Cedar Rapids Conference: 1999
Table of Contents
James 1:1-10
Address—H. Short
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Of becoming us thou art and died.
Full Image Bear 259 if someone would start that please.
Lord Jesus.
Well, I mentioned that I would like to take up the book of James, which I still would like to do.
If we have.
Time here to finish. It'll be fine. If we don't, we'll be fine too, because there's no part of God's Word that anyone has ever fully ministered.
The reason the book of James is on my heart is because of the peculiar place that holds in the New Testament.
And some of it's the the background of why it was written, to whom it was written, that it's especially suited to us, and particularly, I suppose, as being gathered to the Lord's name as we believe and trust that we are.
But the book of James is unusual, the only book in the New Testament.
Written to the 12 tribes. To the 12 tribes. The Apostle Peter writes to a remnant of believers in the amongst that nation, and the Apostle Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews right to remnant in that nation. But only James writes to the entire 12 tribes.
Well, even in a certain way.
His is limited if we will later consider an expression he uses, but Paul does refer when he speaks to Agrippa that before he has conversion he along with the 12 tribes of Israel.
They fervently served God or worship God as they understood God to be.
That doesn't mean they were saved, nor does it mean that God accepted their worship or their service, for he didn't.
And but they had rejected the Lord Jesus.
But they were still considered the 12 tribes of Israel, and in our epistle I think it's especially interest to us because.
It is the first utterances from, you might say, Christianity. You can hardly say that, because it doesn't rise to Christian heights in its teachings. It leaves us right here on earth, and bears more upon our conscience than it does enlightening our minds.
As to what a Christian is. But it is the first utterance of Christianity. And the other thing remarkable about it to me is to whom it gives those utterances. It turns to the 12 tribes those who.
Had an outward relationship with Jehovah and crucified their Messiah. Rejected Christ, sent him back.
To glory without a Kingdom. And yet James still owns them as this 12 tribes, and he turns to them and writes well as we go through this epistle we were we were desired grace from God. To take these things that James writes and apply them to our hearts in similar in the similar circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Another feature about this epistle is that while it's the first utterance from Christianity, it's the last utterance to Israel as a nation, a last word to that nation, written by James Well.
We belong it are no doubt at the close. I don't like to say we're on the threshold of the Lord's coming. I don't know.
I know our God is a long-suffering God, and I know when I was saved at 23 years of age when I was about 24.
00:05:10
My former Methodist Sunday School teacher came to the general meetings in Des Moines and and I told her we're at the end and she thought that the world could get worse. I said it can't get any worse. That was 43 years ago or so 40.
Two years ago, I honestly, at that age, did not ever, ever, ever dream I would be the age I am tonight. And I'm not going to say that the youngest one here tonight cannot reach the age of 65. I don't know. All I look at it as. It's an expression of the long-suffering patience of Christ and God to this world.
And as he is waiting in long-suffering, beloved, we must wait with him in that the burden of the book of James. It's to encourage faith, not to get discouraged by the circumstances that they found themselves in. And what were those circumstances? They were in the circumstances of a people, an outward relationship with God, suffering dreadfully under the hand of God.
For their disobedience, not enjoying the privileges that they should have been able to enjoy as God's earthly people, but rather scattered by God in his government. And yet James turns to them and said, I want to encourage your heart now anyone who has any idea at all of what the Church of God is and should be even here on earth.
Knows that we are not what we should be, and we are not enjoying the privileges that we should enjoy as the Church of God. Oh beloved, oftentimes I think we're the Church of God in order. I wouldn't be standing here this evening in a hall half empty. I wouldn't be standing here at all those far more gifted.
And then myself would be here, and this would just be one hall filled of many, many, many halls in the city of Cedar Rapids. But the church is not what it should be. It is a scattered church.
Well, with those remarks, I would like to go to the book now and just try to draw some.
Moral lessons from it for ourselves and.
Perhaps a little along the doctrinal side, but mostly seeking to strengthen our faith, to go on in a day when everything is marshalled against us, trying to keep us, and it's done a pretty good job trying to keep us to go on from going on in the path of faith. Well, the first thing I want to say is James. That's the first word in this epistle.
And he identifies himself, though in truth, as far as I know, none of us today really know which James this was. I know the early brethren that we are identified with, as gathered to the Lord's name, had varying judgments as to who this James was. I remember reading some of Mr. Kelly's ministry, and he is quite he was quite sure that it was actually the Lord's brother.
I am inclined to think it was an apostle, and the apostle James who was the son of Alphaeus, and I understand that he could have been the James who was also called the Last. But what I would like to draw from him naming himself, without our knowing for certain which James it was. None of them feel that it was the James brother of John beheaded early in the Acts.
I don't know if it could have been him or not, but what I would like to suggest to our hearts is first let us identify ourselves with the testimony of God.
And the other that it would make nothing of ourselves if this is James the last. I just love that expression. It's the same spirit that John Baptist had, he said He must increase, I must decrease.
00:10:10
That's so contrary to our hearts. It's so contrary to the world that we live in. I enjoy thinking, you know, in this whole world system and especially this North American continent that we live in, there are no universities.
That are going to teach us and have courses to teach us how to become nothing. No, they all advertise you. Come here.
Take our schooling and you can be successful. Well beloved, you and I will only be successful as we in truth become nothing. He must increase so James while he identifies himself.
He identifies himself not as an apostle.
Even if he is the apostle, it's suited to the epistle because the 12 apostles had no Apostolic authority in the 12 tribes.
They were not owned by the 12 tribes as apostles, and they themselves speak of themselves.
Being apostles, especially Peter.
And.
John to the circumcision. But they had no Apostolic authority and he doesn't speak of himself in an official capacity. Well, I would like to draw from this, this thing. We're in days of ruin. And you know, there would have been had the church gone on.
As we should have gone on, there would have been those who God could have still identified as pastors. There would have been those who we would know they were teachers. There would still be those who were.
Could have been identified. I don't know if this would be a right thought because the apostles did ordain the elders, but at least there would have been men of that character known by the assembly.
But here he just presents himself as a servant. Nothing official here. Now, beloved, do we want to go on in the path of faith? You would be surprised how encouraging it is, how strengthening it is to your faith, if in your heart.
You're content to be a servant.
I mean, in truth. Oh, none of us like it. Oh no, we don't like that. We don't mind opening the door, sweeping the floor if someone will say thanks and see you doing it.
But just do it unknown unsafe, but to do it just for the glory of Christ.
We don't. We don't find ourselves so ready to accept that role as a servant. But I tell you, if we can imbibe that spirit in our heart.
What are people going to do? You feel slighted? Well, of course I'm slighted. I'm just a servant. I didn't expect to sit next to the king. I didn't expect to get invited to the president's banquet. I'm just the servant. I'll clean up after they're done and after they made their message.
Well, I would like to suggest below that if we can imbibe the Spirit, the true spirit of a servant, that all I'm here for is to serve, serve my brethren, serve the Lord, I will give this this thing. We can become servants to the Church, but we don't want to become servants of the Church. We want to be servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is.
We don't want to get our directions, our orderings, from anyone. We want to be a servant of our Lord, get our directions from him, but serve and be happy in that capacity.
Oh, you know, it's so contrary to us. We're always wanting to get ahead and ahead of the servant. He's not ahead of anyone.
There he is down there, just serving. But oh, you know, it would save you a lot of offenses in your life. You get offended sometimes, Trace it back and see if it isn't because you wanted some recognition that you didn't get. Well, James says I'm just a servant. Then he says this. I'm a servant of God. I'm a servant of God. That's the most general name there is for God.
00:15:27
God.
Is the God of everybody.
He is God of your neighbor. He is God of everyone. And Paul and James says I am a servant of God. And so our servitude may take the form of serving our neighbors or our fellow man, but we are servants of God. But then he adds this expression and of the Lord Jesus.
Christ. Do you think that took courage? You know you can talk to most anyone about God, but James was writing to the 12 tribes and he knew those people had hung the Lord Jesus Christ on a cross and said we will not have this man to reign over us while at the same time they were professing to be servants of God. That's what Paul meant when he said.
The 12 tribes serving God, I think Mr. Darby translates it incessantly. That is, they were really serving God as they knew him. But James says make no mistakes about it, beloved, if you're going to be a servant of God, you must be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the very first thing the Apostle Paul learned when he got saved.
He thought he was serving God and the Lord smote him down, he said. Who are you, Lord?
And he said, What? I am God. No, I am Jesus.
Well, you know, there's something about being the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ because there is a reproach connected with his blessed name that is very, very real. And James says I belong.
Here that he opens the door and says, I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, he goes on and he says to the 12 tribes, and then he adds this expression which are scattered abroad. Now I take it from the apostles word there to Agrippa that they were looked at as 12 tribes, and they still were some of those 12 tribes at Jerusalem. And I suppose in one way those 12 tribes looked at as 12 tribes.
Wouldn't be looked at as scattered as still being in the land. But at any rate these are called scattered abroad. And whether in the land or out of the land, even if they were in the land, it was not in it as their possession. They were there as servants to the Roman government. And so here I point out again that here he's writing to a people who are suffering.
Under the direct government of God they were scattered abroad. Now did I mention smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. That's mighty is connected with the Lord Jesus being refused his rightful place as king in Israel. That smiting is not connected with atonement, though it happened at the same time.
It's connected with him being rejected. He was smitten, and the Israelites said we did esteem him smitten and stricken of God.
But in the sense of smiting, that is, cutting him off from having his righteous king, that was not atonement. And consequently the result of that smiting was the Lord says, smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. And it was so. Now I want to tell you this, friends, and especially you who are younger, you smite the Lord Jesus. I'm speaking morally now in your life.
And you're going to be scattered. You're going to lose the privileges, the blessed privileges, that Christ has for you, If you will crown him rather than smite him, smite the shepherd. If you say the shepherd can't be the king, then the sheep consequently, were scattered, and here they are scattered abroad, So you might say, well, it's all over for them. No, no, the grace of God, you and I.
00:20:24
You know, we look back on our lives and it just seems like one failure after another failure after another failure. And I I could be easily discouraged if I reflect on my life. But there is something else I have to reflect on, and that's the grace of God. And here we see this first utterance from Christianity is an utterance of of a great grace to a nation scattered abroad.
Under the government of God crucifying their Christ, their Lord, their King, and yet God sending this letter to this people. And so he says to them what greetings that touched my heart.
When I read that word greetings.
Considering what we've just said, what these people had done to the Lord Jesus.
You would have thought James would have said, I'm done with them, I'm done with them. They're the last people I would want to write anything to about the Lord. No, he says. Greetings.
Once again, the Spirit of God hovering, as it were, over the deep where the waters of God's judgment had come. I'm referring to those the second verse there in Genesis 1, hovering over that nation as it were, in hopes that there would be a response to this epistle greetings.
Then, he said, my brethren counted all joy.
When you fall into divers, temptations or trials.
Oh, well, now here's something that we could make us all happy, couldn't it? Tonight a trial comes into our life and we would be the happiest people. Would we? Would we really? When I get up in the morning and tire, my car is flat, I say, oh, praise the Lord for this trial. No.
Why? Why my brethren counted all joy when you fall into divers, trials or temptations? Why? It's because, beloved, the character of these trials are different from those down in what is it? Verse 12 or so. Those trials come from our hearts, but this trial comes from God. What joy, what peace it brings into the life of a believer who has no one or nothing.
Between him and God isn't blaming his wife, isn't blaming his her husband in blaming the children.
No, you can't. You can surely relate to this. The kids, they shouldn't have been riding the bike that fast and they scratch your car.
Yes, they did it. But did the Lord have anything in that? Was he involved in it? Oh, how poorly we respond.
But beloved, if we don't respond to the book of James and reality into our lives, we may as well close the epistles of Paul. This is the foundation. This is the ground, you might say, that was dug up by James to put the seed of Paul into, you know, I believe it was the Saint James. That's why I think it was James the apostle who had Jerusalem.
Said brethren. I give my advice and after their counsel with Paul hearing what God was doing among the Gentiles, it was James who brought it together and said we're going to set Paul at liberty. We're not going to have him labor under the ******* of law keeping. We're going to set him free to labor in his sphere that God has appointed him. Well, I like to think of that book.
As that.
Like this, Ephesians, beloved, if we can get in our lives, if we can't accept a stubbed toe, you know, if. If you can't stub your toe without getting angry.
00:25:07
You think you're going to understand Ephesians or Colossians. You're not going to God's Word is put together beautifully, wonderfully well. And that is, it's sown in good ground or it doesn't bear fruit.
Oh, we might study. You know, we could spend some time in, you know, I might get out in my room, which is my favorite place to be. I might just stay there and be enjoying the scriptures and that this didn't happen. This did happen, but it didn't happen in this consequences. And I hear my wife say, honey, something's wrong and you come upstairs and nothing's wrong.
Yes, something's wrong. There's water running all over the floor. Well, do you forget?
The enjoyment of what you enjoyed alone there? Or do you get angry because those newfangled connections that you didn't put on right came apart and there's water all over the floor? No, these are just.
Experiences. These are just trials. Little trials. Insignificant trials to cultivate truth.
In our heart, so that when things come into our lives, we can accept them from the Lord, and we can be joyful when trials come, You know. I don't know much about them, but I know.
By God's grace, the believer can joy in tribulations for trials. These kind. Then he says, knowing that the trying of your faith.
Coming to meeting the other night, we came and.
Just about thinking about trying to find a different way of being, but sure enough, there was a train and we wait, and I was so happy to get to wait on that train, no.
Was that train going to teach me patience? Did I really rejoice that I had to wait on the train? Well, I'll tell you tonight we were coming to meeting and I just saw the car starting up down the road. The train had passed and that's when I was happy. I wasn't happy when the train was sitting still right in front of me and I didn't know which way to go to get around it. I was happy that the train was going down. You see how contrary our natural hearts are.
To trial. And these aren't even.
They're not worthy to be considered trials, but what I'm trying to bring before our heart is if you're letting your life be upset by burned beans or fallen cakes or.
Footprints on the carpet or.
Difficulties with the machine at work.
You're not going to advance.
Into Paul's ministry and the enjoyment of heavenly things. So we're trying to lay.
It is hardly a Christian foundation, but it is we're hardly laying the Christian foundation. But these things, beloved we have to lay hold upon. Then it says but let patience or endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and wanting nothing you know, just to learn that the word your patience it could be transgression to.
My brethren.
You know, it took me a while to say those two words, my gathering. And perhaps sometimes in your life you find yourself speaking like I did in those early days about the Brethren, as if I were over here and the Brethren was there.
No, beloved, learn to identify with the Saints of God, even if we are under the government of God, even if we are in a weakened condition. Let's say you're my presence, you're my brother. I was walking, meet this man walking Dwight. We saw Kevin Cyberlin and and Brian Nicholas putting a sign up on the school that Kevin had made for the school. And I said there are a couple of brothers in the Lord and he said where do they go? They go to your meeting. I said yeah.
He said.
Are they your brethren or am I your brethren? Through I said. Dwight, you're my brother. Well, he's a limpid. I'm glad I I he's not my Lutheran brother, but he's my brother.
00:30:11
Gravin learned to identify ourselves with one another. It's not a it's not a pretty lot, but do you really think you add a lot to our beauty?
And do you really think?
By that I'm saying, do you really think we are like Saul, head and shoulders above our grabbing? And we have to, when it speaks about condescending to men of low estates, He's not saying, I know you're a little bit higher than your brethren, but get down there and walk with them. You know, we're not higher than anybody. We're just all zeros. But James says, my brethren, well, then he goes on and he speaks about.
Perfection in a day.
When everything has been lost outwardly, God's government upon them, failure going on in quite a bad way. And he says he talks about perfection and notice how it's going to be achieved. It's going to be achieved by submission to trial.
I thought I just was reading about Gideon and he said, you know, wasn't Gideon. I'm not sure if it's Gideon or earlier. I think it was Gideon he's called.
The mighty man valor, and I'm with you, the Lord said. He said, if you're with us, how come we're having all these troubles? Well, beloved, it's because the Lord is with us that we have trials. It's because the Lord is with us. Your brother wrote to me. He said, you know, collectively we can expect difficulties and trials because he believed that where we exist here as a company tonight because of this working of the Spirit of God.
Well, if that's true, if we wouldn't exist tonight as a company, as an assembly.
Except because of the Spirit of God. But because the Spirit of God has formed us as a gathering, we can expect Him to work with us. As a gathering, you can expect trials not only in your own life, but in the assembly. What is it all about? It's about our perfecting. He's wanting to form Christ in our lives.
Could you desire anything more than that? By all it goes on. And he says, if any of you lack wisdom, now here are the question of wisdom comes up. I'm not sure why, but I do know never if more wisdom needed than in a day when everything is in confusion. You look around, you say, oh, this brother thinks that. My brother thinks that. And and those people over there, they do it this way. And these people over here, they do it that way.
But what should I do? What should I do?
I say just pray to God. Don't ask me for wisdom. Go to the Lord. Accustom yourself in your own personal life. You know, sometimes we live our lives as though the Lord were dead. Or at least the Lord had no personal interest in you. He does have a personal interest in you. His ears are open to your cry. You know our first tendency is our last brother. So and so about.
You know, one thing I like about getting older? There's fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer older, Brandon for me to turn to and ask for help. The sad thing about it is that some of the younger ones think I'm an older brother that knows something, and I don't know anything, but I know the one who knows everything. I know the one that if you go to him in simple childlike trust and faith, he will give you wisdom for the difficulty.
You're experiencing.
In your life, you know another thing that encourages me Now I've got, I've gone on a few years and those early years I used to pray for wisdom and I would go ahead and act and I wasn't just sure if I was doing right or wrong. But often times in looking back at the results of those acts and as I've grown older and become just a little bit more acquainted with the word of God.
I can see many times in my life that the Lord led me, though I was ignorant. I had asked for wisdom. He led me according to His wisdom without me really understanding what that wisdom was. But what I'm saying is that maybe you prayed about something and you don't know just exactly if what you did about it was right. Don't worry about it too much, don't afflict yourself. Another thing I would say to you though.
00:35:31
Seek the word of God for your decisions. A lot of time it hurts my heart. The souls will say we believe the Lord opened the door for us to do this, and I think well from the little I know about scripture, it doesn't look to me like it's a door the Lord opened at all. It looks to me like you've been deceived, but I don't usually say anything to people. But don't go by feelings.
Try to be guided by the principles of God's holy Word. But sometimes we do wonder what we should do. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Do you ever think you lack wisdom? Recently I was considering Simon the Pharisee who had the Lord into his home for dinner. And then this woman, this sinful woman, came in and washed the Lord. Speak.
With her tears.
A sinful woman.
A holy Savior. And there was Simon.
The Pharisee.
And he formed his judgment. He was so confident in his judgment he looked at the Lord and said, if this man were a prophet, he had known that this woman is a sinful woman.
He formed his judgment in his own self wisdom, in his own self-confidence and our Lord. And just like him, there were three things that Simon didn't know anything about. He didn't know anything about the heart, the repentant heart of that woman. He didn't know anything about the heart of Christ, and he didn't know anything about his phone. Hard, hard. But sometimes in our ignorance we can be so confident.
That we don't think we have any need of wisdom. How many times I thought, you know, I read something much that condemned me and then some writing of Mr. Darby, he said if you answer a brother's question without praying about it, you most likely will answer wrong. Well, I've many times have. I answered questions without praying about it.
Oh beloved, it's because we have confidence.
In ourselves, confidence in our knowledge well, if we lack wisdom.
Let us ask of him verse 6.
Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
Why do we waver, beloved? Why do we waver? Well, it's because of a lack of confidence in the Lord. I can think of all kinds of reasons why the Lord won't tell me the right answer. And they relate to my life. They may relate to my failures. They may relate to 10,000 things. I know about myself that the Lord surely wouldn't answer. But the scripture says.
Ask in faith. You know my failures.
Has not affected or changed the heart of God here, the restless people, these 12 tribes suffering under God's government. And James said, do you want wisdom? Turn back to the Lord? Ask in faith, Am I say about faith? I think it's mentioned some 15 times in this book and probably about 13 times. It's connected with work.
But faith is on the heart of this apostle. He's telling them, you know you're scattered because you didn't have faith, but I want to encourage you to a real faith. They thought they had faith in Jehovah. They didn't even know him, and he's trying to encourage them to a real faith. It's a wonderful thing, you know, if the Lord becomes real in our lives.
Do you know what it would do?
To change your life. Did you have a worry today?
00:40:00
Some come into your life today that you got started getting concerned about.
Wonder what we're going to do about this?
It's wonderful. Bring God into it. Do you ever wonder if the Lord, if there's something too big for the Lord? No. You know there's nothing too big for the Lord. Bring the Lord into these things and they diminish. They they become as grasshoppers instead of us. We never were as big as a grasshopper. Let's bring our trials to the Lord.
This cast I burns upon the Lord. We had that in Sunday school and the brother pointed out for he careth not only for you, but he care about you. He careth about you. And the very went on to say you might go to the hospital and the nurses and the doctors will care for you. They will care for you. But you introduce love and they care about you. They have a real interest if I this guy going to live.
For more than just am I going to get my money out of it. But because they love you, well, the Lord cares about us. He cares about us. And so we can cast our cares on him. He's interested. And if we ask in faith, he that Wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven by with the wind and talked, You know, the sea depicts the nations, the troubled seas and they they depict that.
Unstable condition of the nations. Where do you see stability in our country?
Everything they talk about is in trouble, and it's been in trouble a long time. You don't want to put too much blame on one man. The station has been in trouble a long time. From its conception, it's never been out of trouble, and it won't be out of trouble. But that isn't the way. The Lord wants you to go through life uncertain without wisdom. Wisdom to my.
A small mind is simply the ability to take the light of God and apply it to my life in a way that will preserve my life for the glory of Christ. You know, we can know it a lot of.
Answers from God's Word We I know a lot of truth and light from God's word, but if we don't know how to apply that scripture to our lives to bring us into joy, Amen of Christ.
And to overcome the circumstances and confusion of this world that we live in, we don't know the truth as we ought to know it, and so we can come to the Lord. We can have confidence in the Lord. And let not verse seven, let not that man who is wavering about, who doesn't have confidence in the Lord.
Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. You know your thoughts. I think about this today.
My thought about the Lord are quite important. What I think about the Lord, who I think he is, they're very important, but they don't change who He is and they don't change what He is.
Now if I have wrong thoughts about the Lord.
It's going to make quite a difference in my life. The Lord may let me feel those wrong thoughts and the consequences of those wrong thoughts. I thought of that steward, you know, he said.
He took that talent he had, he went over, and he dug a hole and he buried it. When the Lord came to receive his own, the prophet that should have been gained by using that talent for his master, he said. I knew, Oh, he was confident in his knowledge of the Lord, He said. I knew that thou art an austere man. Did that make his Lord an austere man? No.
No, it didn't. But it made his Lord change.
His response to this man's dealings with that talent he lost because of his false thoughts of the Lord, oh beloved Saints. The Lord the Lord Jesus Christ, is not an austere master. We've got to eradicate that thought of him from our hearts or it's going to adversely affect our lives.
00:45:11
And if it affects my life adversely, it's going to affect the lives of those with whom I associate also my brethren in the assembly or my family or whatever else, you know, none of us portray.
A very good image of Christ. We've been created in his image, but we don't portray. But each one of us, I believe does portray a feature of Christ perhaps.
A More prominently than anyone else here tonight does.
And that's why it's important for us to listen to one another. You know the Lord, in a way. I don't know him. I need your imprint of the Lord. I need that help that that may be in my life too. And so, you know, I I've kind of made a practice of people that I don't especially like better than you. See where my heart is that I might not like because they're not like me.
And I can honestly say, if they were more likely, I'd like them left. But they grate me. I try to listen to those brethren because I know they have had an imprint of the Lord that I don't have, and I need it. So let us, instead of being graded by our bread and troubled by our brethren, let's consider the possibility that the Lord brought that brother, that sister, into this assembly.
For my sake that I might be matured and develop in that feature that they have that I don't have and beloved.
None of us, none of us, are making a very, very good display of being like Christ. We need one another.
Well, here we come. I you know, some of you are orderly and some of you aren't so orderly and they're a great one another Well, blend the two things. Learn to be able to hang a little loose and learn to not hang so loose.
Orders of God. Well, we mustn't let order stop something that the Lord wants to do. By that I mean it's orderly for the Son to come up and east and go down in the West. But if something needs to be done, think of this. It is something Elijah said. Stand still, son. He said it's time for you to stop your orderly course and the Lord.
Heard that because it was God's mind that something disorders. They tell me that.
Those who stay, the astronauts, the math, those scientists have found somehow, scientifically that the sun is missing today. You know, it's still twice and went backward once and stood still once. And we've lost the day and it's orderly. It's so orderly. But they tell me that scientists know something. They don't believe God's word but or a piece of iron falls into the water. It's orderly that it goes to the bottom.
But Elijah can say come on up, and it has to come up out of it. The order of gravity, the order of nature had to be reversed. Well, generally we want to be orderly, but sometimes we have to allow the house to be a mess because the kids won't feel at home if it's not so anyway, all of these things are real to us in our lives and.
Let verse nine, let the brother of low degree rejoice and that he has exalted. You know I do that I kind of walking through your Iowa City and I see those young kids and at the hospital to those students. And when when the other day I saw this young lady, she came in, although she is brisk and she is a walk and I said I'm going to keep up with her, I did.
That by the time I caught her, I was panting a lot more than she was.
You know well.
You're in a world.
That's representative of youth and vim and vigor and prosperity. But here it says let the brother of low degree, that's what we are braved. You know I in the early days and I I think even up through the generation that brought bothered me in the assembly.
00:50:24
Our brethren were sought after by the camp for ministry.
I haven't had anyone knocking on my door asking if I'd write articles for Bible Institute of Los Angeles. We're we're nothing. We're men and women of low degree. But what does it say? Let us rejoice. And that he is exalted, beloved, whatever we are in nature's realm. You, like, take a whole bunch of us out of this world.
And it wouldn't stumble much.
You wouldn't wonder. Might have to find someone off the street to replace you. But if it wouldn't stop the company from its progress. Now I kind of used to think from time to time a lot was on my shoulders where I worked, but when I left, it kept on going, still in existence. They don't even know who I am or who I was. But beloved, we have been exalted.
Thy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We're children of God and we can rejoice in that. It doesn't matter what we are in this world. We shouldn't even want to be anything in this world. We are children of God so let him. And here I think the thought particularly is the poor man and and I know a little bit about that and I enjoy that too. I enjoy walking around and.
One time on a trip we stopped at. I don't know why we did this, but we did. We stopped and pulled my old car up next to Mercedes and Cadillacs and it was a really wealthy little.
Tourist town and I could see my rings and cars and board faces that I didn't vlog here, but I was happy. Do you love it? I couldn't have. I couldn't take it. My life savings. They had probably more in their billfolds than I would have been able to have all my life savings, but.
They're not. They weren't radiating joy. They weren't happy. Oh beloved, we know Christ as our Savior. Let us rejoice and exalt. Even though we are low degree. Let us rejoice in the heat is exalted these do you enjoy what Christ has done for you and grace that he has made you a child of God? Oh beloved, then it says but the rich.
Let him rejoice, that's the thought, And that he is made low, because as the flower of grass he shall pass away.
Here the thought is here is a a Mr. Vanderbilt, and he gets saved, and he rejoices that he has found true riches. And for the first time in his life, he realizes he's been pursuing the wind.
He's been pursuing that. The tapes wings and flies away. That leaves you in the grave. I enjoy what a brother farmer, brother said you went to the bank, the banker said. There's a we'll, we'll, we'll call him Brother Jones. That wasn't his name and his neighbor, Mr. Smith. And Mr. Smith was buying up farms after farms in his area. He says the bank is saying, Mr. Jones bother you that Mr. Smith buying up all that land around you. He said no.
We're all going to end up with the same size slot anyway.
Wow, beloved that you might get a little couple of Gray side foot. You're not going to get anything to the grave here in this world. And a rich man who finds Christ knows that he knows his riches aren't connected with this life. And so he can rejoice that he's been set free from the pursuit of the wind now, tonight.
You've been set free from that pursuit. It doesn't have to be money. It can be anything. Mike, Mike, oh, my. Wouldn't ever have been particularly money.
00:55:00
But there are other things I would have liked to been. I would like to be in a famous athlete.
If I don't watch myself, my mind still.
An old man can't run under the Iceland long wind it.
I still like to be a great athlete if I don't judge myself so our pursuit can be.
The wind, beloved and they are the wind. If our pursuit is not Christ, well these are just will go on from diverse. But in these are just things beloved, that we've got to have in our lives in a real way in order for that good seed of the Apostle Paul, those Christian high truths that the Apostle Paul was used of God to bring out in order for those to become a living reality.
Because they dig the garden for the seed to fall into. Let's pray Lord Jesus, help us all. We do fail, and we know it and not like those know it, but we know it. And we would go on. We would pursue thee by faith, We would lay hold of thee by faith. We would seek Lord Jesus to display Thee.
The God of all grace and this troubled world. Oh Lord, help us to reflect thee.
To reach out to the needy, help us to help one another in the assembly in this pathway that sometimes grows so weary and so confusing. Lord, help us we pray, and by precious name and.
James 1:10-2:3
Address—H. Short
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#12 in the back of the book what though the accuser or bills that I have done?
I know them well. And thousands more Jehovah.
Find.
Could someone start #12 please?
At all the accuser.
I have done.
I know them well.
And all turns more.
Every child of God can sing this hymn and truth, and that not one of us will cross those courts of glory with our heads hung in shame because we will cross those portals.
In all the beauty of Christ.
By the grace of God, and if such a wonderful, wonderful relationship and position that he who believes in Jesus comes into justified by our God, let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we thank thee for thou hast.
Where the victor's crown and we thy redeemed are accepted in thee we ask for help. As we open thy holy precious word this evening, we ask it in thy worthy name Enough.
Well, we will go back to the book of James, Chapter one.
Just by way of review, we're looking at this book, which really isn't particularly Christian in character yet, as the first book coming out of the Christian profession through the probably through the Apostle James. It gives us foundation truths that we need to imbibe in our lives.
In order to go on into the deeper.
Revelations. That.
Were given to the Apostle Paul from heaven by God himself. And so as we look at the book of James.
As another has said, and I believe rightly so, the exhortations given in this book could properly apprise to a godly Jew at any time, except for two verses in the last chapter, which, if the Lord tarries and permits, we will look at at that time.
But what I I have on my heart is to impress upon our souls that the very first message.
That came from the Christian profession placed their emphasis.
On works accompanying the faith that Christianity professed to offer.
And James presses it, as I said, I think.
Some maybe?
15 times.
Works are mentioned and perhaps 13 or so faith is mentioned and James says you separate them.
In your life you do not have the faith that is characteristic and peculiar to Christianity.
And so it's remarkable to me because in the last epistle written to these people.
Not the 12 tribes, but from among the 12 tribes. The book of Hebrews. The Apostle Paul says you need to be purged.
Not from dead faith, but from dead works.
00:05:00
And you need to move on.
To other things. And so it shows. Doesn't it present how treacherous our hearts are? Or we will grab a an aspect of truth and set it against another aspect of truth. Remember, we do not need to balance it. It would be good if we could in our mind.
Omid in our expressions, the thought that James balances Paul or Paul, that the word of God needs no balancing at any in any part of its book. We are the ones that need balancing. And so I might say I like James and and stay there and I will be a deformed Christian.
And you might say you like Paul and you are a Paul and stay there and you will be a deformed Christian. I enjoyed what a new convert to Christ told a sister. She urged her to start in the book of John and read John's gospel in this newborn. Babe said no, the Bible begins with Genesis, and that's where I'm going to begin.
And she did.
You need every book of God's Word to balance you.
Not to balance the word of God. It needs no balance. So with those remarks, let's return to the first chapter of the book of James.
And we commented in verse 10 about the rich rejoicing, because he is made low, because as the flower of grass he shall pass away, for the sun could be translated, has risen and with burning heat.
And withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Now you know I was raised a poor man. I, I, I was born on the wrong side of the tracks. I never seem to be able to get on the other side of the track. So I I could find a special comfort in this verse. And say, boy, the Lord is really putting the rich man in his place, You know, beloved.
The flower has risen, the the sun has risen upon you.
Doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor. I remember looking at some pictures of a wedding that I had attended and I saw this man and I wondered in my mind, who is that old, that older man. I don't remember seeing him. And then I realized I was looking at the back of my own head. You see, the sun has risen, I am withering. And you are withering too, beloved.
Read your poor It doesn't matter. But the rich man rejoices because he has found in faith in Christ.
That what he thought was so valuable is of no value at all, and that he has now by faith in Christ through riches. Do you have those riches, and are you rejoicing in your riches that you have in Christ? Beloved, this life which we are so concerned about, the sun has risen apart, and we are withering that you know, here I am.
Getting on in years and the heroes of my youth when I was a young man, before I was converted, those idols in my life, many of them are gone, Cut off tragically in their youth. My generation fathered the Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and you can go on down the list.
The flower, the sun has risen and we are withering. And so don't waste your time living for that flower. As beautiful as they were in their youth. They all withered, they all faded and they all are dead.
Grasp it, beloved. It's important You'll never progress in the things of God as long as you're wasting your life pursuing that which the sun has risen upon and is withering away. That's the quote from Isaiah 40, where, as here in our chapter, the emphasis is going to turn on the eternal.
00:10:14
Benefit of being born.
Of the word of God, which is settled forever and for eternity. So we need to grasp this in our life where we're not going to make spiritual progress and you'll waste your life and come to the end of your day. I read a comment or heard a comment somewhere of a man of my generation who had come to the end of his days, and he said it's awful, it's awful. It's awful.
He wasted his life. Oh beloved, don't do that. Who cares if the follower has been withered? We have something that is not corruptible. Well, he says. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, And that's up to verse 12. The temptations mentioned in this chapter are from God. They're trials that God has sent. We'll read a little bit more about them later.
Chapter to Perfect faith to help us to learn endurance or patience in our life. And as we noticed last week, I think we all would have to acknowledge we don't really know much about patients and we're not really anxious to learn about it either by means of trial. But God loves us, and he sees that we don't value the faith He's given us. He does, and he sees that faith in US. And he says, I'm going to take an interest in you and oh.
You know Job when God took up Job to teach him endurance and patience.
And God took him up, Job says. Leave me alone, God.
Leave me alone, he said. Why is ma'am? Why are you? Why are you troubling yourself with men? With me? I wish that I had been as one stillborn. I wished I had perished in my mother's womb rather than have you taken interest in me in this way. He didn't mind God taking an interest in him when God was prospering him, giving him a lovely, happy family that could have banquets and fun together and multiply him to make him one of the richest, wisest men of his generation.
He wasn't complaining about the Lord taking an interest in him then, but the Lord put his hand on him and put him into trial and and I'm not faulting Job, I would have gone in the first chapter, wouldn't have taken 40. I would have given up way before Job gave up.
Well, beloved, I don't mean I would have learned the lesson before Job learned it. I would have complained much louder before Joe complained. So.
The Lord is taking an interest in you. He's passing you through through trials. He says, oh, bless it or happy is the man that endures this trial. That is, you don't faint under it. You don't say what's the use and give up. You know, how many do you know in your life who came into the assembly? And they were happy and enjoying the truth that God had opened to their heart and mind. But as soon as the sun came up and the trials came on, they said.
This is no place for me. This is no place for me. Oh, in my life I thought, oh, I could only get free. But in my heart I knew there was no place to go. And Peter and his and the Lord's disciples said that to the Lord, he said, Will you go away? He said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Well, we want to endure these interests that God has taken in US in the form of trial.
And not faint under them. And then I'm going to misread verse 12. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life.
Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him a lot.
Is that what it says?
To them that love him a lot. Someone was talking to me about the Remnant within the Remnant and a faithful Remnant. I thought, well, I hope there isn't any such thing. But if there is, I sure won't qualify to make that circle, you know? And I felt like it's in the army, you know? And I was in the Army. I knew there was such a thing as the Airborne and the Green Beret.
00:15:08
But I knew like there's.
Helicopter mechanics because I wouldn't have made the grades, you know it and.
Oh, may we just?
Not.
Give up and think that God is only for those who love him a lot. You know, we are one bit better than Peter. Peter said Lord, as it were. We've heard it before and it's true. The Lord said you love me. Peter, I do love you. I love you the more than all the other Saints you've ever redeemed. And if they forsake you, I'm going to death with you.
I have a wonderful confidence in Peter's love, but life as a way of manifesting what we really are, you know, that's what the wilderness did to the children of Israel. And it's what the wilderness does to us, isn't it? I can remember before I was saved thinking, you know, if the Lord really does save me, he's going to get a pretty good specimen. You know what I think now?
I'm a 0 less than a 0.
No, it's not for those who love him a lot, It's just for those who love him in some way or another. We come down like Peter had to come to and said Lord, I like to think that Peter himself said that maybe I don't love you Lord, but you do know I do love you. And how many times in our lives, especially those of us who are older, we've been gothic, the Lord in that way and said Lord Jesus.
I don't know if I love you at all the way the poor way in which I go on, but this just says for those that love him, well let's go and look at verse 13 where the temptations change in character. Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God. He had just been speaking about being tempted of God. Now he says don't say you're tempted of God, it's because this temptation.
Is of a different character and from a different source altogether.
This temptation comes from our lustful, willful, disobedient hearts. And God does not tempt us ever, ever, ever to sin. And so it says here, God cannot be tempted with evil or by evil things, and neither tempteth he any man. So you have a problem in your life with some sin.
And you find yourself exposing yourself to that sin God.
Or to circumstances that will surely lead you into the practice of their sin. That temptation, and it's there, then permeates the world. There's something in the world to allure your heart away from Christ, no matter who you are or no matter what you like to do. The world is Satan's masterpiece, and he's left no heart without something in his world.
To draw your affections away from Christ. Christ does not expose you to those worlds.
Those temptations. Your own heart does that. And so it says.
Every man in verse 14 is tempted by this kind of a temptation, that is, a temptation to sin. When he is drawn away of his own lust, you realize what it says here, beloved.
You're tempted to sin when your wife provokes you, No?
Oh yeah, I got angry. But you should have heard what my wife said to me. No, no.
Descend because of your own heart. Oh, we are permeated with our parents. Fall Adam blaming Eve. Eve blaming the serpent and God holding them both accountable for their own sin. No beloved God says when you're lost, lead you away. It is you that.
00:20:01
Are responsible. You didn't need any help.
And no one, beloved, I love this. No one this, No one can make a believer sin.
We don't. We can't take up with the language. He made me do it again.
Again, I did it because I wasn't raised right. Oh no, beloved. Oh, we can't do it. Maybe my dad wasn't the best dad there was in the world. Maybe I could write a book of his failures. I may be able to do that below it, but that has nothing to do.
With the multitude of sins and failures in my life, I am the one responsible for them. And so the Spirit of God, through the apostle James, says that every man, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed when he hath of his own lust, and enticed with lust, hath conceived it, bringeth forth sin.
And sin, when it is finished, bring it forth death.
Brother Stan, Jacobson said. You can write over this verse.
LSD, You've heard that, haven't you? I don't know what it means, but I know it's some kind of drug that people illegal drug that people use.
Lost sin. Death.
Why, beloved? Why would we respond to the lust of our hearts? Why are we so sure?
That our hearts can suggest something.
Beneficial to us that God has strictly forbidness. It's because of lust. And we trust our heart more than we trust the heart of God. Our forefather and mother did it, Adam and Eve did it. They trusted their own heart, their own wisdom, their own confidence, and their own self that they could do what God told them not to do and end up in a better condition than they were before.
And they thus conceived, sin came out, and death entered the world. And you and I beloved our dying creatures because of LSD. Well, after he says that, he warns you and me in verse 16, Do not err, my beloved brethren, You know, dear ones, in our lives as we go through this world.
There are times when you know I walk with a brother who is a Lutheran.
He goes to the Lutheran Church and he's a babe in Christ. He doesn't know a fraction. He doesn't have a fraction of the knowledge of the word of God that I have. But I can't say he's He's not even happier than I. If you gather a little manna, it, it suffices you as much as if you were to gather a lot if you eat it. And if you don't eat it, it it breathes words and state worms and stinks. But anyway.
This brother that I walk with, he doesn't know how he condemns me when he says, Oh yes, a Christian sin, but we don't sin willfully. I haven't had the courage to tell him the way this man has sinned. Every time I've sinned, it's been willfully. That's what sin is, beloved. Sin is lawlessness itself will at work. And that's what causes us to sin. You are responsible for your own sin. It's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing.
To be free from this concept that you can blame someone else for your misbehavior. Why I'm not telling you.
That I don't ever think I wouldn't have got angry if Oh but beloved, I know it won't stand in the presence of my God. So the apostle says or the spirit of God tells us.
Don't hurt my beloved brethren. Don't fall into this deception.
That your heart will deceive you with and then he says this.
00:25:05
Every good and.
Gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom no variable Ness.
Neither shallow or turning of turning. Now he says. OK.
If your own heart isn't going to give you what will make you happy, that means you're going to spend the rest of your life in sorrow and depravity and betrayed of all good things. No, it means you've opened the door if you've judged your heart and won't allow sin to spoil the fruits of righteousness in your life. The Father of Lights have a such a big room full of good gifts.
You won't be able to contain them. You know, when I got saved, I thought, oh, I'm saved. That was wonderful. That was more than I could contain. But I've learned that that was just the beginning. And the more I go on with the Lord and the more I open the word of God sometimes.
Authority comes to me from the word of God and I I just close it and I say Lord Jesus, it's too much, I'm too little.
For the riches of this wonderful book to contain it. And I say I want it all, but I can't even contain the little bit that you've given me. Oh beloved, our God is a giving God of every good and every perfect gift. And you're denying his dispensing upon you and your life whenever you allow lust, sin, and death.
To be active in your life. Oh, let's turn away from our hearts and the trust in our hearts and turn to this father of light. What does that mean? Well, it means that last night, you know our little tamper. We don't have all of the.
Nice things in life and sometimes when you get a little older, you have to get out of bed and well in the dark and go to the restroom. That's a few miles it seems like.
In the cold wait, it's not that far. A little ways away. And your wife, she trusts you and she hangs on to your arm and you walk across the field and you step in a hole and stumble and.
Well, she trusts me and relies on me, but I'm not the father of light. What's it mean? It means he who sees everything in the dark as clear as if it's broad daylight. He who knows everything that's going to be in your life before it ever happens. He knows all of the dangers.
All of the dark. There's no shadows with God. He sees everything as is in the brightness of the noonday sun. He's saying I, who know and have all of this life, will give you every good and perfect gift if you'll just let me. You love it. Do you know the Father of Light is wonderful to know? God is your father. I don't know what your concept of Father is.
My concept of Father is that I don't know of a greater source of love and care than that of the Father, my Father and my God. Oh, can't we have confidence in his giving of good gifts? We can. Well, he says it all comes down and not only that, beloved in verse 18, he says of his own will begat? He asked.
With the word of truth, this is what I refer to. An opening in contrast to the flower man born as a flower and fame with. Listen, I ask you, you can't deny this. You go to a maternity ward at the hospital and watch. Just watch the people look at the babies. Oh, isn't he cute? Oh, isn't she cute?
I really I have to say.
Well, I did think my own kids were cute. Okay.
And that's all you hear. These people look at their children. How wonderful. Old, blind, deaf and heard people say, oh, aren't they cute? No.
The flower has ridden. We needed a new life, and God knew we needed a new life.
And he begod us that new life to the word of God, which is the eternal word of God. And beloved, I like to think you haven't seen anything yet. You know the Lord has changed me greatly morally, that dear Catholic sister, she said when I clean their furniture in this.
00:30:25
I don't know. It's where the sisters, the Catholic sisters live, she said.
OK, there, yeah, she said. Mr. Short with been pleasant having you here. We have enjoyed your company and I said Sister McCoy, I said.
If the Lord Jesus hadn't saved my soul, you wouldn't have wanted me around, she said.
She looked like you too, Jackie, She said. Oh, God must really love you. I said. She does. She does. She does. Yes, beloved. He loves me. And he begot me with the word of his truth. And you haven't seen any. If you see a change, a little change in my life. You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till you see me. When I go into glory with my new body, I will be perfectly like Christ. And it's because God has begotten me.
With the word of his truth and incorruptible seed. I was born of corruptible seed. My dad died. My mother died. But I've been born of God, and I'm not going to die. It's going to get better and better and better the longer we're here. And so are you thankful, beloved, that God has begotten you. Then there was a reason for him doing it.
That we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures, the kind of first fruits of His creatures. What's that mean? If the firstfruits are the first grains, the first apples, the first Peaches of a harvest, And they give an indication, beloved, a good indication of what's to follow? Well, a brother told me, So, you know, people think that Christians are old fashioned.
In their thinking, he said, we're not as old fashioned. We're living ahead of the time. In the millennial reign of Christ, everybody's going to bear the moral features of Christ, and that's what James is saying here. He said God begat you by these eternal words that you could be for the time of the manifestations of the Son of God. You could display first fruits in your life. That's what God wants to see today as he looked down in your life.
He wasn't so interested in what you accomplished for your glory. He was interested in how you manifested fruits for God and for Christ, Lord. That's why He begat us. So we're ahead of the time, beloved. We're ahead of the time we're living. We're real modern people because we're living 1000 years ahead of time and we can display Christ now.
Before it will be manifested to all the world that we are indeed sons of God. That's what the Scripture says, the manifestation of the Son of God. Well.
It's a wonderful thing if somebody at least raises the if our lives at least raise the question in their mind. I wonder if that guy's a Christian.
We can thank the Lord for that, can't we? Well, here, that's the purpose of our being begotten. And therefore it says.
In verse 19. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Now these are contrasted with the natural man you know, I remember as a as a boy, you know, before I saved I love to.
And it was profitable, you know, But we didn't have much. But after World War Two, we lived in a little 24 by 24 Shack and my brother told me that we finally got electricity and we got a radio. And I just used to listen to that radio. And I loved the Wednesday night and Friday night boxing matches.
And that stayed with me, beloved.
And my mother, my poor mother, she used to hear me mimicking.
00:35:05
Johnny and all the rest of their ringside announces and everybody else and mimicking the fight.
Of minute. And she was a Hindu. Be quiet. Be quiet.
Oh, we like to talk. We like to tell and display what we know.
We don't know anything.
And so the Lord says to us, if you want to display the first fruits.
Be swift to hear.
If no mistake, as we've heard, that God gave us two ears and one tongue, and we don't keep them in that order, do we?
We don't keep them in that order.
You think we had, We wished we had two mouths so we could say more than we do say. And oftentimes it's like we don't have any ears because we don't listen to what God is saying.
Well, the first roots are manifested in our being swift to hear, slow to speed, and slow to laugh.
That's another thing that marked me. I can remember. You know, I never was much of A mechanic and if I couldn't get the hub tap off of my new, and it wasn't new, but it was a 37 Dodge coupe and it was a little hard getting the hubcap off.
Mostly because of my lack of mechanical skill. I might throw the wrench because it was the wrench's fault and the screwdriver or whatever I was using as if that dumb piece of steel.
Was exercising a will and I would get angry.
All beloved is anger in your life.
Do you allow yourself that unwarranted?
What privilege of being angry the sooner you judge it?
The sooner you'll be able to manifest the firstfruits of this new creation in your life, brother, you know? And there this wasn't before. I say it is a long time after I received one very long ago.
I told an older brother who was more or less a spiritual father in my life. Or it was a few years ago, but it could have been yesterday.
I said I got angry in the care meeting.
He didn't say anything. Just let me talk a little while and then later he said, you know.
When we get angry, it's a manifestation that we haven't judged ourselves, isn't that?
Well, I don't know if I answered him or not, but I know what the answer was. So you get angry. I suppose 99% of the time you allow yourself to get angry. It's because you have not judged yourself and you're not going to manifest the first fruits of Christ in a state of anger and soul. He says for the wrath of man in verse 20 worketh not the righteousness of God.
Do you want have you any interest in working the righteousness of God? You need to judge anger in your life. It won't do your family any good. It won't do you any good. It won't do your brethren any good. It won't do your work fellows any good. It won't do anyone any good, and it certainly will not work the righteousness of God well, he says.
Wherefore last part all feel.
Wherefore, layest part all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your soul, he said. Let the word of God work in your life, and you can have a saved soul. That's in contrast to the salvation that the 12 tribes waited for day and night. They wanted the salvation of circumstances and the restoration of their nation.
Even the 12 apostles and 11 apostles that were living.
At the time the Lord went back, that's what they were waiting for. We'll call at this time restore Israel. That's what a godly Jew today is waiting for. He is waiting for the salvation of the land of Canaan given back into their hands to whom it really belonged, given to them by God. But they're not going to have it now. And if they don't have the salvation of their souls, they're not going to have any salvation and beloved receive.
00:40:26
Receive the engrafted word, the word of God. Let it have its recourse in our life. What a change.
It was made in each one of our lives if we turn the Word of God loose and allow it to have its recourse. But the doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves.
Oh, you know, if serious, isn't it? I always think the other night I can't remember the figures. Now I was thinking of the number of hours this body of mine has sat in meetings where the word of God has been open, beloved. It's thousands upon thousands of hours. I've sat in countless numbers of hours of reading meetings, gospel meetings, Sunday school meetings.
Thousands upon thousands of hours. What you would think when you think someone had who had heard the word of God, that much he would surely be perfection and personification.
Why am I not that?
Be ye doers of the Word and not ears only, Oh beloved, because we're too slow to do what we hear in all of our exposure to the Holy Word of God. Well, it also goes on. The Spirit of God goes on and says if you don't, if you only hear.
And you don't let the Word of God have its practical effect in your life. You are deceiving yourself, and this is foundation truth. James has said you want to grow spiritually. The very first thing you need to know is that you have got to respond in your life to the engrafted word of God and become a doer of the woods.
Well then he goes and he says if they if in verse 23.
For if any man, if any, be a hearer of the word of not, adore is likened to a man beholding his natural face in the glass. That is, You looked in the mirror this morning and and as soon as you walked away from that mirror you can't remember what you saw.
There's no vivid, lasting impression as to what you saw.
You looked away from the glass, and what you saw is gone from your sight and from your mind.
And James says don't be like that, but here in verse.
25 That tells us what we should be like, but whoso looketh and that could be translated like this Stoops down to look.
They tell me it is the same expression used when Peter came to the sepulchre and he stooped down to look. We don't like to stoop down, do we?
We don't like to get down and take a low place. You know, it's better to humble myself than have somebody else humble me. But I don't want either one. But below, we've got to stoop down. We've got to get down. Mom used to tell me. Henry, you better get off your high horse. I don't know. I never thought I ever did have a very high horse. That's what we got to do.
We got to get down, stoop down and look. And what? Look into the perfect law of liberty and continue therein.
He, he bring us, he being naughty, forgetful here, but I do have the work. This man shall indeed be blessed indeed. And his deed. Oh beloved, we're going to talk and try to arrive at an understanding of what this expression Law of liberty.
Meaning and what it means is that one who has begun be has been begotten of the word of God, having nature the same as God.
00:45:13
He has the life of Christ and that life.
Wants to be set free to express itself.
In First Fruits for Christ, it wants to do it now, as some of you have heard this illustration.
The fellow, the younger ones, probably won't remember it. I had a dog named Captain Jackie visited us once and she called him the Captain because she saw his authority over his postmaster. But my dog would get loose.
And I could say here, Cap.
And he didn't have any ears to hear.
If I went 10 yards, he went 11. If I ran 11 miles an hour, he ran 15 miles an hour. And I knew from the start he was not going to come to me.
But I had a secret.
Until all I had to do was to go over to my service vehicle or my car.
And open the passenger side of the door and Cap would come around and he would jump up in the passenger seat and sit down and patiently wait for his master to take him down to Casey's or the ice cream store and give him a candy bar or an ice cream car. He had been set free to do his own will and it was a great delight to him.
You say, Why didn't you spank him? Because then I would never get him back, that's why.
I wasn't exactly all dumb in that for us, OK, but that's the law of liberty. A Christian does what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is bring fruits for Christ. That's the law of liberty. It's what compels a believer in him. Because I have to come to meeting. It says it's meeting night and I get to come to meeting.
Come to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus is what we love to do.
Well, that's the law of liberty.
There says you'll be blessed if if you recall that and keep that if any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue. I had a Christian friend and a diamond where I worked He is really on fire brother and he met a neighbor of mine and lived across street and neighbors said to him, yeah always say you know him. In short yeah, he said he's really religious.
And dear Philip said, no, he ain't religious. He said he knows the Lord as his savior. There he is such a thing as being religious in a right way. And here's what being really religious is. It is pure religion.
Bridler, if any man among you seem to be religious, and bridle, if not his tongue.
But deceiveth his own heart. This man's religion is faint. This little tongue, you know.
It reveals our hearts. It reveals what we really are pursuing in life. You stay around somebody long enough and listen to them long enough, you're going to find what their hearts interest for the end. It's a it's a betrayer of the heart, and I'm glad that it's so. What are you talking about today?
That the Lord formed.
A good part of our conversation today.
Well, he says, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father.
Is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction? You know, this is especially significant in the book of James, because that people Israel, the 12 tribes to whom it was addressed.
Had they gone on with Jehovah their God, they wouldn't have known much about having fatherless children and widows in the midst.
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God would have blessed them with children. He would have blessed their storehouses, their barns, their fields, and many of the afflictions that afflicted the nations they would have known nothing about. But here is a people contrary wise had been.
A high percent.
Of their population would have been fatherless and widows because of the government of God upon them.
That's where we are today. In the Church of God, We're suffering. Under the government of God, we are more like fatherless children or widows.
Of having no husband. That is, we don't hold Christ as the one to whom we are espoused.
And God is our Father as the Father of Light, to give us all good, perfect things. And so we're floundering. But beloved, be have an exercise in your heart.
To visit the fatherless. To visit the widows. And I'm not talking only about literally.
But the spiritual application of it, Do you have a purpose in your life?
To take care of the Church of God, the people of God, so weakened and so faltering because they don't know their relationship with Christ, the head, the husband to whom we have been espoused, and they don't know.
The relationship with their God as Father, you know that relationship exists, but it is not a reality to those who walk mingled with the world. And so God has to say, God Almighty has to say, come out from among them and be separate. That I might be into you a God and Father saith to God, Lord, God Almighty. And so the believers today.
We've mingled ourselves so much with the world, gone on such worldly ways, we're not experiencing the joys of the preservation of our father. Well, you want to help the people of God visit such, try to encourage them in their affliction. Well, let's go to the last vet. And to keep himself unspotted from the world. You know, the closer you draw to Christ.
The bigger the world will be in your life that you will keep yourself from and the further you get from Christ.
You will allow a lot more of that world in your life, and the world will You will think of the world as a much smaller thing because you've imbibed most of it in your life. God tells us if you're going to prosper in your soul, you have to face this issue.
Of keeping yourself unspotted from the world. It is a daily thing. You know. Joshua the high priest had been given beautiful garments, but there was such a departure and failure amongst the people of God. There he stood and guilty. Guilty garment.
Well, we want to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. Now I might say, well, just go on. But in chapter one you remember in verse one it said James was a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter one we have mostly what a God is, but now in chapter 2 we're going to take up more what pertains to the Lord.
Jesus Christ. And so he begins this chapter by saying my brethren again. Remember, it's my brethren.
Oh, you know, I I just love that declaration of Ruth. I I I trust that it burn into my soul. Thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people. I love it. Beloved. I love to meet a child of God because they are my brethren. They are my brethren, and I'm one of them.
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That's what James said, my brethren, although here it's used in a different sense. But he is referring to those professing faith in the Lord Jesus. I'd rather have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect of persons.
What he is saying is if you say you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You cannot have respect of persons. Those two things cannot be brought together. Our Lord Jesus Christ was no respecter of persons. And if you say you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are a respecter of person, you are not.
Possessed with the right kind of faith. And so he said, don't do that, don't have respect of persons. And then he goes on and demonstrates 2 men.
One comes into the assembly or the synagogue it should read. He has a gold ring and goodly apparel and they came in also poor man and Viola. Here's a rich man and a poor man and he says, and you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing. That word has a different meaning that has today has two meanings. 1 is how it's used today but how it's used in the scripture is is.
Luxurious clothing, fancy clothes, They say he's really a fancy Jess person. Well, if someone with wealth comes in and you were to say to him, sit in a good place and say to the poor, stand all there here under my footstool, Well, perhaps we haven't had that experience in our lives, particularly actually. But beloved, we have often had this experience in our lives.
Spiritually, if you're going to go on with the Lord, spiritually, you're going to have to content yourself. I don't want to put you on the spotlight, but you're going to have to contend yourself to go on with the likes of me. You're going to have to be content with the poorest, oh the Lord left in the land of Israel when he carried a fine man of Israel.
Never can ever carry the finest men of Israel off to Babylon. And to make eunuchs of them, he left those who are described, who were of the poorest sort. And if you're going to go on with the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to have to be content with going on with men of low estate. With men of low estate, Well, we may come back and spend a little more time on this.
1St But I just want to encourage you, if you want to prosper in your soul spiritually, we got to get down off our high horses.
And and go on with one another as being what we are men and you might say vile, poor, raiment, and go on together for the glory of Christ and not beloved. Respect person. Let's pray Lord Jesus help us as we.
Have looked into the mirror today, and we realized the tendency of our hearts is to walk away and forget what has exposed our hearts Speaker and hearer alive tonight. And so we ask that we may stoop down and look and not cease looking into this wonderful law of liberty into which.
We have been brought. Lord, bless Thy precious words. I help us to make it living reality in our lives. We pray, Lord.
And thy worthy name and.
James 2:6-3:6
Address—H. Short
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Be fair, all things fresh.
Are dead with mercy.
And children.
And lazing on your hair.
But.
Just in for him.
Ye hard not smiling.
Yes, Brother Sarah will rise.
I'm holding every.
Hour.
But we will.
Be the Lord.
The line on daily is.
Your turn.
And.
Stand his work and bring me.
God is.
Here for.
Interpreter.
And he will.
Bring the plan.
For our God and Father, we thank Thee for faith, and we thank Thee our Father.
That is a gift from Thee to thy dear children. And now our Father, We thank thee too for thy holy Word, which we are about to open. And our Father, it would cause us a fear and trembling, and does cause us to tremble at thy Word. And yet our God and Father, it's there we discover Thee and our Lord Jesus Christ and Thy counsels of grace.
So as we open it tonight, we pray.
We may do so with opened ears and open hearts. O our God and Father, we have to bless us as we're together. We pray, Father, for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the establishment and building of of my dear beloved people. We ask your Father and his precious men.
Well, let's turn back to the book of James.
I think next week will be our last week here, so.
We might not make it too, unless I go along a little faster, but that won't matter.
James, Chapter 2 again.
And we talked a little bit last week about the rich man coming into the synagogue and the poor man coming in and and we gave the poor man a low place and said, I just sit here under my feet.
Now I would like to make a few more comments, beginning from verse six of chapter 2 about that subject. But you have despised the poor. Now that could be translated the poor man in in our account it only supposes one rich man coming in and one poor man, and they despise the poor man.
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I you know, I don't suppose we've done that in our life. You know, when when we had our other meeting room, lots of poor men came in to the meeting room. And I they did that because.
I guess they found out we were pretty soft touches or pretty dumb or something, but we didn't despise them. When they came in and asked for money, it was always money or something.
But anyway, I want to make a little different application.
Of this poor man. I would like you to think of this poor man as the Lord Jesus.
And in a special character of the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus, in the midst of his gathered sin.
Truly, he is a poor man in that aspect. I think of a story a brother told me from another assembly. Quite a ways from here, but he told me this story about himself.
He went to Florida for the winter. He had a sister that lived down there and this brother was gathered to the Lord's name. He went to this place in Florida and and he went with to see his sister and she belonged to a very very large denomination.
Church. And it was around the later latter part of December and she invited him to come to her church and he went and he said, oh, he said it was impressive, I don't know, maybe 1000 people. And he said the choir is beautiful And he said it was really impressive.
Well, later they were talking, I guess, and the family members were together talking, got talking.
And why his sister had not gone with him to the meeting. Now the meeting where he went, the assembly gathered to the Lord's name, it wasn't quite so impressive. I think it had four people, and I think when Agnes and I were there, we were probably the youngest of those there.
And kind of what we call a weak assembly, but I think the more numbers you have, you just got a lot more weakness. But anyway, the subject came up to the sister, why She hadn't gone with this brother. And she said, well, he'd never asked me to go with him to his church. And his brother told me this himself. He said, you know, after seeing where she went, I guess I was ashamed.
I like the same.
But beloved, there was the Lord Jesus in the midst of those few older Saints.
A poor man, most of his children, most of his redeemed, hadn't given him that place as the gathering center in his life. They have they had despised him as that poor man.
I remember when we were in Atlanta the first time at the vast city and doctor Billy Graham was holding the Crusade when we were there. And again the the meaning isn't that big. I think there was about six of us there too.
And I thought, I wonder what would happen. And I don't know, Mr. Graham, I wonder what would happen if I went over to one of his crusade meetings and after meeting went up and said, Doctor Graham, I'd like you to come with me tomorrow night. We're going to go over where the Lord Jesus is in the midst. And I wondered and fancy in my mind what would he think when he came with me and sat down there again with this, these two or these three, He would say.
Oh, there's something wrong with me.
He would say you can. You're deceived. If you think the Lord Jesus is in the midst of this company, why they couldn't even usher the group where I live so beloved? Why? Because the Lord Jesus is poor in the midst of this gathered Saints. Now I asked you, dear ones, where does the Lord Jesus in this character as a poor man, and where the two or three are gathered together into his name? What place have you given him?
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In that character in your life, have you built your life around?
The assembly where the Lord is in the midst. You know, when I was about to marry this lady over here, I was a young man.
And my spiritual father, Mr. Chapter Brown, at the time, he said to me, Henry, the subject never came up in our house. Are we going to meeting tonight? He said it was assumed if there was an assembly meeting that we would go to it unless we absolutely could not go to it.
Well, here's a poor man with two or three gathered together around him.
In what place do you give him in your life? Where is there another rich man in your life that has a higher place in your life that gets more attention in your life that you're more careful about taking care of than this poor man?
I think we understand what is on my heart tonight. Then it goes down and speaks about the law. If you have verse 9 respective persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all. Have you ever noticed in your life how that the sins in your brother's life or your sister's life?
Are a lot much, a lot more worse than they are in your life.
Yeah, I, I Oh yeah, I've done some wrong things. But I'm not like brother Kurt has and he's really bad. No. Beloved, beloved, think of this now. If you offend in one point of the law, you're guilty of it all. You've broken the whole lot. Isn't even 10 chains and breaking one link. It's one length, one big link and you break it. You break the whole thing, beloved.
We're not better than our brother, we're not better than our sister, and I was at occasion to visit with a brother.
Recently, and he got a little look at the gathered Saints, and it wasn't, you know, in the days of Solomon.
That dear queen, she and she was a clean mind. Yes. She was used to the niceties of life, and she was used to the Queen's court and all the royal palaces of her land. She came into the presence of Solomon and Solomon's servants, and she took her breath right out of right away from her. She had no more spirit in her as she looked at those gathered in the present of King Solomon.
Well, this brother was looking at those gathered in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
For he, he had some things that he had noticed that weren't too good about us. And I said, listen brother, if you that's what you're looking for, I could give you a lot higher stacks than that. I really could. This breath wasn't taken away from us, from him by looking at those around the Lord. No, we were just a poor, poor people lot. Well beloved, that's the kind of people.
That are gathered to the Lord's name. And we mustn't think that we're better than one another, We're better than anyone else, I said to this brother. I said brother.
I said to him, Why did the Lord Jesus die?
Oh, that's a hard question to answer, isn't it, for someone who's been all their life nearly a Christian? He said He died for my sins.
I said which sins did he die for, brother?
The ones you committed before you were a Christian, or the ones you committed after you were Christians?
He said. Why of course all my sins, even the ones I've committed after I was a Christian.
I said. Now I want to ask you a question.
Are those sins that you committed after you were Christian? Are they a lot better sins than those of the gathered Saints that you have difficulty with?
You see what I'm saying, beloved? How can we look down on one another? We can't look down on one another. I called the Lord Jesus to die on Calvary's cross tonight. Say, well, he commits adultery, but I only steal and that was only a cookie. No beloved was guilty. Verily, if it all we've caused the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, there goes down. He talks again about the poor man who doesn't have something to eat.
00:15:32
What does it in verse 15 if a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food for that looks like us, doesn't it? It looks like this company is a poor you know, we have that and David and David's life. When the Discontinued and all the outcasts I can imagine in one way saw the thing. One thing nice about David Clean is they took all the riffraff out of my Kingdom.
And there they are out there, gathered to David in the tape of a Dome. Oh, we may be poor in destitute. Maybe you're looking at the gathered things that way tonight. Maybe you look at you rather than that way you might think of them. But they lost their eyes with one brother. He's just talking about it. I said Well.
We're just a new brother Brown, Brother Brown used to tell us. We're just a bunch of crooked sticks and yells.
If you have 10 crooked sticks, like, you only got 10 crooked things. But if you got 100 crooked sticks, you've multiplied the crookedness 10 times. And so numerically, it doesn't matter, it doesn't improve, it doesn't straighten any of us out. So maybe we're looking at each other that way. And said, boy, that brother is destitute, he really is. He's spiritually bankrupt. Well, what are you going to do about it if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food?
Then why are you saying to them, depart in peace and be warmed and filled? Notwithstanding, you know that? Can you imagine that Lazarus There he was outside.
And that rich man, he came home that day from his business and he saw Lazarus and he said I'll be warmed and be at peace. Lazarus have a good day. And he walked in and there was left Lazarus outside. There his gate longings were just a crumb.
That was falling from his table and he wouldn't give it to him. He loved it.
Do you think the assembly here in Cedar Rapids is poor? Maybe it wouldn't be so poor if you would take what the Lord has given you off of your pantry shelf and brought it here and deposited into the assembly. You come to the assembly to get something, come to give something. You know the Lord has made us members of the body and and maybe you're an eye and I might be a nose or a tongue.
But what good am I if I don't, if I'm not able to see well, come on and support and help and contribute to the assembly. What the Lord has given you for the assembly, beloved, He has given you something for the assembly. I don't care who you are. If you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, Christ has given you something for the assembly. Where is it?
Where have you put it? What have you done with it? Have you taken it out somewhere else and used it? Maybe it's energy. Have you taken those energies and spin it on the advancement of the world? You know, later to see it? She said. We've got it all together. And the Lord Jesus was outside of it all. They had kept it all for themselves. They hadn't bestowed it on the Lord and bestowed it on the Lord's people.
Oh, beloved, let's come as contributors. Let's come as dearest. You know, of course, you're not going to get a lot from me, but I hope something that the Lord has given me, I would be willing to not keep it for myself. Aching. You know he took those bars of gold and silver. Those belong to the Lord. They belong to the Lord's house. What'd he do with them? Took him home to his tent. Buried him in the earth. And beloved, he lost his White Horse and telling it tonight.
If you're using what the Lord has given you for this little gathering in Cedar Rapids.
00:20:00
If you're using that for your own advancement, your energies, your time, whatever it is, if he's giving you time and you're wasting it on yourself.
Is going to end in your death. It's going to be a worthless life. You're going to find out at the end when you come before the Lord Jesus, you saved your life and it cost you that life that you saved. And all beloved, use what the Lord has contributed to the poor Saints and they might find a little warmth out being. Think about that. You know, we've heard that lots of times and I hope we don't forget it. No love in the assembly. Welcome on.
And bestow it. Go ahead and bestow it. Bring that love that you've got all stored up in your closet. Bring it and put it into the assembly. And maybe you can melt some of us who are icicles and cold hard. Well, beloved, let's contribute to the poor Saints. I love it that big. You know, there is an awful lot about the poor Saints. And that contribution for the poor Saints. There is a lot of passages that have to do.
With giving money to the poor, saying to Jerusalem, God valued it. There were some plural Jewish Saints up there in Jerusalem. Nathan James is talking about some of them. And these believers contributed in God so valued it. He's written many, many passages in the New Testament about that act of service. You won't regret it, loved ones, we won't regret anything we've contributed.
To God's assembly. Well, now we come down to verse 20.
He had spoken about the devil's believing in Tremble. There are no unbelieving demons sayings not unbelieving. But what good, what good did their belief do? Satan. I don't know how he fell or when he fell. But when he fell he knew God was God and he knew he wasn't God and he knew God was his creator. But what good did it do him? He fell. I don't know how he fell, but he fell.
And he fell, and these demons fell too. But they know there is a God. If you don't think there is, Sometimes things act that we act like we don't know there is a God, or that he may be at least.
Isn't paying too much attention to us. But he is beloved. He is well, they they believe, but it didn't do them any good. And now James is going to say you think you're any better.
But he said in verse 20. But wilt thou know vain man that faith without works is dead? And we mentioned that in Hebrews works with all faith. Is that so? You got to keep these two things together. One without the other is dead. It's dead and dead is dead. Beloved, don't deceive our hearts. If Christ isn't moving in our souls, we better get before the Lord and find out if we have life or not.
Well, he says, Abraham our father was justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar. Now notice and the Scripture which was fulfilled, which saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Well here this was said of him, and I think chapter 15. But his his faith wasn't perfect.
Until he offered his son up in chapter was it 22.
It was a long period of time where Abraham's confession of faith wasn't proved. It wasn't perfect. It it wasn't made complete. He didn't have that act that worked in his life that confirmed that what he was saying he believed Brother Carl and I had a mutual friend and Brother Charles Whittaker, and he was the first contact with my family.
And my father gave that man one of the highest compliments, a compliment I would cover being able to have said about me. He he called Mr. Whitaker in him, but now he is my my father was a peer of him, he said.
Oh, Charlie. One thing about old Charlie, he practices what he preaches. Well, Abraham confessed faith in God and when God put him to the test.
And pass the task and pass the test. And you know something else about Abraham? Here, James, we say, show me thy faith. But there it says When he offered up Isaac his son, God said now. Or the Angel of the Lord said now I know. Now I know. Well, it's kind of frightening, isn't it? We say, well, we're trusting the Lord sometimes. I remember as a young man I said I, I, I.
00:25:26
I want to trust the Lord.
Well, that is a nice declaration. They love it. But the proving of it came maybe quite a while afterwards, and you might have said it with purpose of heart, to follow the Lord. And somewhere down the line, who is going to test you, to discourage, you know, to strengthen you, to perfect that faith, but trust the Lord. You can trust the Lord and enjoy what the brother said back home.
He said, Apostle Paul said, My God shall supply all your need. You know, that's that's a pretty glib thing, isn't it? I can tell Lyle he's got some humongous thing ahead of him. No way to me. And I don't worry, brother. I lawyer said he meet your name. You meet your need. That's pretty easy to say. But you know, beloved, the Apostle Paul could say it because he had proved it in his own life.
He wasn't talking from going to Bible school and having a lesson.
On the book of Philippians and reading that he learned.
Rich our lives with because he's going to perfect the faith. So years later Abraham perfect faith was perfected by this tremendous trial of offering up his son. Now there's another one here. You know how that in verse 20. And I want to speak a little bit about the end of verse 23.
For he was called.
The friend of God.
Oh.
Have any friends in your life? I knew a brother once, he said to me.
I've never had a friend. He wasn't talking about the Lord. Besides, never had a real friend of my heart ached for him. My heart ached for him. He'd never had a friend in his life. And I asked you tonight, between you and God, does God have a friend?
Is God friendless in your life? What is a friend? I enjoy the words Mr. Darby spoke about Abraham, the friend of God, he said with a friend.
I commune with what's upon my heart with an acquaintance. I stayed only my business. God came down to earth, and he found Abraham, his friend, and he was able to tell Abraham what he was going to do. And Abraham was interested. Are you interested in what's going to happen to this earth? I am. You know, I I'm very interested in the millennial reign. The Jews are going to, the believing Jews are going to be interested, but they're going to be interested for a different reason than I am.
They see the judgment as necessary for them being saved.
And I see the judgments on this world which I don't look forward to happening.
Except this. I know they have to come before my Savior can be exalted to his rightful place in this world. I'm interested in the exaltation of the Lord Jesus. I just. I just love to look at the mess. This world's in it every day. They're running out of headline space for the tragedies, calamities. I don't mean I love these things, but I mean I love the fact there's only one man that can straighten it out.
It's a hopeless, doomed world. It's a condemned, judged world, and there's only one man that can straighten it out. And he's my savior. He is my Lord. But more than that, beloved, we're going to be his wife for that thousand years. What does that mean? It means you look at your family, your children, look at mom and dad, and you say they're the same. They both have the same authority over me.
We're going to rain, rain and help the Lord Jesus. I draw back from using the word help. No, we're going to share in his reign over this world. You're going to give us something to do in the way of administration. That's what the church as his Hawaii is going to be for eternity. Beloved for eternity. Monarch looks bad as his wife or licked that as his bride. And what's that?
00:30:23
You know what it is you you men, who have that wedding day. You know what the pride is? The difference between the bride and the wife. I was looking at my beloved to see me, I thought.
Maybe she had sticks and supper.
I try. I figured it out. 4000 meals or 40,000 meals. I don't know. She's done all that for this poor thing she's done for me as my wife.
But nothing eclipses the day when she came down that aisle dressed in white. To be calm, she was my bride and bride. And for eternity, beloved, we're going to be the bride of Christ. We're going to satisfy his heart. Isn't a wonderful brother, Carl. We're going to satisfy the Lord Jesus heart for all eternity. And we should do it tonight. We should try to do it in our day.
Let's give this poor man.
The Lord Jesus Christ his rightful place in our lives. And so now we come that Abraham was a friend of God. Oh, don't you covet that in your heart to day that the Lord Jesus talked to you as a friend? We all want a friend, don't you? You want a friend the Lord Jesus wants a friend to. And Abraham was the friend of God. Ye see verse 24.
How by works a man is justified by faith only. Well.
Sister Abraham was a man, all right, but here's a woman. Likewise. Also was the Rahab, the harlot, justified by words when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way. Here she's receiving messengers. In Hebrews, she's receiving spies. The spies are those who give view a situation and go back with a true report.
Is a condemned city. Miracles. A condemned city has been judged by God. That's what the spies in our whole city was, shut up and afraid. But here they have received messengers. Now Messenger is something other than a spy. A messenger comes with a message for you and they told Rahab Rahab.
I love it, they said. They have you take the scarlet cord and put it in your window and you're going to be saved and all who come into your house.
To what joy do you know what she did? And she received them in peace, I think in Hebrews. But here she sends them out another way. Lord, you might say, came in. Those spies and those messengers came in as her enemies. And there was this fear in the whole city. But they didn't go out her enemies, they went out her friends, They had brought a message of peace, and she sends them out in peace, all beloved.
As the Lord and brought peace into your life. As the Lord. Is he real in your life? Oh, you know, I enjoy that about Samuel.
And Eli said. Now you say.
Lord thy serve and speaking. And you say, I'm not going to say it because I don't know him as my Lord. And he just said speak and speak, and I enjoy that, honestly. Samuel went on to know the Lord.
He knew the Lord as one who would communicate with him and commune with him. Do you know the Lord in that way? Has he changed your life? Has he changed your thoughts about him?
They have only saw that company crossing Jordan as those who were certain judgment to her. But they went out another way as those who were certain salvation to her and those with her old beloved. It's a wonderful thing to know the Lord, to have him come into your life and change your life, give you new desires, new hopes, free from this poor judged world.
And set your holes.
Oh, beloved. In him, well, we have, you know, she's called the harlot. She's mentioned three times in the New Testament and twice she's identified as harlot. And I like to think it's because the Lord is telling you, you know?
00:35:17
They might have said at one time, there's.
Any of the junkers, they can't say it anymore.
And when you see who Rahab was in the first in the first book of the New Testament, she's now called a harlot there. She's the preserver of the royal line, beloved 3 women there, Tamar, Rahab and Ruth. And Tamar and Rahab took the character of Harlot and these two women preserved.
Tamar, by giving birth to pairs, preserved the royal wine and Judah, and then you have dear baths fever.
What more women in that genealogy? No, they're fine. I like to think of the 1St 4. You know, they might not have been the finest specimens of womankind, but you come to marry and what a beautiful, beautiful woman she is. And I like to think of her as.
Like ourselves, you know, you look at us now what we are in nature now. Very nice because not done with this beloved. And then there was Rahab then first chapter of Matthew. She's not called a harlot. Oh beloved, we're not such were some of you. That's not what we are now. Let's accept that place that the grace of God has brought us into and walked in the dignity.
Of being.
Not becoming, but being, you know, sons of God, you know, beloved.
You're never going to be more a son of God than you are right now.
You've been born of God, your son of God. You're a child of God. You're never going to be more of a child of God than you are tonight. Well, let's walk. And the dignity, Oh, Rahab, I just love it. She gave up that life she valued. She came into the royal line and she preserved it when Israel it would have been extinguished. And then comes Ruth.
With the most beautiful women in the host scriptures. I just finished their book. That's why I'm so kind of.
Every time I read that book, my heart falls more in love with that woman.
'S sisters. They preserve that precious royal line. Well, that's what Faith does, beloved. That's what faith does. It raises up a name.
Where that means would have perished without them. And so now we come to Chapter 3.
My brethren being out in any masters or teachers.
And there's another headset. It's the natural. I forget the word propensity, I think to teach. What that means is it's the little boy or the little girl sitting in the front row of the Sunday School. And the person talking to him said, can you say your verse today? And the verse is God is love.
Oh, who wants to be first And all the hands shoot up? It would have been Ezekiel 3628. If there is such a verse. It might not have been those hands through it. But I know the answer and I want. I'm anxious to be the first one to say that's in our hearts. Beloved, you know very well in a group where there's a lot of questions who you would like to be. You wouldn't like to be the one asking the question. You'd like to be the one at the head of the class. You'd like to be the one that was able to give all the answers.
No, beloved me, not many teachers. I don't don't want to be a teacher. Why? For in many things we offend all. You know the new translation, how that's translated? I think you know it, but it's translated reason. You don't want to be a a teacher. You don't want to be too anxious to take the head of the class. For we all.
Often offend.
00:40:02
Not translated. Let's take that verse, look at it in your Bible and tell me the truth.
How is it translated in your Bible? Is it translated, my brethren? I know verse 2, for in many things we offend all.
Now tell the truth. Is it translated that way, or is it translated this way? For in many things ye offend all.
Tell me, is it AW or is it AY?
Is that we or is it you? Oh, I know you. I know you. You guys, you often offend. Yes, Sir, You know.
In the last year or half or so?
Brother who I was close to.
And and he laughed. He was disciplined, went away. But.
Many years have passed and he called a brother in our gathering. We love this man.
And he told his brother, You know, he said. I made a list.
He said. On this list, I put the name of everyone that offended me.
Denominator. I know who was #1 in that list. At least I would be shocked if my name wasn't number one. I remember I'd gone to him and I said I'm sorry for what I've done.
He said You're forgiven.
But don't forget the story.
Of the.
Brother and the pillow and the brother shook the pillow and the feathers flew all over and he turned to the other brother and said you're forgiven.
Go gather up the pattern I knew, beloved.
I can't gather up the feathers.
When they are working in a late home, she had cleared her room out for me to clean her carpet and put a little stand alongside the stairs.
As vacuuming or stairs in my hose and I didn't have it sat properly in there and the aluminum stairpiece fell. She had gone shopping, hit the top of her night stand and.
Oh, I was horrified. I went down and I looked at the top of that stand and sure enough.
There was a dance where my tool had fallen. I thought, I'm glad you wouldn't have thought this, but I thought maybe I could put a doily over it or something.
No, that wouldn't do. My conscience only got worse.
I don't know what I'm going to do. I remember Mr. Saddened Sharp when I was in 7th grade, he said. If you put water on top of a piece of wood with a dinner, it'll swell it and take the dent away. But even I was smart enough to know it wouldn't work here.
I was trying to think of all things and I I couldn't do anything.
I looked at peace over and I concluded she must have got it. This beautiful piece must have got it yesterday for a birthday present or something. And she came home and I said, Missus Smith, I've had a bad accident.
I said I heard a piece of furniture and I told her what I did. She came in like, oh, that old thing she said got involved, Get rid of it anyway. Well, I was relieved. But I know today, beloved, that whole thing, wherever it is, you still got that danger. And I put it there. And so there are things we can't do. But I told this brother.
You know, he made this list and I and he told us, but he made this list. He said I forgive them all. And I said, you know, I'm glad, but it would have impressed my heart much more.
If that brother had said, you know, brother, I made a list.
I couldn't make this list too long. I made a list of everybody that I have offended.
00:45:09
And I'm as condemned to forgive me.
Oh beloved, as your Bible read, ye all often offend. Or does it read I often offend all? Oh beloved, faith of God, you don't need to think that you need to forgive your brother, and if they don't have to forgive you.
All those who I've offended, they're so big and my left is so big. When anybody ever feels like they have to tell me I'm sorry, I feel ashamed.
I think don't don't even say it to me. Who would I be to need to forgive anyone All beloved? We, you, I, we all often open and let's not take the place as teachers of others. We all often offend. Put it.
You know, I was thinking of that little Grimm that in Zechariah.
When the Lord is done working in their hearts, what it's saying?
That we've had this pointed out to us, but it's good to be reminded Nathan isn't saying to David Thou art the man they are repenting, beloved. The House of Nathan apart. The House of David apart. And you know something else? It says and.
Their wives apart. You know that's in the Bible that wives have things to repent of to oh you know as an unfortunate for you because you're surrounded by those of husbands. We husbands who.
I don't know. We're so crooked that we make anything look straight. But God said the wise had to repent to we all often offend, and if this place hold upon our hearts, are we going to continue in criticism of one another?
Can we? We can't, Can we? We can't. We all often offend and then it says behold.
We put bits and horses, mouths that they may obey us and we turn about their whole body. I never like to get on a horse. I've always been afraid of anything that's bigger than me and all horses. I fact, I only know maybe I've been on two horses in my life. There was a ***** man lived across the street from us and he had an old plow horse. Neighbor boy. I don't know, maybe Shane me into getting enough courage to get on that big old fall horse.
And ride it to the cornfield. But I was scared all the time. But we can put bits and big horses, miles and all that power that the scripture speaks of the horse having. It can be controlled and we can direct it this way and that way, but, he says.
Behold also the ships which no lady so great and are driven by fierce winds, yet they are turned about with a very small helm. I I think the helm I have to check out with the sailor brothers, but it's just that little I guess. I would probably call it a rudder bound.
That's what it is. That little piece that makes that boat go wherever you want it to go. Just a little thing, but it turns out great big boat, wherever you want it to go. But then it says here.
Verse 5 Even so the tongue.
Is a little Member and boast with great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire, timless. You ever said anything with this little tongue of yours that you regret?
Oh, oh, below. Sometimes you think, oh, I should cut it out.
How much we said I have one deep regret in my life.
There's a young man going on smoke gathered Saints is the carelessness of this evil tongue of mine. And speaking about the wrong of my dad and oh, I would beg forgiveness, beloved, This tongue is so uncontrollable and so it's fair. The tongue is a fire world of iniquity. So is the town among our members.
00:50:13
Is it describing the tongue?
Inside of your mouth? Or is it describing the tongue inside of mine? Does it say your or does it say our? Oh beloved, that's not falsely translate the holy word of God. God is speaking to our hearts tonight. He wants us to judge these things in our lives that we tend not to judge so that we can prosper in our souls.
Whether they call me, then I eat down. I said, well, it's all right to get down, but don't stay there. I mean, James doesn't want us to stay in. James, Yes. Who doesn't want us to leave it very far, But he doesn't want us to stay there, Wants us to judge these things so we can grow and get occupied with the Lord, so that we can eat that new corn there in heavenly places. But we'll never get there to eat it. I.
Speak spiritually in our souls now.
Unless we're willing to face these issues, square on and you can say this book of James was written for me.
I'm not interested in what it says to anyone else, but I know it was written to me. It's my tongue God is talking about. And then he speaks of being able to team all these other animals but in verse 8 but the tongue to no maintain.
Is unruly evil, full of deadly poison, there with blessed we God, even the Father. Or it could read the Lord.
The Father. It is 2 Persons here, but we bless them both.
It isn't singling out one person of the Godhead, it's two persons, the Lord Jesus.
And the Father James addresses himself as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But we blessed them both, and I think of the apostles. Words to the Philippians sayings, he said, fulfill you my joy, Be like minded. They love Paul, but they were fussing with one another. You can't talk about loving the Lord and how much you enjoy the Lord and you're fussing with one another. Joseph said Don't fall out, by the way, Don't fuss with each other, by the way.
And the Lord doesn't want us fussing with one another. And so we can bless the Lord. We can't have a fountain send forth at the same time, same place, Sweetwater and bitter. And these trees, they can't produce two kinds of fruit. And then it says in verse 14, But if you had bitter envying and strife in your hearts, notice it didn't come out yet. Just inside your heart, somebody said something about.
Me being unique or something, I know. Wow, they didn't know me when I'd ride on my mower the other day. And this neighbor boy he'd take and he got his nice car and got a job at the hospital and they don't have room in this driveway to park it. And on their side of the street there's no parking. On my side of the street, there's parking. In old Patrick, you come and park on my size Jeep and he'll know my lot lines are two or three feet under his car.
And parking in my yard and neat. Oh no. How how many times I said things to Patrick in my heart. Oh, I'm trying to win him to the Lord. Fortunately, they haven't come out of the mouth of mine. But, beloved, the Lord is looking at our hearts. You know, I deceived by what we try to hide. You know he's looking right down. And you know it doesn't make much difference what your brethren think of you.
What does the Lord think of you? And I sometimes told the young parents, You know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
What your brother and think your family's life. What is it like at home with no one looking? What is it like at home when no one's looking? That's what comes below it. And God is always looking. He sees those thoughts in my heart. You know I love it because that's when he let the tree limbs hit me on the head and cracked me up a little bit. But I'll be loud. We need this correction and let's watch what's going on in our hearts. And we can't bless God.
00:55:07
When we're allowing in our hearts these things glory not and lie not against the truth, wisdom they send us not from above. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is firstly sensual and devilish. For where envying its strife is there is confusion in every evil, where your God strengthen your heart, your envy in your heart, and not happiness and peace in your heart toward your brethren.
To love it. I, you know, there's this this issue. She doesn't say. She doesn't say very long.
She came to me and she said what? I don't like this lady. She used to be my best friend, but she's not saved and she's such an evil lady. I just.
You're doing this, but she just knew, she said. Well, it was like the Lord was sitting there twiddling your stones. Are you done now?
Said. I felt like a fool.
You see a brother here tonight, You got something again. You really a bad brother? And he?
Go home tonight and tell the Lord how bad he is and how much better you are.
And see see what happens to that prayer. Beloved, you can't come out of the presence of God.
But a humble man or a humble woman? 01 moment in the presence of God stop our nose.
We're not going to be fining. Call the mourn every man apart all he is the standard beloved, oh let's get these things out of our lives and how profitable for us. They're not. They're not going to. They're going to hinder our spiritual growth. So let's just judge them and go on with our God well.
Our Father and our loving God. We marvel at Thy patience with such things as we are. And yet, O our God and Father, we love to think of the last chapter.
Perfect did forever.
Can O Father yet that doesn't satisfy our hearts while we're waiting that moment.
He would desire.
Thy working in our soul that the Lord Jesus might be glorified and magnified in our bodies, help us, Lord, to go on together as brethren redeemed by the precious Blood of Christ. Oh Father, help us give us that wisdom which is from above pure and peaceable. Oh Lord, help us to judge ourselves, and so much to judge.
But we thank you for our Lord Jesus.
We thank you for our beloved brethren. We thank you for giving them to us, to walk home with, to help us along the way, to pick us up when we fall, or God and Father. We thank Thee and our Lord Jesus, worthy man and.
James 4 & 5
Address—H. Short
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Us we pray now it's again we've gathered this evening to open Thy word and.
Old blessed Savior, what a privilege to have Thy holy Word in our hands and with full liberty to read it anywhere.
And yell blessed savior.
Oh, how humbling it is. But we pray. As we open thy word tonight, our hearts might be touched. We ask it Bless it, Lord Jesus, for thy glory and our blessing and thy precious name. Amen.
Well, I would like to go back again to James. Before we go on. In Chapter 4, there is a thought I I want to bring out. I skipped over a verse and I think it's Chapter 2.
And I want to go back to that verse in starting this evening.
Actually, it was a verse. I never had thought much about it until.
Week or so ago.
And after.
Us in chapter 2, after speaking about having respect to persons and then the law and being guilty of all the law if we break one point.
He goes on and then in verse 12 he says something rather remarkable, it seems to me.
Remember now he's talked, just finished talking about breaking the Law of Moses and how you're guilty if you broke one of them, you were guilty of it all. Death.
But think of this, he said. So speak ye.
And so do as they that shall be judged.
By the law of Moses, no.
By the law of liberty. Now we have looked at the law of liberty as that.
Law or principle of things that sets us free to do what we want to do.
And what we want to do is the will of God, but here.
The law of liberty is spoken as something that will be our judge. What does this mean? Well, the next verse gives us the key, I believe, to what this verse means. And so he says if he verse 13 For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy. And then it says a mercy rejoices against.
Judgment or.
Glories over judgment.
Now just keep this. Brother Lyle spoke of this passage, but turned to Matthew 18.
And I believe there you have the thought of what it means.
To be judged by the law of liberty. You know, I I feel perhaps I'm wrong, but I I kind of doubt that I am, that we have a misconcept of grace. That grace and truth came by Jesus Christ and consequently.
As him coming with grace and truth, and we finding our law cast in the dispensation of the grace of God.
That somehow in our mind, we are free from all responsibility now, and God's government has been put on hold until he takes Israel up again. And it it couldn't be further from the truth. Well, here's what I believe it means to be judged by the law of liberty, and it's in the 18th of Matthew toward the end of the chapter in that account where this servant.
Owed his master and he didn't have anything to pay him.
And it says in verse 25 of Matthew 18. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him. Now notice this.
To be sold and his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. Now the master says he's got to pay this bill and so we're going to sell him his wife, his children and all that he has. Well, what this judgment meant was that this man, this servant would be sold to another master and whatever he brought would be used to pay.
00:05:17
Is that?
Well, this man said have patience with me. And instead of having patience, the master just said in verse 27, the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. He said don't worry, you don't have a debt anymore now. That's why you and me who have confessed Christ as our Savior, we say we've been set free. We are in the good of the law of liberty.
Oh God, anything anymore because the Lord Jesus has paid it all. Will we go on? In this story we see what this set free man does. He takes his fellow servant by the neck and he shows him no mercy.
Said You're going to pay me all that you owe me now. Here.
This man who had initially been forgiven all comes unto just under judgment to his master, who had shown a willingness to forgive him, and here is his judgment.
Then verse 32 is Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, Oh thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me, Shouldst not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? Now notice the punishment.
He said, and his Lord was wroth and delivered him to tormentors.
Till he should pay all that was to him how much sore punishment this man fell into by despising the law of liberty he had been brought into. And that's the thought in this verse. You say you know the Lord Jesus as your savior, but you live your life in an unforgiving way to others. You exact from others, you say, well, I I don't even have a servant.
Oh yes, we all have a service. You ever take in your car somewhere? And I suppose being in the service work myself, I I've especially felt it from time to time. But you take it, you you have somebody do something for you and they make a mistake.
Can you say at all right, We all make mistakes. Do we? Do we say I pay good money and you didn't even do this right? I just had this thing in here last week. Be careful, beloved. We have been forgiven all. I'm not saying that we shouldn't expect something for what we purchased, but we need to be careful when we have hired something done or something. A man is doing something for us and he makes a mistake.
Realize that and not, you know, our whole medical world is in such a mess because.
Of these.
I won't call them what I think of them as the lawyers who take people and sue doctors because doctors make I, you might say, honest mistake. Well, you know, we who know Christ as our Savior, we can't afford to take anyone by the neck and say, look here, you better make this right or you can make demands on people. And so James says, if you say.
And you have been brought into the law of liberty, and you don't show mercy.
He says, either showeth no one, for he shall have judgment, and that showed no mercy. But then this last expression and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. What is it, beloved, when Christ comes to judge the world, we won't be there in trembling. Oh, we're not going to be there in trembling. We're going to rejoice. And what are we going to rejoice in that?
That we have been shown mercy. I just love it.
I mean, I I used to tell them Then after jail, you know, I'm going to be in heaven now because of what I've done for God. But what God has done for me, he's showing me mercy. And now the other gathering to in our interactions with one another, with our neighbors, with people who work for us and do things for us. And when we have an occasion to show mercy, let's show mercy.
00:10:22
Because we have been forgiven. A great thing, but in truth, beloved Christianity.
And the introduction of Christianity and mercy.
Into the human race. The consequence of that not being received by faith is going to bring the most awful judgments ever known to mankind. Of how much sore punishment shall it be thought for those who trample under foot the blood of Christ?
Who do this fight to grace and also beloved. Don't think we're out from under the government of God, we're far more responsible than those who were under the law of Moses. Now I'd like to go on to chapter 4 and.
Let's see, I I want to spend probably most of our evening in chapter 5, but I would like to.
Let's start.
In chapter 4.
And.
Verse 7 verse 6 God give us more grace. Wherefore he saith God resisteth the proud that that I don't like that. And because you know sometimes only God sees that sin.
People we don't always see pride, but God sees it. And sometimes.
Maybe you have, but I felt the resistance of God in my life. Someone said, you know, God's never against us, but there is an aspect when God loves us so much that he is against us, He's against the way we're going. He sees those workings of pride in our heart and he starts bringing things into our lives to resist us. I remember one time when I was my early days of cleaning carpet and.
Had gone to the carpet school and I really believed them. It was embarrassing when I looked back on.
That I was actually going to be able to perform the best type of carpet cleaning available. And I was cleaning in this lady's house, this house, and she had this.
Well, she didn't think of it as a dumb chandelier, but I did. It was a wooden chandelier with candlesticks sticking in it. And I thought, you know, that's dangerous. I better watch out for that. But I got thinking how good a job I was doing on her carpet and my head bumped that candle holding all the candles, flopped out and fell on the end table. And I see the Lord saw he was paying attention to what was going on in my heart.
And the pride that was coming in my heart. And I thought, all right, Lord, I'm sorry he got my attention. And I thought maybe I better judge it too since he had judged it. And I looked and half hour from a little bang here, so on the candle it was all right. And I put it back up. And you know, pride isn't always gotten rid of. And my mind got carried away again.
And only I could do this. I bumped it again with my head, of course, and all they came again, and this time one of the candles.
Landed on a wedding, kind of a thing that they had encased with glass and they built that glass. And you can imagine I was a little more earnest the second time in my confessing what was going on in my hot mind and in my heart. Oh, beloved, God resists you. He'll resist what no one else see. No one else was in the house. The Lord was in the house. He resists things and believe when things go against you a little bit.
Be sensitive to that. You know, if we're sensitive to the little things in our life and we may be spared bigger things in our life, well, God resists the proud and he gives grace to that is, you know, that's how we live our lives. We live our lives by the power of the grace of God. That's what Christianity is. It isn't that we have any more strength than they did under the law.
00:15:16
We have a life, and God has come in, and he has given us a deposit of grace that you and I can't exhaust. And Paul says that grace had wasn't bestowed on me in vain. He said I labored more abundantly than they all. You know, we think of grace as something that picking us up out of the mud. That's the that's the lowest aspect of the grace of God, the highest desirable aspect of the grace of God. It would keep you out of the mud.
And that's what Paul meant when he said God's grace wasn't bestowed on me, and they I labored more abundantly than all the other apostles. Do you think that was pride? No. He was glorying in the grace of God with the grace of God could do to a fellow like Paul, and it can do it for you and me, too, if we humble ourselves. Now draw nigh to God and some of these expressions cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double my.
Oh wow. We wouldn't want James coming here and saying this to us, but keep in mind he is writing to the 12 tribes and in that 12 tribes there were unconverted Jewish brethren, his brethren after the flesh, and he's trying to reach their conscience. It isn't necessarily that he is talking to the believing Jews, his Christian you might what we would call Christian brethren, although in principle it might be. But what I do want to point out is.
Sometimes we portray our Lord Jesus as a rather passive never offending anyone. Listen, the Lord's servant and the Lord Himself. They knew how to speak a stern word where a stern word was needed. And beloved, we shouldn't frown on brethren who have a little stern word for sometimes.
You know we need it, don't we? And we think our children need it, but not need, not mom that we need.
They're weird sometimes while James has a stern word here and he said cleanse your hands, you're sinners.
Be afflicted and mourn and weep, and let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to having us. You see what James is saying, He said. See how man can make himself happy, man can make himself comfortable without the Lord, and he doesn't even know it. And so James said, you better stop, you're laughing, you better stop all this joy and you better start mourning.
And you better start realizing the benefit of heaviness. Well, beloved being what we are, fallen and estranged from God, Cain had sought to make a world where we could have joy, where we could have laughter. Can I say a little word to younger ones coming on in the world?
The world is full of laughter. The world is full of this joy. But it's passing. It's passing and it's not real. Oh, it's not real. Well, let's go on to verse 11 first. And verse 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. He shall lift you up. Speak not, evil.
One of another brethren.
He goes on and to tell us why.
He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother speaketh evil of the law.
And Judith the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one law giver.
Let's think about this a little bit.
Speak not evil.
One of another. I don't even suppose this is necessarily one to another.
But we can develop a serious habit of talking about one another in a not good way. We can't afford to do it, beloved. We we're not strong enough to bear that kind of an evil. And so let's not do it. For we're speaking about the law giver.
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Now down in verse 13 it says go to now.
Ye that say today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue their year and buy and sell and get gain. We make our plans and lies. There's no problem with that. Beloved, I wasn't raised in a family that made any plans if we decided to go swimming. We decided to go swimming now and we went now. If we decided to do this, we didn't decide it until we wanted. Why would you make plans to do something?
If you weren't going to do it, you know, we just do it when we were ready. And of course, there are some disadvantages to living that kind of a life. Now, Jane isn't saying I don't want you to have to make plans. You know, God had to take me up on that too. I didn't realize how unorganized I was until I went into my own business and I didn't have a boss telling me 5 days, six days, a week what I was going to do and then.
The assembly took up most half of my nights and come Saturday or three day there was number.
You didn't have anything to decide. There was already the leaking faucet and roofs and whatever you had to do that. But when I went on my own, I realized I didn't know how to plan. And James isn't undermanning making plans. That's not what he's approaching here. What he is approaching is this self-confidence that man has in himself to make himself secure and to think that you are able to do anything.
We can't, beloved. And so he goes on and says, for what is your life? What is your life? You know, I used to have a little boy. It says here what it is. It's even as a vapor and appears for a little time and then vanisheth away. Oh, wonder if children, any of your little children, do this anymore. There seems to be so much for children to do to look at and be occupied with, but.
I didn't have a lot, but I had all the gods creation even though.
I didn't really know God created about it. I used to lay down up there in Michigan and I would pick out a big cloud, you know, and I just watch it and watch it go across the sky. And pretty soon it was no cloud anymore. I have to take another cloud. Same thing happened to the next cloud. That's what James is saying. He said your life is just a vapor. Look up at the cloud and watch that cloud.
Joel says. We look at the sparks. Last evening, Agnes and I were watching. We made a little campfire and watching the sparks go up, the very highest spark fades away and falls back down. That's our life. And did you ask the oldest ones here? They don't know what happened to this life and what happened then? All we're left is a few dewdrops takes about to the end and disappeared. Beloved, that's how frail we are.
And so let's not trust what we are for anything, because we don't know about tomorrow, but we can say if the Lord will and we would live. It's a little different in Mr. Darby's translation.
Verse 16 Ye rejoice in your boastings, and all such rejoicing is evil I just heard of.
Of an example of this person, dear Steve told us in his home this evening that.
The The executives of Walmart plan to get something like 80% of the grocery market.
You gotta do it. You gotta. But God says whatever man sets his mind to, he can do it. But God. God is God and he You can only do what he lets you do. But men boast, we're going to be #1, or we're going to be this, or we're going to be that. And beloved brethren, we can't afford to do that. Let's just say and mean if the Lord will.
We will do this or that. And if he doesn't, we're glad not to do it. Don't stretch your heart on something. I work for a lady one time. She is a Christian lady. Oh, she is miserable. She is miserable. And her husband had left. I I don't justify that.
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Well, anyway, I was glad I wasn't her husband, but she is a miserable woman and she was angry at the Lord because the Lord didn't give her this house and this other neighborhood that she wanted.
She she didn't know, or she couldn't be contented with a God who can tell us no and God can tell us no, beloved. And we need to learn to rejoice that our God can say no. It's a wonderful thing. If he says no to us on some desire we have, we shouldn't fret under we shouldn't try to force the matter. He knows better than we do what we need, and so we can just.
Trust him for all these things.
And not rejoice in our boasting. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is then. Now here is a question of knowing what should be done. But you just don't do it. It's thin. Here's something doing nothing. It's sin. How many things do you know that should be done, that could be done and done by you?
That you're not doing tonight?
They are. They exist, don't they, in our lives. But him that knows to do good and doesn't do it, that's sin. It's a lot easier, you know, to let someone else do it. And then if they make a mistake, we can criticize them for it. But beloved, if you know to do good and you don't do it, it's now in chapter 5. I want to move down rather quickly. But he speaks about the rich man.
And weeping and hall for your miseries that shall come upon you. Beloved, this is true.
Now, it doesn't mean that rich men are more miserable than poor men.
But it means that men who are rich are going to leave those riches and they're going to sometime in their life or in their death.
Realize the poverty of the pursuit that they spent their life pursuing. Don't do it. You love it. Let Christ be our object. We won't be disappointed when we come to our you. Look at the beloved Apostle Paul.
I suppose next to the Lord, he was the poorest man that ever lived, abandoned, alone. And what's he doing? I wasted my life. I tried to build the church and look at it. It's all turned away from me. No, he said. I'll tell you what, Timothy, go on, For I know who I have believed, and I know that he is able to keep that which I committed to him against that day. No, it's a wonderful thing to come to the end of your life.
And not have regret about how you've spent your life and love it. If you spend it pursuing the wind, it doesn't have to be money. It can be anything, pleasure or work or whatever. If it's not the Lord in some measure, you're going to feel the weight of these verses. Your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth eaten, your gold and silver is tanker.
Then down and the anniversary you have heap treasure together.
For the last days. And then he tells how they had gotten it by plundering those who had worked for them. And now I want to go down to verse six rather.
Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you. Primarily, I think this was.
Had its fullest expression in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, but he wasn't the only one that died at this people's hands. You know, they stoned Stephen with a just man and they'd kill him, and their hands were stained with the blood of the death of just men. And not only that, Remember, earlier they gave favor to the men who were wealthy in their synagogues. These are significant things.
It occurred to me today that James has the spirit of God in this epistle is bringing us to a climax. He's bringing us to a remarkable apex, and that's going to be seen in two words in a little bit. But here he's laying the groundwork for it. He said you favored the rich. You've given the poor man a place under your feet. That poor man was Christ. He came into their synagogue.
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Came into their temple and they would not have him. They would not give him the exalted place he was supposed to have because he was a poor, despised man. And then they killed this just man.
And then he talks to those who know the Lord. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold the husband, And waited for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it until he received the early and latter rain. Be also patience, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Oh, I thought, it is this is wonderful. Wouldn't it be wonderful to live a life that you haven't reached your harvest yet? Sometimes I think, Lord, I don't know if there's going to be one thing left.
I read so much here on earth. I don't know there's going to be any harvest for me in eternity. But beloved, wouldn't it be wonderful to not have reaped your harvest when you leave this earth? That's what James is saying, said. I want you to go on in patience. Don't try to live like a rich man now. Don't try. As the Corinthians, they were reigning as kings without Paul and the apostles. They were living in luxury. James has brought that out to us.
He's saying don't leave your high risk yet or you won't have anything. But he said just be patient, go on with the Lord, go on by faith and doing works for the Lord, and when the Lord comes you'll reap your harvest, beloved. You know that story we've heard of maybe some of the younger ones. When and this is just that way. You call it a parable where?
This two believers and this one believer, he went to heaven and he was looking forward that, you know, we have that kind of idea.
In my father's house are many mansions. There's a song I've listened to the other day, just build my mansion next to the throne where the Lord is. We got that little concept. And I have to say, driving around Coralville area or down there, I thought, I can't help but think the Lord's going to build me a better house than these guys. But anyway, this man went to heaven, they said. Where his shoes were that little.
Sandy, over there. That's yours. That's my. I thought I was imagining no excess.
We built it with the material. You sin ahead. Rebuild it with the material that you send away. That's what James is saying. He's saying don't reap your harvest here. Wait. Live for the Lord. And when the Lord comes, you'll see your patience, your endurance You're going on with. The Lord has paid off. Well, beloved, let's trust. And it will be true. Our harvest hasn't been reaped.
And so he said, be patient. And then he comes down and he said grudge, not one against another, Brethren, I'm glad we're not guilty of that. We never.
Get jealous of one another. Have this kind of thought toward one another. You know, if someone came in tonight and said I'm going to give somebody here $1,000,000 tonight, and they gave it to Brother Karl, we had all fail. I'm so glad he got it. There wouldn't be any thought in our heart that we kind of wish that we at least got attackers on it or something. No, no, beloved.
We don't want these kind of thoughts to let's seek one another's welfare in one another's blessings, and grudging out one against another, lest he be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Now here are two aspects.
Of the Lord's coming, One is for those who wait in patience, who go on in faith and looking and living for a day that's not yet arrived. They're going to reap a wonderful harvest. But there is another aspect to the Lord's coming. It's those who've lived our lives for ourselves. And when we are caught to heaven, we'll find the truth of His words. We saved our life and we lost it.
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Beloved, let's lose our life in this world, that we might save it in that to come, But the Lord comes in those two characters. He comes as bringing a rich harvest for us, for He comes as that judge.
Well then it says.
Take my brethren, verse 10, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering, affliction, and the patience you know.
I go to cemetery recently I went to a cemetery and I stood at the grave of of brother Dan Anderson's father and and I stood at the grave of Missus Whitaker first Missus Whittaker and David Anderson. And I thought that they finished their course they're gone now they're like there's no difference in my life. And we all we think well they're home and now these verses we can take the prophets where we can say that's the way to do it job that's the way to do it Jose. It that's the way to do it Samuel.
Go on. But what about you? What about me? We have finished our course and we're finding it a little harder to follow their steps. Aren't we? Where we we need to be encouraged. And so James says, well, we look at those.
Profits and we have spoken in the name of the Lord, and we're an example of suffering and affliction of patients. Behold, we count them happy, which endure. We're glad they finished their course. I think, of those disturbance of the Lord.
Who crossed my life, invented the benefit to me? Mr. London. You know, I've been his presence just a couple hours before he went home. You know what he's doing. He's trying to make a chart on prophecy. It already lost most of his mind. He wasn't coherent in everything. But he would say, he said to me, brother, come here, you might be interested in this. He had a piece of paper, a piece of paper and a pencil. And he said his mind was confused. He said this is 1936 and and then this is where we are. And then he said, well.
And then I have to wait for my son to help me with this one.
He finished his life, the way he lived his life and the things of the Lord. And I looked at his Gray sight and I sound glad he made it. He's home. And servants and brothers and sisters. I know more of them in glory than I know on earth. They're home. They're safe to finish their course. But we haven't finished ours. And we're not just to look on them and say we're glad you made it, but we want to make it to And James says.
We want to make it too. And so he says, and we can't. We call them happy. But he said, and you've heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord. And the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. We don't like to wait for the end of the Lord or the purpose of the Lord. That's the end of the Lord. Job had a hard time. But you know, I've been very encouraged about Job as far as I know, every reference to him outside of the book itself.
Is a commendation of Joviere's patience. And then he has spoken of as saving himself. He had been able to save himself. He was that character man, Daniel Job and.
The other one slips my mind right now. They would have been able to save themselves at Noah if they hadn't been able to save anyone else. That's the character these men had. The Beloved were still in the journey, and not only called them happy, they finished their course, but let them be an encouragement to us to go on, then. Verse 13. Is any among you afflicted? We know they are our let him pray.
We have a resource when we're afflicted. Land grammar, land Complain I I think those dear nurses at the hospital I'm sorry for them and the VA that's especially because they get us characters for their patients and they use stand in line. You know we don't like stand in line and we can play how slow they are and how long. Just like the army hurry up and wait. Maybe was the same way.
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Oh beloved, are we afflicted.
Let us complain. No, let us pray. Let us pray. And then it says if any, Mary. That's quite a question, isn't it? It's hard to find married people.
I suppose it's because we have such a.
Difficult circumstances in the United States of America. The, you know, we don't have things so convenient and it's really difficult to live in our country. And I suppose that's why we're not happy. It's so hard to find someone happy. I why can I watch people?
If they look at you, they think that guy, he's probably escaped from the cycle where he seems to be happy. No beloved is any happy. Are we happy? What are we supposed to do, if any? They let him sing songs and then it says if any among you, if is any sick among you, let him call. Now here is the apex. I'm going to change the wording here.
That to me, this is astounding. I'm going to read it different than it is.
Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders in Israel.
Why does Jave bring in the Church?
Why does James bring in the Elvis?
I want to dwell on this.
This is the first Christian language. I mean, that's peculiar to Christianity, that's exclusive Christian in the book of James. Those two words? The church.
I would like to suggest what James has done in this book.
He has written to a people who were scattered under the government of God. They had lost Jerusalem, and James is saying.
Israelites.
I want to take you to stand beside the Lord.
When he looked over Jerusalem.
When he wept and said those words, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, How awkward I have gathered thee.
And he's telling his gathering the 12 tribes scattered.
You will never be gathered to the Lord's name, and that's in Jeremiah, two or three at Jerusalem.
It's all over. Our earthly center is done, and it isn't the healers or the gift in the church, it's the elders. It is when you get elders, you get the administrative side of the assembly.
It's the assembly as seen in Matthew 18. James is saying the Lord set aside Israel in chapter 13 in a figure, and he introduced the assembly in chapter 18 as the place where his administration was going to be carried on on earth and brethren, if you're sick, if you've got a problem now.
You're going to have to go to the church. It's all over. This word, in a way, must have broke the heart of the Israelite. So confident you know the disciples themselves will call it this time. Restore Israel. Oh Lord, no.
If you're going to find me now, beloved, you're going to have to find me in the midst of the two or three who are gathered together unto my name. Jerusalem is done with, they tell me, Josephus said when the doors of the temple were closed and the uproar relating to Paul, they were never opened again until that temple was dismantled.
By the destroying armies of Titus, oh beloved, this is a close.
A door closed through Israelite but then God and grace said that I have.
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A secret council that I told you back there in Deuteronomy 2929.
The secret things belong to the Lord your God, and I want to let you in on a secret if I've shut up Jerusalem forever to you.
I've opened the door of the assembly. I've opened the door. It's like the Lord is saying to the children of Israel, you know what the In days there was that pool that says this pool, and there was an Angel that came and there was still a little faint ray of hope there at Jerusalem in that pool. The Angel would once come in trouble, The water and one person at least.
Could be healed.
That pool is gone forever.
Nothing in Jerusalem. It was a pool in Siloam, where a blind man could go and wash and get his sight again. The pool of Siloam is dried up, its clothes forever, but brethren.
Call the elders of the assembly. God has given you a city of refuge to flee to.
Call the elders of the city of that refuge the Assembly of God, and you can have relief from your sins. Here in this world there is a new administrative center. Oh, it is very precious to me. I want to share with you the pool of Siloam that means the same one. And here is what I believe this means when the Lord said.
He took this dirt and he spit into it and he made mud out of it and put it on that blind man's eyes. What I think he was doing in figure he was saying you represent Israel. And how they see me spittle is, I believe, always a a contemptible thing. And he is saying the Jews in John's Gospel, they look at me.
As a man.
An earthy man, the Lord was not of the earth earthy.
He was not an earthly man like you and me. And they said he wasn't. God, wasn't his father. He wasn't the same one from heaven. He had his birth because of it. He wasn't diligent in a child. That's what they were inferring when they said we be not born of fornication. And the Lord said, this is how your nation, your people, my people, Israel, look at me. They look at my humanity.
As a despised thing, and it as though I am like them a son of fallen Adam. Put it on your eyes. Now go to that pool, this pool sent and voiced. And what did he do? He washed that concept of Christ humanity from his eyes. How does the end of days? He says. Who is he Lord, he said, I that speak to you?
And he and he worshiped the Lord. He saw who the Son of God was. He saw that Jesus was not an earthy man. He despised earthy man, a contemptible man. He saw him as the Son of God, become man, sin here from heaven. And so silence pool is dried now, because he descent one is in glory, and all of these resources of Jerusalem forever gone.
Until Genesis says child come, whose right it is, the Lord Jesus will return to that city with blessings. But until then, beloved, this people scattered forever, scattered, until Shiloh comes, had recourse to the assembly. Now I want to talk about the assembly as it relates to you as a city of rafters.
Below it I've been gathered to the Lord's name.
For more than 40 years.
And I suppose I've seen yes, I I don't have to suppose it. I've seen more leave.
The assembly.
Than hath stayed.
Our hall in Des Moines had all who had been in the assembly at one time or another gone on in the assembly, our hall would be too small to hold the number.
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The beloved. It is a city of refuge for my soul.
Rather said to me, you know, I suppose Henry anymore. It doesn't have that character anymore as a city of refuge. We're so weak, I said.
Your family out of it.
And see what happens.
Don't despise this little company gathered to the Lord's name. Beloved, I don't believe we would exist.
If the Spirit of God had not brought us together to the name of the Lord Jesus and beloved, we wonder why the power to carry out these verses that are talking about.
Why can't we carry out? We say they did it in the 1830s. You know that. I believe it's because we haven't responded to the first four chapters of this book that we don't have the power to lay hold of this precious privilege. I think if we would repent of our failures that we have seen in this book and judge ourselves, we would know more of the power that accompanied the elders of the assembly.
But I want to point out one other thing about these men. It says.
Anointing him with oil and the prayer of faith shall save the sick. No works here, beloved.
And speak of the church. And one other thing in that expression. I want to call our attention to it. I think it may be of some significance in your life, and I would like you to weigh this. If it's not true or not, I want to misread verse 14 again. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of an assembly.
It's not what it says for others, Church.
It's a dream church.
You're not. This company gathered to the Lord's name in Cedar Rapids does not look that is a member of the body of Christ. It's looked at as the body of Christ. It's not looked at and it's administrative capacity as an assembly. Even in Matthew 18, it doesn't say go to an assembly. It says tell the church there's only one and when you ask in your decisions.
Acting on behalf of the whole Church of God, you're looked at by the Spirit of God as being the assembly. Now that should cause your brothers in the care meeting to tremble. When you take up administrative matters, it should cause you to fear that you will be guided by the Holy Word of God. And when you make decisions that are going to affect the other assemblies, you're taking that decision.
On their behalf. You're not taking it independent from them, you're taking it as though you were the assembly and you're taking it on all other assemblies behalf. And we need to fear our God and tremble when we take the place. I say take the place or fulfill that role not as though it's anything anyone is attaining or aspiring to, but when we act as elders in a care meeting.
To do it in Holy Spirit and Holy Trembling. Because if an act of you decide upon is brought into the assembly, you're taking it on behalf of the assembly. God is looking at you as the Church, not an assembly you look at as the Church. Keep it in mind that may be needed for you.
In time to come to help guide us through troubles, times and no doubt will come upon us.
But beloved.
Let's go through this book alone with God. Let him speak to our hearts. Let us let Him bring us into this assembly, and let us let him bring us into this state of things where we can be a help and a healing to one another.
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I think we'll close here, but.
I would say one more comment if I might permitted and the effects over proven prayer. Verse 16 Confess your faults again. Remember it's your fault, not your brother's fault. One to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The thought here I think the primary thought still isn't necessarily a question of the person being sick because of the government of God, but surely that thought is in this portion.
And I think in the context of the 12 Tides, James is saying you're sick brethren, and your only hope is the Assembly of God. You better flee to it. And he says effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man.
And it says down in the.
Verse 17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly, I think, and he prayed again. The thought of Mr. Darby translates.
He paid.
In something like in prayer. In other words, it wasn't just words. It was a thing that occupied his heart. And again, in our prayers, collectively and alone with God.