James Session 6 (Chapters 3:13-4:17) - With Chuck Missler

[Music] okay in a previous session uh we finished about chapter three verse 12. i'd like to ask you a question and i'm indebted to james dobson for this when he was the council for national policy he made a speech that was very impressive but he opened it with a very interesting question what is the first thing that god created anyone what's the first thing that god created god you cheated you looked ahead see the answer is not in genesis 1. speak of light earth heavy no no it's in proverbs chapter 8. now in proverbs chapter 8 the style of the passage is in poetic terms or anthropomorphic terms proverbs 8 talks about wisdom it's as if wisdom is talking to you in the first person singular it's so impressive as you'll see many people simply ascribe this and not improperly to jesus christ as being the personification of wisdom you can look at it that way if you like there's no problem with that but let's look at proverbs 8. doth not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice she standeth in the top of high places by the way in the places of the path she crieth at the gates at the at the entry of the city and at the entrance of the doors unto you o man i call and my voice is to the sons of man oh ye simple understand wisdom oh ye fools be of understanding heart here for i will speak of excellent things and the opening of my lips shall be the right things and he goes and and the writer goes on now let's pick it up about verse 23 you can read the make a note to yourself to read the rest of chapter eight at your leisure but i wanna pick up verse 23 i was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the earth was when there were no depths i was brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with water before the mountains were settled before the hills was i brought forth well as yet he had not made the earth nor the fields nor the highest part of the dust of the world when he prepared the heavens i was there when he set a compass upon the face of the depth when he established the clouds above and he strengthened the fountains of the deep when he gave to the sea its decree that the water should not pass his commandment when he appointed the foundations of the earth then i was by him as one brought up with him and i was daily his delight rejoicing always before him now you can see this passage very validly vividly clearly as the son with the father at the creation now i wouldn't quarrel with that or you can stand back and say this as a style of writing which is but it's clearly speaking of wisdom so what precedes the physical creation as you and i think of it wisdom as we jump into james chapter 3 verse 13 where he is going to talk about wisdom we use that word so casually wisdom verse 13 asks the question who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you let him show out of a good conversation or more pers good behavior the word conversations the old english for what you and i the term has come to mean something a little different in modern usage behavior is good behavior his works with meekness of wisdom it's in proverbs 4 7 says wisdom is the principle thing therefore get wisdom and with all thy getting get understanding now most of us confuse man's knowledge with man's wisdom there's enormous knowledge available throughout mankind and many christians by overreacting to some of these injunctions we'll get into overreact to that no there's much knowledge and knowledge is to be embraced and acquired it's useful however the real problem is man's wisdom the bible is full of examples of the folly of man's wisdom not the folly of man's knowledge knowledge needs to be despaired knowledge is basic but wisdom uh the application of the knowledge let's see let's just we could spend substantial time just chronicling the the follies of man's wisdom in the scripture perhaps one of the earliest ones we see in a collective in a large sense is the tower of babel they had this big project which ended up in failure and confusion another example of a man's folly was abraham when there was a famine in the land he fled to egypt in genesis chapter 12. and another example of the folly of man's wisdom is a saul when david was going to take on goliath he wanted david to put on his armor seemed logical at the time of course the kid couldn't handle it and that wasn't god's plan so you know the story in acts 27 despite paul's warning the roman experts insisted upon the setting out to sea and despite their folly of their uh wisdom they were saved but they lost everything else because they didn't listen to paul who warned him anyway man's man's wisdom the bible chronicles man's wisdom is his folly there are three enemies you and i face what are the three enemies we face anyone the world the flesh or the devil sure that's in ephesians chapter two first three verses you and i face three adversaries there are three forces or elements or things that are against you one of them of course is the world and the wisdom of the world is a trap now you don't want to confuse the world's knowledge from the world's wisdom some people figure that you know they overreact to some of this in in in practical ways over a century ago henry david thoreau warned that we had improved means to unimproved ends that's man's dilemma we've learned how to make bigger and bigger bombs we haven't learned to use them better and so forth that's sort of the flavor of it the world by wisdom knew not god that's the ultimate folly the world has made had many follies but the ultimate follow is not to recognize god and the wisdom of the world rejects the gospel of god and that's the ultimate foolishness in fact god's wisdom is foolishness to man first corinthians 2 14 is a good example of that turn to first corinthians 1. it's a such a basic passage that i know we referred to it before but let's uh just refresh our our perspective as the holy spirit speaks through paul first chapter of romans the first chapter of first corinthians both speak of worldly wisdom in a number of ways but here in verse 18 of chapter one first corinthians for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness and boy isn't it isn't that an absurd idea you know our worldly friends must think we're nuts that the entire universe everything in it is going to be measured by an incident that occurred in judea 2000 years ago the preaching of the cross that by your attitude your your your attitude towards that cross will determine your eternal destiny by worldly standard that's foolish and that's exactly what god says the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness but unto unto us who are saved is the power of god i want you to notice about that verse there are only two categories every one of us in this room are in one of those two categories we're either among those that perish or among those that are saved what discerns the difference between the two their attitude towards the cross we're preaching the crosses of them that perish foolishness but to us who are saved it is the power of god for it is written i will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudence where is the wise where is the scribe where's the dispute of this age hath not god made foolish the wisdom of this world then he goes out for after that by the wisdom of god the world by wisdom knew not god it pleased god by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe for the jews require a sign the greeks seek after wisdom but we preach christ crucified unto the jews of stumbling block but unto us unto the gentiles foolishness but unto them who are called both jews and greeks christ the power of god and the wisdom of god because the foolishness of god is wiser than men and the weakness of god is stronger than men what is the beginning of wisdom anyone know good for you the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom the knowledge of the holy is understanding proverbs 9 10 it's also psalm 110 111 verse 10 it's job 28 20. it's actually half a dozen different places in scripture in various ways romans 3 18 says speaking of the perishing there is no fear of god before their eyes the fear of god you know we we come to bible studies we learn about the scripture we do a lot of things we learn lots of verses and we collect information but one of the things we need to soberly focus on is is there the fear of god in our lives one of the most disturbing things in my own personal life i spent 30 years as a corporate executive doing deals on international basis serving on the many boards of directors and traveling traveling with many many segments of the corporate world and had some wins and some losses met some good guys some some bad guys all kinds the biggest adjustment that i had to make in the last seven years i've taught the bible for uh well about virtually 30 years by sulaiman whatever but in the last seven years i've been doing this full time and one of the biggest adjustments is to somehow deal with the shoddy ethics that you find among christians i've dealt with all kinds mostly secular executives many of the executives i dealt with during the 30 years i don't know their theological position where they're saved or not but you quickly determined which ones were accountable which ones are reliable which ones you could trust and there's an ethic didn't say morality they could have been cheating on their wives for all i know but an ethic that you could bank on their word is their bomb that was that was the ethic of wall street and uh the winners were were those that protected that reputation and i won't chronicle the pathetic stories that have occurred in the last seven years dealing with quote christian's close quote it's uh been pointed out to me by one of our staff we were just talking about this the other day point out very interesting insight is that somehow in our christian community people are isolated from accountability of their actions there's forgiveness there's a style of dealing with things that does not bring about accountability uh it's interesting that that's almost unique to our christian culture it's not characteristic of the jewish culture not that they're bad guys among the jews too but the point is they do at least have an ethic of honesty you weren't even talking about integrity and character you don't find pulp that's typically talking about integrity or character they're talking about theological issues and i'm not saying one's more important that's my point and what i'm leading up to is what's missing in the equation is a fear of god we know all about god we maybe pray to him a lot but the fear of god the reverence for him to recognize that he is a participant looking over your shoulder at every transaction when you shake hands with somebody and say you're going to do something god's listening and in certain segments of our society the parties and you know it is expected that you honor that commitment even it turns out later to be unprofitable that's part of the game it's also been pointed out to me that your fear of god does not come from your bible studies we're all in here together taking notes and sharing some things and that's great your fear of god is a measure of your devotional life if you run on somebody that seems to evidence a lack of reverence for god in his attitude his day-to-day walk it tells you volumes about his devotional life and you know in our own case each of us your your fear of god is a derivative of the sincerity and depth and commitment of your devotional life with him how do you spend time with him well now where do we get our wisdom we talk about wisdom here fear of god is where do we get this well first of all our wisdom is of christ the scripture tells us so our first step in getting godly wisdom is to be in christ to receive him paul speaks of being in christ 161 times check me out and see if i missed any second place we get wisdom is from the word of god deuteronomy 6. let's uh let's take a look at what our jewish friends would be quick to point out to us deuteronomy chapter 6 this passage is very well known hero israel the lord our god is one lord and thou shalt love the lord by the way love is not an emotions commitment thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thine heart with all thy soul and with all thy might and these words which i command thee this niche this day shall be in thy heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when i walk us in the by the way and when thou liest down when i rise up you know if you were doing that we wouldn't have these kids carrying guns to school shooting their classmates and thinking that's okay something's missing what's missing these teachings in the home now some people uh smile at the jewish phylacteries where they bind they literally take scriptures and put little boxes and wrap them on their hands and on their forehead and they go through these these procedures and you can smile at that as being sort of a ritualistic approach to it but they're closer to it than we are generally they take it seriously okay and verse second timothy 3 15 psalm 119 the longest psalm in the book of psalms is about getting wisdom from the word of god and you can read the whole psalm but uh there's a it's a it's a long one but read the verse about 97 through about 100 there and it hits it hard they get wisdom from the word of god and then there's a third this is a review question there's the third place that you get wisdom get it from by being in christ by being saved you get it from the word of god where's the third place james 1 5 do you remember chapter 1 by prayer by believing prayer i think there's a tremendous link between your prayer life your devotional life and the operative attitude in terms of reverence for god many people that we've been dealing with in the christian community it's pretty obvious from the kinds of representations and the way they don't uh honor their commitments that their prayer life it tells me volumes about their prayer life it's not for me to judge their intent i can't that's only god knows the intent of their heart but certainly you can tell you can certainly inspect the fruit anyway verse 14 but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth now he's speaking here of evidences of this man's wisdom false wisdom and what does it lead to how do you what are the evidences of false false wisdom well you're going to have envy see ambition and boasting robs god of his glory is your zeal for the lord is your zeal for the lord or is it carnal in the christian work you find people who are very are they doing it for the lord or is there something else in there well how do you tell well do we rejoice when others succeed or are we filled with envy and criticism do we spend our time criticizing other christians who aren't doing it quite the way we would like that aren't emphasizing in their theology the things that we think are the most important do we spend our time you know slandering and libeling our our fellow workers or do we pray for them when others fail are we burdened or are we glad big issue envy one of the symptoms of false wisdom strife james tells us that's a form of self-seeking that's a form of rivalry it's a close cousin what we've just been talking about you can read philippians 2 verses 3 and following and christ taught us about that and of course boasting itself is an evidence of pride the original sin the really original sin by satan paul was forced to boast of his ministry but he always did it in terms that glorified the lord and this is this is one of the the tight ropes we walk all the time because to establish credibility or to open up certain doors and channels we tend to puff some of the things that we've done and yes very dangerous ground often misunderstood you can do that to a certain extent to to establish credibility in a certain context but clearly if it's not done carefully it can be misinterpreted and the ideas these always glorify god difficult line to walk we need a lot of prayer in that area and of course deceit lie not against the truth you're not the biggest biggest deceit that we're vulnerable to all kinds of people are trying to deceive us you know the biggest deceit most dangerous deceit is our own believing our own press releases easy to do easy to do i've got a staff that's given me their solemn vow that if i ever start taking myself seriously at all they will plant their shoe in the appropriate place okay of course the contract the contrast to all this is meekness what is meekness power under control wisdom is the right use of knowledge meekness is the right use of power and seeks only the glory of god and it doesn't cater to the praises of men verse 15 this wisdom descendeth not from above but as earthly central dovish we've been talking about man's wisdom in these things which is earthly sensual and devilish this is the source of false wisdom and i'm fascinated with this term which translated in your english sensual it's in the greek which means natural or sensual it's the word from which we get tsuki or life or soul it's the word from which we get psychology psychology there's a wonderful example of false wisdom now there's much that the field of psychology can offer in terms of knowledge but some of the inferences can be very are very very anti-biblical very dangerous ground very dangerous ground you need to if you study the genesis very carefully you'll discover that the problem with adam and eve is they came from a dis dysfunctional family and didn't have a loving father and of course i'm being facetious that was satan's problem right he wasn't understood he had came from you know anyway and isn't isn't it tragic then paul writes to timothy he didn't have the benefit of the insights of modern psychology no no i i think it's a mistake don't throw the whole field into the trash can as many christians do they go overreact to some of this but just recognize that much of worldly wisdom that masquerades as scientific knowledge is it's just that it's worldly wisdom and it's anti it's not a non-biblical it's anti-biblical and the one thing that psychologists cannot deal with is the root problem in the human personality the root problem in the human personality is guilt and the psychologists have no remedy for guilt they can only go through denial and the only one that has a remedy for guilt gave his life for you and i on a wooden cross two thousand years ago only the bible has an answer for the root problem of the human predicament psychology does not the whole worldly wisdom issue has its origin apart from and is opposed to our new nature that's been given to us by god worldly wisdom is in concert with our old nature but with our new nature it's opposed it's uh the scriptures it'll talk you about it's wisdom from beneath it's devilish it's demonic satan's wisdom one example then look at genesis 3. it's a it's a wisdom of deceit you know the story it's also summarized for you in romans 1 but we'll move on verse 16 and where envying strife is there is confusion and every evil work worldly wisdom always produces trouble wrong thinking produces wrong living and you want some examples of that pick up any paper tune in any news broadcast look at the lives that make up the bulk of our society broken homes confusion about the role of man and woman even inside you think that something as basic as that can be abused but not that confused yet look at our society and it's and the foolishness that pervades it the result of worldly wisdom is pretty obvious pretty obvious verse 17 but the wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easy to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisy now this is the contrast wisdom from above is pure peaceable gentle easy being treated full of mercy good fruits without partiality without hypocrisy james 1 17. you remember we looked at that uh every good gift is from above remember that chapter one every good every good thing that happens in your life comes from where from comes from god anytime you're down start counting the good things that are happening give god the glory it's amazing how the list grows our citizenship of course is in heaven not here our our home is in heaven not here our affection is focused above there's verses for all these it'll be in the notes what are the evidences of pure wisdom a true wisdom purity is for one it's purity means it's chased free from defilement there is an affection for the world that can make one an adulterer in a spiritual sense there's a a number of verses i've got them penciled in here yeah psalm 115 8 in psalm 135 18 tells us that we become like the gods we worship we become like the gods we worship is the world unforgiving is the world harsh and cruel if you're too close to the world you will become harsh cruel unforgiving that's another reason to worship christ because what you worship is what you'll become like another of these things that james let's hear is peace see man's wisdom leads to competition leads to rivalry ultimately to war and that's what james is going to talk about in the next chapter god's peace is based on holiness not compromise and isaiah talks about that really more gentleness is another list on our list here sweet reasonableness is another way of describing gentleness moderation without compromise gentleness without weakness carl sandberg described abraham lincoln as a man of velvet steel i like that another uh evidence of true wisdom is compliance being agreeable easy to work with yielding to persuasion not a pushover but yielding to persuasion swift remember what james said in chapter one did some of this is review for us here swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath one of the things that i have not taken a lot of time to build here as we go through the book is the integrity of the book these are not scattered admonitions do this don't do this many people treat the book that way it looks like it at first when you really study the book you'll discover more and more it all ties together all these things are echoes of the foundation that that james laid in the earlier part of the book now there is let's hear his mercy controlled by be full of mercy be controlled by mercy in other words this is good fruits the spirit produces fruits to the glory of god john 15 you remember the passage in junk we are instructed to be fruit inspectors not gift inspectors another thing he listens here is decisiveness singleness of mind that's the opposite of wavering remember in james 1 6 nothing gets the wavering man double mighty man is unstable all his ways can your commitments be relied upon are you a fiduciary of those that trust you or rely on you the word fiduciary is amazingly absent in the christian vocabulary yet any lawyer any professional executive anyone that's an officer of a corporation anyone that's on the board of directors of a corporation is should well know what the word fiduciary means it means you place the people who are relying on you their interest ahead of your own it's a very clear principle in law there's only two kinds of relationships in the law arm's length or fiduciary now generally in life you are not required to be a fiduciary unless you're a doctor patient attorney client there's certain relationships that are fiduciary relationships dispelled out that way and an officer of a corporation is a fiduciary that's why it should be available to most of us that have been in that kind of practice and the word fiduciary the the fiduciary role is one that is a critical one you know what the you know what the word fiduciary is in the greek koinonia we call our our ministry coina house because the word coin name means communication or fellowship i was startled to discover it means a fiduciary something that's a if you're an employee of an employee of an employer you owe them 60 minutes for every hour paid eight hour day 40 hour week whatever that's fine if you're a manager or an executive you owe more than that you are required you're viewed in the law to be an officer or a man you are a fiduciary corporation you have to have a a burden to protect its intellectual properties and its customer lists and other kinds of soft assets you are accountable you are required to protect those what may come as a surprise a christian employee is required by ephesians 6 9 and other passages to he owes a christian owes their employer a fiduciary relationship because you're working as to as uh as to christ anyway moving on one other list here is sincerity openness honesty speaking the truth in love in the terms of ephesians and so on okay verse 18 and the fruit of righteousness is sown in the peace of them that make peace in other words we reap what we sow it's a very serious thing to be a troublemaker in god's family if you're running around with man's wisdom if you're running around with these envy strifes and so forth the echoes of your misconduct will injure a lot of people but also will offend god it's very serious to be a troublemaker within a church you're going to make trouble do it somewhere else not in the ministry not in the church because you they've got a very very special protective boss and one of the things god hates according to proverbs 6 verses 16-19 is sowing discord among the brethren it really is disturbing i won't ask for a show of hands but it's really disturbing how many fellowships have among them almost as a characteristic some that are sowing discord among the brethren very disturbing now what's the result of all this is chapter four they you think we have troubles you should get some idea of the kinds of problems that were in the fellowship that james attended they apparently had fights they apparently they really went at it according from his admissions because chapter four from first part of that is how to end wars and you're not talking about you know tanks and artillery and planes he's talking about you know church meetings okay and he will lay out three kinds of people were at war with at war with each other at war with ourselves and being at war with god boy sounds crazy doesn't it who would possibly do that well let's see what he says about it here chapter 4 verse 1 from whence come wars and fightings among you come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members he's talking to a christian congregation yes they're jews they're 12 tribes but i believe that you know obviously the jewish christians and and so these these these struggles are among christians yet i'm sure being jewish they sang hanema which is psalm 133 how how you know what a blessing is to dwell together right how blessed it is for brethren to dwell together right that apparently it wasn't that much fun it's interesting how these tensions are all through the scripture you know in genesis 13 we have lot and abraham where lot chose the worldly way and abraham ultimately rescue him in chapter 14 from all that mess the story of absalom and david in second samuel 13-18 you all know the story even in the new testament luke 9 you've got the disciples quarreling about who's going to be the biggest in 1st corinthians 6 paul talks about these corinthians that were suing each other in court and i understand his logic i happen to there's some there are times that i feel the christian community better off if they did sue each other in the sense that we get some of these issues resolved to get people held accountable for the misconduct because even though we're not supposed to in court there was a procedure in the fellowship to deal with these issues that are rarely followed today the lack of accountability lack of any connection with the consequences of our action that's the truth of the matter in many fellowships and and paul talks about galatians five he talks about the galatians devouring one another and even in ephesians he in chapter four he exhorts them to unity so these are these are not unique to us it's obviously something that the holy spirit gives us a lot of information and of course there's all kind we can go ahead and spend a lot of time on defining the different kinds of agreements there's class wars rich poor whatever we divide the congregation into demographics and they'll all have different you know you know how that goes and in our society it's tragic there are no americans anymore right after the second world war america they were americans because we had a shared national experience but in the 50 years or whatever the power brokers have split you don't have americans anymore you got rich poor black white men women anything they can find to divide demographically and pit one against another for their own purposes you have labor wars you know labor and management you're familiar with all those they have the same thing that you can find there's verses for all of these things fights in the church personal wars of all kinds but the interest of keeping moving here it's interesting that uh in verse one he used the term for once come wars and finds among you coming out hence even from your lusts that war in your members the word lust there in the greek is hidden a it's the word from which we get the word hedonism uh desires for pleasure hedonism is the belief that pleasure is the chief good in life and it would be very disturbing i think for us to to really reflect and analyze our own behavior how often we make choices by what's the most pleasurable it's interesting that the tasks or the assignments are things that really aren't that much fun we defer confrontations aren't fun so it's very very typical in business as well as in the ministry to avoid confrontations avoid dealing with an exhortation or a situation that needs some handling we make even our subtle decisions as well our major decision on a pleasure basis may not admit it will will dignify it with other labels but that's probably at the root of it now what's the pathology of this trouble where does it come from what's the start verse two james says ye lust and have not ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain ye fight in war yet you have not because you ask not of course the root problem here is selfishness the root problem here is selfishness and that's what isaiah says in isaiah 53 6 for all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned everyone to whose way our own way that's the root problem the root problem we finally remember abraham lied about sarah she was actually it was only a half lie said tell him you're my sister well she was half sister but it was still a lie because of what he was trying to protect his own life by doing that and remember after a battle of jericho aiken at the battle of ai takes some stolen loot see again what's what's at the root of all of us as self-centeredness and selfishness so what's the remedy for this you ask and have not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your own lusts see even their praying was wrong even their praying was really covetousness interesting selfish people are always unhappy people selfish people are always unhappy people yet how how hard it is to learn that verse 4 ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with god whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of god one of the questions we should be asking ourselves are any of us becoming too friendly with god's enemies well let's take a look at these enemies that first enemy of god is the world and by that it means the cosmos the world system we need to discern that because everything of the world what do you mean of the world the world system the satanic system now abraham was a friend of god james mentioned that in chapter 2 verse 23 you may recall lot was the friend of the world and of course abram had to come and ultimately rescue him and friendship with the world leads to loving the world and being conformed to the world and being condemned with the world our soldier yet saved us by fires first corinthians 3 uh mentions friendship of the world is compared in the scripture with adultery i could say how many of you are guilty of adultery i might get some interesting hands but probably all of us have to put our hands up if for no other reason then we are married to christ if we're christians and yet if we're friendly with the world that's a form of adultery and that's really the way the scripture teaches it deals with it romans 7 4 and elsewhere and we need to be faithful to christ which means that we cannot be friendly to the world system this model of the believer of god's people being married to him is it old testament ideas in jeremiah 20 jeremiah 3 first five verses it's in ezekiel 23 the whole chapter virtually first couple of chapters of hosea israel was portrayed as the wife of yahweh the church is portrayed as the virgin bride of christ not the same thing but a very parallel kind of idiom or concept and james continues his logic here do you think that the scripture saith in vain verse 5 that the spirit dwelt in us luseth the envy again that's the false wisdom see that's all that's all tied together okay the second enemy of god is the flesh and this is not the body there's nothing wrong with the body it serves its purpose what is when it says the flesh it's referring to the old nature when we sin against the when we since the flesh grieve the holy spirit romans 8 verses 6 and 7 deal with that in depth verse 6 but he giveth more grace wherefore he saith god resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble and there again we have the the root manifestation of the flesh is pride and the the antidote for that is humility and we get humility through god's grace not by some feigned self a basement well we talk about the world the flesh and the third one we listed before was the devil the devil is the one that introduced pride he's the one who introduced a contrary will to the will of god in the universe through his own pride saw adam's arrival and saw to it that adam and eve fell through his deceit but it was through his pride that he fell we learned that from isaiah 14. we've done this before but it's probably important enough and fundamental enough that we should just take let's just part quickly and refresh that isaiah there's two passages that chronicle the career of satan now his origin and isaiah 14 and ezekiel 28 are the two chapters easy to remember they're both a heptatic they're both a multiple of seven but isaiah 14 is a passage that um in a primitive sense is directed to the king of babylon but clearly the language pierces beyond the immediate context and goes cosmic on us and verses 12 through 17 are the classic passage on the origin of lucifer the holy spirit tells us in verse 12 how art thou the the passage directed to uh lucifer how art thou fallen from heaven oh lucifer son of morning son of the morning how art thou cut down to the ground which is weak in the nations for thou has said in thine heart that's where sin always starts it's in the heart the rest is just mechanics it starts in the heart thou has said in thine heart i will ascend unto heaven i will exalt my throne above the stars of god i will sit also upon the mount of the congregation of the size of the north i will ascend upon the heights of the clouds i will be like the most high it's going to go on it's kind of interesting it doesn't say that he wants to be god he wants to be like god i have this conjecture in the back of my mind that when adam was created satan saw him as a rival a rival interesting the first person singular boy that should be a very cautious pronoun to use i will i will i will i will i will pride what says destiny verse 15 yet thou shalt be brought down to the shell to the sides of the pit they that see thee shall narrowly look upon me and consider thee saying is this the man who made the earth to tremble who did shake the kingdoms who made the world like a wilderness and destroyed its cities who opened not the house of his prisoners whoo some prophecy in there not only his destiny but we see some other side effects here is this the man that caused the earth to tremble which did shake the kingdoms who made the world like a wilderness and destroyed its cities and opened not the house of his prisoners who satan the devil he introduced pride and it's his chief deceit is his chief weapon first timothy 3 6 and also if ephesians 4 27 neither give place to the devil now so how do we do all this that sounds good those are getting back to james here we're down to verse 7. we're gonna make it we have three instructions from james is how to deal with this first submit yourselves therefore to god resist the devil and he will flee from you the word submit there by the way is a military term in the greek it means to get into your proper rank know your place get where you belong don't be a usurper in other words first you submit yourself to god second verse eight draw nigh to god and he will draw an eye to you cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts ye double minded purify meaning to make chaste so you submit to god and draw close to him and he'll draw close to you verse three i mean excuse me a third element is to humble yourselves before god as follows verse 9 be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness well that's a strange instruction let your laughter be turned into morning and your joy in heaven what he means is sin is no laughing matter we wink at that we joke about it we all fall into that trap we need to repent of that when it happens sin is no laughing matter god never winks at sin there is no trivial sin in the scripture there's some obviously heavier than us but there is still no trivial sin god hates sin and that's the problem and we submit ourselves to him draw near to him and humble ourselves before him turn your joy into heaviness you want to know how spiritual you are gosh we're going to grow and grow in spirituality great how do you measure it how do you measure your spirituality how much do you hate sin when you hate sin the way god does then you're getting closer verse 10 humble yourselves in the sight of the lord and he shall lift you up don't we love to sing that let's sing it with our hearts though god hates pride proverbs 6 we talked about that 16-17 in psalm 51 17 david's famous prayer of repentance over bathsheba a broken and contrite heart oh god thou wilt not despise verse 11 speak not evil of one another brethren in other words brothers do not slander one another is what it says he that speaketh evil of his brother and judges brother speaketh evil of the law judges the law he that thou judged the law thou art not a doer of the law but a judge i don't know why it is that christians always form their firing squads in circles there are more newsletters more web pages more expose books written against the brethren by other brethren and the last brethren should probably be in quotation marks it's a commonly observed mystery by both secular and our jewish observers christians seem to spend so much time nitpicking and libeling and slandering each other that it's a tragedy the jews disagree among themselves they always say you've got two jews you've got three opinions you know they invited myself but through thousands of years of trying to survive they learn to close ranks their theological disputes tend to evaporate when there's a knock on the door we don't do that we got all kinds of christians and good guys publishing to the open secular world all the the real or imagined nits and gnats of somebody who whatever anyway moving on verse 12 there is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy who art thou that judges another now we get into another subject that's a shift here but it's important one i'll try to do it so we can finish the chapter i think we will and that has to do with planning there's a lot of over planning in the minds of james and yet many christians overreact to james and junction we're trying to see if we can't strike a balance here of what's going on i want you to remember that pharaoh was troubled by a series of bad dreams and through the wisdom of god has manifested through joseph god used those warnings of the impending famines for them to prepare themselves pharaoh had a series of dreams each one the idioms were different but each one basically had the idea that there were seven good years and seven bad years and joseph the wisdom of god now that's the knowledge the wisdom was let's use the good years to prepare for the bad years and that changed the course of you know and jose became the prime minister egypt put in a 20 tax very skillful administration that uh made egypt made that very effective so now how do we apply that where is the safest place for you to be ever coming because of all the various threats on the horizon people coming to chuck where should i flee to you know shall i shall i leave manhattan and come to coeur d'alene no no no no quarterly it's cold in the winter we don't touch we don't tell them how nice we keep us here no seriously people say check where shall i go the answer to where you should flee is obvious where is the holy spirit leading you to ministry the safest place in the world is to be right where god wants you wherever that is you don't want to be anywhere else unless he calls you clearly he wants you to bloom where your planet now many people fear would say you should follow the will of god you get nervous because you don't really realize that god's will is better for you than you have any idea your unwillingness to to accept the will of god is your doubt that his interest is in your interest it's a lack of trust psalm 33 11 says the counsel of the lord stand forever are the thoughts of his heart to all generations his counsel his will comes from where does god's will come from from his heart what's god's heart towards you boy i love jeremiah 29 i can remember i was just beginning to sense the dark valley that was coming and it happened that i attended a graduation ceremony up at a one of our daughters was a at mona vista christian academy up in northern california and their graduation center but the graduation ceremony they had a verse a lifers up on the stage and jeremiah 29 11. and i they thought it was for the graduating class but i remember almost weeping because i knew that was for me because i knew what was forthcoming which took us through our valley but for i know the thoughts that i think toward you saith the lord plans for your welfare and not for arm to give you a future and a hope and indeed he has verse 13 go now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go to such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain he's talking about here people who make plans see but our our plans need to be tempered with the realization that only god really knows the future that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan and forecast but we should do so with caution and with a footnote as god wills as you'll put out here verse 14 whereas you know not what you'll be on tomorrow what is your life it is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes the way now see what we're going to deal now is the foolishness of ignoring the will of god by making our own plans in contrast to his that's what you talk about and there's going to be four elements of that foolishness the first is the brevity of our life and boy you could make up a dozen references from psalms and elsewhere i would pick a few from job here job seven six my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and spent without hope a few verses later as the cloud is consumed and vanished away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more verse job 8 9. for we are but of yesterday and know nothing because our days upon the earth are a shadow job 9 25 now my days are swifter than a post they flee away and they see no good now his his posts postmen were faster than ours i think because he's he's trying to make a point of being swift but i won't i won't beat up on that one um now my days are swifter than opposed they flee away they seen it again see life has been a quick snapshot a relative of mine pointed out you don't grow old you wake up one day and discover you are you know we count our years each birthday right that's on scriptural because god says we should number our days that we apply our hearts to wisdom psalm 90 12. now it's interesting i used to use this on executives when i was in that world if you say uh you know you know how many years do you think you have left you can actually make a calculation you know you figure well 70 years and i'm if my guy is 40 years old i've got 30 left or whatever the numbers are okay what i used to do that's abstract see right if you think of gee i've got 20 30 40 years or whatever in front of me that's an abstraction nothing concrete about that i said i said how many weekends you got the way i used to put it is hey bernie you got uh about 1500 weekends left what you know well do your own arithmetic you know now what you do is take a three score and ten that's a scripture but roughly 70 and an insurance agency right that's a good estimate so you know 70 years still 3 score in 10. subtract your age from that and multiply by 52. i'd multiply 50 to keep the arithmetic simple but you know so if you're 30 you've got about 2000 weekends left no problem 2000 you know that that sounds sign of finite you know i'd see him a few years later and say what do you got about a 1100 left no no you know i met this one financier many years later i think seven or eight lawsuits later uh not by me but federal laws uh and uh haven't run into him and he came up to me i've got 900 don't i chuck i mean he's been counting you know he remembered that silly crack when we were just you know in a boardroom context kidding things around so our life is short very brief it's important to us because it's in front of us and yet it's trivial compared to eternity and yet our eternity is determined by how we handle what god has put before us in these in this brief span see what we should we can make plans but we should what we ought to say if the lord will we shall live or do this or that and it should be the constant attitude of our lives or our heart and a lot of verses i'll spray that for the short review here how to determine the will of god the will of god is a living relationship between the god and believer it's not a it's not a definitive thing like you you know read x y or z it's a relationship the will of god's relationship and because it's a relationship it itself is a growing experience colossians 1 9 says for this cause we also since the day we heard it do not cease to pray for you and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding it's a growth experience in other words and he wants us to understand his will ephesians 5 17 there wherefore be not unwise but understanding what the will of the lord is we must also were instructed to prove his will romans 12 2 our book be transformed is a a development of the first two verses of romans 12. verse 2 of romans 12 1 and 2 is be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may what prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of god you are to prove his will now the greek verb there means to prove by experience you learn and you prove his will by experiencing it it's an interactive growing thing you work at it now people keep asking how do i determine god's will for my life if they're announcing that way they're admitting that they never tried it john 7 17 if any man will do my will he shall know of the doctrine and so forth and matthew 11 29 the whole idea of god's will is to take that which you know is his will and obey it and he will incrementally reveal more you're growing it's a growth pattern is it it's a baby step you know crawl walk run situation and of course the secret you said selfish people are never happy people the secret of a happy life is to delight in duty the secret of a happy life is many people find fulfillment by serving others in hospitals or in elderly homes or whatever in some ministry because that's fulfilling and it seems like a you know a strange thing that people haven't experienced they understand that but that's the secret to having it could be the mother for a family whatever but the ultimate thing of course is to delight in your duties to god that's the ultimate happiness work is a kind of prayer when you're home if you're a tenant farmer killing somebody else's family that's one of the brow stuff but you're at home that's a form of prayer psalm 119 verse 54 says thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage and if god can't rule by the way he overrules if god can't rule he'll overrule and his chastening of you is evidence of his love and that's a whole nother thing but the other things that cause us should give us caution when we plan is not just the brevity of life it is the complexities of life life is complicated enough to develop that you understand the uncertainties of life everybody likes to quote luke 12. most not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth that doesn't mean you don't plan the futurity of today's decisions planning is not forecasting planning is to deal with the futurity of days of today's decisions if you're managing an inventory i think you need to plan and this has often caused many christians not to plan big mistake thomas campus says a man proposes but god disposes solomon said the lot is cast into the lamp but the whole disposing there was of the lord proverbs 16 33 what that tells you there's no such thing as randomness and really fascinates me to discover there are two concepts in mathematics that don't exist one is infinity we use it mathematically but if you look at the telescope you know the universe has an end it's not it's finite not infinite that's embarrassing it has all kinds of problems cosmologically that's why you get to the big bang models and all that stuff you go the other way in the microscopic sense you think that if you take a line and cut it in half whatever's left you can cut in half again whatever's left you think you could do that forever no you can't when you get down to 10 to the minus 32 centimeters it no longer exists the universe is digital it's quant that's what they mean by quantum physics because you can't infinitely divide length mass time or energy divide an hour into 60 minutes divide 60 minutes into 60 seconds take a second start cutting it up in small pieces when you get down to 10 to the minus 43 seconds you are you you're over below that it not only is no longer an object it's all local all particles in the universe they now discover are immediately connected it's impossible it's a whole different model of the universe because that's what they mean by quantum physics and and neil niels bohr said anyone that isn't shocked by quantum physics doesn't understand it that's where one of the physics committed suicide it couldn't handle it what the implications of all that but it works in the networks that's why we have the advances we have but the point is there is no such thing as infinity up or down there's another issue randomness we talk about random chance we have random we have random variables in mathematical equations but we now learn that there is no real randomness that's what's led to the whole a new field of mathematics called chaos theory that's what they call it but basically is an elaboration of the is of the fact that there is nothing that is truly random lots of the bible said all along okay anyway and of course the last thing is the frailty of man he says verse 16 but but ye rejoice in your boastings all such rejoicing is evil if you're rejoicing in your boastings now there's a caveat to all of this that i also want to say and that is that this all can be easily misapplied it can be a cop-out from responsibility i'm not going to plan you know lord's going to take care of me you know does the lord brush your teeth every morning in other words there's certain things you do to take care of yourself if the lord tells tells you tells pharaoh through joseph there's going to be seven years of planning and seven years of famine uh-huh we'd better do something about it okay a lot of free weight traffic and you're across the street i do suggest you look around and plan okay i should have i should have really opened with the story about the rooster and the chicken gonna cross the road right rooster said your chick is gonna cross the road which says if you are i got two pieces of advice do it quickly and lay it on the line okay so i'm trying to do that okay okay christian walk is not a flight from prudence scripture says the prudence see danger and take refuge that simple keep going and suffer for it and says that several times and jesus all said which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether half sufficient to finish it there is an appropriate role of planning and yet it's all done if god wills that's the point that james is making it's not a flight from prudence or or rational management what we do need to do is seek the lord's will in everything we undertake however trivial however we should seek the lord's will in it and if you disobey lord's will it's uh verse 17 therefore to him that doeth uh knoweth to do good and doeth it not to emit a sin so if you know what the lord's will is in your life and don't do it that's sin well what is the lord's will there's probably a lot of things you're not sure of but i'll give you a list of 10 things it's quite clear on back in exodus 20 okay and there are other places that you know you can quickly determine a number of places in your life where you know and you start obeying a large bill the rest he'll reveal to you now the big problem of course the last question i'd like to answer then we'll wrap it up why do people deliberately disobey god you understand people who don't believe god you know atheists that's a whole another problem we're talking about christians why do christians do they'll be a big guy for one thing is a worldly wisdom and i'm going to use as an expression of that a poem that most of us had to learn when we were in school and it's extolled as a great poem it's called invictus by william ernest henley as a piece of poetry it's quite elegant but listen to everybody's saying out of the knight that covers me black is the pit from pole to pole i thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul in the fell clutch of circumstance i have not winced or cried aloud under the bludgeons of circumstance my head is bloody but unbowed beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade and yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid it matters not how straight the gate how charred the punishments the scroll i am the master of my fate i am the captain of my soul quite a moving poem but it's wrong it's the source of an attitude that leads to disaster and dorothea day wrote a parody of this poem that i just thought we'd close on it's called my captain out of the light that dazzles me bright as the sun from pole to pole i thank the god i knew to be for christ the conqueror of my soul since his this way of circumstance i would not wince nor cry aloud under the rule that which men call chance my head with joy is humbly bowed beyond this place of sin and tears that life with him and his the aid despite the menace of the years keeps and shall keep me unafraid i have no fear though straight the gate he cleared the punishments from the scroll christ is the master of my faith christ is the captain of my soul praise god dorothea day that's close with a word of prayer stand for a word of prayer that's our hearts father we praise you that your wisdom is available to us for the asking we thank you father that you have provided our wisdom in jesus christ and we thank you father you have provided your wisdom in your word that is here in our arms and we thank you to father that we have a 24-hour hotline to your throne room that your wisdom is available for the asking but father we would indeed ask that you would help us to walk moment by moment in christ help his father to reverence you to fear you as a continual moment-by-moment attitude father we would ask that you would draw us ever closer into fellowship in our private devotions we thank you father for these opportunities to assemble we thank you father for the teachings that are available in such abundance in our land but above all father we thank you that we can have time with you privately personally daily that we indeed might be ever conscious that you're an unseen participant in every deal we make every hand that we shake every commitment we utter every opportunity that presents itself we pray father for discernment that we might among those opportunities to discern those that represent your mandate for we know that not all opportunities are mandate father but we would ask through your holy spirit you'd give us discernment we pray father through your holy spirit that you would illuminate our path that we might indeed pursued pursue boldly that which you have for us in the days ahead we pray father you'd help each of us to discover that specific will that specific mission that specific ministry that you would have of each of us that we each might be more fruitful for your kingdom that we each might be more pleasing in thy sight as we commit ourselves into your hands in the name of yeshua our lord and savior jesus christ in whose name we do pray amen [Music] you

Channel: Koinonia House

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Length: 63min 37sec (3817 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 08 2021