We are continuing this evening with the book of James and we are in chapter number four.
Now if you remember in chapter number one all the way to chapter number three, one of
the main themes that we see reoccurring is this theme of perfection.
Now when we say perfection, when the Bible talks about perfection, it's not referring
to sinless perfection, but rather to perfection of completion, right?
To be entire, wanting nothing, to be perfect and complete.
And we see that in chapter one that's referred to as far as when we go through a trial, that
trial is meant to perfect us, it's meant to complete us, to give us wisdom and patience.
We see chapter two that the way we can have a perfect faith is by adding to our faith
virtue and then one of the qualities that we see there is to have brotherly kindness
and charity, right?
So we can't just say we have faith and then, you know, act like we don't have works.
We need to have works to accompany our faith if we say we love our brothers, right?
Then chapter number three, the Bible also talks about, James chapter three talks about
the perfect man and how is he characterized as a perfect man?
Well based upon if he's able to bridle the whole body.
So if he's a perfect man, he's able to bridle his tongue as well as his entire body and
chapter three focuses a lot on the tongue.
But in chapter number four, it doesn't necessarily carry that same theme of perfection, but rather
it carries on the closing thoughts of the latter end of chapter number three.
Now go back to chapter three before we get into chapter four, look at verse 14.
It says here, but if you have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie
not against the truth.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
Now this wisdom that it's being referred to that's earthly, sensual, and devilish also
has these qualities in verse 16 for where envy and strife is, there is confusion and
every evil word.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated,
full of mercy and good fruits without partiality, without hypocrisy and the fruit of righteousness
is sown in peace of them that make peace.
So what do we gather from the latter end of chapter number three?
We gather that those who are righteous are for peace, right?
They're not for war.
Now let's pick up verse number one of chapter number four, it says from whence or from where
come wars and fightings among you.
Come they not hence even of your own lust that war in your members you lust and have
not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight and war, yet ye have not
because ye ask not, ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that you may consume
it upon your lust.
So the question that's being proposed here in verse number one is where do wars and fightings
come from?
Now verses 15 through 16 of chapter three tells us that it's earthly, sensual, devilish,
so there's envy and strife, confusion and every evil word.
So when we get wisdom from the word of God, it doesn't cause us to be warlike, right?
When we want to make war, we want to just kill people and violate people and try to
conquer lands and have this war spirit of physically harming others, but rather those
who are righteous desire peace.
We desire to reconcile a lost and dying world to the Savior, amen?
We want to be peacemakers.
Now in these verses, we see a spectrum of conflict, don't we?
We see wars and then we see fightings, right?
Now both of these obviously are in reference to a spiritual war, right?
A spiritual battle, spiritual fights, but I believe it's also referring to a physical
war and physical fights as well.
You say, what do you mean by that?
I believe that the physical, literal application here is actual wars.
You know, our country and throughout the ages, we've seen a lot of wars and none of them
are for reasons of, you know, to make peace or to really, at the end of the day, you study
the wars of history, most of them stem from your lust.
They stem from a desire to make more money, a desire to conquer land, get slaves, gain
spoil, okay?
And it says here, and that basically coincides what we see in verse number one, from whence
come wars and fightings among you, come they not hence even of your lust that war in your
members.
And we're talking about national wars here, okay?
It says he lust and have not, you say, well, how do you know, it's not just referring to,
you know, the spiritual battle.
Well, because verse two says, ye kill, okay?
That's not talking about spiritual killing here.
This is referring to physically killing someone, which is exactly what takes place in war.
Now, keep in mind that in the Old Testament, God under a, or excuse me, God, God's people
under a theocracy commanded his people to go out in war and overcome the enemies of
the land, right?
This was very true in the Old Testament.
He would go in and say, you need to wipe out all these people, man, woman, boy and girl,
child suckling, all the cattle, just wipe everything out.
Why is that?
Well, the reason for that is because many of these nations were filled with just a lot
of filth, okay?
They're an abomination.
They not only partook in sodomy, but they also partook in bestiality.
They're filled with witches and wizards and things that were contrary to God's word.
There were disease infested nations that God wanted to get rid of.
So he would cause people to go and take over that land because the land was trying to vomit
them out.
Now, under a theocracy, that was justified.
You know what, today in the United States, we're not under a theocracy.
But the funny thing is, is the United States wants to operate that way, don't they?
The only difference is that theocracy is not God Almighty from the Bible, you know, it's
the almighty dollars, what it is, okay?
Where they want to just create this empire and just go conquer people and conquer nations,
conquer lands and people for the sake of money.
Where does it stem from?
Does it stem from just a righteous patriotism?
No, it stems from lust.
A desire for the love of money from this ungodly, patriotic pride, right?
It comes from, it stems from people getting involved in other people's matters and businesses
that's not theirs, okay?
The Bible tells us in 1 Timothy 6, 9, but they that will be rich fall into temptation
and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and
perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after,
they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
You see, people make money off of warfare, they make money off of it, okay?
And there are wicked people in high places that have the agenda to abet war in order
to procure financial gain.
That's the only reason it exists.
It's not like, oh, you know, we got to protect ourselves, we don't, they call it a preventative
warfare, right?
Just go bomb them in case, you know, they decide to bomb us one day or something.
That's not in the Bible.
That's wicked.
And you know what?
You're killing not just men and women, you're killing children.
You know what's even worse than this is the fact that you have Bible believing Christians
who are propagating that as well.
They're for the warfare.
They're these Fox News type Christians who are all for warfare as long as they're Republican
candidates for it as well.
That's wicked, you know?
It doesn't matter, and by the way, Democratic or Republican, they're the same thing.
Hate to break it to you, they're the exact same thing.
One is an elephant, one is a donkey, but here's the difference, they're both beasts.
You got that?
So it's not like, oh, you know, I'm a Democrat, they're both the same thing.
They're the same devil.
But what do you have?
You have Bible believing Christians, so-called, who spend more time listening to Fox News,
the Fox News version of the Bible, rather than to the King James version of the Bible.
And what happens is that all these preachers that they hear on television, Sean Hannity
and the like, are indoctrinating them to think as they do to go and conquer lands and
just hate Muslims and hate all these nations who are anti-American.
It's ridiculous.
Look, and I find it interesting as well that like old IFB, they're very racist.
Yeah, they're racist.
Old IFB has a huge problem, a huge elephant in the room, and that elephant's called racism.
You know where it stems from?
It stems from Fox News is where it stems from.
I find it interesting that old IFB who want to criticize me online, the worst thing, the
worst insult they could come up with is what?
Oh, you look like a Muslim.
You look like a Muslim.
So what does that say about you and your love for the Muslims?
So if the greatest insult you can have for me is that I look like a Muslim, what does
that say about you as a Bible believing Christian, and do you love the Muslims or not?
Apparently you hate them so much that you're willing to even use it as an insult to other
people.
You say, do you feel insulted?
Not really.
I don't really care.
They just say that because I can grow a beard and they can't.
That's like the end of the day.
That's what it is.
Look, hey, great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them, amen?
But this is where it stems from.
And look, this is the reason why I never recommend any of our men to ever join the military.
Ever join the military.
You know, he said, well, you don't know my situation.
Well, here's the thing.
God will never advocate for you to join yourself to something to make financial gain because
you're in some sort of situation.
You don't think that he's going to like provide for you here.
You know, where there's a will, there's a way.
But guess what?
Where there's God's will, there's a way.
Okay.
You know, you should never subject yourself and try to get into the military because you're
doing bad financially.
You don't have direction in life.
Find some direction in life.
You have 66 books here.
You got a Bible believe in local New Testament church.
You know, there is hope here.
You know, when you subject yourself to the military, you lose all freedom.
And you're forced to compromise your biblical convictions to do it.
You say, oh, I don't believe you then go ahead and talk to the guys who are in the military
in our church.
Ask them and see if they agree with me or if they agree with you.
You see, when you get into the military, you're around a bunch of fags and sodomites.
You're around a bunch of wickedness.
They tried to make you a killing machine.
They're trying to sear your conscience.
Now if you're saved, obviously you can't see your conscience, but you know what?
You can grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
You can vet your righteous soul from day to day as Lot did.
You know why there's so many sodomites that are being allowed into the military?
The same reason why they encourage sodomy for Rome.
Because once you create sodomites as soldiers, you have a seared conscience, you're full
of murder.
You can kill anything and not have any conscience about it.
It won't bother you.
That's exactly why it happened to Rome.
They would encourage sodomites, the soldiers to be with each other back in ancient Rome
because they became greater killing machines because of it.
Because reprobates are sick, they're full of murder, they're full of hatred, they have
no regard for life.
And that's exactly what's happening to this empire.
Be not partaker of other men's sins.
Our church is completely anti-war.
We're anti-Fox News.
We're anti-military.
The only army that I'm for is the Lord's army, amen?
This army right here.
And you know what?
At the end of the day, we're in a spiritual battle.
That's what is being encouraged in the scriptures is the spiritual warfare.
We're not fighting against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers,
against the rules of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places.
That's our spiritual battle.
Not a physical fight, not picking up an AR-15 and blowing someone's brains out.
But these Fox News Baptist churches, that's exactly what they want to emphasize.
And they want to use the Bible to justify it.
The Bible says that we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh for the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
That's what we need to recognize here is that God is against wars.
James chapter 4 verse 1 tells us that.
It stems from lust, stems from the desire of money.
Now look at verse number, let's go back to verse number 1, it says, From whence come
wars and fightings among you?
Come they not hence even of your own lust that war in your members.
So what's another aspect that we see here?
We see that wars and fightings come from our own selves, right?
From the internal wars that we have, the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against
the flesh.
These are contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.
You know, if you're not constantly feeding the spirit and you're giving into the flesh,
that's a war that you're going to continually lose.
You're not going to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, but rather
in the day of temptation, you're going to fall, okay?
And often these lusts stem from your members when you don't put your members into subjection
with all gravity, right?
You know, the Bible tells us that likewise, reckoning yourselves also to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal bodies that you should obey in the lust thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God.
You know, God wants us to keep under our bodies and bring it into subjection, let's by any
means when we have preached to others, we ourselves should be cast away.
And so these wars and fightings, if you find yourself being a carnal Christian where you
just don't want to read your Bible, you don't want to pray, you don't want to go soul winning,
it's because you're losing the battle within yourself.
That's at the end of the day, that's what it is, you know?
And no one can fight that battle for you but you yourself.
No one can fight the battle for your bad habits but yourself.
And you can either choose to just capitulate to your sinful nature and just say, you know
what, forget it, I'm just a loser, I can't have victory over this, or you can just say,
you know what, today's a new day, the mercies of God are new every day, it is of the Lord's
mercies that I'm not consumed, you know, and I can do all things through Christ with strength
and with me, amen?
And pick it up the next day and keep fighting.
Verse 2 says, ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight
in war, yet ye have not because ye ask not.
Now let me skip some things here, go to, let's see here, go with me if you would to 1 John
chapter number 5, I'm going to keep reading in James chapter 4, it says, ye lust and have
not, ye kill and desire to have, cannot obtain, ye fight in war, yet ye have not because ye
ask not, ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your
lust.
So we see here that one of the wars that people experience even in their personal lives is
that they're asking for certain things because of their own lust, they want to consume it
upon their own lust, and they're not getting it from God because God's not going to bless
that.
Let me give you like the worst illustration to help you to understand, it's like God just
let me win the lottery, if I win the lottery I'll tithe like a really, you know, I'll tithe
on it, I'll give to that new building that brother he has been praying for, you know,
I'll get that new van, it's a righteous cause, Lord, just let me win the lottery, ye ask
amiss that ye may consume it upon your own lust, you know, and here's a reason why often
that our supplications are not answered, it's because we're not asking according to the
will of God.
We often don't get our prayers answered because we're not asking in accordance to the guidelines
that the Bible puts forth, okay, the Bible tells us in Matthew 21 verse 22, and all things
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive, and look, I hope you're
a person of prayer, amen, I hope you pray without ceasing, I pray, my desire is that
you would, you know, on a day to day basis would depend on God even for the small things
in life, you know, it's good to ask God for the big things of life, but it's also good
to ask for the small things in life, why is that, so you can see that God is in charge
of the entire spectrum of providing for your needs, amen, and every little prayer that's
answered, every little thing that you request and that you get increases your faith that
much the more, but when you start compartmentalizing God and saying, well, God is the God of the
hills, but he's not the God of the valleys, then at that point, you know, you're asking
him this again, you don't believe that God can do it, amen, we need to make sure that
we continue to pray, but he wants us to ask according to his will, not according to our
own lust, look at first John chapter five and verse 14, and this is the confidence that
we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us, and if we know
that he heareth, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired
of him, man, that's a great promise, so he's saying there, if we ask anything according
to his will, first and foremost, we know that we got his attention, right, because we want
God's attention, amen, we want God's attention because we want his favor, we want his blessings,
well, how do you get his attention if you ask according to what he wants, according
to his will, and then it says, and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know
that we have the petitions that we desired of him, that means we can ask in faith knowing
full well that he's going to provide for that which we're asking for, if we ask according
to his will, but here's the thing, you need to read the Bible to know what his will is,
right, you know, we need to know what the will is in order to ask according to his will,
now a foolish thing that people like to say is like, you know, let's say for example,
divorce, right, people want to get divorced and they're just like, oh, I just know this
is God's will, you're a liar, you're a liar and you're a perverter of the Bible, to claim
that God would approve such a wicked act, to say that, oh yeah, God gave me the peace,
peace, God doesn't give peace about divorce, how is God going to put in his Bible that
he hated putting away, you guys get that, you know, putting away means divorce, he says,
I hate putting away, but I'll make the exception for you, I'll give you peace about that, that's
garbage, that's stupid, these are people who are not asking according to God's will, they're
asking according to their own will, that's what they're doing, you know, they're asking
according to their own will and they want to impose their desires upon God's will is
what it is, and then you give them all the verses, you explain to them what the Bible
really says about it and what do they say, well, you know, I just got peace about it,
I think this is what God wants for my life, according to what, what book are you reading,
you know, you got someone like Ken Hovind, for example, that that's exactly what happened
to him, right, he wanted to be an example to divorce people and guess what, he got that
petition because it didn't work out for him, you know what he is now, an example, a byword
and a proverb, you know, we need to be careful that when we ask for something, that it's
in accordance to God's will, now, obviously not every nook and cranny of life is just
spelled out in the Bible for us, the Bible contains everything that pertains to life
and godliness, amen, it gives us the guidelines, it gives us the convictions, it gives us the
doctrine so then we can make wise decisions based off of the parameters of what God has
already provided, okay, he's given us the trees, you can eat up any of these trees,
just don't touch this one, so we don't need to necessarily ask God for specific things
if God has already said within his word, yes, that's my will, should I go to church, man,
I need to pray about this, should I even be in church, maybe I could just do church at
home, no, the Bible says you need to be in church, that's not something you got to pray
about, okay, so we got to ask according to his will, we know that he hears us and man,
verse 15 is such a great promise, you know, it's like, and if we know that he hears us,
we know that we already have the petitions, that means God's going to answer it, now,
here's what it doesn't say, that he's going to answer it right now, right, because see,
here's the thing, God lives in the vastness of eternity, we live in the space of time,
so when we ask for something, we have confidence that we're going to get what we're asking
for, but the timing is different, but let me just comfort you, the Bible says that everything
is beautiful in his time, so we just need to be content when we get it, the timing of
when we're going to get it, okay, and not expect everything to be like a drive-through
microwave type of a prayer that God's going to give it to us right then and there, now
sometimes it happens that way, and glory be to God for that, amen, but sometimes it doesn't,
sometimes it takes years, sometimes it takes months, you know, but we know that if we're
asking according to his will, he will give it to us, we just need to be patient, and
if you don't know what that's about, then go back to chapter one, let patience have
a perfect work, amen, often the reason why God keeps us waiting on getting something
that we're praying for is to mature us, is to create patience, to let patience have a
perfect work, because aside from the blessing that he wants to give to you, there's a blessing
found in the process as well, amen, you learn something, you get more mature, you read the
Bible, you begin to pray more, you begin to depend on God more, you become more spiritual,
you know, God wants for you to yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness, amen, and that happens
as we go through trials, as we go through difficulties, as we're forced to wait upon
the Lord, okay, go to Psalm 37 if you would please, Psalm 37, I left this water here from
this morning, no one drank out of it, right, too late, look at Psalm 37 verse number 3,
trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be
fed, delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart,
now keep in mind that we have to balance this out with what the Bible says about our heart,
because the Bible says that our heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, so
it's like, well, how are we going to get the desires of our heart if my heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked, well, you got to go back to the beginning of the
verse, delight thyself also in the Lord, and often, especially in Psalm 1, we see when
it talks about delighting in the Lord, it's referring to delighting in his word, reading
the Bible, see what happens is when we read the Bible, when we're walking in the Spirit,
God actually begins to give us the right desires, we begin to see the will of God is an acquired
taste, amen, you know, hymns are an acquired taste, okay, holy living is an acquired taste,
okay, but you can acquire it, you can like it, right, and so as we begin to read the
Bible, we memorize it, we listen to it, we just do, we delight ourselves in the Lord,
he will give us the desires of our hearts, why?
Because our hearts begin to get renewed, okay, it says in verse number 5, commit thy way
unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
So we see here three elements, we delight ourselves in God, he'll give us the desires
of our heart, but we also have to commit our ways unto him, what does that mean?
So it's not just a matter of reading the Bible, do what you're told in the Bible, it's what
we see in James chapter 1, be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own
selves.
So we have to delight ourselves, but we also have to commit our ways unto the Lord, make
sure that you're faithful, and the Bible tells us, a faithful man shall abound with
blessings.
Be consistent, be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain.
You know, don't fade in the day of adversity, amen.
Go to 2 Chronicles chapter 16, we'll see later on in James chapter 4 that it talks about
cleanse your hands and purify your hearts.
Well how do we do that?
We read in Psalm 37, to delight yourself also in the Lord, okay?
And look, reading the Bible shouldn't be a drudgery.
You know, obviously there's times when we do it out of discipline, you know, maybe,
you know, we had a rough night, or we didn't get enough sleep, or maybe you're sick or
whatever it may be, maybe you're just going through a season, a dry season, or maybe you're
just reading something in the Bible you don't understand, but you know you have to read
through it, okay?
You know, you need to make sure that you read it because reading it out of discipline is
what's going to help you to read it out of delight.
So if you continue to read it out of discipline, even when you don't feel like it, eventually
it'll become a delight, alright?
You know, someone I remember back in the day, people, I had a mentor who taught me, brother
me, he didn't read the Bible, and there's going to be times when it's going to feel
like castor oil, okay?
It's just not, you're not understanding it, it's some deep stuff that you're reading,
you're not getting it, but then after a while it starts to be like cornflakes, okay?
Got a little bit of milk in there, and for the Hispanics you got to put the sugar in
there and stuff like that, slice of bananas, alright?
But then after that it becomes like peaches and cream, he said, but you have to continually
do it if you want it to get to that point, okay?
And look, you're not always going to delight in the Lord, and don't lie to me, don't try
to be a holier than thou Christian, oh I always love the word of God, I always like
reading it, you know?
It's great, I love reading the Bible, I never had grown tired of reading the Bible, no we
all at one point or another always grow tired of reading the Bible, especially if you read
the same story over and over again, but here's the thing, this is what you have to do, keep
reading it, and then that desire, that delight will come back, okay?
And look, it's better to do something out of delight than out of discipline, right?
Because then you enjoy it, you lose track of time, right?
You're just reading it because you're just feasting on the word of God, okay?
Look at 2 Chronicles 16 verse 9, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the
whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward
him.
Herein thou hast done foolishly, therefore from henceforth thou shall have wars.
So who is God looking to bless?
Who is he looking to show himself strong?
He's looking to show himself strong on those who have a perfect heart with him.
What is perfect?
Complete.
Those who are delighting, those who are committing their works unto him, okay?
And look, as a church, that's something that we need to apply as a church.
I want God to bless our church, amen?
And I believe he's blessing our church.
God has blessed our church since we started two years ago, it's about to be two years,
we're about to go independent in a couple months, amen?
But if we want to keep that favor, we need to continue to delight in the law of the Lord.
You know, look, when we have conversations, we talk about a lot of stuff, but let's make
sure we keep talking about the Bible in our conversations.
Let's talk about the things of the Lord, let's talk about soul winning, you know, we can
joke around, it's fine, you know, Mary Hart does good look at medicine, amen?
But at the end of the day, we should be characterized as, from God, as being those who delight in
the law of the Lord, okay?
Why?
Because we want him to show himself strong on our behalf.
And there's going to be difficulties in the future for us as individuals, but also as
a church, and you know what we're going to need?
We're going to need God's favor at that time, okay?
Go back, if you would, to James chapter number four.
So you have not because he asked not, I didn't get to mention that, you know, a lot of times
people don't get what they want because they don't even ask, right?
Sometimes you just got to ask, and you know why people don't ask God for things?
Because they don't have faith that he's going to give it, they're just like, I'd just rather
not ask, you know?
You're more apt to actually get what you're asking for if you actually open your mouth
boldly and ask, you know?
I don't know if I go sowing if I'm going to see anybody saved.
Well, you have not because he asked not.
So go and preach the gospel and you're going to get someone saved, amen?
You know, if there's a specific, if there's a financial need in your life, you have not
because he asked not.
No, don't ask me, amen?
Hey, can I get 100 bucks, you know?
I'm going to say, you ask a miss, okay?
But you know, there's been times in my personal life when I prayed and I've asked God, I had
a financial need, and you know what?
He provided it like to the T. I'm talking about to the very dollar, okay?
You know, and that increased my faith in him.
And don't be afraid that he might say no, at least he answered the prayer.
And just remember this, when you pray, God will always, always answer your prayers.
It might be no, but that's still an answer, you know?
And he might say no, but hey, at least you know he's hearing you.
So now you just got to finagle your way and try to figure out what is it that he wants
so he can say yes.
And sometimes when it's maybe, it just simply what that means is not now, but I'm going
to give it to you later, okay?
Look at verse number four.
So that was what verse number one through three is talking about.
I know that was a lot, but I feel like there was a lot of good truths in there.
Now we're going to look at the symbolism of worldliness.
It says he adulterers and adulteresses.
That's a good way to address the people, right?
Knowing not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore would
be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to
envy?
Now first of all, verse number four, why is God calling those who are friends of the world
adulterers and adulteresses?
This is very, this is harsh, you know?
Now go with me if you would to First Corinthians chapter number 10.
Hold your place there in James chapter number four.
First of all, that should just show us that God does not take loving the world lightly,
right?
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, okay?
We can't say that we love the Lord if we love the world, right?
But the reason he's calling them adulterers and adulteresses is because one of the common
themes that we see throughout the Old Testament is when the people of God would commit idolatry,
it was the equivalent to spiritual whoredom, okay?
Because he would often liken the people of God, Israel, to like a wife.
Obviously it wasn't a literal wife, but it was figurative.
And any time they would go out and commit idolatry, they'd go serve other gods like
Baal, you know, God would consider that whoredom, all right?
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse number six.
It says here, now these things were our examples to the intent that we should not lust after
evil things as they also lusted, neither be idolaters as were some of them as it is written,
the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Now when it says rose up to play, it doesn't mean they were going to do Scrabble or something,
okay?
It doesn't mean Monopoly or, you know, whatever games that they had, a little spinner with
the Jewish symbols on the side.
That's not what it's talking about, okay?
It's talking about the fact that they rose up to play the harlot because of the fact
that in the Old Testament when a woman would literally become like a prostitute, they become
a harlot or even, excuse me, even if a woman were to get involved in fornication, she would
sleep around.
The common phrase that they would say about that woman is that she's playing the harlot.
She's acting like a, in modern day we would say she's acting like a whore.
That's what the Bible says, okay?
Playing the harlot.
This is from Hosea 3.3, it says, and I said unto her, thou shall abide with me for many
days, thou shall not play the harlot, and thou shall not be for another man.
So will I also be for thee.
So in context, what we see in Hosea specifically is that the people of God, they were whoring
after Balaam, okay, Baal.
And so that's how God saw it.
So that was like idolatry, that was like loving the world.
And another thing that they were guilty of is that when a conquering, when a conquering
nation was coming to basically take them over, they wouldn't pray and ask God for help.
What would they do?
They would hire another foreign nation to come protect them.
So they would go to the world for help, is what they would do.
They would go to the Assyrians, no offense, you know, they'd go to, we got an Assyrian
down here, you know, they would go to the Egyptians and God will constantly tell them,
you know, you're not, you're asking that their mouth, but you're not asking that mine.
You know, God considered that like spiritual adultery, in other words, you're being unfaithful
to God.
So in like manner in the New Testament, when a Christian depends on the things of this
world more than on God, they become what's called an adulterer or an adulteress, not
physically, but in the spiritual sense, okay.
Now, so that's what that's talking about there.
And it's basically stating, this is strong right here, it says, knowing that the friendship
of the world is enmity with God.
So you know what, even as a Christian, we often talk about the enemies of God, like
the reprobates, but you know what, some Christians can become the enemies of God too.
How?
By loving the world.
Now, obviously they don't become reprobates, but it says right there, you're at enmity
with God.
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
That goes to show you that God hates the world, not the people in the world.
We're talking about the world system and the philosophies, the ideologies that stem
from the world that influence God's people contrary to the word of God.
And when God's people begin to adhere to worldly principles that are completely contrary
to the Bible, God hates them.
And then he begins to say, you're my enemy then.
Because you're adhering, not you guys, you know, I almost pointed over there, you know,
you're like my enemy because of the fact that you're rejecting my word, okay.
And that's why he says you're adulterers and adulteresses.
Now look at verse number five.
Go back to James.
Are you in James?
James chapter four.
By the way, that's why it's important that we keep the world out of the church.
Amen.
We keep the worldly music out of the church.
We keep the worldly dress out of the church.
We keep the worldly, anything from the world that would influence the church.
We need to keep it out because we don't want to be a church who's the enemy of God.
Aren't there churches like that today?
The CCM, you know, type churches with the purple lights and the fog machine and the
strobe light.
I don't know if they have all that, you know, the synthesizer, oh no, I'm thinking about
something else.
You know, it's the same thing, thanks, yeah.
These churches are the enemies of God.
You know, that's not honoring unto the Lord to have those things.
You know, we need to make sure that, look, I'm for being all the way to the right, amen.
Let's just go like far, far to the right and let's stay to the right, okay.
Let's go so far to the right, obviously according to God's standards in his biblical doctrines,
that even if we were to slip a little bit, we're still on the right.
You see what I'm saying?
You know, because we want to make sure that we're a holy church, that we're a church that's
without blemish, right, unto the Lord as Ephesians chapter five says.
We want to be a church without spot and wrinkled, you know, without spot or wrinkled, that we
could be blameless before the Lord, okay.
Oh, but that's old-fashioned, you know what, you're not going to reach anybody by doing
that.
I mean, it looks like we reached a good amount of people here, it looks like we see a good
amount of people saved since we started the church, you know, but you know what, even
if we weren't doing that, we still do it because that's what's right.
Better to do that which is right than to do what we think is right in our own eyes, you
know.
Look at verse five.
This is a pretty interesting verse here.
It says, do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in
us lusteth to envy.
Now what does that mean?
Well, here's what it doesn't mean first and foremost because it's saying there that the
spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy.
That's obviously something bad.
And it's in correlation what we see in the first couple of verses about lusting for those
things which are bad, right.
Now the reason this can be confusing is because we obviously understand that when we get saved,
our spirit does not do anything bad, right.
It's saved.
It cannot sin, the Bible says, because it is born of God.
So you say, well, how do you explain this then if it's not talking about our spirit
as far as the part, the aspect of our being that's saved, that's born again, what is it
referring to?
Well, in the Bible, you will often see the word spirit also used as in reference to our
attitude or our disposition, okay.
And when we refer to the spirit, the soul, that's the aspect of our being that's saved,
but it can also really just refer to our heart, for example, okay.
Now obviously the heart is not saved, okay, right.
Because we can still have a dirty heart, amen.
And that's why we got to continue to renew our minds.
So when this is referring to the spirit, this is my belief, this is my interpretation of
this is that it's actually referring to that aspect of our being, our hearts, the seat
of our emotions, where we have our disposition, our attitude towards things.
Now let me give you an example of this in Proverbs 17, you don't have to turn there.
Verse 27 says, he that hath knowledge spareth his words and a man of understanding is of
an excellent spirit, okay.
Proverbs 18, 14 says, the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded
spirit who can bear.
That's not referring to the saved aspect of our being, that's referring to our attitude,
our disposition.
And that would make sense because of the fact that I've met people who are going through
a tough time, but because they have a good attitude, it sustains them.
But I've seen people who are going through a tough time and they have a wounded spirit
and it's just like, they feel like they just lost all hope.
Which side note here, if you're going through a tough time, have a good attitude as best
as you can, not for our sake, but for your sake.
Because a good spirit will sustain your infirmity.
You know, a good spirit will help you through the difficult times.
Now what do I mean by that?
Well, you know, a wounded spirit is often expressed through our countenance, right?
What's wrong with nothing?
You know, you're just kind of down, you're sad, you're depressed, and I'm not saying
be a fake, but you know what, this is how you can have the right spirit even when you're
going through a tough time.
You recognize the joy of the Lord is my strength.
Amen.
Okay.
You got to remind yourself of the promises of God in order to uplift your spirit, right?
So basically when you're going through a tough time, you say, man, you know, I'm this much
in debt, I'm sick, I'm dying or something, but hey, I'm saved.
Amen.
Going to heaven.
Right.
Hey, I got a great church.
Hey, I got three meals in my body.
So you start counting your blessings and what does that do?
It causes you to have a grateful spirit, a good spirit that will sustain your infirmity.
So often again, when we go to Ephesians chapter number four, the spirit, when we talk about
the spirit, you obviously got to read it in its context more often than not, especially
when in, in, in, uh, in regards to salvation, it is referring to the aspect of our being
that is saved, that is born again.
But there are times in the Bible that it's just referring to our attitude, our disposition.
And that's what I believe this is actually referring to here because of the fact that
our hearts can lust to envy, right?
But not our actual spirit that's saved.
Look at Ephesians four verse 20, but ye have not so learned Christ, if so be they have
heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, that he put off concern
in the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust
and look what it says and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
So again, that's not referring to the saved aspect of our being because it's saying here
that the spirit of our mind needs to be renewed.
You see what you understand what I'm saying?
So, and this could also be likened unto Romans chapter eight, the carnal mind, right?
Because there's times when you can have a carnal mind.
You're not, you know, again, we're not talking about the spirit, the aspect of our, of our
being that's saved.
We're talking about just our hearts, our attitude, our disposition can be sinful.
And that's what the Bible continually tells us to renew that aspect of our, of our being.
Go back to James chapter number four.
So he's basically saying, look, the scripture doesn't say in vain, you know, that the spirit
lusted to envy.
That is your natural, you have the natural propensity to do that.
So in other words, you got to kind of keep yourself in check, you know, don't think that
there's no temptation taking it, but such as is common to man and be careful, take heed
lest he fall.
In other words, you know, don't think, well, oh, you know, that's not going to be me.
I'm not going to be involved in wars and fightings and you know, these lusts.
Well, no, because the spirit that dwells in you lusted to envy, you know, you have a propensity
to get involved in those things.
That's why you got to make sure that you got to clean your heart and really at the latter
end of, or we'll read in just a little bit in James chapter four.
That's why it tells us to cleanse our hearts, right?
Draw nigh to God, he'll draw nigh to you, et cetera.
Look at verse, verse number six, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisted
the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
A lot of truth packed into these verses right here.
So when you feel weak and you feel like you're being tempted, there's two things you have
to do.
One, you have to resist Satan and he'll flee from you.
Just like he did with Jesus, right?
He fled from him for a season, but he fled.
But that's not the only thing you have to do.
You got to draw nigh to God.
So it's not just a matter of disciplining yourself not to do the wrong things, you got
to apply yourself to do the right things.
So it's not just a matter of not sinning and not getting involved in things that are displeasing
to God, it's actually doing the things that are pleasing unto him.
That's what holiness is, right?
Holiness or separation is when you're separated from something unto something.
If you have only one, you're going to fail at it.
If you're only separated from sin, but you're not separated unto God, guess what?
You're going to go back to sin.
If you're separated from a bad habit, but you're not replacing it with a good discipline,
a spiritual discipline, you're going to end up going back.
However, if you replace it with godly living, you add to your faith virtue, you know, at
that point, you can be successful at it, okay?
That's why in 1 Peter 1, it tells us when it talks about adding to your faith virtue,
if you don't do those things, you can forget that you're purged from your old sins, okay?
So it says draw nigh to God, he'll draw nigh to you.
That goes to show you that the way we get close to God is not by him taking the first
step.
We need to make sure we take the first step.
Don't stay at home, those of you listening online, amen?
I just got to wait for God to just come to me in a cloud and, you know, just I need some
sort of sign or miracle.
No, just go to church.
The only sign you're going to have is the sign of Jonas the Prophet, amen?
And that took place 2,000 years ago.
You know, just come to church, draw nigh to God.
Are you saying, oh, hold on a second, you're relating to church to God?
Yeah, this is his church.
This is his church, amen?
Where two or three gathered together in his name, there he is in the midst.
And this is part of drawing nigh to God is going to church.
I know that's not popular out there, especially, you know, YouTube Baptist Christians who just
want to just live on YouTube land and not be, you know, and join themselves to a congregation
as the Bible tells you to do, right?
No, the Bible tells us that if we're to draw nigh to God, part of that is our obedience
unto him.
That's what that is, going to church.
Draw nigh to God, he will draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.
Now we often think that in order to get right with God, we have to clean our hearts first,
right?
But it actually doesn't say that.
It says, cleanse your hands first.
Hands is what you do, hearts is what's internal.
And that's why it tells us in Psalm 34 to commit thy works unto the Lord.
So if you want to do right, if your heart's not right, start doing right and your heart
will get right.
Don't ask me to repeat that, okay?
First Timothy 2, 8 says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy
hands without wrath and doubting.
So one thing that can help you to just do right is do right.
One thing that will help you to have a clean heart is by just committing your works unto
the Lord.
Just doing right and then it'll purify your heart.
Look at verse number nine, be afflicted and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up.
Now obviously this is in context we see of pride, right?
And what it's telling us to be afflicted about is the sin that we have in our lives.
If we have it in our lives, we're to be afflicted, we're to mourn, we're to weep, allow our laughter
to be turned into mourning, joy to heaviness and at that point the Lord can lift us up.
Look at verse number 11, we're almost done.
Speak not evil one of another brethren, he that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth
his brother speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law.
But if thou judgeth the law, thou art not a doer of the law but a judge.
There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy who art thou that judgeth another.
Now this is referring to speaking evil of a brother that stems from pride because in
chapter 3 and verse number 9 we see that the person who does not bridle their tongue,
therewith they bless God but even the Father and therewith they also curse men, right?
Being a hypocrite is what that's referring to there.
Look at verse 13, go to now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and
continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall be
on the morrow.
For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanisheth away.
For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.
But now ye rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing is evil.
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth not, to him it is sin.
So what is verse 13 through 17 covering here?
What's covering the sin of presumptuous thinking, okay?
Presumptuous thinking is basically you planning or having a pride-based plan is what that's
referring to.
Well, I'm going to do this because I'm great and we're great.
You know, we never want to be a church that's presumptuous in the way that we talk.
Look, I believe we have great people in our church, amen?
I believe we have great soul winners, godly people, but don't let it get to your head
to the point where you become so presumptuous, right?
To the point where you become so pretentious that you just, we're going to do this and
that.
It's like, well, hold on a second, if the Lord wills.
Because God can take the carpet out from under us at any moment.
And at that point you say, well, how do you know that?
Because it says right there that our life is but a vapor that appeared for a little
time and then it vanishes away.
I mean, let me just show you how fast your life can just vanish away and no one will
even remember who you are.
You know, 20, 25 years ago there was a man by the name of Jack Hyles, was it 25 years
ago?
About 25 years ago.
And this guy was like independent fundamental Baptist Church, he had the largest church
in America, okay?
Did some of the most greatest exploits of his time of 25 years ago.
Let me just say this, most people in the new IFB don't even know who he is.
I remember I was talking to a couple in this church, I was like, yeah, Jack Hyles, man,
he did a lot of soul, he did a lot of great exploits and, you know, I'm just talking,
I thought that they knew who I was talking about.
And the guy was just like, oh, wow, so what's he doing today?
I'm like, he's dead actually.
He's like, oh, he died?
I'm like, yeah, he's been dead for like a long time.
Like, oh, wow, okay.
And look, I'm not saying that Jack Hyles was a bad person because of it, it's just showing
that our life is but a vapor.
So before you get all high and mighty, you know, we need to make sure that we humble
ourselves in the sight of the Lord and not have this presumptuous thinking.
Now look, when we talk about soul winning, yeah, we're going to do a lot of works, right?
We're looking to conquer Compton, we're looking to conquer Watts, amen.
We're looking to conquer all the cities that surround here, Monterey Park, Montebello,
all of Los Angeles, if the Lord wills.
We're looking to see people saved in San Diego and Santa Maria, all across California.
We want to take trips to Mexico to do some missions trips.
We want to go to Aruba to do some missions trips in the future, if the Lord wills.
We want to see thousands and thousands of souls saved, amen, if the Lord wills.
So we never want to have this attitude that we're so great.
We're the great faithful, we're Baptist Church and a couple of months, the first works Baptist
Church, that we become so prideful that God will make sure that we're like a vapor that
vanishes away.
You know, I want to stay here as long as I possibly can.
I want the church to stay here as long as it possibly can.
But what do we have to do?
We've got to make sure that we're careful not to be presumptuous in our thinking.
Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth, the Bible
says.
Okay.
Go with me, if you would, to Psalm 19, that'll be the last scripture.
It says, now you're rejoicing, and I'm reading to you from James, but now you rejoice and
you're boasting all such rejoicing is evil.
It says, for they ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this and that.
So that's not to say we can't plan, amen.
We are to plan.
In fact, a couple, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago, we had a soul
winning training.
And in that soul winning training, we highlighted our plan as a church of how we're going to
fulfill the great commission in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of
the world.
We highlighted all the cities that we want to go through and see people saved.
We have a plan.
Why?
Because there's a prepared place for prepared people.
But all of it is under the premise of this, if the Lord wills.
Look at Psalm 19, verse 12, it says, who can understand his errors?
Cleanse down me from secret faults, keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
Why is this sin of presumptuousness so important?
Why is it so bad?
Well, because of the fact that we're not counting the days, right?
So in other words, we're, we think that we have tomorrow.
So we're not necessarily living with the temporal mindset or excuse me, with an eternal mindset.
We're thinking that we have next week, we're thinking that we have this week to come.
So therefore we're not taking into account that we're not redeeming the time for the
days are evil.
In other words, we need to make sure that tomorrow that we're planning something for
this week, we're planning something that we say, if the Lord wills and we got to ask the
Lord, Lord, allow me to stay.
Allow me to stay.
And we got to ask the Lord, Lord, allow me to stay for decades on end, please, so I can
do works for you.
So we can do great works.
We can see people saved and hey, let's do great exploits.
Amen.
I mean, that's why the church is going to be called First Works Baptist Church because
we want to keep the first love and in order to keep the first love, we got to do the first
works and do great exploits if the Lord wills.
So this entire chapter is more so dealing with the spiritual battle that we have within
ourselves, right?
The wars and the fightings and our members and at the end of the day, He teaches us here
how God can exalt us and that's by humbling ourselves and recognizing, hey, don't be presumptuous
in your thinking.
And look, I hope you become a better soul winner as the years go by, amen.
I hope there's soul winners here that just like, man, do great works.
See a lot of people saved and I hope you continue to train more soul winners, but just stay
humble.
Stay humble.
You know, don't think you're better than anybody else either.
Let's not think that we're better than any other church unless that church is like false
gospel preaching, heretical devil church, then yeah, of course we're better than them.
We're God's people, amen.
But I'm talking about someone who's of like faith, someone who's of like faith and maybe
they're not as a bigger church as ours, but they're doing soul winning.
Let's not hate on them.
You know, now obviously we're going to have a bias towards our church, aren't we?
To me, this is the best church in the world, amen.
This is the best church to me because if it wasn't then I wouldn't be here, right.
But always these thoughts need to be, you know, given with the thought of if the Lord
wills, we will do this and that.
We will buy and sell.
We will see souls saved.
We will do great exploits if the Lord wills, amen.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for James chapter four.
We pray, God, that you'd help us.
And Lord, I pray you help us to keep under our bodies and bring it into subjection, Lord,
and help us to humble ourselves, to draw an eye unto you, to be consistent in living a
holy life, to live a life that's sanctified and well pleasing in your sight and protect
us from presumptuous sins, Lord.
Help us not to be prideful and to think that we're just all that in a bag of chips, that,
you know, no one can dethrone us.
There's no other church in L.A. that can do as great works as we can.
You know, it'd be great if there was another church that did greater works than we, that
would challenge us to do greater works, Lord.
And I pray, God, that you would help us to keep a humble mind and to be thankful for
what we have, but also to recognize that as we plan to do great exploits, may we say,
if the Lord wills.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.