servant of God. The apostle Paul submitted himself
to Jesus Christ. And the Apostle Paul submitted
himself to God. I just find that fascinating.
That's what he called himself. I'm a servant. I'm a slave. Are you? Is the question. Are you? Because I want to tell
you something. I got a story to tell you, it's
one I've told before, but I'll tell it again. And Walter and
I were talking, like I said, a couple weeks ago, and I hit
this in what we were talking about. But I'm gonna tell you
how I submitted to God without realizing I did at the time. And it concerns the book of John,
of course. John chapter six. Verse 44. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw him. And I will raise him
up at the last day. The very first time I remember
reading this verse, I stopped right there, Walter. I stopped
right there. You know why? Because I didn't
like it. I didn't agree with it. That's
the truth. I mean, because I was okay with
everything up until this. This is where the sticking point
came, for me. Now, this was for me. But I actually
really have a suspicion that this verse and a couple others
here are a real sticking point for a lot of people. Because,
you know, I was reading the book of John, In the beginning was
the word. Oh, man, that's perfect. You
had to be born of God, not of the will of flesh, not of the
will of man. Man, that's gracious. Behold the Lamb of God. That's
glorious. Changing water into wine. Take
that, you grape juice drinkers. It's wonderful. Driving the merchants
and the bankers out of the temple. OK, do it again. you must be born again. That's
great. Those that don't believe are
condemned already. Yes. The Father and the Son quicken
whom they will. Even though I really didn't get
it, I was okay with that. It's amazing love. All that the
Father gives to me, I will lose nothing. Then, I was okay with
all that in John. Then I come to this, no man can
come except the father, which has set me draw him. You know
what I said? I said, Oh, that's the theological
term. It's an Oh moment for me. So I thought, well, you know
what, Walter, I thought maybe there was a deeper meaning that
I wasn't seeing. So I went and talked with some people who knew
more than me. Now this was before Earl, so I didn't get to talk
to him about this till afterwards. So I went and asked somebody
who knew more than me, and there was more than one of them, but
they all asked me the very same question. They asked me, what does the
scripture say? And I said, that's it, this is
what you're gonna tell me. What's it say? So I went back. What does the scripture say?
Well, it says no man can come. Except God draws it. That's what
it says. I mean, it's not, there's no
big theological terms here. No justification, sanctification,
superlapsarianism. This is all it said. No man can
come except it was, except the father draws him. That means you don't come on
your own. That's what it means. It means no man can come unless
the father draws you. Except the father draws you. I've never heard anything like
this and I didn't like it. I'm just being honest. I'm being
honest at that time. I didn't like it. This was a
new thought to me, Mason. This was something I'd never
had in my head, Jack. I never heard about predestination. I
never heard of hard shell Baptist. I never heard any of this stuff.
I was born and raised Catholic. So I was pretty close to ignorant
of the scriptures other than the pieces that they'd read every
year, year in, year out, and I would hear some of them, you
know? I knew John 3.16. So, I knew I didn't like it,
but Tim James and I went away to mull on it, ponder on it,
try and wrap my feeble mind around this, because that's what it
says. You know? And that's what it says, that's
what it means. And I came to the conclusion,
and this was me thinking to myself, I did. Well, if the Lord Jesus
Christ said it, it's gotta be right. Whether I like it or not. Whether I get it or not. He's right, and this is part
of that humbling thing, he'll show you you're wrong. He showed
me I'm wrong, he didn't show me you're wrong, I just know
you are, because you're no different than me. He showed me I'm wrong, and he's
right. So, if I believe him, I believe his
word. So a lot of people don't wanna
tie this stuff together. Because here's the thing, and
this is 35 years ago, I didn't know the theological terms at
the time, okay? But here's what I thought, what
he says goes. What he says is the way it is. Now, still, at that time, I wasn't
all that comfortable with it. I still really didn't like it,
I was pretty sure I didn't like it, but he said it. And contrary to that stupid bumper
sticker, that settles it whether I believe it or not, because
he said it. Now, I didn't think of it at
the time, but right there at that time, that place, I submitted
myself to God. I didn't know that was what I
stood up to. But that's what it is. You understand,
submitting yourself to God is believing his word. Submitting yourself to God is
believing his son. You understand, there's all these
people say, oh, I believe in Jesus. And then you read them
what Jesus said and said, well, I don't believe that. If that's
your attitude, you haven't submitted yourself to God. And you're not
saved. I'll just say it. You understand,
if that's your attitude, and that's where your attitude stays.
Because you understand, I disagreed with him at first. I didn't like
it. But guess what? If you're his,
he will bring you around. You understand? Oh, my God's
a gentleman. He wouldn't make anybody go against
his will. Well, that's sort of stupid and
sort of true. He can change your will. Matter of fact, he does change
your will. And by golly, I was looking for
this song because I had this little verse in my head. Where
is it? Oh, I've been looking at the
wrong one. But choose thou for me, O my
Lord. So shall, so shall I walk aright. Understand, if it's not His will,
it's wrong. It's not aright. And in order
to walk aright, you've gotta be walking submitted to the will
of God. But I didn't think about it.
I didn't think, well, I've submitted to God. I never heard that before. But I tell you this, very soon
after this, I was blessed because of this episode I went through
here with John 644. Because you come to John 665
and guess what? He says it again. You understand,
our Lord Jesus Christ only has to say something once and it's
just as true as the foundation of the world. When he says it
twice, you better pay attention, especially when you see what
happened when he said it again. Because he said it again in John
6, 65, and he said, therefore said I unto you that no man can
come unto me except it were given unto him of my father. And see, this is one of those
theological moments that's called the aha moment. Because I said,
aha! All right, that's already settled
in my head. And it was even, guess what?
Settled even more when he said it twice. Because you understand,
there's not a double meaning, it's just a double saying. No
man can come except, and no man can come unless. Guess what? They're both true. They're the
same thing. If it's not given to you by the
Father, you're not coming. And then it says these two words.
What happened after that, when he said that? Well, they all
lived happily ever after. That never happened when Jesus
preached the sermon. From that, it says, two words,
from that, many went back. What's that mean? Well, it means
they walked no more with him. Doesn't mean they quit walking.
They walked backwards. They were walking, but they weren't
walking with him. Why? Because they had not submitted
themselves to Jesus Christ. And that's the honest truth of
it. Because submission to the will
of Jesus Christ is necessary for walk. For your walk. Submission to
the will of Jesus Christ is necessary for your work. Because what Jesus Christ asked
the 12. This is where I got blessed. Will you also go away? And Peter
answered. He said, you the man. No, he
said, you the Lord. You're the Lord. You're the Lord. What? To whom shall we go? Thou has the words of eternal
life. And we believe and are sure that
thou art that Christ, that Christ, I like that, the son of the living
God. And you know what? I thought, wow. I thought, wow. I mean, I felt
real joy. And you know why? Because the
apostle Peter, agreed with me. Now, it is possible in my younger
days I might have been somewhat self-centered. But it's like,
I think, me and Peter got this. And when he said that, I'm serious,
Walter, I mean, I felt, oh man, that's exactly what I said, even
though I didn't say it in those nice words. I got nowhere else to go. That's
submitting yourself to God. What? Not that you do it, but
here. You realize it. You understand
it. In your heart, in your mind,
sometimes in your body. There's nowhere else to go. He's got the words of eternal
life. Because if you're submitting
yourself to God, means that you're trusting God. What? And you're gonna trust what he
said. Cause that's the way I answered
the question. You are Lord and I have nowhere else to go. And
I have nothing beyond your word that you've given to us. I got
nothing besides that. And I believe you Lord. Oh, you're that Christ. You're
that Christ, the son of the living God. Because there's a principle
here. Now I want you to get this if
you can, if I can say it. You cannot believe Christ. You cannot trust Christ unless
you believe his word. Now I'm not saying you have to
believe his word in order to trust, I'm not gonna end it,
but here's the thing. How can you say to somebody,
I trust you, but I don't believe a word you say? Come on, tell that to your wife.
See how well it goes over. No. You might tell your kids if you,
never mind. I love you, but I don't trust
what you say. I was a kid once, so I can't say a whole lot about
that. But here's the thing, you can't say you believe Christ,
but you won't believe what he says. It's not possible. That's the principle of submission
to God, believing Jesus Christ. Because if you believe Jesus
Christ, you're gonna believe his word. You're gonna believe
his word whether you like it or not, whether you understand
it or not. It's okay, I mean it seems kind
of silly to say, but it's okay to be ignorant sometimes because
we don't get it all. This is a learning process. May
you grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. How you gonna do that? Submitting
to God. We just don't, you know, We just don't wanna call it that.
Submitting to other people is one thing. I can understand that. I don't like it and I do it every
day. But submitting to God, that's required. That's required. You don't have to submit to me.
You don't have to submit to Walter. You don't have to submit to any
preacher. But bless God, you gotta submit
to his word. It's right all the time that
you're wrong. The only time you're right is
when you agree with it. Now is that too simple? It's
the truth. It's the truth. What happens? What's the conclusion? Draw nigh
to God. How? Believe him. Believe him. Trust him and believe his word
and he will draw an eye to you. Because this is how we draw an
eye to God. Submit to God. Submit to Jesus
Christ. Don't argue with God. Okay, at
best, you'll be annoyed. At worst, you'll be confounded.
And that's not a good thing, let's put it that way. If you wanna, and I know a lot
of people, do you wanna serve God? Do you wanna serve Jesus
Christ? Be a slave. That's what Paul
said. I'm a bond slave. You understand,
the definition from Strong said voluntary or involuntary. Paul's
was voluntary. Mine by His grace and by His
power, mine is voluntary. Believe Him, trust Him. He has the words of eternal life. Look here, I'll just read you
this. This is the high priestly prayer
of Jesus Christ, John 17. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. How can you say you believe him,
but you won't believe what he said? That's what the Pharisees
did. Oh, we know you're a teacher
come from God, You know, Nicodemus said that. Others said, oh yeah,
we, you know, they gave lip service. Your lips are near, you know,
your lips are saying wonderful things about me, but your heart's
far from me. Submit yourselves therefore to
God. Because submitting to God is
good, is good. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for this time, this place. Lord, most of all, thank you
for your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us his word,
the word of God. He is the word of God, the word
of truth. Help us to believe him, to understand,
to trust, and to submit ourselves to you. Be with Walter as he
comes to preach. Lord, thank you in Christ's name.