You'll turn back with me now
to James chapter four. I wanna zero in on verses 13
through 17 on this subject, if the Lord
will. Now the lesson set forth in the
verses that I just read to you, they have a spiritual application
as well as a lesson for our everyday life. The gist of the book of
James is he's not teaching a different kind of salvation than Paul did,
but he's on a different subject. He's telling us that faith without
works is dead. And what he's doing here is showing
you that God justifies the faith that he gives through the work
that it produces. When God saves a man, he saves
him and gives him a new nature. And by that new nature, he's
a changed man. He's a new man. There's a new
man and there's the old man. And this new man wants to serve
God. This new man wants to worship
God. He wants to please God. God is
his father. He loves him. And he knows that
he bears his name. And he don't want to embarrass
his father. And so true faith is justified
by its works. Now hear what I'm saying, I'm
not talking about a man being justified by work. I'm talking
about his faith is justified by his works. And so all through
here, he talks to us about this. It's a sad commentary on the
character of men and women that we all must be taught of God
the very fundamentals on how to walk and live in this world
as Christians. That's a sad commentary on our
character. God has to teach us. And the
lion's share, if you care to read them, the lion's share of
the New Testament epistles are filled with instruction for the
believer concerning the everyday affairs of his life. Most of it, most of the epistles
that are written. How to conduct his business.
how to live with his neighbors, how to treat his wife and his
children, and especially on how to conduct themselves in the
house of God. My friend, I was raised in my
father's house. I'm an heir to his name and an
heir of his possessions. I didn't have to do a thing to
be an heir. I was born an heir. Didn't have to do anything. But
I learned quickly that because I was his son and an heir did
not give me the right or the freedom to transgress his will. Now he let me know that in a
hurry. I learned that at a young age.
My actions didn't change his affection. It didn't change my
sonship. But disobedience, I learned,
was sure to be accompanied by chastisement. Now I want you
to listen to what the Lord says here in Hebrews 12, verse six.
For whom the Lord loveth, whom he loveth. Oh, I hope he loves me. I hope he loves me. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastising,
God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom
the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
we're of all our partakers, then are you bastards and not sons. God does not ignore his children
the way we do at times, but he reproves and corrects and chastises
them on a regular basis. And he does so because he loves
us and because we bear his name. Now let me give you two or three
things here in these verses of scripture that I hope will be
an encouragement to you. And at the same time, they might
give you some instruction on how to live in this world. First of all, I want you to see
in the text the attitude which he condemns. He said, Go to you
that say, tomorrow we're going to go here, we're going to move
over to this city, and I'm going to get me a job over there with
Procter & Gamble, and I'm going to earn so much money a year,
and I'm going to stay there about 20 years, and then when I retire,
I'm coming back to this city. You that say you're going to
go here and do this and increase your wages and stuff and get
all set up for retirement, and then I'm going to come back here
and retire. Here's the attitude which he condemns. He said, you
know not what shall be on the morrow. I tell you, you could write many
books with what we don't know. We don't know a whole lot. Think
we do. We like to find somebody who
knows less than we do and compare ourselves to them. Boy, we look
good then, don't we? He said, you don't know what
tomorrow is going to bring. You don't know that you're going
to have a tomorrow. And then he asked this question,
what is your life? You somebody? You think you're somebody compared
to God? What's your life? It's just a vapor. It appears
for a little time and then it vanishes away. That's not so
with God. His life's not a vapor. His life's
eternal. It's eternal life. His doesn't
appear and then vanish away the way ours does. The attitude condemned here is
one of the natural mind and the vain expectations that this mind
produces. And the first of these vain imaginations
is the confident expectation of a prolonged life. I want to ask you something.
How many of you got up this morning expecting that this was the last
day you were going to live on this earth? How did that thought
pass through your mind when you woke up? I've got a few more hours and
then God gonna take me out in a automobile wreck or some disease
or I'm gonna have a heart attack. John Whitehead died the other
night. You think he was expecting to
die when he got up to go to the bathroom that night? No. We rise up and we live our days
without any thought that this might be the last day that we're
going to have on this earth. That the God of all glory will
call you into his presence before the day is gone. He tells us in Hebrews chapter
3 and he tells us three times and all three times he capitalizes
today. Today. Today. Because that's what you have
today. Today is the day of salvation. And it's the most frightening
thing in the world for me to see someone come in here that's
never professed Christ, somebody to come in here and hear and
then leave this congregation with the vain imagination or
expectation that they're going to hear it again. I'll hear you
again on this matter someday. Did you know that the commandment
to believe is not based on some accumulative knowledge that you
gain over time? Do you ever sit and think about
it? It's not based on that. It's based upon what you know
right now. God holds you accountable for
what you hear right now, today. Not on what you might hear next
Tuesday. What you hear right now, today. Not that knowledge that you gain
over time, but upon what you know right now. And so many today
are trying to get everything straight in their heads. I get
so tired of hearing that, I just usually, I just walk away. I'm
just, I'm trying to get these things straight in my mind. What
are you trying to get straight? He that believeth not shall be
damned. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. You need time to get that straight
in your head? So many are trying to get everything
straight in their heads, they tell me. Have all their questions
answered. I've got so many questions I
need answers to. And then the doubts. I need some
doubts to put aside. Let me tell you something. The heathens in this world, I'm
talking about tribes so far back in the jungle that they wouldn't
know your language if you spoke it. They wouldn't know the gospel
if they heard it. They're sitting back in these
isolated areas, raised from childhood, dancing around a campfire in
a totem pole. These heathens are going to be
held accountable for their conscience, the light of their conscience,
and the light of creation. And they're commanded to believe. Did you know that? Read Romans
chapter 1. They're without excuse. Isn't that what God said? He
gave them light. But what light did He expect
them to act on? The light of conscience. and
the light of creation. That's all they had. That's enough. That's enough. You could bow
to that. You bow to that, God'll give them more knowledge. But what I'm laboring to point
out to you is that you're required to believe what you know right
now. Well, you say, I don't understand
how God could become a man. You don't have to understand.
I don't know anybody that understands that. We just believe it. What
God said. My soul, I can't explain how
God, who everything dwells in God, in Him we live and move
and have our beings. How this God could dwell in a
man. I don't understand that. But
I just know it so. I just know it so. And you gotta
act on that. It's not enough to know it. You
have to act on that. How much more shall he be judged,
having heard the glorious gospel of Christ, and then walking away,
waiting to hear some more? The philosophers on Mars Hill
sat down and listened to the babbler, old Paul. Let's hear
what this babbler has to say. Well, that babbler got up and
preached the gospel of God's glory and grace to them. And
the philosophers sat there at the foot of Mars Hill and they
heard him. Everything really went downhill
when he preached the resurrection. When he mentioned the resurrection,
boy, they all went south. But here's what they said. We'll
hear you again of this matter. But I never read in the word
of God where they ever did. We hear you again. Today, he said, if you'll hear
his voice, this is what the Holy Spirit says, today, if you'll
hear his voice, harden not your hearts. like they did in the days of
the provocation in the wilderness. What happened back there? Well,
they provoked God by not submitting to his servant. That's the first
thing they did. They refused to hear Moses, his
servant. God delivered them out of Egypt,
out of bondage, without firing a shot So much deliverance, so
complete a deliverance that even the dogs were forbidden to bark
when they left the city. And then when they got out in
the wilderness, all of a sudden this man was a nobody. He's a nobody. They provoke God
by not submitting to his servant. They provoke God by not submitting
to God's directions. They provoke God by their distaste
for the heavenly bread. God gave them bread to eat. He's
giving you bread to eat this morning. And some of you have
a distaste for it. You'd rather be home eating watermelon,
wouldn't you? They provoke God by their distaste. for the heavenly bread. They
provoked God by their daily dissatisfaction with his provisions. Which was
back in Egypt. Well, they was crying down in
Egypt. They was made to gather their
own straw and then make the bricks. And they were crying out, crying
out to God when they was down there in Egypt. Then they got out here and they
said, boy, I wish we was back in Egypt. Eating that good stew
they served us. Chopped up them leeks and put
in there. Man, that was good stuff, wasn't it? They provoked
God by their reverence to his worship. Set Moses up on the
mountain to get the law. He came back and they were dancing
naked around a golden calf. And they provoked God by their
distrust in his ability to give them their promised possession. They had a competent expectation
of a prolonged existence. There was not one of them that
day that had the bad report. There wasn't one of them who
expected to die in the wilderness. They all expected to go in, but
just not now. But instead, God swore in his
wrath that they shall not enter into my rest, and they didn't.
And their carcasses fell in the wilderness. My friend, don't play games with
God. Let the potchards of this earth
strive with the potchards of this earth, but don't strive
with your maker. Don't play games with God. I
look at this text and I find in our text no recognition to
an uncertainty of life. It never crossed his mind. He
just made his plans. I'm going to move over here to
Alexandria, Louisiana and I'm going to do this and I'm going
to do that and I'm going to stay there so long and I'm going to
gain so much money. There was nothing in our text about a recognition
of the uncertainty of life. I find in our text no dependence
on God whatsoever. And I find no thought of the
purpose of God or the will of God, which is the reason for
our existence altogether. Well, preacher, I got things
to do. I'm young. I'm just getting started. Brethren, youth is no guarantee
of a future. Asked Job's children about that.
His children were all down there making merry in the house. No
thought of dying, no thought of poverty. Job was a rich man.
They were sons and daughters of a rich man. They had it made.
They had their name already made, their reputation already made,
all of their possessions already made. This was the richest man
in the East, Job. And they're down there drinking
wine, making merry in their eldest brother's house just before the
tornado come and took them all out. Our text doesn't mention anything
about seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
It does not speak of their running a race and striving for a prize. There's no mention made in the
text of laying aside of the old man and of putting on of the
new. It just speaks of some business and its consequent profit. Most men and women live today.
They live day by day with some goal in mind concerning this
life and a confident expectation that they shall have what they
desire if they work hard enough. Paul said of Demas, Demas my
fellow laborer. And a short time later he said,
Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. This world held for him a greater
treasure than the pearl of great price. Believers know that they are
what they are and have what they have by the grace of God. If
God had not intervened in their life, they'd have no life. They
go back to the ignorance and the darkness where God found
them. They know that. That's what Paul said, I am what
I am, whatever that is, by the grace of God. If I know anything,
God taught me. It doesn't have anything to do
with me or my talents or my name or anything else. It has to do
with God intervening in my life. They shall all be taught of God,
all of them. And believers know that they
are what they are by the grace of God. All right, here's the
second thing. Here's the grounds by which this
attitude is condemned. Are you ready, are you listening?
The absolute, eternal, unchangeable, sovereign will of God. For you ought to have said, if
the Lord will. Now a sinner, when God convinces
him of sin, he knows that. He knows what many professing
Christians don't seem to know. This sinner, in the heat of God's
convincing him of sin, like that leper, he'll come and he'll fall
down at the feet of Christ and he'll say, heal me of my leprosy. That ain't what he said. He said,
Lord, if you will, if you will, you can cleanse
me. Our problem is we've never been
brought down. We've never been brought down.
We're still up here somewhere. Oh, we adopted the doctrines. We learned a few doctrines. We
can stand up and argue with the Armenians about Calvinism. But we've never been brought
down. Holy Spirit's never convinced us of sin. We've never seen ourselves
as desperate sinners. lepers living a living death on the road to hell serving the
devil. Isn't that what it says? You
hath equipped them who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein
you walked according to the course of this world according to the
prince of the power of the air. Balked according to the spirit
of disobedience. And were by children, you were
children of wrath even as others. We'd never been brought down. I'm gonna tell you something,
you gonna submit to his will. Every Christian brought to say,
he knows your point of rebellion, I don't know what it is. He knows
your point of rebellion, he gonna meet you there. Once that old Ethiopian king
came over there to Elijah, and Elijah sent his servant out,
told him, said, what did you tell him? Tell him to go down
and dip seven times in the River Jordan. And he said, well, I
thought he'd come out. I thought the prophet would come
out. And I thought he'd say some words over me. I thought there'd
be some ceremonies involved. I thought there'd be a walking
down to the front and then the priest comes out with a little
bit of water, holy water at the top and sprinkled him on the
ground. I thought you'd make some ceremony
over me. Say a few words. Well, we got
rivers in our country a lot cleaner than the Jordan. Was there anything in Jordan
to cleanse leprosy? No. Does every sinner have to
go down to Jordan and dip seven times to be cleansed? No. But
Naaman did, because that was his point of rebellion. And God
said, you're going to bow to what I tell you. And if he hadn't
went down to Jordan, God would have killed him. Moses. Moses, same thing. Moses had
a quarrel with his wife. And I tell you, God would have
killed him over it. He'll find your point of rebellion, whatever
it is, and he'll meet you right there. Right there. Or, I don't
have to go to church. You don't? We'll see about that. We'll see. The grounds by which this attitude
is condemned is the absolute, eternal, unchangeable, sovereign
will of God. You ought to have said, if the
Lord will, we shall live. You don't even know you have
tomorrow. Say, is it wrong to make plans?
No. Make your plan, but submit your
plans to the will of God. If the Lord will, we shall live
and we shall do this or we shall do that. And I know, you know this in
your head. But like me, you're struggling to know it in your
heart, ain't you? Huh? Oh, I want that to be the first
words out of my mouth in the morning. But I can tell you this for sure,
God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. And he's the author and finisher
of our faith. Of his own will, it said, begat
he us with the word of truth. Who did that? God's will. Believers pray, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done. It was the will of God that chose
a people in his son. And the will of God that they
become one with him eternal union. It's the will of God to draw
them to his son, the will of God to send them a preacher,
the will of God to begat them a son, and the will of God that
keeps them from falling. And it's the will of God that
will raise them up at the last day. And I don't care if you're
talking about some earthly business or the business of the salvation
of your souls, you ought to say if the Lord will. If he will. Lord, if you will this morning,
you can speak to my heart. If you will. And if he will,
he can. He spoke to mine. And some of
you, I'm convinced, he spoke to you. He took the word that
you heard and made it just as though he said it himself right
in your heart. if he will. God hath predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will. Preaching of the gospel, my friend,
is so much more than men and women think it is. Paul said
it's our God abounding toward us with all wisdom and prudence,
making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure
which he purposed in himself. And as we sit here this morning
and hear such things as the princes of this world have never heard,
never entered into the heart of man, We ought to worship our God who
has willed us to be able to. What's this will got to do with
our Savior? Listen to this. When he cometh
into the world, he saith, Lo, I come. In the volume of the
book it's written of me to do thy will. Oh, God. By the witch will, he said, we're
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. Now, I'm telling you this. There
is the means that God has ordained, and when those means are exercised
and that sinner is convinced of sin and righteousness and
judgment satisfied, convinced of righteousness. Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. And
when those things are done, he delights to do his will. When he knows what God's will
is, he delights. It's not a job. I tell you, I
used to work hard. I built homes and carried shingles
up and down ladders. It was hard work. Pour concrete
in the hot sun. It was hard work. Then we'd take
a week off and go fishing. We'd go up to Canada. And I tell
you, I never worked so hard in my life, trying to drag boats
down over beaver dams and drag all this stuff with you and rods
and reels and slipping and sliding and falling in the mud and bruising
up. I loved every minute of it. And I tell you, for an unbeliever,
When you press him to do the will of God, it's a laborsome
thing. It just kills him. But not for
believers. Believers delight to do his will. Huh? Was it a chore for you to
get up and come up here this morning? Well, not me. I was thinking about it last
night. Woke up thinking about it. His will is the reason for our
being. His will is the reason for our
right to become sons. It's the reason for our new birth
and the purpose behind our faith, and it's the loving rule of our
Lord. Now, if God's will be preeminent
in our salvation, how much more in the affairs of this world? Nevertheless, Not my will, but
thy will be done. So the grounds by which these
ungodly and selfish attitudes are condemned is the absolute
sovereign will of God over all things. When we want to do anything apart
from the will of God, it's an evil thing. It's condemned.
And then secondly, it's the ignorance of God's eternal purpose of grace.
God's will, I want you to listen to me for just a minute. God's
will is a redemptive will. Christ said, I come down from
heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent
me, and this is the will of him that sent me, that of all which
he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again
at the last day. God's will is his redemptive
will. This book is a book of redemption. And from beginning to end, it
talks about the redemption that God has purposed before the world
was. His will is a redemptive will. All that Christ came to do, everything,
including his eternal appointments, his incarnation, his life's work,
and his vicarious death on the cross is all the fulfillment
of God's redemptive will. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shalt save his people from their sins. And everybody concerning his
crucifixion, had their own agenda. They were all there for their
own little selfish reasons. But when it was all done, you'd
see God did what his hand and his counsel determined before
to be done. And it's the same in our calling.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. And my friend, it's through the
ministry of the local church and the preaching of the gospel
that believers are brought into the unity of the faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Oh, you don't
believe that believers in this perfection of flesh in this world,
no. No, he's talking here about that
new man on the inside, Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's
the perfect man. To the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ. He explains it there in Ephesians
chapter four. And this is all according to
the will of God, our ascended savior. So if I might be allowed
to make this application to our text and say, go to, go to now. you that say today or tomorrow
we'll go into such a city and continue their year and get gay.
If we just thought in our hearts when our souls could be advantaged, learn God's will concerning the
gospel and the local church and submit to it. Submit to it. If we'd only had some thought
in our hearts to go where our souls could be advantaged and
our minds and hearts enlightened and our attitudes become rooted
and grounded in the love of God instead of just seeking the path
of least resistance. Instead of trying to find what's
convenient for ourselves, instead of trying to do our will, we
maybe ought to say, if the Lord will. What is the will of God in the
matter? That's the first thing we need
to consider. And then quickly, let's look
at things as they really are. What is your life? In the light of everything that
God's doing, in the light of His glory, in the light of His
person, in the light of His eternal purpose of grace, what is your
life? Scripture said we're like water
poured out on the ground. You can see it for a second and
it's gone. We're like vapor, like a vapor,
that's our life. What is it about us that we think
might supersede the will of God? Lift up your eyes on high and
behold who hath created all these things, the prophet said, that
bringeth out their host by number and call them all by names. All
nations before him are as nothing and are counted to him as less
than nothing and vanity. I'm he, he said, that sitteth
upon the circle of the earth and all the inhabitants thereof
are as grasshoppers. I'm he that bringeth the princes
to nothing and maketh their judges as vanity. Produce your cause,
saith the Lord. Bring forth your strong reasons,
saith the King of Jacob. Let me bring them forth and show
us what shall happen. Let them show the former things
what they be that we might consider them and know the latter end
of them. Behold, you are nothing. and your work of naught is an
abomination before me. What is your life? That's what
the Holy Spirit calls us this man James to write. What is your
life compared to these? I know your life's important
to you. It's important to me, how your children are. But in
the light of God's purpose and grace, Now come on. You see how little it is compared
to this? He said it's just a vapor. Brief
moment in eternity and then it vanishes away. Breacher, you
saying we shouldn't have plans? Not at all. Just that your plans
ought to be subject subject to and dependent on the will of
God. And then our Lord says this,
and I'll close. He said, take heed to what you're
doing. You're rejoicing in your boastings. Are you so pleased with that
plan you made? I'm going to go over here, and
I'm going to start me a timber business over here, and I'm going
to build that thing. Boy, it's going to be something. And then you feel so good about
it. I've made this plan. I'm exercising this plan. It's
finally starting to happen, and you just start rejoicing. But you didn't give God any thought
about it. He wasn't in it at all. It's
how you went about it. Isn't that what James said? It's how you went about it. You
presumed upon the will of God. And now, he said, you're rejoicing
in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Well, I pray that the Lord take
my pitiful attempts to discourse on these few verses and make
you at least get something out of it. that'll help and profit
your soul.