How to Draw Near to God: Part 3

Redeeming Grace Church

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October 20, 2019

How to Draw Near to God: Part 4

00:00: Well, praise God, we're on the air. Well let's continue our series as we look to the wonderful book of James.
00:09: Hasn't this been a glorious study? And we've got still a ways to travel, but we're not going to be in a hurry, we're going to take our time.
00:19: As a matter of fact, I thought I'd be able to get to the section about being afflicted and mourned.
00:26: I'm not going to make it there, as I was going through the notes, as much as I'd like.
00:32: But we're just going to basically look at what the apostle is actually talking about, drawing near to the
00:40: Lord. I think that's going to be enough for us to meditate on today. But Lord willing, we're going in the direction of godly repentance, godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow.
00:52: We'll be going in that direction. So I don't want us to get in too big of a hurry, I want us to draw out everything we can by God's help.
00:59: We don't want to miss nothing here, do we? We want to just meditate on it, precept by precept, word by word, verse by verse, and soak up all the truth we can.
01:10: I don't know about you, that's the way I feel. I desire truth that much. I want God and more of God and to draw near to God.
01:16: So we're going to look at drawing near to God and how we can draw near to God. And James pretty much tells us in the
01:23: Ten Commandments of James here, he tells us exactly how we can do that.
01:29: And he gives us a list. So as you turn here, let's look at verses, in chapter 4, verses 6 -10.
01:37: We'll continue this. We're going to stay on verses 6 -10 for a while. And Lord willing, next week we're going to have communion and we're going to probably just give a pause on James and just go to the
01:48: Gospel and to the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, always we see that, but specifically focus on His cross and His sacrifice for us and have communion.
01:59: Lord willing, next Lord's Day, as God wills. So hear the word of the living
02:05: God. Aren't you glad He's a living God? He's not the God of the dead, He's the
02:10: God of the living. He's here. He's here with us. He's here with us.
02:16: Verse 6, beginning with verse 6. But He gives a greater grace, just sung about it.
02:25: He gives a greater grace, therefore it says, and He speaks of Scripture, it is the verse of Scripture, God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.
02:38: Submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw not to God and he will draw near to you.
02:50: Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double -minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep.
03:01: Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. And in verse 10, is the bookend from verse 6.
03:09: Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you. Amen.
03:15: To the reading of God's word, may He richly bless it to our hearts this morning as we come before His presence.
03:25: Let's bow in prayer. Our Father in heaven, once again, we call upon Your name.
03:36: Lord, we desire that this just not be another sermon to our heads. Lord, we can know the truth in our heads but be empty as a barrel, as an empty gun.
03:53: But Lord, we desire to be loaded up in the heart with truth. That's where we desire it, is in our hearts.
04:02: So Father, first of all, we adore You, we glorify You, we praise You because You are the holy
04:07: God, but yet You're loving. And we love
04:14: You because You first loved us, as it's already been said. We thank You for Your infinite love, and Lord, we thank
04:25: You for Your infinite perfection. All Your glories and all the beauty of Your attributes.
04:34: For Lord, now we, within our hearts, we desire holiness.
04:43: For we know without holiness, no one will see the Lord. No one will see You. And it's not our holiness that we try to achieve to reach
04:53: You, it's You coming down to us, making us holy. It is the
04:58: Holy One of Israel. So Father, we cannot even dare try to be holy enough.
05:06: It's the gospel that comes to us. It's something You have done. So now,
05:12: Lord, in salvation and being justified, now is the work of sanctification. Even You are working in us and through us, but yet there is a side to sanctification that we have to do.
05:25: Lord, that's where we need grace. So Lord, give us the grace. Help us to sanctify us.
05:31: Sanctify Your people with Your truth this morning. Sanctify us here, holy in spirit, soul, and body.
05:38: That is our desire, Lord, that we mourn over our sins, even of our past sins, and our present shortcomings, and our present sins.
05:50: For sin is a constant battle within our redeemed hearts. So Father, as we bless
05:56: You, we thank You for forgiveness through the blood of Your dear Son that cleanses us from all sin.
06:03: Grace that is greater than all of our sin. We thank You for the reconciliation that You have brought through the death of Your son,
06:11: Jesus. Now, Father, our prayer is this, that we seek Your face. We look, as we look into the perfect law of liberty, that Your word would do its work upon our soul and cleanse us, purify us, strengthen us for this journey until we get to heaven.
06:31: As Your word afflicts the comfortable, it also comforts the afflicted. And by it, as David said,
06:41: Your servant is warned. And in keeping them, keeping them, there is great reward.
06:48: So Lord, may we be doers of Your word, for Your glory in Jesus' name.
06:54: Amen. It is truly my desire this morning to minister grace to your hearts from these wonderful verses here in verses 6 through 10.
07:04: James offers a rather comprehensive, wonderful invitation to sinners as we looked at last
07:13: Lord's Day, and we saw the verses of Scripture of that invitation. You see it all through the verses of Holy Scripture, Holy Writ.
07:22: Come unto me, he that thirsts, come, buy without money.
07:30: Jesus says, come unto me, all you labor and heavy laden, I give you rest. The invitation to salvation is there.
07:36: I really believe, to the context of what James is speaking of here, that He has given an invitation to sinners to come to God in true faith.
07:47: This is what He has given, and why? Because look at what He says in the previous verses in chapter 4.
07:55: He speaks to the prideful, the quarrelsome. He speaks to the worldly, the people who are in desperate need of forgiveness.
08:06: And they are the ones that are in need of this great salvation that saves to the uttermost.
08:12: They need to be justified, they need to be sanctified through grace and by God's power and the blood of Jesus Christ.
08:21: These people are envious and they cannot obtain, as He says, so they fight and quarrel.
08:27: That's what verses 1 and the rest says. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?
08:34: That's the first question He asks. Is not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members?
08:42: Strong language, actually, but He's rebuking the pride and the sin.
08:49: And that's actually what He's speaking of, pride that promotes strife here. And there's wars among them.
08:57: And then He speaks that they are envious and cannot obtain. They fight and quarrel and they do not have because they do not ask.
09:05: There's a lack of prayer, there's prayerlessness here. And then He says when you do pray, they ask and do not receive because they ask with wrong motives.
09:14: They ask for the wrong reason. It's all about their own self and it's all about their own pleasures.
09:21: So why? They spend it on their own pleasures. All the glorious benefits of God that are given from above, and He says this in the previous verses, every good and perfect gift comes from above.
09:37: The true joy, the true peace of mind, even true happiness, meaning, hope, everlasting and abundant life comes only through God the
09:51: Father and by our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet unbelievers are unwilling to ask for these things, these wonderful glories that God gives and these riches that God gives on His terms.
10:09: They do not want to come to God on His terms. I had the privilege of, here several weeks ago, and I'll keep the name anonymous, but this particular person
10:22: I was speaking to about the gospel. The first thing she came to me and she texted me, as we made friends on Facebook, she says,
10:33: I need Jesus. I said, OK, we'll see how far this goes. That's what I was saying to my mind.
10:40: So I got to know her and I did not jump in hook, line and sinker. I kind of got to know her a little bit and I told her a little bit about myself on practical matters and so forth, personal matters in the sense of this is who
10:56: I am. And let me ask you a few questions about, you know, and this particular person is going through some hardships, granted, a lot of pain, just lost a son to suicide.
11:12: So I had to be very careful and not to dig in in the sense with all that pain that's going on in this person's life to push this person away from the gospel.
11:25: But at the same time, I'm not going to compromise and not give, hold back the truth. You see what
11:31: I'm saying? Because truth always, love always tells people truth. It's just the timing that we need to know by God.
11:40: And this is for all of us, isn't it? Because we need to know the timing of how to give that truth and love without compromise.
11:48: But God always knows how to open up the doors. Well, God did open up that door, so she was okay for a while in listening to the scriptures.
12:00: I tried to point her to the scriptures. Read your Bible. Oh, I'm going to get my mother's Bible out. And she was sentimental to her mother's
12:07: Bible because her mother passed away, of course, and I can understand that. So she said, I got my mother's Bible.
12:12: It's a rainbow and lettering and it's marked and all this and she's got marked personal notes, and I said, okay.
12:19: So as she was sharing these things with me, time went by. And eventually, she's got a,
12:30: I'm sorry, she has a daughter, a surviving daughter.
12:37: By the way, the son that committed suicide was a Mormon believer and that really was a very sensitive subject.
12:45: So I didn't go there on that, even though we know where the Mormons stand.
12:51: We want to love these people, right? Even though they're involved in false doctrine and occult, we've got to love them.
12:58: And it's hard. You know what I'm saying? Because you've got to love these people, but we never compromise the truth.
13:06: So she's got this daughter that is a lesbian. And the subject came up.
13:15: She said, well, are you telling me that you're unforgiving toward my daughter?
13:20: And the subject came up about this lifestyle. And without beating around the bush,
13:27: I got right to the point here. And I knew this was right. This is what God says about this lifestyle.
13:35: Now, love tells us. God gives us the truth because He loves us enough to say this is wrong.
13:43: And you know what Scripture says about those, just not that lifestyle, is people who committed fornication, people who practice thieving, people who are practicing adulteries.
13:54: And it goes on. The list goes on. And all those who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
14:01: And living a homosexual, lesbian lifestyle, if you practice this, you are not going to inherit the kingdom of God.
14:10: I gave her the Scriptures, and she thought I was unloving. And then all of a sudden,
14:15: I became a hate person. This is very familiar language that's going on today.
14:26: So, in brief, I'm bringing this up because people's motives are wrong.
14:33: First, she says she needs Jesus. And then I went right to the
14:39: Gospel and I said, this is the way you come to Jesus. You come to Jesus on His terms.
14:47: Amen. Not on our own terms. And she thought, well, in other words, and I began to see this.
14:54: I began to see that her children, and we all have to be careful here because I don't want to sound self -righteous or sanctimonious because we could put anything before God.
15:07: And it was obvious that she was putting her children before God. And that her children were the idol of her life.
15:16: The apple of her eye. Now, we love our children. But they are not the idols of our lives.
15:25: We idolize one, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one and true living
15:31: God. And God says, thou shalt not have no other gods before Me. Jesus says, you come to follow
15:38: Me. You come after Me. You deny yourself and you take up your cross and you follow Him. People don't want to count the cost.
15:45: They don't want to come to Jesus on God's terms. They want to come on their terms.
15:51: So, gloriously, I thank God for this wonderful opportunity. I gave her the invitation of the
15:56: Gospel and I gave her the Scriptures. And I even closed with this. And I gave her the story in John 8 about the woman caught in adultery.
16:05: And I said, I'm going to set before you this. This woman was caught in adultery. She deserved to die.
16:11: The law, even the Pharisees, tried to set up Jesus and say, Okay, this woman, according to the law, she needs to die.
16:20: Jesus showed her grace. But, after He showed her grace, what did
16:25: He say to her? Go and sin no more. There is repentance from sin.
16:31: There was grace and pardon. But, at the same time, grace is not cheap, as we sung a minute ago.
16:37: It is a glorious grace that saves to the uttermost. So, people have a hard time with this, don't they?
16:45: They've got this image in their mind. And, especially today, you see the churches just going backwards.
16:51: You could put any name on it. Going backwards and backwards and backwards into this,
16:58: I call antinomianism. It's basically, well, that too.
17:03: But, also, there's a grace that is being preached that's not God's grace. It's a total compromise.
17:10: And it is another God. It is another gospel. You know what I'm saying. Well, these people right here, they were coming to God and they were praying.
17:20: But, they were praying for the wrong motives. Wrong motives. And we all must check our own motives.
17:27: And coming to God. And there can be acting of evil manners. And motivated by personal ambitions and personal gratifications.
17:36: And selfish desires. And, technically, they're unbelievers. Unbelievers seek things for their own pleasures.
17:44: And not for the honor and the glory of God, as we read earlier. Because it's really about God, isn't it?
17:49: Christianity is about God. It's God coming to us. And Paul says this to unbelievers in Corinthians, I believe.
17:59: He says, be reconciled to God. That's the message. Well, isn't that the plea?
18:07: That we desire to reach out to people and say, be reconciled to God. So, James is dealing with these.
18:16: Who talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. They know about it in their mind, but they have a warped concept of who
18:23: God is. They're friends with the world. They're enemies of God. And look, in verse 6, he comes in here and he says,
18:33: He, being God, gives a greater grace. Don't you love that?
18:40: All the strong language that James gives by the Holy Spirit. And then he says, but God gives a greater grace.
18:48: Greater grace. God's abundant in grace, isn't He? And He's plentiful in infinite grace, even to the worldly sinner.
18:58: To those who have offended Him. We've all offended God some way or another. And when we were sinners, and don't you love what the verse says in Romans there?
19:08: Yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for us.
19:16: That's a wonderful, gracious verse. But here, the question then comes to us, but to whom does
19:23: God give that grace to? And the answer, James gives the answer, and don't you love it?
19:29: He gives chapter and verse. That's, I don't know about you, I think that's always the wisest thing to do is give chapter and verse.
19:36: He gives Proverbs 3 .34. What does it say? Wherefore He saith, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
19:45: And by the way, He's not the only apostle that quoted it. If you read 1 Peter 5, 5, and 6, Peter writes this, and like manner,
19:54: Peter says, you younger submit to the elder, and all of you be subject to one another.
20:00: And be clothed with humility. Don't you love that language? In other words, you clothe yourself with humility.
20:09: And God, for God, resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.
20:19: In verse 6, and then Peter says it, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
20:28: And as Ms. Lillian pointed out earlier, the life of Joseph is a beautiful example of being humbled, and living a life of humiliation.
20:38: And then God brings the exaltation. And as, I don't know about you, as I was thinking about the story of Joseph, and what a beautiful story it is, of seeing the hand of God.
20:49: But you also see this in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. All the way when
20:55: He was born, and He took upon Himself flesh. And I don't know about you, when
21:00: I just think about that scene, it almost just causes me to weep. Because He comes, and He was not born in mansions.
21:09: But He was born in the poorest of the poor, in a stable of stench among animals.
21:18: Think of that, the environment, unsanitary. He was almost born right into a homeless environment.
21:27: He was. And yet, all the way from the stable to the cross,
21:33: He lived a perfect life of humility. Perfect humility. And that's the life our
21:41: Lord lived for our sake, and for the glory of God, right? It's humbling.
21:48: Well there's also a very familiar concept taken from Proverbs 334, and let's just look at that very quickly.
21:54: To whom does God give this grace? Scripture says, God gives the grace to the humble.
22:00: The humble. It's to those who humble themselves. God is looking for the man and woman who is humble, that's broken, a contrite at heart, who trembles at His word.
22:12: That's what Isaiah 66 too says. Oh, what a wonderful verse of Scripture. Isaiah 66 too,
22:20: God says, For my hand made all these things. Thus, all these things came into being.
22:27: God is the creator of the universe. He's the sovereign Lord. He is none beside Him.
22:35: And then He says, declares the Lord, But to this one I will look. Now think of this.
22:41: God's going to look to this one. Who is it? To Him who is humble, and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.
22:56: Jesus said it, Matthew 18, 3. Jesus Himself said, Unless you become as a little child, unless you humble yourself,
23:05: Jesus says this, unless you humble yourself, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
23:12: I mean straight to the point. So when we say God gives grace, when we ask the question to whom the answer is, according to God's word, it's those who are humble.
23:25: Truly humble. That leads us to another question. A very important question is posed.
23:32: What is the essence of true humility? What is the essence of true humility? Well, how do we describe humility that God blesses with His saving grace?
23:43: What kind of humility does God bless? Well, how do we demonstrate the kind of humility that God expects?
23:50: Well, James answers that too. In verses 7 -10.
23:56: That's how He gives it. 7 -10. Submit therefore to God.
24:03: Resist the devil. He will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.
24:10: Cleanse your hands, your centers. Purify your hearts, your double -minded. Be miserable. People say, you mean to tell me that's how
24:17: I draw close to God? This is it. You draw close to God, be miserable. And mourn and weep.
24:23: Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the
24:29: Lord and He will exalt you. Now keep in mind, He's dealing with the sinner. He's dealing with the worldly. And I don't know about you, if you look about you today, people, whether...
24:39: We have to guard ourselves from worldliness. But it has a strong pull on our flesh.
24:49: And He's dealing with people that are... I mean, they're saturated with the world and the love of the world.
24:56: And it has to be a strong dose of truth. And He gives it to them. And He doesn't beat around the bush, does
25:05: He? You notice how pointed He is. How direct He is. Submit therefore to God.
25:11: Period. Your submission, you line up underneath. It's a military word, as we looked at it.
25:17: You line up under God's authority. You resist the devil. And it says,
25:24: He will flee from you. In other words, you submit to God, you will resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
25:29: I think the first thing is, it's been perfect order that there is submission to God. Well, these are the
25:36: Ten Commandments of James and they're called to bring people to saving faith.
25:43: I was reading John MacArthur's commentary on this and this is what he said. The Ten Commands that James gives are directed at people who have not submitted to God.
25:52: They are directed at people who have not taken a stand against the devil. They are directed at people who are far from God, who are corrupt inwardly, who are corrupt outwardly, who hold on to the world and hold on to sin, who laugh and celebrate when they should be weeping, and it is directed at people who are proud.
26:16: End quote. So these are the characteristics that indicates people who are unregenerate.
26:26: I'm sorry. They are called by James in verse 8, notice, sinners.
26:33: He doesn't say beloved there, does he? He does not say saints of the living God. He says sinners, a term in the
26:42: New Testament referring to those who do not believe the gospel. The reason I say this because there are some commentators that will believe that tell you here that he is speaking to the saved.
26:57: But as the writer of Hebrews, there's always those, he's conscience that there's always terrors among the weak.
27:06: He is writing to the Jews that are dispersed and to the believers, but there's also a call to those in the crowd that profess to be
27:20: Christians, but they're not. And after all, if you notice, just about the whole book of James deals with, he's dealing with you say this, but you don't do this.
27:29: You say it, but you don't act it. You see this time and time again.
27:36: And they live a life of deception. Well, these are the people that disregard the law of God and they manifest a sinful lifestyle.
27:48: Now James gives the call to sinners. So what's that call? What is the call to?
27:54: Or to whom? Or to what? Look at verse 7. Well, we've already gone, we've covered, almost covered some of the same turf, but we're going to try to draw out a little bit more.
28:04: The first is to submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. The second command, that's the second command,
28:11: I'm sorry, and the first and the second. The third is in verse 8, a beautiful statement, and then we're going to look at this in detail here the rest of the, the rest of our study here.
28:23: Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Now keep in mind that our author here is
28:32: James. He's a Jewish man. And he's speaking to the Jews that are dispersed.
28:40: If you go back to verse 2, 1 and 2, the twelve tribes scattered abroad.
28:46: So he's with a Jewish heritage. They would understand the richness of this concept of drawing near.
28:54: The term draw near was originally associated with a priestly function. And priests were said to be those who draw near.
29:06: Levite priests. For example, just to give you a few passages, we'll look at very quickly in Old Testament on this.
29:13: You'll be able to follow through in your thinking. Go with me very quickly to Exodus. Exodus chapter 19.
29:24: You see, they understood this. And you got to, you know, it's real important when you do a study in the books.
29:33: It's very important to see the audience. You got to see the audience to understand the context.
29:42: And his audience are Jewish. And he knew exactly how to pull them in to the truth by the power of the
29:51: Holy Spirit. So Exodus 19. Look at verse 22.
30:00: Also let the priest who come near to the Lord. Notice the letter, the language there.
30:08: Come near to the Lord. Consecrate themselves or else the Lord will break out against them.
30:15: What a verse. You come near to the Lord. You got to come
30:21: God's way. If you don't, you're going to die. Even as a priest. That's why they had to tie this rope to them when they went in.
30:31: And if they messed up, beloved, I'm telling you, God smote them dead because of His holiness.
30:38: And they couldn't go in and get them because they would die too. They had to pull a rope around them. And if they died, they just pulled the rope and pulled their body out.
30:47: But that's what it means that God would break out against them. So here, that's the language.
30:55: Skip, go to very quickly. I want to just touch just a few. Leviticus. If you jump to the
31:01: Leviticus, and you know about the book of Leviticus. It's all about God's holiness. It's not about rules and regulations.
31:09: It's about God's holiness. The whole book is a wonderful study.
31:16: Look at chapter 10. Look at verse 3. This is about the sin of Nadab and Abihu.
31:24: You know the story. Let me read just a few verses here. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron.
31:31: Two sons of Aaron. Aaron, as you know, Moses' brother. He's a priest.
31:39: They took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it, offered strange fire before the
31:47: Lord, which He had not commanded them. Uh -oh, there's trouble.
31:54: If God doesn't command it, you're in trouble. The fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them.
32:02: I want you to think of that. And they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, Is it what the
32:12: Lord spoke, saying, By those who come near me,
32:18: I will be treated as holy, and before all the people
32:25: I will be honored? So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.
32:33: He was wise because he knew. Now I want you to think about this. He just lost his two sons.
32:43: He knew. He knew. They messed up. They did not obey the commandment of God, and they went in there and offered strange fire, and God had every right to kill them.
32:58: You got people thinking, Why would God do something like that? He's a mean, horrible God. No. It's the reverse.
33:06: These people that Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, and God consumed them.
33:15: But the language, I want you to draw close, By those who come near me. So we're not coming just near just some person on this earth.
33:27: You can't compare God with persons on this earth, because we're the creature. He's the creator.
33:33: So we come near him. We tread his courts very carefully, don't we?
33:41: So that's a few Old Testament verses. Let me go to a couple in Ezekiel. Ezekiel has a lot.
33:47: There's so many verses here. I don't have time to cut it. Go with me to Ezekiel chapter 43.
33:56: You can do your own study on this, and I'm telling you it's rich. But if you go through the
34:02: Old Testament, this language is very meaningful, and it's rich.
34:08: Notice Ezekiel 43 .19. 43 .19.
34:14: I'm just touching just a few. Let me back up.
34:20: Go to 18. The offerings, offerings. And his altar is sacrificed as offerings. And he said to me,
34:26: Son of man, thus says the Lord God, these are the statutes for the altar on the day it is built, to offer burnt offerings on it, and to sprinkle blood on it.
34:37: You shall give to the Levitical priests who are from the offspring of Zadok, who draw near to me to minister to me.
34:48: There's the language. Who draw near to me to minister to me declares the Lord God a young bull and a sin offering.
34:57: And let's read further. And you shall take some of its blood and put it on its four horns, and on the four corners of the ledge, and on the border around about.
35:06: Thus you shall cleanse it and make atonement for it. And you shall also take the bull from the sin offering, and it shall be burned into the appointed place of the house outside the sanctuary.
35:20: So there's the altar. And these are all the measurements of the altar. Burnt offerings are given here, and what
35:26: God requires in verses 13 through 17. And you have the offerings that are described in verses 18 through 27.
35:35: And keep in mind, these offerings are not necessarily to cleanse away the sin of itself.
35:46: The Old Testament sacrifices were all symbolic of death for sin. They do not take away sin, as Hebrews 10 -4 says, but they were prospective.
35:58: And these will be retrospective in that sense that they do, literally do the job to take away sin.
36:06: It's the blood of Jesus. It all points to Christ. And you read Hebrews, you see the
36:12: Hebrew writer doing this. And some people even, I don't, we don't know this for sure who the writer of Hebrews is.
36:22: Really it's not going to matter once we get to heaven. We can ask then, right? But it's not going to matter because you're going to be so lost in God.
36:30: It's not going to matter no more. But some people feel that James wrote Hebrews. I've heard that.
36:35: But I take the opinion of Paul. That's my personal opinion. We don't know.
36:42: Because Paul knew so much about the Old Testament. But some people feel James. Well, anyway,
36:47: I'll stop there. But the point is, is the language. Notice the language. Draw near to me.
36:54: Draw near to me. Jump with me very quickly to Ezekiel 44 verse 13.
37:02: And they shall not come near to me to serve as a priest to me, nor come near to any of my holy things, to the things that are most holy.
37:13: But they will bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. There's that language once again about the nearness.
37:25: And verse 10, if you look back there, the bearer of the punishment for their iniquity. God makes distinctions here.
37:32: Levites, in the line of those unfaithful days before the judgment, comminister in the temple services, but they cannot make offerings or enter into the most holy place.
37:41: I'm telling you, they had to do it directly the way God said. And that's so important in worship that it's all centered in God the way
37:53: He has commanded. We don't come to God the way we want to or on our terms, right?
38:00: And that's the point. So the Old Testament, there's a drawing near where the priest, and before they could draw near, they had to have washed and cleansed themselves.
38:12: They had to wash their hands. They had to go to the labor. And before they went into the holy of holies, there had to be a washing.
38:20: Isn't that beautiful? So before we enter into the very presence of God, there has to be a washing.
38:28: They washed their hands. They had to wash their feet. Makes me think about how Jesus washed the disciples' feet.
38:36: See? And He says, you're all clean, except for one.
38:41: And that was Jesus. He was not clean. Well, there's another connection here about cleansing.
38:49: And I like to go to that. Let's see how much more time I got here. It's moving by quick.
38:55: I better hurry up. Psalm 24, 3 and 5, 3 through 5, and I love this.
39:02: And the question is this. Who, who may ascend into the heel of the
39:11: Lord? And who may stand in His holy place?
39:19: You notice verse 4. He gives the answer. Excuse me. He who has clean hands and a pure heart, and notice what
39:30: He says, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood. Notice that lifted up in pride.
39:38: Lifted up. You see, it's best to come down. But He's talking about falsehood.
39:47: Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and has not sworn deceitfully.
39:53: In other words, he's a liar within and without. In verse 5, He shall receive a blessing from the
40:00: Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. There's the answer right there.
40:08: That's how, that's who. Who and how. Well, what does
40:14: He say? James says. Let's look at it. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
40:22: Isn't that beautiful? Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double minded.
40:31: There's the fourth commandment from James. Cleanse hands, sinners.
40:38: That's what the original says. The original text. Cleanse hands, sinners. A purging.
40:48: A purifying. A cleansing. And the cleansing of the hands, James has in mind the
40:53: Jewish thought that done by the priests before they ever went before God. That's described in Exodus chapter 30.
41:03: And the priests before they could ever go before the Lord as we read had to go through a cleansing process with the labor.
41:11: And what James is saying here now. Now, he said that you're drawing near to God.
41:18: He says, cleanse hands, sinners. Now this is important. Always important.
41:26: We must have a cleansed heart. We must have a cleansed life. And this thought is not original with James.
41:36: Go with me very quickly to Isaiah chapter 1. Now this is some strong language, beloved.
41:45: Aren't you glad it's strong? I tell you, we need it strong because we're so depraved.
41:52: And James knows this. If you look at Isaiah 1, 15 and 16.
42:03: Notice what he says. And he's talking about a people that's very religious. As Brother Ben prayed this morning, they have a form of godliness.
42:13: But they deny the power thereof. And he says this, and when you spread forth your hands.
42:19: Listen to this. Almost like they're in the sanctuary. God says, I'm going to hide my eyes from you. That's what
42:26: God says. You could spread forth your hands. You know, I heard an old missionary say this years ago.
42:31: You spread forth your hands, make sure they're holy. This is lifting up holy hands.
42:37: Well, if we do lift up our hands, we better make sure they're holy. I tell you, it's serious.
42:44: And we need this serious. We need this reverence. It's missing in our church today. Oh, beloved,
42:51: I'm telling you. And God says this, and yea, when you make many prayers. Oh, now they're praying.
42:56: They're real religious. God says, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
43:05: In other words, what? They're double -minded. We got a person here that's a murderer. They're murderers.
43:13: They've shed innocent blood. And then he says, okay, your hands are full of blood.
43:20: And then what does he say? Wash yourselves. Boy, God gets right to the point, doesn't he?
43:26: Wash yourselves. God's holy. Verse 16.
43:33: Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, before God's eyes.
43:40: Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek justice. Listen to what he says.
43:46: Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow. What does that remind you of, James?
43:51: Pure religion and undefiled. Notice James doesn't get this from original thought.
43:58: He goes to the Old Testament. He quotes the Old Testament prophets. Oh, how many stories we can look in the
44:07: Scriptures about those widows. Aren't they beautiful? And then God says, come now.
44:14: There's the invitation. Come now. Let us reason together. Oh, aren't you glad that God says, you just stay away from me.
44:22: No, God says, you can come, but we've got to reason together. In other words, God's saying, you come on my terms.
44:30: Then he says this. You reason together. Sayeth the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, if you are willing and obedient.
44:42: There it is. Cleanse yourselves. Exactly what the Scripture says to do, for sinners to do.
44:49: He gives the prescription. Cleanse hands, sinners. Why the hands?
44:56: Why the hands? Because you see, the hands are symbolic of our behavior.
45:03: It's symbolic of our deeds. It's symbolic of our actions. It is always
45:08: Scripture that says, our iniquities that separate us from God. Is it not? Isaiah 59 too.
45:15: Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
45:25: And David said it, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.
45:31: We've got to deal with the sin. If there's sin in our heart, we've got to deal with it.
45:41: So, in approaching a holy God, we always remember the great promise, and I love this, and I always keep this before me.
45:49: 1 John 1 .9. Don't you love 1 John 1 .9? Thank God for 1 John 1 .9.
45:55: If we confess our sins, that's a humbling agreeing with God. That basically means confession.
46:01: I'm humbling agreeing with God. And if we confess our sins, that's submitting to God.
46:10: He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and what?
46:16: Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Amen. He's the cleanser.
46:21: The Word is the cleansing agent. God does the cleansing.
46:27: The blood of Jesus does the cleansing. The Word of God is the agent and sanctifying agent that God uses to cleanse us from what?
46:36: Some unrighteousness? No, all unrighteousness. I love the Word of God, don't you? So, when the heart submits to sovereign lordship, and when the heart commits to worship to the true living
46:47: God, longs to know Him and love Him, the heart will be moved to recognition of its own sin.
46:54: Always. You look at Isaiah. When he saw the Lord high and lifted up, the first thing he recognizes, woe is me.
47:06: Woe is me. Woe is me. Listen to that. He put a curse upon himself.
47:13: He was a prophet. He gave curses or blessings and he says, woe is me.
47:19: Wow, don't we need to do that? And I tell you what. You will do that. I'll do that. We all do that when we come near God and see
47:27: His holiness and His beauty and His glory. Confession of sin is part of it, beloved.
47:34: This is a call of loving righteousness and hating iniquity and longing for holiness. What did
47:41: Jesus say in the beatitude? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They shall be filled.
47:47: Amen. Jesus knew exactly in its perfect order to take it up to the mountain peak.
47:54: That's how we draw near to God. I like what R .C. Sproul says here. True confession and true repentance involves a godly sorrow for having offended
48:03: God a genuine turning away from our sin. And then he says this.
48:10: Confession is not for God's good, it's for our good. That's good, isn't it?
48:17: Isaiah 29, 13 Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near to me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart from far from me.
48:34: You see, God was not pleased with coming near people coming near Him on His terms.
48:40: I'm sorry, their terms. You've got to come on His terms. See, these were people coming to God on their terms.
48:49: The language was there. Draw nigh. Say in the right words. Pray in the right prayers.
48:56: You know, we could do that. And I don't know about you, beloved, but that makes me tremble. That makes me really tremble because all together our heart could be far from God.
49:08: I could be going through the motions. I could be saying the right prayers. Oh, I could be eloquent. I could be a good orator.
49:15: I could be lifted up and making you think, oh, wow, I'm saying a beautiful prayer and it's all for the motive just to be heard of men.
49:24: And Jesus said, no, you don't do it to be heard of men. You do it and you go in the secret place and you say these prayers before me,
49:33: God says. You see, in this passage, that term drawing near became a synonym for any worshiper, even one with a heart that was far from God.
49:45: You know, we saw that in the Old Testament. There was people that was far from God.
49:50: Look at Adab and Abihu, I'm sorry. And they thought, oh, well, we're just going to do whatever and we're going to draw near to God our way.
50:00: Look at what happened. It cost them. Think about the fire of God.
50:06: God's a consuming fire. I picture in my mind when
50:11: Aaron went in there and they had to recover those two bodies, they were ashes. It was just a heap of ashes in there.
50:20: You don't play around with God. Well, let me conclude. So what is really
50:26: God looking for? What does He desire from us in our everyday life?
50:33: Amen. Brother Keith nailed it right there. It's our heart.
50:40: And let's look at the heart. Let's give it some personal application because I tell you, I don't know about you, beloved,
50:45: I want my heart in this. The answer to this question from the Word of God. Let's go to Psalm 51.
50:54: Here's a great chapter. Psalm 51. When King David was repenting.
51:03: He was repenting. And by the way, here's a true penitent prayer in godly sorrow.
51:10: The Holy Spirit was breathing upon his own heart while he was crying out in supplication to God. Verse 15.
51:18: Oh Lord, he prays. He could just always say, Oh Lord, open my lips.
51:25: Open my lips. Now listen to this. He speaks with confession. He talks about confession.
51:31: And then he says, literally it says, May you open. That's the original.
51:38: May you open. Only God can do opening. My lips. That my mouth may declare your praise.
51:46: So that's the purpose of the mouth. Is to praise God. And here is true confession before God.
51:53: Verse 16. For you do not delight in sacrifice. Otherwise I would give it.
52:00: You are not pleased with burnt offerings. Notice David's confession. And crying out to God in strong supplication.
52:07: That David is more concerned in what God delights in. And what pleases God. See, that's what the true believer is concerned about.
52:19: What pleases God? God, what do you delight in? The only way we can know what
52:25: God delights in is reading this book, beloved. Meditating in this book. You know, no wonder nobody knows.
52:34: If nobody doesn't know what God's desire is and God's will is. They don't know what the word of God is saying.
52:40: You got to know God's word. That's His revealed word. And David tells us. What pleases
52:46: God? What kind of sacrifice delights God? What kind of sacrifice pleases Almighty God?
52:54: Ritual without genuine repentance is useless, right? However, with a right heart attitude, sacrifices were acceptable.
53:02: Look at verse 17, it's the key verse. Here's the kind of sacrifices that God is pleased with, beloved, in faith.
53:11: The sacrifices of God. The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart.
53:23: Oh God! You will not despise. Don't you love that verse?
53:29: This is the sweet perfume of true repentance, beloved. What's David saying here?
53:36: Let me just put it in a prayer. He's saying, Lord, my lips have been sealed shut by my sin.
53:41: This is what he's saying. He's saying, Lord, You open them by Your forgiveness and Your mercy and Your compassion and my mouth will be dedicated to speaking and singing
53:52: Your praises. And then he says, Lord, I am not depending on rituals and ceremonies or going through the emotions or just a form for forgiveness.
54:07: And he's saying, Lord, I know that You are not about being a ritualist. If I thought
54:12: You wanted animal sacrifice, I would bring them. But burnt offering does not delight
54:17: Your heart. It's true, Lord, that You have instituted sacrifices and offerings, but they never represented
54:26: Your ultimate idea. This is what he's saying. And he prays, Lord, I desire to give
54:33: You what You really desire, what You really want. And he says,
54:40: So I come to You with a broken heart. That's what he's saying. Lord, I give
54:46: You my broken heart in faith. My heart that's crushed, afflicted, hurt, pained.
54:59: Here it is. You know it. You desire truth in the inward parts.
55:06: It's the sacrifice the Lord recognizes. God, You will not despise this shattered and contrite heart that I bring before You.
55:17: It makes me think of what Jesus came to do. You don't have to turn there, but in the
55:25: Gospel according to Luke, after Jesus won the victory through the wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights, defeating the devil with the
55:39: Word of God, He comes back to Nazareth.
55:48: And in verse 16, He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up and He was
55:53: His custom. And He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the book of the prophet
55:59: Isaiah that was handled to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written. And He said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He's anointed
56:07: Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. Now, this translation, the
56:14: NASB says, He has sent Me to proclaim and release the captives.
56:19: But I like what the New King James says, He has sent Me to heal the broken hearted.
56:26: Don't you love that? That was the ministry of Jesus, is to heal the broken hearted.
56:36: I bring My broken heart before You, Lord, and You can heal it. So what the
56:44: Lord truly wants for us is to draw near to Him, to draw near and be clean and pure in heart.
56:50: Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16,
56:56: Let us therefore come boldly into the throne of grace that we may, don't you love this, we, not just me, we may obtain mercy.
57:06: That's God's compassion. Find grace, that's God's favor. To help us in time of need.
57:14: God's ready to help. He's a helper in a very present time of trouble.
57:20: God is saying, Draw near, draw near. There's grace. There's plenty of grace.
57:25: There's plenty of compassion. I will forgive you, but you've got to come My way. You've got to come
57:31: God's way. You've got to come the way of the cross. You've got to come with mourning.
57:37: You've got to come with brokenness. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Humble and broken before the courts of the king of glory.
57:47: But you come, God says you come, but you've got to come My way. Verse, chapter 7 verse 19 of Hebrews, For the law made nothing perfect, but bringing in of a better hope did.
58:01: What's that better hope? That is in Christ. By which we draw near to God.
58:07: So we draw near to God, the Father, by the most blessed, the most holy way, and that is Jesus Christ.
58:14: Because Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. I've got it written down on my notes, so I can't skip this.
58:21: My time is about gone, but if you look to John chapter 10, I was thinking, how do we come to God? Right here.
58:29: Jesus says, I'm the good shepherd. Jesus says, Truly, truly I say to you, who does not enter in by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he's a thief and a robber.
58:41: But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. And to him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name.
58:52: Don't you love that? And he leads them out, and he puts forth his own, and he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice.
59:02: A stranger they simply will not follow. But will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.
59:11: Only one voice the sheep recognizes. Amen? It's the voice of Jesus. Right here.
59:19: This is it. Amen. I like what Vaughty... What's his name?
59:25: Vaughtman? He says, The Lord told me so is no substitute for the word of God.
59:33: I like that. Amen. That settles it. There's only one way.
59:40: And Jesus says he's the door. Hebrews 10 verse 22. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed.
59:53: Notice the connection. Washed with pure water. That pure water is none other than the water of the word of God.
01:00:01: The pure washing and regeneration of the word of God. That's the only sanctifying agent that can sanctify us wholly and through and through.
01:00:13: Let me close with this. Psalm 73 verse 28. But as for me, as for me,
01:00:20: David prays, the nearness of God is my good. You hear that?
01:00:25: The nearness of God is my good. The nearness of God is my good.
01:00:31: And I have made the Lord God my refuge. There it is. God himself. That I may tell of all your works.
01:00:40: It makes me think of the man that was possessed with many demons, legions of demons.
01:00:45: And after God, Jesus cleansed him and made him whole. What did he do? He went everywhere telling everybody about the marvelous things of God.
01:00:55: What a call to salvation, beloved. That we could come to God. It just isn't confessing him as Lord or just submitting under him or exchanging the old master
01:01:07: Satan for a new master that I may be part of. But that's all true. And that's a great sacrifice.
01:01:14: But really it's the great desire and jubilant longing, the heart that longs after God that's broken and contrite.
01:01:23: Longing after God. Longing after worship. And after the beauty of holiness and worshiping him in spirit and truth.
01:01:31: It's a drawing near that longs for an intimate, close relationship with God. Coming into fellowship with the true worshiper.
01:01:41: And oh my goodness, how we love our
01:01:49: Lord to come to him. So God is in the business of saving, right? And salvation.
01:01:55: But he came to make rebels into worshipers.
01:02:02: Amen. That's the purpose. That's the purpose of salvation.
01:02:09: Well praise God. There's so much more to be said here. We'll pick up, Lord willing, next
01:02:15: Lord's Day or the following Lord's Day. Let's pray.
01:02:21: Father, we thank you. Lord, there's so much before us here. There's so much more that can be said.
01:02:27: Your Word is so infinite. Praise God. You came for the outcast, the rejects, the sinners, to call them to repentance.
01:02:44: To call them to repentance. To make them whole. To cleanse them.
01:02:50: And Father, that includes us. Here we are. Lord, we desire to be broken and contrite.
01:02:59: Even your Word, Father, says this in Romans 10 .8, but what does it say?
01:03:06: The Word is near you. In your mouth and in your heart.
01:03:11: That is the Word of faith in which we are preaching. And then it says,
01:03:17: Lord, you give the remedy. If we confess with our mouth
01:03:23: Jesus is Lord. Believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead. You will be saved.
01:03:32: And with the heart, a person believes, resulting in righteousness.
01:03:37: And with the mouth, he confesses, resulting in salvation. Because the
01:03:43: Scripture says, whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.
01:03:49: Will not be disappointed. Lord, you don't disappoint. Never. And Father, so we come only one way.
01:03:56: And we come by the way of the cross. And the person and works of the
01:04:01: Lord Jesus Christ who made the way for our salvation. Who made the way for our sanctification.
01:04:08: And ultimately it will be to our glorification. So, Father, we pray as we come before you.
01:04:16: We come before your mercy throne. Only through the blood of Jesus, Lord, we desire, draw near to us.
01:04:25: May we draw near to you. Because there is no other way. Father, break us.
01:04:35: Mold us. Make us. But in the end, use us for your glory. And I ask this in Jesus name.