We've looked at the first 12
verses and today I would like for us to begin in verse 13 and
go through the reminder of this chapter. James chapter 1 beginning with
verse 13. Let no man say when he is tempted,
I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth he any man. For every man is tempted when
he's 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. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of
his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my
beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God, wherefore layeth part all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the
engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be you
doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the
word and not a doer, He is like unto a man beholding his natural
face in a glass, that is a mirror, for he beholdeth himself and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect
law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in
his deeds. If any man among you seem to
be religious and brattleth not his tongue but deceiveth his
own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted
from the world. At the beginning of my message
this morning, I want to point two things out to us, two very
simple things from this passage of scripture. First of all, I
want us to notice that these words were written to the brethren,
to those that James calls his brethren. This word was written
to the household of faith, the family of God, the children of
God. Two times in our text today,
he refers to those as my beloved brethren. Three times in this
chapter, he calls us brethren and 15 times in the five chapters,
he calls us brethren or he writes to his brethren. And then you notice in verse
16, he said, do not err, my beloved brethren. And that alone should
remind us that we are capable of erring, all of us are, that
all of us know the truth only in part, and that we should grow
in grace and knowledge of the Lord. My brethren, so this word
is written to those that James referred to, the Apostle James
referred to as his brethren, in other words, the children
of God. Number two, we must see that
the same word, the same word in English, the word temptations
and the word tempted, and they both come from basically the
same Greek word, they have two different meanings. The first
time we saw the word temptations, I believe it's in verse two,
counted all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. We
saw, of course, that this referred to what we would call trials
and afflictions. Those things that God brings
into the lives of his people in order to try our faith. But now we see the word tempted
And this time the meaning is not trials and afflictions that
God brings into the lives of his people, but this time the
meaning is tempted solicitation to sin. This is a temptation
that the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to pray against when
he gave the model prayer to his disciples and thus to us. Part
of that prayer was lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from the evil one. So we see the same word, tempted,
temptations, but they are used in different ways. And I point
this out to us because the scriptures must always be read looking at
the context, looking at the context that men have been guilty over
the years of pulling a verse of scripture out of its context
and teaching from that one verse something that clearly is not
part of the analogy of the faith. Teaching what the Word of God
doesn't support in its whole. So those two things, he's writing
to believers. I read an article recently, I
can't remember all of it, but the importance of of reading
your own mail. And the example was of a lady,
two ladies, and one lady came to the house. I think they both
lived together, and she said, I've received a message from
my husband. He's coming home, and he loves
me, and we're going to have the best time. And the other lady
said, let me see that. Let me see that. Let me see that
envelope. It wasn't her husband at all.
It was this other lady's husband who had written. You know, sometimes
people come to the Word of God and they just assume that that's
speaking to them when it's not. The Word of God basically, especially
the New Testament, the epistles, the Word of God is written to
God's family, to God's children. And unless a person has been
saved by the grace of God, is a new creature in Christ Jesus,
you may just be reading someone else's mail. You look at the
beginning of all of these letters, almost all of them, and we see
to whom they were written, to the saints. to the saints, to
the church of God at this place or that place, or as in the case
of James, to the 12 tribes, that is to the Israelites who were
Israelites by nature, but had been saved by the grace of God.
Now there are three things I'm going to point out to us from
these verses. I was speaking with a pastor
friend of mine yesterday and he asked me, where I would be
preaching today, and I told him from the letter of James. And
I told him this, I said, I remember several years ago, maybe five,
six, seven, eight years, I'm not sure, that I preached through
this letter on a Wednesday night. And when I finished, I said to
myself, if I ever try to preach through that letter again, it's
going to be on Sunday morning. And the reason being is because
Many of you do not come or are not able to come on Wednesday
evening. And this letter has so much practical truth that
all of us need to hear. There are three things in these
verses we're looking at today. Now, I'm going to go through
the letter of James, the Lord willing, and I'm not going to
try to take too many Sundays. You know, the word of God is
different from any other book. You could spend a week, a week
of Sundays, I should say, a week of Sundays on just one or two
verses and you still would not exhaust the Word of God. It's
like an artesian well, isn't it? It just keeps springing up,
just keeps springing up the Word of God. And you read it and you
come back years later and read the same passage or a few weeks
later and you say, well, I didn't see that before. It's always
been there. You've had the same Bible. It's
always been there, but you didn't see it. God didn't bring it to
your attention at that time. And a good habit in reading the
Word of God when you begin to read is always to pray and ask
the Lord, Lord, open mine eyes that I might see wondrous things
out of thy Word today. But first of all, we have an
emphatic statement. God cannot be tempted with evil. Notice that in verses 13 through
15. Let no man say when he is tempted,
I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with
evils, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted
when he's 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. An emphatic, dogmatic statement. God cannot be tempted with sin. You know, there are several verses
of scripture, not many, but there are a few which tell us what
God cannot do. God who can do all things. But
there's some things he cannot do. He cannot lie. He cannot deny himself. He cannot
look upon evil. And we read here in this text
of scripture, God cannot be tempted with evil. Let no man say, when
he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted
with evil. to accuse God of tempting or
of being able to be tempted is to strike at God's chief attribute. What is His chief attribute?
It is His holiness. His holiness. When those seraphim,
when Isaiah saw that vision of God, you remember what the seraphim
were singing and praising? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God omnipotent. His chief attribute is his holiness. And for a man to say that God
can be tempted with evil and for a person to tempt someone
else to evil would mean that that person is evil. If you tempt
someone to evil, that's evil on your part. If I tempt someone,
you see what I'm saying? God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth he any man. The patriarch Abraham, you know,
he asked God, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? In
other words, doesn't your nature, the fact that you are God, that
you are holy, doesn't that demand that you will do right? And absolutely,
yes, absolutely. So Psalm 11 in verse seven says,
for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. And in Psalm 145,
the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his
works. So for a man to accuse God of
tempting someone to evil strikes out or strikes rather at God's
wonderful attribute of holiness. Now this is something that a
lost person, many lost people, they cannot understand. And of
course a lost man cannot understand the word of God because it's
foolishness unto him, the natural man. But many people, they have
a problem. They say, well, why is it, why
is it that God cannot just forget sin, forgive sin? We can. Someone offends us, and
we can just say, well, so what? Forget about it. God, or I should
say, we are not like God. Why is it that God cannot forgive
any sin? I don't care if it's the smallest
sin that man may commit. Why is it that God Almighty cannot
forgive any sin unless His holy justice is satisfied? It's because for Him to do that
would make Him an offender. It would cause him then not to
be the holy Lord God that he is. Even when his only begotten
son, and oh, when we think about the love of God, God loves his
son. We believe in the eternality
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And our
little minds can only go so far. But think about this. There never
has been a time, if I can use that word, when the father did
not love his son, and when the son did not love his father,
and when that love was not given by the power of God the Holy
Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit are all one God, eternal in every way. And God so loved the world, yes,
but God so loved His Son, we can't even begin, as I said,
we can't even begin to enter in to understand the great love
that God the Father had for His darling Son. And yet when his
son came into this world and the sins of his people were charged
to him, imputed to him, God the Father said to his sword of justice,
smite, smite him. Him who is my fellow. That's
the way that word reads there in Zechariah. He spoke to the
sword, the sword of his justice, and he said, smite him, my shepherd,
the man that is my fellow. God cannot be tempted with sin,
and God cannot tempt anyone else with sin. This is a bedrock truth. We've got several, don't we?
We've got several in the word of God. Bedrock. That's when
these men are building a high skyscraper or a bridge. I remember reading this in the
Brooklyn Bridge when they built that. They dig down till they
hit what they call bedrock. Bedrock. Firm, solid, not going
to move. This is a bedrock truth. God
loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. Now that's just so. Well, consider these two questions
before I move on. Do men, James said, let no man
say when he is tempted, I'm tempted of God. Do men accuse God of
tempting them to sin? Is there really a need, James,
for you to write this, to give this warning? Well, why would
James write this if it were not a real possibility? And you and
I know that men do this. This was true of the first man,
Adam. Just as soon as he had disobeyed
God, And when God came and spoke to him, what did he do? He tried
to blame God. He tried to accuse God for his,
Lord, the woman, the woman that you gave me, if you had not given
me this woman, I would not have eaten that fruit. In other words,
you are the one who tempted me to this evil. Yes, men do blame
God. Man has charged God many times,
murmur and complain that their sin is really because of something
that God allowed to come into their lives. How often today
do we hear people say this? Well, this is the way God made
me. This is the way God made me.
God made me a liar. That's what I am. God made me
that. So you can't blame me for lying, for being a liar. This
is the way God made me. No, my friends, that's the way
sin made you, not God. When God created man, he created
him in his own image. And that image is an image of
holiness and righteousness and purity. No, man sinned and brought
forth his son, not in God's image, but in his own image. So men
do blame God when they're tempted to evil. Well, you say, if God
doesn't tempt us to evil, how then are men tempted to evil?
Well, James tells us, doesn't he, in verses 14 and 15, every
man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust. What does that mean? That is
that sinful nature. David, when he was repenting
of his sin, remember he confessed unto the Lord that in sin he
had been conceived and shapen in iniquity. The scriptures speak
of the old man talking to a believer that there's a, once a person
is saved, there's a new man, but there's an old man. And that
old man is as old as we are. And that's what James is talking
about here. The, the lust of the flesh. Lust. Every man is tempted when he's
drawn away of his own lust and enticed. This is a metaphor. According
to the writers, this is a metaphor taken from fishing. A lot of
you like to fish. What do you do to your hook?
You put bait on it, don't you? You put bait on your hook. And
that's the picture here. The fish sees the bait and is
enticed and thus drawn out by the hook. So evil presents itself
to us as pleasure. As prophet, that's the bait. That's the bait that comes to
us. But how does that, if a man was pure and holy, there would
be nothing in him that that bait could entice. But we have a sinful
nature. Every man is tempted when he's
drawn away of his own lust. But when lust hath conceived,
It bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth
forth death. The promise of pleasure, the
promise of profit, that's the bait. That's the bait that Satan,
or our flesh even, or the world holds out before us and entices
our sinful nature. If we didn't have something in
us to respond than we would never sin. But we do, we bring that
with us, that old nature, that sinful nature, we bring that
with us when we come into this world. And the sinful nature
conceives the desire which brings forth the sin which results in
death. Now listen, in the scriptures,
death means separation. And death, no matter if it's
spiritual death, what happened to Adam the day he sinned against
God, he died spiritually. Or if it's physical death, after
several hundred years he died physically. Or if it is eternal
death, that which all unbelievers will experience in the lake of
fire forever and ever. All death is the result of sin. It can all be traced back to
sin. Now let's move on to the next
point. We have now not only an emphatic
statement, but a joyous statement. Do not err. Every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above. Instead of instead of accusing
God of tempting us to sin, recognize that every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, is from God. Now what is the difference
between a good gift and a perfect gift? In the context here, being tempted
to sin, I would say that James is reminding us that God is the
author of all good. All good. All good. Even good that lost men do. If it were not for God, there
would be no good in this world. No good. You say, is man that
bad? Yeah, he's worse. He's worse
than that. You see on the news, and sometimes
we say this, how could a man do that? How could a man do that? What we see reported to, how
is it possible that a man could do that to another man? How could
a person do that to a child? How is that possible? I'll tell
you how it's possible, because man is a depraved being. You say, well, I would never
do that, but by the grace of God. Don't ever forget to include
that. Your flesh, my flesh, as we come
into this world is no different from the worst criminal that
has ever walked upon the face of God's earth, but by the grace
of God. The first meaning of this word,
which is translated perfect, is complete. That which is complete
in all its parts. Every good and every perfect
gift. Every gift that is complete in
all its parts. And I want you to notice that
James names two of these good and perfect gifts in verse 18. When he says, of his own will
begat he us. The new birth. Regeneration. That's a good and perfect gift. A perfect gift. It's complete.
When a baby is born, what a joyous time that is. And I've been told
this by several mothers. One of the first things they
do when they bring that infant in and after it's been cleaned
up and everything, they count the the fingers and they count
the toes. Make sure there's only five,
right? That just seems to be something mothers do. The baby's
perfect, complete. It's never going to grow another
finger. It's never going to grow another member of this body.
But those members are going to grow. He's not going to stay
that little infant of this size, not for long. And the same thing
is true in the new birth. When a person is born again of
the Spirit of God, the birth is complete. It's not something
that takes place over a long period of time. A person is in the darkness and
is translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. The new birth
is something that takes place in an instant And we have all
the parts we'll ever have, but we are going to grow in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord as the Lord allows us time in this
world. We are to grow. Another thing that is good and
complete that James mentions here is the word of God. Notice in verse 18, of his own
will begat he us, that's the new birth, with the word of truth. That is the word of God, the
gospel. It's perfect, it's good, it's
complete. We're not looking for another
message. The Lord Jesus Christ, he is
the final message, the complete message, the perfect message. One of the old Puritans said,
the gospel is many times like the chariot in which the Holy
Spirit comes riding. Yes, a new birth is being born
from above, being born of the Spirit, but he uses the word. Many times as we hear the word
or as we sit under the preaching of the word of God, God quickens
that word, God quickens us, and we're born again of the Spirit
of God. Not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible. The word of God which liveth
and abideth forever, according to the Apostle Peter. Now look
at these two wherefores that James gives us in these verses.
Verse 19, wherefore. Wherefore, my beloved brethren,
seeing that God has used his word in our salvation, that his
word is perfect, that it's complete, then we should be swift to hear
it. We should be swift to hear the word of God. We should avail
ourselves of every opportunity that we have to hear the word
of God read, proclaimed. We should be swift to hear. precious
word of God. And I can just think of those
Christians in those days when the Bible was being written.
And let's just say in the city of Thessalonica, there was a
group of believers there, and they met together. And then someone
one day said, a letter came, a letter came, a letter, a letter
from Paul. We received a letter. Let every
man be swift to hear. Someone's not gonna, well, you
know, maybe one of these days I'll go listen. One of these
days I'll go hear what the apostle, oh no, oh no. Let every man be swift to hear
the word of God. What a privilege, what a blessing
it is to have God's word and to hear the word of God. proclaim and we should be slow
to wrath. Sometimes you hear the preacher
preaching and he's using the word of God and it cuts. It's
like a sword. The word of God is like a sword,
a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways and sometimes
the preacher says something that cuts. Be slow to wrath. Don't get upset
and offended. Search the scriptures. See if
what he's saying is true or not. But don't just go off in a huff
and say, well, I'll never listen to him again. Don't get mad at the messenger.
I just bring you the message. It's God's message. Look at this
other wherefore in verse 21. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness
and superfluity of naughtiness. It's pictured to us in the word
of God in a number of different ways, but in the old prophecy
of Ezekiel, it is pictured to us like scum. Scum. God tells Ezekiel to set on a
pot, a pot with bones and flesh and pour water in it and put
fire under it and that Boiling and scum. You know what? Scum comes to the top. Scum finds
a place to reside around the pot, doesn't it? Sometimes you
gotta really work to get that scum off. That's what James is
talking about, filthiness, scum. Lay it apart. Cleanse yourself,
the apostle Paul wrote. Having therefore these promise,
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from the filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. One other point. We have here a soul searching
reminder. We must, M-U-S-T, exclamation
point, exclamation point, exclamation point. We must be not only hearers
of the word, but doers. And James gives us three examples
that we should take to heart. The first example is of a man
who who hears the word of God, but he's likened unto a man who
looks in a mirror. And he sees his face and he sees
some things that don't look so good. And some things that could
be cleansed or covered up or just some things that he wouldn't
especially want people to see. He sees that when he's hearing
the word of God. God points out some things to
him. under the preaching of the gospel. He's convicted. You know,
he's convicted, whatever it might be. And then he goes away from
the mirror, goes away from the preaching or from the word of
God, and he just forgets all about it. Forgets all about it. While he was looking in the mirror,
he had every intention, every intention of fixing these things,
dealing with these things, but just as soon as he goes away
from the mirror, he forgets about it. Just as soon as we walk out these
doors sometimes, we forget about the message that we've heard
and how it applied to us, how God the Holy Spirit spoke to
our own hearts, and we just forget about it. The second example
he gives, a hearer and a doer. That's what we want to be, a
hearer and a doer. He looks into the perfect law
of liberty, that is the gospel. And this man looks into it and
he continues in it. And I want you to notice a very
important word in this verse that James gives us in verse
25. A lot of people read that verse
and they see far. instead of in. But a doer of the word, of the
work, this man shall be blessed, and some people say far. It doesn't
say far. It doesn't say far, does it?
No. This man shall be blessed in
his doing, his deed. Not far his doing. Anything we do that's right is
by the grace of God. But God's people are blessed
far, or in rather, not far, they're doing. And doing what the word
of God tells us. We're blessed in doing it. And the third thing, all is not
gold that glitters. All is not gold that glitters,
verses 26 and 27. Here's a man, he seems to be
so religious, he glitters. He talks a good game, but his
walk manifests, it's all a vain show. That's all it is, it's
just a vain show. But a doer, now let me emphasize
this and close with this, a doer of the word of God shall be concerned
about others and himself. A doer. Not just a hearer, but
he's a hearer and a doer, and he, she will be concerned about
others to visit the fatherless. In other words, to do acts of
mercy to others and also to himself. He keeps himself unspotted by
the world. So he's concerned about others
and he's concerned about himself, about his testimony, about his
walk. I was reading this past week
the first couple of chapters of the prophecy of Ezekiel. And God told Ezekiel he was sending
him to a people, not of a strange language, you speak the same
language that they do, but they have a hard forehead. And they're not gonna hear you.
They're not gonna listen to what you have to say, Ezekiel. But
know this, they will know a prophet has been in their midst. And
you may work with some people, they might not listen, they might
not have any concern, any care to hear what you have to say.
But they're watching you. They're watching you. And when
you leave, I'm not saying they will know a prophet has been
among them, but they will know someone who loves God. has been
among them. That's the testimony that we
should be concerned about, isn't it? Amen.