Bible Study - James 3 & 4

I knew I'd forget. Okay. We left off with chapter 13 talking about God's wisdom. And that, you know, in verse 13 of chapter 3, James, you know, asked the question that really is our starting point for today, too, because we have a chapter break between verse 18 and chapter 4 verse 1. But his letter continued, and chapter 4 is really a continuation of the thought that he has that he began back in chapter 3 and verse 13, where he says, Who is wise and understanding among you?

Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. And we talked about the meekness of wisdom. We talked about wisdom, you know, being knowing, you know, having the knowledge of God and how to apply that. Of course, when we know those things, it doesn't do us any good unless we have the character that we develop through the trials and the tribulations of life to do the things that we know that we need to do. But in the meekness of wisdom.

And just a reminder, the meekness, you know, a good definition, at least one that I always thought was a good definition of meekness is it's not the weakness that the world says, but a strength under the control of the master, just like that stallion that's full of life and full of strength. And yet he's in the perfect control of his master, that just a little bit in his mouth can turn him right or left. And we need to be the same type of people, you know, have the zeal, have the eagerness. God gives us the strength, but we need to be turned by him and allow him to show us where we need to turn back to him and get our paths back in a line with where he wants us to go when we veer off to the right or the left.

So, you know, we talked about that in chapter 13 and down there, we talked about bitter envy, you know, and he talks about the things that can happen between you and me that can happen between your husband and wife or family members or parents and children, or friends or church members, right? If you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, don't boast and lie against the truth because that's not the wisdom of the world or that's not the wisdom of God, he says, that's the wisdom of the world.

When we think that we have all the answers and we're bad at each other, we're wanting this position or we're wanting to do that or whatever it is that can come between us, you know, he says, be aware of the wisdom that you're living by because in verse 17, you know, the wisdom that comes from God is, if that comes from above, is first pure, we talk about pure, cleanses our minds, cleanses our hearts, first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.

So he, you know, he continues to talk about that and point us to what we need to do if we're going to follow God and if we're following him deeply and taking it always to the next measure, you know, to the measure of the stature of Christ, a little, a little bit more as we learn to become more and more like Christ and weed out, you know, the evil from us.

So then in chapter 4, it's just a natural continuation of what James is talking about. So he talks about, you know, bitter envy and self-seeking that can happen to us and then he goes, well, where do wars and fights come from among you?

You know, I mean wars happen between nations, fights happen between people. Well, where do war and fights come from among you? And he kind of goes right into that and tells us, following right off what he said. Well, if we go back to verse 17, well, or I guess where verse 16, where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

Where do wars and all these evil things come from? They come, they come from the same wisdom that can create the bitter envy and that it leads to the self-seeking in our hearts.

Again, anyone can pop in whenever they want if they have an observation or a comment or question.

So in verse 1 of chapter 4, he asks that question, so he's introducing another part of his letter here. He says, well, don't they come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?

So he cuts right to the heart of the matter there. He says, you know, look where all these wars and fights among you come from. You're doing what you want to do. You're doing what you want to do. You're putting your desires above someone else. You're putting your desires above God. You're putting your desires for pleasure that war in your members. And we know the struggle that we're at, right? We constantly struggle. My way or God's way? Which way is it? I'm doing my will. Am I doing God's will? Am I doing someone else's will? What is God's will? And that is a lifelong process to understand what the difference is and to be able to take the word of God and the Spirit of God and have it in it and seek God's will and be willing to give up our ideas or whatever to have that happen.

So he says, this is it. They come from your desires for pleasure more than the self-centeredness that you have, what you want. And we're so easily deceived, right? We can all deceive ourselves into thinking, well, what's best for me is best for everyone. My idea is the best idea. It's better than their idea. And I just, we could name any number of things that we do that in life, right? And I look at the recent situation that we're in and, you know, in some people's minds, just again, where is the truth? I hear a phone. But, you know, my idea is, you know, we might say, everyone should wear a mask. But then the other person says, well, my idea is that no one needs to wear a mask. And some say, you know, well, I think everyone in the church, if we start services, again, everyone should have to wear a mask, that should be part of it. And others say, well, I don't care if people wear masks. I don't think everyone should have to. So again, you know, what is this? And I understand those things. And they're difficult. They're difficult to bring everything together. And they're rife with an opportunity for Satan to come in between us and make judgments and have people make judgments about this or that or whatever. So, you know, that's just one example. But this is what happens, even when we're in our everyday lives, right? We lust for things that we have. It is something that we want. And we convince ourselves, this is what it needs. This is what it is. And nations do this. Oh, we have to have Crimea, you know, Putin several years ago, we've got to have Crimea. That's the answer to it. I've got to have it. And then we have all this war. We have things going on today, you know, where do wars and fights come from among you? It's your desire, you know, your desires for pleasures that you want. What is your will? What is your will, you know, to be done? And it gets back to the wisdom of the world. And he says in verse two, then...

Hold on just a minute.

Well, let me pause there. Let me throw out a question then, okay? You murder and covet, well, do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? Well, let's read verse two. You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Now, let me just stop there. We'll take the next sentence next. So where he's going to in this section of his letter is to the 10th commandment, right? He's going to the commandment, thou shalt not covet. So we might look at ourselves, James is saying, we might think, oh, I'm very religious. I don't covet my neighbor's house. I don't covet my neighbor's wife. I don't covet his car.

Really, those material things don't mean anything to me. I'm satisfied with everything that God has given me. Covetous is not one of the things that I see as a problem that I have. But then look where James takes it. He says you lust and don't have. You fight and war because there's something that you want. Maybe it's not a thing that you want, but there's something that you want. Is there something that you're coveting? One of your pleasures, one of your desires, whatever it is. So he says, look at that commandment and take it to the entire scope of what it is you do in your life. Because if there's fights among you, he says, if there's some kind of division among you and you guys are fighting with each other, there's something there. There's something there where there's some self-centeredness. There's some coveting of you can do something that I can't or I want what you have, whatever it is. And we know that at the heart, if you remember that James is Christ's brother, he probably very well knew the reason that the Pharisees, that the Jews wanted Christ dead, right? Pilate picked up on it when he made the comment back in the book of Mark that he knew that they had handed Christ over to him because of envy. They had the positions, but what the Pharisees saw was he can do a lot of things we can't do. Look at the things he says, look at how they follow him. He's healing people. We don't have that power. We don't know how to do that. All they wanted to do was attack him. And so that's why they wanted him dead because they wanted to be able to do what he had. Covetousness was at the heart of their sin that they were committing. They coveted to be like Christ. And so James is telling us, can we look at this? Can we pay attention to what is going on here? You know, when we have fights, we can talk about employer, employee, we can talk about co-workers, we can talk about husband and wife, we can talk about friends in church. If we have little scuffles, and they don't have to be all-out fights, but sometimes we have differences and things that have to be resolved. What is it that we, if we find ourselves in that kind of situation, what is it that we can do? Because we all get in those situations, right? We're all human. None of us are perfect, and we're going to encounter these situations. What are some of the things that we can do at that point? You know, emotions, emotions are already beginning to well up, and we get into those situations. What should we do, or what could we do to kind of offset those and not fall prey to, you know, the fights and the swabbling that might come between us, either in our families, in our employment places, church, or wherever? We can, one thing, Mr. Shaby, I think we can, as you always talk about, seek first to understand. Take the approach of being open-minded and not just, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right, and you're wrong, you're wrong, but seek to understand in the sense of looking at it from someone else's point of view. Of course, what goes along with that is praying, and if it's with a brother, one of the brethren, you could always pray together and seek God's guidance and seek His will, and pray together and ask God to help come to, you know, a good conclusion and be able to work things out in a good way, because, you know, you pray together and that could even help, you know, alleviate emotions and things like that, because if you're both going before God in a humble manner, then that can tend to take out anger and wrath and stuff like that, so just a thought. Seeking to understand is always a good thing to do. Absolutely. Very good. Anyone else?

I'm thinking also from me reading through James 4 and one of the articles in the United News to be a little more submissive and to look at some, like I was looking at Abraham in Lot when Abraham was, instead of fighting over, I guess, the pastures, he was okay to go ahead and give his nephew, you know, his choice of lot so they could go their own way and it not be like a family feud or a fight forever. That's an excellent example, because that had all the recipe, right? That had all the ingredients to be a family battle and Abraham could have dug his feet in the sand and Lot could have and who knows what would have happened. So, good example. That was actually something I read in the United News. It was a small article and it went with James 4. Yep. Yeah.

No, very good. Very good. So, what did Abraham do? How did Abraham resolve that situation? You know, maybe you see we put ourselves in his place and, you know, he's saying we need to separate ways.

You can have this or you can have that and then, you know, it was Abraham who was the, I guess, the elder of the two or whatever that you might say and then the younger says, I'll take the best land. That, you know, what did Abraham do? What New Testament principle did he apply in that situation that absolved any of the conflict that might have come?

Yep, Brenda? I was gonna say he was practicing the way of give and not the way of get, like like Mr. Armstrong used to say, you know, you have the way of give or the way of get and you always look at what you're doing and make sure you're on the side of give, not get. Yep. He wasn't looking out for his own desires there, was he? Because he might have thought, I really want that land, but then when Lot, when he's heard Lot say it, he just said, okay, fine, go ahead and take it. I, you know, it'll be fine. So, and I would think of a verse that might go along with that, what Abraham did.

It's not too far from where we are in James. Let's head over to 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5.

1 Peter 5 and verse 5. It says, likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Well, that's a natural thing to do, right? I mean, our kids submit to their parents and whatever. Likewise, your younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility for God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. So Paul says, yes, it's expected that younger people would submit themselves to their elders, but he goes, you know what? All of you, all of you look at it, you know, be willing to give up what your desire is, what you think you should have. Give it, give it to someone else. Just submit to them. If there's two ways to do things and you think, oh, this is a better way, but the other way is just as good and maybe a little bit different, and you're working together and, you know, since Dave works in sound, I don't know anything about sound. So if I had an opinion about it, I would always defer to Dave on his opinion, but if we had two people working in it, I'd like to say, you know what? I do it your way. That's okay. I don't want to, you know, it's all gonna turn out okay. That's what Abraham did. He didn't, you know, he could have, he could have said, no, I'm the one who's the elder here. I'm gonna take that land and not even give him a lot of choice, but once he gave him a choice, he submitted and said, fine, take it. So that happens in our lives and, and that happens between husbands and wives sometimes too, right? I mean, husbands could take the position and say, I'm the man. I'm always going to make the final decision and it's my, it's my way.

Is that what God would have us do? Would he always say husband is always right and husband's way is always the way to go if there's a difference of opinion between husband and wife?

I don't think that's what, I don't think that's what he had in mind, right? So when he says, be submissive to one another, you know, we all have to remember that we are, you know, we are all learning to be submissive. We will all be the bride of Christ if we continue to follow God and yield ourselves to Him throughout the rest of our lives, you know, so we all have to be learning to submit and have to be willing to, you know, as it said back in James 3, 17, willing to yield.

That's a key thing in what James is talking about. That's at the core of so many of the issues that we might find ourselves involved in. One has to be willing to yield and just say, okay, as long as it's not, as long as it's not against God's will, as long as it's not against God's law, as long as it's not breaking a law of the land, fine. You know what? Just go ahead and do it and let it be.

So he goes on, and in verse 6, he says, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

And then it's interesting that Peter, you know, he goes right from that, from submitting to one another, which, you know, if we don't learn to do that, and we have all this conflict among us, he goes right into Satan. He says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Now, one of the ways Satan can come between us is if we have our little arguments, and we're always looking to have our way, and we get a little mad when someone has their way over our way, and we're not willing in developing that attitude, that we're just willing to yield. We just want the whole thing to work out well. We want God's will to be done, and if it means something more to someone, you know, we learn how to do that.

Doesn't mean that we shouldn't speak up. Doesn't mean that if we have an idea, we shouldn't be ready to give the merits of it and describe what it is, but if the decision is something else, get on with it, right? It's just like at work. If it's the boss decides one thing, it's not your idea, he's going to be the one accountable if it doesn't work. And so, you know, the submitting, the submitting, you know, as the example of Abraham, really is, you know, that's a key thing in what James is talking about in chapter four here. He'll come back to humility again. He'll come back to that self-seeking again, that, you know, that denying ourselves, that Jesus Christ talks about in Matthew 16, 24, which really is a key verse in all of Christ's commands. He said, if anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself. You know, that's, that is, that is, I mean, there's so much in that verse. And when you really stop and think about it, it's words we've heard all the time, but to deny our self, you know, is what this Holy Day season is about. Because when we read the Bible and we talk about Romans, you know, the carnal mind is enmity against God, it's not subjects, God's need-redeem can be. That's what we need. So we need to, you know, learn to, we need to learn to deny self the things that we would naturally do. Our idea, stop and think, man, it doesn't have to be my idea what is God's idea. And that's a lifelong process. That is a lifelong process, you know. And when Christ said, deny self, you know, his way is the way to peace. That's the way of the millennium, is peace. But the way of the world is war and fighting. And, you know, that comes from, as James says, our desires. We need to have our desires, do what we want to do, and the coveting comes into it. So, okay. Comments, thoughts, or we'll go on.

Mr. Shavey?

Yes. Yeah, I, when I was thinking of that, I go back into James, we were talking about indifference before also, but I know we have to be concerned of other people's feelings, not to offend them.

And if you sit on it, it can brew. And I think going and just asking the people and not being afraid to ask somebody, hey, have I offended you in some way? Because if you don't ask, how do you know what you have to fix? So, you have to get together with those people and actually talk to them, say, hey, if I offended you, I want to know. Whether it's at services, whether it's with with your wife or your husband or whatever, even at work, it's the same thing. You don't know how to fix it if they because they'll brew on it too. And to take care of it in a timely manner, it really helps just to get it absorbed. It goes back to Matthew 18.15, right? Not easy to do, but we need to do it to keep that peace and to keep that unity and to keep growing toward that.

Appreciate it. Yes. So, I think that Apostle Paul takes that concept one step forward in Philippians chapter 2 verse 3, where he says that, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in the holiness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

A good verse. Again, we can look at Abraham's example, and that's exactly what he did in that situation that Jesus brought up. Now, I think, let me see what Hebrews 13. I've got Hebrews 13 written down. Let me see what Hebrews 13 says here. Hebrews 13. Ah, you know what? Yeah. Well, let's just read. I've got 15 to 21 written down here, but yeah, because, well, you can just mark down Hebrews 13, 15 to 21 and read that yourself. I noted in verse 20, the God of peace. You know, do things his way. He's the God of peace. We are a people of war, right? We are a people that fight. That's what the definition of mankind on earth is, but God is the God of peace. And as the author of Hebrews talks about here, boy, there's always someone in charge, and we need to kind of, you know, be aware of that, you know. So if we have a department head over church and he wants things done that way, our job before working under him is always okay to say, you know, your thought about this, but just do it. Do it the way he says. If he wants to do it his way, be willing to yield. Or if you're a department head and someone comes, you know, up to you and says, hey, do we ever think about doing this? Be like, oh, that is a pretty good idea. Be willing to yield. Take the good ideas. We all work together. God gives us all gifts. We all come together. And by every, by everything that God puts in our congregations, you know, the whole house, you provide everything it is so that we're all, the frame is all fitted together. So, okay, let's go back to James. Let's go back to James here for... I think we got to get through verse two. You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you don't have because you don't ask. I talked about this a couple weeks ago, but yet you don't have because you don't ask.

What he's trying to say there is, you know, look at these little skirmishes you get in and everything, but you don't stop and get God involved. It's kind of like we do things our own way. We just run with our own guts. We run with our own ideas. And then it's like, oh, it didn't work out that way. We didn't think of that. We didn't think that this, you know, there's this opinion over here, this opinion over here and whatever. Yet you don't have because you don't ask. And so we need to engage God in the things that we do as well. He wants to order all of our steps, right? We talk about that and, you know, we'll turn to a couple verses in here in a minute. He says, you ask and don't receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. And there again, it's like that's more your, you know, we're trying to make God our servant. We're trying to make him submit to us. I asked you, God, for this. You didn't give it to me. But he says you're asking amiss. You don't have God's will at the forefront of your mind. You have your idea at the mind. I want this. I need this. And God may have a different idea. He may, he knows what we really need, you know, in our lives in order to become the people that he wants us to become. And so he says, you're asking that you may spend it on your pleasure, right? So let's pause there for a moment. Now let's look at Psalm 37.

Psalm 37.

You know, I'm always reminded, and it's come up, and, you know, I noticed it was even brought up about Peter, you know, on Peter at the time, the night after Passover, you know, or no, I was paid in Matthew 16 when Peter said, you know, you're not going to die, Christ. This isn't going to happen to you. And he wasn't being mindful of what God's will was. He wanted what his natural heart, he wanted Christ to live. A very noble thing to say, I don't want my friend Jesus Christ has just been revealed to me. He's the Son of God. I don't want him to die like he were there. I don't want him to die, but it was God's will. And, you know, he was going to die for everyone. So it is such a hard thing, you know, for us to learn and face the rest of our lives that we submit our will to God's will and begin to see things the way he wants. So Psalm 37 verse 23 says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the eternal and he, that's God, delights in his way. You know, that's one of the things I've been born more in my mind. God orders our steps. You know, when we get up in the morning, it's him, you know, who will lead us through the day. What do we need to do? What is his will to be done? You know, whether we go to work, what our employer has to say, whether we're going out to do so, whatever it is that we have our day, do we ask God, you know, order my steps, be involved in everything I do, show me what it is that your will is in this. Because the more we realize that we yield to God and seek his will, the happier we are, the more joyous we are. Not always the better things, and not only the things go better, sometimes trials come, but we realize God is leading our steps for our good. The steps of a good man are ordered by the eternal, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. To know that God is always there in everything you're doing in life, he's leading you through, and you're learning, you're learning from it. In Psalm 119, you know, last year when we did the Bible study on studying the Bible, we talked about Psalm 119, and I said it wouldn't be bad to do the study through all of the 22, you know, stanzas that are here in Psalm 119, because as David talks, he gives us a different meaning as he gives us this entire, you know, treatise, if you will, on God's law and what he thought about it. Here in verses 130, Psalm 119, verse 130, he says, the entrance of your words gives light.

What he's saying there is the entrance of your words. You know, I might sit and stew over this for a long time, but when your words come into my mind, oh, direction, clarity, the way to go, it gives light. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I see the direction I need to do, but it doesn't happen unless we ask. It doesn't happen unless we take the time and ask God, let me know what your will is. Show me where it is that I need to do. The entrance of your words gives light. It gives understanding to the simple. Things that we might not know, and all of a sudden it becomes crystal clear, you know, because God can, does that through his Holy Spirit. Verse 133, direct my steps by your word. You know, we have to be a praying people. We have to know God's word, too. Direct my steps by your word. You know, I, every single thing we encounter in life, it would just take the time and think through it. If we're slow to speak, slow to wrath, and swift to hear, you know, we, we can come to what God's will is. Direct my steps by your word and let no iniquity have dominion over me. And so, you know, we can take the time to do those things. We can take the time to make, you know, to be mindful, to have God involved in the things that we're doing. What is his will? How does he want things? When things happen in our life, and things happen, is it just by coincidence? Or is it, is he directing us to something that we need to pay attention to? Because, again, everything in our life, in our church, you know, in our church life, as well as in our employer, employee life, and whatever it is, God's working with us and seeing how we respond and teaching us how to respond if we, if we let him, him do that. So, you know, ordering my steps is one thing, you know, that we, you know, that James, I think, is telling us to do or admonishing us to do. And one thing we can remember as we go through, you know, go through the life as well. Okay, any, anything on there? Verse 3.

Okay, let me, let me talk about prayer a little bit here, too. We talked about it in verse 3 about, you know, basically what James is saying. You're not, you're not praying right. You don't get, you don't have your prayers answered the way you want them answered because you're asking what you want as opposed to what God wants. If we ask if our life, if our will is in line with God's, and that comes by His Holy Spirit, you know, as He gives us the mind of Christ, and as we allow that to develop in us, we begin to, we begin to want what God wants as we weed out our desires and the things that we have been trained in all our lives to look out for, you know, number one first, and to make sure our way is done and all these other things, you know, they're just part of our natural life that we have to unlearn that God will do as His Spirit is in there. We have to learn, you know, to pray, and one of the things, you know, back in Luke 11, you know, Luke's account on what Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount, I think, is just really, really telling. Let's look at Luke 11 and verse 9. Luke 11 verse 9. And you'll recognize, you know, this is, He tells us we have to ask. God knows what we need before we ever ask for it, but we have to have the humility to ask. It teaches us to ask for, if God just gave us everything that we needed, we wouldn't learn a thing, you know, we have to learn to ask and discipline ourselves to do that. So I say to you, ask verse 9, and it'll be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be open. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? Of course he wouldn't. So, you know, Christ says, if you then, being evil, remember that, you know, our natural heart is enmity against God. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So, I think it's interesting that as Luke recorded his version of that, he said, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

And when we ask for God's Holy Spirit, aren't we asking our father exactly what he wants to give us? Isn't that the thing that's going to further us on in life? Isn't that going to be the thing that nourishes us and grows us? Just like if our son asks for help, or our physical son asks for help, or needs food, the Holy Spirit provides everything we need in life. And so, when we ask in that manner, you know, then we're asking something that God is in accordance with his will. And sometimes when we go back and analyze our prayers and think, why did that prayer not get answered the way I thought it should, if we go back and look at it, you know, we can see ourselves in that prayer and our will in that prayer as opposed to what God's will might be.

A little later on in the chapter here, James comes back to that same concept of God's will, not our will. But let's move on then. Let's move on to verse 4, unless there's a question or comment.

You can almost say in verse 4, as James is writing, he's getting this point across, okay, that our will gets mixed up, you know, with what we may deceive ourselves thinking our will is God's will in some situations. And he gets our attention because all of a sudden he throws in in verse 4, adulterers and adultresses. Adulterers and adultresses. I mean, of all things to say, you know, Jesus Christ, you know, would call the Pharisees of root of vipers, you know, and things like that. What, why would you think that James, as he's going through this, and he's talking about the things that we do that we may not even realize that we're doing, why would he use the term and call people, you know, like us adulterers and adultresses? Why that? Why not evil people or whatever else, you know, term we hear in the Bible? Why adulterers and adultresses? What would be the reason that he would call that at this point? Mr. Shaby? Yes. Yeah, that's a tough verse sometimes to work because, I mean, the world has many, so many things that are alluring because they're a combination of good and evil, and that's basically how Satan operates, is basically mixing truth with error. And basically, when God condemns for even ancient Israel, that they basically try to even combine the worship of the true God with other gods, and God sees that as adultery, basically mixing his worship and his devotion with other things that are not as pure as him. So, very good. Anyone else? Mr. Shaby, I think part of it also goes back to, you know, you think about how Israel was the congregation in the wilderness and how you read all those times in the Bible where they played the harlot with the world, you know, and God doesn't want us and even tells us in other places in the New Testament. I can't think of the verse right now, but, you know, so what do we have to do with Baal? What do we have to do with mixing what we, God's pure religion with things of the world? And God wants us to completely come out of this world and not be a part of it. So, you know, it says, do you not know the friendship with the world as entity towards God? So our fondness of the world that could have something to do with that as well, because it says whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God, which is pretty heavy duty. But I do feel personally that that has to do with, you know, where the church and as the congregation of God, we should do whatever we can to stay out of this world and come out of its ways and not be a part of it. So, those are just my thoughts. Yep. That's good. Anyone else?

I think, I think, Edgardo and Dave hit it, you know, if we look at it, you know, from either a husband or a wife standpoint, right? When we marry someone, we want them to be completely dedicated to us. And God's will when we become married is that they will be one flesh. They will grow together and become one flesh. Same one, you know, that he wants his church and him to become one. And so if we have our spouse who's looking at, you know, a former, a former boyfriend or a former girlfriend and kind of leaning, okay, well, this one said this when I, I want to go and talk to him or I want to go talk to her. I want to kind of do things the way we used to do it in that relationship, as opposed to what I did right now. I kind of like that. We would kind of take, I mean, if we look at that personally, we would be a little tipped off, right? I mean, you're my wife or you're my husband. We do things our way. You give your loyalty to me. And so that's exactly, you know, where James is going with this. When we look at the very next thing and he talks about friendship with the world. Well, the world is the enemy of God. We've already talked about our mind, just enmity against God. Satan's the adversary of God. And so when we do things the way the world does it, when we look to the world, oh, I'll get my answer from the world. I'll get my solace from the world. I'll get my whatever it is from the world. God looks at that no different than if our spouse was out, you know, going to a former boyfriend or girlfriend and doing things that way. Or, you know, to use a vernacular, even worse, cheating on us, right? Cheating on us with a former God. He looks at that, wait a minute, I called you. I called you. You became part of my family. I, you accepted the sacrifice of my son. I'm married to you. I see you as a child. And you're cheating on me because you're not doing what I asked you to do. You're not giving me your trust. You're not giving me your loyalty. You've got to split loyalty. You've got to double mind. You need to commit totally to me and do my will. Yes, you have to live in the world. Yes, you have to make your living in the world. It wasn't Christ's will to take us out of the world physically, but mentally and spiritually we need to come out of it. So he goes into that. And there are places in the Bible that you recall in the Old Testament where God really, really lays it out for Israel and Judah, that they have been disloyal to him. Let's just look at a couple of those places. Let's look at, well first let's look at just a couple books back in Ephesians. Ephesians 5.

You know, verses 22 to 24. You know, it's written to wives. All of us guys need to remember we're in preparation to become the bride of Christ. So when we read these things, we can't say, hey, that's my wife's job. My job is just to lord it over her and do everything that she did. We've already read that, you know, be submissive to one another. Work together, right? Doesn't mean yield on every single thing, but work together to come to the accord. Wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord, right? I mean, that's what we... they're one unit. They're not looking to former boyfriends or, you know, in some cases even former husbands or former wives. Wives submit to your own husband as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands and everything. That's a message to all of us. We are submissive to God. We look to him first. We don't go out to the world and see what they have to offer and then decide, well, we'll do it the world's way or we'll do it the way I used to do it and use that wisdom as opposed to the wisdom from above. Now, let's go back to Jeremiah. Jeremiah has, you know, as God is working with Jeremiah and he's prophesying to Judah, Israel has already gone into captivity.

And God is pretty blunt with the way he looks at the way Israel behaved and his relationship with God, the way Judah is behaving in her relationship with God. And in Jeremiah 3, Jeremiah 3 verse 6, he brings the marriage relationship right into it. You know, when he looked at Israel and when he looks at us today, there's this relationship. There's this loyalty that's supposed to be here. Jeremiah 3 verse 6, the eternal said to me in the days of Josiah the king, have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She's gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree and there played the harlot. See what God was looking at? Here, I married myself to Israel. I have a covenant with them. And then look what they've done. They've gone up and they've worshiped other gods. They've done things. They've disregarded me.

And I said after she had done all these things, return to me. But she didn't return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I put her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. You know what? Israel was cheating on me to cause for divorce. Backsliding Israel had committed adultery and I put her away, gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah didn't fear, but went and played the harlot also. So it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. She was giving her allegiance to someone else. She was giving her loyalty and herself to someone else. And yet for all this, her treachery, her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says God. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, most of us that are online today are married. If we had our spouse and we kind of saw our spouse like, they just give me lip service, but they really are interested in what this person's doing and they're out there doing this and I... I mean, it would be an awful relationship, wouldn't it? It would be tough. We want our spouse to give their whole hearts to us. And Israel didn't do that.

Verse 11, the Eternal said to me, backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words for the North and say, return backsliding Israel, says the Eternal, I will not cause my anger to fall on you, for I am merciful. I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Eternal your God and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree and you have not obeyed my voice. Return, O backsliding children, for I am married to you. I will take you one from a city and two from a family and I will bring you to Zion. And I'll have people watch over you. So what God, you can kind of see him pleading with his wife and he's a merciful. Okay, you've made mistakes. I get it. Just turn back to me. I still want the relationship. I still want to do what you want me to do. But yield yourself to me more and more and more and be loyal to me. And so as James writes in chapter four, that's the same thing that God is or that he is saying, you know, that God inspired him to write there. Look at, look, you fight and you have all these things, you know, you may think you're religious, but you still have these things going on. You're still doing things the way of the world. You still have these problems because you're still looking to the world. You're not being loyal to me. You haven't given me your whole heart. You're still what you want to do. You're still using your own wisdom rather than my wisdom. And so as James catches their attention, he says, you know, when you're doing this stuff, you're adulterers and adulteresses. You're doing the same thing Israel did to God. You're doing the same thing Judah did to God. Why would he handle you any differently if we don't learn to yield to him? So let's go back. Let's go back to James with that in mind.

Because he kind of catches our attention, doesn't he, when we look at that, you know, and he goes into, and then, you know, he says, if you're friends with the world, you're an enemy of God. If that's where your heart lies, if that's where you're getting all your direction, then you really aren't walking with God. You're just serving him in pretense, as it says in Jeremiah 3. And we will continue in verse 4, whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. The Apostle John says, as my margin says here in verse John 2 verse 15. It's a heavy verse, you know, heavy verse that James, you know, writes there in verse 4. And then he follows it up in verse 5. He says, Or do you think that the scripture says in vain? Do you think it just is there, you know, just to make words? Do you think that the scripture says in vain, the spirit which dwells in us yearns jealously?

What does that mean? What does that mean? Do you think the spirit that dwells in us yearns jealously? The scripture says in other cases that God is a jealous God. So I guess he doesn't want to share us with any other false God, especially because it's not good for us. First of all, you know, God wants us to do good. And if we don't understand that, then he feels for it.

So he's jealous for our loyalty and our love. Yep. So we would be jealous of our lives, right? Same thing. We want all of you, not just part of you and whatever. And that's what God wants. He wants us to yield. And he's got promises that he's made to us that are beyond anything we could ever have in this earth if we would just trust in him.

Now, my margin there says Genesis 6, 5. Let's turn back to Genesis 6, 5. Sometimes you look at those margins or references and you turn back, you think, what did the people who put those little notes in there, what did they have in mind? Genesis 6, 5 is an interesting verse in correlation with where we are here in James 4. Genesis 6, 5 says, The Eternal saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

I mean, we know the state of the world before the flood. I mean, they were, as God, you know, looking at as adulterers and adulteresses, looking at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? And sometimes we can deceive ourselves of things because some things look good and we think they're right. We have to look at some other things because there's good and evil and God is only good. But here we find in verse 5, you know, God saying everything in the world was only evil continually.

He looked down and he didn't see any good, you know? Nothing. Nothing worthy for that world back then to be saved. You know, I go back to one of the things when God is promising Abraham the promise to the promised land, and he says, you know, that you're going to have the land of the Amorites. I'll give those to you at a later time because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

It's like God always holds out hope. You know, as long as there's a chance that the people will turn back, he's merciful, and he will be there because he's not willing that any should perish. But here in this, in the, you know, pre-flood world, what he looked at the world was, it's hopeless. They will not turn back. Every intent of their heart was only evil continually.

And that, that, what kind of world was that? You know, what kind of world was that? And so God divorced him. And the way he divorced him was, you know, the flood came and took him all away. And so he was a jealous God. He wanted, you know, he didn't create man to sin, you know, they turned against him. Now what he saw was here was, here was, you know, people before the flood that so thoroughly turned against him, there was no chance of them ever, ever returning. So God, you know, he loves us. He wants us, he wants to give us everything.

But we have to, we have to continually yield to him, you know, and, and seek his will and then, and then do it. Okay, let's, let's go back to James 4 then. I think as, you know, as we go through these verses and you see how what James is doing and what he's built into these verses and where his thought process is and where God is leading him, you know, we come to verse 6, you know, verse that we have talked about before is, you know, this is what God wants you to do.

Look at what you're not doing. He wants you to, to be able to do me. And he wants, you know, and he'll give you everything you need in order to succeed. Verse 6, but he gives more grace. He gives more grace. You know, we know what grace is. It's not just unmerited pardon. Yes, indeed it is pardon as we repent God, but he gives us what we need. I mean, if we live in his environment, we live in an environment where God is watching over us and providing what we need as he watches over us, you know, he gives us knowledge.

He gives us his spirit. He gives us, we've talked about it, I mean, basically our lives, our God's grace, we're living in it. And as he sees us striving to live his way, he gives more grace. He continually provides what we need. And as we grow the strength or whatever the environment it is that we can continue to grow to become more like his son, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, he says, he's coming to a conclusion here of this section that we began back in chapter three in verse 13. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

And how many times in the book of James, you know, do we read about pride, how pride in all of its forms can come into our lives. It can keep us from doing things. It can keep, it can make us think that we have all the answers. We can even, you know, pride can even sneak in into areas where we think we're doing God's will. But when we stop back and think, I think, oh, I'm being proud of myself because I think I'm doing God's will. And that's exactly the opposite, you know, let him who thinks he stands, take heed, lest he fall, Paul says. We always come back to humility. And then he wraps up this section in verse seven. He says, therefore, submit to God. Yeah, all these things submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. When Satan sees that we are committed to God and that we're no longer going to cheat with him and follow the ways of his world or seek his world or seek the answers in it, he'll leave. You know, no different than, you know, if we were cheating on our spouse and we said, nope, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm being loyal only to my spouse from here on out. And the best of things, the other one leaves. Satan is looking to see us depart from God. Well, let me, let me, let me pause. Yes. I also feel like on verse seven, the beginning of verse seven, where it says to submit to God and resist the devil. I have in my notes there that, you know, God yearns for our devotion, you know, and he lives away from sin, you know, and it just, that's one of my favorite verses that I've got.

Yeah. That he yearns for our devotion, if we could just, you know, submit. And he gives us, he gives us what we need when we do, when we do so. Yeah, you know, it's interesting when you read through the book of James, he gets us into these things where they're, they're deep. When you think about it, you think, wow, I've got some analysis of my own things to do. What do I, what's, what's really motivating here when I do this and that and whatever. And he comes down to a very simple concept, submit to God, because there's a, there's a, there's a lifetime of truth and that, and that, you know, that sentence alone. So.

But submitting to God is more than just saying the words. So.

And submitting to God, you know, a big thing is denying self. If we're going to submit to God, that means we're going to be an off the line of what Jesus Christ said. Deny yourself, take up, take up your cross, He said, and follow me. Because submitting to God is denying self.

Okay. When we look at first, let's, let's go on again. When we look at first aid, He's starting a whole, you know, He's starting a different section than of His, His missive here. And, and in, in, from 8 down to 17, He gives us, you know, He gives us some proclamations, if you will, some, some, some directives, if you will, that, that we can follow. In verse 8, you know, He builds off of verse 8, says, Draw near to God, He'll draw near to you.

You know, we always said, you know, God said, Jesus Christ said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. God says, I'll always be there. It's never God who moves. He's always wanting to be with us. It's us who moves. And when we move nearer to Him, then He moves closer to us. But if we say, and we show Him by our actions and our attitudes, we don't want you, He's going to still be there.

He's going to wait for us to turn our lives around. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. And then He says, cleanse your hands, you sinners. You know, if we're going to draw near to God, well, we've got to get rid of the sin. God isn't going to entertain, you know, sinners. It means we have to repent.

You know, we have to repent. We have to come back to God. We have to acknowledge that we've departed from Him. We have to seek Him with our heart. We may spend other time, additional time in prayer. We may be fasting. We may be doing all those things where we bring ourselves into submission to God and show Him by our willingness to afflict ourselves, you know, that we intend to have the relationship grow closer to Him. And we all stray from God a little bit, you know. We let things go, and all of a sudden we find ourselves sailing just distant.

And we have to bring ourselves into submission and say, no, no, no, no. I've gotten too far away from my anchor. I have to pull myself back in, and that means all these things have to go. I need to get close to God, and then I need to stay close to Him again. One of the ways we do it is repent.

Repent for having allowed ourselves to become lax and allow other things to crowd out, you know, Him in our lives. Cleanse your hands, you double-center your sinners, and purify your hearts. You know, we go back to purify again. You double-minded. And we talked about double-minded, if you recall, back in chapter one. Now, God is looking for single-minded people who will look only to Him, and that will be loyal to Him, that will trust in Him, that will be reliant and dependent on Him.

And the more dependent that we become on God, truly dependent to rely on Him, you know, we find that the joy and the peace just multiply in our lives. Purify your hearts, you double-minded me. You got to get rid of that loyalty to the world out. You got to get rid of that, you know, submission to self and your own ideas and, you know, doing things the way you think is best as opposed to what God thinks is best.

Again, it comes down to, you know, denying self, you know, in verse eight. Yeah, someone wants to say something? Hey, Mr. Chabie. Yeah. Yeah, this may be jumping ahead a little bit, but I sometimes wonder in the past, in this context, basically what is verse nine doing here?

And it's something that maybe you and the other brethren can talk about. So, why are you lamenting and mourning and weeping about? So, in this context, I guess. Yeah, yeah, that's verse nine there. That's an interesting thing. But let me go back to verse eight. I'm looking at my notes here, what I have written down. So, you know, double-minded. If we go back, yeah, let me pick up. We'll go right back to that James or Ed Garo here in a minute. Let's go back to James 1. In verse eight, you know, James was talking about asking God and don't doubt when you ask.

And he says in verse eight, you know, if he doubts, he's a double-minded man, unstable, unstable in all of his ways.

You know, when you look up that word, unstable, it could be translated as stand. He can't stand. He, you know, it's like someone who's about to fall over. You know, we're unstable. You know, we can't stand before God because we don't, we really don't have that single mind. You don't have that strength that comes from him. And when we're talking about stand in the Bible, you know, we can think about, we could think about verses that where it tells us to stand. You know, we, I think we read in services not too long ago, Ephesians 6, we're talking about the armor of God. It says, put on the armor of God that you are able to stand. You know, you got to be strong to stand. You can't be unstable. If you're double-minded, you're not going to be able to stand against the fiery darts of Satan. You're not going to be able to stand against the things of the world. And we're going to read in Ezekiel, you know, a lot of the things I remember Dr. Ward saying back probably 30 years ago and when the church was having, well, 25 years ago, I guess, when the church was having its problems back in 94 or 95. And he quoted, you know, Ezekiel where he said, stand in the gap. God is looking for people who stand in the gap. To be standing in the gap, you got to be single-minded. You got to know what you're talking about. You got to be able to be strong. You can't do that if you're double-minded. If you've got one leg in the world and one leg with God, you're going to cave every time. You know, so, you know, a single-minded man can stand. And when we read chapter four, you know, chapter four in verse eight where it says, purify your hearts, you double-minded, you know, we better become single-minded. We better be letting God direct us into being single-minded. And then verse nine, you know, verse nine, you know, the guard pointed out, it seems like a strange verse to put in there, lament and warn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. What do you think? What do you think James is talking about there? Mr. Shaby, I just had a quick comment on verse eight there about being double-minded. The word there, the Greek word is, I think it says it's dipsukos. It means two-spirited, vacillating an opinion or purpose, like you said, double-minded. What I thought was interesting is it's only used two times in the King James Version, only two times in the whole Bible, and it's in the book of James. James 1 verse 8 and James 4 verse 8. So I think that's pretty interesting. And you know, when you see a word that's only used once or twice or something like that in the whole Bible, it really is a flag to really pay attention to it. So I just think that's interesting. No, that's very interesting. And again, I guess what James is thinking about, right? We've got to look at ourselves. Might we be double-minded? And yeah, interesting. Okay.

Oh, you know, Mr. Shaver, I just had a quick comment on that. Okay. You know, just in support of what you're saying, it's like I kind of think about it like as you like walking across a tightrope.

When you look forward, you're a lot more stable, but when you look down, you start to worry about everything else that's going on, and you lose your focus, and you're much more likely to fall or more apt to fall when you change and shift your focus that way. Very good. Kind of like Peter walking on water, right? Yes, yep. Very good. Who's got an Old King James version of the Bible that they're looking at right now? What is the first word in verse 9 in the Old King James?

It says, be afflicted.

Be afflicted, yep. So it says, be afflicted and mourn and weep. Now, if we look at afflicted there in verse 9 instead of the word lament, what might that tell us that where James is going? He's saying, draw an ear to God, cleanse your hearts or cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, afflict yourself, mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to bloom.

I could refer to fasting. Fasting is affliction as well, you know, to realize it says to be wretched and realize your own misery to be afflicted. So that could possibly have something to do with fasting as well. In the translation it says, to toil heavily, to endure labors and hardships.

Flick yourself, yeah. We know what to talk to with that. Well, there is a verse that sounds a lot like that back in Ecclesiastes. Let's look at Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 7 in verse 2.

Here's Solomon. Why is this man to live writing on the other side of life after he's made a ton of mistakes and beginning to put things in order where he went astray? In Ecclesiastes 7 verse 2, he says, better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. That's an interesting set of verses too, isn't it? Kind of sounds like what James is saying there. Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men and the living will take it to heart.

What could he possibly, what could Solomon possibly be thinking when he wrote that, and what was James thinking when he wrote what he wrote? Remember Christ, remember Christ too said, blessed are they who mourn, right? Blessed are they who mourn, for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven or something like that.

Maybe it goes back to that friendship with the world, because the Bible mentions something about the love of the pride of life, which basically, I guess, is closely related to being a friend of the world, and it's basically the appeal and the love of the things around the world that can be very alluring at times. And one way to combat that is by realizing that all that is going to come to an end, and basically, it's to nothing, it's to death.

Okay. Anything wrong with laughter? Anything wrong with being happy, having a good time, or anything like that? Inherently, I would say no. Once it gets into a place where it starts to overtake God as the forefront of your thoughts, then yes, you know, it's really, you know, like when I hear those verses, and like it brings to mind, you know, in Corinthians, where Paul was talking about, you know, not focusing on what is going to perish and fade away, but keeping our mind focused on what is going to last forever. It's, you know, it's certainly, it's better, you know, it's better for us to keep our focus, keep our focus toward, you know, the sorrowfulness that is in this world, because the world is absolutely destroying itself, and it reminds me of the sermon that you gave, I believe it was a couple of weeks ago about sighing and crying, like having that deep remorse for what is going on, because it truly is sad, as great as they think that they are doing, the world that is, they're not. All the joy that they're quote-unquote experiencing is all for naught. It is going to perish, it's going to waste away, and when you think about how sad that is, that they think they're doing the right thing, sincerely, it truly is a sort of depressing thought, and sorrowful thought, and that we got to remain focused to be good examples so that there might be a chance for some of them not to experience what is coming. But to answer your question, there is a time to laugh, and if you ask these three or four, it says there's a time to weep, and there's a time to laugh, a time to mourn, at the time of dance. So there is times for certain things.

Shavey? Yeah, Paul. I think you might be, maybe we should consider it having something to do with a seriousness and a soberness about our life overall. Not that there aren't times for laughter and fun and mirth, but in the big picture, there has to be a seriousness and a soberness or a sobriety about how we live. Yep. It's kind of like when Christ, the Olivet prophecy, what does he say at the end of it? He goes, you know, when lawlessness abounds, the love of many will wax cold. And he warns us, don't become involved with the world. Don't become involved with the carousing and let that take over our lives. You know, it's like, don't let the good times and the laughter, don't let that be your primary reason for living. That you're always going to just the good times, ignore all that, but it is kind of like a way of life. Absolutely nothing wrong with laughing. Nothing wrong with having a good time with friends. God isn't saying, I don't want you ever to laugh or anything like that, but it's what is our focus on? Are we, as Paul said, are we sober minded? Do we realize that we're at where who we are, what we're doing, that we need to keep our, that we always need to be vigilant in the world that we're in, that to guard our hearts, to guide our mind, guard our minds, to not allow Satan and the ways of the world to overtake us, because we know that if we let go a little bit, we could be devoured by that, you know, by that lion as easily as anyone else. We have to kind of remember, and there has to be that attitude, and there has to be a look at the world and say, wow, you know what, wow, I could get caught up. It's just so, it's so fun, and so blah, blah, blah, I can do all these things and not have anything to do with it, but also and not have to, not have any accountability or whatever, whatever, but to be mourning for the world because that isn't the way of God. God is all about joy. God is all about good times coming, but the times of this world are not, do not lend itself to good. So there's this feeling that we, you know, that we have. It's time to, you know, mourn and weep, and not just be people who are just looking for the good times. We're just looking for the fun, and even using God's way as an avenue to fun, but looking at the seriousness of it and paying attention to the depth of it, and not just, you know, as we introduced here, looking at our pleasures, you know. Our pleasures, it's great to have some of them. It's nice to live in a land where a lot of them can be satisfied, but not at the expense of what God's will is. Does that make sense at all? Yes, I was looking at Ecclesiastes 3-4. That puts it into perspective also.

Ecclesiastes 3-4 says what? Time to weep, and it's like the time to weep. Time to weep, and yeah, every time has its purpose, and it's all set in time. Nothing wrong with that, but what is our, you know, what is our lifestyle? What are we seeking? Where do we go? Mr. Shaby, there's also a scripture. I can't find it. I have to look for it, but it's Proverbs or Psalms about pondering our ways. Hm, okay. Fondering our ways, so, you know, we have to be introspective on some of these issues on where we are, especially previous to the scriptures that you're currently reading about pride and being humble. I think it's also interesting, Mr. Shaby, that... Oh, I'm sorry, Sue. Sorry, Sue. In James 4, verse 6, where this whole section where it says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, that's also quoted in 1 Peter 5, verse 6, where... 1 Peter 5, where, you know, he talks about... and verse 5, Likewise, you younger peoples, where you mentioned submit yourself to your elders, yes, all of you should be submissive to one another and be clothed in humility, for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Then the next verse kind of goes along with what we're just reading here in James, therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. So I do agree, you know, I think it's very interesting that Peter and James both kind of at that point are kind of coinciding with each other.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can see the consistency of the Bible. You know, as Dolly was saying, too, the verse on pondering your heart, he's kind of reminding us, you know, well, we got to kind of... what are we doing? What is my real motivation here, right? And Psalm 132, I think it is, where David says, search my heart. Well, you know, what are my real motives? Am I fooling myself? Show me what my real motives are. And, you know, that's something we can do. Sometimes we step back and think, what am I really doing here? Because it's so easy to get caught up with whatever it is we're doing and find our focus somewhere else. And, you know, especially at the end time, when God warns, there'll be these good times and people will get themselves so involved in the world that they'll just kind of lose, you know, lose what they were called for and what their life was about. So so he's got, you know, in these verses that James writes, he's packed an awfully lot of information, an awfully lot of advice into in there for us. So okay, I'm going to go on. Where are we here? 220-224. We got, well, okay, we're halfway through the chapter. We'll speed it up a little bit here. Okay, so chapter verse 10 then, you know, so everyone, every, I mean, you can ponder that verse too, right? LaMorn and Weep and in line with what Ecclesiastes said and pondering your heart and what is your real mission? You always got to keep a sober mind of why we're here and not get caught up in everything. And it's fun, it's fine to do these things, but not to let them become the priority in your life. And again, verse 10, he goes back to humility. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.

You know, got to be hum, humility is at the baseline, submitting to God, denying self, humbling yourself in the sight of God. And then he says in verse 11, and he says, you know, don't speak evil one of another. Can I just switch his gears on us here? You know, we go back to verse chapter 3 where we're at the tongue, you know, it's, it'll say, it'll bless someone at one time and then the next time it'll curse someone, right? So we've all done it and he says, he goes back to the tongue here in verse 11. Don't speak evil of one another, brethren. Now don't use your tongue for that. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. So James says, you know, well, when you do that, when you're talking about your brother and you're talking about these things, you're really judging him. You're actually, you, you know, you, you are doing that. Now it doesn't mean that we don't, if we see someone sitting and actively in the, in the sitting, doesn't mean that we don't say, oh, that's wrong. But if we're just out speaking about things and giving our opinions and whatever, we're really, James brings it down to, we're judging him. You know, we're, we're acting like God. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. Hmm. Now I wouldn't say that, but if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge. What do you think he means by that? If you're, you're speaking evil of the law when you speak evil of your brother?

Well, if we, if we say that we're following God's law, we're living his way of life, and that we think, going back to James 1 26, we think we're really religious and doing everything, and then we find ourselves doing what, you know, we all do at some point saying something that, you know, we shouldn't be saying, talking about someone when we shouldn't be giving our opinion about it. You're not speaking, if we're doing those things and we're, we're supposed to be following God's will, what is, what is, you know, the Bible tells us in so many different places, you know, not to speak evil of our brother. That's kind of like, that's just, that's just part of the law as well, that there wouldn't be any corrupt communication that would come out of our mopas. I'm going to give you some verses. I'm not going to read through all these. Let's look at Proverbs 20 and verse 19.

Because again, we can see in James, we can go back to Proverbs and find a lot of things that, that James is talking about that we're reminded of in Proverbs as well. Proverbs 20 and verse 19. Okay, who he who goes about as a tailbearer reveals secrets, therefore don't associate with one who flatters with his lips. Now, that's probably not the one I should have gone through first, the first one I wrote down. He who goes about as a tailbearer, he's, he's out talking about his brethren. You know, we're not supposed to be revealing secrets, therefore don't associate with one who flatters with his lips. Well, there's some false talking going on as well, but let's go back to Proverbs 11. It looks like Proverbs 11 and verse 13.

Okay, a tailbearer, again, talking about, you know, going out and talking about one of your brother, you know, someone, a tailbearer reveals secrets, but he who is of a faithful spirit conceals a matter. You know, he's not out there to make himself look better, like, you know, I, you know, can you believe this person said this? Can you believe that happened? And, you know, da, da, da, da, da, ta,lbearer reveals secrets, but he was a faithful spirit, conceals a matter. Well, you know, he's not out to have people think less of himself, because when we want people to think less of someone else, what are we doing? We really want them to think more of us, is, is, is what, is what's going on there. Back in verse 9, it says, the hypocrite with his mouth, and we know what the hypocrite is, he says one thing but does or believes, says he believes one thing but does another. The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous will be delivered. Now, we can... Mr. Shavey? Yes, sir. Uh, I, I relate this to, uh, we don't want to help Satan. We don't want to be working on his level, and he's the accuser of the brethren that comes to mind when I hear that. He is the accuser. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. We don't, we don't want to be doing his job for him. And sometimes it's really fun, right? But we got to catch ourselves and say, no, that can't, that we can't be that type of people, so.

Okay, let's look at Proverbs... Let me look at this one here.

Proverbs 1628.

A perverse man. Now, we don't, none of us want to be called a perverse man or woman, a perverse man so strife and a whisperer separates the best of friends.

Now, I can, I can give you some more here. You know, Colossians 3 verse 8 talks about putting away slander from our mouths. The New Testament uses the word slander a lot. When we speak evil of our brethren, that's really what we're doing. We're slandering them. We're raking the person we're talking to think less of them and trying to elevate self. Now, we got Colossians 3, 8, 1 Peter 2, verse 1. Ephesians 4 verses 29 and 31 have written down. So you can look those up later if you want.

But so, you know, in verse 11, he says, you know what? If you're, if you say you're living God's law, you got to look at the intent of it, right? There's not, you know, if you're doing these things, you're judging the law. You're, you're not a doer of the law. You're a judge and saying, hey, I can do what I want. And verse 12, he says in James 4, there's one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another? You know, God, that's God's, that's God's job to judge and Jesus Christ's job to judge, not ours. Now, we may see things and if we see things, again, not wrong. And sometimes it's very, well, it's always very appropriate if we see a consistent pattern of behavior to go to our brother and, you know, in private talk to him at Allah, Matthew 18 verse 15 and bring it to his ascension and then get other people involved only if you need to, but not to go spread it to other people, not to have a jury form without him even being involved. Go to him, go to him first. Follow the law. So, okay, verse, verse, actually, interesting, and as we're at that later on in chapter 5, as James often does, you know, he comes back to something he's told us before. Chapter 5 verse 9, he kind of repeats what we've just read there in verse, verse 11. He says, don't grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Lest you be condemned, the whole judge is standing at the door. He said, like, you know, watch what you're doing. If you're doing that, you know, he told us partiality was a sin. He's going to tell us here in another couple verses something else that's a sin, and he's saying, if you're judging one another, it's a sin. The judge stands at the door. Watch what we're doing if you, you know, as you're, as you're, you know, living your life. And then in verse 13, you know, verses 13 to 15 are interesting verses too, when you see the depth of what James is telling us here. He says, come now you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit. There's nothing wrong with having plans, right? If that's a business deal, and we everything, there's nothing wrong with that. He says, whereas in verse 14, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It's a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. What, what is he saying? What is he saying there? What, what is the conclusion he's coming to? I mean, we all say, you know, next week I'm going here to do this. I'm going away on a business trip next week, you know, we got to do this or we got to do that. And James is saying, well, don't, don't say that. He brings it down to something we've talked about earlier in the chapter and throughout the book. Go ahead, go ahead, Jeanie. I've got, in my notes, I've got written that, you know, we do have a limited time to prepare for God's kingdom, so we should make the best possible use out of our time right now. Okay. I've got that for those two verses, I'm not sure.

Yeah, nothing wrong with plans, right? God is a planner in our lives. We should have a plan. I mean, we're here in almost in June. We're looking at the Feast of Tabernacles. We've made plans to go here or there or have our, you know, hotels ready and stuff like that. And things, there's nothing wrong with planning. God is a planner. But what he's saying there is, you know, be mindful of the fact that if it's God's will, as God's will, you know, just as he has told us earlier on, be submissive to God's will. Let him order your steps. Let him be the one who directs it, you know, and keep him involved in your life, you know, as you get up in the morning and as you begin your day, you know, order my steps, direct my paths, tell me what you want me to do, what I need to say. So if it's God's will that I'll be in, you know, Los Angeles next week for this convention, I'm not going to Los Angeles, or whatever it is we're doing next week, you know, if it's God's will. If it's God's will, remember that we're under his guidance and under his direction, that we've committed our lives to him to let him order our steps. I think that's what James is trying to say there. Just be mindful that we belong to God and that he's the one directing our paths and to allow his will to be done and to learn his will and to be willing to yield to him, even if his will, it comes about, that is different than what ours is, we are always willing to yield our will. And we could probably, many of us, look back at our lives and say, you know what, this didn't come across, or not come across, this didn't, the door was blocked here, you know, sometimes let him say, I didn't go there. And then later we say, oh, it was best that that didn't happen. Or I ended up here instead because, and it turned out better, but I ended up here instead where I thought I was going, because God could use me more, and I could develop, and I was part of whatever it is he wanted to have. So sometimes when we say things, stop, we say, you know what, if it's God's will, I'll be wherever God wants me to be. You know, if it's not, if it's not, you know, if it's not Daytona Beach or the feast, it'll be somewhere else. And whatever his will, wherever his will is, we'll just let him take the path and wherever we, whatever happens with the feast, we will be keeping the feast and we'll be doing it the way God wants us to keep the feast, and that's what our focus should be on, that we're keeping the feast for the meaning of the feast.

I know that's just an example. I don't even know why I went there. So, but, okay, so any comments on that? Yeah, it's interesting. Sometimes I'll write people, and, you know, and then they'll say, you know, they'll say, well, I'll make a comment that I'll be at such and such and such, and there's one minister I'm thinking of who particularly goes, yes, if that's God's will, that is where he'll be. And every time he does it, I think, yeah, you're right. If it is God's will, I'll be there. If it's not his will, I won't be there. But I know, I know what he's thinking of James 4, 13 to 15 when I get those responses back to him, where he says, if it's God's will, I'll be doing this or that or whatever. So, my dad always made that comment when he had a plan for something. He will always say, if it's God's will, this will happen, or we could we can go here, you know, and we'll have these plans to do this. And it was always, if it's God's will. Yeah, and it's a good reminder, right? It's a good reminder who's ordering our steps to just be thinking about that anyway. So, I mean, it has to say, yes, remind me, for many years, I said, you know, say, you know, give up in the night, while I go to grab and get my clothes ready for the next day. And once I let that burst, I stopped going, I'm like, I don't know, I'm going to wake up tomorrow, boy. So, like, if it's God's will, absolutely.

Yep. Yep, every day. Every day is a gift from God, right? So, very good. But look, then look at what James, how he follows that up. He says, but now you boast in your arrogance. I mean, he takes that, that, you know, oh, as if we, we are the ones in control of our lives, and we're going to do such and such or whatever. And he goes, it's just a mindset he's trying to remind us to have. Just, just think about that your God's, that your God's, G-O-D, apostrophe S, right? You belong to God. And, and that you'll do what he wants, and that you'll be submissive to him. Don't boast and say, I'm going to do this. Just be submissive to God's will. It may, you know, most of the time, our plans are our God's will that we're going to be there, or whatever it is. So, but it's interesting that he takes that, that we're boasting in our arrogance, that he even sees that as pride. If we don't have it in our mind that I'm going to do what God's will is, whatever it is, I'll, I'll do. Even if my plans were different. Therefore, to him who knows to do good, he finishes off with verse 17 with another definition of a sin here. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. So he takes, you know, he, he previously had talked about partiality being a sin, and, you know, closes, or well, man's chapter closes with, you know, to him who knows to do good and does not to him it's sin. Another, another one that we have to be aware of. So, well, that's chapter, that's chapter four. I will open it up for anyone. Any, any comments or any discussion you guys want to have among yourselves? Is absolutely okay. Yeah, Mr. Shaby. Yes. That verse 17 actually, it's another tough verse because basically defines that you can sin by omission, actually.

If you, if you know you should do it, you just kind of pass on by, right? Yeah.

That means our whole life is focused on what God's will is, right? Pay attention to what we do and denying yourself. I think of, I think of where we say, you know, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. It reminds me when Paul talks about, you know, it's in God, we live and we move and we breathe, you know, it's like when we're baptized, we, we belong to God.

And, you know, that kind of, it's a, we could take, we have confidence in that because we know that God's completely in control and He can be in control of our lives and He is. We just need to, as we're reading, you know, just yield to Him and not think that we have it all figured out or think that, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. It's like, we belong to God, you know, and, and God loves us. And He, like the example of the new book, Long Grace, you know, God gives us His grace and we owe everything to God because we truly belong to God. And that's a good feeling, you know, knowing that He's in control and He can take care of everything and whatever comes this way or comes that way, we can just trust that He knows what's best and He can work everything out for us. So I think that's really, really interesting. Yeah. Mr. Shaby, I think some of that, if you go to Job 38, Job had an awareness of, he came when God, you know, asked Him, who is it that, you know, God gives Him who is who that darkens counsel by words without knowledge, then God shows that He's in control of all of this and what He made that it's a, it's a, I don't know how to quite, quite how to put that, but that to me applies in James when, you know, God's in charge and He's the one that made us, He's the one that controls our life. And then when you read Job 38, it puts it all in perspective. Yes, it does. Yeah. Yeah, Job's a good example of it, too. I mean, Job had plans with God. God's will is something different. Yeah. Yeah, if you say it's God's will and you've already got your mind made up, what you're going to do, it's kind of worthless. Same thing in prayer. If you ask for God's will and then you've already got your made up, it's kind of a worthless prayer. Yep. I totally agree. It has to be in mind with God's will for Him to pay attention. And so many times when we go back and look at it, we see ourselves smack dab in the middle of prayers. Our will be done, not your will be done, God. So, yeah.

Hey, anyone? Any, anything else? Well, one thing. Go ahead.

Yes, and absolutely, you use this time. I, well, I'll just, one thing is for sure. Sabbath. Sabbath will do our webcast or, you know, at 1130, as we have been. By tomorrow, we'll know exactly what we're doing, I guess, for Pentecost. Just let me, let me think on it another, another few hours here. So, but be praying about it. Again, that God's will is done, and that we are fulfilling and keeping the day of Pentecost for what it really, what the real, that we're really getting the meaning of it. Because I think it's important, as it is any year, but this year too, to be just looking what the Holy Day means and that we're observing it in that way. So.

Mr. Shady, what kind of, what kind of response did you get back? You don't find me asking about people wearing masks, because we talked about a little bit the other day, you know, about just a mutual respect, you know, because there are people that are afraid, and there's some that doesn't matter. Yeah, there was about, if I recall, I don't, I can't pull up the, um, are you still there? Did I lose you guys? Okay, I can't pull off the thing right now. So, I recall there were about a third of the people who responded, and I think there were, well, people who actually responded to the survey were 55 families, and then others had just emailed some of their opinions. About a third of them were very interested in masks. Yeah, I thought it was important. No, that was where we were.

One thing, one thing I will say, though, and let me throw this out, you know, we, we do have, we do have a number of, well, not so many, but we do have a number of people who aren't on the computer, and I, you know, I would like to see us, if we, if we don't meet, you know, in a central place, and then we don't, you know, maybe have 30 people in one place, and one, whatever, that we would, that we would reach out, and the people who don't have a computer or access to it, and if we do it, you know, by Zoom on Pentecost morning, and then use Cincinnati's Air Services, that we would reach out, and the people who haven't been with anyone, that we might, people might actually ask them over to their homes, you know, for the morning or whatever, and to, to do that, so they feel part of it. Again, if we're all in one court in one place, we need to watch out for everyone, and make sure that everyone has access, I think, on this Holy Day, and at least has the opportunity to, you know, to say, no, I don't want to go, but I think most of them would, would be willing to come, you know, if someone asks them to be part of it, you know, so we might want to look at that, and be thinking about that as well. Because there are some, I mean, I know, I know we all miss seeing everyone, but there are people who haven't even been able to, you know, be on a, on a webcast to hear a sermon, and they're listening, well, one of them is the New Leaf, and he's the CDs, because they don't have a CD player we never knew until the other day, so, so some of them are really out there, and just, you know, really feeling separated, so. Okay.

Okay, well, if there's nothing else, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hang up, I guess. Okay.

Hi, everyone! We'll see you, Sabbath, and somewhere on Pentecost. Okay, take care, everyone. Bye, guys. Goodnight and good alone. Bye, patrons.