Keep sharing good news without ads.
Bro. Bill Nichols
This morning, we're going to begin a study of James chapter 4 and we will have reached what John MacArthur calls the test of worldly indulgence. I might have named it something different but this would be perfectly good.
I'm going to read the passage first. This is the first 12 verses of chapter 4. From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? You lust and you have not.
You kill and you desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask not and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Do you think that the Spirit saith in vain? The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, but he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts. Ye double-minded, be afflicted and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning, 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 judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law.
But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, who art thou that judgest another. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together today in person, flesh to flesh, that we may see one another and fellowship with one another as we fellowship with you.
Moreover, we thank you for giving us the technology to reach out and touch people who cannot be here and interact with them. Thank you for giving us that technology. More than that, though, thank you for giving us your Holy Word, and thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit that enables us to understand your Holy Word.
But even more than that, we thank you for giving us your Son, which you sent into the world to praise you and to honor you and to glorify you, and in the meantime, to save us from our sins and our unrighteousness.
Protect us and keep us and go through this day as we do our best to worship you in holiness and in truth. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So this is the test of worldly indulgence. Chapter 4, verses 1 -12.
Last time, we noted that as James continually emphasizes, the person who professes to be a Christian must prove it by his works. That is to say, his daily living should show it. If he is a true believer, he will possess God's own wisdom, and that wisdom will manifest itself in righteousness, selflessness, and peaceful living.
He has the revelation of God's wisdom in the Scripture. God no longer revealed His wisdom to us face to face. It is now set forth in the Scripture. That's where we go to obtain God's wisdom. So he has the revelation of God's wisdom in the Scripture, and the teacher and the interpreter of God's wisdom he has in the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Paul, therefore, when he prayed for the church at Ephesus said this, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowledge of Him. He later admonished them, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.
Brother David talked about that verse last week when he was talking about unity in the church. Walking circumspectly. Watch where you walk, redeeming the time because the days are evil. So one key indicator of true saving faith is your works, that is to say, your daily living.
Another is your attitude toward the world. James introduced this subject in the first chapter of James saying this, James 1, 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.
I identified that as James 1. I 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. Okay, now we're ready to begin chapter 4 and it begins with this, from whence come wars and fighting among you?
The central truth in the upcoming passage is this, friendship with the world is enmity with God. Genuine spiritual life and faithful Christian living involves separation from the world and all of its countless contaminations or pollutions.
As James noted in James 3, verse 17, which we dealt with last week, the wisdom is from above. The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonableness, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without hypocrisy and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Now I'm going to say that again, part of it. The wisdom that comes from above, God's wisdom, is first pure and then peaceable. Dave Huber Jr. made a point of this last week when we went through this in chapter 3, that first peace, first the relationship must exist, first pure.
We must make ourselves pure before God. We must be pure before God. The only way we can be pure before God is for God to make us pure. We've got to have that first. Once we have that, then we can expand our relationship with God and we can have all of the things that are then mentioned.
First pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without hypocrisy and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. That was James 3, verse 17.
But back to where we are now, friendship with the world. Continuing habitual friendship with the world, on the other hand, is grounded in not God's wisdom but human wisdom and is evident and is the evidence of unbelief.
Such ungodly friendship invariably results in personal conflict with others, within oneself and most importantly with God. You cannot be a friend of the world and not have personal relationships, have conflicts in them with yourself, with others and most importantly with God.
So now we're going to go back and look again at verse 1. From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Quarrels. War in your members. That's what it's talking about.
Quarrels. War in your members in the church are inevitable, especially in larger churches. In a small church like this one, we don't have so many quarrels because we don't have so many so worldly among us.
Now I'm going to admit that there's times, and I know you all will admit that when I am worldly. I'm worldly too often. You'll admit that I'm worldly too often and see, were we both as worldly as I am, then we would be quarreling about this right now.
But since you're not worldly at all and I am just barely worldly, we're going to put that behind us and say, let the peace of God descend upon us. So we can resolve our quarrels. We won't have as many quarrels in small churches.
And the reason for the quarrels and the war among the members is in the church, there are two kinds of people. I might say there are three kinds, but I wanted to say two so I can keep it in line with what we did last week.
Last week we discovered there were two kinds of knowledge. God's knowledge and worldly knowledge. There's two kinds of wisdom, God's wisdom and worldly wisdom. And this week we'll recognize that there's two kinds of people, believers and unbelievers.
Now of the unbelievers, some will be pretending to be believers and others will just be blatantly obvious about the fact that they're not believers. They will be people attend big churches that come to church just to create turmoil.
So you have at least two kinds of people, believers and unbelievers. The problem arises when these unbelieving pleasure seekers, hedonists, succumb to their lusts. Lust is the gratification of sensual, natural, fleshly desires.
And that can be anything. A lot of us tend to think of it as sexual things. It's not necessarily sexual. It could be money. It could be power. It could be anything. Anything of the world, anything not of God is sensual, is natural, is fleshly.
In the New Testament, the word lust is uncontrollable, personal desire to fulfill every passion and whim that promises sensual satisfaction and enjoyment. If you think you'd be fun to be the smartest guy in the room, that's sensual.
If you think you would be pleasurable to be the richest person in the room, that's natural, that's sensual, that's fleshly. But if you turn yourself over to the pursuit of these things, then that's where the problem comes in.
The desire to fulfill these fleshly desires comes from selfishness because you are more interested in what you can obtain for yourself than you are for anything else. That's opposed to God's Word and to the Word of God.
That's opposed to God and to the Word of God. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3 that these ungodly hedonists are lovers of their own self, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinence, fierce, despisers of those that are good.
They just can't help it. Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. That's what Paul had to say about these unbelieving hedonists that were wrapped up in the church. Jude describes them this way, murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lust and their mouth speaking great swelling words, having men's person in admiration because of advantage.
But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last days who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
And how many of those do we see today? Mockers in the last days, speaking great swelling words because of advantage, accusers, despisers of those that are good, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
When people surrender to their fleshly pleasures, giving themselves over to such sins, they are under the delusion that they're expressing personal freedom. I have been given freedom to do whatever I wish.
People will always quote that, often quote that in church. I am now saved. I don't need to worry about the law. I don't need to worry about rules. I can do whatever I want because I am saved by a higher means.
I am a friend of God. Well, if they really were a friend of God, they wouldn't be acting in that way. They're under a delusion that they're expressing personal freedom, not realizing that in actuality they're only manifesting that they are slaves of corruption.
They're driven by desires over which they have lost control. There's a good bit of information has been over the last four or five years of nurses and people in the medical industry that have access to fentanyl and drugs of that nature begin taking it themselves.
Once they begin taking it, they become addicted to it. Once they become addicted to it, they lose total control. There have been in Dallas over the past four or five years, three, four, five, or six nurses that have overdosed in the hospital.
They found them in a locked hospital bathroom with the syringe still in their arm. They think they're doing what they can do because they'd be given personal freedom to do that, but really they're slaves to their own corruption.
They're driven by desires over which they lose control and which eventually come to control them. And because they turn their backs on God, as Paul says in Romans 1, they suppress the truth. They do not honor Him as God and will give thanks, but they become futile in their speculations.
God gives them over to the lust of their hearts to impurity and degrading passions and a depraved mind to do things which are not proper. So that's verse 1. We only got 12 more verses to go. You lust and you have not.
You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask not and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your own lusts. John MacArthur said this about that passage.
I'm just going to read it. As would be expected, worldly ungodly desire is not only uncontrolled and unfulfilled, it is also selfish. That James uses you and your nine times in these two sentences. Okay, I'm going to go back and count them.
You lust, you kill, you fight, you have not because you ask not. You ask and you receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your own lust. Four times in two verses. Indicates that the church to whom he is writing includes some, and I highlighted this, perhaps many of the worldly people that he describes and addresses directly in the following.
Leading up to his point about selfishness, James first says that unworldly believers do not have because they do not ask. Many of them do not even think of asking God for help, for help of any kind, because they consider themselves self-sufficient, fully able to take care of themselves.
They believe that all of their needs and wants can be met by human means through their own wisdom, power, and diligence. They do not believe James in James chapter 1, verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no variability, neither shadow of turning.
Consequently, it never occurs to them to ask Him for anything. They think they're totally capable of providing for themselves everything that they need, and they don't even think about asking God to help them.
That's part of the unbelievers. So some of them have not because they do not ask. He goes on to say some unbelievers, many unbelievers do ask. They ask God for all for things, all sorts of things. They ask God for a new Mercedes because the bicycle they're riding is too small, or the Toyota that they're driving is too small.
Sometimes they ask them for a large congregation in a church. Sometimes they ask for a larger church. I'm talking about unbelievers, unbelievers who ask for things, all sorts of things. But as James continues to explain, they ask and do not receive because they ask amiss.
They ask with the wrong motives. What's the motive? That they may spend it for their own pleasures. If that's what you're asking God to give you, if you're asking God to give you a new convertible so that you can drive down through Corsicana with the top down and the sun shining and your hair blowing in the wind, you're asking amiss.
They ask with the wrong motives so that they may spend it on their pleasures. They do not ask for the things in order for God's goodness and grace to be magnified, or for the sake of His glory and honor.
They do not ask in order to be able to fulfill His perfect and divine will, but to fulfill their own sinful and selfish wills. So sometimes you have believers that do not ask because it doesn't occur to them to ask.
And other times you have unbelievers that ask, and they don't receive because they're asking for the wrong reasons. They're asking to satisfy their own greed, their own selfishness, not to advance God's plan.
Now, ye adulterers and adulteresses, verse 4 now, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is an enemy of God.
You cannot be a friend of God and a friend of man. If you are a friend of God and you have established a relationship with God, I'm going to go back a bit and redo a verse that I did earlier, and then I'll get back to it.
If I can find it quickly, it won't be long. This is James chapter 3, verse 17. It's right at the end of the lesson that we did last week. I'm sorry. You found it? James 3, 17. Now, the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonableness, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Dave Hubert Jr. and I were talking about this a little bit earlier this morning and at the end of last service. He pointed out something to me that I had not noticed as I went through that. It said first pure and then peace.
What was it that you described to me? Okay. Now, I'm back where I was. First comes the righteousness. You have to be established as righteous. How do you get the righteousness? The relationship with God.
And before you can have your righteousness, you must have a relationship for God, or maybe that's the same time. Maybe the righteousness and the friendship of God comes at the same time. I'm not sure how to lay that out, but we do know this, that after that comes the other things that we are more concerned with.
Then comes peace. Peace. First, righteousness, then peace. And you can't have the one without having already had the other. And you can't ever have the peace unless you have, first of all, been established in God with His righteousness.
Is that pretty much it? Yes. So you're saying as soon as you recognize that your call of God and you interact with Him, boom, right then you've got positional righteousness. You're now righteous. But there comes a process of expanding that by your righteous living.
And after you do that a while, then comes the peace and the harmony within the church. And there will never be harmony with everyone because not everyone can we have harmonious relationships with. Well, you can't be a friend of man and a friend of God at the same time.
If you're a friend of God, you have a desire for a deep, intimate longing for things of God. If you are of God's, you have a deep, intimate longing for the things that are of God. But if you are of the world, you have a deep, intimate longing for things that are of the world.
And if you have that, that gives evidence that you're not redeemed. If you have your longing is for things of the world rather than things of God, then that's evidence that you're not His. Now there is a necessary corollary of friendship with the world.
That's enmity with God. If you're a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God. Now, there are many verses that tell that truth. I picked one, 1 John 2, verses 15, 16, and 17. 1 John 2, verse 17. No, 15.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Pretty straightforward. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but it's of the world.
That's pretty clear too. And the world passes away, and the lust of the world pass away. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. That was 1 John 2, verses 15, 17. Now, here is a verse that a lot of people struggle with.
Do you think that the Spirit saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? What's he talking about? What Spirit dwells within us? Anybody know the Spirit that dwells in us? I'm talking about Christian believers now, and you're going to want to say, the Holy Spirit.
And I will grant you that the Holy Spirit does indwell in you if you're a believer. I'm not questioning that. But what about this? The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy. What's that talking about?
It's not talking about the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit never lusteth to envy. So what's it talking about? What we sometimes call the old man. The old man. You know, we got the new man right away, but we still have the old man hanging around with us.
It's best understood as reference not to the Holy Spirit, but the human spirit that dwells in us. The old man. James' point is that an unbelieving person's inner person is bent on evil. Actually, an unbeliever's inner man is bent on evil.
But what's in there to prohibit that, to interfere with that, is the Holy Spirit. The indwelling Holy Spirit, that you have that, it will guide you away from that and make you, although you sometimes have these earthly sensual desires, it'll guide you away from those back to the desires that you should have.
And then it goes on in chapter five, not chapter five, but verse six rather, to say, but he giveth more grace. Now he's kind of changed the tone a little bit. Do you think that the Spirit saith in vain, the Spirit, I did that bad.
Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth the envy, but he giveth more grace? Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Okay.
So what's he saying? The only ray of hope in man's spiritual darkness is what? The sovereign grace of God. That alone can rescue man from his propensity to lust for evil things. I don't care. I don't care how good you think you are, how good I think I am.
There are times when I lust for evil things. I still want to be seen as the brightest light in the room. I still want to be seen as the best athlete in the room. If I play golf, I want to be seen as the best golfer.
I still want that. Now the Lord humbles me many times and tells me that I'm none of those things, but that's not what keeps me from lusting after them. What keeps me from lusting after them is the sovereign grace of God.
The grace that God gives me to allow me to refrain from those things. That he gives more grace, more grace shows that his grace is greater than the power of sin, the flesh, the world, and even Satan. What was that little guy's name that used to say, Satan, the devil made me do it.
I can't think of his name now, but you know, you know that guy. Who? Yeah, Flip Wilson. The devil made me do it. No, the devil didn't make him do it. The devil just suggested that he do it, and he was eager to comply.
The devil can't make you do anything that you don't want to do, but you'll want to do it if the Holy Spirit doesn't intervene, and those who obtain God's grace are the humble friends of God, not the proud enemies of God.
Now verse 7, submit yourself therefore to God. That's a willing, conscious submission to God's authority as sovereign ruler of the universe. A truly humble person will give his allegiance to God, obey his commands, and follow his leadership.
Now there's a second half to that verse. The first half was, submit yourself therefore to God. What's the second half of that verse? Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. That's the flip side of the first command.
The first command, submit yourself to God. This is the flip side. It means, take your stand against. All people are either under the lordship of Christ or the lordship of Satan. There's no middle ground.
First John chapter 3 verses 8 and 9 says this, he that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he may destroy the works of the devil.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. Now what does that mean? Does that mean that once you have accepted, received, as Brother Otis would say, you have received the lordship of God, does that mean you never commit another sin?
Or does it only mean that the Lord knows that you're going to commit that sin, and he's already provided the antidote for it, the solution for it? All you have to do is repent, and it's already been accounted for.
But there's no middle ground. Those who transfer their allegiance from Satan to God will find that Satan will flee from them, for he is a defeated foe. But don't think you can chase him off by yourself.
It's only God that can cause the devil to flee from you. Verse 8, draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. Okay, salvation requires more than submitting to God and resisting the devil.
What else does it involve? What else does salvation involve more than submitting to God and resisting Satan? Well, we touched on that a minute ago. The redeemed heart longs for, yearns for what? Fellowship with God.
If you're not longing for fellowship with God, you probably need to rethink what you're doing. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. This is a picture of people who give no thought to God, who give no thought to God, life, death, sin, judgment, or holiness.
James called on such people to mourn their sin, like the publican did in Luke when it says, the publican standing afar off would not so much as lift his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
He was mourning. He understood, and Jesus went on to say, I tell you this, that man went to his house justified rather than the other. The other one was the Pharisee who stood afar off and prayed, Lord, thank you that I'm like this publican.
That one didn't get any resolution to his problem, but the publican did. Humble yourself in the eye of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. It reminded me of an old country song I heard, and I can't remember anything much about it except some of the lyrics.
It's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way. You remember that? You've heard that song? It's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way. That's what man is like when he is without God.
He thinks he is perfect in all that he does, and it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in all your ways. When you're the best golfer on the course, and when you're the best looking guy in the room, and when you're the tallest guy and the smartest guy, and you got the best hair, you got the best clothes, you got the best car, you got the best girlfriend or the best wife, you got the best of everything.
It's hard to be humble when you got all the things you want, but it's not hard to be humble when you're in the presence of a majestic, infinitely holy God. It's not hard to be humble when you're in the presence of God.
The universal reaction of men in the presence of God is to do what? Fall on their face, every one of them. In fact, I think it was Brother David last week that was talking about Job, and Job was obviously laying down face on his own ground in the presence of God, and God said, stand up and be a man.
Isn't that where that came from? That thought is wavering through my mind. Stand up and be a man. Don't lay flat on your face. You think you're God, you stand up and look at me. You stand up, you tell me.
You tell me how the sun shines. You tell me how gravity keeps you on the earth. You tell me how gravity even exists. The universal reaction when men are in the presence of God is to fall on their faces.
Now, verse 11, speak not evil of one another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
Now, be careful. This means to slander or defame. God does not forbid confronting those that are in sin. In fact, He told us many places elsewhere to do that. What He's condemning is careless, derogatory, critical, slanderous accusations against others.
In Matthew 18, He tells how to deal with a brother that's in sin. Chapter 18, verse 15 of Matthew,. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.
So if he's sinned against you, tell him. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
So if he won't listen to you, bring somebody with you, somebody of the church, and confront them. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church. And if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.
So you're told to confront sin. You're told how to confront it. Not to falsely accuse, not to judge and say, you're doing wrong and to mistreat him, mislabel him. Verse 12,. For there is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy.
Who art thou that judgeth another? So it is God who gave the law. He alone has the authority to save those who repent. You can't do anything about someone who repents. You confront somebody and he repents of it.
You can't do a thing. It's now in God's hands. Well, it was always in God's hands, wasn't it? He alone has the authority to save those who repent from its penalty and to destroy those who refuse to repent.
And if they refuse, because he knows more than you know. We think we know all of the surroundings, but we don't. Sometimes we judge people based upon what we think we know, and we don't know the real reason.
God does, and so God will always judge properly, and we won't. Well, that's verse 12, and we managed to get through. Any questions? Comments? Yes, sir. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. There's many things, but it's very hard not to ask selfishly, to ask for a spouse because you want one.
Even though you say, if I had one, I could be a better person. Well, you don't know that. You don't know that if you had a spouse, you would be better. You may be better. You may be worse. So he is absolutely right.
You can carry things away too much, and you can think you're asking for things that are in God's will, but if he doesn't give them to you, they weren't in his will. Any others? Yes, and it's not to be compassionate to people in the world.
It's not to love the people of the world. It's not even to love the world. It's to love the world and the things of the world rather than love the things of God, because all the things that are in the world are in the world only because God put them there.
If God didn't put them there, they wouldn't be there. So it's proper to love, but it's not proper to not love things of God. So we've got to be careful with that. I agree with you. Yourself. Yeah, and that would be the answer to this case.
When you're helping the widow and the orphan, are you helping the widow and the orphan because I want somebody to see me helping the widow and the orphan. I want to drop my coin in the basket and with a lot of blowing of horns so that everybody sees me dropping it in there, or I want to do it to honor God, and that's the key.
Is it done to honor God or is it done to honor yourself? Well, if they see what you're doing, that's not why you did it. Why you did it was because you were trying to do God's will. They only see that you did it.
The world sees. They see the light, but whether you're rewarded for it or not depends upon whether what reason that you did it. God knows that, and even you know that. I don't know that. I don't know that about you.
You may not even know it totally about you. God knows exactly why you did it, and that's because you're not doing it for the reward. You're doing it for the glory of God. If that's the reason, it is always good, I think, and we don't want to do that either.
Anything else? Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together again to worship you. Bless us and keep us. Go through the day today. Continue to bless us in all that we do, and keep us doing things that we do in order to honor you.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.