We'll be looking in the book
of James. You know, many thoughts are on
our mind in the practical world in which we live, and we see
demonstrated before our eyes the corruption and the depravity
of man in the attempted assassination of a former president. And, you know, I thought some
about this. Of course, men look on these
things and they see this as a random act of a deranged man, which
in one measure I guess you could say that is true. But at the
same time, we must not lose sight of the fact that every activity
that took place was ordained by Almighty God for a purpose. I don't know all the intricacies
and the ways of working that God performs the things that
he does through even the wickedness of men, but I am sure that such
things as this should send a strong message to us to be reminded
of what we are by nature. And that any one of us could
be the one that did such a thing as that if it wasn't that the
Lord had restrained us from it. And I do pray for Mr. Trump, especially, that he might
be given grace to reflect on the mercy of God in sparing his
life. And I feel that he had some recognition
of that, but I would hope that we could all understand that
our life is in the same way. We're moments away from death
at any moment in time, but yet not one, one of the hymn writers
wrote, not one shaft of an era can hit until the Lord has ordained
it to be so. You know, that's why that in
men who have — I was thinking of Stonewall Jackson and, of
course, one of the ways that He got his name, he was a great
man of faith. If you read the life, the biography
of Stonewall Jackson, I mean, he was a great general and all
of that kind of stuff, but he was a man of deep faith. And
he believed in an absolute sovereign God. And he would often be in
the battlefield and on his horse and bullets whizzing around and
you know his men would be saying, you know, get down off of the
horse because that was one of the things that they often tried
to do in those battles was to you know, kill the main man so
that they figured that would put the army in disarray. But
he never flinched in sitting there because he believed that
he could not be killed until the Lord ordained it to be so. And ultimately, it did come to
pass that he was shot. Of course, you know, men would
say, yes, if he had a little more sense and took care of himself
and this, that, and the other, he'd have been all right. The scripture says that the Lord
has set the bounds of our habitation that we cannot pass. And the
Lord had not set bounds of Mr. Trump's habitation to pass on
that day. It could happen tomorrow, and
it may be. that, but, you know, so let us pray that all of our
leaders might be given a mind and maybe all of this will shake
people up to the point of realizing that, you know, there is a God
in the heavens and he does according to his will and none can stay
his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? We're looking in
the book of James. And we looked at a few of these
verses last week, speaking about James, a servant of God, and
the Lord Jesus Christ, one and the same. You can't be a servant
of Jesus Christ and not be a servant of God, because he is God. And
you can't be a servant of Jesus Christ without being the servant
of God. And he said, you know, count
it all joy when you fall into diver's temptation. We talked
about that a little bit. When we fall into various troubles,
of course this means testings and trials. things that come
to bring sadness in our life and disrupt our lives. And he
said, when these things occur, because they will occur, as long
as we live in this world, we're going to be faced with troubles
and heartaches and disappointments. We'll have many joys and many
hours of happiness, surely, but there are things of sadness that
come to us, and he says when these things come, he said count
it as joy. He didn't say they necessarily
would be joyous, because it's hard to be joyous if we lose
somebody that we love. There's a time for weeping, and
there is certainly, God's people can count these things as joy
and count it as that which God has ordained for our good. For we know that all things work
together for good to them who love God, who are the called
according to his purpose. That's Thomas Watson, I believe
it was. wrote a book about that verse,
a whole book about it. And he called it a divine cordial.
And certainly I'd recommend you read that book if you ever get
the opportunity. You probably won't find it in
the library, but it was written back in the 1700s, or actually
in the 1600s, I believe. But it is a glorious account
of that verse. Knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. We need a work of patience in
us because by nature we are not patient. We are impatient, looking
because we want what we want when we want it. And it's hard
to wait. on something. But the Lord works
patience in us. He works in us, the scripture
says, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. And we
are to have a patient waiting upon Christ, even as we sang
there a moment ago, till He come. You know, all these things that
transpire around us there They're just passing things, but we wait
till the Lord comes. If any man lacks 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 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. Now those who imbibe the notion
of the power of positive thinking would look at this verse and
they would say, see there, what you need to do is just believe
that God's gonna give you something and you're gonna get it. But
that's not what he says here. He says if you lack wisdom, Let
him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally. The Lord does
give wisdom. And upbraideth not, and it shall
be given him. If a man seeks the Lord, he said,
if you seek me, ye shall find me, if you seek me with all your
heart. And so there is a seeking after
God, which occurs in the mind and heart of the people of God
as the Lord prompts them and as He moves them, as He works
in them, to will and to do of His good pleasure. See, the people
of God, those who are marked out by God unto salvation, they're
brought at a certain point in time, whatever that time may
be, to seek after Him. And so we exhort God's people
to seek Him. He said, seek me early. We are to be seeking Him at all
times. Seek the Lord while He may be
found. See, this is a day and age when
the Lord may be found. Now he may not be found by the
ability of men to find him, but when he's pleased to unveil his
self to men, they will find him. And this is the day of salvation.
There's not coming another. This is it. And the Lord has
set forth the glories of the gospel before our eyes and in
our ears that we might hear the good news that Jesus Christ has
died for sinners. And the Lord, He hears the prayers
of sinners. He doesn't hear the prayers of
anybody else. A broken and a contrite heart, He will not despise. So
let us be those by the grace of God who seek Him. If any of
you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who else is gonna give
it to you? I mean, you know, some people, they want wisdom,
and so they go to school, and they think they're gonna learn
Wisdom, but you can't get wisdom from a school book because the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And so if a man's
gonna have wisdom, he's got to start there. I mean, that's the
only place where wisdom begins and that's the place where wisdom
is applied as a man learns to fear the Lord. And a man won't
fear the Lord except the grace of God causes him to do it. But
if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. Now who is it
that lacks wisdom? Those that fear God. Now that
kind of sounds strange, doesn't it? But you see, a man by nature
doesn't think he lacks wisdom. He thinks he's already got it.
I mean, you go to these Schools, I mean, go to any university
or whatever and you'll find folks there to tell you in a heartbeat,
they've got plenty of wisdom. They know everything. They got
all the answers. It's only as the Lord shows a
man what he is by nature and teaches him how little he knows
that he says, man, I lack wisdom. See, the people who have wisdom
are the people that believe they lack wisdom. And the man that
thinks he has wisdom is the man that doesn't have any. I mean,
that's an amazing thing, is it not? But that's the way the Lord
designed it. And so, if a man lacks wisdom, that is, if you
know yourself to be in need, let him ask of God. Well, who
else are we gonna ask? Who's gonna give it to us? I
can't give it to you. And nobody else can impart it
to you. Let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally. They
that seek him, find him. He said, if you ask, you shall
have it. If you knock, the door will be
opened to you. The Lord's not playing games
with people. I mean, if a man is sincerely
seeking to know the Lord, the Lord will show himself to him. In fact, see, the Lord's already
working in him before he ever knows it. That's an amazing thing. You know, a man thinks, man,
I'm gonna seek the Lord. But if he really is, it's because
the Lord's already seeking him. The Lord already knows exactly
where he is, and he's bringing him to himself. And he upbraideth
not. I like that scripture. The bruised
reed will he not break, and the smoking flax will he not quench. You know, the smallest desire
that's in a man to seek the Lord, the Lord will not put that out.
But he will blow upon that ember until it bursts forth into flame. Oh, what a gracious God He is.
He upbraideth not. It shall be given Him. We can
tell sinners far and wide that if they seek the Lord, He will
be found. We're not gonna go out here and
tell men, well, you can seek the Lord, but you might perish
anyway. No, you're not going to perish
if you seek the Lord. But if I die with mercy sought,
when I the king have tried, this were to die, delightful thought,
as sinner never die. Nobody ever perished seeking
the Lord. Now there's plenty of folks that
perish in their religion because they get satisfied with that.
But the man that hungers and thirsts after righteousness before
Almighty God, he shall be filled according to what the Lord said.
They that hunger, they that are poor, they that are needy, but
let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. We're not going to ask the Lord
and then say, well, Lord, if you won't give it to me, I'll
go over here and get it from somebody else. No, see, the blind
Bartimaeus is a good example of somebody that sought the Lord
with nothing wavering. He said, Lord, help me. And they
said, be quiet. He said, Lord, help me. The woman that was with the issue
of blood, and she was there in the crowd, and she could see
him passing by, and she couldn't get to him, but she said, if
I can just reach out and touch the hem of his garment, I'll
be home. See, she sought him nothing wavering. She sought him. And let not any
man think that he can seek the Lord on the one hand and follow
his own way in the other, and he's gonna have the things that
he seeks. No. You see, there is only one
way of salvation, and it's in Christ. And let a man not waver
upon that. Some men try out every religion.
I've had people tell me, well, I tried this religion and I followed
after this for a while and I didn't find anything there, so I went
over here and found another one. Well, you could do that your
whole life and perish. But let a man, nothing wavering,
seek the one only that can give wisdom, that does give wisdom. That upbraideth not, it shall
be given to him, but let him ask in faith. Now what is faith? We've talked about it many times.
Faith's not the activity of man. Faith is an object. See, we're
not trying to get folks to have faith. We're pointing what the
faith of God's people is, which is Christ. Now indeed, there
is an operation of faith that works in us when we believe the
Lord, for sure. But brethren, it's not just about
believing. I mean, I was talking to a guy
the other day, and he said, yeah, I believe in God. Well, a lot of people believe
in God. That doesn't mean anything. That's not faith. That's just
observation. I mean, you can look out here
in the world. I mean, the scripture even says, you know, we can look
and see the handiwork of God all around us and believe that
God did it, but that doesn't mean we believe God. It just
means we believe that God did something. See, that's not what
faith is. Faith is holding on to Jesus
Christ. That's what faith is. because
he's the only object of faith. You could have faith in me and
I'll let you down. But see, Christ will never let
you down. He's absolute faith for the people
of God. So let that man think that he
shall, let not that man who does not ask him for he that wavereth,
it's like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed, let
not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A man that doesn't cast his whole being on the Lord, he doesn't
need to think he's going to receive anything from the Lord. See,
it's all or nothing. The Lord said that he was as a stone. If a man cast himself upon that
stone, then he would be saved, but that
man upon whom the stone fell, he'd be destroyed. And so the
whole purpose as we preach the gospel to men, our desire is
to exhort them to seek the Lord while he may be found, to cast
yourselves upon the Lord. And we believe that if the Lord
gives a man an ear to hear that, that such will be the happy result,
that he will come to a place that he has indeed received from
the hand of the Lord. Let not that man think he shall
receive anything of the Lord if he's a double-minded man,
taking one thing one day and one thing the next. You know,
I'm praying to the Lord. I mean, I've known superstitious
people. You know, they pray. They pray,
but then the next morning they read their horoscope. You know? Or they go see Madame Zinda.
Or they do, you know, some other foolish thing. Let not a man,
don't be wavering about. I mean, see, when a man has cast
himself on Christ, that means he's cast himself off from everything
else. You can't, oh, I remember when
my boys were little and when we would be teaching them to
swim and jump in the pool. And sometimes for some of them
it was pretty hard. I can remember, I think it was
Luke, but it might have been Caleb, one of them anyway. They
would always, when they'd jump in, they'd just reach out. They'd
reach out one hand to me, but they'd reach the other hand out
to the side of the pool. Because they wanted to be sure,
you know. They figured, well, you know, if Daddy doesn't get
me, then I know that I can get it on the pool over here. You
know, I can hold on. But see, that's not what faith
is, is it? No, faith in Christ is nothing
wavering. It's all or nothing. We cast
ourselves on the Lord. And he will not cast us off,
he will not leave us standing, but he will indeed give us such
things as we stand in need of. Then he says, let the brother
of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in
that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he
shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen
with the burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the
flower thereof falleth, and the grace and fashion of it perisheth. So also shall the rich man fade
away in his ways. Now, whether a man's rich or
poor, does not make any difference whatsoever as in the matter of
faith. And whether a man's rich or he's
poor, it's because of the blessing of God. Now, the rich man, he
doesn't have any, well, he has a hard time believing that because
he thinks that he did what, he's got all this stuff because he
was so smart. or he did more than anybody else. He picked himself up by the bootstraps
and he did all these things. And surely the Lord does work
through means and he does give some men wisdom to make money
and to do things that cause them to make money. But they must
understand, this is what James is saying, that You know, it's
not by their own power that they gain these things, but it's by
the mercy of God. So let a man who has riches not
be lifted up in pride, but pray that the Lord might keep him
low. You know, let him be not exalted in his self. And then
he says the opposite is true. He said, let the brother of low
degree rejoice in that he is exalted. Now, most men would
not think of poverty as being a blessing. But if it's that
which causes a man to seek the Lord, you know, if he knows himself
to be in spiritual poverty, let him rejoice. And so, whatever
our natural circumstance is, is reason to rejoice. That we
be not those who are uh... so rich that we lose sight of
the lord or that we are not those who were uh... that we feel that
our poverty would keep us back from the lord so it might very well be in in
so far as men think of of uh... how things are if the lord gave
you a bunch of money it might be your downfall we see that
don't we I mean that happens quite often So let the brother
of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted by the Spirit of
God. His riches are in Christ. See,
all of God's people, their true riches are all from the same
source. Whether we have money in this
world or we don't have any, it doesn't make any difference.
Our riches are in Christ. So let us rejoice. Let the brother
of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in
that he is made low. Why? Because as the flower of
the grass, he soon shall pass away. Now Solomon was a very
wealthy man, but he wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes about
the folly of riches. He said, what does a man gain?
I mean, he gains all these things, and then he dies, and he leaves
it to somebody else, and they waste it. I mean, you know, what
is it? Why is it that men feel so compelled
to lay up riches? Because the riches are laid up
in this world the moles eat. I mean, You know, I've heard of people
burying money in jars and stuff in the ground, and probably have. I mean, probably people have
done that, do, might still do it. Might not be a bad idea to
put some up somewhere like that. But understand this, that if
you bury these treasures in the ground and you go out there in
a few years, they might be You know, the jar might have broke
and the elements, you know, the money might have rotted. It might
not be there anymore. I mean, that's the way these
things are. These things pass away. They're transient. So let us not lay up treasures
for ourself in the earth. That's not what we're given.
Now, if the Lord's given us the ability and wisdom to make money
in this world, make all you can get, but use it unto the glory
of God. That's why he gave it to you.
And we understand that. The sun is no sooner risen with
the burning heat, but it withereth the grass. Well, we can see that
in the natural realm, can't we? I mean, it can rain, and we just,
everything's green and it's great, and in a few days, you go out
there and you start seeing the grass wither and go back down. And that's the same way it is
with men. I mean, the Lord can give a man riches one day and
take them all away the next, as it sees fit. So let us have
no confidence in these things. And the grace of the fashion
of it perisheth, so also shall the rich man fade away in his
ways. So let us not seek after that.