It's going to be in the book
of James, the first chapter. We looked at these verses last
week and I'm going to read them again so we can kind of get the
flow of what he's saying here. It says, let no man say when
he is tempted that I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted
with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted
when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. And when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren,
or do not be deceived. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above. and cometh down from the Father
of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should
be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved
brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow
to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the
engrafted word which is able to save your souls. But be ye
doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the
word and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural
face in a glass or a mirror. For he beholdeth himself and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in
his deed. If any man among you seem to
be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his
own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless
and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world. Now, of course James sets forth very plainly that
we cannot make excuses for our sin. Now it is an absolute fact
that God is an absolutely sovereign God and He does determine all
things that come to pass. Nothing surprises Him. He's not
making contingency plans. A lot of people think about God
like he's got a big book somewhere and he's constantly having to
rewrite things and go back and change this and change that because
men didn't do what he expected them to do or wanted them to
do or whatever. But we know that all things are
going along exactly according as he would have them to be. And Brother Al made mention of
this in the case of of David coming out into the battlefield
and how the Lord, you know, behind the scenes works all these things
out to do all these things. And, of course, as we remember
back with the attempted shooting the other day of Mr. Trump, a lot of people looked
at that, and some even took offense at others saying that this was
the hand of God. And I kind of had mixed feelings
about most of what was said, because most of what was said
was not actually true. Of course, we know that those
that said, well, he was lucky, you know, this just happened.
I mean, he just happened to turn his head, you know, right at
that particular time and all of that. But you can be sure
of this, that every move that was made that day, whether it
was the shooter's finger on the trigger or it was Mr. Trump turning
in what men would say is the nick of time, it was all ordained
by Almighty God. And there wasn't anything surprised
him that day. But, you know, men often look
and they'll look at something like that and they say, well
look, there's the hand of God. Well listen, the hand of God
is all around us. I mean, we rejoice in Him. He
is our God. He's not hoping He can get us
out of a jam somewhere or just, you know, just snatching us back
right at an opportune moment. But He has ordered all things
to come to pass for our benefit. And that, you know, we can rest
in Him because He's faithful in all things. And that's what
He goes on to say as He says, you cannot then take that notion
where that you believe God is an absolute sovereign God and
then turn around and absolve yourself of blame in your own
temptation. Because God made you accountable
whether you like it or not. And he doesn't have to do anything,
and you can't judge him and say, well, he's got to do this. If
he did this, he should have done that. Now, he does according
to his will as he sees fit. And he has made all men accountable.
And so whenever you sin, you can't blame anybody. It's you.
You did it. Of course, those of us that are
old enough remember there was a comedian at one time, and he
would always say, the devil made me do it. But the devil never
made anybody do anything. Men do the things they do because
they want to do them. And sin is most certainly an
evidence of that. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
And of course, he gives the what happens with sin, lust,
when it hath, every man's tempted when he's drawn away of his lust.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And then
sin, when it has finished, it brings forth death. See, that's
the way that things go. And sin is deadly. The Lord told
Adam it was. He said, in the day that you
eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely
die. And so we know what happened
in that case. But then he says, After having
given us this advice and teaching us what sin is and what it causes
and brings to pass, he says, do not be deceived, my brethren,
my beloved brethren. Don't take this lightly. Don't
go into the world with eyes closed. Do not err. Don't be deceived. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, cometh down from the Father. Everything that
is from the Father for the sons of God is good. It may not seem
as good at the time. Many things don't. I mean, all
of us would like to avoid illness. We'd like to avoid losing people
that we love. I mean, all of those things we
would like to avoid, but we can be sure of this, that if the
Lord loves His people, He will do good unto His people. We don't have to go far in scripture
to find that to be true. He reiterates it over and over
again. And so every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above. Now there is one perfect gift. There's only one. And he came in the town of Bethlehem, born
of a virgin. He is the gift of God who is
a perfect gift. And we need look for no other.
We're not looking for another. That's the one gift with which
we are satisfied. We don't need anything else.
With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And
that is our hope and our, that's where we trust. Now when we say
that's our hope, we're not saying we're hoping it's true. We're
saying, no, we know it's true, and thereupon we build all our
hopes. See, that's what Peter said when
the Lord said to him, well, Peter, will you also go away? And he
said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Peter was expressing his hope
being in Christ. He wasn't hoping Christ was who
he said he was. He believed. He said, I believe
you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And therefore
that was his hope. And therein is our hope built
upon his no shadow of turning. Now then he goes on to describe
who the people of God are. He said of his own will, begat
he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits
of his creatures. Now that word begat is an interesting
word. And we read it concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ, who he is the only begotten Son of God. And yet it says here that we
were begotten. So what are we saying here? Well
Christ was begotten in quite a different sense than we are. Christ is begotten as God. He is begotten in God. He is God. And he is begotten
in that sense. But we get a sense of what we
are made. We are begotten from him. You see, He is begotten in God. He is God. There's no separation
between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We have one
God. And He has revealed Himself in
Jesus Christ. No man can know God apart from
seeing Jesus Christ. He is that one who's begotten
of God. That is, He's that one whom we
see. And He is the Son of God. And so, but it says here, of
his own will begat he us that we should be a kind of firstfruits
of his creatures. Now Jesus Christ is the firstfruits
of the revelation of God to men. See, men would have no knowledge
of God whatsoever had it not been that Jesus Christ had shown
himself to them. I mean, we'd be in darkness.
We'd have no knowledge. And so in that way in which he
is the firstfruits of God, he is the firstfruits as the sacrifice. He's that one who was the lamb
without spot and blemish, the firstborn. He's that one. He's the firstfruits, but in
the same fashion, In the same, by way of illustration, he says,
of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. That we, even
as Christ is the revelation of God, then we are begotten in
him and we are the first fruits of his creatures. That is, we
are that which he created the world for. See, the Lord created
the world not as an experiment, but He created the world to manifest
the glory of His grace in the redemption of a people, the people
that He loved in Christ and of His own will. Now, that reminds
me of a verse, and I'm sure you've read it. It should be one that
would be familiar to you, and it's over in Romans, in chapter
one. Now, excuse me, Romans, it's
in John. I want to read it so I don't miss
it here. It says here, he came to his
own, his own, this is 111, John. He came to his own, his own received
him not, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Now many get the cart ahead of
the horse here. And you'll often hear men talk
about that verse there. I've heard that verse, but then
I never had anybody really say too much about the next verse.
Because the next verse explains how it is that men come to believe
in him. Now what the normal everyday
preaching that goes on around and about us is that they would
say that men become the sons of God by believing. But the
fact of the matter is that they believe because they are the
sons of God. And this next verse that we read
is proves that. They believe, it says here, even
to them that believe on his name, which were born, or begotten,
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. That's how they're born. That's what he said to Nicodemus,
is it not? Nicodemus, except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And so it is. And that's exactly what he's
saying here. Of his own will begat he us. He borned us. He made us creatures born again. Now see, he made all men. But all men are not begotten
of God. That's what James is saying here.
He says, of his own will beget he us. See there's a particular
people in the earth that are begotten by God that we might
be what? Firstfruits of his creatures.
Now is he talking about firstfruits of the dogs? and the cows and
the hogs and all that. No, he's talking about the creation
of men that he made. Those who were begotten of God
are the first fruits. Those are that one set apart. We're a holy people unto the
Lord. See, we're holy not because we
don't sin. We're holy because the Lord set
us apart. Just like the Lord said to the
Jews as he set them forth as the example of his people that
were the true Israel, he said, I did not set my love upon you
because you were the greatest of people, but he said you were
the fewest. But he said because I would love
you. He says I loved you because I
loved you. Who can explain that? I can't. I mean, that's just
the grace and mercy of God. And, you know, men, the other
day when that shooting thing took place and I heard a lot
of people saying, oh, well, it's terrible for Mr. Trump to say
that it was only by the grace of God that he was spared because
here was a man in the crowd that was killed. And they were looking
at that as though that was a terrible thing to call that the grace
of God. And I'm thinking, well, how would
you define the grace of God? I mean, that is the grace of
God. It's a distinguishing work that He performs and a man can't
have, don't have anything to do with it at all. And so, we
must understand these things that the grace of God is particular. Otherwise, there'd be no such
thing. I mean, if grace was just, everybody had it, then what would
it be? It wouldn't be anything. I mean,
you know, you don't, when you, we don't take much consideration
of water, do we? I mean, when you turn on the
faucet at home, you just use the water. You don't even think
about how much you're using or anything else. It's just there.
Anytime you want some, you go turn it on. If the lawn starts
to look wilted, you turn the sprinkler on. And you just take
it for granted. It doesn't mean a whole lot to
you. But if you're in a desert and you don't have any, it becomes
very important. And so the grace of God is very
particular in the people that he chooses. And he describes
who they are. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of
his creatures. Now what were we begotten with?
Were we begotten with the word that we heard? Is that what he said? No, he
said the word of truth. Well, who is the word of truth?
Jesus Christ, the Logos. We were begotten by him. Not
by something we heard, but by the one himself, the living God. He is the one who begat us according
to his will with the word of truth. Now he didn't say he did
it by the word of truth, he said with the word of truth. The word
of truth. The spirit of the living God
came upon us. The wind blows where it lifts
and thou hast heard the sound thereof, but you can't tell from
whence it comes. So is the spirit. That we should be a kind of first
fruits of his creatures. He would make his people known
in the earth. Peter said that we're kings and
priests. We're those who are set apart,
a holy people unto the Lord. And then he says, wherefore?
Now, if this is true, then he's saying this is true. Now, if
he begat us, that we might be the firstfruits, a kind of firstfruits
of his creatures, then if that be true, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Oh, those are words that need
to be implanted deeply within our mind and heart. Because we
actually generally go the other way. You know, it's very, it's
not natural for us to want somebody to tell us something. We'd rather
tell them than for them to tell us. But by the grace of God, we are,
let every man be swift to hear. Listen, the word of God is the
truth. And that is the basis upon which
our faith stands and we believe these things. Slow to speak. Slow to wrath. Now speaking in
wrath is a terrible thing. But sometimes speaking, just
to be speaking, is just as bad. You know, if If you don't have
anything to say that's beneficial, then don't say anything. And I fear that most of the time,
or at least with me, I say far more than I should. Knowing when
to shut up is a good thing. And some of us have a hard time
learning when that is. There's one of the Proverbs says,
he that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life. And how many of the
time that people have talked themselves right into an issue,
a situation. I've seen some of these police
programs on TV and how often. on, you know, if somebody just
kept their mouth shut, they'd have been all right, but they
were determined that they were gonna argue with the policeman
and point out how he was wrong and whatever did and wound up,
you know, they was in way deeper trouble than they would have
been if they'd have kept their mouth shut. Well, that's a carnal illustration
of this, but spiritually, we need to listen. And of course,
we've all heard the old thing from the time we were kids, the
Lord gave us two ears and one mouth, and so we should listen
twice as much as we speak. So let us be slow to speak. That doesn't mean reluctant to
speak, if necessary. You know, sometimes it's necessary
to speak. We must not be silent. Solomon
said there's a time to speak, a time to be silent. There's
a time to speak. And when that time comes, we
must not be silent. But we don't need to go around
trying to impress people with what we know. Now that's, you
know, young men, and I'm guilty, Although I'm not a young man,
but in years past, I wanted to prove
to people what I knew, you know, about the scriptures. And I was
quick to argue with people and prove, but I don't know that
I always did it for the right reason. You know, we're not trying
to prove anything to anybody. I mean, if somebody won't hear
the Word of God, then there's nothing I can do about that.
But I'm gonna tell them what the Word of God is, but I'm not
going to try to impress them with what I have to say or what
I know, because what do I know? What does any of us know? Paul
said, we know nothing as we ought to know. So we're to be slow
to speak and slow to wrath. Now some people are more prone
to wrath as far as quickly going to it. And there's a time for
wrath, even as there's a time to speak. But we must, implanted
in our mind needs to be what the Lord said, vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord. Because most of our wrath is
stirred up in us, not for the same reason that the Lord cleared
the temple. You know, men often say, well,
you know, even the Lord, he got angry. Well, sure he did, but
he got angry because of the reason his brother Al pointed out, that
men were defying the Lord God of Israel. They were disrespecting
him. They had no regard to what he
said. And that was what the Lord Jesus
was angry about. He wasn't angry because somebody
said or did something he didn't like. You know, he wasn't because
somebody wasn't in keeping with what he thought was true. And
so we need to be careful. It wasn't some personal attack.
You see, he never responded to any of the personal attacks that
were given to him. He was like a lamb before the
shearers is done. So openeth not his mouth. He
didn't argue with people in the sense of trying to get back at
somebody. Oh, that we might learn that
lesson. Be slow to wrath. We need to think twice and act
once. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Now again, if you just took those
words, you could say, well, wait a minute. The Lord used the wrath
of man whenever he cleared the temple. That's not what he's
saying. He's saying your wrath that personalized
wrath, that personalized selfish anger, that doesn't manifest
the righteousness of God. God doesn't need you to do that.
He doesn't need us for anything. He is pleased to use us from
time to time. And so we're not to Go about thinking that our wrath
is ordained of God at all times because we're us. I got the right
to be mad. You ever said that? I got a right
to be mad. Do you? No, we got a right to
love one another, but we don't have a right to be mad with one
another. I mean, if somebody is disrespecting the Lord, we can
be angry with them. What other reason would you be
mad with somebody for? It had to be something you didn't
like. It couldn't be anything that
is righteous. May the Lord help us. He says,
lay apart all Filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. Now y'all, everybody knows what
superfluity is. We all use that word quite a
bit. It just means an abundance, superfluous. It's that which is more than's
needed. Lay apart all filthiness and
superfluity of naughtiness. There's no place. God's people
are to be a pure of mind, heart, soul, body. I mean, we're called
to be such people as that. We're not to be feeding our wickedness. I mean, we've got enough of that
in us that just rises up naturally. We don't need to feed it, he
says. Lay it apart. Lay it aside. Don't get caught
up in it. You know, it's like, I guess
one illustration of that would be That there is nothing wicked
in anything that the Lord has made in the earth. There's no
substance that's made in the earth that's wicked. Now what
men do with the substances that the Lord has made in the earth
can definitely become wicked. And that's what he's talking
about here. Paul said that all things are lawful to me. But
he said, I will not be brought under the power of any of them.
And so that's what superfluity of naughtiness is. It's feeding
that which is feeding our natural instincts, our natural lust.
Those things are, we're set in a warfare against that. Because
you see, that's how our flesh, that's what it constantly is
seeking to do. It's constantly seeking to manifest
its wrath. It's constantly seeking to get
what it wants. He said, lay it aside. And receive with meekness the
engrafted word which is able to deliver you, to save your
souls. There's no temptation taking
you, but such as is common to man, but God will with the temptation
give you a way that you might escape it. What is that way?
It's receiving the engrafted word. David said, thy word have
I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. That's
the work of God in the children of God. To give us a love for
the Word of God. Now that doesn't mean that we
always do the right thing. Or we don't get caught up in
the flesh. But it does mean that if the Word of God dwells in
us, we know that what I'm telling you is the truth. And we want
those things to be manifest in us. We want to lay aside all
that which is contrary to that. And we receive with meekness. See, we don't war against it.
Some people don't like it because God said that we ought not to
do certain things. Some people get mad about that.
I'm glad about it. I'm not always obedient to it,
but I always know it's right. I know the Lord's right. I know
what the Lord said is good. Oh, let us receive it with meekness
and not be those that would war against the Word of God, but
those that war against the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary
to one another. And until we go to the grave
over there, we are gonna be engaged in that struggle. May we receive
that with the word of God with meekness and tenderness. And that we can be told in our
mind these things and not be proud knowing nothing. but knowing the truth of God.
Somebody have a question or a comment? Yes, I can agree with that from
my own perspective. Well, the glorious thing is that
he's given us these things so that we might depart from these
things. Because you know, the world doesn't
really care about that. Because the people of God have
the word of God implanted in them. I don't know how that is
exactly. That doesn't mean I always know
what it is, but I know that it is the truth of God. See, I believe
this is a true thing, that I think that a lot of times men go through
their Christian journey And they don't always, they're not always,
as the Lord sees fit, he's not always puts them in a place where
they can hear the clear sound of the gospel. Now there is,
the gospel is Jesus Christ and him crucified. I think there's
some things, there's some clarity that's added to that understanding
as you go along. But I do believe this is a true
thing. If a man has the engrafted word
of God in him, when he hears the word of God, when he hears
it, he knows it's the truth. Now I can remember the first
time that I ever came to an understanding of what it is that Jesus Christ
did for sinners. that he didn't just make salvation
a possibility, but he actually purchased it. I never really
heard that in my life. Now, it might have been told
to me, but I never heard it. But when I did hear it, I knew
it was true. Nobody had to convince me it
was true. I knew it was true. And that's
what the engrafted word is. The Lord teaches his people his
word and then from time to time he awakens their mind to receive
it. And it's a glorious thing. It's not cause you learned it.
It's because he showed it to you. And the reason you believed
it was because you had it. See, that's the reason that those
who are born again believe, because the Lord has given them the gift
of faith. And they didn't do anything to
earn it. They didn't stand out in any
way, it's just that the Lord loved them, and he showed them
his mercy. Oh, that he might visit us daily
with his salvation.