Introduction
There are two views that we as Christians ought ever
to covet. One is the Devil’s back and the other
is God’s face. We should want to see the back of
the devil, and have a longing to see the face of God.
James, assures us that this is possible
James
4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil,
and he will flee from you.
The key to real blessing
is in submitting ones self to God and to the authority
of His word. Taking heed to the Doctrines, Disciplines
and the Demands contained therein.
Yet we must keep in mind
that the Christian life is not just following a set
of rules or a code of conduct. The Christian life is
a development of a personal relationship with the living
God. These verses before us show us what should characterize
the believers walk with God. In chapter 4
The
Question James Asks. V 1 From whence come fighting’s and wars among you".
What leads to strife
discords and feuds and how do conflicts, quarrels and
fighting originate among you?
What causes these fights
and where do they come from? Instead of working together
in a spirit of peace, people were in constant conflict.
The word for fighting’s
in the Greek is Polemoi—meaning a continuous state of war.
It is the word that is used to depict the conflict between
Michael, the Dragon and the host of angels as "War
in heaven"
From the day of Satan’s
rebellion war has been Universal and continuous.
Right to the end of time men will have hostility
in their bones and war will be their seething passion.
The leaders of men will go to war against the Lion of
Judah, but the Lord will conqueror every foe.
They shall be killed
with the sword that proceeds from His mouth and the
birds of the heavens shall feed on their flesh. It will
be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God.
Verse 2 --James
reminds us that war is an Individual matter.
James
4:2 ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have,
and cannot obtain: ye fight and war,
Man desires to have what
he cannot obtain and thus he goes to war to obtain what
he desires.
The fiercest and the
bloodiest wars have begun with one man’s festered
heart of selfish desire. War
is shameful and even more so when it’s believers
who are at war with each other.
"From
whence come wars and fighting among you?
2
The Condition James Exposes
Our quarrels and conflicts
come from our desires that battle within us. James is
speaking to believers who have found the Prince of peace
and the Path of peace, and yet they are fighting and
squabbling with one another. Surely this is shameful?
Wherever lust and self
-will rule the heart, conflicts and disputes will continue.
War in the heart is the cause of war in the church,
and a dissatisfied heart is never at peace with God.
James makes it clear
that the source of Conflict is your lust that war in
your members. It is the lust of the Old Nature, which
is the problem.
The Bible teaches that
we are to make every effort to live at peace with all
men and especially those who are of the household of
faith.
As
one dear Saint of old said, " Give me the courage
to show the dove in a world so full of serpents".
James exposes the deceitfulness,
the wickedness, and the selfishness of man’s heart.
He exposes how that we love to gratify the flesh instead
of crucifying the flesh.
There were Believers
who were at war with each other over positions in the
Church and over Church policy. Each thought that their
idea, that their way was best. Selfish ambition ruled
and not self-submission. We still have this problem
today.
How sad it is when believers
who have trusted the same Saviour, and are baptized
into the same body, and are indwelt by the same Spirit,
and yet they are at war constantly with each other.
3.
The Solution James Proposed. V7-10
How can wars and conflicts
cease among the people of God?
1
A Communion that’s to be enjoyed.
James 4:8 Draw
nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you
We might well ask the
question, "Why have we to be told to draw near
to God"? Surely this has already been accomplished
when we became Christians. We have been brought near
to God through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Eph
2:13 but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far
off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
We are in Christ and
Christ is in us the hope of Glory. But the fact that
we are commanded to draw near to God, should teach us
an important lesson, namely that we have a constant
need to do so.
We dare not presume that
because we come to Church to worship God, read our Bibles,
give our Tithes, and say our prayers that we are living
close to and walking daily with God. We can be diligent
in these things and still be distant in our relationship
with God.
The Marriage of a young
couple takes place in a moment of time, but the marriage
bond needs to be cultivated or the relationship will
grow cold.
A person may live as
near to God as the bubble is to the ocean and yet not
find him. He may be "closer than breathing, nearer
than hands or feet," and still be missed, when
we fail to submit fully to Him and resist the Devil.
Submitting to God and
resisting the devil leads to victory on the battlefield,
and enables us to lean on the very breast of God.
Thomas Manton—"Drawing near to God
is not the duty of an hour but the work of our whole
life time.
Dr. A W. Tozer. Writes, "Nearness is Likeness"
the more we are like God, the nearer we are to God.
Draw
Near To God. And He will
draw near to you.
How can do we do this
1) "Cleanse your hands" – 2) Get your
sins forgiven 3) "Purify your hearts" –
4) Be single-minded in your devotion.
God graciously draws
near to us when we deal with the sin in our life that
keeps Him at a distant. The double-minded believer can
never be close to God.
Abraham and Lot come
to mind. Abraham drew near to God and talked to Him
about Sodom. Gen 18:23, while Lot moved into Sodom and
lost the nearness and the blessing of God.
Heb 10:22 Let us
draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water.
Nearer still nearer,
Lord to be thine
Sin with its follies
I gladly resign
All of its pleasures,
pomp and its pride
Give me but Jesus
my Lord crucified.
The death of Jesus Christ
has made it possible for believing sinners to come to
God, and all believer Priests can enjoy a close personal
relationship and enriching fellowship with God.
1
A Communion that’s to be Enjoyed.
2.
A Cleansing that is Required.
James
4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify
your hearts, ye double minded.
James uses the word
"Sinners" as
he speaks to believers. Therefore he is implying that
they are living sub standard lives as those who profess
the name of Christ. They were saved by Grace, but were
living in Disgrace because of their sinfulness, and
they needed to get back to the path of obedience.
Cleanse
your hands; purify your hearts, ye double minded.
(KJV Amp) Recognize that you are sinners, get your soiled
hands clean (Realize that you have been disloyal, wavering
individuals with divided interests, and purify your
hearts of your spiritual adultery
Psalm
24:3 who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or
who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean
hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his
soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
We cannot draw near to
God with soiled hearts and with stained hands, all hypocrisy
and double-mind ness must be cast off. Dirty hands must
be washed and this is not a reference to personal hygiene.
It is a reference to
the actions of the Old Test., Priests, who before entering
the Tabernacle went through the ritual of washing their
hands in the sight of the congregation gathered. Indicating
that no man could enter to God’s presence with
dirty hands and unconfessed sin. The same principle
applies in the dispensation of the Church.
The Apostle Paul uses
the imagery of hands
1 Tim 2:8 I will therefore that men pray every where,
lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
The crucial point here,
is, not that the hands must be literally lifted up in
prayer, for the Bible makes it clear that we can prayer
in numerous positions. Paul is placing the emphasis
on "Holy hands" being lifted.
James is calling for
practical holiness in those who say they belong to Jesus.
James no doubt recalled the teaching of Jesus to the
religious leaders.
Mat
15:8 this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth,
and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart
is far from me.
How often God can say
of His people, " Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid his
face from you"? With Paul we conclude
Rom 7:24 O wretched
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?
With Isaiah
Woe
is me! For I am undone; because I am a
man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips:
What can the wayward
Christian do to have his communion with God restored?
James 4:9 be afflicted,
and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to
mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Only a fool makes light
of sin. Mourning and heaviness of heart always accompany
a deep sense of sin. God will never plant the seed of
life and blessing upon the soil of a hard, unbroken
spirit. He will only plant that seed where the conviction
of his Spirit has brought brokenness, where the soil
has been watered with the tears of repentance.
KJV
Amp—As you draw near to God} be deeply penitent
and grieve, even weep {over your disloyalty} Let your
laughter be turned to grief and your mirth to dejection
and heartfelt shame {for your sins {
How we need to shake
off the deadly indifference to the sin that so easily
grips us—and to confess that we have been guilty
of making light of our sin. The Apostle Paul warns us
1 Cor 11:31 for if we would judge ourselves, we should
not be judged.
Friends, dirty hands
need to be washed and divided hearts need to be purified
of spiritual adultery. James now reaches down to the
root of the problem V 8 Purify your hearts, ye double minded
The source of all of
man’s problems is the heart.
Matt 15:19 Jesus said
for out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies: These are the things
which defile a man
Prov
4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it
are the issues of life.
James
1:8 a double minded man is unstable in all his
ways
He is a man of two minds.
Hesitating, irresolute, unstable, unreliable, and uncertain
about everything. The Greek
word for double minded –means having two souls.
This kind of person is always torn in their affections
between serving God and serving the world.
This
is the sin of being two faced with God.
The Devil seeks to divide
the hearts, the minds, the affections, and the allegiance
of God’s people. He tried to do this with Christ
on the Mount of Temptation.
The devil showed Him
all the kingdoms of the world in a moment in time and
he said to Jesus " all this power will I give thee
and the glory of them if you will bow down and worship
me all will be thine.
10
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for
it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve.
Paul rebuked the church at Corinth 1
Cor 10:21 ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the
cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's
Table, and of the table of devils.
One of the greatest hindrances
to the advancement of the Gospel today is double-minded
Christians.Those who profess faith in Christ and continue
to feast at the world’s table, which is laden with
the devil’s dainties.
It can be said of so
many, perhaps even of you as was said of Israel of old
" They feared the Lord but
served their own God’s"
The challenge of the
prophet of old needs to ring out in the Church of today.
How long halt ye between two opinions?
If God be God follow Him, but if Baal be God follow
him.
The Scripture records
that the people answered not a word. Their guilt stunned
them to silence. Men and women are dumb founded when
faced with the powerful searchlight of God’s holy
word, which highlights and condemns their sin.
Mankind has to make up
their minds either to serve Jesus and go to heaven,
or to serve the devil and go to hell. The Christian
life is to be a life that is totally dedicated to loving
and to serving God.
God demands the undivided
allegiance of His people that He might bless them.
Oswald
Chambers ---If God is going to bless me, he must condemn
and blast out of my being what he cannot bless.
Friends, we must daily
purify our hearts to seek the living God, hungering
and thirsting after righteousness and unbroken fellowship
with Him.
To say with the Psalmist
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul
after thee, O God.
My
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:
"Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you"
Jesus
master whose I am
Purchased
thine alone to be
By
thy blood O spotless lamb
Let
my heart be all then own
Lord
give us courage to confess
To
bare our sinful hearts to Thee
Forgiving
love You long to show
And
from our sin to set us free.
1
A Communion that’s to be enjoyed.
2.
A Cleansing that is required.
3.
A Condition that needs to be expressed.
James
4:10 humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and
he shall lift you up.
Beloved, it is possible
to submit outwardly and yet not to be humble inwardly.
God hates the sin of pride. Pride is the hallmark of
unrepentant sin, and of the unrecognized sovereignty,
which leads to unrelieved suffering not only in time
but eternity.
We live in a world that
fails to recognize the sovereignty of Almighty God.
As the Psalmist looked
at the Ungodly he said to the Lord
"Rivers
of water Run down from my eyes, because men do not keep
your word"
How long is since we
have been moved with compassion because of those who
are perishing in the pollution of their sin because
of their stubborn pride?
Should we not also mourn
over the unrecognized sovereignty of God in the Church?
When the Church is split with compromise, carnality,
with petty differences and Christians are a law unto
themselves. When a minority dictates to the majority
of the fellowship.
What a difference it
would make to our lives, to our homes, to the Church,
if we would humbly bowed before the sovereignty of God
and yield to Him.
The Precept that is Stated --- humble
yourselves
God hates sin and He
will chastise the proud believer until he is humbled,
but a broken and a contrite heart God will not despise.
The Promise that is Stated.
James 4:10 humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift
you up.
The way up is down. Peter says 1
Pet 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty
hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
Self-abasement is ever followed by the
divine exaltation. The Lord Jesus is the supreme example
of this.
Phil 2:8 and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Phil 2:9 Wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
which is above every name:
Phil 2:10 that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
Dwight Lyman
Moody-- A man can counterfeit love, he can counterfeit
faith, he can counterfeit hope and all the other graces,
but it is very difficult to counterfeit humility.
A.
W. Tozer-- Because Christ Jesus came to the world
clothed in humility, he will always be found among those
who are clothed with humility. He will be found among
the humble people.
John
Bunyan--
He
that is down needs fear no fall,
He
that is low, no pride;
He
that is humble ever shall
Have
God to be his guide.
Put the government of
your life upon His shoulder and let Him become the Prince
of Peace in every situation.
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