Okay. Open your Bibles, if you
would, to James 1. We'll continue our study in this
wonderful book. It's been a wonderful study.
A journey through James. And last week I made it partially
through James 1.19, and we're going to continue right there
where we left off. And we'll look at that verse
again today. And if the Lord wills, we'll look at verses 20
and 21 as well, if the Lord wills. So let's read from verses 13
to 21. Let no man say when he is tempted,
I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempted thee any man. But every man is tempted
when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when
lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is
finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren."
Now we see clearly there in verses 14 and 15 that sin comes from
within. We own our sin. I was talking
to someone this week that said, well, if God allowed sin to come
into this world, then he's partially responsible for it." And I said,
no, not at all. Not at all. I said, you're in
a place where you're kicking against the pricks right now. Because God, and I read that
person, these verses right here. I said, sin comes from within
us. Salvation comes from without
us. See, man's got it flipped around.
They don't think they're sinners. And they think salvation comes
from something they do. No. Sin comes from us. That's
what it says right here so clearly. Bought forth. And in the warning,
verse 16, Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above. This is speaking of Christ coming
down. And coming down from the Father of lights with whom is
no verbiage, neither shadow of turning. And then here it's salvations
of the Lord, verse 18, of his own will begot he us with the
word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of
his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man,
here we go, be swift to hear. We looked at that last week,
didn't we? Swift to hear. Come with a readiness of mind.
Slow to speak. Slow to wrath, it says here.
In verse 20 it says, 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." There it is. Receive with meekness the engrafted
Word. See, what the Word of God does
is it brings us low, doesn't it? And then we're exalted in Christ. Look at this. "...which is able
to save your souls." Who saves us? He who is called the Word
of God. the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our
Savior. He who is called the Word from
eternity. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. And then He was manifest to take away our sins, right?
And in Him is no sin. He's the Word of God. He's God
incarnate in the flesh, come down from the Father of lives.
With whom there's no verbiage, neither shall I turn Him. And
we see in verse 19 the word, therefore, again, as we looked
at last week. And this ties these verses in
to the preceding words in verses 17 and 18. Christ is the good
and perfect gift who came down from above. He came from the Father of lights,
which is so evident, because He alone in Himself is all that
is good and all that is perfect. He's perfect. The Lord Jesus
Christ is perfect. He's the only one. He's God incarnated
in the flesh again. He's the Word, capital W, made
flesh. Scripture says the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us. He dwelt among us. He was a real
man. And yet fully God. And having Christ, we have all
spiritual gifts in Christ. There's nothing missing. We have
them all in Him. And we also have, think of this
too, we also have the grace of God manifested to us in Christ. He's full of grace and truth,
the scripture says. He's the only one. And it is
Christ in He alone who is the one good, perfect gift that comes
down from the Father. And how sweet it is then to think
that there's no variableness or no shadow of turning. He doesn't
change. Therefore, His love towards you
and I as believers doesn't change. It's wonderful, isn't it? It's
absolutely wonderful. There's no change in our great
God. And marvel at the fact that He's
both the giver of the gift and He's also the gift. He's God. He's the giver of the
gift and God's the giver of the gift and He's also the gift. It's amazing. It's absolutely
amazing. And He's also the giver of the
law, right? Law is holy, right? It just comes
from our great God. He's the giver of the law and
He's also the satisfier of the law in the room and place of
His people. My, what mercy. What grace has
been manifested to you and I as believers in this church. It's absolutely incredible. And
He gives His people grace in and through Christ for us to
enjoy. We enjoy the grace of God, don't
we? It saved us from our sins. For by grace you are saved through
faith and not by yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. It's wonderful. Ask yourself
these questions and ponder them this week. Ponder them this week. Is Christ as Christ, the God-man,
the Father's gift to his people? Is he that? Is he the Father's gift to his
people, is people. Here's another question to think
about this week. What drove God to choose a people
in Christ? What drove Him to do that? When you ask yourself these questions
through the week, it'll fill your heart with joy. And here's another one. Has God not
given this gift of Christ to the church to have and to hold
forever? See, we're given to Christ as
a gift too, right? By the Father. But He's a gift
to us as well. Christ is a gift to God's people. He's the salvation of our soul.
Every good gift comes from where? From above. See? He's a gift. Isn't that wonderful? Vic and I were talking about
all the people we know in the world and everybody we know,
and yet God has revealed this to us. We were talking about
that this morning. He's revealed Christ to us. What a gift. What a gift. And we don't merit
it at all. There's nothing in us that would
merit this wondrous gift. And yet He gives it to us. In
fact, the Lord Jesus Christ died in our room and place. Saved
us from all our sins. What a Savior. It's a gift of
God from God to each believer. My, oh my. That's the greatest
gift we've ever received, isn't it? Nothing in this world that will
ever compare to that gift. Oh, it's absolutely wonderful.
Isaiah 54, verse 11 says this, O thou afflicted, tossed with
tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair
colors and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And oh, has He
not put the best jewels as the foundation? That's the Lord Jesus
Christ, right? There's no other foundation for
the church but Christ. None. None at all. Has it not been God who has decked
we who are the born-again, blood-washed children of God in the garments
of salvation? Is it not God who has done that?
Just like Adam and Eve. Remember Adam and Eve where the
coats of skin were placed on them? Who put the skins on them?
God did it. God did it, didn't He? Well,
that's a picture of God putting on the coat of Christ's righteousness. The robe of Christ's righteousness.
And now we are garbed in the garments of salvation. Isn't
that wonderful? And God did it. God did that
for us. So that we can now stand in His
presence. We can come boldly to the throne of grace, even
while we're here on this earth. Clothed in that perfect spotless
righteousness. Which is again the wedding garment
in heaven. White, pure, spotless. He's wonderful. Isn't our God so good to us?
Is Jesus Christ not the same yesterday, today, and forever?
Is He not the same? Then our salvation in Him doesn't
change. Isn't it wonderful, isn't it? The fact that we're saved
doesn't change. Because it's He who keeps us.
It's wonderful news, isn't it? Best news a sinner can hear.
Best news a sinner can hear. And it's by His own will that
He begot us. Be kind of first fruits of His
creatures. We see in verse 18. God the Holy Spirit, when by
regeneration, He brings a child of God by new birth to the knowledge. You know what He brings us to
the knowledge of? Our high privilege in Christ. Now, when God saves the sinner,
when He saves us, and this is the way for the rest of our lives,
He keeps us low, doesn't He? We get a little haughty and He
just brings us back down a little bit. And through the preaching
of the Gospel, He keeps teaching us that we're just needy sinners.
Every week we come, we're needy, aren't we? Every week I study,
I'm needy. I'm just looking for things.
Oh, Lord, feed me. Feed me. I'm a needy sinner.
And so he shows us our need. But you know, he also shows us
the high privilege of being a child of God. Which brings us low,
doesn't it? Because we think, Lord, me? Why
me? Because it pleased God to do
so. Please God to save you. Nothing
in us. Nothing in Wayne Boyd that made
the Lord say, well, I'm going to save Wayne Boyd because, you
know, nothing. Nothing. Nothing in me at all. In fact, the total opposite. And I know it's so for you. But
by His mercy and His grace, He saved me. He saved you who believe.
Because it pleased Him to do so. Pleased God to do so. So what can more blessedly manifest
the love and grace of the Holy Three in One towards the highly
favored objects chosen in Christ than such demonstrations of the
personal and distinct acts of mercy and grace towards us? Each
time the Lord shows us mercy and grace, and we don't always
see it at first, do we? But when we look back again,
I was reading an excellent article by Jotaro and he's talking about
looking back and seeing all through his life how the Lord just guided
him and directed him and kept him from some things and allowed
him to experience other things. Like you've often heard me say,
look back and go, look what the Lord's done. Look what He did. It's amazing. All His grace and
His mercy has been manifested to us. And if it be the Spirit's own
will in beginning or regenerating, being born again in the church,
from falling an atom is not then the Spirit the first predisposing
cause in bringing us from death to life? By His own will be God to us.
He's the first cause of bringing us to Christ. He's the only cause. Because
in our natural state, we never would come to Christ. And now,
when we're born again, we have the knowledge and the enjoyment
of Christ. And that knowledge doesn't puff
us up. See, religion, men get puffed up by what they learn.
I'm Dr. So-and-so, and I've got 15 degrees,
and I've graduated from 10 seminaries. That stuff doesn't matter. Oh, what a high privilege we
have in Christ. And now we have the knowledge
by the Holy Spirit. He's taught us, hasn't He? Don't
get me wrong, I'm not knocking education. It's good. But where
do you come to learn about Christ? Right here, in the church. A preacher friend of mine asked
him one time about Bible college. And he said, so you go to Bible
college, you can learn all kinds of history, lots of history. You come to church, you can learn
about Christ. And I had a friend of mine go to a big old seminary,
huge seminary in Florida. Huge. People from all over the
world go there. Four years he went there. And
I asked him, I said, well, what'd you learn? He said, nothing I couldn't
learn with you sitting at the kitchen table, by the way. We come here to learn about Christ,
don't we? And the Holy Spirit reveals to
us. And we don't get puffed up about it. We don't get puffed
up about it, what we learn and what we know. But do we enjoy
the fact that we're saved? Oh, yeah. What a blessing. We can receive enjoyment from
that, can't we? The privileges that we have in
Christ. We know we're totally undeserving of those privileges.
We're totally undeserving of this high calling. Yet God, by
His mercy and His grace, because it pleased Him to do so, has
saved us by His grace. Surely He's the effective cause
in our salvation. And we're saved by His good will
and pleasure. Isn't that wonderful? It's absolutely wonderful. And we rejoice. What do we rejoice
in? Well, we rejoice in the wondrous salvation that we have in Christ.
And now when we come to hear the preaching of the gospel,
we're swift to hear now, aren't we? Oh, tell me about Christ. Tell me about Him. That's all
I want to hear about. My wonderful Savior. What He's done for me.
What God's provided. What's already finished? The work's done. Just tell me
about it. Tell me about my King. Tell me
about how God willed that I be born again. Tell me how God chose
me in Christ. Tell me. And we come swift to
here, don't we? Let's read our text again. James
1. Verses 19 to 21. Wherefore, my beloved brethren.
So we see who this letter's penned to. It's penned to the beloved
brethren. Look at that. Beloved brethren.
You're beloved of God. Isn't that wonderful? We're beloved
of God. My. Wherefore, my beloved brethren. I remember one commentator said,
when you see beloved there, it's divinely loved. Wherefore, my
divinely loved brethren. Oh, my goodness. Tell me again.
My divinely loved brother, 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 soul." So we see
in our text, again, James admonishing the saints here, right? And he's
doing it by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. So this is
for us. This is for us. as believers. We're to come and to be swift
to hear the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're
to come with a readiness to hear about Christ, to hear about Him. And we're not to come to pick
apart the Word of God. We're come to learn, to receive
the engrafted Word, which is able to save our souls. And this
admonishment here that James is writing under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit of God, it speaks to anticipation of hearing
that which will undergird you for this life. We need this instruction, don't
we? As God's people. Some of the Word of God is for
instruction. Some of the Word of God is for reproof. Some of
it is for instruction in righteousness. We need these truths placed before
us. And we see then that the believer
in Christ comes to hear the Word of God, and in doing so we worship
our great God, don't we? When we come with the readiness
of mind, when we come, we just come to hear the Word of God.
We're worshiping our God, aren't we? We come here to worship Him,
to hear about Him. And usually we leave and our
lips are full of praise for Him, for the wondrous things that
He's done. Or sometimes we're contemplating something. Or sometimes
the Holy Spirit hits us right between the eyes, right? And
then we're thinking about that all week. But it's all good for
us, isn't it, as believers? It really is. It really, really
is. And we come here to hear about
our great God. The joy of our salvation fills
our souls, doesn't it? Floods our souls, just like a
mighty rushing water coming and flooding our souls. And we need
that after a week out in the world, don't we? We need that. Hearing everything that's going
on, all the noise that's going on, we need that. We need to
come here and hear about our great God. And we need to hear
about the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has saved us. He's
not trying to save us. He's not waiting to save us.
He saved us by His grace and His mercy 2,000 years ago. It is finished. And then again,
like I said last week, and I got this from Brother Tim. This is
Tim James. This is dynamite. That now when
the Gospel is preached, we who are the born again people of
God, we learn what God's already done for us. That's wonderful. He's already finished the work.
And we rejoice in that, don't we? We love it. We rejoice in
that fact that we have a complete salvation, a complete atonement
in Christ Jesus our Lord, a finished work through the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see here we're to be slow
to speak. Look at this. This is today. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to hear, so ready to smile. Now we see
slow to speak and slow to rise. Last week we learned a little
bit about this. It's not being negative towards
the Word of God. Norm Wells and I were talking
this week. Norm and I were talking this
week and he brought up something that was just dynamite. He goes,
we don't come to to hear the Word of God and listen for maybe
the preacher's going to say something that's wrong, and then you mark
the time down when he said that. You tell us, well, listen to
this message, because at 1954, he's going to say something wrong. And we talked about how when
we come to hear the Word of God, I told him, I said, Norman, I
sit down to listen to a sermon. I'm like, feed me. I want to
hear about my King. Even if someone says something
that I might go, huh? If they're preaching the word
of God, if they're a gospel preacher, I'm listening. I'm listening. They hit about our Savior, and
what do we do? We just rejoice, don't we? We
just rejoice. Don't forget we're all men. We
preachers are just different men, so our personalities can
enter into things. But the one thing that doesn't
change is the message of the gospel. That's the one thing that never
changes. Never. And you know what? Even good
men can be wrong sometimes. I had to unlearn a whole bunch
of stuff that I carried from religion. I had unlearned so
much that I knew before that was taught to me by man, but
not from the Scriptures. My, my, oh my. So we come here. We don't come
to Judge the message? We leave negatism behind? We
check our eagles at the door, don't we? We're here to hear about the
Word of God. We're here to hear about the gospel of a complete
salvation in and through the Lord Jesus Christ and how He
wondrously wrought this out by Himself. By Himself. It's His work. Listen to this
by Spurgeon about being slow to speak. He said, there is a
tendency to grow angry with those who do not see the truth. There's a tendency for us to
grow angry with people when they don't see the truth. But is it
not a foolish thing to be angry with blind men because they do
not see? Good point, eh? I learned something
this week here with this. Do we get angry when a blind
man can't see? No. Remember, they're blind. to the
things of God. We're not to get angry when we're
talking to them about it. And that's what this next verse,
that's what that verse gets into right here when it says, for
the wrath of man, verse 20, for the wrath of man worketh not
the righteousness of God. Getting angry about something
somebody's not understanding does not work the righteousness
of God. Matter of fact, the person probably
is going to shut you down. I learned a lot with this quote.
And he says, what if you see yourself? Who opened your eyes? That's what happened to me this
week. Give God the glory for what you
see. And never think that your anger, your indignation, your
hot temper can ever work the righteousness of God. It is contrary
thereto. It's contrary. That's our flesh, beloved. When
we get in that state where someone's not understanding what we say
and we're thinking, why is it so clear? Well, because they're
blind. They're blind. And I'll tell
you what, this will change how you speak to people about Christ. In the sense that when you're
talking to them about Christ, they're blind. They don't understand
these things. So pray, as you're speaking to
them about things of the Lord, that the Holy Spirit would take
those things and reveal them to them. So when the Gospels preach,
it not only causes us to rejoice in our Saviour's great work,
but it also reminds us that it was our sin that nailed them
to the cross. I touched on that a little bit last week. But it's
true, it's our sin that nailed Him to the cross. It's my sin
that nailed Him to the cross. Mine. And this will cause the believer
to let go of any notion of self when it comes to the gospel of
God's grace, because it is the truth. And it discounts and disallows
our opinion. The Word of God discounts and
disallows our opinion. I was talking to somebody again
this week, and they were mentioning about, well, that doesn't follow
the route of ethics. And I said, well, God's ways
are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
You're trying to bring God down to your level, our level, and
you cannot do that. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
His ways are not our ways. He's holy and righteous. He operates
according to His will. And no one can change His mind. No one can say to Him, what are
you doing, God? No one. My. And remember, this here is
written for our admonition and if it's written for our admonition
there's a possibility of this being our response. So it's a real admonition to
come and to be ready to hear and to be slow to speak. Be slow to speak against that
which you're hearing. Be slow to speak. Weigh the words. Weigh this week. And this was
something I was doing this week is weighing. Weighing the Word
of God. Weighing the things that I hear.
We need to do that, don't we? So if we're slow to speak, we'll
be weighing the things that we're hearing. Ponder them. Think upon them. I encourage
you I encourage you to read the book of James through the week.
Even the first chapter that we're going to say, just read it in
preparation for coming. And just let it sink into your
mind and your hearts. Let it permanate you. Weigh it. Consider. When the Gospels preach,
consider what's being proclaimed. When the Word of God is even
read, consider what's being read. When you're reading the Word
of God, consider what you're reading. Weigh what you're reading. When you hear a message preached,
weigh those words. Every gospel preacher will tell
you, we want you to be Bereans. We want you to search the Scriptures
to see if the things that we're saying are so. You desire that. So weigh it. Now, we even as Gospel preachers,
again, we come to hear the Word of God proclaimed, to hear about
our precious Savior, to weigh the words that are spoken as
well. To weigh the fact of the completed salvation in and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's go to the Old Testament.
Let's turn to Job. Job 40. Now we see this principle brought
forth here too again, that we are to be silent before the Lord.
We're to be slow to speak. So we see it in James there,
right? It's brought forth in James. I'll read it again while
you're turning to the book of Job, chapter 40. It says here,
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak, slow to wrath. So, we're to be slow in getting
worked up when somebody's not understanding the Word of God,
and we're to be Slow to speak against the Word of God, against
what's being taught. We're to weigh the things that
are being taught. Look at this. In this truth, there's about
four, even in the Old Testament, too. Job chapter 40, verses 4
and 5. Behold, I am vile. Job's been
taught something, hasn't he? I'm vile, he says. What shall
I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.
He's going to put his hand on his mouth and be silent. Once
have I spoken, but I will not answer, yea, twice, but I will
proceed no further." He's being silent before our great God.
Now turn to Ecclesiastes, chapter 5. And I'll read Habakkuk. I'll read Habakkuk, chapter 2,
verse 20, where it says, but the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence
before Him. Silence. So what are we learning
here? We're learning to come to hear
the Word of God, and we're not to debate it, we're not to fight
against it, we're to be silent and listen to it, aren't we?
That goes for me too. That goes for all of us. This
is written to us as believers, the beloved brethren. Look at
this in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 1. Keep thy foot when
thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to what? Hear.
That's what we're being instructed here, aren't we? Be more ready
to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not
that they do evil. They don't think they're sinners.
Look at verse 2. Be not rash with thy mouth. Slow
to speak, beloved. Which is exactly what we're looking
at in James. Slow to speak. And let not thine heart be hasty
to utter anything before God. Careful with our words. For God
is in heaven, and thou art upon the earth. Therefore, let thy
words be few. This is the same principle that
we're being taught in the book of James. See, God's Word doesn't
change, does it? And then let's go back to James.
We'll read James again. I'll read Zechariah as you turn
in there. Zechariah 2.13, it says, Be silent, O flesh, before
the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation. And think of this, we live in
a day when the name of the Lord is used without much thought
to who He is. People don't even give thought
to who He is when using His name. And there also seems to be a
strange familiarity with God. But we saw in Habakkuk that we're
to be silent before our great God. Oh, but we can come to Him. That's
the joy of his believers. We can freely come to him, can't
we? I ran out of time again, but
let's just read verses 19 and 20 again to see that same principle
put forth that I was just speaking about. 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. Lord willing, next week we'll
get through all these verses here. So there's just so much,
isn't there?