Bible Study - May 13, 2020

Everyone, anyone who has a comment, anyone who has a thought, this is a discussion. I'll be talking, but I know there's a raise your hand option on the Zoom mechanisms there, but don't raise your hand because I don't see that screen and I'm not watching it. Just feel free to just start talking. And I will stop and we'll let you talk. So don't worry about any formalities in that way. No one's going to be offended if anyone breaks in and talks. That's what we're all here for, to talk and to learn. So, you know, first I want to just thank everyone for being here. It's a beautiful night out here in Florida. I'm sure you'd all rather be out mowing your lawns or taking a walk or something like that. I appreciate you taking the time and being here together. It's great to see you all and at least, you know, it's great to at least be together, you know, during the week and see your faces. In addition, you know, the webcast, maybe you see me, but I don't get to see you. So it's really nice to have everyone together and have the opportunity to hear us talk about these things and everything. So thank you. Thank you for joining.

You know, I've got a couple announcements. I know for those in Orlando, I sent out a prayer request earlier today about Ali Monteiro and I think Bert and Tricia are on the line. Maybe they can give us another update. But the thing I heard, you know, Tricia isn't feeling any better. She was going to the emergency room. She was planning on it because she was having a hard time breathing with the sore throat that she had.

So keep Ali Monteiro in your prayers. The God will intervene. It's always not fun when you're sick. And when you're sick and not home, it's even worse. And she's up in Illinois. So I know that's causing her some stress and her parents some stress as well. You know, also, I don't think Fabiola is on with us. But Fabiola, I heard from her today. She had some trouble joining this afternoon.

She was going to try to join us this evening. But she did have her doctor's appointment yesterday. And she said they gave her they gave her good news that that it isn't it isn't surgery that she's going to need. She needs, I think, three months of therapy. So she's going to be beginning that. And if you'll just continue to pray for Fabiola, I mean, she's gone through an awfully lot since that accident wearing that neck brace really around the clock for months now.

So pray that this is that God will heal her. You know, we know that it's God. The doctors really don't know what to do. And the exercise, I'm glad she doesn't have to have surgery rules. Look to God to heal her. So keep her and other people in your prayers as well.

You know, it's been very good through this time that that country has been so focused on sickness and everything that there hasn't been that much in the churches here. And I think we're all we all recognize God's hands and watching over us and protecting His people. We should thank Him. Thank Him for that. And, you know, ask Him to continue to do that, not only here in our areas, but all over the world.

So, Mr. Samy, do you have a day from Allison, if you want to know? Yeah, go ahead, Bert. She did go to the emergency room because her throat was swelling up to where it was causing her trouble breathing. And when they got there, they gave her another strep test and a mono test. The strep test came back positive, but due to the swelling, they gave her a steroid shot and anti-inflammatory to try to get the swelling of her throat down.

And she's headed home now, so with some additional medication to try to treat the strep. But it was enough to cause her to have problems breathing. Okay. Very good. She seems to be at least better from a, you know, mental state and pain state. We'll see how she does over the next couple days. Okay. Okay, sounds good. We'll keep adding your prayers. I'm glad they determined a strep. I know that, you know, to find out what it is, too. So, okay.

Pass the CD. Go ahead, yes. Do you see Fabiola? I don't... Let me look. I didn't see Fabiola a minute ago. Fabiola, if you're online, you can let us know. I didn't see her showing up as I was admitting people into the room. Right. I don't see her name here. I know she said she was having trouble with her smartphone this afternoon getting on, so that must continue there. She's just a whisper. She says she's here, you know, just a whisper. Do you see him as well?

Do you see Fabiola online? She says she see you and she see your mouth moving. She sees my mouth moving. Well, that's good that she can't wind up. No, I've got my speaker on. I guess everyone can hear me, right? So, I... Yeah. She may want to just try connecting again and, you know, sometimes the second time you connect, everything starts working right, so... Okay. Done. Let me give you, you know, an update. I know some have asked about, you know, when will we start having services again, live services again?

And I know here in Florida, you know, the governor has not yet moved the state and the local people in Jacksonville and Orlando haven't moved to cities to Phase 2, where you can have groups of more than 10 meetings. So we're continuing to comply with those orders. I just heard on the news, you know, before I came in here that there's been a rise in cases in Florida, so they may wait another week before they decide to move us to the next phase.

But until the next phase comes in, we're pretty much handcuffed as far as where we can meet again. You know, we...in Orlando, our church hall there is under renovation. I think I mentioned that last week, and it is very well. It is torn apart in a way that I don't think any...oh, and I saw it last week in a way that I never expected. It's going to be very nice when they're done. But today I talked to them, and they expect that it's going to take another two or three weeks to get in order for us to meet again.

We'll continue to do the webcast every Sabbath at 1130 like we've been doing. We'll do it out of the kitchen area again this week. They said continue using that, and they're working. We have some internet connection problems last Sabbath, but hopefully those will be resolved this Sabbath. If not, we know what our fallback position is. So we're probably a few weeks out before we can meet in Orlando again, just because we won't even have a building, even if everything was miraculously clear up tomorrow anyway.

In Jacksonville, Sharon Shiver sent me a notice that the church there sent to their parishioner saying that they're planning the first Sunday in June is when they would start meeting again. So given that, we aren't going to probably be able to meet there before the first of June either. So we are looking at... I was hoping we would be able to get back together that Pentecost weekend anyway, but that doesn't look like it's going to be possible. So we're going to be doing some other discussions on how we can get together and things like that. It just won't be in our typical church settings on Pentecost if indeed the state has moved us to a point where groups of higher more than 10 can be there. But we'll talk about what we might do and then be looking more into June when we'll be able to meet together. So just so you know where that is, I've been talking to people in both congregations probably within the next week or two. I'll send out a survey to everyone to ask preferences because I know that some are in the high-risk groups that come in, and we're not going to encourage people to come against what you would want to do. We do a Sabbath webcast anyway. We're going to continue to do those. But it would be as people feel comfortable in coming.

And just so you know, there's an awfully lot of guidelines that the church is sending us as well. As far as when we reopen, we've got to deal with social distancing guidelines, and that revolves. That includes setting up all the chairs differently or letting people know where they need to sit so that families are six feet apart from other people. We have to talk about masks if they're going to be required and look at the local suggestions that are from there.

We have to look at even possibly temperature-taking if someone indicates they're six. So there's a lot of things that we have to talk about and a lot of things we have to work through. So there's more than just saying, okay, we can meet together again if things go back to the way they were back on March 7th, when was the last time we were able to meet together. But we're on top of all that stuff. We'll talk about it. We'll keep you a prize. But just so you know where we are, and as soon as we can be together again, we will do it.

And as long as we're in compliance with state and local laws, and people know if you want to come, you can. But if you don't feel comfortable in being out in public, that's fine too. So I'll get you more information on that in the next week or so as we talk more about those things and get a survey out to you as well. So I guess that's about it. Does anyone have anything that they want to talk about before we maybe get back into the Book of James? Or any questions from last time or any thoughts that came about after last week's Bible study?

You said don't speak it. Okay. Well, I thought what we would do, because I know we have some people on with us tonight that weren't here last week, is just kind of briefly. Kind of briefly look at the highlights of James 1 again. We've only been through one chapter of James.

And after now, we only got through chapter 2, so I suspect we'll only get through chapter 2. What's the word? There's you and Sister Fabiola speaking at the same time. Oh, really? Fabiola, are you on the beat? Okay. I've muted everyone again, but if you want to speak, again, your mic is on, so you just need to speak up. I thought we'd just take a look, just a brief look back at James 1 again, just to bring us up to speed of where we are, because as we begin chapter 2, it builds off of chapter 1.

So let me pull up a screen here that kind of will summarize James 1 for us here, if I can do that from the beginning. And yeah, I know when I put this together, that little, forget that little parentheses that is there, I saw that as we did the afternoon and forgot to go back in there and get rid of that. But there's some primary principles in James 1. Remembering that the book of James, it is written to the scattered 12 tribes of Israel. And it is really speaking of the spiritually mature Christian. So when we read the book of James, he's just not talking about the elementary principles of repentance and whatever.

Of course, repentance is part of our foundation and something we do all the time, but he's looking at, as we become spiritually mature, what are some of the things that we need to look at? And so as he goes through chapter 1, he sets the stage for what is going to happen in the next four chapters. In verses 2 through 4, he talks about trials. And he says, counter all joy when you go into a trial. And a few of us would say, when we're going through a trial, we're joyous and happy.

But perhaps if we stop and remember God is working with us, he's developing us into who he wants us to become, it makes the trial easier to go through when we take the time to learn what we want and seek God's will and seek Him as we go through it to have the change in our lives that we want.

So the purpose of trials, he tells us, is that it builds our faith, and it builds our endurance. The word that's translated, patience, there in verse 3, which is the Greek kupamone, it builds our endurance as God prepares us for the time ahead of us, the time leading up to Jesus Christ's return. It leads to spiritual maturity. Hold on just a minute. I'm not on mute and I can't hear anything. Hey Fabiola, you want to hit your mic button so we can hear you. He's talking to you Fabiola.

I'm not on my screen where I can mute everyone right now. I'm talking on mute. I'm seeing him in that thing and I can't hear what he's saying. Okay, you can't hear? Okay, this is to do so. He's talking to you. Yeah, but I can't hear him. Okay, we can mute. If you hit your mic button again, you'll be muted. It's only you I'm hearing all the time. I don't know. Hold on. I'm going to get us to be sharing here for a minute.

Okay. I'll go back in here for a second. Okay, we also learned about wisdom. You know, I mean, we know what wisdom is. It's not only knowledge, but it's the way to apply knowledge into our lives. Great tool to have, you know, and James says if you don't have it, if you find yourself never really knowing what God wants us to do or how to handle situations that are live asking for it, he'll give us. Those are the type of things he likes to hear us request when he sees our hearts. That we want to learn his way and live his way.

So ask for wisdom is what James says. And he says, don't be double-minded. You know, in verse 8, we talked about double-mindedness and what it is. And, you know, that God wants us to be single-minded as we go through life and our time. And, you know, from the time we're called and baptized and we received the Holy Spirit for the rest of our lives, you know, spiritual maturity is becoming single-minded, you know, to become where we look to God and trust in Him and rely on Him.

And we allow our reliance on the world and the way we used to do things to just continually be exited from our lives or eliminated from our lives as we learn to trust God and have faith in Him. So, you know, being double-minded is something that, you know, God in James 4 verse 8 says, you know, purify your hearts, you know, make them for Him and learn to be single-minded.

You know, in verses 11, verses 9 through 11, it talks about, you know, some might consider the ultimate trials. You know, we have those who have been very poor, physically speaking, they become rich, you know, and there's trials that are associated with that.

You know, we have an inheritance come to us and all our lives we struggle and then all of a sudden we inherit or get, inherit a lot of money or have a job all of a sudden that just pours money on us. How do we react to that? We've talked about how having much can be as big a trial as having very little because we have the danger of being well to sleep and becoming easy in our lives and taking things for granted and departing from God.

And in Deuteronomy 8, of course, you know, God warns against that. When you have plenty, don't forget me. We should never forget, no matter how much we have or how little we have, it comes from God and be grateful for Him. On the other hand, we have those who are very rich and through life, maybe they've had plenty of things to buy whatever they want, have perfect health, and then all of a sudden they're thrown into the opposite state that they lose everything, you know, or their health just becomes shocked. And overnight, you know, they might find themselves in desperate straits. And there's a trial that goes with that, too.

And sometimes, you know, God will bring those things on in our lives to see how we respond. And that's those trials that we go through, but we learn through those trials, and whatever it is, we remember that God is in charge of our lives. He's there and wanting us to become who He wants us to become so that when Christ returns, you know, we can be with Him, we can be with Him, either resurrected or given incorruptible bodies at the time of His return.

In verses 12 to 15, we read about the source and purpose of temptations and trials and, you know, talked about how it's the same Greek word that's translated temptation or trial. And it's what's the end result. When it comes from God, you know, His desire is that we grow and that we become stronger and that we have more faith in Him.

And we look to Him and become better people as a result of trials. But it's from Satan, his mission and his purpose is he wants us to fall. He wants us to fall away. He wants us to be discouraged. He wants us to give up and to sin and just think it's too hard. You know, we have to differentiate, but whenever we find ourselves in that state, to remember to turn to God and what His will for us is. And, you know, we talked about first fruits as we're just here a few weeks away from Pentecost.

We'll be talking more about first fruits. We talked about them during the days of the God's will is that you and I and everyone He calls today would follow Him and yield to Him and become the first fruits He wants us to become. And verses 19 to 25, as we get to the wrap of those, we talked about spiritual maturity. And one thing that we can all learn from as we think of verses 19 to 25 is what it says there in verse 19.

You know, that we're swift to hear and slow to wrath. That's one thing, you know, we can remember. I guess sometimes we hear things from people or sometimes we read things in the Bible. Sometimes we hear things in sermon and they, you know, I can remember sermons that I heard that that seemed like they were stepping all over my feet.

And I know we can take the approaches. I don't want to hear that. I want to shy away from it. I want to forget I heard it. We have to be swift to hear. We have to guide us in what we need to change and what we need to do. I'll be through with this in a minute and then I'll be able to go in and mute everyone again here in a second.

But swift to hear, you know, that we listen to what's being said, even in conversations with each other and slow to speak. Last week we talked about so many people as they're hearing or listening to people, they're formulating just their response. And we can't get to know each other that way or understand each other.

You know, we have to learn how to listen, maybe think before we speak and certainly not get angry or hear something we don't like. It's a very, very annoying right now. It's hard to concentrate on what you're saying. Yeah, I know. I'm going to get out of here and I'll just talk about verses 26, 27. Okay, I'm going to mute everyone again.

Okay, and so I was hoping that I was talking over it, but I'll keep an eye on the thing is I don't even I don't even see Fabiola on here so I'll have I'll keep an eye on her. So she's Yeah, and the verses 26 and 27 it talks about, you know, It talks about Sure, an undefiled religion. And you know, James kind of introduces what he's going to talk about in a little bit as far as being able to bridle our tongue, hold what we have to say and you know we get into chapter three he's got some pretty pretty stern statements about our tongues there. And he also talks in verse 27 about, you know, what what happens with the spiritually mature Christian. Yes, we're keeping all the commandments. Yes, we're going to Sabbath services. Yes, we're doing a lot of work. We're going to Sabbath services. Yes, we're doing all the things that God said, but we see this agape love develop in us that we're watching out for each other. And we're visiting the orphans, the the fatherless, the widows, those who are in need, we're watching out for each other's needs. And we're becoming more and more unspotted from the world more and more yielded to God more and more dedicated to him more and more leaving the world behind. So with that as a background, we move into chapter two where where James really has two primary things that he's talking to us about in chapter two and things that, you know, we might kind of take for granted, but you can see as we go through it that he's talking to a group of people who have been, you know, we can say in the church for a while. They know the basics and they must see themselves as they're religious. And I think last week we talked about religion being worship, you know, how we worship God, how we follow him and follow how he says. But as they're maturing, the things that we could look at that are maybe a little deeper that we need to pay paying attention to as we go as we do that. So let me pause there for a moment. And if there's any comments, thoughts, anything that isn't clear that someone would like to talk about, absolutely feel free to comment.

Okay. Okay. Then I assume we all get it and everything. But let's get into chapter two, then. And look at verse one and see some of what James says here. So as he moves, of course, he was just writing a letter. He goes into verse two. He says, My brethren, don't hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. And let's just stop there. Don't hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, later on in this chapter, he'll be talking about the faith that God wants us to have. And I'm sure every single one of us here on the RE, you know, in the Bible study today and everyone in church will say, Yes, I have faith. Yes, I believe in God. Yes, yes, I do. And that's good. We should be saying that. But there are degrees of faith that we learn in the Bible. And as we talk about the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, you know, his faith was... I'm going to say deeper than any of us have faith today, right? When we look at the faith of Jesus Christ that he's talking about here, we have to look at what Jesus Christ, who was flesh and blood like we are, the faith he had. He was eternal. He was willing to be born flesh and blood. He was willing to go through all the pain and the suffering that he did. He was willing to die, die for our sins. And he had such faith in God that God would be with him, that his spirit would give him the strength, and that God the Father would resurrect him back to eternal life. That's the faith he had. He was willing to lay it all on the line and risk his eternal death if God the Father wasn't faithful to resurrect him after the completion of his mission. And that faith of Jesus Christ, you know, if we keep that in mind, that's the standard of the faith that he is looking for...that he is looking for in us.

And that's a high bar. Of course, we look to Jesus Christ, and that's the standard that we adhere to, and that we try to, led by God's Holy Spirit, that we desire and that we work toward during our lifetime. But that faith of Jesus Christ, you know, is so important that we need to kind of keep that in mind. And as James talking in this book, that's the faith he's talking about. He's taking us to a different level than just the faith. Of course, we know in Hebrews 11, without faith, it's impossible to please God. But the faith of Jesus Christ, that's what our goal is as we become spiritually mature. And so he ties that faith. He says, My brethren, don't hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.

And he takes that faith, that high standard, he says, don't mix it and don't find yourself being guilty of partiality.

You know, you look at in the world today, we have, you know, partiality is one and bias and all the things that people talk about. I mean, that's a big issue in the world today, right? I mean, that's the news talks about it a lot. People talk about it a lot. They want people to be impartial.

Of course, it's impartial in the definition of the people that say it. And, you know, they, of course, mix it with everyone that agrees with, my position isn't impartial, but whatever. It's the world's definition. But, you know, James is going to take us to what partiality is the way God looks at it. The true impartiality that he's looking at. And he gives us some examples here as we go through chapter two for us to think of. So as he introduces this, he's not just going to say, you know, being partial. He's going to take us into some examination of ourselves. What are we like? And he wants us to look at that and see, you know, he may take it, you know, as we go through the chapter here to a surprising conclusion when you went with the importance that he places on partiality.

So let's look at the example here and look through a few verses. And then, you know, again, any comments along the way? Feel free to speak up. I'll take a pause here in a few verses and then we can talk about it with any comments or thoughts or that come to mind. So he says, if there's any that you come into your assembly or if there should come into your assembly, a man with gold rings in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes.

And say to him, you sit here in a good place. And you say to the poor man, you stand there or sit here at my footstool. Now, let's just stop there for a moment before we get to verse 4. So he's doing something and he's focusing in on something we all do, right? It's all part of our nature. It's part of human nature. We all look at people and we make determinations. I like the way they look or I don't like the way they look. I like the way they're dressed or I don't like the way they're dressed. I like the things I hear them say or I don't like the way that your things I hear them say. When they introduced themselves, they did this or they did that. We all are guilty of it. Not one of us can say we are have no problem with partiality. We all we all do it. We should be getting better and better and better about it. We might say, well, we don't, you know, we're we we have no we don't see color. We don't see background. We don't see anything like that. We don't see rich and poor. But if we look at ourselves and if we kind of assess how is it that we make that first impression we get of someone that, you know, if we take some time to think about that, we'll see what James is talking about here. Because it may not just be the way someone is dressed. May not just be the way, you know, someone greets you. Might not be any of those, but it's something, you know, and we we can find ourselves favoring someone without even thinking about it. It just becomes automatic. They just kind of remind us of someone. We like someone. Another person may remind us, you know, no fault of their own or someone that we had issues with in the past. And we can find ourselves, every one of us, being partial in that way. And as new people come into the church and, you know, in both our congregations, we have people that come in regularly. That's their first time there. You know, we have to look at ourselves as Christians and whoever God brings in to that congregation because I don't believe anyone is just wandering in there by accident, right? They're there because God has called them. They're there because God has led them to the congregation. And when we look at them and they see us, you know, we should be very welcoming people and they shouldn't sense any partiality in us by the way they present themselves. Whether they come in the finest suit that any tailor could make or if they come in in short pants and a t-shirt the first time they're there. How, you know, how do we respond? How do we respond to them? You know, and how do we do that? How do we do that? And then James, you know, as he talks about that, he talks about, you know, back in the first century being like, you know, we can tell how much money you have by the way you dress and by the jewelry you're wearing. But there's other things than dress, right? And he says, if you do that, and we all do it to some degree, we can't deny it, have you not shown partiality among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

So he points us to what the core of partiality is. What do we do when we make those subconscious choices? When we handle someone new? Whether it's in church or wherever it might be. How do we do that? And what, you know, do we see ourselves that we are making some judgments on people without ever really giving them a chance or a chance to getting to know them? So James is going to take us into a road here of something that we, you know, we need to look at as we're spiritually mature to see, you know, maybe we're doing everything right. Maybe in our minds we're blameless. We're there in every service. We take our time. You know, we're sacrificing our time. Maybe we're serving in the congregations here in this time when we're not, you know, when we're not. At Sabbath services, God looks and sees, yeah, they're still keeping my Sabbath holy. Yes, they're there gathered before me. Yes, they're taking the opportunities to assemble together. Yes, they're putting me first rather than what they want to do first. Yes, they're doing all those things that, you know, God sees in secret today. Maybe we're doing all those things, but then James is saying, but look at this. Look at this. Think about this. You know, as he preferences up there in verse 26, verse 1, if anyone among you thinks he's religious, think about this. So let's pause there for a moment and just take some time to contemplate what James is saying. And I'll open it up. You know, maybe we can talk about, you know, some of the things in the Bible because I'm sure there's a number of scriptures that come to your mind where, you know, the Bible tells us about, you know, steaming each other highly, not being partial, that God's not partial. Examples in the Bible, throughout the Bible, where the effects of partiality have had negative effects on people. And maybe we can take some time to talk about some of those and bring those examples to life and tie them into what James is talking about here. So I'll throw it open for a while that anyone who has an observation or wants to talk about some things, you know, let's do that. Mr. Shabe, you have a quick question. Yeah. I was just wondering, just in the way that the chapter is set in how it's the outline of it and everything, it's interesting that, you know, the first thing that he talks about in chapter two is partiality. And I was just wanting to get your thoughts. Why do you think he mentioned that first in the chapter? I know it comes on the heels of, you know, just right at the end of chapter one and originally they weren't, you know, chapter breaks. But why do you suppose that, you know, right there in chapter two, the very beginning of it, boom, he starts talking about partiality? I, you know, I don't know. If we look at first 27, right there, he talks about pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. Visit orphans and widows in their trouble. And, you know, sometimes we might look at those people and they're not the ones that have the money. They may take more of our time and whatever. I don't know if he's playing off of that, that that's where love and agape is. And hey, let's look at partiality. Are we looking at all our brothers and all their needs or are we directing our attention to some and ignoring others? I don't know. That's just my thought that comes to my mind. Okay, thanks. I was just wondering, you know, I might add. James was from a very strict Jewish background and he was kind of a little bit in opposition with Paul, who seemed liberal. And so he's, I think the partiality, he's learning to compromise a little bit more. In verse 1, it says partiality referencing Leviticus 19.15 referring to partiality of those of a different social and economical background. And prejudice is prejudging.

Okay, yeah. And we know the Jews did that, right? I mean, that's all over the Bible. The Jews were very partial. They thought every Gentile was not worth even they're talking to. So. Yeah, that's. Yep, Xavier. We go back to Acts, the book of Acts after when God had given Peter the vision to not call the other nations who are proselytes common and the other nations who are not proselytes unclean. And that's how the Jews have categorized everybody else. You either proselyte common, not a proselyte unclean. And Paul, Peter and Barnabas was also called in that hypocrisy in the book of Galatians, where the people from James came to visit and they separated themselves and got inspired Paul at that moment to correct them. Yep. That's only one. Mr. Shaby, I'll make a comment here. Sure. All right. It's interesting how the Scriptures just above this word says, and there also come a man and with lowly apparel. Okay. But the Greek word that is translated lowly here is actually vile. So evidently there was more to this person's appearance than just being of a poor state. There was something maybe that they just were taken advantage of the situation to act inappropriately. So vile here is saying that, you know, the person is not just of lowly apparel. He is just acting or dressing inappropriately intentionally. Right. Is the way I read that. No, I don't think I see that in verse two because, you know, he's drawing the distinction between the one in fine apparel and the one, you know, translating the New King James filthy. So it would be vile or, you know, unattractive clothes or inappropriate clothes. Right. And sometimes we can look at things and say that's an inappropriate Sabbath wear. That, you know, that shouldn't be what you wear. But then when you look through it, you know, he says in verse three, you take the one and you say, you know, sit in this fine seat. The other one, hey, you know, you sit over here, sit at my feet and you're kind of looked down upon. And then he asks the question, are you are you judging? Well, you know, we might we might judge when we see someone with inappropriate apparel and say, oh, look how you come to church. Look how you come to the wedding supper. Right. That we read last week in the parable of one of the wedding banquets. We might judge and say, oh, you're, you know, you're you're here inappropriately. You didn't dress appropriately. So we might make that judgment. But we don't know that right. We don't know what is in that person's mind until we talk to them and get to get to know them a little bit. We make a judgment based on their clothes. We could, you know, we could have someone who's just very, very poor. And that is literally all they have to wear. And at least they're coming to God, you know, but we can't make that judgment just based on what they wear is what I what I would read it here that James is saying.

And that's a good discussion. I know. Many of us when we were first called, we didn't have what people call salad clothing. We had jeans, we had polo shirts. We had we didn't have dress shoes. We had Tim's. We had Nike's. So when we came out, I don't know for me personally, I did the older men, most salads, they would come and say, oh, you can buy a bottom up shirt. And eventually, with Godzilla, you conform within the right perimeter. So you don't go beyond our, you know, you're not so rebellious or whatever. So, yeah. And that's part of the growth, right? As you're there and you learn what is that, that's part of the growth. We look to see them. We see them wanting to do what God wants to do.

Mr. Shaby, in the English Standard version, the poor man, according to this concordance, is in Greek, is toso, which means a beggar or somebody who's a pouper.

So I think the first of these scriptures, there is this wealthy appearance as opposed to a beggar, and that is, as Christians, we should make a distinction whether you are physically rich or poor or whatever you're stationed in mind.

It seems to be what's being implied in the first, the Greek, the Greek for poor man's toso to crouch.

So you think that what God is saying, what James is saying is that we should make a distinction based on how they appear?

Yes, we should not look at them whenever they're accomplished, or whenever they're stationed in mind. We should treat them like brothers.

Oh, okay. So you're saying don't make a distinction.

Treat them equally.

Like white eyes?

Okay.

Bob, do you agree with that? I mean, as you read through that, that seems to be the point that James is making here, that we might naturally make that conclusion or be judgmental.

But he's saying, aren't you having to become judges of people if you've done that without really getting to know them or seeing what their mindset is?

Yeah, that's definitely, I think, a part of it.

I think sometimes maybe what that is alluding to, even above and beyond all of this, is that isn't there some place, and I can't remember the Scripture, where we're called any man vile?

Isn't there some place in the Scripture where we're...

Yeah, that sounds familiar. I don't know offhand what it is, but someone could look that up.

And I'm thinking to myself that, you know, if we're not to look upon any man as being vile, in other words, what we're saying is, we should not be judging, period.

God is the judge of that individual, right? No matter how inappropriate they are or how much they don't represent in our minds a true Christian or a believer, we're told we should not judge them, period. Now, would we want to keep company with them? Would we want to be around them as a brother or whatever? No, of course not.

If it was that extreme. But it would appear to me that they're saying, you know, we just can't judge. We're just not allowed to judge. Judge not that you be not judged. All right, I think is the scripture that I'm thinking of.

That's exactly the scripture I have written down. Christ says that in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7, verse 1, right? Judge not that you be not judged. Now, that's... So should we judge something that's extremely vile, all right, as being worthless or of no value? We're told not to look at anybody in that fashion.

Great. Now, remember the context here. Remember the context here. It's the first time we meet someone, right? If someone just comes in to church for the first time, you know, is someone wanting to make a comment, Savior?

I see Belinda wants to make a comment.

Yes, thank you. Okay. I don't know how to do this, so I'm just trying. Can you all hear me? We can hear you, yes. Okay. No, I think what you're saying is right, that it's when the people come into the church, or maybe they've been there for a while, but they're not dressing since we're talking about a tire in a way that we all think is, you know, Sabbath's appropriate, per se.

And then, you know, Xavier was saying, maybe we don't know all that's going on. Maybe that's all that they can afford right now, and you shouldn't be in your mind ranking or giving them some sort of a hierarchy of, this person is more worthy by their outward appearance.

And the verse that comes to my mind is when Samuel was going to anoint David, but he didn't know it was David yet. And so he was looking at Jesse's sons, and he's like, oh, it's this one. And God said, no, I don't look at outward appearance. I look at the inward man.

So, you know, we're all supposed to be looking at each other for the inward person, not what the outside presents.

Very good. Samuel learned a lesson that day, didn't he?

And there's a next thing, you know, the Jews still have a problem in their synagogues. They have plaques, and there's platinum, gold, silver, and bronze.

And they set up people in their congregation based on those plaques. So they still have this tradition where they, you know, I'm up here, come sit at the front, and the rest, based on your either your moral, more likely your income, you go further back. So they still have a little bit of that works.

Yep. So I think, you know, I think, yeah, I mean, again, you know, very good example that Benjula had a good example of that. And the Jews, you know, the Jews, yeah, you're right. They did that.

You know, there's so many other examples that we can, you know, we can look at in the Bible. I mean, look at the family effects of, you know, favoritism. We know that an Abraham's family, he was guilty of it.

And then, you know, or Isaac was the guilty of it, and then Jacob was guilty at it. Look at the ill effects it had on those families.

But, you know, he's talking about people that come into our, you know, into our into our midst. And, you know, I know there's been, you know, I know there's been times when people come in and, and you know, in both churches, you can probably think of someone who's come in and in our mind may have been dressed inappropriately.

And, you know, I know in years past, not recently at all, you know, I would hear of people who would tell them, you know, you can't come in jeans or you can't come in shorts and whatever.

And, you know, we got just got to watch what we're doing. When God brings them in, we've got to, you know, we don't have to hit them with every, you know, we don't have to hit them with correction day one. We need to let them be in there and learn and assimilate. And that's what I think James is talking about here. When God brings someone in, you know, let's not let any of us be the one who offends that person that they don't come back, right? Because oftentimes if we do something or say something or, or whatever, you know, someone gets offended and then you never see him again. And sometimes we never know what it is. So we have to just be very, you know, glad that God has brought someone in, welcome them equally based, welcome them equally. Thank God for bringing them there and make them feel very welcome. It's just part of what we do in church. Now, as if the person is there for months on end and they keep, and they're still dressing inappropriately or whatever, you know, there's, there's, there's a time where we can have those conversations and whatever with them and, and try to bring them up to, you know, try to, try to move them along a little bit.

So even, go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say, just another thing to think about is, you know, with all the modern churches and people floating from here to there, you know, the perspectives are totally different because some churches don't, you know, they're jeans and t-shirts or jeans and polos, and that's acceptable. And the first time you walk through the door and see this church, you know, the first perspective, if we're not careful, is everybody's got to be rich in this church because they were on suits and ties and they're dressed nice. And that's not the case, but we just got to be cognizant that there's a perspective of churches that has been changed, you know, through time. And that might be one perspective or any instance that they've had in running with churches is those kind of informal settings. And now that you're walking in there. So we just be cognizant that, you know, the first experience is always very important.

Yep, you're exactly right. Times have changed. And, you know, I had even not recently again, but years ago, someone tell us that, you know, we are all prideful people because we dress in suits. And I thought, okay, that's a unique concept. Never heard that before. And didn't want to buy the idea that you come before God, you know, dress well and everything like that. So, but that, you know, he doesn't attend with us anymore. And it was clear that he had a totally different idea. And, you know, there comes a time when when people depart to if they don't want to, you know, if they don't, not that they don't want to. He was never told anything, you know, that he couldn't come. But he, you know, just stopped coming because he wasn't comfortable with the way everyone dressed. Just basically the bottom line was so, which is an interesting thing to happen. So.

So, you know, we, you know, so when we look at when we look at, you know, partiality, what James is talking about here, he's, he's, again, striking at some things in these chapters that universally, universally, we all have to deal with, right? Or we have to kind of examine ourselves. There's not one of us that can say, I am totally impartial. I have never done that in my life.

And I know I will never do it again. It's something we work on. And sometimes we just have to stop, stop even when we're confronted with something and say, nope, this is a, this is, you know, I can't be that way. It's something we all have to work, all have to work on. And, and, and he talks, he talks about that. The, I think Xavier brought up, you know, about even Peter, right? We look at Peter and Paul and James and John. And these are, these are spiritually mature people that all of us would like to, you know, like to be like, you know, we all want to be like Jesus Christ.

But if we, you know, as part of our, our maturation process, we will become, you know, like, like these guys as well. And we look up to them that they gave so much to their lives. But as Xavier alluded to in Galatians, you know, there was Peter, he came to visit Paul and the Gentiles and what did he do? You know, he was there and he behaved fine first. And then when the other Jews came along, he reverted back to his old habits. And there he was, there he was, you know, eating with the Jews and kind of ignoring the the Gentiles that Paul had to, Paul had to bring that to his mind.

And we can all be guilty of that, you know, we can all be guilty of that. And we can fall right back into our old habits, literally without even thinking about it, like Peter did. And, you know, I think, you know, what Paul did, we might, you know, probably Peter bristled when he was when that was brought to his attention. But you don't hear Peter retorting. You don't hear Peter, you know, saying, Paul, you know, you shouldn't have said that in public, take me into a back room and tell me that or whatever.

You know, Peter was slow to see was swift to hear. He was slow to speak. And he was slow to rap. He didn't get angry or let himself become defensive. I think what I hope he did was realize, you know what, it's a good thing that Paul brought it to my attention.

I need to watch what I'm doing is kind of the same thing that we all can help each other with as well that we know that we, you know, something is brought to our attention gently and diplomatically and not accusingly and whatever that we would we would say, oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, you know, maybe in that instance, I did come across negatively to that person. Maybe I maybe I did say something, you know, or react in a way I shouldn't have. And I need to watch that the next time. Again, we learn through these examples that we're in. You know, we repent, we pick ourselves up, and then we go forward. So, you know, judge, you know, judgmentalism is one thing we have to watch. Now, that doesn't, you know, but we always have to remember, John 7 verse 24, too, that we judge with righteous judgment.

So, you know, as we get to know a person, and if they're and if they are saying things and continually presenting themselves, you know, in a manner like Bob was kind of saying that they are doing this in antithesis to God, or they're doing it to kind of show an attitude, then we can kind of see that as we know the person, and then that needs to be addressed, and we might, we might to a divisive person say, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna talk to you anymore.

I don't want to have you over at my house anymore. I'm not gonna go out and socialize with you anymore. That's appropriate. But that doesn't happen on the first meeting, like, like James is talking about here. This bad happens as we get to know the person and understand them. So that kind of cleared everyone or any any other? Yep. Frank like, can you hear me Frank Donovan?

Yes, yes, right. I just want to remind us that of commandment number one, no other gods, we worship God, not each other. We all remember the Philistlonic, or she is. She admitted to me that she had to repent of having put her W Armstrong on a pedestal. Yep. So, it's just a reminder that God is God. Yeah, yeah. Frank, can you repeat that? We missed that part after worshiping. Well, commandment number one is no other gods. We worship God, not each other.

Philistlonic admitted to me that she had to repent of putting her W Armstrong on a pedestal. So, it just it was a great thing for me to think about because I have had a tendency to admire people to maybe a wrong degree. So, that's all I have to say. Yeah, and for those of you who don't know Philist, she died about a year ago now, and a very, very fine woman. And so, that's a good example because you know so many people did put Mr. Armstrong on a pedestal. That's, you know, they followed him. They followed his saying, you know, always pay attention to the physical leader, and they paid attention to the physical leader, and it took him right out of the church.

And I don't mean any kind of casserious versions on him. It's just a point that God is God, and we're not. We are people. So, we have to keep that into perspective. We all follow God, right? And Paul said, you know, follow me as I follow Christ. And that's what we should all do. Keep our eyes on what is God teaching and is the church and where you're at teaching the truth of God. That should be our bottom line. If it ever stops teaching that church, follow God.

Don't follow a person. So, very good. Mr. Shaby, I was going to say, my original question about, you know, why is it that James mentioned that first? I think you guys answered that for me. I mean, with what you and Zee and everybody else are saying, it's like, you know, it made me think, okay, way back in the book of Acts, James was there and he saw what was going on. And that was probably something that was pretty much right on his mind about no partiality, you know, because even Peter in Acts 10 said, you know, I see that God does not show partiality, you know.

So, I think that's something that James definitely had on his mind. And since he was the people that he was writing to, he wanted to make sure that they got that point and they got the picture there. So, that just came to my mind. So, thank you guys for that. That helped me with that. And then I also was going to say, I completely agree with you because what God says about, you know, judge with righteous judgment. I mean, we have to make proper judgments every day.

And so, you know, look at the context of what James is saying when he's talking about people, what they wear and what they don't wear, you know, things like that coming to church.

I mean, my first day at church, I, you know, I wore a suit. My dad owned a men's clothing store. So, I had, you know, I was, okay, you wear a suit anyways, right? So, I had a suit to wear. But what happened was I came in. I was 22 years old. I had my best friend and his now wife. And we walk around meeting people. And this guy comes up and he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen young people come into church. You'll probably be here for about three weeks and then you'll be gone. And I was like so incensed about that because I had to talk to three ministers before I could come to church.

I had to do the correspondence course. I had to go through everything, read all the booklets. And by that time, I was like, you know, I was like, what do I got to do to come to this church, man? And then this man says, oh, you'll be around three weeks. So, you know, but you know, the story I told him, I'm going to be here forever. So what do you think of that? But anyway, so I mean, partially can come in different forms, not just, you know, even if you are wearing the right clothes, people can look at you and make judgments that are not appropriate even in other ways as well.

Yeah. What James saw there in that time, we see it here today. That's what you're saying. It's the same. Mankind is the same. OK, well, let's let's let's have some more comments. Let's let's go on, you know, because James has some more things to say here.

He takes this he takes this partiality, you know, and ramps it up to show us how important it is to God. He says in verse five, listen, my beloved brethren, hasn't God chosen the poor of this world?

You know, we can we can look at ourselves, right? We remember 1 Corinthians 1, 26 and verse 27 is there in your margin, probably, where God says he's chosen the poor of the world. He hasn't chosen the rich, the mighty.

We look at ourselves. We don't think, oh, God called God's called us because we're the finest, the brightest and whatever. He needs that. No, no. He's chosen the base things of He shows in the base things of Earth to confound the mighty, it says.

And so, you know, anytime we might feel a little full of ourselves, we can stop and we can think, oh, you know, God hasn't called the great things of the Earth. He's called us. You know, we're kind of the weak and base things of the Earth, but He's called the poor of the world to be rich in faith, you know, that will follow Him and that will build that thing that God looks at His richness in character and heirs of the kingdom, which He promised to those who love Him.

And, you know, we might look at people and we might say, oh, you know, I'd like to be friends with this one, friends with that one and whatever. But God has made the same promises to all of us. No matter what, no matter what we might think, every single one of us need to remember, you know, God sees all of all of His called ones as His children. And we need to look at that as well and really try to practice no partiality and recognize the potential that God has built into man in all of us and what He sees us as.

So in verse 6 He says, you know, God's called the poor in this world, but you've dishonored the poor. I mean, God calls the poor and yet you're dishonored Him by the way you've treated Him, by the way you've judged Him, by the way, by what you think He has, you know.

You've dishonored the poor. Don't the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? And you know, I read that and I can kind of see us here in the 21st century, right? And we look at the rich and the mighty of the world and what do they do? You know, I mean, if we look at the news, so many times we see people, you know, they drag everyone into court, the rich and mighty, you know, this one wants this one. They don't want to do it.

Get the Supreme Court involved. This one doesn't want to do that. I'll file a lawsuit. And you know, they would drag us to the courts, you know, as well. What the rich do is oppress you and try to, you know, try to, you know, to quell the poor.

And that's what they would do to us and that's what happens in society. So, you know, what James was living in is really the same thing that we're living in here in the 21st century. We can look around us and just listen to what's going on and we see the same type thing happening, especially when we get to verse 7, right? Don't they blaspheme that noble name by which you are called. You know, we look at God and He's the one we worship. He's the only one we should worship. We're living, we're learning to live by the Bible. What through the rich and mighty of this world, you know, they would laugh at us, you know.

When we go out and say, well, I try to live by every word of God, they would say, ha ha, this is the 21st century. So far, surpass the Bible. That's for antiquity. That's legalistic and everything. Everything they can say, you know. It's not the rich of the world who are, you know, giving glory to God or even looking to Him. They're looking to minimize Him and take Him out of society. So, you know, so, you know, He's drawing the distinction here that we have to see all of ourselves and we have to be poor in spirit, as Christ said.

You know, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven. So, okay, I'll pause again. Anyone wants to make a comment? Just feel free to speak up any time. So, okay, in verse 8 then, you know, I like the way James, you know, says this because it's kind of the way I might talk. You know, he doesn't just say, if you fulfill the royal law, but he says, if you really, okay, if you really fulfill the royal law, meaning like you're doing it the way God intended, not just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love my neighbor as myself.

You know, if you really fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You do well. Right? If you really do that, if you're doing it the way the God intends, if you're fully obeying that, then good for you. Right? Christ said those words many times when he was on earth. They're there in the Old Testament Leviticus 19 verse 18. There's that symmetry between the Old and New Testament, you know, that we can see the same God giving the same law, giving the same way of life to people, whether they lived back in the first century or the, you know, 4000 BC and the same as it here in 2000 AD.

You know, love your neighbor as yourself. If you're really doing that, he says, if you really think you're doing that, but if you show partiality, you commit sin. You know, look what he brings it down to. If you show partiality, if you really think you're doing all that, if you're looking, you know, like he says in verse 26 back in verse 1, if anyone wants you thinks he's religious and you don't bridle your tongue, that's chapter 3's issue.

But if you think you really are loving your neighbor as yourself, and you've got that, you know, look, that you do that. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. You know, that word that's translated sin there in verse 9 is the same word, sin, as in Romans 6, 23, that the wages of sin is death.

And sin is the transgression of the law. It's the same one. So he says, you know, you can do all those things, but boy, if you examine yourself, or we'd better be examining ourselves and letting God and asking him to help us weed out any partiality we have so that we become, you know, with the same attitude that Jesus Christ had who died for all mankind, regardless of their race, creed, background, income, and any other way we might want to, you know, define people. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. It's kind of a big statement that James makes there.

Or whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble, right? He doesn't say, he doesn't condemn us to death there, and yet stumble just like a child will stumble, fall down. But, you know, they don't give up and they don't just sit there and say, I'm not going to even try walking anymore. Children get up or we might even stumble over a rock in the yard and we get up, we keep going, we don't let it, we don't let us stop us, you know.

But if we find ourselves doing that or someone brings something to our attention like Paul did to Peter, you know, we don't give up, we don't get mad, we don't say, I'm not going to be here anymore, I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to be part of that anymore.

And we just keep going. We get up, we repent, and we keep going and we learn how to walk. And we walk stronger and better as a result of having that given to us. Whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he's guilty of all. He's guilty of all. You know, in verse 11, he says, you know, you might not commit adultery and or you might not commit murder, but if you commit one of those Ten Commandments and you sin, you know, you're guilty of death.

Not ten times death. If you do one and don't follow that, you're guilty of death, then he's equating partiality right into that with the way of God. So, you know, he talks there. He talks there. Let me finish verse 12 and 13, because verse 13 finishes this first part that we spent quite a bit of time on here in partiality. But it's good to do these things, right? It's kind of good to have this sunk into our mind so that we're conscious of it. Verse 12, he says, so speak and do. You know, today we might say, you know what? Talk the talk and walk the walk.

That's what he's saying there, right? So speak and so do. Talk the talk and walk the walk as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. Because, you know, as Peter says, judgment is now in the house of God. And we have to be not only speaking the law, but we have to be walking the law. We have to know these things, but we have to be doing those things. And we have to be consciously building it into our lives. Aware of it, having the wisdom, but then actually, actually speak if they have any meaning.

And then verse 13, you know, judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Now we need to be merciful. It's God is merciful to us. And, you know, I often say I'm so glad that God is God of mercy and a God of patience, because if He wasn't, I would have been off this earth, you know, so long ago and whatever.

I think we can all say the same thing. So as God shows mercy to us, boy, if someone stumbles, you know, we don't lord it over them and say, we're, think, oh, we're so much better than you. You're so weak or anything like that. We're merciful. We, you know, we help each other. The sun's rise like tactfully. If we see someone continually, you know, falling down in some way, we might even want to take the time.

The question came up this afternoon. Someone was looking for what are some examples of the ways that we might, you know, that we might be showing partiality. What are some of the things that we could that we do that maybe we should be correcting each other if we see things and not just getting offended and avoiding people. And that might be something we want to just talk a few minutes about, too. If there's anything that you've had in your life, they've mentioned one, you know, sometimes our youth, we can disregard them, right?

We can, you know, it doesn't have to be a new young person that comes in, even with our young people in church. We might, you know, we might judge them without looking at them as a potential son of God and looking with the potential they have. So let me pause there. Let you think about that a little bit and wrap this first part of chapter two. But, you know, any discussion or anything that anyone like to say, that's fine.

Okay. No one? Let me see someone coming on here. Let me get someone on. Okay. No thoughts on that? Let me, you know, let me. Frank Donovan here. I could say something. Frank Donovan here. Okay. You know, Christ said He will build His church and we're told that the Holy Spirit will guide us in truth. So actually, the realization that we are being like this person who is constantly picking on the way people are, you know, the Holy Spirit will convict us of it. The Holy Spirit is going to make us realize, you know, we're wrong about that. We got to change that. It will, right? But what we can do with the Holy Spirit, if we're aware of it, you know, if we're aware of it, we might be, oh, I've got to watch what I'm doing. But we might just kind of like ignore some of those, until we talk about it, until it becomes clear to us what the Bible and what God wants us to do. So, you know, talking about these things puts it in our mind where, otherwise, we might just think, oh, you know, I'm okay. You know, just like James says, I might love my neighbor as myself. I might think I'm religious, but have you thought about this? Is that on your mind? Are you aware of what you do and that you might be, you know, transgressing God's will in this area? So it's good to talk about these things. Very good.

Well, then let's, you know, let's then, and again, you know, sometimes, you know, as we as we as we go through these things, I mean, think about these things, right? Because James is giving us some, he's giving us some clear messages here and some and some good instruction that we have to sometimes just sit and reflect on.

And as you have questions or comments, even as we come back together next week, you know, feel free. We can go back and if you think of some examples or whatever, we can talk about those things. But with first 13, then he moves into the next section of chapter two. And he takes another one that we might just think of ourselves, you know, as being faithful people. Yes, I have faith. You know, yes, I believe in God. I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be in this church if I didn't believe in God.

I wouldn't be in this church if I didn't believe that His word, that this Bible I have in front of me is His word of truth. You know, we can say that and every single one of us would say that. But James has us look at faith a little differently than the people in his time. Again, what he's writing about here, God has inspired him.

But he's seeing some things as he works with people that we can kind of look at ourselves as well. In verse 14, he says, what is it profit, my brethren? If someone says he has faith, what doesn't have works? And he asks the question, can faith save him? You know, we all believe in God. We all believe that the Bible is the word of truth. You know, is that enough? You know, I know Bob Luther brought up a few times and we talked about it. Martin Luther didn't like the book of James because he believed faith was it.

That's all you needed. You didn't need works. Works, you know, works with something else. He talked about was just kind of trying to puff yourself up and whatever. He just said, you know, he thought faith alone was enough. But James says, can faith save him? And he poses that question to us. Is faith just saying we have faith or believing we have faith? Is that enough? You know, well, without faith, it's impossible to please God. But, you know, he goes on and then he gives an example, a very real life example to us that we can all relate to.

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, be part in peace, be warmed and filled, but you don't give them the things which are needed for the body. What does that profit? You know, if I see someone, if someone calls me and says, you know, I haven't eaten in four days, I've lost my job, I have my unemployment benefits haven't come up, and my family's hungry, and I say, you know what, I'm going to pray for you, and I'm going to pray for you. May God be with you. And I do nothing about it. What does that say about me? You know, we understand that on a physical level that we have to be active.

And when we see our brother in need or, you know, a brother or sister in need, or we know that someone's going through a trial, we have to be there. We have to be ready to sacrifice our time, to be willing to give up of whatever we need to do to help that person to do that. And sometimes God puts those things in front of us to see what we will do. Just like, you know, the story of the Good Samaritan, the priest of Levi, they failed that test. They walked right on by and waited for someone else to come in and handle that.

Hey, Frank, did you want to say something? Me? Yes. Okay. Back in worldwide days, there were some difficult things that occurred that were a little bit more difficult. A little bit more difficult than just poor and rich. We had a homosexual man come in, obviously homosexual. He died of AIDS later on.

And we had a prostitute come in with two girls. The women had no clue what to do there. And the men, they're not going to go out and talk to her. So, I mean, the point I'm making is there were more difficult situations than just rich and poor and things like that.

I got to be friends with the homosexual guy, which I never thought I could ever do. But he was a decent guy. He was just too late for him. And the woman with the two beautiful daughters actually did make it and married a guy in the church. But it took us... that was not an easy thing for any of us to do. It's very difficult. I mean, how do I say this? I'm not really fond of homosexuals, put it that way.

And it took me a while, too, to be able to talk with a man. But he's a decent guy. He was converted. But the point is, there's more difficult situations that you have to confront sometimes. Absolutely. Partiality can come in any way, shape, and form. And those are two very good examples, because if we heard about either of those that you said, we would immediately develop a judgment and an idea about what we thought of that person without ever giving them the chance to get to know them.

So did the man stay in the church, too? And you said the woman did. Did he stay in the church, too? The man died of AIDS. Okay. Okay. Yeah. He was there for about a year or so, and then he died. And then he died. Okay. But you know, Paul talks about that, right? In 1 Corinthians 6, he talks about all those things and all those sins. And he says, none of these type of people will be in the kingdom.

And he says, and such were some of you. Such were some of you. And we have to remember that, too. If we encounter someone and think, oh, wow, how could you have done that? Is God working with that person? Yeah, God will work with anyone, right? But if he's there for a while, and we find that they're going back to the real way, that's when we get involved in whatever and the minister gets involved and talks to them. But yeah, those are two very good examples. Yeah. Yeah. Even in those situations, we have to be impartial and trust that God is working with them and then just kind of watch the fruits.

Okay. Good. Good. Okay. So, you know, just like partiality, we watch the fruits. We're talking about faith here. And James brings it, boils it down to, you know, this agape love, right? He brings it down to agape love. Just for sake of time, I won't turn to 1 John 3 and verses 16 to 18. John says the same thing. He says, if you see your brother, destitute, if you see your brother need food, you know, do something about it. Do something about it. Don't, you know, that's how you show. You show your love by what you do, not by what you say, but by what you do. You show agape love by the things we do.

Very easy for all of us to say, oh, yes, I have agape love. Oh, yes, I would do that. But when we're confronted with it, what do we do? Would we do it or not? And that's what God is looking at. You know, Jesus Christ, the perfect example of agape love and the perfect example of faith.

You know, and his faith wasn't just what he said. He showed his faith in God by the things that he did and what happened in his life. You know, we can look at Matthew 25 as well, where that's concerned. What is one of the things that Jesus Christ says? How will he separate the sheep from the goats at the end of time? He doesn't say, I'm going to separate it by those who kept the Sabbath and those who didn't keep the Sabbath, right? I'm going to separate them by those who, you know, when they saw a brother naked and in prison and all these things, and they fed him, clothed him, visited him, because doing that in that agape love is the end result of keeping and obeying God's laws consistently in our life and developing that pattern of obedience and that complete surrender and submission to him and choosing to do those things. And as we love God more, we will love people more. And we can't fulfill that perfect, you know, that royal law that it mentions here in verse 8 that we talked about a few minutes ago. We can't fulfill that if we're not obeying God, if we're not living his way of life, if we're not being led by his Holy Spirit and allowing it to correct us and guide us. You know, we won't get to that point that we are. And that's what James is saying here as he tries to, as he begins to talk to people about faith. And apparently, you know, just like everyone today say they would have faith, but back then they would say they have faith too. So, you know, verse 17, he says, Thus also faith by itself, if it doesn't have works, it's dead, you know, it's dead. And you look up that word in the Greek and maybe a better way to put it, because we all have heard the word dead, right? It's the same word dead that Jesus Christ used when he said, you know, the dead will live again. You know, the child is dead. You know, it's the same word that is lifeless. Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is lifeless. It's dead. That's kind of a strong thing that James is saying there. The faith by itself has to be met with something. We have to see the faith. God has to see the faith that we would have in him. You know, someone will say, someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Now, it's not either or, right? If we're pleasing God, it's not, I either have faith or I have works. If we have faith, we gotta have works. You know, let's do turn to Ephesians 2 here.

While you're doing that, let me add something too. Faith or words have to be matched with action. What faith needs to be met with action? Is that what you said? Faith is kind of expressed with words, but those words have to be matched with action.

Walk the talk and walk the walk, right? Not or. Talk the talk, so speak and so do. You know, as James said there. If Ephesians 2.10, Paul writes, he says, For we are his, we are Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. That's what he wants to see. He wants to see our trees produce much fruit. And some of the way our trees produce fruit is by the good things that we do. How we are a benefit and a blessing to other people. And God sees that. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And James is saying the same thing here. You know, it's great to have faith. We absolutely have to have faith. We better have works to go along with it and show our faith through the works that we have and the things that we do. Not to puff ourselves up, not to pat ourselves on the back, not so other people see us and say, Hey, look at me. Look what I've done. I must have faith. Or I must be showing the goth they love that we were willing to do it when no one else is looking. You know, and in secret, because we do it because God has led it to us and we know that that's what he would want us to do in those situations that come our way.

Let me just, you know, we'll finish chapter two here. Let me just pause there. And I know if anyone else has anything they want to say there. I mean, you know, James has made quite a statement there. Faith without works is lifeless. It's dead. Yeah. Mr. Shaby, what comes to my mind is the stark difference in what the Bible teaches and what traditional Protestant Christianity teach, where they just say, just believe in Jesus. Just believe, just believe. But as you were just saying, the Bible itself says, you know, by my works, I show you my faith. I mean, even look at what Jesus talked about, the Good Samaritan. He said, who was the neighbor? Who is the guy who helped them out? He's the one who did things right. And, you know, Jesus said, why do you say you believe me? But don't keep my commandments. You know, do the things that I want you to do. And it's all laid right out there in the Bible. But it just seems like the stark contrast just really is apparent between what the Bible actually teaches and what traditional Christianity tries to teach in the sense of just believe. You know, just believe, just give your heart to Jesus and all this stuff. Well, the Bible doesn't say to do that. You know, it says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So I just wanted to mention that. No, that's a good point. You know, I think, you know, the true church of God preaches what the Bible preaches. And there are distinctions between Christianity. And sometimes, you know, we can tend to, not we, but maybe some new people think we're all Christians. We all believe in Jesus Christ. We all believe in this and that and whatever. But there's a difference. There's a difference in that belief. And, you know, we do what the Bible says and that, you know, not the watered down version of what traditional Christianity is. Yes, Mr. Shabian, it also goes back, if you look at chapter one, verse 22, the doers of the word. He's following that theme, it seems like, through this whole book. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. It's a good correlation. You know, we've got to live. We've got to live it. We can't just be talking about it and think, oh, we know it. Therefore, we're doing exactly what God wants us to. That's deceiving ourselves. Good point. OK. Mr. Shabian, can you hear me? I can, yes. This is Debbie. Hey, Debbie, how you doing? OK. I just wanted to mention that I've been in the book of Proverbs, and going back to the beginning of James, when he talks about wisdom and discernment. Right. It seems to be a theme for me. I've been in Proverbs 1 and 2 that talks about, it gives a description of wisdom, and to incline your ear to wisdom and search for her. It's been a really good correlation with the book of James. Yeah, that's very good, Debbie. Some people, some commentators will say that James is kind of like the book of Proverbs in the New Testament. And, yeah, so I think that that's a good observation, that you can look in Proverbs and see some of the things that James is talking about here. So, good.

Okay. Let's go on to verse 19 then, because, you know, again, James, as he's talking about faith and works, he takes it to another level here in verse 19 of chapter 2. He says, you believe that there is one God. Every single one of us would say that, right? You believe there's one God, you do well. We should do it. Even the demons believe and tremble.

And so, you know, I'm sure you can write down Matthew 8, 28, the incidents where the man had demons in him and Jesus Christ confronted him. And remember the demons came out and they said, you know, it's not our time. You're confronting us before our time. They knew who Jesus Christ was, and they knew what the prophecies of God were, and they knew that they were going to be cast into outer darkness at some time in the future. They know those things, right? And so, you know, that's what James is saying here. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble.

You can see those demons when Christ called them out, and they said, you know, well, at least let us go into that herd of swine. And he said, fine, go into them. The swine did exactly what demons want. They fell right off the cliff, and they all died. And that's exactly when, you know, demons and Satan are around us. They're just looking for our death. They're just looking for our demise. And that was crystal clear. But Christ was saying, they believe, you know, they believe.

Look at that, you know, they believe who God is. But we can ask ourselves a follow-up question to that. Even though the demons believe, even though they know who Jesus Christ is, even though they were confronted with Jesus Christ, did that result? Does that result in any behavior change on their part? Are they the same, or are they the same as they always were? Now, they believe. They know who God is. But they keep on doing the same things they always did. They don't, you know, they don't change.

They don't follow Him. They don't yield to Him. They don't grow in grace and knowledge. They don't grow in character. They don't put away their old ways and say, I believe in Him, so I must... I need to follow Him, and I need to do the things and sacrifice my will, my desire, my ideas, and all those things. I don't sacrifice those and follow Him. I just keep doing the same thing. You know, they don't. They don't change. They just keep doing the same thing. And that's... James is kind of equating that, you know, to us.

We can say we believe, but if we don't do the things of God, if our behavior doesn't change, if we don't start doing the things that God says, our faith, as He says, is dead. It's lifeless. It's meaningless. It's useless, you know, as, you know, a different word in verse 26 that's up there in chapter 1, but it's useless. It's great to believe. The demons believe too, but the belief has to result in a change of behavior. Verse 20 says, but do you want to know, O foolish man? You know, he's talking to us, right? He's talking to true Christians who may think of ourselves as spiritually mature and who want to become spiritually mature.

But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Is lifeless? Do you want to know that? You know, as you look at yourself and you think, I'm religious, I'm mature, I've got it nailed, God is pleased with me, do we need to look and say, are we developing the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the same type of faith that He had, you know, the same type of faith that we can even look at in some of the examples where Jesus Christ healed people?

And what did He say to some of those, you know, the lady who for 12 years had her medical condition, and He turned and He said, Your faith, Your faith has made you well. He didn't say, I made you well. Your faith has made you well. And so we can look at those things, and we need to contemplate those things, and we need to develop that type of faith in God.

That's what pleases Him. You know, our faith should make us well, and not just well physically, but well and healthy spiritually as well. He's the one who is our healer, physically and spiritually, and as we have faith, we become a complete and a whole person as we develop that faith.

Well, if we go on in, you know, verses 21 and 22 here, you know, He, you know, if you listen to the Cincinnati webcast, Last Sabbath, you know, Mr. Kenevick, Richard, was talking about, you know, these verses He read through them as He came down to Rahab. But He talked about Abraham. Abraham is a picture of the type of faith that God wants us as humans to have. You know, wasn't Abraham, He says in verse 21, our Father justified by works?

Well, He had faith. We know that. We know He believed in God. But look what He did with that faith, you know. He was willing, He says, when He offered Isaac, His son on the altar. That took faith. That took faith. It wasn't the first trial that God gave Him. It wasn't the first thing.

It was a lifetime, a lifetime of building that faith. When God said, sacrifice Isaac, Abraham has such faith and belief in God that no matter what happened, whether Isaac was dead, whether God was miraculously to keep Him alive, whether God was going to resurrect Him, Isaac, or Abraham didn't know what was going to happen.

But He had faith in God that whatever it was that happened, it would be the right thing. It was the right thing to do to follow Him. He had that much faith that it would turn out well. Wasn't Abraham justified by faith? He built that faith over time. And He trusted God. And He showed His faith in God by taking His son and being willing to sacrifice him. Don't you see, or do you see, it says in verse 22, that faith was working together with His works. And by works, faith was made perfect. By works, faith was made perfect.

You know, that intends. That shows a gradual and a process of faith being made perfect. Again, that wasn't the first thing that God asked Him to do. As you look through Abraham's life, what did He do? He had a foundation of obedience in God. God said, you know, Abraham has obeyed my voice. He's obeyed my commandments. He's obeyed my statutes.

He's obeyed my laws. Whatever I asked the man to do, He does. He just does it. He doesn't ask questions. He sees it and He obeys. And that was the foundation that Abraham had. If God said, move here, Abraham moved there. If God said, do this, Abraham did it.

And He built that foundation. And through those works that He did through the years, that faith was built to the point that when God said, aye for Isaac, He could do it. And didn't hesitate. He just did it and knew He was going to because He had produced all those fruits through all those acts through His life as He yielded to God and did God's will and didn't hold back anything from Him.

In verse 23, the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God. And you know, I will probably say it until the day I die. When we read that word, believed in the Bible, that word believed is more than just, I believe God, or I believe there is a God, right? It's a belief that changes how we think, how we act, and what we do. It's a belief that changes our core.

Abraham believed God, and it was accounted for him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You know, there's that process again. We talked about slaves, and how in the Bible it talks about the dualoses and the apostles would introduce themselves as slaves of God. And slaves, you recall, if they were good slaves, they realized their mission and like was to please their master. They had to put their own desires and their own wants and realized they were in a position, I will please my master. That's what I have to do. And good slaves, as we talked about, they became rewarded.

Some of them in Rome became citizens, some of whom were adopted as sons and became part of the family because they yielded themselves so totally. And that's what God asked us to do. You know, we have to, you know, we started out on a level that we might have to make ourselves. You know, we have to make ourselves come to church every Sabbath. We have to make ourselves, you know, turn off the TV on the Sabbath, cut the world out and shut the world out on the Sabbath and keep that Sabbath from just God.

And it might be even more difficult these days when we don't have Sabbath services that we're actually going to. All those things that we know to do and looking in the Bible, how does God want us to do these things that we make ourselves do it and we do it to please God, even though it's contrary to our nature? You know, Abraham was a slave, but he became a friend.

And God sees that same process in us, you know. He said to his disciples when he was about to be cross-eyed, I no longer call you servants. I never call you slaves. I call you friends. And he sees us as children. And then he yields, with the bride of Christ, there's the progression as we yield to him and as we sacrifice will in our own desires, our own ideas, our own thoughts, our own ways of doing things and adopt his way.

They become us. They become us and we become him and we have that mind of Christ and we are his family at that point. He was called a friend of God. You see then, you know, James goes on that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone or not by faith only. You have to use the faith. You have to see the works of faith. God wants to see those and those of us who are around each other, we see those works of faith.

So I can stop there for a minute. If there's any comments, I'm looking at the time here. I'll finish up here in a minute. Let me finish 25 and 26 and then we'll open it up for discussion. Okay, so he gives an example of Abraham. He gives the example of Rahab in verse 25. Likewise, wasn't Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? She put her life on the line. You know, it's like, okay, I believe.

I believe that your God, Israel, is the true God. And I, you know, if I get caught sending these messages away, her life was over. She would have been hung whatever they did to people back then. That would have been over. But she was willing to sacrifice her life to let God's people go and to get them to do what she said she was going to do. That was faith. You know, sometimes we read these stories, but if we were in Rahab's position, if we knew our life was on the line, you know, what would we have done?

What would we have done? If we really believed that God, the God of Israel, was the true God, would we have done what Rahab did? Or would we have done something else? She believed. And God talks about that faith. So for as the body, without the Spirit, is dead, you know, God, when He created mankind, He put the Spirit of man in Him and tells us in 1 Corinthians 2.

Without the Spirit, the body is dead. You know, we'll all be dead. Our bodies will be there. Decaying will be lifeless. But the body without the Spirit is dead. And for you and I, the body without the Spirit of God is dead, too.

That's our life. We allow the God's Holy Spirit to disappear from us if we grieve it or if we do things that God takes away from us. As the body without the Spirit is lifeless, so faith without works is lifeless also. So, you know, He concludes that. And again, He directs us to think of two things. What's going on? What's going on? You know, in impartiality, for those of you who think you're religious, what's going on with your faith? How are you looking at things and giving us some more deeper things to think about and to help direct us in our lives?

So let me stop there. Let me look at my notes and see if there's anything... I think we've covered them. I got some other verses here, but, you know, we can talk about those another time. And I'm sure you have. You've got some verses you've thought about as we work through here, too. So let me open up for any discussion, comments, observations, anything you want to talk about. I appreciate it. I'm willing to get some comments from people.

If we say that we have faith, let's say, for instance, that we have faith that we're going to be in God's kingdom someday. What are the works that we are doing that are proving that we have that faith? What are the works? Are we doing something in particular that shows us or shows others that that is our faith? What are our works that are proving our faith? Is that a rhetorical question? I think it's a rhetorical question, but I think there's others who may have some examples there. I think it's different for all of us, right? What God asked, what God was looking at at Abraham is different than what he's asked in my life or your life, right? What he asked of Abraham was different. I mean, I think that depends on what God has us do and what... Depends on the circumstance, maybe. Anybody want to comment about that, though? Hey, Bob. Yeah, I think it comes down to keeping the commandments. Christ said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And that's how we do good works. We do great commandments, love towards God and love towards our neighbor. And we find ways to do that, as James is showing us, you know, just as these examples that we see here. You know, if you say... if you see... the example he uses, you know, if you see someone that needs something, you don't do anything. Well, you can say, oh, I have faith, but you're not doing anything. And Christ would want us to take those steps and actually show love to our neighbor by helping them out and doing something and bearing good fruit in that regard. That's a good example. Anybody else? Yeah, I have a comment on that. The good works is something that comes out because the Spirit is working in us. Because at the end of the day, regardless of what works or good works that we have, it doesn't earn us anything. It has to come straight from the mind of God to do those works. Otherwise, it will just be an exercise, human exercise. And so that's where the other believers think that we are earning our salvation by works. But that's not actually the case. So the bottom line is we do those works because we are moved by God's Holy Spirit to do those things. We have His fire. Yeah, because it says, as Brother Shabe quoted earlier from Ephesians 2, we are our Father's work in Christ.

And Christ says those good works originate with the Father and Him. They don't originate from Him. But we can't accomplish them in the Spirit, separate from God's Spirit. And that's where Christ says again in Matthew 5, 16, do them as lights in the world and our Father will be glorified. And in turn, we also get glory in the end. Okay, but I think that there's an awful lot of people who actually do good things and it has nothing to do with their faith in God or even their belief in God. So is it only through the Holy Spirit that a person can actually do it? No, but Brother Luther, examine those good works. Think about the origin of them. Well, I understand that. What I'm saying is that the good works originate with the commandments of God. They don't originate from men's ideas. Also, Bob, don't forget that the two trees, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that has good in it as well. I just am pointing out because he said that you can only do those good works if you have the Spirit of God. Yeah, that's what I was saying. In the Spirit of the Lord, you can't do it without the Spirit of God. I thought you said Spirit of God. Amen to that. You can't please God unto salvation without God's Spirit. You can do good. Look at Job. Job did many things. He was pleasing God, but those things that he was doing, who did they originate with? They originated from God, and that was Job's problem. He thought this was coming from within himself. He was so good. He was this. When I walk in the room, people shun Job as wise. Job is this. When God said, no, no, no, no, no. These originated with me. You didn't just come up with these ideas of your own.

Frank Donovan, I'd like to add, can you hand me everybody? Yes. See? Philippians 2.13. God works in us, both to will and to do. Precisely, the credit has to then go back to the power of the Holy Spirit in us. Of course, Bob says in the world, people do good works. Well, like David from us said, the tree of knowledge is good and evil. Good and evil. People can do. Unconverted people do good things. But we're not talking about the unconverted. We're talking about the Church of God and what we rely upon.

Like I said, it was just a thought for discussion. No, I think that is a good discussion. Okay, is everyone worn out? It was 845. So, I think next week, we'll kind of wrap up. But again, if anyone has anything else to say, we can stay on as long as you want. So, we'll do our Sabbath webcast at 1130. We'll be live from the kitchen of our church hall again this week in Orlando. And we'll schedule another Bible study for next week. I'm fooling myself if we think we're going to get through more than one chapter. So, kind of look at James 3. I mean, you know, again, as James progresses, he's talked to us about partiality, he's talked to us about faith and then our tongue, right? Then our tongue is what we're going to talk about next week. And again, a universal thing that all of us have to control and perfect during the course of our lives. So, anything else? Any other comments? Anything that anyone wants to talk about, even if it's not James? Well, I'd like to just say about that movie character Yoda in the Star Wars. Yoda said, what did Yoda say to Luke Skywalker as he was dying? I think he said, no try, must do. Must do? Good, Frank. A church member told me that a long time ago. Okay, guys. Thanks for being on tonight. It is good to see all of you. Have a good rest of the week. We'll kind of see you if I can on Sabbath or as you can. We'll look forward to seeing you again next Wednesday night. Again, if you hear of anyone who needs anything or anything, please let me know. We're all our eyes and ears in watching out for each other during this time. Okay. Thank you. Take care of everyone. Okay. Good night. Thank you, Shady. Okay. Bye. Hey, Deb. How are you doing? Good. See you. Good day. Thank you. Okay. Bye.