How to Draw Near to God: Part 2

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How to Draw Near to God: Part 3

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In James chapter 4, we are looking at verses 6 -10, hear the word of the living
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God. He begins by saying, but He gives a greater grace, therefore it says, speaking of the scriptures,
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God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble, submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to God and he will draw near to you, cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded, be miserable and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
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And then He says once again, humble yourselves in the presence of the
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Lord and He will exalt you. May God bless the reading of His words to our hearts this morning.
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Let's pray. Father, I want to say a short prayer. Lord speak, for your servant hears, in Jesus' name,
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Amen. Wonderful verses before us and it's going to take us still some time to get through it, so in no hurry, we want to draw out, as one old preacher said, when
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I eat steak, and you know how well I love steak, and I'm looking at Miss Sherry over here. I know she loves steak too.
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You want to draw out all you can of the juices. So the word of God is like steak.
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It's meaty. There's nothing there that doesn't have nutrition and a lot of meat to it.
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The word of God does. Let me give you something of what Spurgeon says about humility and the verses set before us, humility is really the key because if you notice in verse 6, he speaks that God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.
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And then in verse 10, he says, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you.
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So humility is the key for this. That's how we draw nigh to God. Now he gives bullet points on how we can draw nigh to God.
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There's submission to God. There's resistance against the devil. There's that drawing to God and then he says, cleansing your hands, purifying your hearts, and then he calls them double -minded, that's what they are, because they're worldly.
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So he deals with really the cure for worldliness. Verse 9, and then he says, be miserable, mourn and weep, that's godly sorrow.
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Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. So there needs to be some repentance going on, contrition, that's what he's talking about, and then humble yourselves.
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Now humility is really the key. Spurgeon said it like this, humble your hearts, seek grace and therefore they get it.
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Humble hearts yield to sweet influences of grace and so it is bestowed on them more and more largely.
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Humble hearts lie in the valleys where streams of grace are flowing and hence they drink of them.
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Humble hearts are grateful for grace and give the Lord the glory of it and hence it is consistent with his honor to give it to them.
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And then he says this, come dear reader, take a lowly place, be little in thy own esteem, that the
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Lord may make much of thee. And perhaps the sigh breaks out, I fear
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I am not humble. Well it may be that this is the language of true humility.
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Some are proud of being humble and this is one of the very worst sorts of pride.
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We are needy, helpless, undeserving, hell deserving creatures and if we are not humble we ought to be.
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Let us humble ourselves because of our sins against humility and then the
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Lord will give us the taste of his favor. It is grace which makes us humble and grace which finds in this humility and an opportunity for pouring in more grace.
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Let us go down that we may rise and let us be poor in spirit that God may make us rich and let us be humble that we may not need to be humbled but may be exalted by the grace of God.
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Amen. Well a Spurgeon could put it in words that are so direct and pointed.
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But first of all our text says he gives a greater grace, a greater grace.
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You know you think of his only ray of hope in man's spiritual darkness is his sovereign grace that comes and intervenes in our lives.
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A greater grace shows that his grace is greater than the power of sin, grace greater than all of our sin as the hymn writer says.
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It is a grace that is greater than not only the sin but the world, the flesh and the devil. And God reveals his grace to the humble.
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He gives us the grace and the same Holy Spirit convictedness of our compromise will also grant us the grace to serve
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God as we should. And this grace only comes to the humble, to those who are broken hearted and humble.
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That is the grace he speaks of. Now before us we have really what
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I say the Ten Commandments of resolving conflict. These are the things that James speaks of in verses 6 through 10.
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We looked at it briefly last week and I'm going to cover some same territory again so if you wasn't here you're going to get pretty much a big portion of what
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I covered last week. So in verse 7 through 12, or 6 through 10
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I should say, the apostle gives us the Ten Commands in the Greek imperative mood so that we'll resolve conflicts.
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And the first thing he says here is submit therefore to God, submit.
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We saw that this word submission in the Greek is a military word.
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It's a military word. It's a commanding word. It's a word of command. It means to yield, to obey, to subject oneself and line up oneself under someone else's authority.
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We are to place ourselves under the complete and absolute command of Almighty God.
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He is the commander -in -chief. And to stay there. Now that's the key right there.
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A lot of times we want to move back and do our own thing, self -will.
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And the opposite of self -will is God's will. You have God's will and our will.
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Now God breaks in and He desires for us to have our will bent to His will.
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He doesn't resolve our will. We die to self, but He desires for us to be willing to submit to His will.
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So to do this means that we must accept God's will for our lives instead of chasing after our own desires.
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Now often you see, even in our own lives, that we get in big trouble when we do our own thing and we chase our own desires.
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There are examples in Scripture that come to mind, the people who submitted to God's will and they did not get there automatically.
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I think about the old patriarch Abraham. What a great example. You notice
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Paul uses him as a great example for us through the book of Romans, and James does too.
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He's the father of our faith. But what a great example. That's why it's so important to read as we're reading through Genesis in our time of the
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Word and worship, but in your devotional time, read through the Scriptures because when you get the whole story of these patriarchs and these prophets and God's people and you take it all the way through the
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Scriptures and you've got David and the Psalms and then finally it's all leading to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You see, these are people that we can learn so much and they were very real.
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Like Elijah, he had like passions, like he became afraid even after the great victory at Mount Carmel and God, he prays a prayer, he was shut in with God and God says go hide yourself and then eventually he says go show yourself and he goes and shows himself before Ahab and he had no problem with King Ahab, but that Jezebel he had a problem with.
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And Jezebel threatened to get him and take his life and he ran like a scared rabbit.
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And you see, he had like passions. He was afraid. And you would think, a man of God like this?
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After seeing fire come down from heaven? But he was afraid of Jezebel. You know, examples like that really encourage me because it makes you say these are people, these are men of God and they did incredible things for God of the like of which we could never do.
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You had Isaiah the prophet that did incredible things, unusual things
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God told him to do. And you look at it, wow, how did they do it?
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The Spirit of God was just so empowering them to do these things. An example,
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I think it was Isaiah or Ezekiel or Jeremiah, one of them had to lay on his side for 300 and something days or something.
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Just incredible. You read that in scriptures and you think, what in the world is God doing? But see, God knows exactly what he's doing.
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Abraham. If you look in Genesis 22, go with me very quickly. We turn to this wonderful chapter so many times, but we're talking about submission.
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Where do you see submission? Well, you see submission in Abraham. And this is a pinnacle chapter because he's offering up Isaac before the
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Lord, right? And you see that in this chapter that he reaches this plateau of faith that is very strong.
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But he did not get there overnight. There was times he was fearful. And that's the opposite of faith, is fearfulness.
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And he lied. And because of being fearful, he lied while he was in Egypt to Pharaoh about Sarah, his wife.
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You remember that. And the plagues came. And Abraham knew why. Because he lied.
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And eventually he confessed it. But there he was, a man of God, fearful.
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He was lying. He was not trusting God. And his wife
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Sarah, later on, did the same thing. She basically came up with the plot to take
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Ishmael. Anyway, Hagar, I'm sorry.
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And then Ishmael came out of that. So oh, the trouble that gets us in when we're fearful.
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Lord help us. But right here in this chapter, he is under submission. And what
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I'm trying to say is faith and submission tie together. And we read the story and look at verse 1.
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Now, it came about that after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him,
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Abraham. He calls out to him. Now keep in mind, God is the commander in chief, right?
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And he said, here I am. There's a first word of submission there.
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Here I am. I'm before you. God says, take now your son, your only son, whom you love,
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Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which
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I will tell you. God's given the orders. He's given the directions. So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son.
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He split wood for the burnt offering and rose and went to the place of which God had told him.
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He did exactly what God told him to. On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes.
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I love this. You can picture this in your mind. He's far off. He raised his eyes and he saw the place from a distance.
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And you just can't imagine what was going through this old patriarch's mind. And you've got to think of it.
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And the son in whom he loved, he had in old age, was a promise from God. And all the promises of God and the covenants was in this one son.
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Everything. The blessing, the eternal covenant.
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And then he says this. He sees it from a distance and then Abraham said to his young men, stay here.
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Now this is faith talking. Now notice what he says. Stay here with the donkey. And I and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you.
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We're coming back. Now isn't that amazing? Yes. Amen. Both. Now is that submission or what?
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Here's a man that is in submission to God. He is going to do exactly what
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God says. And faith was abounding because he knew him and the lad was coming back.
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We're coming back. And the writer of Hebrews said even if he were to slay him, he knew that God was able to raise him from the dead.
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He knew that God can do anything. Praise God. Praise God. Abraham took the woods and the birth offering, laid it on Isaac, his son.
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He took it in his hand and the fire and the knife, everything ready. So the two of them walked on together.
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This is interesting. Now we see Abraham's viewpoint, but what about Isaac's viewpoint? What if you're
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Isaac? Yeah. Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, my father, oh, isn't that beautiful the way the scriptures just gets right to him, my father.
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And he said, here I am, my son. And he said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?
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And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.
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And so the two of them walked together. And you're going to read it. And then they came to the place which
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God had told them. And Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and abound his son
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Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood, my, my, my.
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What was going through Isaac's mind, what was Abraham thinking? But you know, Abraham knew God was going to provide even to the very last minute.
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And Abraham stretched out his hand, you could see it, and took the knife to slay his son. And then right there in verse 11, but the angel of the
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Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here
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I am. And he said, do not stretch out your hand against the land and do nothing to him for now
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I know that you fear God. Since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.
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And then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold, behind him a ram, not a lamb.
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God provided the lamb on Mount Calvary. This was a ram. This was the sacrifice.
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Caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.
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And Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide, Jehovah -Jireh basically.
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As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it will be provided.
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Now there you have a story of submission. That's submission. Submission. When God says it, we trust
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God, we believe that God is going to do exactly what he says. Even though it may not make sense.
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You've got to remember, these were times when human sacrifices were being made in pagan ways in his culture.
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Abraham could have easily thought, well hold on Lord, this is pagan. But God says, you do what
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I say. Even though it did not make sense to him, but God knew. And now we see the beautiful types and the shadows of the
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Lord Jesus Christ in this. Of offering his life up before the Father. It's beautiful.
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Another example comes to me, is Job. Job is right there, let me see, it's right after Nehemiah, I'm sorry, after Esther.
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The story of Esther. And it's right before Psalms. But you know, if you think of it, if you read it, the book of Job is one of the oldest books of the
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Bible. You have these many parts, 66 books compiled into one.
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But really Job, if you were to go by age, should be the oldest. Genesis is where it's at because of the origins of everything.
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But Job, the age, is one of the oldest. Job is an interesting character, and we know that he's a man of God.
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If you go to Job chapter 1, we see that Job's character is absolutely one with an integrity.
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And he keeps his integrity before God. He's tested.
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Now we see on the other side, because of revelations revealed to us, that Job did not see.
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And aren't you amazed and aren't you glad for that? But what
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I'd like to point out, here is another type of submission that's given.
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After Job loses everything he has, he loses his wealth, he loses everything he has, and you're talking about all 7 ,000 sheep, all 3 ,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, servants, and all his, and then he loses all that, everything that belongs to him.
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He loses all 10 of his children. All this just like, if you read it, just comes and just pours one after one after one, and he's tested, and then eventually loses his health.
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And then, what does he do? I see submission here. This is why I'm bringing this out.
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Look at verse 20, Job arose and tore his robe. You can almost see it.
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He tore his robe and he shaved his head, and that was an act of humility, by the way, and he fell to the ground and worshipped and said, naked
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I come from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. He was ready to die, folks.
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This is submission. And then the Lord gave, and he says, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
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There's a great theology right there, if we can understand that. God is the one that gives, and God is the one that has the right to take away if he so does.
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But notice where his heart was bent. His heart was bent to worshipping God and God alone, and he says, blessed be the name of the
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Lord, and through all this Job did not sin, nor did he blame God.
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How many people that you know, that when they lose a lost loved one, and it's so hard, a child, and you hear people say,
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God took them. But they're angry with God, yeah, God did take them, but they blame
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God. But they never give thanks to the blessing.
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But even if we do, as God's children, we thank him for giving, and we thank him for taking away.
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And that's understanding who God is, because he is the one that has the rights to do that.
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Because it all belongs to him. But see, that's what I'm talking about, we're talking about submission.
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We submit under God's authority, because he has the right, and when he's talking about I yield and obey and I subject, we subject ourselves and arrange and line up under his authority, that's what he's talking about.
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You go to the book of Daniel. Here's another example. Now I'm just thinking of some that comes to my mind, and some of my favorite stories in scripture.
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If you go with me to chapter 3 of Daniel, don't you love this story here?
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You know where I'm going? How about those three Hebrew children? What about their test?
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Don't you love this story? Now Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we know that that's the heathen names that's given to them.
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They have Hebrew names, they were given different names. And if you read it here, you know the story, you know the story.
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They refused to bow to any idol, because God's first. Now there's the authority,
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Nebuchadnezzar is kind of, you know, he's king and he's ruling on his throne, and you are to be in submission to these, but when they go against God's authority, that's a different thing.
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So they said, okay, we're not going to bow, we're not going to bow to anybody's authority no matter what it is, even if it costs us our life.
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And that's what it came to right here. Now look at, let me start with verse 13.
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Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and anger gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then these three men were brought before the king.
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This is a great story. Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and worship the golden image that I have set up?
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Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, the lute, the lyre, the tygron, and the psaltery, and the bagpipe, and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made very well.
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But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire.
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And what God, in small g, is there who can deliver you out of my hands?
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Listen to his boastfulness there, his pride. Well in verse 16,
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, oh Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter.
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Listen to that faith there. That's faith. If it be so, our
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God, capital, our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of a blazing fire, and he will deliver us out of your hand, oh king.
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Notice what he said, not might, but he will. Verse 18, but even if he does not, even if he does not, let it be known to you, oh king, that we are not going to serve your gods, or worship the golden image that you have set up.
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In other words, we are not going to bow to you, but we do bow to our
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God. Because God, in other words, they are in full submission. They have placed their lives under, lined it up under God Almighty.
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You read the story, it goes on, don't you? I got to keep on reading, I love this story. When Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath, his facial expression was altered toward Shadrach, Nemesha, and Abednego.
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Isn't that interesting how the scriptures give that? You can see his countenance, just like. He got so angry, and he answered by giving orders to heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated.
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Heated up more. He commanded certain valiant warriors who were in his army to tie up Shadrach, Nemesha, and Abednego in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire.
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And then these men were tied up in their trousers, and their coats, and their caps, and their other clothes, and were cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire.
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And for this reason, because the king's command was urgent, and the furnace had been made extremely hot, the flame of fire slew those men who carried up Shadrach, Nemesha, and Abednego.
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It killed them. This must have been one hot furnace. But these three men,
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Shadrach, Nemesha, and Abednego, fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire, still tied up.
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Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and stood up in haste, and he said to his high officials, was it not three men we cast down into the midst of the fire?
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They replied to the king, certainly, O king. In verse 25 he said, well look,
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I see four men loose walking about in the midst of the fiery furnace without harm.
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And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. He had no idea, but he knew there was four in there.
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And he had no idea who that fourth one was, but we know who that fourth one was. That was the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire and responded and said,
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Shadrach, Nesha, and Abednego, come out. You are servants of the Most High God, and come here.
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And then Shadrach, Nesha, and Abednego came out of the midst of the fire, and the prefects and the governors of the kings, the high officials gathered around and saw in the regard of these men that the fire had no effect on them.
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The bodies of these men, nor was the hair of their heads singed.
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This is tremendous. Nor were their trousers damaged, nor had the smell of fire even upon them.
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God totally, completely protected them from such a hot fire.
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And you know the rest of the story. Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Nesha, and Abednego. See, who's getting glory now?
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And who has sent his angel to deliver his servants who put their trust in him, violating the king's command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any
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God except their own God. Then he says this, Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the
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God of Shadrach, Nesha, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap inasmuch as there is no other
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God who is able to deliver in this way. Then the king caused Shadrach, Nesha, and Abednego to prosper in the province of Babylon.
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Who was glorified? God. Amen. Who delivered them? God. Because God is
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God. And he knows how to keep his own through the rain. Well, the reason I like, I mentioned those three examples there is because they were in submission under the authority of God Almighty.
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Now, if you go on, go back to James. That's just a few examples of submission.
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And need I, should I say the greatest example is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, I cannot leave him out because he is the one that we preach.
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I say go back to James, go with me very quickly to Matthew. Here is, we saw full submission to God.
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But now, can I show you from the pages of Holy Scripture perfect submission?
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Can I show you submission without blemish? Can I show you submission to the
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Father, to the Father's will, and to the Father's desire that is in absolute perfection?
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Come on. Amen. And go to Matthew chapter 6, 26. Look at verse 39.
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Jesus prays three times. Let me back it up. Let me go to verse 36. And then Jesus came with them, speaking to the disciples, about the disciples, to a place called
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Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.
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Come on, Pastor. And I love this because here you have perfect submission to the
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Father's will. And he took him, Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, those were the ones of the inner circle, and began to be grieved and distressed.
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This is our Lord about to take upon himself the sin of the world. But he's doing the
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Father's will. He said, I come to do nothing but the Father's will. This is the command that God has given. And he set his face like a flint, as Isaiah says, and he was unmoved.
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And in verse 38, then he said to them, my soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.
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And then he says this, remain here and keep watch with me. And I love this verse, verse 39, and he went a little beyond them.
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He went a little further. He went a little further. Only Jesus can go a little further.
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Only Jesus can go that distance and fell on his face. Now listen to this, he did not just go to his knees.
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Jesus went to his face. And then he prayed and saying, my
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Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.
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Now this is perfect submission, folks. In verse 40, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, now notice how gracious that Jesus is, but yet he tells the truth.
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So you could not keep watch with me for one hour. Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation.
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The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And then he went away again the second time and prayed, my
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Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, your will be done.
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And again he came and found them sleeping. They were still sleeping, and for their eyes were heavy. It had been a long day, they were tired, but they could not even watch within that one hour the most important event in all of history right here.
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And they fell asleep, these men that Jesus was training.
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And the greatest one that ever lived, the most greatest moment of all time right here in verse 44, and he left them again and went away and prayed the third time, saying the same thing once more.
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Then he came to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the
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Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. This is powerful.
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Get up and let us be going. Behold, the one who betrays me is at hand.
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Jesus is in perfect submission to his Father's will. Not as I will, but as you will.
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MacArthur says this implies no conflict between the persons of the Godhead. He says, rather, it graphically reveals how
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Christ in his humanity voluntarily surrendered his will to the will of the
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Father in all things precisely so that there would be no conflict between the divine will and his desires.
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Jesus fulfilled that command, that will, and he did it perfectly.
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Now, you know, we looked at Abraham, we looked at Isaac, we looked at Job, we looked at the three
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Hebrew children. These are men of faith, but you will not find anything greater than right here, than the perfect submitted will of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. He submitted to his Father's will. That's submission.
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That's submission. Well, now we go to James. James says what? Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.
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You know, you think, what is he saying in context? He just spoke about worldliness. He just spoke about if you are a friend of the world, you're an enemy of God.
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And then he speaks of the Scriptures. He says, do you think that the
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Scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us.
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And he gives a greater grace, and therefore God, it says, the Scripture says, God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble, and then he says, submit, therefore, to God.
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You see, that's how we draw near to God. We submit to God. How can we but draw near to God unless we submit to Him?
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So I would say, if you want to draw close to God, submit to Him.
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Submit to God. Do what he says. Line yourself under his authority, his lordship.
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That's what James is saying. You submit. MacArthur says this was a word that was used of soldiers under the authority of their commander.
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Rightly so. Next, he says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
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You know, that seems so short and simple. But notice what he says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
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You know, if you read Ephesians, go with me to Ephesians chapter 6.
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I want to show you something here very quickly. Ephesians chapter 6, notice what it says in starting verse 13.
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He says, therefore take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist.
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Notice what he says? There is no way that we can resist the evil one or his ways unless we take up the whole armor of God.
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The full armor of God. Not just one part of it. You don't want to be half -dressed, you want to be fully dressed as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
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So what does he say? He says, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day.
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And having done everything to stand firm. In verse 14, then he says, stand firm, therefore having girded your loins with truth.
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Truth is very important. And having put on the breastplate of righteousness. There's another part.
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You got your loins, you gird your loins with truth, you put on the breastplate of righteousness.
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And then he says in verse 15, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
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And then he says, above all, taking the shield of faith, which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
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And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And then pray in all ways, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit.
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If you don't know what that means, in supplication in the spirit, that means crying out, pouring out your heart, crying out with strong tears, being watchful to this end with all perseverance.
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That means to endure. You continually to endure. And supplication for all the saints.
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There's intercession. And for me, he says, that utterance may be given to me. That I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which
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I am the ambassador in chains. That in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
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That's the apostle Paul saying, that I may speak boldly, that God does this.
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It's through prayer. God is the one that does the work. God is the one that moves the heart.
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God is the one that opens the door. God is the one. So we have to pray.
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But what I'd like to draw your attention to, in the beginning of that, he says, if you're going to do this, you take up the full armor of God, the whole armor of God, that you will be able to resist.
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That's how we resist, is taking up the full armor of God. That's a whole sermon in itself.
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So, it's when we don't resist the enemies of temptation that we get caught up in chasing our selfish desires.
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William MacDonald, a commentator, said this, that in order to resist the devil, we must close our ears and hearts to the devil's suggestions and temptations.
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And by using the scriptures as the sword of the spirit to repel him, when we resist the devil this way, we have
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God's promise that Satan will flee from us. We must always stand firm against Satan's standards and lies.
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You know, I wrote down this right here as I was studying this, but J. Vernon McGee, I don't agree with everything about J.
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Vernon McGee, but what I love about J. Vernon McGee, he was a man of truth. He really stood to the word of God.
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He was very Armenian, though, but he preached the gospel. One thing
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I really appreciate, he tells a lot about the background and his pastor, and you can really glean a lot here.
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He says this, I remember asking the same question to Dr. John Brown, who was one of the great evangelists in the past as we sat on his front porch in Semilon Springs, Arkansas.
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And I asked him why, even in that day, that John Brown, by the way, lived, he says, from 1879 to 1957.
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He was the founder of the John Brown University and was successful in evangelistic campaigns, church crusades, personal work,
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Christian education. In his lifetime, he really had the ability to be a great evangelist and led up more than 400 ,000 souls to Jesus Christ.
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400 ,000. Now, if all of them stayed with it, I'm not sure. That's another case.
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But this man was a great evangelist. And by the way, the school's motto was Christ overall.
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That was the motto. The school emphasizes a threefold emphasis that Christ -centered education, namely, head, heart, and hand.
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I like that. The head, the heart, and the hand. Dr. Brown said so often, the way to victory, in a few words, is trust
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God and go to work. That is so good. Now, McGee goes on to say about this man, he said, why?
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Well, even in that day, evangelism was not reviving in the church as it has been and has been active in the ministry.
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Speaking of John Brown, McGee says that he told me about the meetings which he had held in my present hometown in Pasadena, California, where you had a tent set up on a big vacant lot at the corner of Washington and Holliston.
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And he said this to me, Dr. McGee, I preached six weeks to the Christians before I even attempted to give an altar call for the unsaved.
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And revival came to the churches. He didn't even have to, personally, he didn't even have to have the altar call according to the word of God.
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If you look in the book of Acts, when Peter preached, he didn't give an altar call. He just preached and the people said, what shall we do?
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And then Peter said, you repent and you believe the gospel, you turn from this wicked generation.
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But McGee said this, when I came as a pastor, and this is what I'm getting to, I came as a pastor to the
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Church of Pasadena and I could still see the effects of Dr. Brown's meetings in that church.
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And he says, why? Why? Why? But this is interesting. For the very simple reason that sin had been dealt with in their lives.
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They dealt with the sins of their lives, in their lives. And too often we refuse to deal with it, we need to mourn over our sins.
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And that's what James is saying, you need to mourn over your sin. C .H.
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Spurgeon wrote, voluntarily sorrowful sin, or you will have to suffer for it eternally.
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Mourn at the cross or you will weep before the throne. There is a vital connection between soul distress and sound doctrine.
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Sovereign grace is dear to those who have grown deeply because they see what grievous sinners they are.
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That's so true. Well, if you look in James, right here, and this is where we're going toward.
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First he says, there's submission to God, resistance against the devil.
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Verse 8, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Drawing, this is a pursuing, an intimate, loving relationship with God.
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And the concept of drawing near to God was associated originally with the
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Levitical priest. And we'll be looking at that a little bit more in services to come.
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But eventually came to describe everyone's approach to God. So salvation is more than just submitting to God, that's part of it.
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Salvation is more than submitting to the devil. It is to the redeemed heart longing after God Himself.
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And that's the key to it, isn't it? And right here in verse 8 is so important because it's as if this is saying,
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James is saying, this is where God wants you. But God has already come to us.
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He has already drawn us to Himself, as I spoke about last week. No one can come to God unless they're drawn in by the
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Father. It is God that, we like to say in Reformed circles, irresistible grace.
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Now there is a word out there called prevenient grace. Prevenient grace means God was there first.
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And that's right. But irresistible says, you're coming whether you like it or not.
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I don't have a choice in the matter. And I like that language because if you look in scriptures, that's the way
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God is. You see, God has already, when Jesus says, I will build my church, in other words, that is going to happen.
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You see, there's no question about it. A lot of people in Armenian viewpoints says, well,
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I got a will and I can pull back and do what I want to. Oh no, you can't. If you're God's own and you're the sheep of His pasture, you're coming in.
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You see, the results belong to God. And that's what I love about when we evangelize and each one of us in this room, when we give the word of God, if a person turns away, look,
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I'm not going to get upset and worry about that because I know if I've done everything
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I can, I've prayed for this person's soul, God is sovereignly at work. You see,
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Spurgeon says, you can rest because God is in control. Now it doesn't mean that we don't put our part in the sense of praying, absolutely.
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Because that is in submission in line with God's word, but we're lining up under God's word. But can we save that soul?
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Is there anything we can do to save that soul? No, we can't save the soul. God is the one that's in the saving business and it's through His word.
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But see, we are instruments of His and we are to obey His command, right, to give the word.
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The results belong to God. Then we can go home and rest about this and know it's in His hands.
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Now, there's a lot of people that get upset about this because when you really start talking about the sovereignty of God in Scripture, why do they get upset?
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Because in their mind, they feel like they cannot handle something they cannot control.
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Amen. That's exactly right. And you know what that is? That's pride. Yes, sir. Sure is. That is pride.
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And I have come across so many people with this, say, well, pastor, you mean to tell me, and they sort of call me hyper -Calvinist and all that, and I say there's nothing hyper about it.
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It's this Bible. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. Jesus said it, but He's in control.
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But the whole purpose of drawing us in and drawing people to Himself, and Jesus says there's sheep that are coming, and He's speaking of the
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Gentiles, they're going to come in. I have other sheep out there, just not Israel, but He came to the house of Israel first, namely because He is their
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King. They rejected their King, and through that rejection, the gospel went to the
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Gentiles. And then if you read in Romans 11, Paul starts talking about that. Through their disobedience,
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God showed mercy to the Gentiles. And then he gets caught up in all that, and he says, how wonderful and amazing
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God is that you can't find out His ways, but He's got this whole thing worked out.
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And then he starts going into praise. Read it for yourself at the end of chapter 11.
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It's wonderful. It's almost like all that pure theology, and then he goes right into doxology, and he starts praising
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God. But isn't that what the Christian life is about? It's important for us to get our theology right, and I like what
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R .C. Sproul, but before we get it out there, we've got to get it right. We've got to make sure we've got it right, and most of all, the most important thing is that we are right with God.
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And that's what James is talking about. How to be right with God. Well, my time's about gone.
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Isn't it in the heart of God, God desires us to be near to Himself, and I cannot say enough about that.
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God desires us to be close to Him, and in the next Lord's Days, we're going to be looking in the next few
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Lord's Days, we're going to look at what it means to be afflicted. What does it mean to mourn over our sin?
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I've got something for us to really look forward to. Repentance. We're going to look at the difference between worldly sorrow and Godly sorrow.
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Got this in my notes right here. Don't have time to touch on it today, but we're going to look at what it means to mourn.
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Jesus said, blessed are those that mourn. And then, we're going to be looking at repentance, because I'm telling you, it's so important for all of us to understand what the
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Bible has to say about it. There's true repentance and there's false repentance. We're going to look at that.
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We're going to look at the difference between the worldly sorrow and Godly sorrow. There's many examples in Scripture, Judas and Peter are two that come to mind.
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Judas had worldly sorrow, Peter had Godly sorrow. Notice the difference.
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We're going to look at that. Well, in closing, God desires us to be near to His heart.
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What comes to my mind, I think about a hymn. We're not going to sing it here, it would have been a good one to sing.
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Near to the heart of God. I don't think it's in a hymn, though. Maybe we can sing it in the future. And there's a story about this hymn.
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It says, Where Do You Turn When Unexpected Tragedy Strikes? A person by the name of Cleveland McAfee, a
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Presbyterian minister in Chicago, had just received word that his brother and sister -in -law had lost both of their daughters, tragically, within 24 hours.
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Two daughters. Grief -stricken. McAfee couldn't think of deep theological issues.
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He could only think of verses in the book of Psalms. Isn't that where to go? That's where to go.
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Go to the word of God. That brought comfort and rest to those who sought refuge in the
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Lord. And as he meditated on God's word, and there's the key right there, meditating on the scripture day and night, meditating, meditating.
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He wrote the words and the music to this simple hymn. And it was a double funeral.
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Two children had to be put in the grave, outside the darkened, quarantined house of his brother.
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Pastor Cleveland McAfee, with choking voice, sang this hymn publicly for the time.
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Following the Sunday, his church choir sang it from their pastor's handwritten copy.
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McAfee went on to become a well -known theologian, writing books and scholarly articles.
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But today, he's perhaps best known for the words of comfort that was able to be offered in this family crisis.
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And what is it? This is what he wrote. And I want to close with this. There's a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.
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A place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God. Oh Jesus, blessed
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Redeemer, sent from the heart of God, hold us who wait before Thee, near to the heart of God.
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There's a place of comfort, sweet, near to the heart of God. A place where we, our
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Savior, meet, near to the heart of God. There's a place of full release, near to the heart of God.
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A place where all is joy and peace, near to the heart of God.
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Now, I don't know about you, but as being part of the family of God as you are, that's my desire.
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I want to be near to the heart of God. So what does James say? You draw near to God, and He'll draw near to you.
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And it's through brokenness, contrition, true repentance. And people say, well hold on pastor, how about we repent it?
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Hey, Calvin said, that's not the beginning of the Christian life. That is the
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Christian life! You see? It's, it's, you, and Sproul said it right.
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He said, the closer you get to God, the more you see your own sin.
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The more and more you go into the heart of God, the more you see His beauty, and His glories, and His holiness.
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And then I see my unfaithfulness, my sins, that put my beloved on that cross.
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How true that is! May we be like Mary, come to the feet of Jesus, and spend time there, near to the heart of God.
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Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this time. Lord, and that is our prayer today.
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Lord, we desire to be near to Your heart. Father, I think about David.
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Lord, as we read those Psalms, here's a, here's a man that had a desire for You.
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Yes, we see his sin. Lord, but we also see his brokenness toward it.
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Lord, we see, we see so much. He's so transparent, and that's where, that's where we learn our lesson.
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Lord, transparency. We can come before You and pour our heart out to You, knowing that You are able to fix our hearts.
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Lord, I know in this room, and in so many parts of this world where Your people meet, but Lord, we're specifically talking about here.
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Lord, there's brokenheartedness. Lord, but You have the balm of Gilead. You are the balm of Gilead.
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You can heal the brokenhearted. That's what the Gospel's for. Lord, may we submit to Your Lordship.
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Father, as we submit and line ourselves up under You, Lord, You know what's best. We bow to Your authority, because You know what's best.
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We don't. Lord, You know how to run our life far better than we can run our own.
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Father, everything we need to know is right here in the word, in Your word, the word of truth that gives us life.
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May we choose this day. May we choose life. And Lord, we thank
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You that You've come to us, and You've helped us. You've helped us. Lord, and Lord, to those that's here,
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Lord, that are brokenhearted, Lord, would You be that balm to them?
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Would You heal that brokenheart? You bring such comfort. Lord, You love to heal the brokenhearted.
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Lord, You take the broken pieces and You put them back together again. And You give us something.
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You give us reason to live. You give us purpose to live. Because we see that Jesus is our life.
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So, Father, be with us. We thank You for this hour. Thank You for teaching us in Your word.
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There's so much more here. Lord, we thank You. We want to love You more. And we want to obey