God's desire and plan in conflicts, pt 1
James 4:5-10 · Andrew Molloy · Aug 6, 2023
James, No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261932124991

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, by way of review, two weeks ago, we were talking about wisdom. And this is from wisdom from the book of Proverbs. And I'm getting into this because this relates to verse four. This kind of flows into verse four very nicely, this discussion on wisdom.

So wisdom from above is heavenly. We looked at that. It's God-given. His wisdom is understanding. It's knowledge, discernment, soundness, uprightness, integrity, righteousness, divine equity, justice, security, life for our souls, and courage. I just got those from Proverbs 3 through 8. It's all in there.

And James 3.17 said that heavenly wisdom is first pure and then from purity it is peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy, and good fruits, unwavering, and without hypocrisy. It's more precious than gold, silver, and jewels. It says this in Proverbs, it's healing to the body, God's wisdom, wisdom from above.

It's refreshing to the bones in Proverbs 3.8. It's pleasant to the soul, and it leads to sweet sleep. So if, maybe you, give up your melatonin and read Proverbs. Amen. Thanks for the message.

Proverbs 3.24.

Wisdom personified as a woman and you see that I just had these visions of these pictures of this woman wisdom in my head and so that's what I got and that's her on the left there. She calls out to the naive from the tops of the heights of the city and she says forsake your folly and live. Her paths lead to life.

Wisdom, it's really Christ's wisdom. It ends in Christ's wisdom from above. We see in Matthew 12, 42, Christ himself talking, speaking. The queen of the south, that's the queen of Sheba, will rise up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it because she came, this queen of Sheba came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

And behold, something greater than Solomon is here. So he's saying, here I am right here. I'm standing in front of you. I am wisdom. I am the Christ. I am the Messiah. I'm the Son of God. I'm God incarnate. And I have this wisdom greater than Solomon.

And you people who I'm talking to don't recognize that. And there is this queen. the Queen of Sheba, who traveled distances, all the way to hear Solomon speak. So, you know, what's your excuse, you Pharisees? Right? So, that's wisdom from above. Here's earthly wisdom. Okay. Here she is. I took this photo in Telluride. We used to have row houses, you know, here in this town. So that's what they were for. You can imagine.

Earthly wisdom is earthly, natural, and demonic, says in James 3.15. She's an adulteress with flattering words, calling out to the naive from her street corner. And it mentions this in Proverbs. It's always from the streets. So that's why that woman there is calling out from the street, street level.

Her lips drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech. She's a harlot, cunning of heart, boisterous, rebellious, a seductress. So that's a pretty good illustration photo, isn't it, of that? I think I got the right one. Her path is the way to death, this earthly wisdom that James talks about in 315.

So here we are at James 4.4, and we'll just touch on this this morning.

So it says, you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So we see that those who make friends with the world, they fall into a honey trap. And when they fall into that trap, then they're at enmity, or they're opposed to God.

In the King James, it adds the word adulterers, so the masculine. that word but you should cross that out because it's not in the original. It's adulterous, it's feminine. So even though we're all men, us men, I'm talking to you men and myself included, we're adulterous is what we are. So that's a kind of a switcheroo because women have the old man and us men are here in this verse are adulterous.

So what is the world, the cosmos system? And I'll go back to what I've given in studies past, this Lewis Baer Schaeffer's definition, because it's really good. The cosmos is a vast order or system that Satan has promoted. which conforms to his ideals, that's Satan's ideals, his aims, and his methods.

It is a civilization now functioning right now apart from God. The system embraces godless governments, conflicts, armaments, and jealousies. Its education, culture, religions, morality, and pride It is the sphere in which man lives. All mankind on this earth live in the sphere of the cosmos.

It is what he sees, what he employs. To the uncounted multitude, it is all they ever know, so as long as they live on this earth. we live in, even us too on this earth, the cosmos system. It is properly called or styled the satanic system, which phrase is in many instances a justified interpretation of the so meaningful word cosmos.

So I put that up there in the second little paragraph of Lou Spear Shaffer's definition. See where he says conflicts, armaments, and jealousies? And isn't that interesting because up in James 4, one through three, he's talking about the same things. He's talking about quarrels, conflicts, fightings, infightings between people, warring and lusting.

So it lines right up with the definition of the cosmos or the world. So these Jewish believers, they knew well what this word adulterous meant. And they knew, because they were Jewish believers early in the history of the church, the Old Testament is all they had. So they knew that Israel was always strained from, had a strained history with God. And we'll look at that more as well. You see that exclamation point I put in, you adulteresses. And that should be there. Is Jim in the class? Who? Who? What? Who? Jim's there, right? Yeah, he's there. He has a Holman Study Bible, right Jim?

Yeah, a Holman Christian Standard Bible, yeah. Yeah, Holman Christian Standard. Do you have an exclamation mark? Absolutely, yes. Yeah, so only the Holman puts it in there, but it should be in there. I learned this, it's kind of cool. evocative, votative, mace, the word adulterous is. And that's an exclamation. In that case, it's an exclamation. So we should have it in our Bibles, but only Jim. We'll defer to him today. I just thought that was interesting.

Okay, verse five, James 4, five. And this is, as I say, it's a tough nut crack, this verse. He says, or do you think that scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. and I could not figure this verse out.

I know. I was gonna silently skip over it, and which a lot of commentators do, so. Yes. It's not fair, right? They notice that. Yeah, they just sort of move along, right? But something happened. The spirit within me this week was bothering me. I really wanted to figure this verse out. So we'll see if I did. Maybe you won't agree, but I spent the majority of the study on this verse. Because when we get into verse 7, 7 through 10 go well together, so we'll study that next week. But this verse is what we'll tackle this morning.

So I say after fruitless searching, I couldn't find this quote in scripture, he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. I looked at it, looked in the footnotes, it's not there. And that is strange. So it's better to not have it in quotations, it's better to have it as a single quotation. and maybe italicized. So James is saying, in effect, You Jewish believers who are scattered now, and I'm writing to you, you all know perfectly well that the scripture is replete with this saying, he jealously desires a spirit which he has made to dwell in.

You know that, right? He's saying, are you getting what I'm laying down here? What he's doing I think, and I'll give you some support for this, is he's not quoting, he's paraphrasing scripture. He's saying, you all know that scripture doesn't speak emptily or without reason. Scripture speaks for a reason.

And you all know this paraphrase that I'm giving you. And here's the support, this from, and I found this is in Constable, Constable does address this. He says, well, Sophie S. Law is from her book, she says, in this verse, James, In this verse, James gave scriptural support for what he just asserted in verse 4, meaning you are spiritually unfaithful, you're adulterous, you're a friend of the world. However, James did not quote a particular verse, but evidently summarized the scriptural teaching on God's jealousy. And then she gives the scriptural support for that in the Old Testament. And he basically gives a new statement.

So this is from Constable, and he's quoting Sophie Law, who's a woman, which is interesting, isn't it? So I guess she's a commentator. And do you notice anything interesting about her first name? means wisdom, wisdom. So we must be on the right track this morning. We're getting this verse from wisdom herself, Sophie. I guess it's Sophia, right, the actual. So we'll look at this. So a lot of commentators just don't cover this. But as I just was on this, and I It must be a spirit-led thing. Who knows?

So let's look at these sources that she gives for her argument. here is exodus twenty-five and in exodus twenty-five uh... i'm paraphrasing and there i am paraphrasing single quotes on paraphrasing you shall have no other gods before me nor make for yourself an idol and this is the quote this is the actual quote you shall not worship them or serve or serve them for I the lord your god am a jealous god visiting the inequity of your father's arm the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me." Exodus 25. Exodus 34, 14, for you shall not worship any other God for the Lord, whose name is Jealous. It's a jealous God.

Have you ever seen, I've never noticed this verse, His name is Jealous. Anyone ever, You know, they give you the, there's books about the names of God and things like that. Elohim and, you know, he's a comforter and he's the Jewish. There's a lot of Jewish names for God, but I've never seen that one, but there it is. And it's jealous. And so it lines up perfectly with what James is saying here, doesn't it?

Psalms 84.2, my soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

And there you have this yearning, that word yearning, and you see in James 4.5, he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us.

So, and in Psalm 84, and this next, I think I have a next, yes, Psalm 42.1, I thought, this is strange, because this is David talking. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. And everyone knows that verse, very famous. And I always thought David, you know, he came up with this Psalm.

But what in the Psalms, it's really the Spirit of God talking, right? And so it's the Spirit longing for God, longing for the Father. And so you have the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and they exist in equality and the Spirit longs for them. And I'm sure the Father longs for the Spirit and things like that. So that's the Spirit of God talking there.

And then in Zechariah 8.2, thus the Lord of Hosts says, I am exceedingly jealous for Zion. Yes, with great wrath, I am jealous for her.

That's Zechariah 8.2.

So you see how those line up really well with James 4.5 and that issue of jealousy.

Other ways to render verse 5 here, that make it more clear, is to long for, or in the Greek inner literary, it says, to envy yearns the spirit. That's how the interlinear puts that verse. To envy yearns the spirit. Or you could say, on to envy yearns the spirit. Or you could say, the spirit jealously desires us, or longs enviously for us. And then this constable has, the spirit which he made to dwell in us jealously yearns for the entire devotion of the heart.

Here's some New Testament support for this for this verse in which Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6 19 or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you are not your own or 2nd Corinthians 6 16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, I will dwell in them, and there he's dwelling in us, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. He again is quoting the Old Testament.

Because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying Abba father Galatians 4 6 there's a yearning there's a desiring there in that verse and then is that Courtney's favorite verse Galatians 4 6 One that he often quotes Yeah Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption, Ephesians 4.30. So when I was looking at, and this is what kind of sent me down this little path, this rabbit trail, I guess you would say, is I couldn't find much on it. So in the footnote of the New American Standard Bible, it has numbers, it said numbers 23, numbers 23, 19, 23, 19. small footnote. That's all I could find.

I read that, and it says, God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. He has said, and what he has said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good? I thought, well, see how that's not a quote of he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us? which is set forth as a quote in your Bible, but it's not a quote. So I was like, gee, that's not helping me any. But over the course of the study, and I've highlighted this in bold, you see how he says, he has said, and will he not do it? And this is in Numbers 23, 19.

Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good? And then if you look at the first part of James 4 and verse 5, what James says there, or do you not think that scripture speaks to no purpose? And those line up. The scripture speaks with a purpose. And then in Numbers 23, 19, the B and C part there, it says he speaks with purpose, and he doesn't speak emptily or in vain.

And then I said, oh, that's why that little footnote is in there. So it's pretty interesting. But it took me a while to come to that. And maybe it's just me. you all would have probably gotten that much faster if you were doing the study, I suppose. So we're going to look a bit at this this morning. And don't worry, we'll get through all, we'll get to verse 10 by next week.

That's fine, Andrew, that's fine. Okay, good, good. It's good to have you back, Roger, too. Thank you, thank you. It's good to be back. When you were gone, you know. Okay. It's pandemonium. I doubt that, I doubt it. I heard good things about while I was gone. Okay, so this, Since it quotes Numbers 23, I looked into this Balaam story, and I always thought the Balaam story that just, you know, in my mind was the donkey, right? The talking donkey. And that was sort of the thing that I really just always thought about the Balaam story. But it's much more, and we'll We'll look at this this morning and then close it out here.

But Balaam was a freelance prophet. He wasn't an Israelite. He was hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel. There are numbers 22. He's told by God not to go to the king of Moab and then give a curse, because the king of Moab was trying to pay him to come and curse Israel. But then the king of Moab sends back an emissary, or several emissaries, and gives them more money. So then God says, OK, Balaam, you can go. But only speak my words. Speak nothing else but my words. And God was angry with Balaam.

So he, and that's where the donkey comes in. The angel of the Lord stood in the path and the donkey laid down. The donkey wouldn't proceed because the angel, he saw the angel, he saw, which I take to be the pre-incarnate Christ, right? Right. And the pre-incarnate Christ was going to kill Balaam right there, because he was angry. He was angry for his greed.

And Balak was going to this nation to curse Israel. And you see some jealous, desire in there of the Spirit of God for Israel. Compare that to James 4, 4. Friendship with the world brings hostility from God. And boy, if the angel of the Lord is standing in your path with a sword, there's some hostility there, isn't there? So Balaam hopes that he'll be able to go and give a cursing and get paid. But instead, the Spirit comes upon him and he utters a blessing.

And in Numbers 23, eight, it says, how shall I curse from whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? And you compare that to up above to in James, James three, where is it? And he's talking about the tongue, Let me find it here, I don't have my glasses.

Anyway, we'll get there. Someone look at that verse in the latter part of James 3 about the cursing and the blessing from the same tongue, right? 3.10? 3.10, thanks, Miles. Yeah, from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. my brethren, these things ought not to be this way. And I just kind of saw that comparison there. And Balaam can go up and issue a cursing or a blessing. So, oh, there it is. So with the tongue, we can bless the father, and with it, we can curse men. And that can, that refers well to this Balaam story. And why do I have four nine? Okay, I need to change that reference. Yes, okay, so that's why I'm confused here. I'll change that reference before I publish this. So, okay, my brain, let me reset my brain. It's buffering. Now I'm reset.

So three times, Balaam hopes for a curse to come out, but three times, a blessing comes out instead. So the point is, the spirit is jealously defending Israel. in the midst of the king of moab is the king of the moab is looking down on them wanting to attack them but they're afraid because they're blessed uh... you see how the spirit of god is is just about israel there and he defends them uh... but he's also because right after this israel and for reasons you can't fathom They get with the Midianite women, and they worship Baal. And so God puts 24,000 of them to death for worshiping Baal right after this thing. The spirit there is envious for their devotion for Israel. So his wrath is fanned when they embrace Baal and they embrace the world instead of him.

And so these believers, these people who James is talking to know this, they must know this story really well. And it must be, in the forefront of their mind. And that's why James is a he can kind of paraphrase there. And he says, you know what I'm saying here? And they say, Yeah, yeah, James, I know exactly what you're saying.

So the zeal of the Spirit, And he fights these spiritual battles for us on our behalf. And so I'm re-quoting here, to envy yearns the spirit from the Greek interlineary. And if you think about that, and when Myles was teaching on verse four and verses one through three, and it starts out with, in you, in your spirit, in your flesh, internally, you have these wars. And you think of Galatians 5, is it Galatians 5, 17? The spirit lusts against the flesh and the flesh lusts against the spirit. So that war is going on. And then Miles did a good job last week of saying that bubbles up to the surface. And then on the surface, man to man, woman to woman, we have these quarrels and jealousies and infighting and things like that.

And so the spirit is in on that battle, you know, Galatians 5.17, he's doing that lusting against the flesh. And he's also, I think, involved in the, he's also defending us and trying to move us away from being an adulteress to the world here, just as he did with Israel there in the desert before they entered the promised land. So that was my little dissertation on verse five. And that's what I was just struggling with.

But that's how it came out. But I think it makes it really clear, hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. In parallel to what you just said, the verses here, as you, well, I don't see it now. You went to six. Oh, OK. I'll go back. that he jealously desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. That, like, in quotes there.

Remember, James is the half-brother of our Lord, and though he wasn't a believer when Jesus was, before he was crucified, he became a believer, and they talked about the things that he said as being scripture, of course, as being God-breathed information for us. Yeah. And it reminded me, when I saw that, of the passage in John 15 and 16, 17, where he's praying.

First, he talks to the disciples, and he says, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. And another verse says that he's with you now, but he will be in you in the future. Our Lord actually taught that among the disciples. And I'm wondering if James picked up on that when he used it here, that he is jealously desiring the spirit which he has made to dwell.

Isn't that a parallel? Yeah. And I was thinking too, in this study, when this was written in early 40s, right, way before Paul kind of really presented all these things doctrinally to the cities he was writing to. So this, they didn't have, and that's why we're in so much of the Old Testament here in James, because Paul hadn't really written, I don't think he'd even written Galatians yet. So they didn't even know, I was thinking, and it's true, someone can correct me, But at this time, they didn't even know what the church was, or they had a very... because we remember, James says, in your synagogues, and Paul hadn't presented the doctrine of the mystery of the church yet. So, and then Paul, you know, if you read Paul, you know very well from his, and I quoted those verses, that yeah, the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and it's very clear. But at that point, I think Roy, what you're saying, James could have only gotten that from what he gleaned from his half-brother, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So he was- that was on his mind, I think is what you're saying. Well it's more than that because John wrote his gospel quite late in the other gospels, but he was alive and he was there And he was talking with James as an apostle. And they, I think, talked about these things before they wrote about these things.

But one of the things that struck me was that here is our Lord Jesus saying how much he says, you know, this is important. He's coming, and he's going to testify of me. He actually tells the disciples. how much he wants that. To me, that's impressive.

I look at this and James was not ignorant of that because he was among the disciples, or became apostles, and listened to those things. And he was a leader in Jerusalem, remember? And yeah, he had an argument with Paul, but he in humility submitted under the teaching that God gave through Paul. corrected.

And so there's an awful lot going on here, isn't there? Yeah, and especially with this indwelling spirit and kind of his, you could, it's a big subject and it's just in this one little verse that we're kind of hovering over. But the important thing is that he is jealous for us. He wants us to know him, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great, Roy.

So James, let me hit James six, just so everyone knows we're not gonna look at verse five for forever. So we'll move on James six. In James, verse 6 of chapter 4, he says, but he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

So in contrast to quarrels and conflicts and lusts and fighting with others, warring with other groups, as we found out in James 4.1, 4.1 and 2, in contrast to that, he's saying, God gives greater grace, or magos keres. The supply of grace that he gives outweighs or outpaces the demand that we have for grace.

Or for wisdom for that matter, if you remember James 1.5, if any of you lack wisdom, ask and it will be given to us generously and without reproach.

And it's probably the same way with grace. We ask for it and it will be given and we have it actually. It's a done deal. The word for grace has two good definitions, one that we really are familiar with in this fellowship. It's the underserved, unmerited favor towards man that God is free to bestow based on the totally adequate work of Jesus Christ. Or I like the way Aristotle said it, you know, to the non-saved Greeks hundreds of years before, what we know in Scripture to be grace, it's very similar. And what the the man in the street, Greek, knew about the word charis, is it something or a favor conferred freely with no expectation of return, and finds its source in the bounty and free-heartedness of the giver, as Aristotle and Schaeffer and Macaulay also give that alternate definition from Greek literature. And that emphasizes the the giver, see how that it kind of puts, it's the giver who's got this largeness of heart, who gives in Aristotle's definition there. But it's very similar to what we at Holly Hills usually use, and that's definition number one.

So the Old Testament source for The quote, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And that is a direct quote. And that's from Psalm 138, 6, where it says, for the Lord is exalted, yet he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Or Proverbs 3, 34, though he scoffs at the scoffers, yet he gives grace to the afflicted.

Grace is sourced. Grace comes from God himself, from his very character or essence. So I wouldn't be against his nature not to give grace generously when asked, with correct motives. We have to ask for it with correct motives, but he's it. It comes from him, and he gives it freely.

Let me close with this quote from Hamilton Smith here on this section. And he says, the apostle proceeds to show that being Behind the friendship of the world, there lies the pride of the flesh. Desirous of being something, the flesh naturally turns to the world, seeking to find in its riches, its social position, and its honors, that which will gratify its craving, or his craving, for distinction. It is not in vain that scripture warns us against the world, and the spirit that dwells in Christians will not lead us to lust after the things of the world. And I've put in some verses from James that kind of line up with what Hamilton Smith is presenting there. On the contrary, Smith continues, the Spirit gives grace to resist the world and the flesh as it is written, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. If we are content to be little and nothing in this world, there is power and grace to resist the flesh and the world. And then I'll close with Matthew 23, 12, where Christ says, whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. That lines up really nicely with verse six there. So next week, I promise I'll get through. Okay, that's good. Seven to 10. And it makes sense, because seven to 10 are kind of a section. He goes into seven commands, right? So we'll look at that.

That's great. That's good, Andrew. I like what you did. Yeah, great. Thanks. Thanks for hearing me out on that little bit of a trail there. So I'll close in prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for what your word says about your spirit and that you sent him into the world and he's in us. And we have that tremendous resources, the indwelling God in our hearts and who's more than adequate, more than willing, more than has all the All the resources we ever need and all we need to do is depend on the Spirit which dwells in us. And we thank you for that. We thank you for salvation, for Christ who died on the cross for our sins, who was buried and he was resurrected. And we have the Spirit because of that act. And we thank you for all the blessings we have in Jesus' name, amen.