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Bro. Otis Fisher
Today, we start a new study in the book of James. I want to run some references. First, in James 6 and 44, you have, and it reads like this, No man can come to me except the Father, which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
In Greek, there are at least 16 different words used. The one here in John 64 is helko. It's 16 different words for the word draw. It means you cannot resist this power. To do so, one would be stronger than the sovereign God.
Now, with knowledge, we need no miracles. Prayer without faith is like salt without eggs. There's two points of view, man's and God's. Learn to view things from God's viewpoint. We are justified by works before man, by faith before God.
Now, we come to John 10 and 3. Who has that? All right. Yes, that's a great prophecy. Now, John 10, 27, then 8, 47, then 13, 48. There isn't one. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, ordained to eternal life.
Then we come to Revelation 13, 8, then Revelation 20, 15, then 21, 27. All right, we've traced the salvation from, not from the beginning, but from quite a bit back down through Revelation. Now, God does not use any sting operations.
That's man-made. Now, James 1, 1. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. The word servant is used here as doulos. Bill, can you give us a definition of the word doulos?
We find that in Exodus 21, 5, and if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, my children, I will not go out free. 21, 6, then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the door or unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an all, and he shall serve him forever.
He's marked. James, a servant, a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was bonded. He was bound. He was marked unto God and to the Lord. Why did he make two people here? Why did he specify God and the Lord Jesus?
David, all right, we have him as a bond servant to both of them. Now, that would be impossible on earth, but it is possible with God. You could not be a bond servant of two people here. Verse 2, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptation.
My brethren, Galatians 3, 25, but after that faith is come, we no longer are under a schoolmaster, for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ. And if you be then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
The word divers, D-I-V-E-R-S, Greg, what does that mean? All right. Now we are to be joyful when we fall into divers temptations. Count it all joy, no matter where you are or what happens to you.
It says you fall into these divers. Now, Greg, to fall into something would be on purpose. No, it just happens. Sin just happens. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. It isn't so much the end product, it is the trying of it.
When you would take a sample of ore, gold ore, to the assigned office, he would put it in a crucible. You all know what a crucible is? Anybody? Everybody? All right, it's that which he's going to cause the ore to be brought forth.
Now, he heats it. He heats it and what rises to the top? The impurities. He skims that off. Then what rises to the top? All right, more impurities. Until finally, what happens? How does he know when he has that fixed, finished?
What'd you say? He can see his reflection in the gold. Now, we're in a crucible. It is the trying of this that is more perfect than the end. When is it that God sees his face in us? We're through when we've finished, when we've made it through this trial.
Divers means many. It actually means trifles or meaningless sufferings. It's all senseless. The testing is irrational unless we recognize the good purpose for which it has come. Some we do not see. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
In 1st Peter 1 .7, turn to that. All right, the trying is the key. In trying, that is the precious thing. It is trying that works patience. Have you ever found this to be true? The trying works patience.
What good is patience, Clarence? Patience causes us to wait whether we want to or not. It is lost unless we understand that. But let patience ever perfect work, that you may be perfect, an entire wanting nothing.
Perfect has several meanings. To be ultimately perfect is to be like Christ. We're not there yet. How do we know that we're where we ought to be? You're here because you're right who wants you? God wants you.
Could you have been any place else? If you're here and you don't take advantage of the situation, are you becoming perfect? But you're not where you should be if you can take advantage of this. If you come and you think about what we're going to have for dinner and so on and so forth, you're losing this testing.
That's right. You'll never grow spiritually by mere washing or by any emotion. Emotion does not grow Christians. Now we have plenty of it, but only by faith, rigid self-control, continually studying of his holy word.
Faith causes you to conduct your life in a firm positive mode in all thoughts. Patience is not a passive grace. God does nothing but what we would if we could see the end from the beginning, like he does.
The acid of grief tests the coin of belief. If we really believe, then the testing is going to be nothing. The acid test came about after the Civil War. The carpetbackers would go throughout the South buying up gold and silver and so forth.
Well, a lot of the people would try to put on these carpetbackers that that was not gold, looked like gold, but it wasn't gold. They soon learned, and I used to know the acid, maybe Bill or Greg can tell us, but it was a little jar that they would open and they dipped the item in it.
If it didn't turn, then it was gold. If it did turn, it wasn't gold. The acid test, that phrase came about by that. Five, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. That giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given to him.
If any of you lack wisdom, it doesn't say any of you lack knowledge. Bill, what's the difference in wisdom and knowledge? So, can you receive wisdom? No, let me see. Say you've got a situation. Can you receive wisdom over and over on that one situation?
You know how to react to it somehow. Then it becomes knowledge. Then you do it the next time. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. That giveth to all men liberally. The word all here means all brethren.
Now, if you were not one of the elect, would you ask of God? No, you couldn't to begin with, but you wouldn't. He who does not ask does not feel he needs any divine teaching. Is that true? He who does not ask God thinks he doesn't need to be taught.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. Romans 14, 23, and he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
A man of this wavering character is continually distracted. He will neither let go of heaven nor earth, and he can't have but one. Did you ever know anybody that was trying to be a Christian? Especially on Sunday and then during the work week, it was somebody else.
We trust God for salvation, but could we have a much more enjoyable life if we really believed him? Wavering is not a weakness of faith, it is a lack of faith. You either have the faith or you don't have it.
You cannot be in between. Matthew 5, 37, but let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these committeth evil. Do not add a but on the end of your excuses. I would have been here but the train held me up.
I would have been here but the phone rang as I went out the door. What does that do? When you put a but on the end of your excuse, what happens? Alright, anything else? You're blaming something else and you're not supposed to do that, aren't you?
What's the difference between an excuse and a reason, Joy? Alright, Jesse learned to divide them this way. Excuse comes from within, reason comes from without. You get that? That's right, excuses come from within.
You want to go do something else. He's under the influence of the last man to whom he spoke. For let not such, for let not that man that he shall receive anything of the Lord. Now, for let not such a man think that he shall receive anything spiritual from the Lord.
Such a person that waves back and forth, wavering, he's like a wave of the sea tossed to and fro. Let not such a man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. God cannot change and still be God.
Yes, I didn't hear all of your statement, but I think you said that we think that lots of times the way we act and respond that a non-believer can pray to God and get the answer, but he can't. He can get an answer because he's thought about it, but the answer doesn't come from God to him.
Well, some of them are, some of them think they're saved. It's not real prayer, but that's right. What? Yes. Numbers 23 19, we find God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.
Hath he said and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good? And Samuel 15 29, and also the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man that he should repent.
55 9, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Malachi 3 6, for I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
If God should change the least little bit, we'd be consumed. We'd die. We'd perish. We'd vanish. If God was not what he is. Faith is the root of salvation. Works is the fruit of salvation. A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways.
What does double-minded mean, Virg? He has only one mind, but he's divided it. Either is not complete. So here's a man that is, he thinks being a Christian to God, but he won't let go of the world. Yes, yes.
Well, I say any, usually with any. Uncertain about everything he thinks, feels, or decides. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted. Low degree does or does not destroy Christian fellowship.
Does it or does it not? To be of low degree does that destroy Christian fellowship? No. Yes, yes. That's all a good in low degree. But yes, yes, that's right. You cannot love both two masters. It's impossible.
But the rich in that he is made low because as the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. What happens when a very prominent, well-to-do, well-known man dies? But what happened to him? That's right.
That's exactly right. He dies, and so does a poor man that was not known, but they both die, both share in death, the same alike. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion perish, and so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
Let me ask you, a year ago today, what were you worried about? Bill, what would you worry about a year ago today? You've forgotten, haven't you? That's right. So a year from now, you'll forget about today.
Yes, that's right. He's rich as far as I'm concerned. Each one of you are rich as far as someone else is concerned. That's right. You all can go buy a new car, and I can't. So, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
That's right, that's right. We have been promised, we have been promised by God to have everything we need, everything we need, everything that we need. No, no, he hasn't forgotten. In Isaiah 40 and 5, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
40 and 7, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.
40 and 17, all nations before him are as nothing, and they are accounted to him less than nothing, and they are counted as vanity. To whom then will you be likened? Or to whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare him to? Since he made everything, what are you going to compare him to? He didn't make another God. Verse 12, blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him.
A blessed man transmits good. We'll see this word used a lot. What's the difference between a blessed man and a blessed man? A blessed man is one who is blessed by God. A blessed man is one who is blessed by God and he passes it on.
It's good to live next door to a blessed man because he's continually passing on. It becomes a way of life with him. A blessed man is one that receives a blessing to himself only. Now, we receive nothing to use on ourself.
It's all to give away. Well, remember verse 12, we'll start with 13. I don't have a pen here. Is there any word from anybody? David? That's right. Everything not of God will burn up. Anything not of God will burn up.
Let's stand and be dismissed. Clarence, would you dismiss us today, please?