- 2 days ago
Selfish ambitions create conflict within ourselves, within the body of Christ, and between us and God. The key to powerful prayers and spiritual victory is humility and putting the needs of the kingdom of God before our own.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00we are still in the overall section that I labeled conflict and selfish pride in the outline of the
00:00:08whole book. I don't know if you've had a chance to go back and watch some of the first sessions
00:00:13that we did three or four sessions ago. We talked about how there's a large chiasm in the middle of
00:00:18this book, and it starts in chapter three, verse one, and goes through chapter four, verse 12. So
00:00:24we're in the last half of that chiasm, and I've got an arrow here pointing out where we're at in
00:00:31there. And I did adjust this a little bit from when I had shown it before. I think I had ended
00:00:37this first part here in verse six and started the next one in verse seven, but I corrected that
00:00:42because I'm pretty sure this is where it's supposed to be. And I will show you why after we get around
00:00:47to reading. And while I'm reading, be thinking about paying attention for significant words and
00:00:56ideas, what seems to be James's main themes. What are the things that he's really talking about?
00:01:03So significant words, phrases, and ideas. Starting in verse one, where do wars and fights come from
00:01:13among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and
00:01:17do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have
00:01:23because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your
00:01:28pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with
00:01:34God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you
00:01:40think that the scripture says in vain? The spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously.
00:01:45But he gives more grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
00:01:51Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God,
00:01:56and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,
00:02:00you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laugh to be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
00:02:06Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.
00:02:10Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother
00:02:14speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law,
00:02:20but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?
00:02:30All right, so what stands out to you in this passage? What significant words, phrases,
00:02:35ideas, ideas, or names, if there are any?
00:02:40Strivings, pleasure, unable to obtain.
00:02:45Spirit. We've got conflict, pleasure, joy, laughter, those things. Things we want but can't have.
00:02:59A bad attitude in asking. We've got resisting things, submitting, pride and humility to spirit.
00:03:08Judge, law, the devil, and the world, and the adulteresses.
00:03:16All right, so we get an idea that James is talking about conflict here.
00:03:22And conflict that causes us problems.
00:03:25We want things and can't have them because of this conflict.
00:03:28And there is a solution in submission.
00:03:34This was the chiasm that surrounds this passage.
00:03:39Well, this passage is actually the last half of the chiasm.
00:03:43Here's a chiasm within that chiasm, verses one through five.
00:03:47In verse one, it begins talking about your passions.
00:03:50See, where it says, you know, you're at war among, in yourself, in murdering and coveting and in these sinful passions, the things that, you know, not all passions are sinful.
00:04:03But these particular ones are the things that drive us to sin.
00:04:08And they create conflict with other people.
00:04:10Then it goes to, you don't have what you want because you're not asking for it.
00:04:16Or you don't have, it doesn't say you don't have what you want.
00:04:18It says, you don't have because you don't ask.
00:04:21He doesn't specify what it is you're supposed to be asking.
00:04:24And the other side of that central axis is, you don't receive because you ask wrongly.
00:04:30And it appears like there's a contradiction there, but that's kind of the nature of chiasms.
00:04:34And then sinful passions create conflict with God, whereas in the first half, they create conflict with man.
00:04:42And then at the end, it began with your passions in you.
00:04:45And now it ends with God's passion for what is in you, for what he put into you.
00:04:51And that's the spirit.
00:04:53This is what you might call an antithetical chiasm.
00:04:57Well, a chiasm is a literary structure where the first half kind of moves slowly into a point.
00:05:05And then the second half moves back away from that point, kind of repeating the same things.
00:05:10And sometimes it changes things around a little bit.
00:05:13And there are different kinds of chiasms.
00:05:15Like a sympathetic chiasm is it pretty much repeats the same thing in reverse order.
00:05:20So the top half and the bottom half correspond almost exactly.
00:05:24An antithetic chiasm is one where the bottom half is in contrast to the top half.
00:05:30And this one is kind of a mix of both, where the first half is pointing out similar things as the second half, but it changes a little bit.
00:05:40So in the first half, it's the passions in you that create conflict with other men.
00:05:45And the second one is, or rather at the end, it's God's passion about what is in you and your passions that create conflict with God.
00:05:55When we talk about sympathetic and antithetic chiasms and all that kind of stuff, those are convenient ways to categorize these things.
00:06:02But in reality, it's never quite that clean.
00:06:06Chiasms are found throughout the Bible.
00:06:08There are enormous ones that span entire books.
00:06:12And there are little tiny ones.
00:06:14The Psalms and the Proverbs are full of little tiny chiasms, maybe one or two verses.
00:06:20Yeah.
00:06:20And Paul points out that the whole Bible may be a chiasm.
00:06:23And you're talking about at the very beginning, you've got mankind in the garden with God.
00:06:27And at the end, you've got mankind in the new earth, new Jerusalem with God.
00:06:33And the whole story in the middle.
00:06:36So in James right here, what is he trying to accomplish with this chiasm?
00:06:42Well, he's pointing out that your passions, which are on the outside, are the things that are preventing you from getting what it is you need.
00:06:52And usually the axis, the thing that's in the middle of the chiasm, is the most important thing.
00:06:58It's the point of the whole thing.
00:07:00Gotcha.
00:07:00Literally and figuratively.
00:07:02Not always, but usually.
00:07:05And in this case, he's doing several things with it.
00:07:07He's got the main point is in the middle.
00:07:10Like these things on the outside are the things that lead to what's the problem that's in the middle.
00:07:14But he's also contrasting some things.
00:07:17Like, you know, your passions in you cause you to be at war with yourself.
00:07:22God's passion for what's in you is trying to reconcile you to yourself and to him.
00:07:29So as long as you're engaging in the one, you're never going to have peace.
00:07:32You're never going to have what you need.
00:07:34But if you submit to the other, then everything falls into place.
00:07:39So chaiosms are a way that you can say lots of things without spelling it out.
00:07:44And James does spell this out.
00:07:46He just uses this for emphasis.
00:07:48They are very common in the Bible.
00:07:49They were fairly common in other ancient literature, too.
00:07:53I mean, the Greeks used them.
00:07:55Beowulf is in a chiastic structure.
00:07:58We still use them today, but most people really aren't aware of it.
00:08:02And they're usually fairly short, although not always.
00:08:05I taught a course on finding and interpreting chiasms, which I need to re-edit and put it up online.
00:08:12One of the Disney cartoons, one of the most famous ones, was actually structured.
00:08:17Oh, it was Beauty and the Beast.
00:08:19The whole thing was structured as a chiasm.
00:08:23And it was really kind of cool the way it was laid out.
00:08:26And I'm certain they did it on purpose.
00:08:27But chiasms aren't always done on purpose because, to an extent, it's just the way that people think.
00:08:34And especially when your literature is full of it, you're going to tend to write like the people that you read.
00:08:40And so Hebrew literature is sometimes has structured in chiastic forms without the author even being aware that he's doing it.
00:08:48So they can be very loose.
00:08:50They're not super structured all the time.
00:08:52So looking at verses one to three.
00:08:56Where do wars and fights come from among you?
00:08:58Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
00:09:02You lust and don't have.
00:09:03You murder and covet and cannot obtain.
00:09:05You fight and war, yet you do not receive because you do not ask.
00:09:09You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
00:09:13So one thing I pointed out with this chiasm is that James seems to be saying something contradictory between verse two and three.
00:09:25You do not have because you do not ask.
00:09:28You ask and don't receive because you ask amiss.
00:09:31So which is it?
00:09:32Are you asking and not receiving or are you not receiving because you're not asking?
00:09:37It is really both.
00:09:38You're not receiving because you're not asking what you're supposed to be asking for.
00:09:42And you ask for the things you're not you're not supposed to be asking for.
00:09:48And so you don't get what you neither what you ask for nor what you need.
00:09:53Yeah.
00:09:54So it's important to remember that James is writing a lot like the Proverbs.
00:09:59He's not writing law where it's very tightly structured and everything is literal.
00:10:05I mean, even in the Torah, everything isn't always black and white like that, that there are there are patterns.
00:10:11And illusions and principles sometimes rather than what we would call laws of the universe.
00:10:18There's some of both.
00:10:19But, you know, in James here, he's really he's writing advice.
00:10:24And so just like with Proverbs, you can't take it and say, well, James says this is true.
00:10:29So this is true.
00:10:30A hundred percent of the time.
00:10:31It's more like these these are principles.
00:10:34And so you can count on them being more or less true.
00:10:37Most of the time, things will tend to work out this way.
00:10:41Going back to verse one.
00:10:44He's talking about inner struggles that we have with ourselves where we are constantly at war.
00:10:49And this really reminded me of what Paul talked about in Romans seven.
00:10:54Right after that passage we were talking about earlier, Paul talks about how he knows what the right thing to do is.
00:11:01And he knows the law and with his mind, he loves the law and he wants to keep it.
00:11:08But his flesh wants to do this other thing.
00:11:11And so he keeps finding himself in positions where he's doing the things he doesn't want to do.
00:11:16He's constantly at war with himself.
00:11:17And thank God for his mercy, because, you know, he forgives us.
00:11:23He knows that we're stupid.
00:11:24He knows we're weak and ignorant and that we have these passions.
00:11:30So, verse one, does anybody have any thoughts, any specific examples of where our inner passions will, you know, will drive us to even ask God for things that we're not supposed to have, that we shouldn't have.
00:11:46Or that cause conflict for us in where we really just sabotage ourselves because of the things that we think we want.
00:11:55I think that, you know, even if we look back at, like, the situation with Eve in the garden, we can see that there was something that, like, inspired her to, like, be interested in this fruit and to consider the questions that were being presented.
00:12:13And I think that at times, like, when we're really, you know, I wouldn't call it luck, but, like, when we're really following the spirit, I think that we can see things and, like, see something good and go after it.
00:12:34And it's like, things work out and we think, wow, that's awesome.
00:12:39This is definitely God leading me.
00:12:41And other times we see things and we don't recognize that one of the things that excites us about it or inspires us about it is probably, you know, kind of being filtered through our flesh.
00:12:53Like, it's something we haven't maybe even identified as, like, something that we have ambitions for or whatever or desires for.
00:13:04And in itself, it might not even necessarily be a bad thing.
00:13:09It's just that those things kind of have to be not just tested through scripture when it's important to do that.
00:13:17But through that obedience that we have, that asking, that questioning, God, is this something, you know, what is it about this?
00:13:31You know, show me what it is that excites me about it.
00:13:36Is it because of your spirit in me or is it something else?
00:13:39Like, and really the opportunities that bring us back to relationship because it's really the challenge that we have a lot of times is that we're not even aware that we're being manipulated into something because our flesh sees something about it that appeals to our flesh.
00:13:58And sometimes we can't tell the difference between, like, when something or when it is the leading of the spirit.
00:14:06And I think that's so important to discern.
00:14:09But until we get really practiced at it, it could be a problem.
00:14:16You know, we could just assume that everything that excites us is the leading of the Holy Spirit.
00:14:22And so I just I think, like, with Eve, it's like when when the serpent's talking to her, he says, you know, if you eat of it, he knows if you eat of it, you'll be like, like God.
00:14:33And she's thinking, well, that's a good thing.
00:14:38But it wasn't the right perspective because it wasn't be like God in being a God unto yourself or allowing someone someone like the serpent to usurp your authority.
00:14:52But now you don't have any of that.
00:14:54But like it was more like God wanted them to reflect his light, to reflect who he was.
00:15:01It was a very different thing.
00:15:03But it's like she thought she kind of knew in that moment because somebody told her how it was, you know.
00:15:09And I think there's such subtle things that happen to us.
00:15:14Just in any given moment that we have to be, you know, on guard in that sense, like and it's not wrong to ask God.
00:15:21And for clarity, why wouldn't he want us to go to him?
00:15:26You know, we can see things that we want and we can extrapolate from those to see what the positive end results could be.
00:15:35And we tell ourselves, well, why wouldn't God want that for me?
00:15:37And so, you know, if if we go after that thing and we get it once, well, then we've got positive reinforcement and we like to tell ourselves, well, something good came from that.
00:15:47So it must be what God wanted.
00:15:50You know, God want God may want something else for us in the long run.
00:15:54But the path to get there isn't always obvious.
00:15:59You know, God wanted a perfect life for Adam and Eve.
00:16:02And she thought, well, I can be so much better if I do this thing.
00:16:07But if I just sit here and don't do that thing, I'm not going to get that knowledge.
00:16:10So how can I how can I attain that great thing that God wants for me when really it was just be humble?
00:16:16Well, it's there so that you can have some practice not doing the things I told you not to do.
00:16:22Well, and it wasn't about knowing this stuff.
00:16:24It was about doing this stuff.
00:16:27It was about having the right heart, which would be a heart of obedience.
00:16:30So all she had to do was obey.
00:16:33I mean, it's just it's so convoluted and it's easy to see how it got twisted.
00:16:39Right.
00:16:40Yep.
00:16:41What do you think, Ellen?
00:16:42Before Paula started speaking, I was wondering, was the war that's within myself and I'll just look back at my life and is the war that's going on within myself evident that the spirit is working or the spirit is active in me?
00:17:02Because the times in my life where I haven't had that war, I haven't been in a place going after God or trying to walk with the father.
00:17:12It's there's been no war in my life.
00:17:14It's just whatever I wanted.
00:17:15But then the times where or the time now in the recent past that I've submitted fully, then that war is really active.
00:17:23And I think it's very tangible.
00:17:26Mm hmm.
00:17:26Yeah, I think that that's a really good observation.
00:17:29It is.
00:17:30Yeah, this goes back to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, what what Yeshua called the the one sin that won't be forgiven.
00:17:39I have my own take on what that means, and I don't don't really need to get into that again.
00:17:44It's probably recorded several different times and over the years.
00:17:47But I think that when you get to the point where you are no longer conscious of that war in you, like you think you're doing the right thing, you're not conflicted about it, at least not about your relationship with God and what you know is you're supposed to be doing.
00:18:05You may be at war with yourself and not know it because you're destroying yourself through bad decisions.
00:18:11But it's not an inner conflict where you're saying, I know this is what I'm supposed to do, and I just can't bring myself to do it.
00:18:17I really want to do this other thing.
00:18:18I think you're right that that is evidence that the Spirit is working in us, that our conscience isn't dead yet.
00:18:26And so I think if you're in that place, then you can I think it's safe to assume that you have not committed that unforgivable sin.
00:18:33Because I think at that point, you're no longer capable of hearing the Spirit or your own conscience.
00:18:38Your conscience is seared to the point where you're not aware of that conflict.
00:18:42So, you know, yeah, I think you're right in a way that is a good sign, because that is evidence that that God's still working on you.
00:18:49And then that that testing produces the endurance and that perfect faith as you overcome and learn, as Paula was saying, to hear and to identify and to commune with the Father that, hey, this is not of your desire.
00:19:03At least that's how I'm learning this walk.
00:19:07Yeah.
00:19:08And on the other hand, it's also evidence that Satan is not happy with you, that he's still working on you.
00:19:14Correct.
00:19:15And I think people are, you know, they tend to take that a little too far.
00:19:19Whenever they're tempted to do something wrong, they think, oh, Satan's trying to get me.
00:19:24Well, sometimes it's just you.
00:19:26I mean, we are more than capable of getting ourselves into trouble because of our own evil passions.
00:19:33Yeah, that makes me think of, what's his name?
00:19:35We just read about this.
00:19:36Why I can't think of his name.
00:19:38Who was prophesying.
00:19:40Oh, Balaam.
00:19:42Balaam, yeah.
00:19:43Who was prophesying to Balak.
00:19:44And he said, yeah, he said, like, you can't, he knew he couldn't curse Israel.
00:19:51So he told Balak how to have Israel curse themselves.
00:19:56So I thought that's a really good practical application of that same idea.
00:20:02Like, Israel was perfectly capable of falling into sin, given the right circumstances.
00:20:09And certainly the Balak and people that were used for practicing evil, which we know is, you know, not of God.
00:20:21But it still is the kind of an illustration of, like, we're easily tempted.
00:20:25We can easily fall into those things.
00:20:28Yep, that is true.
00:20:32There's another side to this, too.
00:20:34You know, it says that you're talking about war in your members.
00:20:39You know, we've been talking about how that is about war within yourself.
00:20:44You know, inner conflict.
00:20:45But this is also wars and fights among you.
00:20:49So this could be talking about conflict within the fellowship also, within the body of Christ.
00:20:55And I think, you know, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of things that could go into that.
00:21:01And how do your, your personal sinful passions create conflict within the fellowship?
00:21:11Well, one way is if you are engaging in a sin and you feel guilty over it, that can drive you to start looking for flaws in other people so that you don't feel as bad about yourself.
00:21:22It's like, well, I'm not so bad.
00:21:24That guy's doing much worse.
00:21:26So it can also influence you to drive those people away so that you're not confronted with their better behavior.
00:21:34If they make you feel guilty or feel less, then you might create conflict with them so that you don't have to be confronted by that.
00:21:41Or if somebody is telling you, you've got this sin in your life and you need to deal with it.
00:21:48Or can I help you with it?
00:21:50And if you're not ready to give up that sin, you can react pretty hostily to that, especially the more humble they are, the more hostile a person can react.
00:22:02Ideally, we should, we should be willing to listen to our brothers and sisters when they come to us with something like that.
00:22:09And that's where humility is so important, because how can you hear correction if you're too proud?
00:22:19I mean, proud will stop up your ears.
00:22:21And that's the thing that's going to cause you to react badly when somebody points a problem out in your life.
00:22:27Beyond that, you know, any kind of anger, frustration, negative emotions.
00:22:34I mean, if you're disgusted with yourself for the bad things that you keep doing.
00:22:39All of those kinds of things will tend to make you, you know, they'll create a guilty conscience.
00:22:43They'll make you hypersensitive to criticism, hypersensitive to flaws in other people.
00:22:49It creates all kinds of things where the war in yourself spills out onto the people around you.
00:22:55So it's not just that you're that your inner conflict gets you at war with yourself or with God's spirit in you.
00:23:03But it causes waves in the whole community.
00:23:08All right, going on to verse two, you lust and do not have the murder and cannot obtain you fight in war.
00:23:14You do not have because you do not ask.
00:23:16The beginning of verse two, you lust and do not have, is the key to understanding the last sentence in this verse.
00:23:23You do not have because you do not ask.
00:23:26Well, these people are asking, as he points out at the beginning of verse three.
00:23:30Although remember that James isn't speaking to a specific group of people.
00:23:34He's talking to all believers everywhere, wherever you are.
00:23:38So this is an open letter to the whole kingdom.
00:23:42And he says, you don't have because you don't ask.
00:23:44You ask, but you don't have.
00:23:48And that's because in the first part, you're not asking what you're supposed to be asking.
00:23:54You're asking for what you want rather than what you need, rather than what the kingdom needs from you.
00:24:01So if you think about Solomon, when God came to him and said, I'll give you anything you want.
00:24:08And Solomon says, give me wisdom so I can govern your people righteously.
00:24:14And God replied, you know, because you asked for something that wasn't for yourself, that it was for the kingdom.
00:24:21I'm going to give you all the stuff for you, too.
00:24:24That didn't necessarily turn out so well for Solomon.
00:24:26But he was on the right track.
00:24:29And he did gain a lot of wisdom that, obviously, we have a record of much of it now.
00:24:35I'm sure we can all think of lots of examples of that where, I mean, Paula, you were talking about it earlier with Eve in the garden.
00:24:42And how she saw something and Satan convinced her it was a good thing to have.
00:24:48And so that's what she took.
00:24:50But that's not what she was supposed to have.
00:24:52And so now she didn't have the thing that she thought she was going to get.
00:24:56She thought she was going to be like God by eating this fruit.
00:25:01But instead, she got death.
00:25:04And now we have to work constantly throughout our lives to become more like Messiah, who is God.
00:25:10So, you know, eventually, God's long-term goal is that he remakes us in the image of his son.
00:25:18So in a way, we are supposed to be like God.
00:25:21I mean, not like God in power in all of his glory, but like him in character.
00:25:27That's the important way that we're supposed to be like God.
00:25:31So if instead of Eve saying, I'm going to have all the knowledge that God has, she had said, I want to emulate God's character.
00:25:40And she could have asked for that and gotten it and not had any problems because that's what God wanted for her anyways.
00:25:46Instead, she asked for this thing.
00:25:48She didn't ask.
00:25:48She just took it.
00:25:50She took this thing that she thought she wanted.
00:25:54And it turned out that that just cost her everything that she really did want.
00:25:58So I think this is what James is saying when he says you don't have because you don't ask.
00:26:04It's not that people aren't asking for things.
00:26:06They're just not asking for the things they're supposed to be asking for.
00:26:09And so they're not getting the things they're supposed to have.
00:26:13Does that make sense?
00:26:15Yes, it makes sense.
00:26:16It does.
00:26:19Now I have some things to repent of.
00:26:21Oh, we're asking for things that you're not supposed to have?
00:26:24Uh-huh.
00:26:25It's a good thing.
00:26:27It's a good thing that I would be repenting.
00:26:30Well, the other side is you ask and don't receive because you ask them this.
00:26:34And it's really saying the same thing twice.
00:26:36He's just saying it.
00:26:37He's rearranging it how he's saying it.
00:26:40You are asking, but you're asking for the wrong things.
00:26:43And that's why you're not getting what you want.
00:26:44You know, people will ask for, you know, I want to want a big house and a nice car and I never want to have to worry.
00:26:55Well, is that really what God wants for you?
00:26:58And you're not if you are actually one of God's people and you are trusting God, it doesn't matter how often you ask for that thing.
00:27:05You're not going to get it because that's not what God wants for you.
00:27:08So, he's going to steer you into the things that he really wants.
00:27:13Now, again, these are principles.
00:27:16God might actually give you that thing that you want, even though it's not the thing you should have because he wants you to learn something from it.
00:27:22You're going to get it.
00:27:23It's not going to give you what you thought, what you expected to get from it.
00:27:27And then you're going to learn, well, I guess I should have gotten asked for what God wanted me to have in the first place.
00:27:31So, lots of opportunities to learn from.
00:27:36I think it's interesting, too, that sometimes he does give it because he knows, you know, it won't get us what we really want.
00:27:44And sometimes we have to learn that way.
00:27:46And that's gracious and merciful in a lot of ways.
00:27:51Does anybody have any good examples of that from the scriptures?
00:27:55Yeah, Israel's desire for a king.
00:27:57Exactly.
00:27:58Yeah, it's not what God wanted for them, but they gasped for it.
00:28:02So, he gave it to them so that they would learn.
00:28:06The lessons were short-lived, unfortunately, as they always are.
00:28:10And I think, you know, God really did want Israel to have a king.
00:28:13He just wanted them to have a certain type of king, and he wanted them to wait for him.
00:28:19Instead, they wanted a king like the people around them had.
00:28:22And they wanted to be like the world, which is another thing that James is about to warn us about.
00:28:29And so, God gave them the thing that they thought they wanted.
00:28:33And, you know, for a while, Saul was a really good king.
00:28:35He did good for Israel.
00:28:36But because he wasn't the king that God wanted for them, eventually it all went bad because it went to his head.
00:28:44He became proud.
00:28:46He started acting like I was describing earlier about how the guilt of that inner turmoil eventually causes you to turn on the people around you.
00:28:56And David, who could have been Saul's right-hand man, he became Saul's arch-enemy.
00:29:04Well, Saul became his arch-enemy.
00:29:07All right, let's move on to the next part here.
00:29:11Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
00:29:16Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
00:29:20Or do you think that the scripture says in vain, the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?
00:29:24All right, first thing I want to point out is adulterers and adulteresses.
00:29:31All of the most ancient manuscripts just say adulteresses.
00:29:36They don't say adulterers and adulteresses.
00:29:38That seems to have been added later in Latin versions of the scripture.
00:29:43The King James, even though it was translated from Hebrew and Greek, followed the tradition of Jerome's Latin translation.
00:29:50So it kept that extra bit in there.
00:29:54So now you've got it in the New King James.
00:29:57But that's why most modern, most of the translations today don't have adulterers.
00:30:03They just say adulteresses.
00:30:05Because that's what the first, the oldest Greek manuscripts have.
00:30:10Okay, in this next part here about friendship with the world,
00:30:14I think that James is making a deliberate allusion back to Exodus 34.
00:30:22Yeah, start Exodus 34, verse 10.
00:30:26And he said,
00:30:28Behold, I make a covenant before all your people.
00:30:31I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation.
00:30:34And all the people among you, among whom you are, shall see the work of the Lord.
00:30:39For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
00:30:42Observe what I command you this day.
00:30:44Behold, I am driving out before you the Amorites and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
00:30:51Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.
00:30:58But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images.
00:31:03For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god.
00:31:08Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifices to their gods.
00:31:14And one of them invites you, and you eat of his sacrifice.
00:31:16And you take of his daughters for your sons, and your daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.
00:31:25Which is exactly what happened with Belaam and Balak that you mentioned a little bit ago, Paula.
00:31:31So, when James is saying, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
00:31:36He's referring directly back to this passage in Exodus.
00:31:40Saying, you know, God warned you not to make friendships, not to make covenants with these people around you.
00:31:45Because now you're tied to them permanently.
00:31:48A covenant is something that you can't break without sin.
00:31:53Because going, I think it's in Numbers 33 or 34, where God says, you know, if you make a vow, you're going to keep it.
00:32:00And making a covenant involves making sacrifices.
00:32:03So, you're making a vow to God.
00:32:05So, once you do that, you are bound by that covenant.
00:32:12Even if you make a covenant that you're not supposed to make.
00:32:15Well, now you've got a choice.
00:32:16Which sin am I going to commit?
00:32:17Am I going to break the covenant that I made before God?
00:32:20Or am I going to do what I promised in this covenant, which in itself is a sin?
00:32:24So, you put yourself in a catch-22, where no matter what you do, it's the wrong thing.
00:32:29So, it's better just don't make friends with the world.
00:32:33It doesn't mean that you can't have friends with individual people who are in the world.
00:32:37That's not what he's talking about.
00:32:38This is about close associations.
00:32:42And specifically, since he's hearkening back to Exodus 34, he's deriving this from the idea of making covenants with pagan nations.
00:32:50But applying it in a more general principle kind of way.
00:32:55Saying, you know, you can do business with the world.
00:32:58You live among them.
00:32:59You can be friendly with people.
00:33:01But don't tie yourselves to them.
00:33:03Don't compromise yourself in order to be part of the world.
00:33:07Because it might start with something that seems innocent.
00:33:10But it's going to grow into something bigger and bigger.
00:33:13And the closer you make that relationship, the easier it's going to be for you to slip into the ways of the world.
00:33:20And when you do that, when you start going into the ways of the world, adopting their pagan practices, whether it's, you know, as far as bowing down to idols and making sacrifices to pagan gods, or incorporating pagan traditions into your holy days.
00:33:40Which, to most people, seems pretty innocent.
00:33:43But it's something God told us not to do.
00:33:46Whatever it is, you are making yourself an enemy of God by bringing in idolatrous worship into your worship of him.
00:33:55And that's why in verse 5 it says,
00:33:58The spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously.
00:34:00I think that the New King James doesn't really translate that well.
00:34:04Let me pull up the ESV.
00:34:07Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?
00:34:15So God is jealous of this spirit that he has put in us.
00:34:19Well, then, of course, we have to ask, what spirit does he mean?
00:34:22There are two things.
00:34:24He could mean the spirit that he put into Adam at the very beginning.
00:34:28And when he created mankind, he breathed into him the breath of life.
00:34:32And Adam became a living being.
00:34:34Well, this is, in my opinion, this is God putting a spirit into Adam.
00:34:39So this belongs to God.
00:34:42And so he could be jealous saying, hey, this is my thing.
00:34:46So why are you using this thing that I gave you to engage with these false gods?
00:34:52Or he could be talking about the Holy Spirit, which indwells all believers.
00:34:55And in that case, it's saying, I can't live in this, in you, if you're going to be doing this other thing.
00:35:03You pick me or you pick this other spirit.
00:35:05Which one are you going with?
00:35:07And I really think that's the proper interpretation here.
00:35:10Because if we go with the spirit that is in all mankind, well, that's the pagans too.
00:35:16They all have that same spirit in them.
00:35:17So I think he's really talking about the Holy Spirit.
00:35:21And he's saying, God can't coexist with this idolatry.
00:35:26So kind of like what Joshua said at the end of the conquest of Canaan, he told all the people,
00:35:32now, I don't know about you guys.
00:35:34You can go and worship the gods that your fathers worshipped over on the other side of the river.
00:35:38Or meaning either Babylon or Egypt, depending on which fathers he's talking about.
00:35:44Or you can follow me and my household.
00:35:47What we're going to do is we're going to follow.
00:35:49We're going to worship Yahweh.
00:35:50You know, presenting them with a choice.
00:35:52And obviously, everybody knew what the right choice was.
00:35:54And they made a covenant with Joshua right there saying, yes, this is what we're going to do.
00:35:59We're going to follow Yahweh.
00:36:00The New King James and the ESV, I think, both put quotes around this where it says,
00:36:07he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.
00:36:10But that's not a direct quote.
00:36:12So a lot of commentators will speculate about where is James quoting this from?
00:36:17Is this from some extra biblical work that we don't have?
00:36:20Is James misremembering something?
00:36:23Well, I don't think it was supposed to be a quote.
00:36:24I think he's referring back to Exodus 34, where God says,
00:36:28don't worship these false gods because I'm a jealous God.
00:36:32So he's taking the principle and saying, this is what the scriptures say.
00:36:37It says, God is jealous over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.
00:36:42You're not going to find that direct quote, but you are going to find the principle.
00:36:47Now that you belong to God, you behave as if you belong to God
00:36:50and don't go give yourself to these pagan gods.
00:36:53Yeah, it's akin to holiness.
00:36:56He has a standard.
00:36:59And his concept of holiness is reflected like in the tabernacles and in the temple and such.
00:37:06And he's not going to tolerate unholy to get closer to him.
00:37:12You know, it's like an outer circle, inner circle type of thing.
00:37:16Yeah, none of us are perfect.
00:37:20I know that some people believe that you can reach a point in this life where you are no longer sinning at all.
00:37:29I don't believe that.
00:37:30I've never seen that in anybody.
00:37:32Everybody is proud at some point.
00:37:34Everybody gets unrighteously angry or exaggerates in a way to deceive somebody, even if it's a little bit.
00:37:41And I think until the resurrection, until we are remade, we're never going to be entirely perfect.
00:37:49It's a progression of holiness.
00:37:50And so, as we're going to see in the next verse, God is tolerant to an extent of our imperfections.
00:37:57He knows we're weak.
00:37:58He knows that we're ignorant, that we're going to get things wrong.
00:38:01But the closer you walk to that holy, perfect standard, the closer you are going to be to that spirit, the more fully that spirit will indwell you.
00:38:15And you'll have better understanding of the scriptures.
00:38:17You will have more strength to resist temptation.
00:38:21Now, it could also be that the holier you live, the more Satan really is going to attack you, too, and put temptation in front of you.
00:38:30Many people say that that's true, and it certainly makes sense.
00:38:33But there is a point where God says enough is enough.
00:38:36My spirit can't live with this.
00:38:39I think Paul makes the same observation in Corinthians when he talks about being with prostitutes and saying, you know, you are part of the body of Christ.
00:38:49And then you're going to go be one with the body of this prostitute.
00:38:53What are you doing to Christ?
00:38:55And it's the same thing with the Holy Spirit in you.
00:38:57What are you doing to the Holy Spirit by engaging in these other spiritual things?
00:39:02God's not happy with it.
00:39:06All right.
00:39:06So in verse six, but he gives more grace.
00:39:09Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
00:39:13Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
00:39:16Kind of already talked about this a little bit.
00:39:21Where God is forgiving.
00:39:22He is long-suffering.
00:39:24He wants to forgive.
00:39:26He understands that we screw up.
00:39:28That we will sin on a daily basis in some small way.
00:39:31Doesn't mean that you're going to go kill somebody.
00:39:33Doesn't mean that you're stealing things every day.
00:39:35But in some small way, you're going to be doing something that God doesn't approve of.
00:39:39You're going to be breaking some commandment in your heart, if not an actual deed.
00:39:46And according to Yeshua, sins that you entertain in your heart are just as damaging spiritually as if you did them in real life.
00:39:54We do serve a merciful and graceful God.
00:39:59This is why, you know, even we talk about the idea that we're saved by faith.
00:40:06And, you know, we talked about that in the previous chapter, how it's both faith and works together.
00:40:12But it's really a faith that works.
00:40:15Faith and works united together.
00:40:17They can't really be separated.
00:40:19If you have faith, if you are faithful, that comes out in your works.
00:40:24And then in Revelation, it talks about how those who persevere will be saved.
00:40:30Or Yeshua talks about this in the Gospels.
00:40:32And then it's repeated in Revelation.
00:40:35I can't remember the exact words.
00:40:37And so there's also an idea of maintaining your faithfulness.
00:40:41It's not that you are earning your salvation.
00:40:44It's just that you are maintaining your faithfulness, which comes out in works.
00:40:48Faithfulness is something that happens in your heart.
00:40:50And that heart condition inevitably comes out through the things that you say and do.
00:40:56So you can't have faith without works.
00:40:59Because if you have faith, it comes out in your works.
00:41:02And if it doesn't, then you're lying to yourself or lying to everybody around you.
00:41:06Because you don't have faith if it's not working.
00:41:09But it doesn't mean that if you screw up once, you're going to lose your salvation.
00:41:13Look at David, who committed adultery and murder.
00:41:17And God still said that he's a man after my own heart.
00:41:21And that's because despite his occasional weaknesses, really big weaknesses, really big sins, he was still God's man.
00:41:30And it's the same for us.
00:41:31God is patient, understanding, and merciful.
00:41:34He has grace to forgive us as long as we aren't in active rebellion.
00:41:40It's when we reject him, when we rebel against it, we say, I know that's the wrong thing to do.
00:41:46I don't care.
00:41:47I'm going to do it anyways.
00:41:48I don't care what God says.
00:41:49That's what I'm doing.
00:41:51Well, that's when we've rejected God.
00:41:53God didn't reject us.
00:41:55We kind of forced his hand there.
00:41:57The spirit can't coexist with that attitude.
00:41:59Yeah, but Jay, isn't that what David did?
00:42:04He knew what he was doing was wrong, and yet he still did it, you know?
00:42:10Yeah, and I think there's a difference between giving in to temptation and being rebellious.
00:42:17David knew it was wrong, and he did it, but I don't think he ever said, I don't care what God thinks about this.
00:42:23Oh, well, what about when he had Bathsheba's husband killed?
00:42:27I mean, that's not just a mistake.
00:42:29No, it's a willful sin.
00:42:32Yeah.
00:42:32But I don't think he was saying, I don't think he was rejecting God and saying, you know, I don't care about God's law.
00:42:39I don't care what the right thing to do is.
00:42:41I think he was giving in to temptation.
00:42:44That I'm not saying it wasn't his fault.
00:42:46I mean, he knew it was wrong, and he did it anyways.
00:42:49But that's just, that's where we're weak.
00:42:51I mean, I have temptations, and I know that it's wrong.
00:42:57Sometimes I say things to people online that I instantly regret, and I know it's not the right thing to do, but I do it anyways.
00:43:04And it's not necessarily because I'm rebelling against God, and I don't want to do what God says.
00:43:09It's just that right at that moment, this temptation is like, I got to do this.
00:43:15You know, whatever it is that drives people to have moments of rebellion as opposed to a heart of rebellion.
00:43:22Maybe that's the right way to put it.
00:43:24I'm not sure.
00:43:25And I couldn't tell you where the line is.
00:43:27I think that's between you and God.
00:43:31I think if Nathan had come to David and pointed out, you know, told him the story about the neighbor and the sheep and said, you are the man.
00:43:38And David said, yeah, I know.
00:43:40I don't care.
00:43:41Then we could say, yeah, David was in total rebellion, and he and God were done.
00:43:47Does that make sense?
00:43:48Can you see that distinction?
00:43:50Man, I wish my sin was only talking online.
00:43:56Well, I'm giving myself a pass here.
00:44:00I'm not going to expose all my sins on recording.
00:44:04That is not the case.
00:44:07So, and then James gives us the solution.
00:44:11Submit to God.
00:44:13God gives grace to the humble.
00:44:16Humility really is the key to so much.
00:44:18If we didn't want to be more than who God wanted us to be, if we didn't want to have more than what he wanted us to have or to be more than other people.
00:44:26If we were content with the role that God has given us and saying, God, I want whatever is necessary for that role, because that's what you said.
00:44:37Not because it's what I want, but because this is the role that you put me into the kingdom.
00:44:42And I want to make sure that I do that and honor you.
00:44:44So, if we could all live like that all the time, I mean, the world would be converted in a year.
00:44:52But, I mean, obviously we're all still human and that doesn't happen.
00:44:55So, but that is the key.
00:44:59Verse seven, submit yourselves to God.
00:45:01I didn't write down what that word in Greek is.
00:45:05I could look it up if anybody wants to know.
00:45:07But submit can also be translated as obey.
00:45:11So, that phrase can just as easily be translated, obey yourself to God.
00:45:17James is clearly teaching obedience to Torah throughout this letter.
00:45:22He talks, he specifically mentions commandments, murder, adultery, covetousness.
00:45:26And these things aren't just things that God likes.
00:45:30These are the heart of the Sinai covenant.
00:45:34Exodus 20 through 24 are the words of the covenant.
00:45:37And these are in the Ten Commandments.
00:45:40They're kind of like the preamble to the covenant.
00:45:45God gives these ten statements.
00:45:47And then he gives some detailed instructions on how to live out those ten statements.
00:45:51So, when people say, well, the covenant no longer applies to me.
00:45:55I just keep the Ten Commandments.
00:45:56That's a nonsense statement.
00:45:59It's like saying, the covenant no longer applies to me.
00:46:01The covenant just applies to me.
00:46:03Well, does it or doesn't it?
00:46:04Because the Ten Commandments are the words of the covenant.
00:46:08I mean, I understand what they're getting at when they say that, well, now we don't murder or commit adultery because these are the things that God appreciates.
00:46:16These are God's values.
00:46:18Well, obviously, or they wouldn't have been in the covenant.
00:46:22I mean, all of the commandments that he gives his people are his values.
00:46:24So, the logic doesn't really hold up.
00:46:27I mean, I see where they're coming from.
00:46:28It just doesn't really work when you get into the details.
00:46:32But the second half, I think, is maybe a little bit more puzzling.
00:46:38Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
00:46:40From personal experience, sometimes resisting temptation makes the temptation worse.
00:46:51Sometimes the more I resist, the more it seems like my evil inclination or Satan or whatever it is tries to get me to do that thing.
00:47:02What are your thoughts on this?
00:47:05You mean like his send?
00:47:07Yes.
00:47:10Oh, yeah.
00:47:11Oh, you think that was bad?
00:47:12Just wait.
00:47:13Let me type this part.
00:47:18Yeah, I think it is true to an extent.
00:47:21But I think it's really successful resistance to the devil that kind of pushes him away.
00:47:27I mean, and it also depends on how you're resisting.
00:47:31There are times where, you know, if you've got bad habits, you know, people who are trying to quit alcohol or cigarettes or, you know, whatever your bad habit is, one of the important things that people will say to do is to replace it with something else.
00:47:46You can't just give up this habit.
00:47:48You have to substitute it with something.
00:47:51Now, I was reading on X earlier today about a guy who he was an alcoholic and he quit drinking, but he replaced it with ice cream sandwiches.
00:48:02That's very common, by the way.
00:48:04So, yeah, I've heard that the ice cream especially is very common with alcoholics.
00:48:09And so he was eating an entire box of ice cream sandwiches every night instead of drinking.
00:48:14Like, well, I'm not sure really which one of these is worse.
00:48:17But, you know, for him, hopefully it's a step in the right direction and then he'll substitute something else for the ice cream sandwiches before he dies.
00:48:27But this works in spiritual matters, too.
00:48:30You know, if if you have a specific temptation, what did Yeshua do in the wilderness when Satan tempted him?
00:48:38He quoted scripture back.
00:48:40Satan quoted a scripture.
00:48:42Yeshua quoted another one right back at him.
00:48:44So maybe if you get mad at people, if if there's a favorite hymn, a praise that you really love, whenever you feel yourself getting angry at somebody unjustly for some stupid reason, start singing that hymn in your head.
00:49:03And it's really hard to stay mad at somebody while you're praising God.
00:49:08Those two things are not compatible.
00:49:12And so if you can find a way to replace this thing with this other thing, redirect this temptation with a scripture that counters it, redirect this this tendency with a different tendency.
00:49:25And as you are successful in resisting those temptations, you are going to get better at doing it.
00:49:32And Satan is going to have a harder time finding the leverage points.
00:49:38And I mean, I'll be I don't think Satan actually runs away from you.
00:49:41That's not what James is saying, but he's going to have a harder time attacking you, especially if you make life unpleasant for him.
00:49:47And I don't I don't even think it's Satan himself necessarily tempting anybody.
00:49:52I have a hard time believing that he's omnipresent and omniscient like God is.
00:49:57Instead, he has, you know, a billion little minions.
00:50:02Anybody else have any thoughts on that?
00:50:04Go ahead, Alan.
00:50:06For me, I think the very first part of that verse seven is is the key is the submission to your first.
00:50:15That if if we're not submitted to Elohim, how we are not able to resist the devil.
00:50:22But when we submit to his ways, I believe then that and as to your point with the word, then we have the armor to be able to resist.
00:50:37Yeah.
00:50:37And to expand on that, Paul points out that the more you know about God's commandments, the more your flesh rebels against it.
00:50:45And so sometimes learning just enough, like learning what's right and wrong, will actually create a temptation to do what's wrong.
00:50:52Whereas before we didn't know it was wrong, so we never really thought about it.
00:50:55And now we know.
00:50:57And now we're Satan's got a leverage point against us.
00:51:00But we can counter that by continuing to study.
00:51:04Don't leave it there.
00:51:05Don't learn just the bare commandment.
00:51:08Learn the why.
00:51:08Learn the examples.
00:51:09Where does this play out in Scripture?
00:51:11What happened to this guy when he didn't do what God said?
00:51:14And the more we study that and meditate on it and internalize not just the specific commandment, but what happens when you keep it, what happens when you don't keep it, I think that strengthens you over time.
00:51:28That strengthens your faith.
00:51:30It kind of counteracts that tendency to rebel against the black and white commandment.
00:51:37So you can't just learn it by rote and leave it at that.
00:51:41You have to spend time with it and meditate it and ongoing practice of study.
00:51:47Jay, does the Hebrew say flee or is there a different word?
00:51:51Let's see.
00:51:54It's the word fugo.
00:51:56And it literally means to run away.
00:52:01To seek safety.
00:52:03Yeah.
00:52:03So it really does mean to flee.
00:52:05Because conceptually, I would think resist the devil and almost like you are going or you are getting away from him.
00:52:15But that implies he's leaving you.
00:52:20So it's a bit more unique.
00:52:22I am surprised that that's that that's what it says verbatim.
00:52:26Yeah, well, you know, if you take this as a counterpoint to what what James is saying about the spirit, you know, the spirit can't God is jealous over the spirit that he has put in you.
00:52:35He doesn't want it to be sharing space with a false God.
00:52:40Well, Satan probably feels the same way.
00:52:43He doesn't want his space being shared with the Holy Spirit and the things of God.
00:52:47So the more things of God you you fill your your heart and your life with, the more unpleasant Satan probably finds it.
00:52:57At least that's what I think that must mean.
00:53:00I mean, if he's looking for safety, then you're you're subjecting him to some kind of unpleasantness and he's trying to get away from it.
00:53:07Oh, it says the devil.
00:53:09And I wonder what that literally the word is Diablo, I think.
00:53:13But I wonder what the original implication of that is in Greek.
00:53:19Diabolos.
00:53:21The accuser.
00:53:23So it's the same thing that that Satan means the devil means Diabolos means accuser.
00:53:29So that doesn't have to be Satan himself.
00:53:32That can be any of the any of his spirits that do his work for him.
00:53:36Unclean spirits that accuse you of doing things.
00:53:42Whether it's.
00:53:44Trying to get you to doubt yourself or actually finding something that he can accuse you of, just like with Bel-Aum, where, you know, he he couldn't curse Israel until he got them to sin.
00:53:55And now that there's a sin, the accuser can work against them.
00:53:59So submitting to God removes that sin from your life.
00:54:02And now the accuser doesn't have anything to accuse you of.
00:54:07Yeah, thank you.
00:54:08That was a good, not even a rabbit trail.
00:54:10That was pretty central.
00:54:12All right, let's move on to the next passage.
00:54:14Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
00:54:18Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
00:54:22Lament and mourn and weep.
00:54:23Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
00:54:26Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.
00:54:30Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
00:54:33This is a reference to burnt offerings.
00:54:35The word for a burnt offering, the Corban, it literally, it comes from a verb that means to approach.
00:54:43So a Corban is an offering that allows you to approach God.
00:54:48You approach with it and it allows you to approach his presence.
00:54:52And, you know, you're coming, you're bringing it as a sign of submission and worship.
00:54:57And so when you come in with the right heart, not as if you're bribing God, but to say, I am submitting to you and this offering is a symbol of my total submission to you.
00:55:10God accepts that humble heart as faithfulness, as a sign of righteousness, and then God can approach you too.
00:55:18He's not approaching you in the same way, of course.
00:55:21He's approaching you as your king and your creator, also your provider and protector.
00:55:25But I think James is deliberately making this connection back to the offerings.
00:55:33And I think that the rest of this follows up with that, you know, cleanse your hands, you sinners.
00:55:39When the priests came into the tabernacle or when they were approaching the tabernacle to start their duties, they went to the bronze laver.
00:55:46They washed their hands and feet.
00:55:48And it wasn't, I mean, it did get dirt off, but that wasn't the point.
00:55:51The point was a spiritual exercise.
00:55:53And I think this is where the Pharisees got the idea that everybody needs to wash their hands before they eat because sacrifices were usually eaten.
00:56:03Except for a burnt offering, the sacrifices were eaten, at least part of them.
00:56:08And so the priest would wash his hands, make an offering, and then eat some of the offering.
00:56:13And so the Pharisees were extrapolating from that and saying, everything we eat should be an act of worship to God.
00:56:21Everything we do, which I can't really disagree with.
00:56:25And so they said, well, that means we have to wash our hands before we eat because we're like priests.
00:56:30We're supposed to be a kingdom of priests.
00:56:32So wash your hands, then eat.
00:56:34Otherwise, you're defiling your food, just like the priest would be defiling the offering if he didn't wash his hands.
00:56:40Now, obviously, this is not a commandment.
00:56:43I like the symbolism of what I think they were trying to do, but they took it too far and made it a commandment instead of an object lesson.
00:56:53But James is using this to connect back to the sacrifices, and he's making it more of the object lesson, saying, you know, wash your, cleanse your hands, you sinners.
00:57:05He doesn't mean go to the sink and wash your hands.
00:57:08He means get the unrighteousness off your hands.
00:57:11Stop doing sinful things.
00:57:13That's what cleanse your hands means and purify your hearts.
00:57:18Stop doing the sinful things and stop and get the sinful thoughts out of your heart that come out in your hands.
00:57:26It's easier to stop doing the sinful things than it is to get sinful things out of your heart.
00:57:33So sometimes it's easier to do that first and go backwards, but it's never going to stick until you get it out of your heart because that's where it really matters.
00:57:43There's a lot of symbolism in scripture that combines these ideas.
00:57:47You know, I talked about the bronze lava and the sacrifices in the Psalms in multiple places.
00:57:54It combines clean hands and a pure heart in Psalm chapter 24.
00:58:01Read a four.
00:58:01I'm not going to read all of these, but.
00:58:04Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord or who may stand in his holy place?
00:58:08He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully.
00:58:14So the same thing that James is talking about.
00:58:16Don't make friends of the world.
00:58:17Don't engage in their idolatry.
00:58:19Approach God with clean hands and a pure heart.
00:58:23With righteous behavior and a righteous heart.
00:58:26The two go together.
00:58:28And that's why he says you're double minded.
00:58:31If you're doing the right thing, but you don't have the right thing in your heart, you're really double minded because you're really not.
00:58:39Convinced of what it is you're telling the world.
00:58:41You're telling the world, I believe in this God.
00:58:43I believe that this is right.
00:58:44But in your heart, you're not really.
00:58:47It's not really there.
00:58:51Interesting thing about this double minded.
00:58:53We talked to I think that we talked about this word a little bit in our introduction to James.
00:58:57But this is a really unusual word.
00:59:01Dipsuchos.
00:59:03Philo of Alexandria, Jewish historian.
00:59:06I think that he was the first person recorded to use this word.
00:59:10And James is the second.
00:59:12And their writing styles are very similar.
00:59:14And Philo is a little more wordy and academic.
00:59:16But their vocabulary and the illustrations, the grammar that they use is very similar, which leads some scholars to believe that James actually learned his Greek through studying the Septuagint and the writings of Philo.
00:59:29And that's why his writing is so similar to Philo's, but just very simplified.
00:59:35And that's where he's getting some of his vocabulary.
00:59:39He has some turns of phrases in some specific words that were kind of unique to Philo and James.
00:59:46So just one of those interesting little first century things.
00:59:50It's one of the things that that actually legitimate legitimizes the idea that James was written by James, the brother of Yeshua in the first century and not by somebody later on.
01:00:00This also kind of goes back to Joshua's call to the people.
01:00:06Choose who you're going to save or choose who you're going to serve, the pagan gods of your fathers or Yahweh.
01:00:12Pick one.
01:00:13You can't do both because they don't coexist.
01:00:17Lament and mourn and weep.
01:00:19Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
01:00:22Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.
01:00:26This is what we're supposed to do on Yom Kippur.
01:00:28Afflict yourself.
01:00:29Remove those things that give you joy and pleasure and instead afflict your soul so that you can focus on repentance and humbling yourself so that you can confront yourself.
01:00:43And that's what James is saying here.
01:00:45Take some time to remove all of these distractions and all the things that are about you and humble yourself before God so that you can focus on his things so that then he can lift you up.
01:00:59When they were going into the promised land at the beginning of Deuteronomy, Moses is, you know, he recapitulates the law and he says, humble yourself before God, keep his commandments and he will give you victory over your enemies.
01:01:13That's the same thing that James is saying here.
01:01:16And he's not talking about enemies in the world.
01:01:18He's talking about spiritual enemies.
01:01:20Humble yourself before God, keep his commandments and God will lift you up so that you can defeat these enemies or he will defeat them for you, depending on how you want to look at it.
01:01:29Last page here.
01:01:32Do not speak evil of one another, brethren.
01:01:36He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law.
01:01:42But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
01:01:46There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy.
01:01:49Who are you to judge another?
01:01:51Remember how James said, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
01:01:57And we looked up the Greek word devil, diabolos.
01:02:01And it means the accuser.
01:02:04And so James is following that same thought and saying, you humble yourself and you do what God says to do.
01:02:12Resist the accuser and he will flee from you.
01:02:16But in turn, don't become the accused.
01:02:18Don't do his work for him.
01:02:19Don't speak evil of one another.
01:02:23He's not even really talking about insulting each other, although that's that's probably included.
01:02:28He's talking about accusing people of wrongdoing when they're not necessarily doing anything wrong or they're not doing it any worse than you are.
01:02:36There's a balance here.
01:02:37We are to judge each other's behavior to an extent because God tells us we're supposed to correct each other.
01:02:43And how can we do that if we're not examining each other's behavior?
01:02:46But we can't judge other people more strictly than we're willing to judge ourselves.
01:02:53And in fact, we should always judge ourselves first and fix that before we go and try to help somebody else with that same problem.
01:03:00You go to somebody who has solved that problem.
01:03:03You wouldn't even necessarily go to someone who has never had that problem because they might not understand it.
01:03:09You go to someone who has faced that hurdle and overcome it.
01:03:14That's not always true.
01:03:16Obviously, somebody who has avoided every pitfall might have a lot of wisdom to share and would be a good person to ask advice.
01:03:22So, anyways, when James is talking about speaking evil of each other, he's talking about accusing people.
01:03:31Yeah, Lashon Hara, Paula reminded me, you know, speaking evil about somebody in front of other people.
01:03:37And you are making yourself a judge of the other person when you obviously have issues to fix yourself.
01:03:45Now, James obviously presents the law here as a good thing, and you are not the law.
01:03:52You don't get to behave as if you're the law.
01:03:55You can't put yourself in the law's place.
01:03:56Nobody is accountable to you for their behavior.
01:03:59They're accountable to God and the law.
01:04:02And if they're sinners, they're accountable to the law.
01:04:04But if they've been forgiven, now they're accountable to God for keeping his law.
01:04:09James says this is a good thing.
01:04:12The law is a good thing.
01:04:13He's upholding it by keeping the law and encouraging each other to keep the law.
01:04:18We are walking according to God's standards.
01:04:22Just don't use it as a weapon against each other.
01:04:25Don't use the law to tear other people down, to accuse people of things when you're guilty of the same thing or you're guilty of something worse.
01:04:36It's not about tearing people down or trying to convict people.
01:04:41It's about how if you're going to point out somebody's sin, you're doing it in order to help them overcome it, not to point out, hey, you're an evil person.
01:04:51That's not helpful to anybody.
01:04:53And that's the kind of thing that James is warning us against, not against helping each other.
01:04:59Yeah, it's elevating yourself by pushing somebody else down when you're doing the exact same thing.
01:05:06Yeah.
01:05:06Yeah, and then he brings this to the lawgiver.
01:05:11I mean, if you are putting yourself in place of the law, well, aren't you just then saying that the lawgiver doesn't know what he's doing?
01:05:19If God is the lawgiver and there's only one lawgiver, which means that there's only one law, or at least implies it, then you are accountable to the lawgiver.
01:05:31So you play your role.
01:05:33Let the law play its role.
01:05:35And your job as part of the body of Christ is to build each other up, not tear each other down.
01:05:41I think Paul says that that is our primary reason for gathering.
01:05:45We gather together in order to build each other up.
01:05:49You know, there's also, you know, worship happens, prayer.
01:05:55We go to learn.
01:05:57We go for the encouragement that we get.
01:06:00All those things are also through.
01:06:01But our primary mission is to build each other up, to build the kingdom in the people around us.
01:06:06It's not about us.
01:06:07It's about the kingdom.
01:06:09It's about God's name.
01:06:12That's the thing that we're supposed to be focusing on and building up.
01:06:15And ultimately, he's the one that's going to make decisions about who is and who is not worthy of whatever roles he's given.
01:06:25We all have our roles to play.
01:06:27And it's better that we figure out what that is and do it.
01:06:30And even if we think it's not glamorous, in the long run, we will be more fulfilled, having done the humble thing that God called us to do, than assuming the proud position that he did not call us to.
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