Bless to each one his holy word. As you know, in the nights that are past, we have been dealing with the Epistle of James. On Monday night, we dealt with James chapter one, unexplained tears. Tuesday night, we went into James chapter two, unproductive faith. Last night, James chapter three, unseemly work. Now tonight before us is James chapter four. We're going to deal with the unholy war. And if you'll keep in mind the meeting tomorrow night in Rosebank, then we'll complete the study in the will of God in James chapter five, and we'll deal with unfulfilled promise. So will you keep that before you, please, in the will of God? And I understand the time tomorrow night is 8 o'clock. So if you would turn to James, please, and chapter four, verse one. From whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence, even of your lust, where this passion, pleasure, desire, that war in your member. Ye lust and have not, ye kill, and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight and war. Yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume, the word is spend, uh, consume it upon your lusts. That's the same word as we had previously. Now, verse number four. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain? The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envain. Verse number six, but he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw an eye to God, and he will draw an eye to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye devil-minded, or ye devil-soul. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgest another? Verse number thirteen: Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow, we will go into such a city and continue there a year, buy and sell and get gain. But as ye know not what shall be on the morrow, what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now ye rejoice or glory in your boasting. All such rejoicing or glorying is vi- is evil. Therefore, and here you get one of the most solemn definitions of sin in the whole of scripture. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Now God will bless the reading of his word. The ministry of Jim could scarcely be more pointed, more practical, even more personal. You would almost think that Jim had visited some of our s- modern day assemblies. James is speaking from an assembly perspective. Please don't let the mention of a general epistle in your authorized version deceive you. James writes with exactly the same background as Paul and Peter. It's an assembly background, and Luke, he point, and he said, from whence come war? That's prolonged animosity, protracted dispute. From whence come wars and fighting? That sudden flare up of angry temper. Where do those come from? He said. You remember that that's in contrast to how he has ended chapter three. In chapter three he has spoken of wisdom is from above, and wisdom that is from above produces goodly words. Those are the words that remind us of Naphtali. A hind let loose, he giveth goodly words. But those words produce righteousness, right dealing between sin, and that righteousness bears its fruit. And what's the fruit? Peace. The last word of chapter three is peace. And immediately James said, if you've listened to what I said, if you've responded to it, whence come the war, the fighting among you? Super question, said. A solemn question for all our heart. And I cannot throw stone at anyone on PEI. Well, I know nothing of your condition, but I know assembly conditions in Ireland and in Malaysia, and I know there's scarcely an assembly, and I speak very carefully, there's scarcely an assembly where there's not some war or something going on, and it's never about truth, and truth can't be def- defended in this way. James says, now look, where do they come from? And in the first three verses, he's going to examine a condition. A condition. That's verses one to three. Then in verses four down to five, he's going to expose the cause. Why? And then in the following verses, verses six down to ten, he's going to examine a cure. How do you deal with it? And then in the last section to the end of the chapter, he he's going to, uh, expound upon the consequences of the cure. He deals with it in this chapter. War, fighting. Where do they come from? As he deals with the condition, he says, come they not? Hen? Is this not the source of them? Your lust. That's actually, in English, almost too strong a word. You could render it as nudity, pleasure. That's coming near to it. But basically, the word is not evil, it just means desire. But the point about it is this, that they are my desire, they are my dictate, they are my demand. What's he dealing with? He's dealing with a person, male or female, who wants to have their own way itself at the center, and I'm not going to be satisfied until I get my way. I'm able to say I've won. He says, is that not the sword? And he puts his finger upon that very thing. Is that not your lusts that war in your member. And then he gives us two parallel statements to expose to us just what lies in every human heart, even where grace has triumphed. Yet there's something in every human heart that wants its own way, to do its own thing, to stand up for my right. And he says, now look, here's the secret. Look at the parallel statements that are put a little bit confusedly in our author eye. Read them like this, please. Ye lust and have not, ye kill. Ye lust, you've set your heart on it. You can't get it, that prize, that possession, that position, that power. You don't have it, and to get it, you would kill. Do remember that he's using the word kill metaphorically. It's not physical. It's metaphoric. He's using it in the same way that John uses it in First John three. He that hateth his brother is a murderer. Now he said, there's the extent of your determination to have your way in the assembly. Do you ever hear anybody saying, I could have killed him? That's the same kind of language that John's using here deliberately. He says, you lost. You want it, but you can't have it, and you would kill to get it. Parallel that, please, with the next statement. And he says, ye desire to have, cannot obtain, ye fight and war. You set up a whole battle array, and you take side, and you attack, and the assembly becomes armed camp, sniping at one another and using every occasion to launch an attack upon that other person. You can see how they will attack them, perhaps doctrinally, on some issue, but they'll soon move from the doctrinal issue to the personal issue, and that lies in the background here. He's going to the depth of that desire that says I must be central, I must have my way in the assembly. Of course, I believe it's the right way. I believe it's the scriptural way to myself. I argue that, but I'm prepared to go to any length to get, brethren, truth can't be defended like that. The truth of God stands four square on the word of God, and we put our feet upon that solid foundation. But then when someone refuses that truth in the assembly, there's scriptural means of dealing with it. But I can't set up a party taking refuge behind barricades and then attack. And I mentioned last night how that dangerous a thing it is to use the scripture personally against someone as a weapon, or even worse, to use prayer as a weapon in this protracted fight, this flare up of anger that can come between sin. And James, in his utterly ruthless way, by the Spirit of God, he's wanting us to see what's in my heart. He says, there it is. Now, why don't you have this thing that you desire, this interest that you have? He turns to two, there's two different parties, seemingly, in James' audience. He turns to the first one. He said, do you know why you don't have it? Because you don't pray. You're prayerless. And he says, look, you ca- you you you you have not because you ask not. Now put it to your heart. Why can't I pray about that matter? Well, the reason is that deep within my heart, I know it's me. It's self. So I can't pray about it. I would like a new car. Can I pray about it? Can I present it as that which is for me? Is it for the Lord? Is it for his work? Or is it for me? If I fasten on the second, I could, the last I can hardly pray about, can I? He said, you have not, because ye asked not. There's something that tells me that this thing is not right. Prayer has to be in the will of God, in the name of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit. When those things, those three correspond, it's irresistible. It rises to the throne. God may delay, but he won't deny. But here is something from for which I can't get an answer. I look into my heart. I can't pray for. But then there's a second group, and they're not prayerless, but they're answerless. They do presume to pray about it. He says, ye ask and receive not. Why's that? Ye ask and miss. Your motives are wrong. Your motives are wrong. Now here's a question, fellow saints, for every heart, fellow saint, for every heart. When did I last have a prayer answered from Anha? I think I changed the question. When last did I have a prayer denied from Anha? And what's the reason? There's seven reasons in the scripture why God will not answer prayer. In chapter one, we had one on Monday night. And let not that man think that he shall receive anything. The double-souled man. God cannot answer that prayer. He cannot trust the man. He cannot trust the man. Can God trust me? You remember a man in the Old Testament? It said of him, God granted him that which he requested. Jibas, 1 Chronicles 4:10. Why? God could trust the man. His interests were God's interests. His intentions were God's intentions. God could trust him. Can God trust me? A double-souled man is unstable in all his ways. Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. God couldn't answer. He couldn't trust the man. Here, the reason is switched. God cannot answer because of the motive. What's the motive? That you might spend it, consume it upon your lust, upon your desire, upon your pleasure. It's in your interest, not in mine. God says no to that request. You see, James is exposing a condition. He's asking us to look at it soberly and solemnly in the light of scripture. Is it there, fellas say? And does it arise from my heart? That's what he said. And you can see how prayerless or answerless, there's going to be no remedy at this particular point. Now, he'll have to go behind a condition. He'll have to deal with the call. And in verses four and five, he allows us by the Spirit of God to go behind the condition and see the call. And what is it? Within this paragraph, he speaks of friend of the world. That's in contrast to Abraham in chapter two, friend of God, but me, I become a friend of the world. Can't you see? The self at the center means that worldliness has taken over. In me. I'm not preaching at you. You see, what's your concept of worldliness? How would you designate or describe worldliness? Is that the man that permits TV into the home? Oh, he's worldly. Is that the man that you see with a set of golf clubs on his back? Oh, of course, he's worldly. Is that the young lady with paint on her face and trousers and so on, and I could go on? Of course she's worldly. James goes behind all that. He says, you could have the right appearance, as I've preached to you from chapter one. you could have the right appearance. Dark suit, white shirt, and you could be dressed correctly. You could even have the right action, be in the assembly, do the right thing, yes, say the right word. Yes, even the right appetites and association. Something missing. At the core, at the center, itself. Now be careful. That's where it began. The others are only the symptom. They are symptom, but they are not the secret. The secret is something wrong in the heart. I was speaking to an uncle of mine in Ireland, a preacher, when I was only a young chap, and I was learning. So he was rebuking me for something, and then we got onto the subject of TV, and he said, oh, this is going to destroy the same. And I said, uncle, if I got a lorry, I mean a truck, and went round every home, every Christian home, and physically took out that TV, wouldn't that be good? Wouldn't that be grand? He hesitated. And then he said, well, I see your point. Because it would soon be replaced by something other. It was only a symptom of something wrong at the heart. That's what James is saying. So now I want you to see at the heart of worldliness their self. And he goes on to describe it. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes it in three graphic ways. He describes a broken hole. Do you know how he speaks to those believers? And please, brethren, don't shift this off to unbeliever. If you look at the Revised Version, you'll see that the text that's there used leaves out the word adulterer, and I believe that's correct. It simply addresses them as adulterous. Now, that's important because he's not using the word literally again. And he's not talking only to women, he's talking to the sin, the whole lot of the men and women. He said, do you know what you've done? You have committed that foulest of crime. You've committed adultery, spiritually. You are linked with Christ in your affections. You're, we're linked with his person, and you've allowed another to put their hand into yours, or to put it the other way, you have put your hand into the hand of another, another than Christ. And you know, whether you understand it or not, you're committing that most serious of crimes, you're committing a spiritual fornication. It's a double. You're linked with Christ. You've given the heart to another. Is that for my heart tonight? Oh, I loved him the night he saved me. My heart went out to him. Does it still do that? Or have I put my hand in the hand of the work? So attractive. A beautiful place, isn't it? And not only talking about physically, but all morally too, and so on and so on. I can see just how attractive it is and how I could be happy here. Just selfy, using my time and my talent and my treasure for self. Now he uses a second picture. Not only he said, are you adulteresses? Do you not know? Now that's a perfect tense. It would be better translated, have you not come to know? You profess, you you profess a lot of knowledge. Have you not come to know that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Friendship of the world is enmity with God. It's not a broken home, that's broken harmony. I'm away from God. Distance has come in. Do I pray tonight as well as the night that God saved me? No problem praying that night. No problem praising that night. But fifty years have come and gone. Am I still as close? Am I still as close to my God? Or is the harmony, has the harmony been broken? Friendship of the world is enmity with God. He says, now look, you can't avoid this, and it happens so suddenly and so quickly. Whosoever therefore will be. Now that's, I don't want to get technical, but that's a point tense. That means I've made up my mind, I'm going to take that action, and immediately I do. I'm an enemy of God. I will be the friend of the world. In that moment, I constitute myself, look at numeri margin, I make myself an enemy of God. When did it happen? Can you go back to the moment? Can you go back to that time when you had a decision to make? Remember David on the rooftop and Bathsheba within sight. A decision had to be made. And you know what happened? Remember Peter at the fire? And the question asked, and an answer had to be given. Friendship of the world. Whoever will be friend of the world constitutes himself an enemy of God. You can't be on both sides. You can't be on both sides. A broken whole. A broken haramane. He says, do you think the scripture speaks in vain? And I judge that that goes back to the previous statement. Do you think this, this scripture speaks to no purpose? Then he warns you about that in the text. Do you remember Abraham and the world? Well, look at the world religiously. Where do you find Abraham? He's outside of Ur. Where's he stand? At an altar. That's the world religiously in Ur, and Abram has left it. Friend of God, we done that? You wouldn't think about going back into the religious world, would you? Put your hand in the hand of that religious world. Slip away from the assembly, having been convicted that that's the place that God would have you, that there's the people that God would gather, that there's the power of the Spirit amongst them, and you slip away just. Learn from Abraham, friend of God, stands outside of Ur at an altar. What about Haran? The second city. That's not the world religiously, that's the world. What's outside of Haran? A grave. The grave of Terah, the old man. And Abraham stands at the grave. He can't go back to the commerce of the world. There's a grave between. Friend of God. You think of Abraham, Sodom. Doesn't go into Sodom, stays outside Sodom. Lot went in. What is Abraham? Not an altar, not a grave, but a tent. He's going home. He's only a pilgrim. He's passing through. Do you think Abraham could be a friend of that world? He couldn't possibly be. The Lord couldn't open his heart to Abraham if he'd been a friend of the world. You can see the picture. A broken home, a broken harmony, and now a broken heart. Says, do you not know? The spirit that he hath caused to dwell in us, I believe the passive is correct. The spirit that he hath caused to dwell in us lusteth to envy, yearns over us jealously. When God saved you, he put within your breast the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit, the person, yearns for my total allegiance, my complete affection, my complete association to be bowed to Christ, to be linked to him. And when I disobey, when I dishonor, when I put my hand in the hand of a worm, it breaks his heart. He yearns over me with jealousy. He wants jealously in the, in the, in the picture of the Jeho- the, the jealousy of Jehovah that yearned over the people of God in a past day and wanted all their allegiance and all their affection and all their activities under him. The spirit wants off. I've grieved him. I've grieved him. I don't grieve him, so he leaves. Thank God for that. That spirit see seals. That spirit still has the earnest, but he doesn't have the place that he should have and did have. Because I have become a worldly Christian. James says you've still got the appearance all right. There's something wrong with the heart. And the fact that you can contribute to the wars and the fightings is an indication of that. There's the worldliness that James exposes. He goes behind the condition and he goes right to the core. Could I tonight, fellow sent, put it to your heart and mine? Show me thy face, one transient gleam of loveliness divine. I shall never think or dream of other love save thine. All lesser lights will darken quite, all lesser glories wane. The beautiful of earth will scarce seem beautiful again. Cooper put it like this. The dearest idol I have known, whatever that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee. Where do we stand? Where do I stand? Where do you stand? A condition. A call. I love the next section. It's the cure. In Intend ten verb. verbs, point Point tenses. tensi, every one of them, he gives to me the complete and total restoration of a believer. He's not talking about the restoration of an assembly. That will come in First Corinthians chapter five. But here is the restoration, the recovery of a believer. And it opens with that tremendous word that I've enjoyed in my own soul time and again. But he giveth more grace. Every one of us remember the grace that saved us. And we have come to a throne of grace, multitude. Mm, I was going to say millions, I would hardly think that's an exaggeration. Millions of times. And we have found grace. And when all that is done, he giveth more grace. And I need it tonight. Maybe there are souls in this meeting tonight that need it. I don't know you. And I can't look into the heart. But if you're like me, you'll need this grain. This is so like Jeremiah chapter eighteen, where there's a vessel in the hand of the potter, and as the potter works in sovereign power upon that vessel, it's marred in the hand of the potter. Wasn't anything to do, was it, with the work master workman? Had it more to do with the mean, the wheel, and the hand? Rather, had it not more to do with the material, clay that had been picked up from earth? The master workman was molding it, and there comes a marry. It was marred. What's the potter do? Throw it away? No, no, he doesn't do that. He made it again. Another vessel. And I tell you tonight, I believe with all my heart, Christians, believers can get far away. How far, it's difficult even to evaluate or estimate. You think how far a David went. You think how far a Peter went. And you could go on. How far saints have got away, but God can recover. God can restore. And he can make it again. Another vessel. The brethren would hardly believe it. You know, I have a notion that if the Lord hadn't taken special care with Peter in John twenty one, when it came to the day of Pentecost, maybe John, James, as Peter stepped up to speak, they might have said, now just a moment, old fellow, you just wait. Didn't you deny the Lord in that public way? How do you expect now to stand in the forefront of the testimony? Peter could have said, my Lord publicly reinstated me, John twenty one. and the Lord did it. The Lord can do it, and the Lord can restore. Keep that in mind. He giveth more grace, and then he says, now look, God resisted, God will set up a military campaign against the proud, the arrogant, the man that says, I know it all. My brethren are all wrong. Got the wrong end of the stick, the wrong appreciation of the truth. Everybody's got it wrong but me. Now, says James, God sets the battle in array, sets out a military campaign against that arrogant, against the proud, but he giveth grace to the humble, to the one that takes the lowly, to the one that, in fact, the verb is changed as you come down to verse number ten. It says, humble yourselves. Actually, it's the passive, be humble. Allow what God has brought into your life to bring you down. Because being brought down is the path to be lifted up. We'll come to that in a moment. You can see how God deals with restoration. I'd like you to see these ten verbs in five couplings. They go in pairs. And the first one is this. He says, submit yourselves therefore to God. And the opposite of that, the negative, is resist the devil, and he will flee from you. I'm going to suggest to you, and you can ponder it, that what's in the back of James' mind is a man that he seems to have in mind through this epistle and names him in chapter five. That's Job. Look at the circumstances that God brought into the life of Job. God, by permission, did that. He allowed Satan the active part. But Job had been lifted up to God, and Job was, according to the record, a perfect man, an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth or turns away from evil. He would be beyond all ordinary circumstances, wouldn't he? But now, what's happened? Why, look, the man that was compassed with blessing, now Job is confronted with bankruptcy. Using bankruptcy in the non-technical cert- side, the way, it describes having lost all his possession, all the flocks and all the herds, and all the sheasses and all the camels that God had given. One blow. Satan must have had mighty power to deal and entry power politically to bring the Sabeans up at this particular point and use them against Job. He did. Look at those circumstances. Confronted with bankruptcy, then watch him. The second messenger come. That messenger says, Job, those seven fine boys, three lovely girls, a typhoon, a hurricane. Satan must have had power in the physical realm to bring it at this point. And the man that was compassed with blessings and confronted with bankruptcies chilled by bereavement. Ten grave. Circumstances sore enough. Could you face it? And then watch him covered with boil, covered with boil, like a leper said, sitting, scraping himself. Is that the man? That's he. Is that the man that God trusted? Yes, he did. And you know what he did. That man, at that point, never raised a voice of complaint against God. He sinned not with his lip. He bowed his head, bowed his heart. He said, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. What happened? The devil fled. Oh, the devil and the voice of his wife would have whispered in and said, look, Job, curse God and die. But Job forsook defiance because that's what what it would have been, and he accepted the circumstances, and out of the pain, God brought blessing. There were things in Job's character to be dealt with. Job, in the hand of Satan, was triumphant. In the hand of his brethren, he didn't do so well. And things come up. Arrogance comes out. And other things. Anger comes out. God deals with the man. But the circumstances brought him low before God. All defiance was gone. He's ready to listen. Has God brought circumstances into your life? Perhaps he's confronting you tonight with pain. It could be physical. It could be a problem spiritual. It could be so many things. You know tonight that the devil could use it. The devil could point and say, can you trust such a God that allowed this to happen, allowed this to come? You can't trust such a God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. God's able to take the humble spirit. Would you let the defiance go tonight? And see the purpose of God in dealing with you at this point. Let's look at the second two. And there you have draw an eye to God, and he will draw an eye to you. You see, it's not only defiance I'm in danger of, I'm in danger of that distance of which I spoke earlier, coming in to rob my soul not only of divine purpose in life, but of divine power in life. Would you draw an eye to God? Do you remember a time the distance came in between the nation Israel and their God? The days of Elijah. Weakness, weakness of leadership, weakness of a king, behind him the wickedness of a woman. The nation. Why the worldliness of the nation? And Elijah drew an eye on Mount Carmel, and he saw the power of God. Draw an eye to God, he will draw an eye to you. In my weakness tonight, in my weariness, I draw an eye to a God of infinite power, the God of Elijah. That's the God that could come by fire. And I need him. Do you? Would you face your condition? Put your finger on the call. Challenge your heart for the cure. To glimpse a purpose in your circumstances. To glimpse a power in your condition. Draw an eye to God and the promising, he'll draw an eye to you. Elijah saw it. Could I see it? The third case. Cleanse your hands, you sinner. Purify your hearts, you double soul. Not defiant, not distant, but defiled. I look into my heart tonight and I wonder how to defile it. Have I touched or tasted, to use different figures, or tried that which defiles before the very throne of God. Of course, immediately to your mind tonight will come David. Could you consider such a mighty king, a mighty man of God, the man after God's own heart, and yet caught up in that sin? You hear him cry, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Cleanse me, purify me, cry from the heart. That would be neat, cleansing. Remember, the value of precious blood meets the need not only of sinners, but sin. Blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from every sin. There's cleansing there. There's cleansing for me, even in that defilement. Something has touched the mind, something that's touched the members, something even that affects the memory, brings that sense of defilement before the very throne of God, and I must have it cleared. I must have it cleansed. James, by the Spirit of God, says, now look, cleanse your hands, purify your heart, inward and outward. You see, you can't just deal with it in the heart and continue with it in the hand. It's got to be forsaken. It's got to be done with. That's the point of the cover, of the restoration. But go to the next couple. And you haven't just the matter of defiance, the distance, defilement. Be afflicted and mourn, weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into heaviness. Here is true repentance. Here is that which deals truly with sin. We're living in a day when it doesn't matter, of course. Everybody looks lightly on sin, and inevitably and inescapably it affects the Christian as well. The old Purit- Puritans, mind you, had a far deeper concept of sin than we seems to seem to have. They faced it, dealt justly with it in the presence of God. We seem so careless. But God says you can't do that when there's this sin, and the sin, remember, is still the sin of the chapter. It's worldly man. It's not really some grievous action altogether, but it's that which is at the core of it. It's the world in my heart. And he says, now you have got to recognize not only the circumstances with which you are faced, recognize indeed that the cry that draws you d- back to God and the cleansing that you need. Here's the confession. Who springs to mind now? And I think of Peter. And he went out and he wept bitterly. There's a man who's touching the very depths of despondency, and he's looking at his sin honestly, and he's weighing it up, and he goes out and he weeps bitterly, bitter tears. That's the man to whom the Savior sends the word, tell my disciples and Peter, and privately he meets with Peter, and things are put right. Maybe tonight in this meeting, a soul could meet with the same Savior, and things could be put right. Come to the next one, the last one. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Here it's not a matter of the defiant, or the defeated, or the defiled, or the distracted. Here, I submit, it's a matter of the depressed. And if you can see Hezekiah in this, I think it would help you. It helps me. Hezekiah was brought down by circumstance. There was a cry from his heart. He was going to die, and God sent him the word, Jehovah sent him the word, thou shall die and not live. And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and he wept, wept. And then God came in and granted him fifteen years. He lifted him up. Read Psalm one hundred and sixteen, and I submit that there you see the experience of Hezekiah. I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me, delivered me from all my distress. He lifted my feet, kept my feet from falling, wiped the tears from my eyes, and you could see the man that's now restored and recovered, Hezekiah. They're all pictures of that which James is driving home to our hearts, that this can mean or can demand recovery, restoration in individual soul. He's looked at the cause, uh, he's looked at the condition, gone behind to the cause. Now he's presented the cure. Now he says, will it make any difference? And the last part of the chapter tells me the difference it will make. It will make two marked differences. God deals with me like this. It'll make a difference to my attitude to the sin, and it will make a difference at in my attitude to society. How will it change my attitude to the sin? Verses eleven down to fourteen: Speak not evil one of another. And when you get an imperative with a negative, it should be translated, stop speaking evil one of another. Can a restored heart, a recovered heart, from which worldliness has been dealt with, in which worldliness has been dealt with. I see my fellow saints in a different light. Now all the censoriousness that has marked me before is gone. I'm always very wary when a brother or sister begins to censor fellow sin, begins to point out their weakness and their wickedness, and so on, and make a whole story of it. It tells me that they are away from God. That censorious spirit, James says, that doesn't belong to the restored soul. In fact, what you're doing is, you're setting yourself up as a judge. You're taking the Lord's place. Now, I know there's a place for the judgment of sin. Please don't, don't misunderstand me. That's First Corinthians five. But the thing I must not do is judge the servant, and he's my Lord's servant. Paul says in First Corinthians chapter four, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to light the counsels of the heart that make manifest the hidden things of darkness. It's the Lord will do that, and it's in his hand. I can't set myself up. As a child, the censoriousness that marked me is away from God. It's away, it's gone. I'm restored now. You can see how I look on saint differently. They are the excellent of the earth. Would you tonight, fellow saint, be able to go home from this meeting and pray for every saint in your assembly, even the ones that has hurt you and harmed you, spoken things against you. Could you take that into the presence of God? Could you pray for them? That will stop the limp. Every censorious thought, every censorious word, there is the evidence of the restoration. Who art thou that judgest another? Just become. The second, the last paragraph deals not with censoriousness against sin. It deals with presumptuousness in society. It's worldliness again. This is what the world does. The world mounts a whole campaign against individual. That's the first panic. But here the world, it makes its plan. And if you belong to that society, then you'll say, well, I'll go into that city, there's the place. I'll spend a year there, there's the period, and I'll get gain, there's the profit. I'm going to just do that, arrange my life to make gain, and I'll pour it into the world. That's worldly, man. That's what society does. But James says, what's your life? It's even as a vapor. Appears for a little time and then's gone. What ought you be, ought you to be doing and saying? If the Lord will. It's the Lord's will. I go to that place. I engage for that period. And the profit, that's in the Lord's hand. If the Lord will. Here is a little note, fellow said, I would like to close on tonight. I look at this audience and see younger men and younger women. I'm afraid for the mo- the others amongst us, myself included, the better part of life has slipped away. Decisions are made, choices are finished in that respect. But you younger sin have a part to play, a place to fill, a period that the Lord grants ere he come. We'll speak of his coming tomorrow night, chapter five. But before he dawn, what is your life? How are you going to use it? For what purpose? What period are you going to give to the Lord? Just your retirement year? Is that all? What plans have you made? And have you sought? What is his will? And you get the most searching and solemn of all definitions of sin in your New Testament. Whosoever, it said, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not. This is not the sin of commission. Oh, we're, we're clear enough about the sin of commission. We can describe it and so on. But the sin of omission. Just because someone didn't fill that place, that assembly has gone on a wrong path. Because some saint didn't play that part, that assembly has gone down. Because some heart didn't fill that place on the mission field. To be with you tonight in free time. We trust that God will bless to each one his holy word. As you know, in the nights that are some saint didn't play that part, that assembly has gone down because some heart.