Spiritual Infidelity

Would God’s people please take
their Bibles and turn to the epistle of James, James, specifically
chapter four. And even as you’re turning to
chapter four, you might even think that chapter four is a,
is a whole new section. The subject is quite different. But the subject really continues
from the previous chapter. It’s built upon the thoughts
of the previous chapter. It ties in immediately to a statement
that James makes in chapter three. If you are adept with your fingers,
flip to chapter three just briefly and look at verse 18. Where James
says, the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace
by those who make peace. Well, James is obviously in the
midst of a contrast. In the church, we suggested that
there was a hurricane in the church. And even as I took great
opportunity to let the rest of you know that I don’t know of
a hurricane currently in this little church. James sure did. James knew of the destructive
effects of the human tongue in the church. And even though I
am unaware of anything taking place currently in our little
church, our little church knows this destructiveness firsthand.
And so what a blessing it is to have those whose fruit is
righteousness, sown in peace by those who makes peace, make
peace. The church needs peacemakers.
The church needs those who are about peace. But there’s a contrast
and the contrast comes in chapter four. The thought also is tied
in to verse 14, where James said there, if you have bitter jealousy
and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and
so lie against the truth. James was confronting something
very real in his church or churches. As one described it, the scene
exhibited to us by the apostles words is so dark that at first
doubt naturally arises whether this reference is to Christians. And rather to unbelieving Jews. But the context proves that according
to all natural interpretation, we must hold professing Christians
to be spoken of a further development of the wicked spirit. Spoken
of in James 310. James 3.10 says, from the same
mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, James says,
these things ought not to be this way. And even though I am
unaware of anything in this church, even approaching some of the
hurricane status reports that James provided in chapter three,
that Paul provides in 2 Corinthians 11, Galatians 5, Philippians
1, Titus 3, I know that it’s a potential.
I know that it’s a potential really in each one of us. These
stresses and strives come from real people. What James addresses in Chapter
4 is really the culmination, the clash of all that’s true
and false that he has said up to this point. We have the privilege of beginning
to look at the Book of Acts in one of our classes. And if you
look at the Book of Acts, one of the things that immediately
becomes evident is God’s grace, his remarkable grace at work
in the saints and how they were so magnanimous and so drawn to
the Lord and so kind and kindly hearted to one another. And then
you think. By the time you begin to read
the epistles, what happened? What happened that Paul is having
to address? The most wretched sins. in the
life of a church that we would liken to a hurricane. One pastor warned very clearly
when he said, Christians are always in much hazard. of falling back into some extent
into sins, which more especially beset them before conversion.
In other words, he says that we have a very real tendency
to fall back into patterns, patterns of thinking, patterns of speech,
patterns of behavior that were commonplace. They were a regular
feature of our life. Our unsaved life. but particularly
when they are surrounded by those who indulge in those sins. That’s
what Paul was addressing in Titus chapter three. He says, look,
you’re living among them, but you can’t live like them. This passage is about people
in the church. James chapter four. What is the source of quarrels
and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures
that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have, so
you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot
obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do
not ask. You ask and do not receive because
you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your
pleasures. 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. Or do
you think that the scripture speaks to no purpose? He jealously
desires the spirit which he has made to dwell in us. But he gives
a greater grace. Therefore, it says God is opposed
to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit, therefore,
to God. Resist the devil and he will
flee from you. Draw near to God and he will
draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into
mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence
of the Lord and he will exalt you. Do not speak against one
another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother
or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the
law. But if you judge the law, you
are not a doer of the law, but a judge of it. There is only
one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your
neighbor? Come now. You who say today or
tomorrow we should go to such and such a city and spend a year
there and engage in business and make a profit, yet you do
not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just
a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live
and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your
arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the
right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. James has issued forth a series
of tests, really, examination points for the believer. The believer says that they have
placed their faith in Christ James says, let’s test the faith. Let God prove your faith, really. And throughout the book of James,
there have been those tests, tests of trials, tests of trouble
in our life, tests of our tongue, as we’ve most recently seen.
And here he issues forth one of the most searching tests of
all. That is our test of our conduct
in church. And what he gives us is a test
regarding spiritual infidelity. That’s a frightening word, isn’t
it? Infidelity. When you speak of infidelity
in marriage, it is arguably the most destructive word of all. Adultery, as James will call
it in verse four. And what James wants to do is
walk us through a discussion of spiritual infidelity, what
it looks like. And in the opening verses of
chapter four, he gives us essentially the symptoms of spiritual infidelity. What does it look like in a believer’s
life? And then he rebukes it. Quite
plainly, in some of the strongest words in all of scripture, he
gives us the reproach of spiritual infidelity in verses four through
six. And then finally, he gives us
the safeguard from spiritual adultery, which we will look
at in several weeks. First of all, this morning, I
want to look at the symptoms of spiritual adultery, the symptoms
of spiritual adultery. And here, it isn’t just the symptoms,
but we’ll even have the effects, the fallout, as in a marriage
when there is such an event. When there’s adultery in a marriage,
not only is the husband-wife relationship breached and broken,
the relationships with God are likewise, the relationship with
the children, the relationship with parents, Family friends
are damaged. Your testimony is destroyed. And likewise, James says when
there is spiritual adultery in the church, real trouble happens. Real damage is done. James had been through. These
hurricanes. And he begins to look at the
origin of these strifes. The context, as I said, is in
verse 18, a contrast with the peaceable spread of the gospel.
What could be more pure than that? Out of an honest heart,
unlike those who were preaching the gospel in Philippians chapter
one, opponents of Paul who thought that they could do better than
he did and set themselves up, as it were, against him. but a peaceable spread of the
gospel, a good message with the right motives. What a beautiful thing. But the
contrast here in chapter four, the fruit of this caustic tongue,
a factious spirit, false wisdom lived out brings destruction. This is the culmination, as I
said, And James starts with a probe,
20 times in his short epistle, really, comparatively to Romans,
to the Corinthian epistles. This epistle is really fairly
short, but 20 times in this short epistle, James uses this literary
device of asking a question to bring the readers, as it were,
right into his lap, and to look them in the eye, and to challenge
them. And notice he doesn’t say, do
you happen to have quarrels in your midst, brother? Have you
had any trouble in the church? He doesn’t ask that question. He takes it for granted, he knows
that there are quarrels, he knows that there are fights and skirmishes
and factions and splits. And so he says, what is the source? Where did this come from? One commentator really elevated
that device of asking people questions when he said, men often
slide or drift imperceptibly into positions that are productive
of much harm. to themselves and to others,
and it is wise, therefore, to stop and turn and ask. As we begin to look at the symptoms
of spiritual adultery, I wanna look first at verse one in what
I would call the battle of unrequited want. The battle of unrequited
want. What is the source of quarrels
and conflicts among you? James was absolutely aware of
conflicts in their midst, but James knows deep down that the
roots are much deeper. It isn’t just a surface issue.
This isn’t just a passing skirmish. There’s something more sinister
at work, something that goes much deeper all the way into
the human heart. What we see is just the outworking
of that, the effects of that. He says, essentially, I know
for a fact that you are dishonoring the Lord with your petty bickering. What is it that you believe is
the cause, my friend? But James isn’t even interested
in hearing their theories. He isn’t interested in hearing
their perspective on whatever issue it is they’re quibbling
over. He isn’t interested in finding out who’s wrong and who’s
right. He isn’t interested in judging
the case. The whole thing is rotten to
the core, says James. It has a bad foundation regardless
of the particulars. And before we go any further,
please acknowledge that James indicates that these quarrels
and conflicts are among you. They’re literally in you. And by that, I believe that he
means in the church. They are in and among you. They’re
already taking place. They’re already active. And it could theoretically refer
here to inner trouble or conflict within each person. There is
an element of that, but it seems better to understand it here
in verse one as referring to the church itself. You have conflict in your church,
or in James’s case, your churches. You have conflict. What is the
source of quarrels and conflict in your church? That’s a question everybody needs
to ask, isn’t it? Let’s look at the quarrels and
conflicts. The first word speaks of a much
bigger event. It’s been translated in various
places as wars. It’s a big thing. The conflict
is a much smaller event. It’s an ongoing, recurring. There are many battlefronts to
a war, and the conflict speaks of one of those particulars.
And it could speak of any one of those particular incidents,
a spark, a debate, a negative interaction between two brothers
in a church. The only other places that that
first word quarrels is used, it refers to war, battle. It’s a much more general word
for conflict between two groups. And so oftentimes it’s refers
to a national war. But there is war too many times
in the church, isn’t there? It becomes a big thing. It started
as a very small thing between two brothers, and now it’s a
very big thing that threatens to split even the church. The
second term, as I’ve already indicated, has many parallels
to the particular situation that James is describing. In 2 Corinthians,
Paul used it to refer to conflicts without. Troubles that were taking
place in the various churches that were outside of his heart.
2 Timothy. Paul warned young Timothy there
to refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they
produce quarrels. These little skirmishes. Titus
3.9, which first we looked at last Lord’s Day, avoid foolish
controversies, genealogy, strife, disputes, these little skirmishes,
these little battlefronts. And I would have you notice that
he speaks of them both in plural. And that points to the fact that
this isn’t an isolated incident. This is an ongoing pattern existing
in the church. It’s been going on for far too
long. It continues and it will continue
except for the grace of God. What he points to is a long,
drawn out, a protracted situation with many battlefronts. Not only is there this more general condition of an ongoing engagement
between two parties, there are these particular outbreaks. It
seems like they can never get along. One pastor said, used figuratively
to denote feuds, conflicts, and open hostility. Among individuals
and local groups, the factional bickerings in the church is the
personal wrangling that embitters church life. James says that
in dealing with these troubles, these quarrels, these fights. They often become a disgrace
to the church itself. As this lasting resentment develops,
outbursts of passion, what one described as turbulent manifestations
of worldliness. That’s the source, as James will
go on to point out. The sad thing is that discord
in the church, disputes, factiousness, quarrels, wars, none of that was by God’s design.
God didn’t promote this. God doesn’t desire this. But
nevertheless, disunity is a major problem in nearly every church
to which the Apostle Paul wrote. And in our own day and age, church
splits are commonplace, aren’t they? It’s hardly newsworthy
anymore. Almost every church that we’ve
ever known of there’s been at least the rumblings
of disunity. Robert Johnstone said wars and
fightings, jealousies and animosities were not confined to the primitive
church. They are painfully familiar to
us still, men and women who on the Sabbath have sat side by
side at the Lord’s table. We’ll scowl and slander and thwart
each other all the week. And unfortunately, we know that
to be true, don’t we? We’ve seen it, just as James
had seen it. So, James doesn’t wait for an
answer. He’s not rude. He’s engaging his audience. He’s
asked this question, what is the source of quarrels and conflicts
among you? But he doesn’t wait for someone
to propose a theory, suggest some psychological answer
to their spiritual problem, Say that they were just having
a bad day because this is a pattern of behavior that James is now
addressing. So where do these fights, where
do these quarrels, where do these wars, these conflicts originate? Essentially, selfishness. Look
at verse one again, the second statement in verse one, chapter
four, verse one. What is the source of quarrels
and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures
that wage war in your members? And the answer to that hypothetical
question is yes. The problem is the pleasures
that we have, our own desires that are doing battle. in our
members. First thing I’d point out here
is that literally is out of your pleasures. Eck is the little
preposition there. The quarrels and conflicts, essentially,
we can travel right back and locate their source. And the sad reality is that these
troubles, these conflicts, these difficulties, are at war within. James refers to these as pleasures,
and I particularly think that the older translation, when it
refers to it as lusts, is somewhat misleading. There’s another word
for lust, which we’ll even see in this passage. This is the
word from which we get our word, hedonism. It’s pleasure. But it’s not just pleasure. It’s
the mad desire for pleasure. It’s the mad seeking after pleasure. It’s a passionate desire for
our way or what we want. Our appetite must be satisfied. And so it’s from our word hedonism
that this word pleasure is translated And it points to just an enjoyment
of our personal pleasures. And it can have an impure, vile
insinuation to it, but here it is much more basic. It refers
to things that actually could take place in the church, not
something that would take place privately or in the dark. Nevertheless, in the New Testament,
this word always has a bad connotation. It always has, it always points
to a danger of affecting the spiritual life. Luke 8, 14. The parable of the soils. Remember,
the sower went out to sow and he would reach into his bag and
cast forth seed and the seed would fall on all kinds of different
places. But one particular place where
seed resided was among the thorns. And it says that these are the
ones who have heard and as they go their own way, they are choked
with worries and riches and the pleasures of this life. Nothing
wrong with enjoying life, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying God
given blessings. But when that appetite swells,
and when that’s all we see, and when fulfilling that appetite,
that desire, as one described an inordinate yearning to cling
to it, it becomes the only thing that we see the only thing that
we want to fulfill. And there are those appetites
that are wrong in and of themselves. But James points to those that
are wrong in that a person is over indulging in them. Titus chapter three, Paul also
speaks of it there. And he reminds us of how we used
to live, and he’s doing it so that we can be mindful of living
out our faith before others. We also once were foolish, ourselves
disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. It’s certainly possible that
in that sorted list, Paul was referring to something that was
morally absolutely wrong. But there are also many pleasures
in which we just simply tend to overindulge. We’ll talk more
about that in a moment. It’s feelings. It’s an appetite
to please oneself and that becomes your only appetite. You could
care less what anybody else is sensing or feeling or enduring.
All you’re about is pleasing self. That’s the sin. One Greek philosopher said this,
all the evils which come upon man Revolution and wars and slaughters
spring from desire. All these things have as their
fountainhead the desire for more. Cicero, great philosopher, looked
out on history and said essentially the same thing. It is insatiable
desires which overturn not only individual men, but whole families,
and which even bring down the state from desires that there
spring hatred, schisms, discord, seditions, and wars. And so James
begins to point to what philosophers and historians have noted for
years that wars start in the human heart and they erupt in
time and wreak their destruction in reality. What causes these wars and fighting
and dissensions and factions is the lust, the desire in the
depraved human heart to have their own way. One pastor described it in these
terms. Desire is the root of all the
evils which ruin life and divide men. They set men warring against
each other. The basic desires are for the
same things. Money, power, prestige, worldly
possessions, self-gratification. When all men are striving, each
one to possess the same thing, life inevitably becomes a competitive
arena. Men trample each other down in
the rush to grasp the same things. Obedience to the craving for
pleasure drives men apart. Now it’s entirely possible that
there are impure desires, things that are absolutely morally corrupt,
as I’ve already noted. But I want to tell you some things
that are absolutely candidates for this list that we might not
think are such bad things on the face of them. I remember
years ago we studied a book entitled Respectable Sins. And I would
suggest to you that in this list that I’m preparing to share with
you, there are some respectable sins that will absolutely wreak
havoc in the church. If God’s people would turn to
2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2. where Paul is warning about essentially
the same thing. Second Timothy chapter two. And
I would have you to pick up in verse 14. Where Paul says, remind
them of these things and solemnly charge them in the presence of
God not to wrangle about words. which is useless and leads to
the ruin of the hearers. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen
anybody engaged in an argument, a real vigorous argument where
they don’t justify their wrangling. Paul says it’s useless and it
leads to the ruin of the hearers. Stop it. Look at verse 15. Be diligent to present yourself
approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed,
handling accurately the word of God, but avoid worldly and
empty chatter. There are those that pride themselves
on that very thing, being able to converse about anything and
everything. You name the subject, they can
talk it through. And even the way they talk about
it is worldly. The way they carry themselves,
the emptiness of it. Avoid worldly and empty chatter,
verse 16, for it will lead to further ungodliness and their
talk will spread like gangrene. In other words, he says it starts
here, perhaps at the very best at a neutral place. It isn’t
a discussion about scripture. It isn’t a discussion about anything
good and profitable at all, but it starts at the very best at
a neutral place and it immediately begins to degenerate. Look at verse 19. Nevertheless,
the firm foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows
who are his and let everyone who names the name of the Lord
abstain from wickedness. Now in a large house, there are
not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and
of earthenware, some to dishonor and some to honor. Paul all of
a sudden switches and he takes Timothy, young Timothy, into
the kitchen. And he says, look at the equipment
here. You have some stuff that, you know, is your everyday use
in the kitchen, and you have some stuff that is only for special
use. Some to honor and some to dishonor. He uses an image there for young
Timothy. And then he tells him to cleanse
himself. Look at verse 21. Therefore,
if a man cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel
for honor. What things? You want to be a vessel for honor.
You want to be that special dish that is used, that special platter. You want to be a special and
specially available servant to God himself. If a man cleanses himself from
these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful
to the master, prepared for every good work. And so, in a sense,
Paul there is looking back. What things is he talking about
that young Timothy needed to purge from his life? Wrangling
about words. Worldly and empty chatter. Those
certainly would be included, but then Paul goes on to issue
a new short list. Flee from youthful lusts. and
pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with all who
call upon the Lord from a pure heart. What are youthful lusts?
It isn’t necessarily limited to just those prurient thoughts
and desires that are so common to young men. What’s common to
young men is wanting to have their own way and debating to
the end, to the death, if necessary. to have their own way, to be
self-willed. Back, if you would, to James,
where James says, is not the source your pleasures that wage
war in your members? This word is the word where we,
it’s a battle word. It’s a soldier word. He told
Timothy, fight the good fight. Peter uses it to say, to tell
us that there are lusts which wage war against the soul. James here uses it to say that
there are desires. There is a desire for our own
way. There is a desire to be heard.
There is a desire to influence. There is a desire for preeminence
that is in the people in the church, and they will fight to
the death to get it. It is overworking this entire
thought. It is a passionate clinging to
their right to own it and exhibit it. And this is what leads to
those long drawn out resentments and wars. these passionate explosions
that take place in the church. James says that these hedonistic
desires are engaged. These that are engaged in hedonistic
desires are engaged in an all out war. That’s what he says. It’s an internal source, but
it has an external result. these pleasures, but I want you
to note wage war in your members. And I want to point out here. You could look at that and you
could say that he’s talking about church members. If you read that
casually and, and, uh, didn’t look any deeper. He isn’t talking
about church members here. as in persons formally belonging
to a church, he isn’t talking about members in that sense at
all. He’s talking about these desires
that reside deep down within each of us. They reside in our
members deep down, bodily members, in our heart, in our minds, where
we desire our own preferences. We desire our own way. It would please us to have the
ability to win on this particular occasion. Well, that is the battle unrequited
want, you have more than one person with different desires
battling within, ultimately erupting to the surface and creating an
all-out war in the church. It’s the battle for unrequited
want. But I want you to note the casualties. This is a real
battle. This is a real war. And there
are casualties to this war. Look at verse two, the casualties
of unrequited want you lost and do not have. So you commit murder
and you are envious and cannot obtain. So you fight and quarrel.
Now here is our word for lust. Not as before, as I pointed out,
a different word entirely. Here it is the word for lust,
epithymia. It is used of an intense desire,
and it isn’t always bad. We, in our ear, when we hear
the word lust, we naturally assign negative properties to that,
don’t we? But Paul says, if you lust, passionately
desire the office of an elder, you desire passionately a good
thing. In fact, I don’t think that you
can be an elder unless you passionately desire that office. It’s an intense,
passionate desire that so often is translated lust. And so the longing isn’t necessarily
bad, but here it is a longing that is unrequited. It is unfulfilled. It is unsatisfied. And that creates
the problem within. It’s the craving for desire and
pleasure and the desire to have their own way, the desire to
be heard, the desire to have influence that creates this envy. that bubbles up to the surface. Jewish philosopher Philo took
note of the frequency of this occurrence, even in social Jewish
societies. He said, is it not because of
this passion that relations are broken? And this natural goodwill changed
into desperate enmity that great and populous countries are now
desolated by domestic dissensions and land and sea are filled with
ever new disasters by naval battles, land campaigns, the wars famous
in tragedy, all flowed from one source. Desire for either money
or glory or pleasure. Over these things, the human
race goes mad. A Jewish philosopher looked out
over the land and saw how real this problem is. And so when
James says, you lust and do not have, so you commit murder, it’s
really not all that far-fetched, is it? It’s been a while since I saw
murder in the church, but not long enough. I’ve never
seen an actual murder, but I’ve seen the venting of the human
heart that would qualify for murder. Matthew said, you shall not kill,
but I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother and essentially
treats him as if he were already dead is already committed murder
in his heart. First John says that whoever
hates his brother is a murderer. And you and I both know it happens.
We’ve seen it. It’s been in the church. It is
a cherishing of that deep resentment and hatred that just bubbles
to the surface and refuses to be assuaged. He isn’t necessarily talking
about literal murder here. We were talking the other night
about this whole concept of a hate crime. And as bad as that is, I want
you to think this through. What crime isn’t a hate crime?
I mean, can you imagine a thief walking up and sticking a pistol
in your stomach and saying, hey, I love you, brother, but give
me your wallet. All of that natural inclination
is a hateful response to others. One pastor detailed how this
thing falls apart and quickly. He says the steps of the process
are simple and terrible. A man allows himself to desire
something. That thing begins to dominate
his thoughts. He finds himself involuntarily
thinking about it in his waking hours, dreaming of it when he
sleeps. It begins to be what is aptly
called a ruling passion. He begins to form imaginary schemes
to obtain it. And these schemes may well involve
ways of eliminating those who stand in his way. For long enough,
this may go on in his mind, then one day, the imaginings may blaze
into action and he may find himself taking the terrible steps necessary
to obtain his desire. Every crime in the world has
come from the desire which was at first only a feeling, only
a feeling in the heart but which being nourished long enough came
to end in action. James says, You lust and do not
have, so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain,
so you fight and quarrel. That envy that breeds from not
having our, not only from not having our desires fulfilled,
but looking about and seeing others whose desires are fulfilled. And we hate them for it. And
we lash out at them. You cannot obtain, you can’t
lay hold of what you really want, what you desire. Failure and
frustration mount. And so you fight and you quarrel,
you lash out. It becomes a bitter, ongoing
skirmish that affects the very life of the church. What’s the cause? That’s the
third point, the battle of an unrequited heart, the casualties
of unrequited want, and the cause of unrequited want. James says
it at the end of verse two, very simply, you do not have because
you didn’t ask. You do not ask. Their selfishness is exemplified
in their prayers. They knew that they couldn’t
go to God and to ask for this thing, demand of God this thing,
whatever it is, this desire for power, this desire for influence
or control. They knew that they couldn’t
fall on their knees and ask for that. Instead of turning to God at
all. Instead of examining their own
heart before God, and instead of calling out to God and asking
for what James called every good and perfect gift, they either
knew in their heart that they could not possibly utter this
request in God’s ear, or even for a good request, even to have
the gifts that would influence the church in a wholesome way,
they couldn’t bring themselves, wouldn’t bring themselves to
do that. One Puritan said, many Christians
shrink from prayer, respecting outward necessities. Our spiritual
wants we carry to the throne of grace. But the cares of the
world, the disappointment of cherished hopes, the thwarting
of carefully devised plans, the anxieties of a narrow income,
we too frequently nurse our depression instead of laying the matter
before God. He says that even times where there are legitimate
requests, we refuse to go to God. And sometimes there are
things that we know that we shouldn’t ask for. Sometimes, though, we
just give up. We don’t persevere in prayer.
We don’t ask, seek and knock. Other times we don’t even think
to ask. And then when we see others so
blessed. We react. Fannie Crosby had it right, didn’t
she? When she said, oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what
needless pain we bear all because we do not carry everything to
God in prayer. There’s a final element to that
unrequited want. The cause of it, you do not have
because you do not ask. You do not ask, or rather you
ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. Your
heart’s not right. You ask because you want to spend
it on your own pleasures. You want to have your own way.
Maybe this is the guy that really does have the audacity to burst
into God’s present and ask to be made president or ask to be
made in charge of this or to have this particular influence
or to hold sway on a particular point of doctrine. This is the
guy who’s brash enough to go in and ask God to honor him in
his desire. Jesus told us to ask, seek, and
knock, but it’s not just an open-ended invitation. We have to pray in
faith. We have to pray rightly. We have
to examine our hearts and see if this is exactly how God would
have us to pray for this particular situation. It’s not just a slam-dunk
formula. Otherwise, it’s just a magical
incantation, isn’t it? I love the way one pastor said,
someone might say, we have asked God and still we are in want. I mean, don’t you hear that all
the time? I prayed, I did pray. To these,
the apostle replies that the solution of this difficulty is
not far to seek. Their supplications lacked one
essential element of true prayer, the desire to consecrate all
to God’s gifts, to his glory. In other words, if you can’t
pray your prayer to the glory of God, then it isn’t a prayer
that God is inclined to answer. Where petition is sent up with
no thought of the kingdom of God, no longing to the advancement
of His glory, but simply with a view to self-gratification,
to the consuming of what we want, what we ask for, such a petition
will not be supplied. James sets forth a very clear description of the symptoms of spiritual
infidelity. And it’s real, and if it left
unchecked, it will destroy the church just like literal adultery destroys families. James wants to paint a very graphic
picture and he wants each believer to search their heart. Is this
spiritual adultery? Is this something that I’m contemplating
in my own heart? Do I have an unrequited want
when it comes to the life of the local church? Do I? Am I willing? to leave casualties behind in
my desire to see this through. Can I go before God in humble
and honest prayer for this desire that I have? Only you can examine your heart
before God with his help of his Holy Spirit. Would you do that
now? Merciful God, Again, we said
we are unaware of any. Wars occurring. Even skirmishes,
Lord, we are enjoying a season of peace. But we have known this. We have lived through hurricanes.
By God’s grace alone, we have rebuilt after such hurricanes. And Father, we pray that you
would help to preserve that by assisting every believer to examine
their heart in this regard. To see whether it is there are
those pleasures, those desires that are at present unrequited. Help them to examine their heart
to see what would they be willing to do to have their way. Lord God, if they can see in
their heart that ultimately they would be willing to even kill. To hate their brother. To create
problems and trouble and division, even in Christ’s church. Lord,
we pray that you would grant such people repentance. So that
you can preserve the peace in our midst. Lord God, we thank
you for James’s word. We thank you for his insight
into the human heart. And we pray, Father, that you
would examine each one of us. And Lord, for any who do not
know the Lord Jesus Christ, they have no ability really to preserve themselves
from any of these things. And so we pray that you would
bring them first and foremost to repentance for sin, And to
a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one that can remedy
the human soul. We thank you and praise you in
Jesus name. Amen.