James 4
McGeeCHAPTER 4THEME: Vacuity and vapidness of worldliness
James 4:1
VACUITY AND VAPIDNESS OF WORLDLINESSJames will deal with several very important questions in this chapter: What is worldliness? How does a Christian fight the Devil? What is your life? All of these will anchor back into the subject of worldliness. James will first answer the question: What is worldliness? I believe the average Christian in our so-called fundamental churches would give one of several answers. Some would say that worldliness is a matter of the kind of amusements you attend or indulge in: What kind of movies do you go to? Do you dance? And, do you drink? That is what they would call worldliness. May I say to you, James would not agree with them. Others would say that it is the kind of crowd you run with, the gang you hang around with. After all, birds of a feather flock together, and if you are with a worldly crowd that engages in these things, then you are worldly. I am sorry to have to tell you, if you gave that answer in James’ college, you would fail; you wouldn’t pass the course. Still others would say that worldliness is a matter of the conversation you engage in. You must learn to say “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” at the right times. Worldliness is when you engage in worldly conversation. Again, that is not the answer; you have failed the course. Someone else will answer that worldliness is the way that you dress. I have news for you: you have not passed the course. Others may say it is a person who engages in business and the making of money to the exclusion of all else and who neglects the church; that person, they say, is a worldly individual. You still have not passed the course in James’ college. Yet another may answer that it is the person who does not go to church, but spends time on the golf course, fishing, boating, or watching his favorite team play baseball. My friend, I do not approve of any of the things which I have mentioned here, but they just don’t happen to be worldliness. Most of those sins are sins of the fleshnot of the world. If you put down any one of those as your answer to James’ question, you have flunked the exam; you’ve failed the subject, and you’ve busted the course. None of those answers is correct. They may be symptoms of the disease, but nobody ever died of symptomsthey die of the disease. These are simply evidences of the real problem, which is deeper. A brother of Henry Ward Beecher, a pastor in upper New York state, had a clock in his church that never would keep accurate time. So this man put a sign under that clock which read: “Don’t blame the hands. The trouble lies deeper.” This is what we need to recognize in ourselves. What we call worldliness is just the hands of the clock; the real trouble lies deeper. William Thackeray, who was a Christian, dealt with this subject in his novel, Vanity Fair, in a way that probably no one else has dealt with it. His novel is about the world, and he wrote it on the background of the wars of Napoleon. He presents characters who are all filled with weaknesses and littleness, pettiness and jealousy, envy, discord and strifeall of that is there. Someone once asked Thackeray, “Why don’t you have some wonderful heroes in your novels? You always present little people.” Thackeray replied, “I hold a mirror up to nature, and I do not find heroes among mankind. They are filled with littleness and pettiness and strife and sin.” When you get to the end of Vanity Fair, Thackeray does a masterly thing.
He says, “Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.” That is man. As Shakespeare said, he “struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” Man is filled with worldliness. Dr. Griffith Thomas pinned it down a little closer when a person who was very much distressed came to him one day and asked, “Don’t you think that the world is becoming Christian today?” Dr. Thomas said, “No, I do not think that is true. I think the world is becoming a little churchy, but I think the church is becoming immensely worldly.” Since World War II there has been a breakdown of the wall of separation between the church and the world. The separation that many had practiced was legalistic and, I think, unscriptural. The church was like the little Dutch boy who was keeping his thumb in the dike. Then, in the aftermath of the war, along came television, lawlessness, immorality, and juvenile delinquency; first the beatniks, then the hippies, then dope and marijuana, and the philosophy of existentialism. A tidal wave swept over the dikes of separation, and even the little Dutch boy was washed away. There is no simple answer to the question: What is worldliness? But I am going to let James give what I think is his very definitive answer. What is worldliness? James says that worldliness is strife and envy. We need to go back to chapter 3 to pick up his thoughts. In Jas_3:13 we read, “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.” Faith is the major in James’ university, and all elective courses are related to faith. Works of faith bring meekness.Then we read, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle” (Jas_3:17). There is meekness or humility, and humility means submission. In Jas_3:16 we read, “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” That is worldliness. And worldliness in the church has produced all the cults, denominations, factions, divisions, and cliques which have arisen and abound in the church today. There is a spirit of rivalry and jealousy in the church. In the previous verse, James describes this as “earthly"that is, it is confined to the earth. It is “sensual"that is, psychological. And then it’s “devilish” or demonic, which is something quite terrible, my friend. What do envy and strife produce in this world? They produce “confusion and every evil work.” With this as background, we can recognize what James is saying now in chapter 4 “Wars” have to do with the wars of nations. “Fightings” have to do with little skirmishesthat little fight you had in the churchyou remember? “Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” You wanted to have your own way. “Lusts that war in your members” are actually sensual pleasures. Strife and turmoil are created by conflicts and the overweening demands of the members of the body for satisfaction.
James 4:2
Selfish desires, James makes it very clear, lead to war. This spirit of strife is worldliness; it is not Christian, and it is not the Christian approach. These are the things which represent the old nature. A man must be regenerated by faith in Christ and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. What James describes here is the spirit of the world. When the spirit of the world gets into the church, you have a worldly church. My friend, do you think it is bad out on the battlefield? Did you think it was bad in Vietnam? Well, it was, but inside some churches and inside the hearts of some individuals it is just as bad. In the business world there is dog-eat-dog competitionthat is worldliness.
Political parties split, and one group becomes pitted against another. As capital and labor meet around the conference table, there is a battle going on. In the social world there are climbers on the social ladder who are stepping on the hands of others as they go up. In your neighborhood and mine one family does not speak to another family. Within families there are quarrels, brother against brother. Then that spirit gets into the church.
That, my friend, is worldliness. “Yet ye have not because ye ask not.” Our desires should be taken to the Lord in prayerto have them satisfied or denied or refinedand then we need to accept the answer from Him. What is the cure for worldliness? It is prayer. It is, therefore, faith in God. The apostle John put it like this, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1Jn_5:4). The answer is to trust in God absolutely, to go to Him in prayer and commit to Him that which is in your heart.
When you find that there is strife and envy in your heart, talk to Him about it. Many of us go to the Lord to tell Him how good we are. And because we have been good little boys and girls who have gone to Sunday school, we think He ought to give us a lollipop or a Brownie button or something of that sort. My friend, we need to get right down to the nitty-gritty where we live. Consider these words which were written by a great saint, a mystic of the Middle Ages, Fenelon: Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them; talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself as to others. If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration, just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God. When I was laid aside for some time with an illness, I found that all things do work together for good. My wife and I were able to sit at home for a longer period of time than we ever had since we were married. Even on our honeymoon I candidated at a church. From that day to this we have been on the go. We found that there were some things we really needed to talk over that otherwise might have been misunderstood. We had wonderful talks, and we just laid bare our hearts to each other. It was the most joyous experience. I said to her, “Honey, this is more wonderful than our honeymoon was!” That is the kind of relationship we ought to have with God. Having studied the Word of God and having read these words by Fenelon, I came to the conclusion that I was going to tell the Lord Jesus everything. I have talked to Him about everything in my life that was sinful and questionable. He knows, He understands, and He’s forgiven me. The only way to take away that envy and jealousy and strife which is in your heart is to go to the Lord Jesus. You don’t need to go to the psychiatrist; he’ll just move your problem from one area to another. You need to get rid of that hang-up by going to the Lord Jesus, getting on His couch, and telling Him everything. James says that the solution is for you and me to pray, but we often pray for selfish ends
James 4:3
Even when we do ask God for something, we ask in order that we might spend it in a very selfish way.
James 4:4
Because we are willing to compromise with the world in order to attain our goals, James calls us “adulterers and adulteresses.” This is the way of the world: take by force what you want; by hook or by crook lay hold of it; be envious and jealous of other folk, and cause strife. That is worldliness. “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” I have never joined any of the clubs or lodges such as the Lions, the Moose, the Elks, or the Rotary Club. I have been asked to join, but I do not join them. I’ll tell you the reason. I have enough trouble with worldliness in the church; I do not need to join a worldly organization.
James 4:5
Are we trying to kid ourselves that we are nice, sweet, little folk who have no envy and jealousy in our hearts? I heard a woman say one time, “I have a very wonderful husband. He is not jealous of me.” I want you to know that something is wrong if a husband is not jealous of his wife. If he loves her, he will be jealous of her. God says that He is jealous of His children. But what about jealousy in the wrong sensejealousy when we do not get elected to a committee or do not receive recognition in the church that we feel we deserve? And what about the strife we cause with these tongues of ours? James says that the solution to the problem is to go to the Lord Jesus and tell Him about our problem, tell Him everything.
James 4:6
I have said this again and again: God is overloaded with grace. You and I just don’t know how gracious He is. He has an abundance of grace. Grace has been defined as unmerited favor, but I call it love in action. God didn’t save us by love. He gave His Son, and it is by His grace that we are saved. He has so much of it. You may say, “Oh, I am so wrong on the inside, so sinful.” Go to Him and tell Him you are wrong on the inside, and ask Him for grace to overcome it. He will give you grace. He is the living Christ, interceding at God’s right hand for you. Now some may doubt the surplus of His grace. May I say to you, all the medicine in the world cannot cure the sick; the remedy must be taken. Likewise, God has the grace, my friend; lay hold of it! It is possible for a man to die of thirst with a pure spring of water right before him. He has to drink of it; he has to appropriate it before it can save his life. You don’t blame soap and water for the fact that there are dirty people in the world, do you? There is plenty of soap and water to clean you up, my friend. “God resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble.” This is the kind of container that the grace of God must be carried in; it must be carried in an humble individual.
James 4:7
When you go to a doctor for medical care, you submit yourself to him. One time when I was sick, the doctor gave me half a dozen prescriptions. The man might have been trying to poison me, but I had faith in him and took his pills. They helped me because I submitted to him. “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” You may ask, “How am I going to resist the Devil?” James is going to be very practical. He has just said that we need a little more graceHe “giveth grace unto the humble.” In other words, you are not going to be able to resist the Devil in your own strength. You and I are surrounded by evil influences. Temptation, as we have seen, is on every hand. God supplies His grace as needed, and His supply never runs out. “This is yours,” God says. “You are to lay hold of it.”
James 4:8
God comes to the door of your heart; He will not come any farther. He knocks, and you have to let Him in. That is the only way He is going to get in, my friend. It is said that one time Martin Luther threw an inkwell at the Devil. Somebody might say that was a crazy thing to do, but it is not if you are resisting the Devil. James tells us that the way to resist the Devil is to draw near to God. The Devil will flee from you, because he doesn’t like God as company. The Devil will not get to you unless you get too far away from God. A wolf never attacks a sheep as long as it is with the rest of the sheep and with the shepherd. And the closer the sheep is to the shepherd, the safer it is. Our problem is that we get too far from God.
James 4:9
There are certain conditions which call for mourning and not for joy. Sin is never to be treated lightly. When I hear a Christian make light of sin, I have a sneaking notion that, on the side, when nobody is looking, he is indulging in sin. You are not to treat sin lightly, my friend; you are to mourn over your sins. The problem today is that Christians are not mourning over their sins. We have several outstanding evangelists and some great evangelistic meetings in our day, but why is it that there is no revival in the church? I think James is giving us something to think about in what he says here. I remember asking this same question of Dr. John Brown, who was one of the great evangelists in the past. As we sat on his front porch in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, I asked him why, even in that day, evangelism was not reviving the church as it had when he was active in the ministry. He told me about the meetings which he had held in my present hometown of Pasadena, California, where he had a tent set up on a big vacant lot at the corner of Washington and Holliston.
He said this to me, “Dr. McGee, I preached six weeks to the Christians before I ever attempted to give an altar call for the unsavedand revival came to the churches.” When I came as pastor to a church in Pasadena, I could still see the effects of Dr. Brown’s meetings in that church. Why? For the very simple reason that sin had been dealt with in the lives of believers. Too often we refuse to deal with it.
We need to mourn over our sins.
James 4:10
“He shall lift you up.” This is our problem today: We think we are smart. We think we are strong. We think we have ability. We think we are good. God says that there is no good within us. There is nothing in us that attracts Him, that is, in the way of goodness; it is just our great need that draws Him to us. If we are willing to humble ourselves and get down where He can lift us up, He will lift us up. I observed a lifeguard once as he hit a drowning fellow with his fist and knocked him out. The lifeguard explained that the drowning man was struggling and that he could not help him until he gave up. I think sometimes God gives us the fist so that we just give up and let Him take over.
James 4:11
If you judge your brother, you disobey the law, which is putting yourself above the law and treating it with contempt. In other words, who do you think you are? When you begin to talk like that, you are moving into the position of God. There are two types of people today who seek to take the position of God. One is the sinner who says, “I’m good enough to be saved. Lord, I don’t need your salvation.
You just move over, and I am going to move up and sit beside you. I am my own savior.” But, my friend, God says in His Word that He is the only Savior. Then there is the other fellow who sits in judgment on everyone else. He doesn’t judge himself, but he judges everyone else. James is saying that judgment is God’s business. Jesus said, “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (Joh_5:22).
There are many Christians who, in effect, say to the Lord Jesus, “You move over. I’m going to help You. We are going to have a Supreme Court, and I am going to be one of the judges.” We have a lot of believers like that today; boy, what a Supreme Court the church could furnish Him! James says that we are to judge ourselves and to go to Him in humility.
James 4:13
Here is something else Christians dowe like to make big plans for the future. It has taken me a long time in life to learn just to play it by ear. Normally I accept speaking engagements quite some time ahead of schedule, but in periods of serious illness I have been forced to cancel some engagements. I have hated to cancel them, but the Lord has brought this passage of Scripture to my mind: “Come now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and hold a Bible conference. We will have a wonderful time there, and we believe it is the Lord’s will.” That is not exactly what James said, but that is how the Lord has said it to me.
James 4:14
James says that we do not know what tomorrow holds. “For what is your life?” He says it is just a vapor, a fog. “It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” We have a lot of fog here on the West Coast. You can be driving along the coast on a marvelous day when the ocean is as blue as indigo and the sky almost as blue as the ocean, but if you stop at a motel for the night, you may find in the morning that everything is shrouded by fog. Life is like a mist on a mountainsideuncertain, transient, and temporary. Human life lived apart from and without God is the most colossal failure in God’s universe. Everything else serves a long and useful purpose. The sun in the sky is prodigal of its energywe use very little of it. The moon also serves a purpose; many of you fellows got married because of that moon up there. It is the poet who said, “Only man is vile.” Human life apart from God is out of joint, dislocated, a colossal failure. One of the reasons is the brevity of this life. We are allotted only three score and ten years; if we get any more, they are filled with aches and pains. Oh, the brevity of human life! Many of us never learn to really live down here upon this earth.
James 4:15
Our lives are in the hand of God.
James 4:16
Man cannot boast; if he does, it is sin.
James 4:17
There are a great many people today who are sinning and don’t know it. If you know to do good in certain casesif you know that you should do a certain thing or help a certain causeand you do not do it, that is sin. Our lives are brief, and we should not spend our time in strife and envy and jealousy. It spoils a life. We need to come to Christ, put our lives down before Him, and really start living. He has said, “…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (Joh_10:10). He wants to give you a life that is a life indeed. Are you living that life today?