Please, you ought to remember those. I have to know, first, what it says. Second, what it means. And third, how can it be applied? That's the order. And when I heard him say that, I said, I like that, mate. I'm going to enjoy this week. And if you listen to him, you know that's the approach he takes. love it. There will be like a new opportunity to put your life story in some sort of an article that possibly changes next. The reason I'm saying that, if I have for years talked to missionaries who are addressing congregations and who are always talking to young people about finding the will of God, giving themselves to the service of the Lord, and I keep saying to them, what do you have to say to older people? And here is the illustration. Truman finishes a career and starts on another one. And I want that put across to our people. That some of you could retire after thirty years, twenty-five, thirty years in your vocation. What would you do the rest of your life? Move the sword and fish? There's any more valuable to do than that? And here's a man that goes back to school, starts on a whole new career, and has been used to the Lord for all these years now since he retired. I wish some of the rest of you would think about doing that. All right? And you women, many of you will have your, or have your children reared by the time you were in your early course. If the average age to which a woman lives is eighty, and it's very close to that in our country, what are you going to do with the rest of those forty years? Do you want to send it home to knit? What kind of a ministry are you going to get involved in? What kind of a career? Please, men, don't tell me that... I'm going to get on another Sunday here. I better be careful. Don't tell me that I'm sitting home. They'll make far better wives if you allow them to develop their ability. You've got no idea what that'll do. And if you're afraid of that, you husband, fear not. Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. You can't imagine the joy when your wife starts with all the inheritance. So Truman, I wish you would write up your history and submit it to interest. I think it would be very, very helpful. I love it. And I hope some of the rest of you will take a page out of Truman's book. Now, let's come back to James Chapter One. What? What did I say? What? A page out of... I didn't know I could be funny without trying, but if you don't like that, take it true and out of pages. I don't know. James chapter one, it does begin reading again at verse thirteen, and then I will cross down to the end of the chapter. If you've got a few ideas before we look at the section we did not get to, the other evening, or morning, or whatever it was. Verse thirteen, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted for the evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived, his birth to sin, and sin when it is homegrown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved friend. every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of light to whom there is no variation or shadow due to change out of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first proof of his scriptures and i drop down to verse twenty six if anyone thinks he is religious and does not write of his tongue but exceeds his heart this man's religion is vain religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father exists, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unscathed in the world. And before we start looking at some of the specific statements that James is making, I want to go back to the idea of the world, and that's why I read those closing verses. The temptation has come to us from the world, and then start talking a little bit about temptation and what James has to say about desires. couple of other things before we look at the specific things Gene says. When I was trying to define the world the other day, as far as the world being a source of temptation, I thought what Gene says in the close of chapter one is one illustration of that. And when he talks about religion, there's two and under file before God and Father exists. To visit the orphans and the widows and their affliction and to keep oneself from being unspotted by the world. I realize that the grammatical instruction is such that it is probably two things that James is talking about. But as I look at those two, I think they are interrelated. And it may be that James is describing for us what he means by the world. When James talks about visiting, if you want to know what the expression of faith in Jesus Christ ought to be. it's not going to meeting unless that leads us to something like this to visit the orphans and the widows now please don't think of the word visit as making a call on it's to look after it's the responsibility of a shepherd it's Paul turning to Barnabas and saying at the end of the first missionary journey let us go back and visit our brethren and see how they do. What is he going to do? Just pay them a visit. He's going to find out what their condition is, and then he and Barnabas are going to meet that condition. And to visit the orphan and the widow is to do that. To find out what is their condition and to meet the needs of that condition. Now why the orphan and the widow? because in Eastern society those were the most helpless and the most taken advantage of in any given society. They had no political power, they had no wealth, they had no means by which they could make their way in the society. And so everybody who was interested in advancing himself took advantage of the orphan and the widow. And all you have to do is read the prophets of the Old Testament to see what God thought of all this and the terrible judgment that is coming on those who do take advantage of the orphan and the widow. And what was going on in Israelite society in the days of the prophets is this, a man who wanted to add to his holdings his estate. would call the widow into court, bribe the judge on a trumped-up charge, and have the judge pronounce sentence against this helpless widow, forfeiting her land, the holdings of her husband, forfeiting her land to this wealthy man who wanted to expand his estate. Now, what is an orphan and a widow to do in Near Eastern society when they have lost their property there are only two things they can do sell themselves into slavery and prostitution that's all they can do and God looks at the effect of the greed of those wealthy landowners he sees what happens to these people And he pronounces terrible judgment against the people who take advantage of the widow and the orphan. Here are people that in society are used to advance oneself. That is the attitude of the world. And if we are caught up in the thinking of our society, we may find ourselves doing the same thing. and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world we must not think the way our society thinks and instead of seeing the widow in the orphan as people of whom we can take advantage we see the widow in the orphan as the opportunity to serve christ that's the way we've got to think and to some degree that is keeping ourselves unspotted to the world you see the idea we cannot allow our conduct to be determined by the value structure of our society. And here is one specific instance of it in the society of James, the days in which James was living. So what James is saying is the reality. And by the way, he uses the word religion. And the idea of the word religion, it is the outward expression of our faith. and the outward expression of our faith, we can see as ritualistic. Israel fell into that trap. So long as they kept up the sacrifices and the ritual, the Israelite was satisfied that he was expressing his faith. We may think so long as we come to the meetings of the assembly, we are giving expression to our faith. We are not. those meetings should be the means of causing us to express our faith in ways that james is talking about the good work the care for people the nourishing and ministering to others now we are giving expression to our faith an expression to our faith that fits jesus christ when he talked about that what did he say when they charged him with violating the Sabbath do you remember his word my father worketh hitherto and I work what is he saying the real use of the Sabbath is not a religious observant but meeting the needs of people that's why the Sabbath was set up for the good of man Jesus is saying Anything you do on the Sabbath for the good of man, that is keeping the Sabbath. And my father is working on the Sabbath day, and so I work on the Sabbath day. The kinds of work that he was doing were beneficial to man, healings on the Sabbath day. And what Jesus is saying, there is nothing more fitting to do with the Sabbath day than to heal the sick. That is fitting for the Sabbath. That is the expression of faith in God, because that's what God is doing under that. And our faith in Jesus Christ, then, as we look at the life of Christ, if we are going to be true to that, we can say, our Lord is working hitherto, and we are working. And the kinds of works Jesus did during his life here on earth should give us a clue. as to what it means to express our faith in Jesus Christ. You see that? So we are going to be living in our world directly opposite to the way our world is living, just as Jesus did. The difference, I'm going to get way off here and never get to James. The difference is in real issues, not manufactured issues. Elton Trueblood in his book, The Incendiary Fellowship, talks about the Pentecostalists in the Mazurines, for whom he has the highest respect, who felt that to be different from the world, their women should not wear jewelry nor makeup. And he says anybody who makes fun of them is saying more about himself than he is about them. He said it was a very moving thing to watch the collection played past in those congregations. and the women to take off their rings and their jewelry and put it in the collection place as a sacrifice to Jesus Christ so that they could be different from the women in their society around that. But true blood goes on to say, as noble as that was, it missed the point of being different from the world. Being different from the world is not in the way we dress, except for the dress of the world is indecent. being different from the world is in moral issues where the world is characterized by selfishness the christian is characterized by unselfishness where the world lives to get the christian lives to give he sees life not as an opportunity to acquire but as an opportunity to give He sees life not as an opportunity to have others minister to him. He sees it as an opportunity to minister to others. And selfishness characterizes any non-Christian society. Unselfishness is characterized in Christian society. That's how we keep ourselves unstained in the world. And whether a Christian woman wears lipstick or jewelry is not the point. Is she living an unselfish life? Is she reaching out to minister to those in need? The same thing with the man. And I'm going to, I better, Jenny, you better stop me. There is no Christian dress. What is decent or indecent is determined by any given society, not by the Christians. Jesus didn't dress any differently from the Jews of his day. So that when he said it to well, a Samaritan woman says, how is it about being a Jew? He didn't dress any differently, but he sure lived differently. And we are in trouble if we substitute appearance for life. and that passage has been so misused avoid every appearance of evil that is impossible you end up in an insane asylum if you mean by that what anybody might take as evil it ought to be translated avoid every form of evil every kind of evil avoid that but to avoid every action that someone might think is evil is to paralyze yourself totally Because no matter how much good Jesus did, there were people who saw it as evil. And if he avoided every appearance of evil in that sense of the word, he would never have done anything. To many people, his healing on the Sabbath day was evil. It had the appearance of evil to them. No, what we avoid is every form, every kind of evil. But we better be living unselfishly. living to give, living to help, living to minister to us. And when you do that, by the way, and I am way astray, but it won't hurt you. It may hurt me, but it won't hurt you. When we are ministering to other people, we must give and receive in ways that are accessible to them, ways that they can accept. When I perform an act that to me is an act of love for someone, I must be sure it is done in such a way that they are able to receive it as an act of love. When Jesus helped people or received from people, he did it in such a way that they were not embarrassed or put to shame in public. He never did that. And I thought of him, and when he was in the wealthy man's house, the Pharisee, at dinner, and the people from the village would be standing around the walls looking at all this, and all these important guests would be around the table. And while Jesus is reclining this, the prostitute walks in off the street, stands behind him at his feet, and starts weeping all over his feet. And then she lets her hair down, if it wasn't already done as a prostitute, and wipes his feet with her hair. And the Pharisee is horrified. And if that, if I had been reclining there in the place of Jesus, I would have drawn my feet up. And I told her to make an appointment. But Jesus didn't care what the Pharisees thought or what anybody else has had peace done. What he deeply cared about was that woman. And he would not do anything to embarrass her. He would rather be the one that bore the shame than have her fairly shame. And so he accepted her gift. As inappropriate... As it seemed to the people of that society, he was not concerned with what the people of society thought. He was concerned with what was going on in that woman's heart and life. And he wouldn't do anything that would hinder that work. Same way when he gave, when he performed his miracles, or when he was dealing with people about their sin, the way he did it, was such that they could accept it and i mentioned that when he put his finger on people's sin he did it in such a way that they were glad that he had done it they were humbled by it but they were not humiliated by it so when we want to live unselfishly we have to be careful that what we are doing is done in such a way that the people whom we want to help are able to receive the help and don't reject Christianity because of the way we do it. You see what I'm saying? So we as Christians then are going to be living differently from our non-Christian society. We're not going to buy into the idea of getting everything you can while you're here. And we take seriously what C.S. Lewis said. Never give your whole heart to anything that will end when your life is. That's the idea of being different from our society. Everything our society goes in for will end when their life is. Never give your whole heart to anything that will end when your life is. That, in my judgment, is keeping ourselves unspotted from the world. right now to back up someone has said to me well where where does the spirit of god fit into all this business and are i'm not getting into temptation and not sinning why haven't you mentioned that well the reason i haven't mentioned it there are two reasons one truman's been doing it and two james doesn't but let me talk a little bit about that when we talk about the spirit of god in our lives there there are a number of positions that people take. And let me just take two extremes of this. One is characterized by the statement, let go and let God. That's one position. So that all you have to do is totally surrender yourself and the Spirit of God will do everything for you. He will do it. It will be Jesus living out his life through your body. All you have to do is make sure that each day you are totally surrendered to him and then you let him do. in you, all the good works. The other position, that by the way runs into the problem of all the commands that say, you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it all through the New Testament. I don't know how you deal with those. There isn't any command of the Spirit of God to do it in you. There's a command to you to do it. The other extreme is to live as though the Spirit of God didn't exist. That if the Spirit of God was taken away from us, it wouldn't make one whack of difference in our lives. and it's possible to live that way as i understand what the scripture is saying about this and this is my understanding and therefore it may be wrong it isn't but i just say that but uh i think you take both those extremes and you bring them together and there's a verse in romans eight that I think illustrates that beautifully. And let's turn back there. I know it's not a siege. It's not James. But that's all right. At least I think it is. Romans chapter eight verse twelve. Just to lead us into the thirteen verse which is the one I want. So then brethren we are debtors not for the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body who doesn't you do it the spirit of god will not do it for you you have to do it but you cannot do it on your own if you by the spirit of god put to death the deeds of the body now he doesn't say the spirit of god will put to death the deeds of the body he will not he will not do anything for you but he will enable you to do what he's supposed to do all right so how does the spirit of god fit in here i have to take the responsibilities of all the commands and instructions of the new testament give me i have to take that responsibility and at the same time i have to get before the spirit of god and say i cannot do it unless you enable me to do it and I have to face that responsibility with a real sense of dependence on someone greater and bigger than I who very wonderfully is inside me that's the way I have to do it let me repeat it the Spirit of God will not do anything for you He won't study the Bible for you. He won't love your wife for you. He won't pray for you. That is, do the praise. But he will enable you to do. Take the lifestyle of a Christian and get a non-Christian to listen. Can it be done? No. We can do it. not because we personally are better than the non-christian or constitutionally different from you but we can do it because we are involved by the spirit of god you can do it but you cannot do it without the spirit of god i want to say one other thing the spirit of god will give you enough help to win the conflict he will never give you so much help that there is no conflict he will not eliminate the conflict he will never make you impervious to the struggle by his great power he will never do that but he will give you enough help so that you can win the battle all right so that even jesus anointed by the Spirit of God in the baptism, driven into the wilderness, had to face the temptation of Satan. Even Jesus in the Garden of the Seminance, in that tremendous struggle, sweated at work, great drops of blood. It does not eliminate the conflict, but he will enable us to win the battle. All right? So in that dependence on the Spirit of God, then I have to face my responsibilities in Scripture and take them as my responsibility to carry up. And then, of course, I have to do everything that the Scripture talks about that makes possible that ministry of the Spirit of God in my life. I've got to take seriously what he says about breathe not and quench not. There's criminals going through those passages in Ephesians, all those commands that things I am to get rid of and put out of my life so the Spirit of God isn't great. Okay? Now, let's come back to what James says about temptation. He's saying that it begins here with our desire. It does not begin with God. originating the temptation. We'll talk about the reason why that can't be. But each person in verse fourteen is tempted when he is lured and enticed, and those are words used by the fishermen and the hunter, it's to entice an animal out of the safety of his den. And how are we lured out of the safe position? By our own desire. So if I want to snap this chain, I've got to snap it at the beginning, which is desire. That's where I've got to go to work. We are not like animals who live by their desires, their instincts. Our society tries to say we are, and the appeal in our society now is get into your feelings. Whatever feels good, do it. And the only standard of what is good is what makes you feel good. That's what our society is saying. Our society is saying we are merely animals with a larger brain capacity than those that are running around on four legs. That's the only difference. And what is happening is we are degrading human beings. That view of human beings that is being sold in our society, whatever feels good, do it. It's one of the most degrading views of man that's possible. man is not just like that man has a mind and here in the area of desire this is very often where the whole thing begins it's not just our natural physical or physiological impulse oh they are there and when our stomachs begin to empty themselves then begin to feel the pains of hunger may desire for food But whether or not we eat should not be the simple response to the growling in our stomach, and especially how much we eat. That ought to be an evaluation made by the mind that says to the stomach, shut up, I'll give you as much as I think is good for you. And that's why E.W. Pilger said, every Christian should fast once in a while just to show his stomach who's in charge. But rather than go on to something else, let me follow along just with that idea, honey. But because we have minds, we have both memory and imagination. And those two functions can create situations that are not physical, but that are just as real as though they were physical. If you imagine, as you walk out here in the darkness, that you are being chased by an Alaskan brown bear, who is tall about that long, and in your mind you are convinced that is true, your response will be exactly the same as if it were true. There isn't any Alaskan brown bear out there. It's in your mind, but your response to what's in your mind is just as real as those of an Alaskan brown bear out there. Right? You sit down at the table, your wife prepares for you your favorite main dish, and you just go ahead until you are absolutely stopped, and you're sitting back there in your chair so deeply like, oh, who do you mean then? She says, you sent me the book, the new coach you just got. But anyhow, then she comes in from your kitchen with your favorite dessert. What are you doing? You need it. Why do you eat it? Because you're hungry? No. Because your body needs it? No. Why do you eat it? Because there is such a thing as memory. You remember how good that tasted. And that memory triggers all your taste buds. The saliva starts flowing. You get a tremendous craving for it. Where did all that take place? What stirred up those desires? the mind, that's what it is. Remember. Train with imagination. As I said, if you imagine that there is an elapsing brown bear chasing you, your reaction is going to be the same as if there were one. And you can imagine the fulfillment of all kinds of desires. And that means your response is going to be the same as though it were actually. And our desire are stirred up, generated by our mind. Okay? They're not just instinctual. There are instinctual desires, but they are dominated by our mind. So what I want to suggest is that grappling with this whole area of desire begins with our thought process, not with our feelings. Why did you buy that last new car you bought? Was there anything physiological in your body that said, I don't get that new car, I'm going to die. I'll start to death. No. You read ads that portrayed this latest model in such a way that you could see yourself sitting in that, driving down the highway, tuning up into your driveway, to the envy of all your neighbors. And you thought of all that sufficiently enough that you just had to have it. Right? And it's amazing what happens. When you're thinking that way, all of a sudden, all the defects in your own cars become magnified. And in your mind, if you don't get rid of that car, It will totally disintegrate in the middle of the interstate at sixty miles an hour when there are a thousand cars around you and your whole family is going to be wiped out. And so for the safety of your family, you have to get a new car. Where do I come from? Ain't no matter. You cannot control the fact that you think. Well, I'm not too sure about that in some of us, but you can't. You cannot control the fact that you think, but we can control what we think about. And if you allow your mind to wander in the wrong direction, you are going to stir up desires that demand gratification, and those desires can get to the point where they overrule your mind. And you can be in such a state that you know you shouldn't do that. but your desires now are so strong there is no way that your mind can break down how did they get that way by what you said into your mind and if we are going to deal with the beginning of this change change we're going to start dealing with what we think about you cannot not think about something that's impossible as soon as i know the old russian church I'll give you so many rubles if you will not think about a white bear. And what happens is as soon as I say, think about a white bear. In your mind, there's an image of a white bear. There is no way you cannot think about that. All you can do is think about something else. You cannot not think. All you can do is put into your mind something other than what shouldn't be there. And if you're concentrating on, I will not think about that. I will not think about that. I will not desire that. What are you doing? You're concentrating on the very thing you want to stop and concentrating on it, even in a negative way, that you work. You've got to put into your mind what is positive and right. and i think i am getting close to something paul wrote to the philippians am i not if there is anything write down the list think on these things so you can control what you think about and if you want to get at those desires you're going to start with your thinking and each of us differs here Frances Schafer can go to movies that I've been never goes. But he goes and he evaluates and sees what are the trends in our society and what message is coming through. I wouldn't be doing that if I were in the theater watching those. Whatever I would be doing, my desire would be going full tilt. So Francis Schafer can go, look at those films and I can't. And I have no right to condemn him for doing what he can do. And he has no right to judge me for not being able to do what he can do. I must not do what someone else can do, simply because he can do it. I know I can't do that. He can't. Fine. That's perfectly all right. We get along beautifully as long as each of us can say that. All right? And you have to know yourself. What are the kinds of things you can't do without getting all those wrong desires stirred up? You have to know yourself that way. And what you do is stay away from all that garbage and go pouring into your minor, whatever it is, it does. And maybe something perfectly is, and if you're just out of it, man, I can't do that. It's like working with alcoholics as we did in South Carolina. I never forget the fellow that we picked up some dirty old newspapers and the grease with a grand shackle garage floor and brought him home and tried to clean him up and threw him into our bed. and kept him to be sobered up. He began to work with him. He became a Christian. Got a job. The job involved going to other towns and calling on businesses to sell this product. And he'd been going along fine for a number of months. And I got a call one day from his wife. He's totally drunk. Okay, so we'll go right out to the house. go to work and sobered up and when he sobered up what happened and he tells me what happened he drove into this town where the call on a business went down the street main street where the business was and all the parking was an angle parking couldn't find a parking place turn around came back down the other side of the street and that whole main street where he had to call on a business there was one parking and you know how you feel about finding that one parking place moving up and down the street and with a great sigh of relief he pulled into the parking place shut off the ignition look through the windshield and he was right in front of a liquor store he said i sat there for twenty minutes fighting and i went in what should you have done i should have started the engine put that car in reverse and got another He would have meant nothing to me to put him in the parking place in front of a liquor store. Put him in the basement. For him doing that is disastrous. You better know yourself. So that you stay away from the kind of situation that stir up those desires that lead to sin and death. And that's where you're going to need the help of the Spirit of God. All right? Having said all that, when I time out, how am I going to get to what James says about temptation that God didn't work? The reason that we suggest what James is saying, I really want to expand on it, but what he's saying is that God is never the opposite of a tempter. Never. For the simple reason that God came up to tempt us, only a temptable and fallen creature can tempt someone else. It takes a fallen creature to tempt someone else. God is not a fallen creature. It's impossible for God to be tempted and fall. So it's impossible for God to send someone else to fall. Only a fallen creature will do that. And therefore God cannot tempt anyone to sin. Second reason. Temptation comes from ourselves. not from God. That's why we have to say God is not the author of temptation, because we are. Third reason, God only gives what is good. That's what he's saying. Every good, endowment, every perfect gift in verse seventeen is from above. Now please don't stand down on its head. In the context, what James is saying is one of the ways you know that temptation never comes from God is because God only gives what is good. You see that. So I can look at evil and say that does not come from God. Why not? Because God only gives what is good. But there are Christians who want to stand down on its head and end up saying, since everything that comes into my life is for good, and that is not what Romans A. Pilate, by the way, since everything that comes into my life is for my good, then everything that comes into my life is for God. So that everything that comes into my life, somehow I've got to be able to say that's good and praise God for it. because everything good comes out from God. Let's take that verse and stand on its head. What James is doing is distinguishing between good and evil and telling us that God is never the source of what is evil. And let me go back to what we were saying about testing. God can get into that evil that he did not originate, did not sin, and bring something good out of it. that does not justify the evil does not say the evil came from God it does say the grace that brought good out of it came from God but the evil did not come from God and whatever is evil that comes to us in life God didn't send it so please stop saying of those situations I wonder why God sent it he didn't he only sends what is good He will use what is evil to accomplish good. That's the grace of God. But he never sinned. He never sinned. Isn't that clear? All right. Well, don't mistake that. And in the same situation, I can hate the evil, the plot, the tragedy, and praise God for the good that came out. You see that? And I've got to make that distinction, lest I end up charging God with evil. which children used to do. All right? So, only what is good comes from God. I like what he is doing, I don't know. From above. That's not right faith. What are you talking about? Oh, the Father. Oh, God. That doesn't seem all fiction. And Jesus said to people of his day, if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that is you see what james is picking up the words of jesus fathers unless your children's the verdict give what is good to their children well don't you see that your heavenly father can only give what is good to their children and what is good it's all connected with what is spiritual they're the holy spirit you see that so god can only hear what is good that's why i could never say the temptation comes from god and finally in verse eighteen his last reason is here is one specific example of the kind of thing god does and this is a god who doesn't change what does god do he looks at us and he says hey I want you for my kids. And he brings us into his family. Now when you think of a God who never changes, who very definitely took you when you didn't deserve it, and made you one of his children, how could you ever think that he would bring something into your life that is easy? God is insistent, and when you see specifically the good that he does, that's the kind of thing he will always do. You got that? So you can go out, praise in God, night and day, because he's a good father, and he gives us what he's doing. He will never, never give us a stone when we ask for grace. Never do. I may not recognize bread and give it to me, but he will never give you his hope when I ask of you. Let's pray. We pray, our Father, you will so minister to us by your spirit and your word and by our fellow believers that we begin to grasp how great and good and wonderful you are and how tremendous it is to be your child. and begin to live in the light of that and see how tawdry the trinkets of the world are. And so we pray to deliver us from evil. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.