Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Here we are, Thursday night, ready for our Bible study. Looking forward to having some time together with you. You in the word from Taos, New Mexico, to across America and around the world, wherever you are. Glad you're here tonight. And we are going to do a little Bible study. I put an outline for you at the Connect site. I put another outline for you at the Worship I site. And I realized the Randy White Ministry site doesn't have it. That's because Nathan's working on a complete redo and it conflicts with what he's got going in order to make all that happen. So go to RWM connect or to Worship I for that outline. Or you can just wait until the James commentary comes out. The Colossians commentary is about to come out. I'm hopeful that it'll be out before I have to leave for Branson. That conference is coming up September 3 through the fifth. Still have room for you. Would love to hear from you about that. And it's really going to be a great conference on the Book of Romans. Tonight. We come into the Book of James once again and we look at James rightly divided. I will say some greetings at the end of the hour. Would love to say hello to you. And if you put in a comment maybe who you are, where you're from, that's always encouraging at the end. And we'll take a look at those. Wherever you're watching, you can put the comment in. If you're watching live, I'll get it before we're done today. And we got Bruce Rascu in the live studio audience and his son Mason, also. They've been here with us all week visiting their daughter Madison, who's an intern right here and has been with us for a year now. And here we go. Ready to have some Bible study. Let's just switch right over here and get going on it. And James rightly divided, verse by verse tonight, I think you're going to find a blessing, especially when we get into chapter four, but in chapter five as well, a blessing in realizing that when you rightly divide James, it frees you from this promise that we have claimed and yet never seem fulfilled. And we're going to get into that in so many places as we've gone. Now we're into the fourth chapter of what, five chapters in James. And I don't know about you, but to me, every single night that we've been what are we on session nine here? Each of the nine times that we have been together or each of the eight previous times, and no doubt in my study for today, I have recognized, wow, we've been getting James all wrong. And because we've been getting James all wrong, we have slaughtered the book and made so many legalisms and other things that do not need to be in the Christian life. And when we do that, not only do we put a burden upon us, but we miss out on the real meaning of scripture. So we've been doing that as we have gone literally right from the beginning. We've just taken the word, the word of God literally. That's all right. Division is take it all literally. And from verse one it says, it is unto the twelve tribes who are scattered abroad. We looked at our ID cards and we found out that we're not one of the twelve tribes scattered abroad, and therefore it's not a letter to us. So any application in James is going to be an incidental application. And certainly there are plenty of incidental applications and we'll see some even tonight. But it's when you give a direct application that you really begin to cause all sorts of trouble and turmoil. And I have no doubt once again, I have not mustered up the courage to go back to my James study that I did about ten years ago somewhere 8910 years ago, to muster up the courage to go back and see how terribly bad it was. But I know that even though I was journeying into right division at that point, I didn't have a real understanding of right division, not enough to divide James out from the body of Christ. And so I'm sure if I went back and looked at it and you can go back and look at it and tell me how bad it was, if you can stomach it, I don't know that it would be worth anyone's time. But nonetheless, I'm sure that I took a fellowship approach or something like this, that this is not about salvation, it's about fellowship. And here's how to have good fellowship with God. That's always the kind of the out for people who don't rightly divide, as they put it, off on the fellowship. Well, let's pull up the scripture here. And we'll be looking, of course, chiefly tonight at the King James Version. We might go a little bit into the Greek, we might go into the little bit of Young's Literal, and who knows? We might look a little bit at some of the rest. But we begin in James, chapter three, beginning in verse 1414 through 18. I'm calling this section Kingdom Wisdom. Here is a nation of people that is living with the kingdom in view. They are living expectant that God is going to provide their kingdom knowing he is offering their kingdom, knowing that the timing is right. Prophetically, the timing is right for the kingdom. So looking every day for that kingdom, well, how then shall we live? They would be asking. And so he gives some kingdom wisdom here, beginning in verse 14, where he says, if you have bitter envying and strife in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth, bitter envying and strife. Now this is simple enough. The word for envying is zealous. Of course, we get the word zealous from it. Or zeal or zealot. I was actually surprised most of the time that this word in being here, this word zelas is used in the Scripture. It's used in a negative sense, as it very obviously is here. Of course, here you've got the adjective bitter and we know it's negative, but most of the time when you look it up in Scripture, it's a negative. Connotation zeal as negative. Now, it would not be correct to say it's always negative because there are at least two times when it is not negative. One time definitely when he commends Paul, commends someone for having a zeal in the Lord, and then probably when you have Jesus and he cleanses out the temple and the disciples after that, recall, oh, the zeal for thine house, the zeal for my Father's house has consumed me. Looks like probably a positive reference in that regard. But most of the time this envying as it's translated here is a negative thing. I think envy is a good translation here rather than zeal, because zeal and a modern American sense we would think of being zealous for something is by and large a good thing. So here is definitely a bad thing. If you have bitter envying, you've got a zealousness, we might say a jealousness, an envy, a desire that is filled with bitterness and strife in your hearts. These two things that come together, envy and strife, are clearly things that you should glory not. Don't praise yourself. It is easy sometimes when we have envy and strife to put ourselves in a little bit of a martyrs complex and to praise ourselves and to glory in it. We say things like, well, if a man doesn't have enemies, he hasn't ever said anything, he hasn't taken a position. And there's some truth to that, no doubt. But here he says, hey, tribes of Israel, don't get all that excited when you've got bitter envy and strife in your heart. The word for strife right here is a word that is used really in a political connotation and it's as the strong I put the definition a self seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means. There would be none of that, of course, in the modern world. But in the ancient world there were some who had a self serving desire for political office and they would get there by hook and crook, whatever it took. And here's what he's talking about now, that word, because it's not the common word for strife. It's not the word we would almost expect agonizo and agony over something, wrestling over something. There's this discontentment in your heart or agony in your heart, but it doesn't use that. He uses a political word here that kind of tells me, hey, we're talking about the kingdom here. You all are trying to build the kingdom. You're trying to get elected to office. You're trying, if I can borrow an illustration from the ministry of Jesus, you're trying to say, hey, could I sit at your right hand? And my brother sit at your left hand and to bring that about, there is a strife in your heart. So there is this bitter ending and strife in your heart. He says, glory not and lie not against the truth. This is not something that should be seen in your life. And he warns against both the action bitter in being in strife and the result glory and lying against the truth altogether. The package is something that we don't want to have. And while this, of course, is an instruction to the Jews awaiting the kingdom, I think you would agree with me there is somewhat of a universal application here that you and I could take. And if bitter envy and strife in our hearts, that is when it all cost, that is, to be in power, to be the top dog, whatever it takes, if that is our desire, we probably glory in it and should not glory in it. And there probably is a sense in which we will lie against the truth. I know in our political situation, even in the United States, both sides call the other side a liar, right? Well, somebody's lying against the truth because it's mutually exclusive, what they're arguing here. Let's go on in verse 15, this wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly sensual devilish. Now, this wisdom on the outline, I put that in quotes, this wisdom, because you and I use wisdom, I suppose, is exclusively a good thing. If you've got wisdom that is good, whether it's financial wisdom or historical wisdom or philosophical wisdom, whatever it is, if you've got some wisdom, that's a good thing. Always good to be wise, right? Well, that's true with the English word for wisdom. However, the Greek word sophia is the word for wisdom. The Greek word sophia can be positive or negative. You can have a negative kind of wisdom. Here is this negative kind of wisdom. So this wisdom, the wisdom of what? The wisdom that says, hey, do whatever it takes to get to the top. There's some of that wisdom taught in our world today, isn't there? So do whatever it takes stomp over whoever, how many dead bodies you got to get over? It doesn't matter. There's a kind of a worldly wisdom that is given there. And might I say that in many places in society that kind of wisdom is seen and taught and expressed. I've seen it in the ministry of all places, where there are men who have gained the skill of always positioning themselves to be in the right place at the right time. They've got this wisdom on how to move up the corporate ladder even in the ministry. And this wisdom that they've got right here descendeth not from above, but is earthly. The word earthly, by the way, here the word is epiguous. Have you heard of spinning wheel? There you go. Maybe it'll go away in a minute. Have you heard of Earth worship? Mother Earth worship? This is upon Gaius, upon that kind of worldly, earthly, just we'll have the word physical here in just a moment. But it's earthly, an earthly wisdom. It is sensual. Now, the word sensual today has sexual connotations. The Greek word certainly doesn't have the sexual connotations. And I would suspect if we were to look it up, that sensual here means in 1611 when they use it, it means having to do with the senses. So the Greek word is physikos. Okay, it's physical. There it is. It's a physical wisdom. It's an earthly wisdom here. He says it's a devilish wisdom. I suspect, and I did not look this up, but let's just go ahead and do it. I suspect that maybe we won't do it. We'll see here. Yeah, my computer is wanting to run a little slow tonight. Here we go. Yeah, that's what I suspected. I would find. The only time in the Bible you have the word devilish and it has nothing to do with eggs, but that which is devilish, the Greek word. You won't be surprised at all. The Greek word is diamond. I don't think you could get better. And maybe some of the translations I didn't look have demonic. I wouldn't necessarily say demonic because that would have a little stronger connotation maybe than this word, but having the characteristics of demons. So devilish, pretty good way to look at it. Now, here is a quote, wisdom that doesn't come from above. It's right here. This is obviously something that you and I again have to deal with and that is there is a worldly wisdom that is no wisdom at all. Well, it is wisdom in a certain sense. It just depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you're trying to accomplish righteousness for the kingdom, as was the instruction here, then this is not the one you want. Now let's go on, because in the next verse we'll see more of this about this wisdom. It says, for where in vein and strife is. These are the same words we had in verse 14. Envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work. Well, that tells us why this particular wisdom is not really a value, especially as it comes to the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God certainly wouldn't be confusion and evil work. That's not the wisdom that is going to bring you to a righteousness in God and the kingdom of God. So he says, avoid that. Now let's go on to verse 17 because those verses again are fairly simple in what they're calling for. He says, but the wisdom that is from above is pure then peaceful, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. Okay, no real issues there. We could go through. I realize that's a little big to get entirely on the screen, but we could go through each one of those words, and we could have a little bit of fun and learning, I suspect, and looking at what it is to be full of mercy, what it is to have good fruits, what it is to be without partiality, without hypocrisy. I think if we were to do that, we would find that we would spend a bit of time and not really have that much value, because we already know what those things are. They're just pretty basic things. And so the wisdom that is from above is pure, peaceful, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy. All these things that are mentioned, these are characteristics rather than earthly related to the senses. Devilish. The wisdom from above is peaceful, gentle, easy to be entreated, on and on. And he just sets aside and compares these two wisdoms. Now, I want to chase a rabbit, if I may, for just a moment. I know that when I chase a rabbit, I hear applause all across the broad audience around the great big electronic table that we've got here tonight. You like it when we chase a rabbit every now and then. Amen. I thought I heard you're. Amen. Thank you, Bruce. There's something rather interesting that's not directly related to this, but here. What's directly related to this is basically, shall we say, earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. And he wants them to have heavenly wisdom, not earthly wisdom. Okay? It's plain, simple, cut and dried. We could just move on. However, I think this helps us better comprehend an often misused passage about the kingdom of God. You know that it is my very strong belief that the kingdom is future, physical, and fraternal. So the kingdom of God is not here today. Well, many people disagree with me. They say, no, there is a kingdom. There is a spiritual kingdom. The church is the kingdom, or the rule and reign of God is the kingdom, or there's an overarching kingdom or whatever terminology that they may use, an overarching kingdom, an inner kingdom, a spiritual kingdom. And so they would say that at least part of the kingdom has already been inaugurated. Now, if they're an amillennialist, they don't believe in a millennium, so they don't believe in a future kingdom at all, then they would say, the kingdom is 100% inaugurated, and it's inaugurated in our hearts. But not many of us are all millennialists, nor do we. What is it? Don't smoke, don't date, don't chew, and don't go with girls who are millennialists. How's that, Mason? Can you remember that? Okay. Got an 18 year old here tonight. Just making sure he doesn't go to dating. And I'm millennialist. Well, most of us in our circles, because we're kind of conservative people, we don't run across that. Many are millennials. We know they're out there, but we don't run across them all that often in evangelical circles. Most in evangelical would be kind of already not yet. That is, they would say the kingdom of God is both spiritual now and will be physical then. I reject that idea. I say the kingdom of God then will be spiritual and physical. But now the kingdom of God is not here. It's nothing. We have the church or the body of Christ, we have the Christian life, we have the sovereignty of God, we have the lordship of Jesus Christ, all those kinds of things, but we don't have the kingdom of God spiritually, physically. All of the kingdom is in the future. Now, those who disagree with me might bring up a couple of passages that we'll look at that this relates to. Let's go to the one that relates, I guess the least first, and that is Romans chapter 14, verse 17, which says for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. So I come along and say the kingdom of God is future, physical and fraternal. What do you mean? It's a physical kingdom? Not in any way. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Ghost. Those are things that are not tangible. These are things that you cannot touch. These are things that come about in our hearts and therefore the kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. Now, they say a lot more than this passage actually says, but that certainly is what they will say about that. Now, the issue go back to there is an earthly wisdom and there is a heavenly wisdom. He is asking the Jewish people to exercise heavenly wisdom on earth. If heavenly wisdom doesn't mean it just has to do with spiritual things. Heavenly wisdom has to do with who you date, who you marry, who you do business with, how you do business, all those kinds of things. There's a heavenly wisdom that we use in our daily work of day lives. Heavenly wisdom. Well, if you can use heavenly wisdom on earth, then couldn't you also say this kingdom of God, though it's not earthly, sensual, physical, it's not meat and drink, but it's righteousness, peace and joy. Does that say it's not used upon the earth? Absolutely not. This does not prove that there is no kingdom on earth. What this proves is that the kingdom of God is filled with heavenly wisdom rather than earthly sensual, devilish wisdom. That explains the kingdom of God. But let's go to one that comes even a little closer. And this is John chapter 18, verse 36. Now once again people will come and argue no, the kingdom of God is spiritual, not future and physical. It's right now and it's spiritual. Bringing up John 1836, Jesus answered my kingdom is not of this world and if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight for it? My kingdom is not of this world. Now that is very parallel to there is a wisdom that is from above. So let's go back to the passage here in James, he speaks of this wisdom that descends not from above. And then he eventually says in verse 17, the wisdom which is from above is pure and peaceful and gentle. And whatnot now is he saying that this wisdom is not used on earth and is not present on earth and is not found on earth? Not at all. It descends from above. The same thing is said in these arguments and these passages that are used to argue a now already inaugurated and already spiritual kingdom rather than a future physical kingdom. These passages just say that the kingdom has heavenly wisdom, the kingdom has wisdom that comes from above. They don't say the kingdom is already and the kingdom is spiritual. And I just wanted to point that out before we go on. And we conclude this particular segment of Scripture in verse 18 which says, and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. Again, all of this, it's a pretty simple passage versus 14 through 18 aside, setting side by side the wisdom of man, if you will, or the wisdom of earth and the wisdom of heaven. And here is a nation that's being offered a kingdom and they're to be living in righteousness, and they're trying to get others to live in righteousness. And the fruit of righteousness is sown how are we going to increase righteousness in peace of them that make peace? Now again, he started out talking about envy and strife. These are not going to help us. It even ties into that John 1836 where Jesus says, hey, if my kingdom was physical, then people would be fighting to build it. But it's not. It's from above. And James comes and says so much like his half brother Jesus had said, hey, let's use not the wisdom from below, but the wisdom from above. This is how we are going to sow righteousness and bring about the fruit of righteousness in peace of them that make peace. Now, we come on and we get into a section in chapter four, verses one through five and we look I'm calling this segment chastisement for not living up to kingdom standards. He has set the parameters, if you will, of kingdom wisdom. And basically, beginning in chapter four, he says, you ain't doing it, you're not there, the fruit of righteousness is not seen. And so we begin to put this together. Chapter four, verse one, he asked this question from whence come wars and fighting among you come they not, hence even your lusts, that war in your members. Okay, this particular passage of scripture, obviously about wars and fighting. Here's the question. Is he speaking in a general sense or is he speaking in a specific sense generally? We could look at it and say, hey, whenever it may happen that you have wars and fightings among you. They come from your lust, that war in your members. I think in your members he's talking about one another. When you have this envying and these lusts that we're talking about in being in stripe that we're talking about earlier, this overwhelming desire here, you start a war, you start fighting. And this is where war comes from. Well, there's again a universal sense to that truth. I suspect if we never had any kind of lust that war in your members, then maybe there would be no war. I don't know. If nobody had, none of humanity had lust that war amongst them, then why would we ever go to war with one another? So is he speaking in that sort of general sense? If he is, then we've got to take the full passage, chapter four, verses one through five. We've got to take it all in a general sense. And we've got to say then that what we've got in verse one here is sort of some general insight for living, general wisdom for living. Here it is. War comes about strife, envying, all this comes about by the lust that war and your members. And then if we take verse one in a general sense, what are we going to do with verse two? Well, here's a general truth as well in verse three, four, five, because we started out down that path. Now the question is, is he speaking in a general sense or is he speaking in a specific sense as he is writing? Are there wars and fightings among the twelve tribes? Well you say, well for that I would have to learn a little bit of history. And I'm just a student of the Bible, not of history. Well, we study the Bible and we often say a literal, grammatic, historic context. We take the Bible literally, grammatically, historically. So in the context, literally, grammatically, historically, let's suppose that we did, unlike most evangelicals, most evangelicals say we take the word of God literally, but literally, there weren't any wars literally, there weren't any fightings. This is just talking in a very general sense. Could we take it specifically and say middle of the first century, the Jews were fighting with each other, the Jews were at war with their members, the Jews were at war with one another. Could we do that? Oh, absolutely we could do it. Even if you read, I don't know, suppose say, Josephus and see about the years of the first century. And that's what he writes about so much in the wars of the Jews. He's writing about the first century a little bit into the second century. And he basically presents a picture of the Jewish people, that they were at a spiritual civil war with one another. Now, why were they at a spiritual civil war with one another? Because they were all in great expectation that the Messiah was going to come really by first half of the first century according to a prophetic timeline beginning in Daniel, and he didn't come. And by the time you get to the mid 40s, really, the time has passed and you're having to say, no Messiah. And so what do you do then, as a Jew? Well, some would say, oh, we just misinterpreted the passage of scripture and actually admit to this. Others would say, so much for Judaism. I don't need that. I'm going to go on and live a Hellenistic life. Others would say, we did miss him. And his name was and they go back, maybe his name was Jesus or maybe his name was Barabbas, or a few years later, maybe his name was Barkakva. Whatever it might be, here's our Messiah. And so they began to have wars with one another over this messianic issue because the Hebrew scriptures were so clear that this really was the window of opportunity for Messiah to come. So the very thing that made up their identity from their perspective hadn't happened. So Judaism was a house of cards. It was falling apart. It's kind of amazing that it survived all the way to 70 Ad in these wars and fightings that were among you. And in fact, 70 Ad. It came about, that is the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome. It came about because Rome, who really was very patient with all of its various empires, rome lost patience the various provinces within its empires, I should say. And they lost patience with the provinces of Judea and Samaria, those that were filled with Jews. They said, we've been fighting you people for 30, 40 years. And constantly, every time we turn around, we're having to send an army down. We are just going to wipe you off the map. And by the Bar Cockpit Rebellion, that's exactly what they did and changed the name from Judea, Samaria unto Palestine. So what if we take this literally? There are literally wars and fighting among the twelve tribes. Where are they coming from? Lusts. That war in your members. Now, if we take that, then I think we've got the key to interpreting versus one through five, I should say, versus two through five. Verse one is the key. You twelve tribes have lust and wars have wars and fightings among you that come from your lust and your members. Now, so is it general or specific? I would go so far, if I may, to say it's generally specific. How's that? It may not be specific about an actual battle that is taking place in, I don't know, say, 44 Ad. But I think there were so many various battles amongst the Jewish people, religious battles, political battles among the Jewish people, that specifically all of these battles generally is what he was talking about. What would be the term? I'll sound real smart here. The cultural milieu of the first century Judaism was wars and fightings. And so he's speaking specifically about that. Where. Perhaps it's not generally about a specific battle, but certainly there were these wars and fightings among you. Now, with that, how are we going to apply it to Me and you? If we take this, I think we would free ourselves from being manipulated, because not only if we take it for ourselves, we just take it as a universal principle for all mankind or for all believers. Then there's a couple of things that happens. One is we'll get into verse two, and there's a promise there that we end up claiming that we shouldn't claim. But another is that what happens when in a church or a Christian setting, you end up having wars and fightings among you. Now, I've been a pastor long enough to know that not every church is as sweet and wonderful as my Tau's First Baptist Church, america's greatest tiny church. We don't battle over much. It helps not to battle over much. When you don't got much, you say, Well, I'll tell you what, we just as well have pot luck. Let's just do that, okay? And everybody agrees, and we're good. So really not warring and fighting, but there has been in the church's past, just like any church, and I've been in churches at times when there were wars and fightings among you. Now, if we think this is generally for us, what happens? You get a little church or a big church, and they're at war with one another. One of them wants to hire a youth director, and the other one doesn't want to hire a youth director. One of them wants to sing contemporary songs. One of them wants to sing the old hymns. One of them wants to use a guitar. One of them thinks guitars or the devil, whatever the battle may be, you know, all of it, and the church gets at odds with one another. Well, of course the pastor has got an opinion on it, no doubt about it. There are very few things the pastor says, I don't care, do whatever you want. He typically has a desire, so what's he do, his desire is that we build a new wing onto the church. And there are a lot of people saying, I don't think this is the time. I don't think this is good. I think we ought to rethink this. This morning, I'd like you to open your Bibles to James. Chapter four, verses one through five. I want to show you why we're at spiritual turmoil with one another. I want to show you why there are battles in this church, and I want to show you why your prayers are not being answered. Indeed, it may be that your grandmother is sick and dying. There's a reason for it, and we can solve it today. James Four, from whence come these fighting and wars among you? And everyone immediately thinks the battle over the building program and preachers use it to guilt you or to manipulate you or to control you, to get you to vote for the thing that they want to voted for. You're set free from all that manipulation of scripture if you take it literally. And you rightly divide. So I can look at this passage and say I'm not a first century Jew and I wasn't involved in those wars and fightings. If there are wars and fighting among my members, maybe it's because of this reason and maybe it's not. Maybe there's some other issue that is at hand. This was talking about the first century Jews. Now, again, my principle of hermeneutics, we haven't got it to it yet in my hermeneutics class, but my principle of hermeneutics is if you can take it literally, do it. Is there a way to take this literally rather than generally or spiritually? Yeah, sure. The first century Jews, especially those scattered tribes as he's talking to, they were at war with one another. And there were all sorts of these concepts, Jewish concepts, that they were fighting with one another. Now, with that literal background, let's go to verse two. Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and you cannot obtain. You fight and war. Let's stop right there. Okay, here's where the preacher has to begin to spiritualize everything he comes. He tries to use this to manipulate people, to vote for whatever his agenda is, even those who don't want to vote for it and those who are against it, what's their issue? You lust and you have not. You kill and desire. Now, how many of you have been involved in much killing, murder? Probably not. Maybe a few of you. Some of them we know about and others are keeping secrets. But in the Christian community is pretty uncommon. No doubt it happens, but it's pretty uncommon. Do we just take this and have to spiritualize this? Well, our problem the problem is we got lost. The problem is we kill. I haven't actually killed my brother, but I said to him, rakha, we desire to have and cannot obtain. We fight and we war. Well, these are things that I think actually, literally, he is describing the first century nation of Israel. They lust and have not. They kill. They desire to have. I mean, think of Jesus Christ right here on kill, by the way. They desire to have and cannot obtain. They fight. He's describing again, going on verse one. He's describing in verse two exactly what has happened. And then with all that he says, yet ye have not because you ask not. Now, that particular phrase because you ask not is very often quoted. Wouldn't you agree with me? Well, you have not because he asked not. And I don't hear the first part of the verse quoted so often because that's always a good sign that we're going to abuse the scripture a little bit and to make it mean. What we want it to mean is when we only quote part of it. And I suspect if you want to do a little test on it sometime, you could check out, just call up a few friends that aren't on the broadcast tonight and say, you know that passage that says you have not because play dumb, okay? You ask not, they'll complete it for you. Say, yeah, I was reading that the other day. Now I forgot. Do you remember what the first part says? I didn't know that was the first part. They have not because yes, not ye is the first part. As a matter of fact, this is one of those that is so often quoted by our society that they most often, I think anyway, I may be wrong on this they most often quoted in the King James. You have not because these are people who don't use the King James any other place. But I suspect, again, if you went out and asked the question in a church audience, you could go a little more general, say, according to the Bible, why do we have not? You have not because yes, not. They'll quote it in The King James. Or if you get them started, you have not what? Because yes, not, they'll finish it in the King James, even though they never used the King James. That tells me two things. One, it tells me that the King James Bible has had a tremendous impact on Western culture. And I don't think you can underestimate the impact that the King James has had on Western culture. There used to be I don't know, I suppose there still are some place in public schools there were Bible classes, and they typically were the Bible as literature, taking the Bible as literature. And I know sometimes we had a little bit of angst with that because we were thinking, well, the Bible is a lot more than literature. This is the word of God. And there's certainly a point there. But the Bible as literature has affected Western civilization more than any other piece of literature ever pinned. Easily by far. When you get into, say, an English literature class, it's almost crazy that you can take an entire course of English literature and never open the Bible when the greatest English literature ever pinned is the Bible. And I would say the King James Bible. So the quoting of the King James just shows me how much the King James influenced our society and our society's thinking, our national psyche, if you will. But it also tells me how much we abuse scripture as Western civilization and began to pick and choose and take little pieces of it. Now, you have not because you ask not is God saying here speaking in a general sense. Let me tell you why. Generally people can't get along. It's because they lust and they desire to have and they kill and they do all these bad things. And so, of course, God is not going to give it to them. But really, the reason that you don't have a nicer car is because you ask not. The reason you don't have a second house, if you get one. By the way, I know a good location. Towers, New Mexico. But the reason you don't have a second house in Towson, New Mexico, is because yes, not. If you would ask you would have it. The reason that you don't have a better marriage or better relationships with your family is because yes, it's not. It's here for the taking. It's here for us. I can remember as a young preacher, you know, preaching what a shame it is that we as Christians go without when God has said right there, you have not because he asked not. In fact, I vaguely remember a sermon back from days when I had hair that I said something like, I would have preferred that God said, you have not because you have not sacrificed enough, or you have not because you're too disobedient, or you have not because you haven't given enough money, or you have not because you're not righteous enough. All of that I could say, okay, well, those are all hard things, but just to say, you have not because you asked not. Now, what if this is not a general statement for all of the church? My argument is we haven't had a general statement yet, so why should we take this as a general statement? What if we were persnickety about the pronoun Ye? Who is Ye james, chapter one, verse one, the twelve tribes scattered abroad specifically, he's talking about I think there's a lot that goes to the twelve tribes in general, but the twelve tribes scattered abroad specifically, who he's talking to? And he says to them, you have not because you ask not. Well, with that, we would look at it, and I think we would have to say, okay, what is it that they don't have, the twelve tribes generally, what is it that they don't have? Let's come back to that question and read verse three as he kind of reiterates, ye ask and receive not because you ask a miss that explaining how they ask a miss that you may consume it upon your lust. Okay? You don't have it because you don't ask for it. But when you do ask for it, the only reason you ask for it is to consume it on your lusts. Here's the big question. I know it is inserted by the translators, but it is very legit. And of course, it's the second home, right? It's a bigger bank account. It's a growing church, if you want to sound spiritual. What is it? I think in context, there really is I'll be so brave as to boil it down to one thing. There is one thing that the nation of Israel was told, you can have it when you ask for it. Now, what was that? One thing. Let's go to Matthew, one of my favorite prophetic scriptures. Matthew, chapter 23, verse 29, Jesus says chapter 23, verse 39, Jesus says, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Now, this particular phrase right here, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We could spend the time to prove this. I'll just ask you to take my word and you can check on it later. But that's a messianic statement. So Jesus says, when you say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, can I interpret this and I think I could build my case. Can I interpret this to say when you recognize Jesus as Messiah, what's going to happen? Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say. Now, I realize this doesn't say till you shall ask Messiah, come. But I think that again, we could go through several scriptures and build our case and show that the one thing that the nation was offered by Jesus when they would ask for it would be that he would come again and establish their kingdom. When we again go back and we get back into chapel, verse three, you ask and you receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your less. Now, they never asked for their Messiah. They never asked for the kingdom. And all the prerequisites to asking for that kingdom, of course, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and all the things that were required of it, they never did it. I think this promise here yes. Not because you have, not because you asked, not that what we take as a promise anyway is a chastisement of the Jewish nation saying you're at war with one another. Your nation is collapsing. You were expecting by now that the kingdom would come. Why don't you have it? Because you won't ask for it. Well, I'm not asking Jesus for that. Jesus is not the one. They reject him. They don't ask for it. And when they do, they ask for it. Why? That ye may consume it upon your lusts. There was something about the kingdom that for the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, it would be sweet revenge if Jesus would come about now. I should say, if Messiah would come about now, boy, if Messiah would show up now, this would be wonderful. And remember that Paul was the one who says, hey, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. And there were people who were perhaps they were suffering under this persecution, under all the inner turmoil, the spiritual civil war that was going on. And they were thinking, boy, when Messiah comes and establishes his kingdom, then I am going to sit at the table and I am going to eat to my heart's content. Well, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink and all those things, but it's a righteousness and peace. They weren't interested so much in the righteousness, in the obedience to the law and all the things that are required of and in the kingdom. They rejected Jesus when he gave the Sermon on the Mount. That's not what they wanted. So the few times they would ask of the kingdom even to talk about to the apostles, the few times they ask for the kingdom, it is, could we sit on your right and on your left? The only time you ever ask for it is when you want to consume it for your lust. Now, what does this do for us? I think that we can dismiss you have not because you ask not. And when you do ask, you ask a miss. We can dismiss that from really from our spiritual vocabulary, unless we're talking about the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel will, when they turn to Messiah and ask him to come to them and rescue, he's already said he's going to do it. But we don't have such issues. So I don't think I could go. And my guess is most of you couldn't either. If someone comes and says, boy, I am just, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm down to my last $4.32. I've got hundreds of dollars of bills or thousands of dollars of bills. There's no way I can ever get out of this mess that I'm in. I don't know what I'm going to do. Well, you have not because you asked not just go home and trust God, brother. Well, that would be using a scripture out of context. But how many billion times has this scripture been used out of context? Because we didn't take it literally right from verse one. So there we have verse three that you may use it on your list. And I think again, the Jewish people were just looking forward to the time they would feast and frolic in the kingdom, and yet they wanted to have it their way, they wanted to build it their way, they wanted to do it their way and insist. And Jesus says, no, this is not going to happen. You're going to have to humble yourself and seek my ways and turn from your wicked ways. Now, going on in verse four, he gets very bold with him as he says, 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 an enemy of God. Now, he has just come right out and cut to the chase here and speaking to these twelve tribes, and especially here, the twelve tribes that are scattered abroad, he says, hey, you all have a friendship with the world. At least the twelve tribes who stayed in Israel. And Israel was the promised land where they were supposed to be. But remember even Abraham. This has been a problem from the beginning. Even Abraham was promised this land. But things got a little dicey there, and first thing you know, he's off to the King of Egypt or Abraham's descendants, the twelve sons of Jacob. Hey, what happens? Well, we got a famine. Well, instead of trusting the Lord to provide for them in the land, what are they going to do? They're going to run down to Egypt, try to find them some food, and they end up down there in slavery. Well, let me give you another example. Remember what's his name? You do, don't you? He had a son named El Canna and another son named maybe his name was Elkanna. I'm thinking of Naomi's husband, ruth, naomi's husband came a time of famine. What did he do? He left off to moab moab. His children died and left there. I think El Canna is the dad. So El Cana comes along and hey, I'm running off. Well, here this friendship of the world when you come, and especially the Jewish people, these twelve tribes scattered. They had said, I think things would be better in Corinth. Boy, we could make a good life in Athens, we could make a wonderful life in Rome. And they're really abandoning the land that God had given to them. Friendship with the world. He says that's enmity with God. You want to get right with God, come back to your homeland, ask for your Messiah, and quit these wars and blessings and using everything for yourself. So he calls them adulters and adulteresses. Now, those are terms, obviously, that we use in the sense of marriage. Well, it makes sense. You all are betrayed to be the bride of Christ rather than sticking around for the wedding and the honeymoon. You're off Galivantin with your friends. And he speaks pretty sharply, I think, to the scattered tribes. I suspect that one of the wars and fightings that the Jewish people had was there are too many people jumping ship, too many of us Jews who just abandoned the homeland and move off. I suspect that those who stayed home like a fellow like James, asking for the Messiah, seeking the Messiah, trying to live the righteous life according to Torah, being Torah of an observant and repenting and all those things that were required, I suspect it was pretty easy for them to have a little animosity towards those who move off. And maybe he's even displaying this, I don't know. Should we call it righteous indignation here? Because certainly inspired by the Holy Spirit, you adulterers and adulteresses. Incidentally, the Alexandrian text, if you were with us on our Sunday Bible study, that is the critical text only has adulteresses. I don't know that it makes that much difference there, but if you're looking in your Bible and saying, hey, what's different? What's different is you got the wrong Bible. I think it is kind of interesting if we go here to New American Standard. Let me bring this up right here. Yeah, there we go. You adultereces. 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, adulteresses himself. Seems to me that it would be better just to keep both genders in there and himself then would be the proper pronoun that would be used for a mixed group here. And the King James is more literal here, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Doesn't even have a masculine pronoun in there. And that makes more sense because the text has both the masculine and the feminine, adulteresses and adulterers and adulteresses. So, hey, Bride of Christ, what's up with this? You're just out there frolicking with your friends rather than doing the things that you need to do. And so Danny closes out this section of Scripture saying, do you think that the Scripture saith in vain the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to evil? Now, is there an emptiness nothingness to the Scripture that says, the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth in evil? This is an interesting little verse to dig in and kind of teaches you how to do some Bible study, because I think every time a quote of the Old Testament is used in the New Testament, it is one of these that brings up just some amazing insight both about the Old Testament and the New Testament. You've heard me say many times that you have to bring the Old Testament context into the New Testament. Now, what I would love here is if I could go back and say right here, the Spirit dwelleth in us lusteth to envy. If I could find some scripture, Daniel or Ezekiel or something like this, where it was a time of the approaching kingdom, and yet it chastised Israel for the spirit that dwells within them that's less than evil. This one is a little more difficult to find when he says, my heart always leaps with joy when I find something like the Scripture saith, oh, good, here got a good opportunity for Bible study. And then I look it up. Well, the problem is I don't know what to look up here. He tells me the scripture saith but in the Scripture Saith, the New Testament writers were not very good about giving the biblical reference. The Scripture saith in Psalm 69, verse one, that's what you're supposed to do. They never do that, probably because they presuppose the knowledge of the Scripture. And we Chris and them in general has had a difficult time determining what Scripture is he referring to. This is not the only place you have this difficult time because often scriptures are not so much quoted as they are paraphrased. But you can look at it and eventually say, okay, yeah, I see what that is there. It's a reference to that particular verse. Well, here the challenge is so great that my friend E. W. Bollinger, he says this when it says the Scripture saith when the Scripture saith, does the Scripture saith in vain? He says this. This can only refer to the general testimony of Scripture, that the natural man is prone to selfish desires leading to envy of others who possess the thing desired. Okay, so Bollinger looks at it and Bollinger knew his Bible very well, better than I. Bollinger looks at it and says, I can't figure out what Scripture that is. So he must just be talking in a general sense. The Scripture teaches that the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy. I wasn't totally comfortable with that. I looked through the treasury of Scripture knowledge and the various places, and along there I did discover what I think is the verse that is referred to here, and it is used in Proverbs. Let's go to Proverbs, chapter 21, verse ten. And what does the Scripture say us here? The soul of the wicked desireeth evil. The soul of the wicked desireeth evil. Now remember again, we have let me see, put a bookmark there. Go back here to verse five. Where are we? Verse five, past you up. Verse five, right there. Put a bookmark there. We got it. Here's the quote the spirit, the dwelleth in us, leftth to envy. Now let's go back here. The soul. Okay. The spirit. The soul. One is using a Hebrew word, the other is using a Greek word. We argue amongst ourselves is there a difference between the soul and the spirit? But both the Hebrew and the Greek are the word for breath. So the soul, the spirit. Let's agree that yeah, I think we can use that interchangeably. So the soul of the wicked, desireeth soul, desireeth evil. Back here to James. We've got Xiaoth, the soul, desireeth, evil, the spirit lusteth to envy. I think that he is making reference to Proverbs ten. Now let's go back to Proverbs 21, verse ten, and combine James four five. Does the Scripture in Proverbs 21, verse ten speak in vain when it says the soul of the wicked desireeth evil? Is that in vain? No, that's not in vain. That's absolutely true. Now Proverbs goes on to say, his neighbor, that's the soul of the wicked, his neighbor find us no favor in his eyes. Okay, james didn't quote or even paraphrase that part, except that James chapter four, verses one through five, is a passage about a group of people whose neighbors don't find favor in each other's eyes. They're at war with their members, they strive with one another. I think James had this passage in mind. I think that he quotes it in a way that's not verbatim identicality, if we can use Brian Ross's term. But it's not verbatim identicality. But I suspect that it's not, as Bollinger says, that that's just the general teaching of Scripture, but rather Proverbs, chapter 21. Now, if that is correct also, I'm building a case here that I'm not going to be able to solve. I think also that the Book of Proverbs is a prophetic book, just like Psalms. And I think if we can break the code to Proverbs, we would find out that Proverbs aligns perfectly with the last days. And Israel in the last days will be described by this soul or spirit of wickedness that desires evil. They're fighting with one another. That was the description that was given here. The spirit that dwelleth in us, left to envy. What James is saying is, hey, the Proverbs prophecy is being fulfilled in us. We're the ones that carry this out and we want to solve this problem. What do we need to do? We need to come in and dwell in the house. Who's in charge? We need to turn to our Messiah. It might not be a mistake. That particular verse in Proverbs, verse ten, that verse nine is that one that says, now my computer is stuck. Better to dwell on the house top where we go. Better to dwell on the corner of the house top than with a brawling woman in the wide house. Maybe those Jews who left said, I'm tired of living with that brawling woman down there in the White House. And James comes and says, man, you adulterers and adulteresses. The soul of the wicked desireeth evil. His neighbor find us, no favor in his eyes. And he uses all of that to say, look, Israel, we're in a bad straight. And the reason that we're in a bad straight is because we're not asking for the kingdom. We could have it if we would just ask for it and do the prerequisites for it. And yet we don't. And that brings us to the end of session nine of the Epistle. James rightly, divided and verse by verse. Thank you very much for joining with us and I would love to greet you, say hello to you, put your comment in if you have not already done so, and just tell me who you are and where are you from? And then with that, let me also say there really still is time for you to sign up to come to Branson. If you need some help doing that, just send me an email. Randy@randywhiteministries.org, maybe you need help trying to figure out how to do it or the details about it. Send me an email. Maybe you need to figure out some help paying for it. Whatever it is, we're going to do the Book of Romans, and I would love to hear from you on that particular issue. And we come now to say hello to some of you here. Let's see who's in the room. We've got the Giles family down forney Texas. Good to see you tonight. And Scott in the hill country of Texas. We got the Benners in. Pittsbin, Pennsylvania. Good to see you. And Everett. Debbie down in Sholo. I like that. It's a sholo. Arizona campus of the town theological seminary. Good to see you tonight. And we have let's see. Roger in Fresno, California. Glad you're here with us. We got Daryl McCaffrey in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, and Debbie right there with him. We got Keith and Deb from Auburn, Kentucky and Maryland. And Roger in Wabasha, Minnesota. Neil in Volcan, Alberta. What's up, Neil? You're normally like one of the first in the room here tonight. Are you still on vacation? Are you trying to get back off of vacation mode from last week? What's up there? Got Jody and Rich the dots from POCA, West Virginia. The POCA dots. Good to see you and I look forward to seeing you and many of the others I've already mentioned in Branson. Donald, good to see you. Merles Inlet, South Carolina. And Jim and Piedmont, South Carolina. Got those two Carolinians right there together. And let's see dave Larkins. Ford. Yes. Thank you for helping me with the name there, especially since you owe me lunch. Would it be too much, Dave, to do breakfast, lunch and dinner at different diners? It's on my bucket list to go see Dave and Chad's Ford and hit the diners up there. Vina down under. I'd love to get down there as well. Good to see you on the Friday morning for you. Urban Sherry, good to see you. From a rainy Lafayette, Louisiana. I understand a lot of us are going to get rain this weekend, friday, Saturday, I don't know. It looks like quite a sweet going to go across the southern part of the United States anyway, and I know all of you east of the Rockies anyway, are really looking forward to that. We've had good rain here in towns this summer and very pleased after a very dry winter and spring. Linda lexington, Kentucky we had a couple here from Lexington on Sunday. I got several of you from Lexington the Rices, I'll think of their name. Do you know any races from Lexington? They were a delightful couple that just happened to be on vacation, came to church here. Eric in Ohio, thanks for being here again with us. And Rodney and Denise in Memphis. I hope you're recovering well, Rodney, from your surgery. And by the way, let me say also that I'm a Gene up in Como, Wisconsin. She always listens after the fact, but her dad fell and had a broken hip recently. I don't know if it was today or if it was just recently, but nonetheless, we'll pray for IMA jeans. I want to say 98 year old dad. Many of you know I'm a Jean, of course. And I might also add, while I'm just chasing rabbits here before I finish the greetings, curt and Brenda bracelets listen to us after the fact, typically. And today's Kurt's birthday, so happy 29th birthday. Kurt up in Wasau wisconsin. Leesburg, Georgia is here with us again tonight. Good to see you. Thank you. And Ontario, Cliff and family up there, welcome. Thanks for being here tonight as well. We got Gerard in the Netherlands late, early in the morning. I guess it would be in the Netherlands. Thanks for being with us. Lisa, glad you're here with us. Darrell and Lisa in Moundridge, Kansas. God bless you. And Chuck Weatherford, Oklahoma. Thanks for your presence. Surely out in wait a minute. I better read that. Oh, yeah, okay. I was going to say in Ridge Crest, California, but just got in after two days at the beach in Ventura. Is that how you say Ventura? Ventura. Ventura. I would say Ventura. I think I've been have I been there? I'm going to have to look that up if I have. Obviously it wasn't for very long, but I hope you had a delightful time out there and welcome back to Bible study here tonight. Lots of chats going on. I won't read all those chats, but we've got the Ezels. No, excuse me. That's Thomas and Jamie up in Lilywhat. Good to see you here tonight in Lilywop, Washington. The rest of you, if I missed your comment, sorry. There's a lot of chats going on in there. And Nathan has made this little thing for me that it highlights your first chat. So I just go through looking for the highlight. But every now and then I scroll through too fast and I miss one. But I'll go back and read those later. So tomorrow we'll have asked the theologian looking forward to that 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning. We'll have both of our broadcasts, 945, 1045. Join us live or on the archives, if you can, next week. We've got a full week of broadcasting as well. And we'll continue in chapter four of the Book of James next Thursday night and do all the fun stuff that we do here on a week by week basis and appreciate your prayers, your encouragement, your support, and it is a blessing. Some of you even click the Donate button every now and then. And that is very kind of you. With that, let me lead us no word of prayer and we will be dismissed. They're heavenly Father, thanks for the word of God and here tonight. If we really do take it literally, then you have not, because you ask not is not ours. It's not talking about us. And that liberates us because we have wondered why we ask and yet we do not have. And we've had to beat ourselves up because we thought, well, we must be asking Amy to use it on their own lust. And yet, as we searched our hearts, we said, no, I really have the cleanest, purest hearts that I know how to have. And yet it seemed like it wasn't good enough. Dear Heavenly Father, but now, as we realize if we take this literally, then we literally don't take this as a promise to ourselves. There are other reasons that we may not have. Some that we may have caused ourselves, some that may be in the providence of God, some that may just be the circumstances of this cursed world that we live in. And understanding the Bible literally, dear Heavenly Father, makes it come to such life and such meaning and frees us from guilt and manipulation and so many other things. And so we're grateful tonight that we have been able to see this literal interpretation of the Word. I ask this, praying that you would bless each one. Got several with birthdays, got several with cancer. Got several who are traveling. I'm a genius, dad. Who's suffering from this broken hip. And on and on we could go to. Heavenly Father, bless and encourage them and thank you for allowing us once again to gather around this big electronic table, as we say, and for the blessings of the fellowship we have in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'll see you tomorrow morning if you can join us, and it will be a blessing. And until then, God bless you. Happy birthday, Curtis Brewer. Happy birthday, Mason, who's right here today having his 18th birthday. Happy birthday, Madison, who had hers on Tuesday, her 20th birthday. And happy birthday to anybody else who wants to feel like you should have a happy day too. Until next time, god bless you. Bye.