Conflict with God: Part 1

Conflict with God and the Danger of Friendship with the World

Good place to start right there. That's where our text has taken us this morning is because if you're at friends with God and reconciled to God and at peace with God, then you're out of danger. But if you are an enemy of God, then you're in severe danger.

And this is what the text is talking about today before us. If we're a friend of the world, then we're an enemy of God. But I like to flip that, and there's a verse that James speaks about this later on, we'll be looking at it, but we want to be like Abraham, we want to be a friend of God, not friends.

With the world.

So, we're going to be looking at this morning, what does it mean to be at war with God, enmity against God, conflict with God, hostility toward God. So the text that is before us is James chapter 4, so go with me please to James chapter 4.

Now, I'd like to read just three verses, and let me read, I'm going to give you some different translations here, I'm going to read two translations, I'm going to give it to you from the authorized old King James version, and then I'm going to give it from the new King James.

And I believe it would help us in a great way, of what the Word of God is saying to us this morning, as we hear these powerful verses of Scripture, and this is the heart.

Of this epistle.

This is what I would say the gospel according to James. And he comes on very strong as a doctor, as a physician, as we were talking, almost in a surgical way, that he does surgery, and boy does he do surgery.

And the sword is two-edged, it's very sharp here. So hear the word of the living God, I'm going to first read from the old King James, then I'm going to read it from the new King James. Just three verses of Scripture, beginning with verse four.

So hear the word of God. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the Scripture saith in vain that the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

Verse six, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. And then the new King James reads this, adulterers and adulteresses, very similar, but there is some slight differences.

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity or hostility with or toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealousy, but he gives more grace, therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

That's the word of God to us this morning. Let's pray. Our Father, we would pray that your blessed Holy Spirit would give each and every one of us this morning in this room an unction from the Holy One, because Father, my words are nothing, your words are everything.

Your words are spirit and they are life. There is the power in your word to give eternal life. Father, we call on your name. Be glorified in every word that is spoken. Honor your word. Glorify your word above all things.

And as has already been spoken this morning, your word goes forth and it does not return to you void. It accomplishes exactly what you have sent it to do. So Father, may it produce good fruit. May it fall on good ground this morning and Lord, may it not only convict the comfortable, but also comfort the afflicted.

Lord, we thank you for this word and above all, may we apply it to our hearts that we may be doers of the word and not only hearers. So help us by your Holy Spirit, Lord, as your servant hears this morning, attune our hearts to hear that we may give glory to Jesus Christ.

In his name we pray, amen. There is the effects of the conflict here and the conflict is with God. My two points is basically, we have the conflict and we have the cure. I'm going to focus on the conflict more than anything.

Then we're going to go to the cure and what does the word of God have to say about that? No doubt within the text that we have presented before us in these three verses is a great deal of what James is saying about pride promotes strife.

But there is dangers of being friends with the world and that's what we're going to focus on this morning. I'm going to do this. This is a part one of a three part series and then Lord willing, I believe Brother Keith is going to have a word to say probably in those lines.

I'm not sure what text he's going to, I'm going to be out of town as the Lord wills at the end of the month, the last Lord's day of the month and I believe he's going to have a word. I'll be praying for Brother Keith on this as well.

But I'm breaking this up in different parts because there's so much that needs to be said or so much that can be said about the dangers of being friends with the world. There is a severe danger. So the text before us is in verses four through six, we have that nature of the choice.

The real issue that's really given to us by the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit through the pen of the Apostle James, who's the servant of the Lord here, is whom will I love or whom do I love?

What is the love of our heart?

Word of God has a lot to say about love and hate and the question is this, do I love God or do I love the world? That's really the issue here. That's really the question and that is the severity of this question and it's the seriousness of this question is so important and that's what James is driving at.

The commentator, one commentator by the name of Mayer puts it this way, quote, in the simplest sense of the word, the world is in each man's natural environment. That into which he enters at birth and from which he departs in death.

It is the immediate present, the seen, the temporal in which our senses bear witness in contrast to the unseen and the eternal, end quote, and so true is this. Now, the word world, let's go right into the word study here.

The word, the world is in the Greek cosmos, cosmos. He's speaking of the world order. That's what he's talking about. He's not talking about the trees, the grass and the fields and everything that God's made.

He's talking about the world order. It is the adorning, it's culture, it's the values and the morals that he's speaking about here, that he talks about the world and urges us to love this world that urges each and every one of us to love ourselves more and to put our pleasures before God's pleasures.

Let me say that very close because there is pleasure in loving God and serving God. There is delighting in God and there's also a delight in the world. So which direction is our desires going, our heart going?

So we need to search our hearts and this, is it the world's desires, the world's pleasures or is it God's desires and God's pleasures? And the difference is regeneration. That's the difference. And if we agree with that idea, speaking of the world, we're unfaithful as the Lord's spiritual brides.

And this is where I want to go here. We have deliberately chosen to follow the world's philosophy rather than God's will and God's desire and what God delights in. We cannot be on friendly terms with the world and God at the same time.

And this is what the scripture is speaking about. If we follow God, we will follow God's ways. It's almost as if Elijah says, who's on the Lord's side? Yeah, it was Elijah that said that. Step over here.

Who's on Baal's side? Over here. I believe Joshua said the same thing. Joshua, all these men of God, there's a line of demarcation. And what's so sad about this and tragic about this in our day in churches is that people that call themselves Christians have tried to gray the area.

They have polluted it. They have corrupted it. And we see this in the name of God. And there's blasphemy. And there's people that try to justify their sinning and try to gray. It's almost like they're trying to rub out the line of demarcation.

But God says there's a line of demarcation. Jesus drew the line of demarcation. Now, by the philosophy and definition of the world, again, it's meaning the general laws and the knowledge of the general laws and the principles of nature of the world.

And again, Jesus said this. And on Jesus, when He was preaching on the Sermon on the Mount, and I really do believe that this is where James' mind is. He's thinking and reflecting upon Jesus' teaching.

So what did Jesus say? And this is a very strong verse. And I've always thought that this verse is one of the most striking, the most powerful verses. All the words of Jesus, of course, is like that. But this one, Jesus draws a line of demarcation.

In Matthew 6, verse 24, Jesus said this. No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one.

Notice what He says.

Either he hate the one and love the other. Or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon money. So basically, Jesus is defining love and hate. He says more about love and hate than anyone else could ever say it.

He says it clearly too, doesn't He? You see, the world wants us to exclude God. The world wants us to exclude God from every aspect of our life. And the world does a pretty good job at it too. The devil is very busy about it as well.

And on the contrary, God desires and wants us to include Him in life. Include Him in every aspect of our life. Because He, after all, is all about life. And He is life. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by Me. He is life to the Christian. He is everything. It's interesting that there was a truck driver, and I know him. He professes to be a Christian. And I pray that he is.

But he posted on Facebook one time. And he said, I've just been contemplating the question about what is life about? And I'm thinking, a Christian should know that. A Christian should know what that is.

And I tried to be very... And I answered it. I jumped on that one right away. And I tried to be very careful, not trying to sound pharisaical. But I said, how can I do this in a way that would not come across like, Oh, you know, I'm self-righteous.

I know all the answers. Here. And I just started giving God's Word. I said, the Christian basically looks to Jesus. John chapter 10, verse 10. Jesus says, I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.

Now that doesn't mean that we live it up in riches and everything in this world. But Jesus is talking about that abundant life is in Himself.

That's right.

And of course, the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy. But I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. But I did try to divide the line here. And I said, okay, when I'm talking about life, when Jesus talks about life, there's a Greek word.

We get the word zoe. Zoe is God's life. God is the life of God because life is in God.

That's good.

And praise God. And then I said, okay, whether you have the life of God or you don't have the life of God. Okay, I said, the life that now, are you trying to define that the life that you're talking about is bios?

That's where we get by ology. Brother Keith knows what I'm talking about here because he's studied in this field. But that's where ology, of course, is to study up. Bio, that's where we get the Greek word.

And that's the other Greek word of bios. So that means in which life is derived from. It's that word that we go through every day. We live, we breathe, we get up, we go to work, we get caught up. And all the things that we do.

Now, I said, you take zoe. Zoe is God's life. It exceeds our life that we go through in this world. And then I basically said, and I put those two words side by side and I compared them. And I said, you see, you're not going to understand what bios is until you know what zoe is.

Because the life in which God gives is real life. And that's the life that he came to give through Jesus Christ, his son. When Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I like the way Ravenhill put it.

I am the way, without him there's no going. I am the truth, without him there's no knowing. And I am the life, and without him there's no growing. Now I said, I like that. Because in Jesus is everything.

He's all in all. He is our life. And that's what the text is talking about. And the apostle Paul says, Christ who is our life. We're hid with Christ in God. And one commentator says this. One man who makes worldly success his aim can be also a friend of God.

I'm sorry, no man who makes worldly success his aim can be also a friend of God. So what he's saying is, you cannot be a friend of God and a friend of the world at the same time. So really that's what our text is talking about.

So if you look at verse 2, here in chapter 4. James, the apostle, the servant of the Lord, continues to talk about the effects that the lust, or you could say, another word for lust is basically worldly desires.

If you're going to define lust in the old King James, he's basically talking about worldly desires. Beloved, can I say this? That is an enemy of God. That is the enemy of the true Christian, is the worldly desires.

And that's what we've got to fight against. Now, it was having on these believers in James' time. In verse 2, he says this. You lust, you do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask.

And then he says that when you do ask, you ask out of the wrong motives. You see, their fighting and their quarreling impacted their relationship with each other. And that's what was happening. They were at war with each other.

And now he moves in on this verse here. Now he says, if you're at war among each other, more likely you're at war against God. And now here in verse 4, we see that the lust was having an impact on their relationship with God.

And usually, if it is with each other, there's something wrong with your relationship with God. Guaranteed. And that's where James goes. So first we see James says, you're unfaithful.

That's what he says.

Now this is strong, strong truth. Now, Pastor, I don't see where he says unfaithful. When he basically says, ye adulteresses or adulterers, he's basically saying you're unfaithful.

That's what he's saying.

Their selfish desires has led to spiritual adultery. That's what he's talking about. Adultery has been used throughout the Bible as a metaphor, or to use one of the words for another in a figurative sense, to describe spiritual adultery or unfaithfulness to God.

Now keep in mind, the Jewish Christian understood this because the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah and even Hosea used it when rebuking Judah and Israel for their unfaithfulness. You know, you see this, and through Jeremiah, the prophet, you see this in Ezekiel, the prophet that spoke of Judah as an adulterous wife.

That's what he said in Ezekiel 16 .32. And he says, who takes strangers instead of her husband. See, here's an object lesson. The Lord even commanded Hosea the prophet, and Hosea won too. I'll quote it.

When the Lord began to speak, the Lord said to Hosea, could you imagine this? Go take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.

So he did this to teach a lesson. So if you go back to James, what he's talking about here, the oldest manuscripts omit adulterers. Isn't that interesting? The oldest manuscripts omit adulterers and basically reads, ye adulteresses, you adulteresses.

God is, in other words, God is the rightful husband. That's what he's talking about. See, we have to go back into the Old Testament to see what James is doing. But see, that's what James, when he speaks of this, his audience is being Jewish.

They get this. They know exactly what James is talking about. So when he's talking about adulteresses, he's saying, you know, God is your rightful owner, the rightful husband of you. The men of the world are regarded collectively as one adulteress and individually as adulteresses.

Now I'm going to quote a good bit from Albert Barnes here because I've been studying Barnes's commentary along with MacArthur's commentary. Now, I want to confess to you something this morning, brothers and sisters in Christ.

I tell you, this pastor gets tempted sometimes to plagiarize, but I'm not going to go there. I'm telling you. Now, you may hear a lot of quotes from me, but I will not plagiarize. I've got a heavy schedule on me, and that temptation has hit me sometimes.

And I said, no, I'm going to stay pure, and I'm going to stay clean, and I'm going to not go into falsehood. I'm going to keep it truthful, and I'm going to say, Lord, I'm going to get on my face before you, and I'm going to hear from you.

And I said, this has got to be from a pastor's heart to God's people's hearts. So, pray for this pastor, okay? Right now, the schedule is really heavy on me, the milk route. It's going to be leaner later on.

But I said, no, I'm not going to enter into that temptation. So God's helping me, but I tell you, I praise God for that. But if I'm going to quote you something, I'm going to say quote. I'm going to give you commentator, and I'll let you know.

But it's not going to be plagiarism, okay? So I just wanted to confess that before you, in all honesty. But keep me in prayer on that. But I'm not going to enter into that temptation by God's grace and help.

Albert Barnes, I'm telling you, this man right here, lays it down. And I've got a few quotes from him on this sermon here. But listen to what he says here. This is what he says about spiritual adultery.

Quote, it is not necessary to suppose that the apostle meant that those to whom he wrote were literally guilty of the sins he refuted to. But he rather refers to those who were unfaithful to their covenant with God by neglecting their duty to him and yielding themselves to the indulgence of their own lust and passions.

He says this. The idea is you have in effect broken your marriage covenant with God by loving the world more than him and by the indulgence of your carnal worldly inclinations. You have violated these obligations to self-mortification and self-denial to which you were bound by your religious engagements.

And then he goes on to say this. To convince them of evil of this, the apostle shows them what was the true nature of that friendship of the world which they sought. It may be remarked here that no terms could have been found which would have shown more decisively the nature of sin of forgetting the covenant vows of God for the pleasures of the world than those which the apostle uses here.

He goes on to say this. It is a deeper crime to be unfaithful to God than to any created being. And it will yet be seen that even the vedation of the marriage contract the sin is a slight offense compared with the unfaithfulness towards God.

You see where he's getting at? He's saying your unfaithfulness to God by loving the world is really what's at stake here.

This is the key.

You're hurting the heart of God. No wonder Jesus gave the rebuke. And we'll see after a while that whoever Jesus rebukes in the seven churches in Asia in Revelation, he goes to them and he commends them to certain things.

In one of the churches he says, but nevertheless I have somewhat against you. You have left your first love. And I'm telling you, that's a sobering thing. It makes me search my own heart. I said, Lord, I want to make sure, is there anything else in my heart that's taken the place of you?

Oh God, strip it from me. May I mortify it. May I take it down and let Jesus be the first love of my life. This is what we've got to watch out for. There's so many things in this world that distracts us away from Jesus.

We must guard our hearts. For out of it is the issues of life. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are the bride of Christ according to the ancient Hebrew betrothal of a couple that was a covenant in Ezekiel 16 .8.

This is what the Ezekiel the prophet says. When I passed by you again and I looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love. So I spread my wing. That means the corner of my garment. Over you and covered your nakedness.

Yes, I swore an oath. This is God speaking. I swore an oath to you and I entered into a covenant with you. Now listen to the intimacy here. And you became mine, says the Lord.

Says the Lord.

You know, think of that. That's what communion's about.

Yeah, amen.

You see, that's why Paul says to the Corinth church, there's no light and darkness mix here. There's no idol and God you can serve at the same time. And that's why he goes on to say, and we'll see this in another sermon, but he says, come out from among them and be separate.

And then he gives his Old Testament scripture,.

Says the Lord of hosts.

And then God will say, hey, I'll be your God and I'll be a father to you. And you'll be my sons and you'll be daughters to me. And this is what, you see, you notice how the apostles do this? They go back to the prophets.

And we're not going to understand what James is talking about here until we understand what the prophets are saying.

Jesus did this.

You see, the prophets spoke this word and there is great lessons in the Old Testament about this. So there's a belonging to God. Now notice there's another statement here, which I refer to, the corner of my garment.

The time of love refers to a marriageable state. And notice here, spreading his wing was a custom of a spousal. Now listen to this, Ruth, how do we know this? Because Ruth 3 .9. Now we can go to Ruth here.

We're talking about something beautiful in an intimate relationship with God. He, Boaz, said, who are you? You know where I'm going. And she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. And then what does he say?

Take your, in other words, your garment, spread the corner of your garment over your maidservant. In other words, under your wing. Do you see the intimacy there? See the communion? See, that's what God wants us to see.

For you are a close relative. That's what he's saying. You are a close relative. The word close here in the Hebrew, you know what that word means in the Hebrew? Redeemer.

Come on, somebody.

Now, I could stop right there and preach all day.

Man, come on, Boaz.

Now, we're talking about God's Word. It's just not just another book to read. This is God's love letter to his bride.

That's right.

Come on, now.

You see the intimacy here?

Come on, Boaz.

The word close means redeemer. Jesus is our redeemer. Jesus has bought us off the slave market of sin. And that's why God says I'm jealous over you. You start being friends with the world, God's coming after you.

He's going to take the rod out and chasing us if we go straying after the world. You see how God paints these pictures. And don't you love these word studies? I'm telling you, these word studies just blow it up.

I said, wow.

When I was studying this, God walked all over me by the Holy Spirit. I said, you know, I need to be closer to the Lord. I said, Lord, forgive me for the times my heart, I might not have been doing it outwardly, but my heart was somehow having an inclination toward the world in some way.

And it's like God was just taking that pruning hook or something, just knocking it out of me.

But think of this, too.

The families of the bride and the groom met, Harry and Ruth, and some witnesses. The young man would give the young woman either a gold ring, and we're talking about here something intimate, or some article of value, or a simple document in which he promised to marry her.

We're talking about betrothal here. And then after a short speech, he would leave until the time the actual wedding came. This is the Old Testament, how they did the bride and groom deal of covenant. But in a betrothal.

So if the bride was found to be unfaithful, now listen to this. If the bride was found to be unfaithful, then he would give a bill of divorcement to break off the wedding. How do we know that? Because it goes back to Deuteronomy 24.

That's why the Pharisees, they try to trip Jesus up on this. Why would they give a bill of divorcement?

And Jesus says,.

Because of the hardness of your hearts. But originally, in the beginning, it was not so. And that's where Jesus always took it. He'd go back to Genesis. He just wouldn't take one verse. Jesus would take one verse and go again to another verse, and he'd take it to its context.

He was a master at that. After all, he was the Word. But here's another example here. Remember in Matthew 19, verse 8 and 9. Then Joseph, her husband, Matthew 1 .19, I'm sorry. 1 .19 is a good example.

Joseph, her husband, speaking of Joseph, Mary's husband, being a just man, was an upright man, and not wanting to make her, speaking of Mary, a public example, was mindful to put her away secretly. And God had to speak to him in a dream.

You see, and in this case,.

He got it.

But, which according to the Jewish custom, back to what it was referring to, was necessary to dissolve a betrothal. Now, this leads to what James is really saying in verse 4.

This is a powerful verse, beloved.

I've got to watch my time here because I can really get carried away. So, that's why I'm going to try to break these up in parts. I'm telling you, there's a lot here. And it's strong. Now, the old King James says, know you not that the friendship with the world is enmity with God.

New King James, do you not know? Every time it says, do you not know? Now, the old King James starts with, know you not. The new King James says, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Saying the same thing, just in a different way. The New American Standard Version says, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Now, we're talking about being friends with the world.

This is serious.

This is no doubt one of the most powerful, sobering questions that you can find in the pages of Scripture. This is the question of all questions. You think about what he's asking here.

What a truth.

The truth of God spoken in question form. I believe James learned it from Jesus. James, being the servant of God, he answers his own question, doesn't he? And it's black and white. There is no gray here.

The point he gets to, he said, whosoever. Now, I want you to think of that. Whosoever. Therefore, what would be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Now, I'd like to compare that verse. I don't want to be an enemy of God.

I want to be a friend of God. Now, who's the friend of God? Look at James 2 .23. He talks about this in the previous chapter. Go back to James 2 .23. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God and it was imputed, it was put in his account, the way we come to Christ, unto Him for righteousness.

We have the imputation of Jesus' righteousness on our account. Isn't that beautiful? Justification by faith alone. And by the way, Luther says he preached it every single week to his audience. And he asked himself the question, why do you preach justification by faith alone every week to your audience?

He says, because they forget it every week. I said, that is so right. We need to hear it. And by the way, it is the pillar of the gospel. It is the chief cornerstone. Justification by faith alone. And get this, James, he refers to this.

What does he say in verse 23? Abraham believed God. It was imputed unto him for righteousness. And he was called what? The friend of God. Now, this man was justified. He is a friend of God. And then James talks about his works.

Isn't that interesting? Now, he was justified by faith alone, but his works demonstrated that he was justified by faith alone. You see? He is not saying that his works in of itself justified him, but what he was saying by faith and what happened, it showed.

He obeyed. You see, this is the whole epistle of the gospel of James. He is saying, okay, if you are a friend of God, then it is going to show in your obedience to God. That is what he is saying. Now, here is the question.

Are you a friend of God, or are you a friend of the world? This question needs to be asked in every church in this nation. This is a serious heart question. The answer will really determine our destiny.

Let's look at this important word, friendship. Now, let's look at it. This is important. I have more to say about this later. I want to try to squeeze this in. The word friendship translates the noun philea.

Philea.

Or philea. Let me say that.

Philea.

Where we get Philadelphia. The city of brotherly love.

Philea.

It means fondness in the Greek. It means to be fond. It is used here in the New Testament as a firborn phileo, which is often rendered love. You have other verses of Scripture in this. It even is used of the father's love for Jesus.

Now, as you well know, there's different Greek words for love. You have agape. You have phileo and erios. As you do a word study on each one, one's God's love, which is above all loves. That's agapeo.

Then you have phileo. Friendship love, which is affectionate. Then you have erios, which is more emotional. But here, James is using phileo. Here in this word, he speaks of the father's love. You can find this in John 5 .20.

Jesus spoke, this is the kind of fatherly love for the son. He had in 5 .20, I quote it to you, for the father loveth the son and showeth him all things that himself doeth. And he will show him greater works than these.

That you may marvel.

I don't know about you, I want to marvel, don't you? At God, at what God does. And he speaks of that kind of love toward Jesus. And for those who have saving faith, that's in the family of God, he speaks of this love in John 11 .3.

Speaking of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, he says, therefore his sisters, Mary and Martha, sent unto him Jesus, saying, Lord, behold, whom thou lovest is sick. That word lovest, or love, there is phileo.

It's the friendship love. It's a deep, intimate friendship love. And also in John 16 .27, Jesus said, for the father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God.

Revelation 3 .19, the scripture here says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent.

That's where love leads us.

To repentance.

The goodness of God, the love of God.

Leads us to repentance.

And if you look with me very quickly, look at this, the same is being used in John 15. Go with me there. Chapter 15, notice this. There's many, many scriptures I can go to here, but just look at two. Chapter 15, look at 15 and 16.