Let's open our Bibles to James,
the book of James. James chapter 4. We're going
to continue the section that we were looking at last week.
Last week we started to look at the verse which speaks of
the fact that there's one lawgiver. And I'm going to be going over
some of the material that we looked at last week just to refresh
it in our minds too. Book of James, chapter 4, we'll
continue our study again in this wonderful book. This is message
number 30. It's so nice, isn't it, to go verse by verse and
to start to look at things and pull things out. We really learn
that way as the Lord's people, I believe, looking at things
in an expositional way. And we left off the previous
week couple weeks ago at first well but let's look at what we
looked at last week versus seven to twelve so submit yourselves
therefore god resists the devil and he will flee from you try
not to god and he will try not to you cleanser hands you sinners
and purify your hearts you double-minded be afflicted and mourn and weep
Let your laughter return to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil
of his brother and judges his brother speaketh evil of the
law and judges the law. But if thou judge the law, thou
art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver
who's able to save and destroy. Who art thou that judges another? Now, verse 12 here is what we're
going to be looking at. And again, as I said last week,
here's where the rubber hits the road. It's laid bare the
fact that there's only one lawgiver. There's only one. So people trying
to judge other people, we're out of place in that. Because
there's only one who judges truly. And that's God. And that's the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's ultimately going to be the
judge. The one that everyone will face at the Great White
Judgment is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Imagine that. Imagine
how Caiaphas is going to feel, and Pilate, and the Roman soldiers
who beat him. Imagine how they're going to
feel. Imagine how all who reject Christ are going to feel. when
they have to bow their knee and cry out that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father. My, oh my, because every
knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord. And the sheep are going to be
separated from the goats, aren't they? Who makes the difference
when the sheep are separated from the goats? Do the sheep
say, oh, I'm going to go on this side now, and do the goats say,
oh, I'm going to go on this side? No, it's God who separates them,
isn't it? It's God. He's the one who separates the
sheep from the goats. Just like He's done for us here.
And isn't that amazing when you stop and think about that? The
fact that we who are the people of God are called the sheep of
God. Isn't it amazing that we're even called that? Knowing how
much of a sinner we are. And knowing the verse that we're
going to look at today which says that He, the one who saves
us, He's able to save or destroy. He could have just as easily
left us where we were. And that's all he has to do.
All God has to do for a man to go to hell is just leave him
alone. Right? Just let him be. Leave him where
he is. But you know what God has to do to save one of us?
Everything. Everything. And nothing we do. See, in order for us to go out,
he just leaves us alone. In order to save us, he has to
do everything. He left the glory of heaven to bleed and die for
his people. He did that willingly. We looked
at that last week. He became a man, bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh. And the Holy Spirit of God is
the one who has James Penn, this incredible statement here, of
the one lawgiver. And note, there's only one lawgiver.
There's not multiple. There's only one true lawgiver.
And that's God himself. He's the only one who has the
right to judge. Remember how we saw? about the
beam in our brother's eye, or we have a huge beam in our eye,
and there's a little moat in our brother's eye, and we're
trying to take the little moat out of his eye, but we can't see because
we've got this huge beam in our eye. Who are we to judge another when
we've got a beam of that in our own eye? And as I said last week,
when we look at ourselves, we won't be judging others. If we
judge ourselves, We won't be looking at anyone, because listen
to this, I love this scripture. I remember Joe Terrell saying,
he woke up late at night one night, just shaking, I'll put
it this way. If the Lord should count iniquity,
who shall stand? If the Lord counted my sin, I
didn't be able to stand, and neither would you. We couldn't
stand in front of the Lord, could we? Not with our sin. But when
it's all forgiven, praise be to God, and we're cleansed in
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and clothed in his
perfect righteousness, then we can stand, right, before God. And that's all God's doing for
us. Marvel at that this week when
you contemplate these things this week. Marvel at the fact
that Christ did that for me. You can personalize all that
for me. If I'm one of the elect, he did
it for me. My, oh my, what mercy. Look at this here. James brings
forth the fact of who we are, of who is the one lawgiver in
verse 12 there. He says there's one lawgiver
who's able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judges another?
Now I want to focus again on this lawgiver spoken of in verse
12. And what a statement about this
lawgiver. What a statement of his power. Of his power. There is one lawgiver
who's able to save and to destroy. One. Look at that. God is the
one lawgiver that the apostle writes about here. It's God. And he's not only a lawgiver,
But he's the one lawgiver, the one lawgiver, the one who will
judge all. He's the maker, the giver, and
the executor of the law. Think of that, too. He's the
one who made it. He's the one who gave it. He's
the one who put it into execution. And then think of this. He's
the one who fulfilled it in our place. The lawgiver fulfilled his own
law for us. My, oh, my. And think of this,
too. If he's the maker, the giver,
and the executor of the law, then he's left none of that to
us. None of us to be executing the
law. And yet in religion, there's
a lot of people who think they have the right to execute the
law. He's not made any creature partner
with him. He's not made the angels partner
with him in the execution of the law. He's not made any human
partner with him in the execution of the law. So if we then attempt
to usurp his authority, we're interfering with his prerogatives,
aren't we? We're interfering with his sovereignty. Who are we to judge? Who are
we to judge? brother or sister in Christ who
the Lord's forgiven of all their sins." Who are we to do that? See, again,
if we look inward and we see our own sin, we'd be too busy
praising God for forgiving us for our sin that we won't be
judging anyone else. Because I guarantee you, If we
dig deep enough into each other, we're going to find some faults,
aren't we? I got lots of them. And they're not hard to find.
They're not hard to find. And I know you do, too. But love
covers a multitude of sin, doesn't it? It does. My, oh, my. So it's a solemn thing, therefore,
to interfere with the lawgiver. Because the scripture says he's
the only one here. there's not another to whom we
would fly to and if you provoke him there's no other to go to. He's in heaven. Think of this.
He's in heaven. He's high above us. Our thoughts of God, he tells
us your thoughts are not my thoughts. Your ways are not my ways. You see, someone wrongs us. We
hold against them, don't we? Who did we wrong when we sin?
Who did we wrong when we sin? We wrong against God's law, don't
we? And yet He's forgiven us. His ways are not our ways, and
His thoughts are not our thoughts. Aren't you thankful? I sure am. I sure am that he don't hold
that against us, because again, if the Lord should mark iniquity,
who would stand? None of us. He's the creator. We're just the creatures. The
creature has no power over the creator. You hear in religion, people
give Satan all this power. He's just a created being. He has no more power. He doesn't
have near the power of God. Now he's a strong adversary.
We are no match for him. But our elder brother crushed
him at the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ triumphed
over him and his minions. And do you know that he's on
a leash? Do you know that he can only do what God allows and
he has to ask permission to do things? Look in the first chapter
of Job if you want to, if anyone has questions about that, read
the first chapter of Job. He's got to ask permission to
touch Job. My oh my. Who can do battle with the omnipotent
one? Who can do battle with the almighty
one? None of us can, can we? Not one
of us. It's fruitless. So people that
say, I don't believe in God, they're just, you know what they're
doing? They're punching the air. They're not getting nowhere. Lord laughs at them. Who would hope to overthrow omnipotence? And omnipotence is twofold in
our text here, right? Because we see that God has the
ability to save, praise his mighty name, but he also has the ability
to destroy. He's got the ability to destroy
as well. In what lies his power to save? Well, or his ability to save? Well, his almighty power. We're
going to look at that this morning. We're going to see his almighty
power on display in the Book of Luke. The Lord Jesus Christ has all
power. See, you and I aren't able to save ourselves, are we? We're not able to save ourselves
at all. But God's able to save. He's able to save to the uttermost.
So someone, you ever hear people say, well, my sin's too great
for the Lord to save me. Really? So omnipotence, almighty
power then is wrapped up. It can't operate in your situation.
You know what that's called? That's called self-righteousness. That's exactly what that is. That's self-righteousness. For
a person to think that, and I've heard many people say that over
the years, that's just self-righteousness wrapped up in a different mass. That's all that is. as the scripture
says he's able to save to the other most all come to god and
by him the question is have you come to god by him he's the only savior he's the
only lawgiver he's a lawgiver and he's a lot of filler and
his right hand is a right hand of power isn't it who's got who's
at god's right hand the lord jesus christ the god man he is
the right hand of power. Think of this, the one who's
God's right hand of power has saved my eternal soul. Oh my, that's good news for sinners,
isn't it? That's good news for us. He saved
our souls. So if God saved me, then can
I be lost again? Like some religious folks say.
No, not if God saved me. No. Can I fall out of his hand? Or can I jump out of his hand?
No, that's what the scripture says, that no man can be taken
out of Christ's hand or the Father's hand, right? We're double-gripped
by God, by God the Father and by God the Son, and then we're
sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. That's wonderful, isn't it? That's
absolutely wonderful. This is why we desire to live
a life pleasing to God, isn't it? Because when we think about
these facts, the love in our heart for our great God just
bubbles, doesn't it? You know, that's why the two
were so excited on the road to Arimaeus, because Christ started
expounding to them the things concerning Himself, and they
just kept getting excited. They were excited about what
they were hearing. It bless their hearts. My oh my. So the one who saves
us must be all powerful. So God is all powerful, isn't
he? And then we must be made righteous. Well, the scripture says that
in Romans that the gospel brings forth the righteousness of God.
Who is the righteousness of God? The Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture
says he's the Lord our righteousness. See? God's provided it all. So in order for him to save,
he must have the power and he must be righteous. Well, he is
righteousness personified, isn't he? My, oh my. He's everything. And the law, now the law must
be fulfilled. The law must be fulfilled. Every
jot and tittle of the law must be fulfilled in order for us
to be saved. Because the scripture says that
the law says the soul that sins must die. It must. So we come into this world with
a death sentence on us, don't we? Really? Because of our father Adam's
fall, we come into this world with a death sentence. Because
we're sinners. The scripture says we're conceived
in sin. That just means our parents were sinners. That's all that
means. So two sinners are gonna produce
what? A little sinner, right? And the little sinner's gonna
grow up to be a big sinner, but just in height and stature, we're
still sinners, all right? Still a sinner. I like what one
guy said one time, Vicki and I were talking to him, and he
said, you know, sin's sin. People categorize sin, right? So, oh,
this is really bad sin. This is a really bad sin. This
is horrible sin. But sin is sin in God's eyes,
isn't it? You see? And even the sin of
self-righteousness is just as bad as a murder, right? The Lord says if you're angry
with your brother, then you just murdered him, so we're murderers. Says if we lust after someone,
we're an adulterer, so we're murderers and adulterers. We
know we're liars, because the scripture says that, right? I was reading a great article
this week, and it talked about, again, the sins that we are not
even conscious of. And the author said he believes
that we commit more sins that we're not even conscious of than
the ones that we do. I agree with him. Totally. Billions upon billions of sins.
My, that's a lot of sins, isn't it? Blotting out the handwriting
that was against us. That was contrary to us. Took
it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And he forgave
us for all our trespasses. Marvel at that, beloved. Oh,
we're such great sinners to our shame. Oh, he's such a great
savior. All our sins forgiven. Everyone. The ones that torment us and
the ones that don't torment us. The ones that we think about
and think, how could I have done that? Washed clean. Gone. God looks at us as if we've never
sinned. Because we're clothed in the
perfect righteousness of Christ. Now we can't fathom that, can
we? But it's true, beloved. If Christ is your Savior, if
you're trusting and resting in Him, plus absolutely nothing
that you do at all, then we are clothed in His perfect
righteousness. And God looks upon us, and He
doesn't see Wayne, You don't see Charlie. You don't
see Tom or Jim. He sees Christ. Oh, wonder of wonders. To have
all my sins forgiven. It's good news, isn't it? Good
news, Brother Brian. It's good news to know that all
our sins are forgiven. That they're washed clean in
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's good news. This is why we say, flee to Christ.
He's the only hope. He's the only law giver. He's
the only one who's going to judge. The very one people shake their
fists at is the very one they're going to stand in front of. And
he's going to say, depart from me, you cursed workers of iniquity. My, chilling words. But to his
people, he's going to say, enter into my rest, prepared for you. Oh, it's been prepared for us,
beloved. It's been prepared. From when? From eternity. And then think of the great love.
Think of the great love that God has for his people. This
eternal love. I'm not going to touch too much
on that, because we've looked at that before. But this love is eternal
love. Eternal love. Christ's love for
his people. It's his love for his people
that think of this, that caused him to come to this earth. He came to this earth to save
his people from their sins, he came to this earth to preach
the good news of the kingdom, salvation in and through him,
the sent one, the Messiah. Isn't it amazing to stop and
think that God has given us eyes to see Christ now? Think of how
you thought before the Lord saved you. I'm amazed. I was talking
to a brother this week, and I said, it's like another life. It's
like another person. I can look back and go, I'm not
that person anymore. I still have the same frame outside,
but I'm not inside. I'm a new creature now. And that
life, I look back at that and go, my, look what the Lord's
done. And I'm still a sinner. My shame,
I still am, but now I'm a saved sinner. Now I'm rejoicing with
you. Isn't it wonderful what the Lord's
done? He's done it all. He's given us new thoughts, new
desires, all based upon his love for us. The whole reason he came
here is because he loves us. The whole reason he died and
hung on Calvary's cross is to redeem us because of his great
love for us. That is his motivating factor.
Think of how much you love your husband and your bride. And that
love, again, don't even compare to the love that God has for
us. Doesn't even come close. My, and then we see here that
he has the power to destroy. My, oh my. He has the power to
destroy. He has the power to save. And
He has the power to destroy. Now man can kill the body, right?
But not the soul. God's able to cast both body
and soul in hell. He's able to do that. He has
all power. Man cannot destroy the soul,
but God is able to cast, again, both body and soul in hell. Note
in our text, it is the lawgiver, the one lawgiver that's able
to destroy. The one lawgiver. Look at this. There is one lawgiver who is
able. He's able to what? He's able
to save, it says, and he's able to destroy. One hand, he saves these people,
and he destroys these ones. He saves us, preserves us, and
keeps us, while others we know die in their sins and go to everlasting
torment. Oh, my. This one lawgiver is able to
do that. So the destruction of a sinner
is from the hands of the one lawgiver. Just as the salvation of a sinner
is from the one lawgiver. And he gets to choose who he
saves and who he doesn't, right? He has a compassion on him, here
I have compassion. Here I have mercy on him, here
I have mercy. And then he just leaves the rest where they are. My goodness. And how does he do this? How
is he able to destroy? Well, by the same power that
he's able to save. The same power that he's able
to save is the same power that he's able to destroy. The same
power that's exercised in the salvation of a sinner is the
same power that's exercised in the destruction of a sinner. And his power is irresistible.
I ask you, who can withstand his mighty arm? If he parted the Red Sea, which
he did. Moses didn't do that, God did that, right? If he parted
the Red Sea, and all those Israelites walked through, right? And the
Egyptians, they came flying after, oh, we gotta get him. The choice
men of Egypt, the captains of Egypt, come flying in after them
and he just destroys them all. Just by closing up the sea. What
power. What might. He's the captain of the Lord's
host. You talk about soldiers. You talk about generals and soldiers.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the captain of the Lord's host. He
appeared to Joshua. You want to read an amazing chapter,
Joshua chapter 5. He appears with a sword in his
hand. He's decked out in armor. Our Lord is a man of war. And think of this. We have generals
that command all the forces in the U.S. or all the forces in
these other countries. These generals command them.
He's the one who commands angels, legions of angels. One angel
killed 100,000 men. We don't even know the number
of these angels. And they're all at his beck and call. He
commands them all. He leads them. He actually leads
them. Because he showed up, and Joshua
said, are you for or against us? And he said, nay, but as
the captain of the Lord's host. Joshua was eating dirt, wasn't
he? He was down on his face. But see, the Lord was the one
leading those angels. And those walls fell, didn't
they? Those walls of Jericho, they just crumbled before him.
It's nothing to him. Man looks at those walls, these
great walls, like, oh my, how are we ever gonna? They just
come down. They just come down by the power
of God, just like little pieces of pebbles. We kick a pebble
around, right? Those walls are like pebbles
to the Lord. Nothing. So by the same power that he
saves is the same power that he destroys. And I ask again,
who can contend with the Almighty? Can anyone contend against Him?
Can anyone battle against Him? No, no, no one. All created power
is but a release from His uncreated and infinite power and cannot
be resisted. He cannot be resisted. Man can
buff against the air against our great God, but He cannot
be resisted. He cannot. He's the creator. He's the one true living God.
We are but creatures of his hand. We are creatures of his hand.
So if God parted the Red Sea, and he did. If God delivered
all those Israelites out of the hands of the Egyptians, and he
did. If God took them all into the promised land, and he did. Is there anything too hard for
the Lord? But yet man thinks there is. You know how we know that? Because
they say, well, God can't save you unless you let Him. Nothing's too hard for my God. They're not talking about my
God. They're not talking about your God. Are they? They're talking about
another God. Because that's a weak God. That's a God who wants to save
but can't. But this text right here, this is a good text to
show folks who say that. God's able to save or to destroy. My. He's a great God, beloved. He's wondrous. He has the ability
to save or destroy. And He's inflexible. When His
wrath is but kindled a little, He's inflexible. The soul that
sinneth it must die. My oh my. And think of this too. He's showing us the horrible
pit that we were in. Think of the pit of sin we were
in when the Lord saved us. It's talked about in the Old
Testament like miry clay. So they would dig a pit back
then, and they would just throw a prisoner in there. And when
the rain came, that clay would turn to mud. You ever try to
crawl yourself out of mud? I remember when we were kids,
we used to go into the ponds. We had this big pond by our house.
This is what I kind of think about when that. But this was
just my boots. We used to go mucking in the
pond, because we liked to catch tadpoles and stuff like that
as kids. Put them in the jar, watch them
grow, and then let them go. So we'd go in there, and all of
a sudden, your boot's stuck. And you pull out, and out comes
your foot. Your boot's stuck in there. You
ever heard that happen? You're like, man. And then the
next thing you know, your boot's filling up with water. Well,
you gotta go in and get it, don't you? Or one of your friends gotta
go in and get it. But that's the kind of muck that I think
of when that miry clay, that sucking mud that gets you stuck,
right? And so you're trying to climb
out of that pit, which is, there are usually six to eight foot
pits, from what I heard. And you're trying to crawl out
of that, and you're just sliding down the sides. That was the
kind of pit of sin we were in. Oh, I'm gonna stop doing this. I'm gonna stop doing that. I'm
trying to climb myself out, aren't I? What happens two weeks later? Well, I'm doing that again. I
used to make New Year's resolutions every year before the Lord saved
me. I don't make those anymore. I don't make them anymore, because
I end up breaking them. Probably usually within a week. Oh, because it's just our nature,
isn't it? Tell us not to do something, then we're going to want to do
it, aren't we? Right? Don't touch those cookies. They're
for after supper. You ever hear that when you were
a kid? I used to hear that. Don't touch those, Wayne. Well,
mom goes in the bathroom or something, and I got my hand in the cookie
jar. And then I'm running downstairs, and I'm eating it so she don't
find out. Right? But that's the kind of things
we do. That's the kind of, you know,
again, we're sinners. We're sinners. And we were in
this pit that we could not get ourselves out of. And the Lord
helped come from where? Helped come from above. Fellow man couldn't help us get
out of that pit. They're in their own pit. Right? If I'm in a pit, I can't,
and say, Tom, you're in a pit beside me, I can't help you if
I'm in the pit, too. Right? But when I get out of
the pit, I can tell you about one who helped me from above. I still can't get anyone out
of a pit, but I can tell them about, oh, there's one who helped
me out of that pit. He pulled me out of that pit.
I was helpless and hopeless. He pulled me out. And now I'm going to praise his
name forever. His name's the Lord Jesus Christ, and He can
save any sinner who comes to Him. I'm telling you, any sinner
who comes to Him, He can save them. If it be His will, He'll
save them. The problem is people don't want
to come to Christ. Because we don't think we're
sinners. But yeah, we are. Oh, and has God not shown us
mercy? Has God not shown we who are
his people that he has both the ability to save and to destroy?
Has he not revealed that to us as his people? He has, hasn't
he? And we've tasted that the Lord is gracious. So we say,
sinner friend, cast yourself upon Christ. He's the only hope
of sinners, and this old sinner can say that. Think of this, he cast out Adam
from the garden. He poured fire down on Sodom
and Gomorrah. He overwhelmed our race with
a flood. He prepared His throne for judgment.
I ask you, is He not able to destroy? If He did all that in
the past, is He not able to destroy it? Yes, He is. But rejoice in
the fact that Christ Jesus came to save sinners. Came to save
sinners. And He saved His people from
their sins. And marvel! Marvel this week at the lawgiver's
love for you as his people. Marvel at this. Let that just
roll around in your head this week. The one who's able to save
and destroy has saved my eternal soul, all because it pleased
him to do so. Hallelujah. What a Savior.