Introduction to James (07/18/2021)

Park Meadows Church

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Okay, the first good sign, my machine turned on, and that's always a good sign.

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Brother David asked me earlier this week if I would do a twofer, a

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Bible study and the sermon. And I said, oh, sure,

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I will do it. And I thought I was going to do it three weeks from now. And then it turned out that Ben, which was going to do it today, had an issue.

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He couldn't do it today. So he called me and asked if I would mind switching with him. And I said, well, that would actually help me because I have been working toward, okay, thank you.

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That wasn't really distracting me, but I guess it kind of was. He probably could see me looking that way.

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What I was seeing was a picture of myself. And I never like to see that, especially in these days.

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So in any case, I knew I was going to finish Hebrews today. And I was preparing at the same time to go into something new.

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I tossed around several places, and I decided to go just one book over to James.

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And I was working on that, and it turned out, I said, well, what I can do is I can use my Hebrew lesson for the first one, and then

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I'll just modify the lesson that would have been done in the

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Bible study in the morning for the sermon. So this will be a little bit different, maybe, than some sermons that you've had, but hopefully the

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Lord will put his hand on it, and he will have you understand what he wants you to understand, and have me say what he wants me to say as best as I can say it.

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But you're not dependent upon me. You're dependent upon God to give you the message that he wants you to have.

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I'm gonna read some stuff and make some comments, but the

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Holy Spirit will teach you what he wants you to know.

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Let's begin with a prayer. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we bring thanks to you this morning for giving us your

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Son, the way, the only way that we can come into your presence.

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We know because Jesus told us, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the

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Father but by me. Jesus, the only way we may have a relationship with you.

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We thank you for this time, and with it, one more opportunity to study your word.

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We thank you for this place, this place of worship, a place of safety, a place of study.

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We thank you for this technology, the technology to reach out and bring together a body of believers, who though we may be separated with miles of physical space, are together in Christ.

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And thank you for this assembly of believers gathered together here to worship you and your

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Son. Take this message and mold it. Make it say to each member of this assembly just exactly what you want them to hear.

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Take this assembly and mold each of us into the person you want us to become.

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In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray, amen.

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So we are going to do James. I'm gonna read a couple of verses and then

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I'm gonna stop. James 1, verse one.

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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad, greetings.

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My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations.

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That's various testings. Ron talked about our life here as a testing, as a test.

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Yes, we will experience test in this life. And James, the book of James is a book of testing.

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The epistle of James is a message concerning testing. The testing of believers in the time of duress.

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Now, some people have thought that the book of James isn't important for Christians.

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And some have even quoted Martin Luther's famous estimation of James as a letter full of straw.

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But Luther's remark should be understood in its context. His intent was to observe that there was little or nothing in James preaching the gospel of justification by faith alone.

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That's what was not there. This is not about justification by faith.

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In another place, Luther wrote this about the book of James. I think highly of the epistle of James and regard it as valuable.

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It does not expand human doctrine, but lays much emphasis on God's law.

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Martin Luther knew and taught exactly what the book of James teaches.

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The following is from his preface to Romans regarding saving faith.

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I'm just gonna read it. Oh, it is a living, busy, active thing, this faith.

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It is impossible for it not to be doing good things. Incessantly. It does not ask where the good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it is already done.

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And it's constantly doing them. Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever.

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He gropes and he looks around for faith and good works, but he neither knows what good faith is, nor what good works are.

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Yet he talks and talks with many words about faith and good works.

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So that's what Martin Luther had to say about the book of James.

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A good book, a valuable book, a book that does not expound upon human things, but a book that expounds upon spiritual things.

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Now, John MacArthur said this about the epistle of James. There are a number of ways to outline the book, to grasp the arrangement of its content.

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One way is to arrange it around a series of tests by which the genuineness of a person's faith may be measured.

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You remember the, you show me your faith, I will show you my faith by my works.

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So he outlines it, MacArthur outlines the book of James this way, first, an introduction, followed by a series of 13 tests.

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We're not gonna do all 13 tests this morning. That would be for a eight to 10 week

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Bible study. And we will eventually get to them all, provided the

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Lord doesn't return in the meantime. Or that something doesn't happen to us,

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God willing. But the first test, the one we will deal with today, is the test of perseverance in suffering.

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That would be a wonderful lesson to all of the people that sent in prayer requests this morning, every last one.

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Well, no, there were praises too, weren't there? There were praises amongst them, lots of good praises, but there were calls, there were calls out in pain, calls out in suffering, calls out for God to help them persevere in their time of suffering.

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I'm not gonna read all the rest of that outline, but just to know that there are 13 separate tests, that will be at least 13 weeks.

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Now, you'll note that the outline contains an introduction and 13 tests. And I will tell you this,

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I have always bogged down when I started trying to study James on test number five.

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That will be in about a month or two or three. But it'll be a few weeks before we get there.

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And I trust the Holy Spirit will illuminate this passage, but that's for later. This morning, we're gonna focus on the introduction and test number one.

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The test of perseverance in suffering. And that will be in James 1, verses one through 12.

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So let's read it. James, a servant of God and of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes, which are scattered abroad, greetings.

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My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

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But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

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If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.

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And it should be given him, but let him ask in faith, not wavering.

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For he that wavereth is like a wave in the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.

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For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double -minded man is unstable in all his ways.

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Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he is made low.

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That's an interesting verse there, or pair of verses. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted.

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That's easy enough for me to understand. But what about the next one? What does it say?

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Let the brother of high degree, let the rich rejoice.

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In that he is made low, but the rich in that he is made low.

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Because as the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass.

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And the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth.

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So also shall the man, the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the

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Lord hath promised to them that love him. Well, that's the passage that we're going to deal with in detail as we go.

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Now, back to verse one. James, a servant of God, notice how he identifies himself.

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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes, which are scattered abroad.

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Greetings. So what does James tell us in his introduction? Well, first he tells us his status.

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He describes himself as a servant. That's a stronger word in the Greek. The word in Greek is not a servant.

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The word in Greek is a slave, doulos, a bond slave, devoted to another, to the disregard of one's own interest.

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His existence is solely for the master. Now, it's interesting to note, you know who this

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James is, don't you? This James is the brother of Jesus, at least the half -brother of Jesus.

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James introduced himself as a bond slave of Jesus, not as the brother of Jesus.

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I don't think that's the way I would have introduced myself. I think I would have said, I am

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Bill, I am the brother of Jesus. Look at me. And everybody would have.

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No, he says, I am the bond servant of Jesus, not his brother.

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Now, it was true, not like me. It was true that Jesus was

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James's brother, but more importantly, Jesus was his

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Lord. The next thing he tells us is to whom the letter was written, to the 12 tribes.

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Now, you know, there's a controversy on the 10 lost tribes. You know how many tribes were lost?

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None. There are no lost tribes. At the time that James wrote this book, there were 12 tribes.

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Now, not everybody knew, maybe, at that time, what tribe they belonged to. They'd lost some records.

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And certainly now, there are 12 tribes, and maybe you don't know what tribe you belong to if you're a

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Jew, but the 12 tribes are there. There were never any lost tribes.

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So who is it written to? It was written to Jews, but for a reason. The 12 tribes scattered abroad.

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That literally means through sowing, and it became a technical term referring to Jews living outside the land of Palestine.

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In fact, Peter uses that exact same word in 1 Peter 1 .1 when he says,

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Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout

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Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the

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Father through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of blood of Jesus Christ.

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Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. So Peter uses that same verse, the diaspora, these

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Jews scattered throughout Asia Minor. That same word is found in John 7, verse 35.

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If I'll pick that up in John 7, 33. Then Jesus said to them, he's talking to his disciples, yet a little while, while I am with you, then

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I'll go unto him that sent me, and you shall seek me and cannot find me.

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And where I am, thither you cannot come. Then said the

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Jews among themselves, whither will he go that we shall not find him?

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Will he go into the dispersed, the scattered Jews among the Gentiles and teach the

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Gentiles? That was a mark of disdain, wasn't it? What's he going to do? That he's going to leave us and go to the

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Jews scattered throughout Asia Minor and teach them?

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So the epistle to James was written to the Jews who were scattered because of persecution.

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They were where they were because of the persecution that they would have suffered had they stayed in Jerusalem.

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Jews who ironically would, in fact, teach the

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Gentiles. The audience was not the 10 lost tribes, for they were never and never have been lost.

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They were 12 tribes that were scattered abroad. And this was all before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

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In fact, scholars think that James was probably one of the earliest epistles written.

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James predates any epistle written by Paul. Keep that in mind when somebody tells you that James was written to counteract

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Paul's teaching about salvation by grace alone. If you think something would be mysterious, wonderful.

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He wrote the contradiction before the letter was written. He answered before the letter.

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Well, James, and so those people who would say, well, James wrote his epistle to counteract

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Paul's teaching on salvation through grace alone. We would say not so.

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James wrote his epistle before Paul wrote his. So if he wrote it to counteract

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Paul's epistles, it was a pretty interesting document in that he wrote his letter about five years before Paul wrote the first of his.

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And now we go to verse two of Hebrews.

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My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations.

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Now, the first thing you'll notice is James regarded temptation as inevitable. We talked about that this morning in Sunday school.

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Temptations are gonna be there. Testing is going to be there. There's no avoiding testing.

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The question is, what are you going to do when you're tested? James says when.

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He doesn't say if you fall into diverse temptations. I'm gonna read it again.

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My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations.

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Even though these tests can often be painful, all of these tests that we heard about, people calling in in pain, asking for prayer.

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Painful at the time. The pain can linger. The pain can linger for days, hours, weeks, and even years.

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But there also can be occasions for joy, not for discouragement.

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And we can count it all joy because in the midst of the testing, every trial becomes a test of faith designed to strengthen the believers.

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So if you're tested and you're a believer, you can know this. The reason that you're being tested is to strengthen you.

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Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. Through tests, a

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Christian will learn to withstand the pressure of a trial until God removes it.

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When will He remove it? At His appointed time. God will remove the pressure of the test when it's time to be removed.

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The Christian will learn to withstand the pressure of the test until God removes it at His appointed time.

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And he will even learn to cherish the benefit. There's no test that's pleasant at the time we're being tested.

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But if it's going to strengthen us, we will learn to cherish even the pain in order to receive the benefit of the strengthening.

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But let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

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The testing of faith drives the believers into a deeper communion and greater trust in Christ.

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Qualities that in turn produce a stable, godly, and righteous character.

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So what's gonna happen when you're tested is, if you're a believer, you're gonna become stronger, more stable, more godly.

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And more righteous. James point is that every difficult circumstance that enters a believer's life can either strengthen him if he obeys and remains confident in his care or becomes a solicitation to evil if the believer chooses instead to doubt

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God and disobey His word. So if a difficult situation comes into your life, you're faced with a choice.

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Obey God, remain confident, rely on His care, rely on Him.

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Or dodge, bail out, don't obey

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God, doubt, disobey

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His word. And that will become a solicitation to evil. Now for the unbeliever, this is an entirely different situation.

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For him, the temptation will always be a solicitation for evil.

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So every temptation can be viewed as a test to distinguish between believers and unbelievers.

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And another thing to consider, the testing is of God. You're in that situation because God put you in that situation.

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He either put you in that situation because you're an unbeliever or He put you in that situation because you're a believer.

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If He put you in that situation because you're a believer, then you have two ways that you can respond.

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Either you can trust Him, believe Him, and be strengthened.

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Or you can refuse to believe Him, you can dodge Him, and Satan will become the agent for the solicitation of evil.

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The testing is of God, the solicitation of evil is of Satan. So now we are to verse five.

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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 him.

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Okay, so what's wisdom? Or maybe a better question is, what's the difference between wisdom and knowledge?

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As you're thinking about that, I'm gonna give you one person's answer. I thought this was kind of cute.

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It's not Christian or anything. Knowledge is knowing how to take a thing apart. Wisdom is knowing how to put it back together.

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I thought that would be worth a bit of humor. Knowledge is knowing how to take something apart, while wisdom is knowing how to put it together.

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So how do you acquire knowledge? You look at the world.

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Knowledge is acquired by studying the world around you. Knowledge is what I did, what

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I attempted to do when I was in school, learning math and learning science and learning all the things of the world.

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I was acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is acquired by studying the world around you.

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Knowledge is a worldly thing. Knowledge is a good thing. But knowledge alone is not sufficient.

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You must have wisdom. So now the next question is, how do you acquire wisdom?

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How do you acquire wisdom? Wisdom is a gift of God. And we would do well to consider the end result of the rejection of God by those of the world and specifically at the impact of that rejection on their minds.

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And I'm gonna go to Romans 1 28 and read this simply because it has the word knowledge in it.

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Romans 1 18, and even as they did not like to retain

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God in their knowledge. Yeah, what about that? Knowledge acquired by observing the world around you.

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Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.

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Edochemus, that means unfit for, unproven, spurious, reprobate, not standing the test, not approved, a mind not capable of rational thought.

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So God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.

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That's translation comes over to us a little stronger in the original

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Greek. What it says is things not fitting, shameful things, wicked things.

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Now Paul's gonna list some of these wicked things. I'm looking around to see who the audience is because some of these words

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I would not want to use if the little children were in here, but they're in the scripture so I can read them. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God.

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And my question, how can a rational mind hate God? And the answer, a rational mind can't hate

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God, but a reprobate mind is not rational and it can.

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Despiteful, proud. Here's another question. How can a rational mind be proud?

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Maybe the psalmist had the proper perspective in Psalms 8, 4.

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What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visiteth him?

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What is it that man had that made God want to even be aware of him?

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A rational man would have a better perspective and would not be proud of himself.

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Now, Paul didn't end his list with those items. Items. Continuing with his list, his description of those with a reprobate mind, boasters, inventors of evil things.

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Here's a fun one, disobedient to parents. Has that ever changed?

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Do you remember the day, some of you I know, when you took your parents as the final ultimate authority?

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If they said to do it, you knew it was right and you did it as best you could. And now we watch

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TV and we see parents being depicted as close to morons.

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If there's ever a conflict between a child and either parent, it's always the parent that doesn't know what they're talking about.

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Disobedient to parents. If you wonder where our problems of today come from, that's one of them, disobedient to parents.

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Without understanding. Covenant breakers. Without natural affection.

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Implacable. I remember Brother David years ago talking about that word, implacable.

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This is in Romans and this would have been about four years ago. And he talked about implacable.

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Implacable is like a man that has a gun. And he comes into your home and he's going to shoot you.

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And you say, okay, go ahead and shoot me, but don't shoot my wife and my children. And he just goes ahead and shoots him anyhow.

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He is implacable. He is not subject to reason. There is nothing that can sway him.

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He's unmerciful. Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

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Now that's quite an indictment, isn't it? But we're not of a reprobate mind.

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We can have the mind given to us by God. We can have a rational mind.

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What do we have to have to have a rational mind? Not just knowledge. Knowledge alone will not get you a rational mind.

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We have to have wisdom as well. How do we get wisdom? All we need to do is ask.

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And where do we ask? And what do we do after we ask? The Lord will tell us. I've given you all the information you need.

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It's in the Bible. The place to begin to seek wisdom is in the Bible. The place to end in your search for wisdom is in the

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Bible. True wisdom will always be found in God's word. All we can find in the world is knowledge.

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If you study all the math you want to study, all the science you want to study, everything you want to study, all the language, all you can find in the world is knowledge to find wisdom.

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There's only one place to go, and that's to God. And how does God speak to us today?

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He speaks to us through His word, guided by His Holy Spirit.

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Whoops. Is everyone guided with His Holy Spirit? No, only the ones that have it.

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So there will be people in the world that can study and study and study, and they can study the Bible and make their whole career studying the

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Bible and still have no wisdom. That's why there are seminary professors that can be what some of them are.

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Now, that's an improper indictment of seminary professors. Very, very, very many.

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Most, I would think, seminary professors are true believers and do study.

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But strange things can come by people as they study the scripture if they're not guided by the

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Holy Spirit. And the only ones that have guidance from the Holy Spirit are the elect of God.

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All we can find in the world is knowledge. Verse six.

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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.

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The kind of heart we need when seeking God's wisdom from the scripture or anywhere else, for that matter, is a heart that believes

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God's word and believes that it's relevant today. If you don't think the

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Bible is relevant today, then it's not gonna be relevant for you.

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For let not that man think that he shall receive anything. So if you think the

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Bible is not relevant today, you won't receive anything from it. And then verse eight. A double -minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

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Now, to ask God, but to ask him in a doubting way shows that we're double -minded.

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If we had no faith, we would never ask at all. If we had no unbelief, we'd have no doubting.

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To be in the middle ground between faith and unbelief is to be double -minded.

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That's what the writer of Hebrews, I'm sorry, this is James. I've lost track of where I was.

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Pardon me. That's what this is referring to.

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A double -minded man, unstable in all of his ways. To be in the middle ground between belief and unbelief.

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Verse nine. I made a comment on this as we passed through earlier. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted.

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That's not hard for me to understand. Every person of low degree rejoices,

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I think rejoices, when they are brought into a higher degree.

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When you're moved up, you're always happy. But the rich, let him rejoice in that he is made low.

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Remember, both the rich and the poor suffer the same kind of trials.

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Let the brother of the low degree rejoice in that he is made exalted, but the rich in that he is made low.

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Because as the flower of the grass, he shall pass away. Trials make all believers equally dependent upon God.

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If you're rich, your wellbeing depends upon God. If you're poor, your wellbeing depends upon God.

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Rich or poor, your wellbeing depends upon God. Trials make all believers equally dependent upon God.

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And brings them to the same level with each other by keeping them from being preoccupied with earthly things.

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The poor, because they don't have anything, and the rich trying to keep what they got. Both of them are bad for the soul.

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Poor Christians and wealthy ones can rejoice that God is no respecter of persons, and that they both have the privilege of being identified with Christ.

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That is the blessing. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass.

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And the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth.

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So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. That picture from nature illustrates how death and judgment can quickly end the wealthy person's dependence on material possessions.

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It doesn't matter how much you have, you take none of it with you. Well, what do you take with you?

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You take with you the spiritual treasures that you have stored up, not the physical ones.

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The physical ones are left behind. Verse 12, we're getting close to the end of the last test.

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Not the last test, the first test. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, trials.

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For when he is tried, that tried means tested and approved.

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Blessed is the man, I'm gonna read it differently. Blessed is the man that endureth trials. For when he is tested and approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the

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Lord hath promised to them that love him. Believers who successfully endure trials are truly happy.

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How many believers are that? How many believers are there that endure trials, successfully endure trials?

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All of them. Every single one of us will, if we are a believer, successfully endure some of the trials.

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We may not be successful in enduring them all. In this context, it also describes the passive, painful survival of a trial and focuses on the victorious outcome.

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Such a person never relinquishes his saving faith in God. Remember Job and all the things that happened to Job, things so bad that his wife told him, curse

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God and die. Maybe she lost her confidence, but he didn't.

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He never relinquished his saving faith in God. And because a believer will never relinquish his saving faith in God, this concept is closely related to the doctrine of eternal security and perseverance of the believer.

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We say that once saved, always saved. There's nothing you did to become saved.

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And there's nothing you can do to lose your salvation. That is a wonderful thing because we all, at times in our life would come to a point where if it were possible for us to lose our faith, lose our salvation, we would lose it.

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Jesus said in John 14, verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man loved me, he will keep my words.

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And my father will love him. And he will come to me and make our abode with him.

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He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings. And the word which ye hear is not mine, but the father's which sent me.

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The believer that has successfully and victoriously gone through his trials indicates that he has genuine faith because his faith, like the faith of Job, endured.

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And because of that, he will be given a crown of life. It says crown of life.

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One of my references said this is better translated, the crown which is life.

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A crown was a wreath that was put on a victor's head after a Greek athletic event. Here, what it denotes is the believer's ultimate reward.

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What's your ultimate reward? Eternal life. It's eternal life which

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God has promised to him. And will grant to him in full at his death or at Christ's coming.

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So what do you have looking forward to you? What do you have to look forward to in your life? The end of this life and the beginning of the next one.

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The end of this life with all of its trials and its testings and sometimes pain.

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Sometimes the pain is great, but you can always be assured that as bad as it is, that's the worst you'll ever have it.

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As bad as conditions are, the conditions that you have are the worst you'll ever have.

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They will only get better in the next life. If you're not a believer, you can rest assured of this.

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What you have now is the best you'll ever have. God has granted us everlasting, peaceful, righteous life either at our death or at Christ's coming.

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And that's a wonderful thing to know. And that's a wonderful thing to keep in mind as we look at the test of the perseverance in time of stress.

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Knowing that we will always have stress. I'm not my mic down, I hope it's still working. Knowing that we will always have to look forward to a peaceful, happy, prosperous, righteous life in the next world.

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Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for all the many good things that you have given us here on this earth.

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We even thank you for the test that you give us to discipline us, to keep us closer to you, to teach us the correct way, to teach us what is right and to guide us for doing what we know is right.

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And when we know what is right to do and we do it, then God will bless us both here and in eternity.

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us and keep us as we go through this day. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.