Man Should Rule Over Sin

Thank you very much, choir. Wonderful job. That was truly inspiring. Both of those are very uplifting. I especially like 154's. So thank you for doing those. Wanted to mention what the Holy Day offering was this morning. Actually, we didn't announce it last week. On the first Holy Day, we had 104 in attendance. We had an offering of $5,081. This morning, we had 98 in attendance and an offering of $4,879. Actually, we've had a few more offerings turned in. We have $5,029 if you add those in. Thank you very much for your support of God's work and for your involvement. Brother, on the first Holy Day, we stressed that the Book of Genesis was a book of beginnings. We came to understand that God revealed His plan of salvation to Adam and Eve. A lot of that you could find in chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Genesis. We went through quite a bit of that. The sermon last Sabbath introduced other beginnings. This was in chapter 3. We discovered right off the bat that there was opposition to God's plan of salvation by a very clever and cunning personality. We saw the beginning of the influence of Satan the Devil over man and also His methods of operation and influence over time. What you find in the Book of Genesis set the pattern for what was going to happen later on. So, for the last 6,000 years, we've seen His methods. Now, chapter 4 introduces other beginnings. Hey, we've got 50 chapters here. We could go on for quite a while. In chapter 4, we begin to observe the human race and how they live outside of the Garden of Eden. Let's go back to chapter 4. If you remember when Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out of the Garden. They now lived in Eden. The Garden was in Eden, so they were driven out of the Garden, and now they're in Eden. The Garden of Eden was a type of having a close personal relationship with God, actually having access with God. God walked in the Garden. They could talk to Him. He was revealing, and did reveal, His weight at Adam and Eve. He obviously showed them the way that He wanted them to go. It was not until Jesus Christ's sacrifice, later on as we heard this morning, that access, again, was made to God in His very throne room, to God in Heaven. We find that we today can come boldly before the very throne of God, and talk to God, and have access to God.

However, we find in chapter 4 of the book of Genesis that God still deals personally with mankind when He needed to. He still talks to them. He still corrects them when they go wrong. Actually, you'll find that God dealt with the human race, personally, right up to the Flood, for about 1,656 years. Then, after that, things changed. In chapter 4, you'll find here that God undoubtedly revealed to man that He wanted man to sacrifice. Who would ever come up with the idea, well, let's go kill a calf and sacrifice it to God? Why would you do that? Obviously, God had to reveal to them that He wanted sacrifices. The important thing is what those sacrifices symbolized. You see, you don't just go out and kill a lamb, or kill a turtle dove, or something of this nature. There's a reason behind it. Later on, God revealed that there were several different types of sacrifices and offerings that He wanted.

Now, He had undoubtedly revealed to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and some of the other sisters who had been born this. You find that Cain and Abel brought their offerings to God. Cain became angry when God did not accept His offering. God then drove Cain out of Eden and placed him in Nod, east of Eden. So, what you find as man progressively sins, man gets further away from God, who in a sense was an Eden, which would be like the throne of God, where God dwells. And so, as man continues to sin, he continues to separate himself further from God and contact with God. However, in chapter 4, God began to reveal to mankind how to overcome. He began to reveal to mankind that they needed help if they were going to become His children and His family. Let's notice the story here, beginning in verse 3. Genesis 4, beginning in verse 3. In the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord, Abel also brought the firstborn of the flock. And they're fat, and the Lord respected Abel and his offering. So, apparently, Abel did things the way God told him to do it. Cain did not. So, there was a difference here. So, what happened? Cain said, Forgive me, God, I have sinned. I will try to please you more. Is that what Cain said? No, verse 5. It says he did not respect Cain in his offering, and Cain was very angry. And God asked him, and, well, says Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. You ever seen anybody disappointed? You know, the face falls. You can see it written all over their face. When it says that God respected Abel's offering, the word respect means favored. He favored his over Cain. Now, Cain knew this. The word angry here isn't just anger. It means to burn with anger. He was just absolutely livid, we would describe it today.

And in verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? See, Cain had a problem. Cain wanted God to accept him, but he didn't want to do what was right. And you find that there are a lot of people who do that today. A lot of people want God's favor and approval, but they don't want to do what God says. And there's a big difference. In verse 7, God said, Well, look here, Cain. If you do well, will you not be accepted? So all you've got to do is do what's right. Do well. The word well means good.

Positive moral action. You do what I tell you, and you'll be accepted. And the word accepted actually implies you'll be exalted. You'll be desirable in my eyes. And if you do not do well, if you don't do what you're told to do, sin lies at the door. Now we find the sin word used. God says, if you don't do well, if you don't do good, if you don't do what's right, then there is going to be sin. Actually, the Hebrew word for sin here means an offense against a standard. You have to ask yourself, what standard? If he said you're going to sin, what standard was there for Cain to sin against? Well, it was God's law. But let's notice what God told him. He says, look, sin lies at the door or crouches. It's ready. You open the door, it's ready to come through. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

Now, the word desire here means a stronger motion or feeling of something, a desire to dominate, to be independent. Sin wants to dominate us. Sin wants to rule over us. Satan the devil wants to rule over us. He wants to dominate us. Sin can have very strong pulls and urges. That's what the word means here. Sin lies at the door and its desire is for you. The analogy is like a lion or a cat or a bear outside of your cabin door. And you open the door, it's crouching, ready to leap, and ready to grab you. It desires you. It's hungry and wants to eat you and devour you. Well, you find that sin has very strong emotions or feelings or desires. We all have the pull of the flesh, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life to contend with. And so these are strong feelings. When somebody is in the midst of a lust, most people don't stop to say, Oh, I'm lusting a lust here. I think I'll stop it. I'm getting very lustful. No, if it's a man panting after a woman, I think it's Isaiah who uses very vivid language about Israel, where every man stands looking over his back fence like a horse and you're nain. Well, that's exactly what happens. If somebody's nain after somebody else's wife or another woman, they're not thinking, I'm lusting. No, they're being moved by their feelings and their desires. Well, this is what it's talking about. But God says something that is extremely important in what we want to focus on the whole sermon today, and that is, but you should rule over it. Now, God didn't tell him that you should rule over it unless there was a way to rule over it.

The word rule means to govern it, to control it, to be in charge, to exercise authority. We find that God reveals here that man can rule over sin. Man can conquer it.

However, in Genesis 4, there's no explanation on how to do this. Genesis, up to especially about chapter 10, very sketchy. You've got the first six chapters cover almost 2,000 years. So you're just hitting the high points, and it doesn't fill in all the details. Obviously, God revealed to him a little more than just what we have here. These are summary statements. Let me read a couple of alternate translations to this verse. It says, If you do well, will you not have honor? And if you do wrong, sin is waiting at the door, desiring to have you. But do not let it be your master. It doesn't have to master you. You don't have to be its slave.

The Good News Bible says, If you have done the right thing, you will be smiling. But because you've done evil, sin is crouching at your door. It wants to rule you, but you must overcome it. Revelation 2 and 3. What's one of the admonitions to the seven churches? He who overcomes will I give of the tree of life. He who overcomes will I make ruler. So what we find, brethren, is that we have to overcome sin. And right from the very beginning, God revealed, If you do well, you'll have honor and you'll be blessed. If you don't do well, then you're going to have problems. And the human race has had problems for the last 6,000 years. We've had wars, we've had broken marriages, we've had juvenile delinquency, we've had starvation, we've had the poor, we've had every ill that you can think of around us. Now did Cain obey God? Well, verse 8 says, Then the Lord said, well, verse 8, Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field. Cain rose up against his brother and killed him. That doesn't sound like he listened to God. He just eliminated the problem. You know, kill his brother, then he won't have to worry. Sin overpowered him. He allowed his animosity and his hatred for his brother to drive him to the point of violence. Now what was the problem?

Well, 1 John 3, verses 11 and 12 in the New Testament summarize it. Summarize it very well. 1 John 3, verses 11 and 12. This is a message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another.

Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one. Now, first of all, we begin to find part of his problem. He was influenced by Satan the devil. He was motivated by the wicked one. And he murdered his brother. Why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brothers righteous. Why do you find too often that people who do right are persecuted and made fun of, but little, by those who don't? Because you're doing right reflects on their doing wrong. You don't have to say anything, but it comes across as a condemnation.

So if God said from the very beginning, we should love one another, so that's what God told Adam and Eve from the very beginning. Then Cain did not love his brother. You don't love your brother in killing. If that's loving your brother, hate me. Otherwise, that's not showing love. His works were evil. And we see how Satan has worked from the very beginning. Cain was influenced by the devil to murder. Who is the author, then, of violence, wars, conflict, and violence? Conflict, stubbornness, self-absorption, sin. Who leads man into those? Well, Satan the devil does. So, brethren, we find the foundation here of man-sending, man's sin driving him further from God, and yet God revealing that there is a way to master it, there is a way to overcome it. Now, how do we do that? That's part of what the Days of Unleavened Bread are all about, isn't it? There's another chapter in the Bible that explains what we need to do to overcome sin and to defy the influence of Satan the devil. Brethren, what we want to do is to come to the point in our lives where we know what God tells us to do to overcome, so that we can truly get on top of Satan and his influence. There is another chapter, and I think it's an easy chapter to remember.

It's also chapter 4. So, if you can remember chapter 4 of Genesis and chapter 4, you've got it. It's the fourth chapter of the book of James. God plainly explains that man can rule over sin, but most of humanity is cut off from God today under the influence of Satan the devil, and they don't understand. So, how does God make it possible for us to overcome and to resist the devil? Well, this is the positive aspect of the Days of Unleavened Bread. How we can become righteous, staying close to God, standing firm against the devil, and overcoming. So, let's turn back to the book of James, and we're going to be in James 4, quite a bit at the time.

The book of James.

The book of James, if you were to study it, contains 54 imperatives.

You say, what's an imperative? It's grammar expression used to express a command or request.

And the verb form is an order.

Now, an imperative, then, is a command or order from God, in this case, telling us what to do. He's not asking us. He's telling us what we should be doing. In James 4, verses 7 through 10, these verses contain 10 of the 54 imperatives that you find in the book of James. Let me mention them for you. You are to submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, lament, mourn, weep, turn, and humble yourself in the sight of God.

All of these, God doesn't suggest, but these are things that God tells us that we need to be doing. And as we go through the book of James here, chapter 4, we're going to find that there are some interesting parallels between this and the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis. Let's begin, and we'll find immediately the problem that we found that Cain ran into mentioned here. Verse 1, James 4. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desire for pleasure that warn your members? So rather than what you find, at this point, there were conflicts, battles, and strife within the church.

Because James, even though he's writing to the tribes that are, verse 1 of chapter 1, to the twelve tribes that are scattered abroad, he's also writing to the church. So you find there are conflicts, battles, strife within the church just as there were in society and in the world, and James is addressing this.

Now what you find, Cain was at odds with his brother. There was a strife between them. There was a conflict between them. Cain's solution? Kill his brother. You and I can be guilty of murder as we know it by hating our brother, by not loving him as we found out from the very beginning that we should. So, brethren, why do we find that sometimes there are fights and arguments that go on within the church? You say that we don't fight and argue within the church? I say that we do. In fact, I've had to adjudicate many of these. I don't mean people coming where they beat up each other, but I've had to intervene in situations where people have almost gotten into fights, where husbands and wives were ready to shoot one another, where a husband perhaps had beaten his wife.

You find that there are all kinds of situations that arise within the church. Well, the Bible says it's because of the passions or pleasures that war in your members. There's something that's going on in our members. And notice it says that war in your members. There's a fight going on here. Let me read three or four other translations of this verse. I think these are very interesting. It says, Why do you fight and argue with each other?

Isn't it because you are full of selfish desires that fight to control your body? Now, what calls as quarrels and fights among you? Is it not that your passions are at war within you? That there's a warfare going on? Why do you all fight and quarrel among you?

They come from your desire for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. And then one final one, Why do you fight and quarrel among you? Where do these come from? They come from your selfish desires that are war in your body, don't they? So, he started to nail it. What war is going on in our bodies, brethren? Is there a warfare going on within you? Is there a struggle going on within me or within any of us? Well, in Romans 7.21-25, you might remember that Paul addressed this in the book of Romans. Romans 7.21, Paul said, I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

Now, all of us will to do good. We want to do good. We want to do what's right. We want to please God. But there is evil present. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members. Notice. Warring. So, here's where the warfare comes in. Warring against the law of my mind. And bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man, he says that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Well, I thank God through Christ, or Jesus Christ, or Lord.

So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, both the flesh and the law of sin. So, brethren, how can we be delivered from this was through Jesus Christ. It's through His sacrifice, through His forgiveness, through the fact that you and I can receive the Holy Spirit. But what we find, there is a struggle. There is a conflict going on within human beings. Now, in the world, people don't even know there's a conflict because, in many cases, they're not conflicted.

They just do it. Whatever the desires of the flesh, passions of the mind, lust of the flesh, they just follow it. And there are not that many who are trying to restrain themselves, fighting against it, and trying to war against it.

I think this helps to explain why there is sometimes strife in the Church and among members, why sometimes we don't get along as well as we should. As a family, we should be able to get along and work out our differences. And we should not be like Cain who wanted to kill his brother. Now, in verse 2 here, it says, "...you lust, you do not have, you murder and covet and cannot obtain, you fight in war, and yet you do not have, because you do not ask." Now, you can say, well, this could be, probably might be talking about more of a national thing that goes on in society, but I think it obviously also applies to us within the Church.

I want you to notice there are three levels of desires mentioned here in this verse and three responses to those. Number one, you lust and you have not.

This is the type of person who is always wanting things, desiring to have more, but he does very little to obtain it. He lusts and he doesn't have. He's not willing to work. We would say this type of person would be a lazy person, lacking motivation, lacking drive. Then it goes on to say, you murder and covet and cannot obtain. So here's somebody who desires things excessively and they're willing to lie and to cheat, to steal and to kill, to obtain what they want. And then there are those who are willing to fight and go to war. Now, we certainly see this on a grand scale in society, don't we? That this is what happened. We go to war to obtain what they want. And sometimes, even among ourselves, we go to war, we have struggles to obtain what we want. Remember what the Bible says about the prophesied clothes at the end of the age, the time that you and I are living in today in Matthew 24, verse 9. Matthew 24, verse 9 says, Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. So there's going to come a time when we will be delivered up and true Christians will be killed. And you will be hated of all nations for my namesake. And notice what it says about us. And many will be offended and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, that we live in a lawless age in society that just sort of overwhelms us if we're not careful, the love of many will grow cold. Now, brethren, that's a warning to us that our love could grow cold and we could begin to hate. Have we ever conceived of the fact that there could be those who maybe at one time were a part of us, or maybe even a part of us, who would actually turn their brothers and sisters into the authorities? Because they don't like them, or they don't like their religion, or they don't like them for whatever reason? Well, the Bible prophesies it's going to happen, and that's something down the road that we're going to see transpiring. Now, in James 4 again, verse 2, the last part of this says, You lust, you murder, you covet, you fight, and you war, and you do not have. Now, why do we not have things? Because you do not ask. That's why. You don't ask. As we found out in the sermon net that Jim gave, that we live in an age, as Christ said back again in Luke 18.8, when He comes, would He find faith on the earth? We live in an age where you find that it's probably less faith today than almost any other time. So, why would you ask God for something if you don't fully trust God? If you don't really believe that He can give it to you, or have faith that God will do it, or rely upon God? Sometimes, instead of asking God, relying upon Him, submitting to God, we take matters into our own hands, and we try to work things out. But we find that we today must walk by faith and not by sight. Not by what we see, but by faith. In verse 3, another problem many times we have, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss.

Word amiss is a peculiar word in the Greek. It means to be miserable or to be ill, improperly, or wrong, or to speak evil of, or to revile. So it's saying that we don't receive a lot of times because, if we got it, it would not be to our benefit. It would not really help us. It would be improper. Our motives, our reasons, are not correct. Notice two or three other translations. It says, even when you do pray, your prayers are not answered. God says, why? Because you pray for selfish reasons. So God knows if we're praying for the right reason, right motives. Another translation says, You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

And then, when you ask, you do not receive it because your motives are bad. You ask for things to use for your own pleasure, your own passion, selfishly. So why are our prayers sometimes not answered, brethren? Well, the key is given here because of, motives are wrong, selfishness, self-centered.

And so we need to realize that God will bless us, and He wants to bless us, but God sees the heart, He sees the mind, He sees what's going on inside of us.

Then we come to verse 4 here, chapter 4. It says, Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Now, the analogy being drawn here is a common concept that's based upon a common idea in the Old Testament. That is, that God was a husband to Israel, and that Israel, the house of Israel, or the congregation of Israel, was to be the bride of Christ. The idea that God was a husband in the nation of Israel, was the wife, explains why in the Old Testament, constantly God expresses their unfaithfulness in the terms of infidelity. God said, you go play the harlot, and He used that term many times. So He uses the term in the Old Testament of their committing physical adultery, that that was a type, that they were being unfaithful. Now, the parallel carries over here into the New Testament. This isn't addressing the Old Testament, it's addressing us today. That Christians today compose the bride of Christ, and Jesus Christ is to marry His bride. And so what you find, brethren, you and I can become spiritually in God's eyes harlots, adulterers, and adultresses. How? By being friends of this world. Notice it again. Don't you know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God?

The word enmity here means hostility. Now, we know that the carnal mind is hostile against God, or an enmity against God. So, when we become friends of the world, how do you become friends of the world?

Well, 1 John 2, 15-16 says, 2 John 2, 15-16 says, If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And so, you'll find we can become enemies of God if we follow the way of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. We're not to love the system around us. And I address that last Sabbath. Then it goes on to say we become the enemy of God. And the word enemy here means hostile, opposing, hating. It means that if we disobey God, in God's eyes, it's like breaking the marriage vows. When you get married, a husband promises to do certain things towards his wife, to love her, cherish her, to provide for her, and so on. Now, when he doesn't do that, he's not being faithful to his vows. And the same thing with the bride. When we disobey God, it's like we're not being faithful to those marriage vows. And that's why God calls it, you adulterers and adulterers. It means that all sin goes against the principle of love, because marriage is based upon love. And you're not showing love for your mate. It means that our relationship with God, the way that God looks on his relationship, or Christ looks on his relationship with the Church, just through this one analogy, is not like a king to his subject or a master to his slaves, but like the intimate relationship of a husband to his wife. And so we have to realize that God wants us to be faithful to him.

Now, with that in mind, let's go on here in verse 5. Do you not think that the Scripture says in vain that the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously? But he gives more grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Now we're coming down to the heart and core of what we want to focus on. What we've covered so far sort of gives us a background, because you find when James wrote this letter, he was writing to true Christians who were scattered around the world, and they were having problems. They were having conflicts. You have to realize this book was written more toward the end of the first century, not right after the Church began. And he was addressing the conflicts, the problems that they were having. You find today that the world is in conflict with God, the flesh fights against the Holy Spirit, and the devil opposes God. Now, notice it says, God resists the proud.

Pride was Satan's great sin. Do you know what trip Satan up? It was pride. It was his pride, his ego. And it's one of the cheap weapons that he has used against humanity ever since, and it's one of his cheap weapons and his warfare against the saints. God desires humility. Satan wants us to be proud. God wants us to have humility. You know, one of the warnings in the Bible that's given to the ministry is that we should never ordain a person who is newly converted. You know why? Well, in 1 Timothy 3.6, it says, Less being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. So what was Satan's condemnation? It was pride. He was created. He was created with beautiful music. Apparently, he was beautiful to start with. He was given responsibility over a third of the angels. He was sent to the earth. And God was going to use him and his angels, actually, to help eventually when he created man to bring us into the kingdom. But here was Lucifer, and he thought, well, why should I be down here? Michael's up there. Where's old Gabriel? And here I am down here by myself with these angels. I'm just as smart as God is. What's he doing? And so he became lifted up by his vanity, by his pride, by his intellect. One of the biggest problems, brethren, that we must fight against, and notice that God does, it says, God resists the proud. So if we're full of pride, God's going to resist you.

You resist somebody. You're not helping them. You're resisting them. So pride is a barrier between us and God.

But God, notice, gives grace to the humble. Now, how can you give grace to somebody?

God gives grace to the humble. God wants us to depend upon His grace. Well, the devil wants us to depend upon ourselves. So you see the whole world, where everybody depends upon themselves, and they think, I can do it. We have little children who pick up that attitude before they're two years old. Me can do it. And they don't want anybody else telling them what to do. And so you find this is the way human beings are. The word grace, not only does it mean forgiveness in God's mercy, but the word grace, charis, in the Greek, has a much broader application. It means to have favor, kindness, friendship, benefits, gifts, to be gracious, joyful liberally, pleasure, and thanks. So when God says that if you and I become humble, He will give us more grace.

It means that God wants to give us greater blessings, both spiritually and physically. He wants to extend favor towards us. What did God tell Cain? If you do what's well, then you will be favored. You will be exalted. You will be honored. And so God wants to give us honor, favor. He wants to benefit us.

The Bible says when Jesus Christ grew up from a lad to adulthood, He grew in favor with God and man. And so you and I want to grow in favor with God and man. God gives gifts, both spiritually and physically. He gives benefits. And these benefits come from obeying God, especially spiritually. God is our friend. And God wants to look after us, take care of us. He wants to have a deep relationship with us. But He can't do this if we're friends of the world. You can't be a friend of God and a friend of the world. If you want to look at it from this point of view, God says, you're my friend. If you're my friend, you can't be the friend of the world over here. If you're a friend of the world, God's going to say, that's your friend, you're not my friend. So what we need to realize is that if we want God to be our friend, God's going to resist the proud. But He's going to give all of these blessings and benefits. He's going to add more grace, more of His graciousness to us as a result. The only way we can be in God's kingdom is by God's mercy, God's blessings, God's forgiveness, God's help, and by God extending His benefits and blessings to us. So the key is humility, brethren. The first step for us to overcome and to stay someone who is close to God is humility. Humility is the first building block.

Humility has to do with our relationship with God, and it affects our relationship with other people. Humility isn't walking around like a hound dog, all drooped down and looking sad. We've got to be humble. And as I said, this attitude is the foundation of all of our actions. Humility implies our capacity toward God. We recognize who God is and who we are. We recognize our limitations, we recognize our weaknesses, and we recognize that without God's help, we can do nothing. Bill, I thought, gave a wonderful sermon this morning. He was describing Christ coming as God in the flesh. And Christ, as God in the flesh, said, I can do nothing of myself. And yet we human beings think that we can do things. When it comes to doing things spiritually, there's nothing we can do without God's help. It has to be God in us.

Humility is comparing ourselves to God and not to each other.

Comparing yourselves to other gives you pride. That's where pride comes in, part of it. Comparing yourself to God helps you to be humble because you always fall short of God.

Being humble doesn't mean you lack the Holy Spirit, or you lack drive, or ambition, or motivation, or enthusiasm, any of those things. It means we recognize our need for God, our soul, total, complete dependence upon God. Everything that we do must flow from this attitude and be built upon it. Humility is the key to receive more grace, more blessings, more benefits, and God's gracious favor towards us. So if we want those things, we begin by being humble. Now in verses 6 through 8, there are four steps outlined, which, brethren, if we will apply these. We can use these for the basis of overcoming Satan, overcoming ourselves, overcoming this world. It doesn't matter what's out there, that we will be able to do so because we follow what God says to do. Number one is humble yourself, or humility. We've touched on that here in verse 6. Second is submit to God. Third is resist the devil.

And fourth is draw near to God.

So we just do those four things. We've got it made. Now it's not as easy as that, though, is it? Let's notice verse 7. Therefore submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Have you ever felt like Satan was putting pressure on you? You felt that there were problems and you knew that Satan was throwing his darts at you. He throws darts at us. He throws doubt, discouragement, fear, pessimism. He's got all of these darts. When he sees a little opening, he zaps one of them in there. And we begin to have these doubts and these fears. Well, first thing it says to do here in verse 7 is submit to God. The word submit is a military term that means get into your proper rank. If you've got a sergeant and he says, okay, line up. He starts barking at us, you better get in line. You better know where you're supposed to be and where you're going to march. It means to be subject or to be placed or arranged under. It means you're under authority. What happens in the military when a soldier refuses to follow orders?

He's in deep trouble.

You don't follow orders. You can be court martial. You can be drummed out. And if you're in battle and you don't follow orders, such as running, you can be shot. They don't put up with those type of things. Disobedience is not tolerated.

You are taught to be under authority.

Brethren, is there any area of your life that you can think of or that I can think of that we're holding back from God, that we're not willing to submit totally to His authority? Is there anything that you might be able to think of that you would hold back? If there are areas that we keep back from God that we sort of reserve to ourselves and say, Well, a little bit of this won't hurt.

You will always have a battle going on. I'll guarantee you. Because that's the area you're compromising in. That's the area the darts are going to come in. That's the area you open the door to Satan the devil to come in and begin to influence you and to tell you you're okay. And you go on and on. This explains why uncommitted Christians, who are called in the Bible double-minded, cannot live with themselves or with other people. They're always going to have conflicts. They're always going to be some type of difficulty. They claim to follow God, but their independent actions show that they separate themselves from the body of Christ. If you're following God, you're going to be a part of the body. You're going to be with it. You're not going to go off and do your own thing. So the Bible says here we have to submit to God. What does that mean? It means you and I are under authority. God is our authority. This is the manual. These are the rules. We live by them. And when God says, march, we march. God says, double-step, you do double-step. And if you're told to do something, you do it without question. One of the things that happens when soldiers go through basic camp is that they learn to work together as a unit, and they are taught to obey without question. So if the person over them says, okay, you three, go around there and take that hill. You go, well, I don't want to do that. I may get killed. No, you go around there and you start taking the hill. Now, you may get killed, but you obey. You and I have a God who we know is our Father, who loves us, who sends His Son to die for us, who makes it possible to be in His kingdom. And He commands us to do things, but they're always for our good. They're always to help us develop His character and to be like Him. Never to our detriment, but always for what will benefit us. So humility being the foundation, the attitude that we have to build on, then we have to submit ourselves to God completely. When you were baptized, you made an unconditional surrender to God. You said, that's it. I don't love anybody else more than you. I will obey you and I will die for you. And God holds you to that. You entered in. It's just like getting married. You entered a marriage. You entered into a covenant. You took certain vows. And you are going to obey those. So death do you part, nor until you die. Now, secondarily here, it says, if you submit to God, resist the devil and He will flee from you. Now we have a very important key that sometimes I don't think we focus on. They didn't have any glasses, so I brought my fruit jar.

They haven't had a couple under there, but the fruit jar tastes better.

Here's a key, brethren, that we need to understand. If you want Satan to flee away from you and leave you alone, and not to bother you as much, you have to resist him. What does resist mean? It means take a stand. You've got to stand for something. You've got to stand for God.

You've got to be willing to battle against the opposition. To take a stand against the devil, and when you do, he will flee. Now, one way of doing that is by submitting to God. See, when you submit to God, you're automatically resisting the devil, and he's going the flee away from you. Ephesians 4, 27, you might remember, Paul said, neither get placed to the devil. Satan tries to get a foothold in their life. Again, it's like a battle.

It's like the military. He wants to take the next ridge. He wants to get up this ditch, next foxhole. He keeps wanting to get a foothold, get closer, get closer, and he's going to fight against you. He's going to try to get a toehold. Now, the analogy that is used here is simply this. In a battle, if you don't stand and fight the enemy, take a stand against him, you're going to be overwhelmed, and you're going to lose the battle.

You won't win the battle. You turn around and run, hide, throw your weapons down, and don't take a stand. Think about the Axis Army in the Second World War. The Allies had seen the Axis Army coming and said, uh-oh, you're going to have to come. Let's run. They got their jeeps, and they started running like rabbits through the thickets, and trying to get away from them. No, they would stand, and they would fight. Well, when it comes to Satan, you and I are in a battle with our enemy. If you don't fight your enemy and take a stand against him, he will overwhelm you.

Now, what do I mean, take a stand against him? Well, too often we give in to temptations and lust, and sometimes, you know, I know that I'm not here saying that we don't do these things. We do. We're human. We all do. But sometimes there are temptations and things that come our way that we really could say no to, but sometimes we give in to them.

And we need to do battle. The point is, you need to resist them. You need to do battle. We give in to pride and vanity. I don't know if you've ever done this before. I have give you a secret, or let you in on a secret.

I've had pride. I think all of us have. There have been times that my wife and I haven't seen eye to eye, and we might be discussing something, and I know she's right. But I don't want to admit it. You know, and after a while, and you have finally dawned on me, what's wrong with you?

If you were right, you'd want her to say, well, you're right. She's right. What's so wrong in saying, you're right? And going on. Problem is, she's right more often than I am when it comes to disagreements like that. So we let our pride and our vanity get in the way. First of all, we've got to recognize the enemy.

We've got to oppose him. The Bible says if you resist him, if you take a stand against him, in other words, if you fight him, if you fight his way, you fight him by fighting his way. What he wants you to do? You've got to do so in order to win the battle. You can't compromise. Compromise and appeasement will not work. Cal Thomas, last week, wrote an excellent editorial. I don't know how many of you get the Chattanooga Free Press, but he wrote an excellent editorial.

You can look it up on the Drudge Report if you have access to some of those things. He was talking about appeasement. The idea in Europe, he was addressing Europe specifically, but it's the same idea we have in this country. All you've got to do is be nice to bad guys, and they'll be nice to you. His bottom line was, there is evil in this world. If you don't stand up to it, then you become a slave to it.

I think he hit it right on. The same thing is true when it comes to Satan. If we compromise and we appease, it won't work. We will be overwhelmed. The main way to resist the devil is to submit to God. If we make a conscience effort to submit to God in all areas of our lives, our marriages, how we treat each other, our prayer, our Bible study, things that we know we need to do, submission is an act of the will. It's saying what Christ said, not my will, but your will be done. Christ submitted Himself to His Father. Now notice verse 8. James 4.8, Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

How do we do this? How do you draw near to God? You don't draw near to Him and stay away from Him. You've got to be close to Him. We do this through prayer. We do this through Bible study. As we know, prayer establishes our relationship with God. Bible study is God talking to us. You and I have got to come before God in desperate, believing prayer, telling Him everything that's in our heart. And not just sort of sleepy prayers. We need to have a relationship with God. As we draw near to God, as we seek God, as we reach out, God draws near to us. That's what it says. You draw near to God, He will draw near to you. He will draw near to you. So if you want to be close to God, you draw near to Him. You pray and you study. Now, another way we draw near to God is by confessing our sins and asking God to cleanse us. That's what the last part of the verse says. It says, Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Hands speak of action. This is what we use to do things with. Hands speak of action. Heart represents our motives and desires. We clean our hands. You can take soap and water and clean your hands. But you've got to purify your heart through confessing your sins to God, forsaking sins both outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly, we can appear righteous. Outwardly, we can appear like we're doing what's right. The Pharisees were good at this. But what did Christ say about what went on inside of them? They were like white-washing sepulchre full of dead man's bones and rotten flesh. Their inwards, their motives, their attitude, their approach was wrong. So we've got to make sure that we clean up the inside as well as the outside of the platter.

As when we sin, we need to confess our evil acts.

People who are double-minded have mixed motives, mixed approaches and desires. It is significant, I think, when it says, purify your hearts. The word purify means to make chase. To make chase. This parallels the idea back in verse 4 of spiritual adultery. If a person finds himself being a friend of the world and committing spiritual adultery, then we need to become chase in our approach to God. Not be a friend of the world, but of God.

Again, clans and purify different what they affect. One, the hands.

Actions can be observed, what people do, how they serve, their relationship with other people. The latter addresses internal conflicts that we have, especially those who are double-minded and might have improper motives.

How do you draw near to God?

Neerness is likeness.

Neerness is likeness. The more we are like God, the nearer we are to Him.

The more you are like Him. I can sit in my living room, have my dog sitting on my lap. We've got two puppies right now. I can have a puppy on my lap. Norma can have a puppy on her lap.

And, you know, we may be five feet away from each other, but a puppy is sitting right there in our lap. Now, she may be closer to me than my wife is, but I'm closer to my wife.

Why? That's a dog!

My wife is my flesh. We're one. We have things in common. We're like each other, and we like each other, both ways. And the same thing is true of God. The more we become like God, we see things from His perspective. We view things from His eyes. We understand how He looks at life, how He wants us to live. Then we draw near to Him. You can't draw near to Him unless you are near to Him. You've got to spend time with Him, again, through prayer and Bible study. And so, what we've got to do is to get sin out of our lives, cleanse our hands and our motives. We draw near to God when we deal with sin in our life, and that creates a barrier between us and God. When that barrier is removed, then we can be closer to Him. You ever notice in the marriage when you and your wife are having trouble? What's the problem? Well, one thing, a lot of times you stop talking, don't you? And there's a distance there, isn't there? You don't know what's going on, but there's a cold shoulder. I'm talking about us men. The women always know what's going on, but... The men wonder what's going on. And, you know, things aren't going right! And so, after a while, maybe you work up the courage to ask, you know, what did I do wrong? Or, you know, what's going on? And, you know, you sit down and you begin to discuss it. Well, generally, when you and your wife are not close to each other, you're violating the principle of the marriage, aren't you? Of the relationship in some way. And you haven't developed that closeness that you should have. Or the closeness is no longer there, and you've got to get it back. Well, the same thing is true of us. If we're not as close to God as we should be, then we need to get it back. You get it back by repenting of your sins, what's put the barrier there. And then you get it back by making sure you spend time on your knees with God. You study His Word so He can talk to you. And as you study and you pray, not only...it's not just reading these words. I'll guarantee you, you can read these words, but if you're close to God, these words take on different meaning. They take on additional meaning, I should say. Deeper meaning. Spiritual perceptions. And you grow in grace and in knowledge.

See, God is like a mate in marriage. He will not share us with anybody else. We're His. And He's not going to share us with anybody else. We have to have complete faithfulness and submission.

In marriage, you can't have two wives, because you're not going to be faithful. To just one, you're going to have divided affections.

The double-minded Christian just simply cannot be close to God. We can't be double-minded. So verse 9 shows, when we confess, when we repent, what do we do? We lament. We mourn. We weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. You find that you're falling short and you've done things wrong. That's not the time to be laughing. That's the time to be mourning, lamenting, repenting, weeping, crying out to God, turning. And then again, verse 10, "...humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." That's what the God of the Old Testament said to Cain. You'll be exalted. You'll be lifted up. So rather than what we need to realize, humility again has to do with our relationship with God, our submission. And what we have to realize, remember this, that the way up is down.

If you want God to lift you up, to exalt you, then you've got to come down. So the way up is down. Now people think just the opposite of them. I'm going to get ahead. I'm going to go up the ladder. Well, you know, I've got to get up there and fight for it. Now God is the one who lifts us up.

There is a marked advantage to humility. Eventually it brings honor. Eventually it brings honor. So, brethren, if we obey God's instructions here, then God will draw near, cleanse us, forgive us, and guess what? The wars will cease. The conflicts will end. The battles won't rage. Yeah, I mean, we'll still have things we have to work on. But not to the degree, as he described them here in the first few verses, that many of these people were experiencing.

So why was Cain not able to rule over sin when God said he could? Why couldn't he overcome it? He did not resist the devil.

The New Testament reveals that he was of the wicked one. He was not one humble. He wanted God's grace, but he was not willing to obey God. His works were evil. He did not submit to God and say, yes, Lord. He did not take the steps to draw near unto God. Cain set the pattern that humanity has followed ever since. The way of Cain has classified in the Bible. We are the children of God, and we are to follow the way. Christ said, I am the way. And all through the Bible it talks about the way of God. We don't follow the way of Cain or the way of the devil. We follow the way of God. So, brethren, remember this, that during the next year, if we want to make progress, if we want to grow spiritually, there are many positive things that we can do. Humility, we need to become humble. We need to resist the devil. We need to submit to God to his authority. And we need to draw near unto God. These four factors are the key to spiritual success and, ultimately, entry into the kingdom of God.