Published: March 2, 2023 | Speaker: Dr. Chuck Hartman | Series: The Epistle of James - Part 6 | Scripture: James 4:1-4
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understanding and work in our hearts not only to understand but to submit and to obey your word pray as we
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encounter some harsh words in James that you would help us to understand what the holy spirit is teaching us and again help us to receive it and to
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walk in it we ask this father For Your Glory and for our good we ask it in Jesus name amen
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couplet the first pair I should say of couplets looking in chapter four at the first four verses a very
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strong strongly worded passage what is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you among you is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members
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you lust and do not have so you commit murder you are envious and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel you do not have because you do not ask
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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 enmity
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toward God therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God so again a very harsh Passage
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much of the modern Church literature Evangelical circles I mean good literature good
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generally good stuff focuses on
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Mark Dever the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist up in Washington D.C his book Night the nine marks of a healthy church he has a organization called Nine marks they put
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out literature focusing on what a healthy Church looks like and as I said I think it's it's generally good
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um but it does kind of remind me that when we look at the letters that Paul wrote there were very many healthy churches in the New Testament era
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and I'm not sure that we shouldn't spend at least as much time as as we see in Paul's letter and in James recognizing the signs of an unhealthy
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Church and if you consider the difference and I don't know if you've read any of the modern literature if you've read nine marks of a healthy Church within the reformed tradition and and
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please understand I'm not I'm not against this I'm not saying this is bad um but in the reformed tradition the tendency is to consider the health of a
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church based on its structure generally top down so for example Biblical teaching or biblical discipline or biblical
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worship and those are some of the things that you'll see in the the nine marks I don't have them all memorized but um they they have to do with what with the
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kind of the infrastructure of the church and if you look at each one it it's primarily the the pastors the ministers that kind
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of determine whether these are biblical or not biblical when you look at the marks of an unhealthy Church unhealthy Church you realize that it's
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bottom up bottom up the people are carping each other grumbling against each other accusing one another
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I think there's a there's a disconnect in our thinking because if you take good Biblical teaching good biblical discipline you take all of that
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and you're faced with a church where there's envy and covetousness and quarrels and fightings and murder
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can can you fix that with just good programs good structure good infrastructure I'm not I'm not sure you can I think James
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I can't say this dogmatically but I think James would say that what's needed first is repentance Paul when he says in Galatians that when
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you bite and devour one another take care lest you consume one another it's in the passage it's within the midst of the passage of putting aside the Deeds of the Flesh and walking or
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keeping in step with the spirit he doesn't advocate a different type of hierarchy or structure to fix these
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problems these problems are within the Believers now I'm not suggesting that in a church like the one that James is addressing that the problems weren't also in the
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leadership they're just not singled out in the leadership as much as much modern reformed writing is basically you read these books these books and as a as a lay member I hate to use
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that term but as a non-minister within a church you can use this book to kind of grade your pastoral staff but there's not much written about
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what the congregation does Yuri
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if you check off all the fundamentals you're a Believer but if you put fruit of the spirit they don't look at the food of the spirit as if someone being believer if you believe in that just the fundamentals you're you're all set the
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fruit of the spirit is apparently added salad well yeah so icing on the cake so it is somewhat of a checklist in fact it presents itself you know when he says nine marks of a healthy church
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that's kind of checklisty isn't it uh and again I I enjoyed the book personally when I read it um and uh we were able to attend Capital Hill Baptist months when we were in
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Washington DC and we enjoyed it we were blessed excellent message so I'm I don't want to be misunderstood as being um negative toward you know
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that fellow congregation and what they're doing I just it's kind of indicative of an approach within reformed ecclesiology is that we Define
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a church uh normally not nine marks it's it's usually it's usually um three marks and that is the the biblical preaching of the Gospel the biblical observance of the
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sacraments and biblical discipline that's kind of the classic three in terms of a reform definition of of a healthy church but um you know Paul
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we've looked at this when we did the Pauline studies Paul kind of defines a healthy Church in Ephesians 4. it's being built up within itself in
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love by what each member provides okay so we I don't think we really have to add to that but we have to be careful that in looking at a healthy Church two things I
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think um first that we don't make it so top-heavy that by checking off the boxes we can say we've got a healthy church but in order to not do that I think we have to
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recognize what an unhealthy Church is James helps us there okay something was wrong in the midst of the 12 tribes in the diaspora the Jewish
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Christians to whom he's writing Uh something's not going right and um and um it seems quite obvious as as these verses follow on what he says at the end
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of chapter three um you know he says who among you is wise and understanding let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom that's verse 13 of chapter three but if
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you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition ambition in your heart do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth this wisdom is not that which comes down from above but is earthy Earthly natural
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demonic so it ties in for where they're where jealousy and selfish ambition exists there is disorder in every evil thing he picks that back up again in chapter four what is the source of
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quarrels and conflicts among you among you and he says you know he's not this is not rhetorical it doesn't seem rhetorical I should say
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and when he goes on in the beginning of chapter five chapter five and really I mean it's almost snowballing the intensity of what he has to say is getting more and more it's increasing
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the volume is going up so that when he gets to chapter five he says come now you rich weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you your riches have rotted and your
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garments have become moth eaten so you know we are escalating and so I don't think this is just rhetorical you know but I do think it is
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a template that we can overlay on any congregation and and say okay are not so much are we a healthy Church but are we an unhealthy one
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yes um but that's not that's not the only problem that many churches have uh and and I would venture to say it's not even the main problem okay uh if if
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you look at for example the letters that Paul wrote to Corinth most of the problems were among the congregation he doesn't even address the leadership okay so uh yes bad leadership you're not
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going to have a healthy Church granted but I think the reform tradition puts too much emphasis on good leadership producing a healthy Church
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good leadership is necessary but not sufficient is that a fair way of putting it if you don't have it you're gonna have a hard time
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okay if you do have it that doesn't mean you're not going to have a hard time you can still have major problems within the congregation
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oftentimes the leadership are going to be part of that sadly because they are part of the congregation but if you again if you read Corinthians it wasn't really a problem of leadership
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it was a problem among the congregation
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church or is it unhealthy because they are not responding to the apostolic rebuke in a way in other words if they're responding rightly and growing and repenting that to me reality yeah and that's actually where we're headed
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tonight because tonight because um we're all still dwelling in bodies with residual sin none of us have attained you know
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obtained or attained perfection so when you read a passage like this I think it is important that we not go
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overboard and envision a healthy church as one that is in perfect harmony without any disagreements it's not so much that we have sin and or disagreement it's it's more
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how we deal with it that's again a problem with Corinth not so much that they had these problems is that they either were dealing with them incorrectly or not at all depending on the issue
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I don't think the apostolic testimony in the New Testament demands Perfection of us it didn't demand Perfection of itself but confession
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but confession first John you know bearing one another's burdens rebuking one another reproving one another encouraging one another that's all in there so there's a dynamic I don't think there's any status or status I should
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say or stasis where you're you've arrived let's Freeze Frame it because we're there no it doesn't work that way um and I think that's a very important
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point because when you read something like James and Lord willing when we come back together in two weeks we'll talk about what James has to say about or what hopefully scripture has to say about anger
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about anger because he talks about it and of course Paul talks about it in Ephesians and you know I've said this before but
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um Christianity in in the early centuries absorbed the philosophy of stoicism and that kind of stuck like a limpet mind to the side of Christianity
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and it has stayed there ever since now in stoicism all emotion was to be normalized no excessive Joy No excessive
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sorrow grief anger all emotions are supposed to be modulated okay and um Christianity has adopted that so for
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example Christians are supposed to be patient Christians are supposed to never lose their temper Christian you know there's there's these ideas that Christians are
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um almost people without emotion and that's not Christianity that's stoicism which was not Christian okay so when we read these passages you know
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think that we may think um you know all anger is sin not it can't be because the perfect man got
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angry okay so obviously there must be some anger be angry and do not well that's what we're going to hopefully be in two weeks that's Paul he's quoting Psalm 4 and
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we've got to kind of wrestle with that because it's not an easy passage to understand but the the point being that we're going to look at these words in in James chapter 4 and see that they are
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very harsh and they sound like the place was just complete chaos almost an armed camp and and I I don't know that that is the
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right interpretation considering other things that James says in his letter which are very Pacific very ironic very comforting and I don't think that there
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were if if in fact there were actual homicides you know that he would worry about you know the sick calling on the elders and having them Anointed with you know you
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got people murdering each other so um you know but are we talking about Minor disagreements Minor disagreements you know are we talking about doctrinal disputes you know what is it that that is going
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on and and we cannot um perfectly piece back together we don't really even know to whom this letter was written there's
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no address except the 12 tribes of the diaspora we piece together we think that it may be Jewish believers who had scattered from Jerusalem during The Chronic persecution by the Jews in the
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earliest decades earliest decades and that James staying in Jerusalem was still in a sense pastoring these scattered Jewish Believers but we don't have we don't know where they were we
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don't know if they were in Antioch or uh you know we don't know where Damascus we don't know where they were and so we don't have a we can't really say what was going on but the languages is very
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extreme and I want to point out um a comment that a British commentator Alec butcher makes
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which I think is not only pertinent to the style of writing that James is employing but even more so to the to the Paradigm through which we in the 21st
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century hear these words now moisture was a was a cold world war human okay he lived he was a young man
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during World War II and so he lived most of his adult life during the Cold War he would have seen the end of the Cold War but his commentary was written before that
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sometime in the 1980s and so he he writes we are in fact of all generations least capable of feeling a sense of personal and moral outrage at the
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vocabulary of War he's pointing out that
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era were faced with such complete such complete potential Annihilation through nuclear
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weapons that we became inured and desensitized to the language of conventional War almost to the point of speaking of it in in um almost Petty terms
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okay at least it didn't go nuclear you know we we diminished and that's what moisture is pointing out is we diminished the language of War because now we have a A specter
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that dwarfs any concept of warfare that the human race has known through almost its entire history we've
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now basically what could be done
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okay you're looking at our culture and then we have the War on Drugs the war on poverty and none of those were actually more yes more yes the war yeah War has is I think he would
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say it has become the language of War has become politicized and trivialized and he says that we're we're of all generations most susceptible to that because then he's talking about his
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generation of course but you know our generation as I'm I'm a baby boomer late baby boomer baby boomer um but our generation
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you know you know conventional Wars just weren't worth the news you know as long as we weren't dropping
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a-bombs um so uh his point being that when James uses these words we have to recognize that
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we're not really conditioned anymore to understand them and to understand the intensity that James is trying to
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convey by using language of warfare or language of murder of murder and even murder the The Daily News kind of Rob has robbed homicide of its
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um what's the word it's offensive impact shock shock value we get it's almost when you live in the cities it's almost like a daily body
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count from Vietnam War you know how many murders were there today now the town I grew up in Dillsburg Pennsylvania Dillsburg Pennsylvania was still quite sensitive if anybody got
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murdered that just stuff didn't happen we didn't even lock our doors he wrote uh he writes in his in his commentary sadly the world around us has hardened
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our senses even in respect of War the prospect of a real war is that in quotes between so-called superpowers has diminished our awareness of the small but heartbreaking conflicts which
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constitute The Unfinished story of many parts of the world the devastation and loss of life on the horrendous scale of nuclear war make us less than realistic
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about the thousands of deaths caused equally indiscriminately by what we comfortably describe to ourselves as Conventional Weapons
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okay I think one of the things that helps personally to avoid a deep sensitization desensitization of our thinking is to
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read history read history and even the history of warfare so that we can be constantly reminded of man's capacity of wreaking havoc upon
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mankind um so you know I don't think it's a it's not inevitable that we should become desensitized to this language but I think what mocher is pointing out and I think it's valid we've talked about this
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before there are there are a number of contextual settings of of biblical writings that are no longer our context so for
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example monarchy example monarchy the kingdom the kingdom what do we know about Kingdom in the United States United States that's not a paradigm of thought it's
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not part of our epistemology we're not not subject to Kings and and so that's just that's just one but there you know there are a number um agriculture such a common metaphor
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and parable and parable and yet the vast majority of Western world today world today have nothing to do with agriculture except at meals
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you know so what we're talking about is really just okay let's read this and then let's really read it what he's
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saying here is is quite powerful in verse 1 verse 1 um he says that the source of your um the quarrels and conflicts among you
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is not the source your pleasures the word is hedonoi it's the word that we get hedonism
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from okay which we we know is is kind of a an obsession with pleasure whether it be fine dining fine wine or
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or just um you know excess of of luxury and pleasure and and so he doesn't use the word envies or jealousies he uses the word
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Pleasures now that again would have been a word that would have resonated in that time because of Greek philosophy um and and so we find it actually in in
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Plato a very I found this to be an interesting quote from Plato's
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see if I can find it he says he says and the body fills us with passions and desires and fears and all sorts of fancies and foolishness so that as they
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say it really and truly makes it impossible for us to think at all the body and its desires are the only cause of wars and factions and battles for all
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wars arise for the sake of gaining money and we are compelled to gain money that's Plato that's Plato James is not copying Plato Plato would
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have said that the body is corrupting the spirit Plato was a dualist his philosophy has nothing to do with Christianity but I think it's interesting that even in the ancient philosophies there was a recognition
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that that there is a connection between passions Envy desire and Wars murders fightings
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and remember last week we talked about how the language of the two ways wisdom is often extreme okay most people when they Envy do not
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actually kill anybody right physically commit homicide and so the two ways type of wisdom
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presents the path and where that path leads and so our passions they might actually
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be legitimate in and of themselves if controlled if controlled if moderated if moderated and if not allowed to impinge upon
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anyone's anyone else's sanctity or being right he's not saying that we're passionless creatures or that passions themselves are the
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problem it's your passions that wage war within your members that's also again verse one members and that word
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um you know leads to okay what is he talking about because members is used in in two different ways in the New Testament members are is sometimes used of our
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internal you know when Paul in Romans 7 says I see a law at work in my members working against the law of God that's that's in my that's my mind my heart
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my my passions in the in the ancient world would be my my bowels my spleen you know the different parts of the body that were often um kind of circumlocutions for
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particular desires or emotions that's my members but also we know that that we are a single body with many members in Corinthians Paul talks about the
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members as being individual Believers within the body of Christ so when you read a word like that in James 4 you need to ask the question what is he talking about is he saying
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that what's going on is is inside the believer or among the Believers
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or both does it have to be either or or maybe the passions or the the warrings and the fightings that are going on among your members
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is because of the passions that are at work and at War within your members because where does Envy begin
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Envy's not an external it's internal right the fact that someone else has something does not cause your Envy
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right is that fair
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so Envy is an internal that's what he says in chapter one that's what starts that's what makes temptation or not makes temptation but transforms Temptation into sin
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is your Envy so James is approaching it in both ways which I think is you know incredibly balanced the root cause as we talked about last week the root cause of
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all the trouble is inside each one of us not it's not the other person's fault it's not the world that's causing us to
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stumble it's not my brother who's causing me to stumble it's not the rich man who's causing the poor man to envy it's the poor man who's envying and if
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he's envying the rich man what he's actually doing actually doing is rebelling against God's Providence
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who made one man rich and not the other so this is the root of it it's not one man to another it's really one man before God
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before God which is why he says we looked at it back in in chapter one this is why he says um let the brother of humble circumstances glory in his high position
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let the rich man glory in his humiliation and so in other words the true wisdom would say don't compare yourself with yourselves
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and actually the scripture says when you do that you lack wisdom you know don't analyze your socioeconomic status socioeconomic status in comparison with someone else's
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rather compare it with your status with God and so for the poor man he can exalt in the fact that he has all the riches in
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the heavenlies in Christ and the rich man can recognize that doesn't matter it's not going with me but I have been humbled in Christ
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and I no longer live but Christ in me so the the perspective that James is bringing us is yeah all of these Dynamics are real and we Face them every day of our lives
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in the world but they don't dictate our response
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yeah I'm not a big fan of testimonies I never have been because I think they they can lead to Pride uh they can lead to false security they can also lead to despair
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in others who don't have that experience or didn't have that dramatic Damascus Road experience that can lead to people doubting their salvation and I don't I
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just don't see that they actually constitute a preaching of the Gospel they're not because God doesn't work the same way in everyone and and yes the the idea of of
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testimonies can lead to Envy but again the if it does The Fault is not the person giving the testimony the fault is
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yours you know even if the person is giving the testimony is seeped in self-righteous Pride that's his problem not yours not yours okay and I think that's how James is
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approaching all of this when you are countering various trials the whole situation is still within you and by the grace of the Holy Spirit within your power to control Abe
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that's the reason it's a problem yes yes it is we're not talking I do not think he's talking here to unbelievers and we talked about the identity of the rich and and I I still think
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that even if the rich are in fact unbelievers they are in the midst of the congregation as professing believers
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okay so this is still within the context of the professing church and and Paul James is not concerned with what's going on outside um and that's the problem yeah and and
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so there's a great deal of of disharmony here uh and the language that he uses I think is is not in is not intended to be taken
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literally but rather again looking at the type of two paths wisdom he's saying you start down this path this is where this path leads
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it may not lead all the way to murder in your case your case but it will lead to hatred
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bitterness and that's basically the same thing now we have examples in scripture and I'm not going to go into great detail because you can you remember them but we of course we have Cain and Abel
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where God actually told Cain to take care that sin was lurking at his heart and he needed to rule over
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it that he was in a very dangerous place now the text does not say that he envied his brother Abel but I think we can infer that
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his brother's offering found favor with God and His did not so the circumstances are one brother is getting something and the other doesn't
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have it and he's upset about that which essentially is a lot of words to Define envy right so again the words not being used
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but I think the circumstances say okay this is this is this was at War within Cain and because he didn't control it it became war between Cain and Abel
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and it led to murder another example is Ahab and they both and the circumstances there when you read the story it's like well this seems
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perfectly reasonable perfectly reasonable ahab's willing to pay nabalt for his Vineyard which is right outside the palace and so convenient for Ahab and he
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says I'll give you other Vineyards I'll pay you I'll give you Vineyards just give me this one and neighborhood says no this is part of my heritage
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my heritage you see in underlying this is that neighborhood is a righteous man and he will not move the ancient boundary markers boundary markers for money for Prestige even for the king
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okay but you read it it's like Ahab Ahab is an interesting character um he's almost pitiful he really he tries he just can't do it
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and of course he brings Jezebel into his life and that doesn't help matters but that's Jezebel not you know that's that's part of the problem but and it's actually Jezebel who comes in and says
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why are you so sad ahab's not going to do anything about it until his wife comes in and says you know don't let your face be cast out
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kill him no actually she does that she takes care of that she has him killed they both and then Ahab goes and takes the the property but the
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fundamental thing was for apab was he wanted that Vineyard and he was being petulant about it and that's why Jezebel came in and took care of things but the reason this was so
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horrible is that you were not to move the boundary markers of your ancestors and Nebo wouldn't do it but Ahab went in and took it that's
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there's the sin but what was it it was Envy I want this he was rejected and he started down that path it ended in Murder
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so the the Jewish understanding sometimes seems simplistic to us because the language of war and of murder again we've become somewhat
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desensitized to it but also we're not willing to think in biblical terms Jesus says you have heard it said Thou
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shalt not murder but I say to you if you hate a man you are guilty of murder we don't think that way that way we think that we can entertain
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bitterness hatred Envy jealousy in our minds in our hearts and that not lead to murder I'm not going to kill him
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no you're going to hate him you're going to curse him James is going to deal with that you know how can you say I love God and curse your brother okay so you're going to do everything
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but actually pull the trigger and essentially you will have been committing murder committing murder you just will not consummate it
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consummate it that does not acquit us Stephen yeah yeah the Stephen was murdered
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um Paul breathing threats and murder went after the disciples in Damascus and and this notion of violence I mean I I do believe James is intending it
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metaphorical but but I mean by that that I don't believe he was addressing particular specific homicide
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violence in the churches in the church the famous First Council of Ephesus in 431. um different groups showed up at different times
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different times and they wouldn't let each other in at one point a one group of Bishops got roughed up out outside you know like a rumble there was violence there have
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been murders in the church I don't know if Mark you remember this but a number of years ago there was a report about a church in Greenville that
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was just being torn apart by Strife within and the article actually talked about how um the men restrained
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the pastor while the deacons seized the offering like what an image okay what an image you know the the pastor is being
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restrained while the Deacon sees the offering that's gay that's that's the violence that can occur with these passions being let
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go out of control possible I mean I know you're gone completely metaphorically but if we look at chapter five and verse 6 is it possible that it has gone online I I
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think it you know the reason I don't think it crossed the line is because I think the tenor of that letter would be overall completely different if it had actually crossed the line into physical murder uh it would have been
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you know more like First Corinthians First Corinthians where the sins in the in Corinth they're not murder but fornication and adultery
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uh and and the language is is quite
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I think by the time we get to chapter five we talked about this last week in chapter one because in chapter one he introduces the poor and the rich as one of those couplets that is is woven through the whole
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letter and in chapter one it's hard to tell whether the rich or Believers or not Believers it gets worse as you go okay by the time you get to chapter five
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and even chapter two where he says these are those who blaspheme the fair name of the one who called you that doesn't sound good by the time you get to chapter five he's sending them to Hell
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he's like Peter to Simon Mages your silver and your gold perish with you I mean these words can these are not words of Brotherly rebuke
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I think he's lumping them in the class of those who have done this uh the rich as a class are the oppressors I know Marx would love it you know and and Lennon would love but the rich as a
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class in that Society but you read that also in the prophets now not every rich man has killed a worker but as a class they stand guilty
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because they're not policing one another that's the prophetic word you know you fleece the flock rather than feed it the wages of your workers cry out against
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you their blood cries out from the ground the language is of murder but the context is of economic oppression primarily
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oppression primarily and yet yes some of them actually killed their servants their wage their wage workers whatever so I think in chapter five the the rich are being dealt with
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in a in a class rather than specifically now again it may be um there's no way of saying that that didn't happen
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didn't happen but I don't want to try to create a situation that would then uh what's the word
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mitigate the intensity of what he's saying to everybody you know he's distracted oh no that's fine that's fine because it's all kind of a part you can't really you can't really get me distracted in James because James is
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such an interwoven tapestry of themes I mean we could we could go off on talking about the tongue because that just is there and it's here and it's
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everywhere um when we come back together the passage we're going to be looking at seems to deal primarily with the tongue but what I want to bring out of that is not the tongue yet but anger
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and the place of anger and the danger of anger within the the congregation so um moving on in the passage
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and I mentioned this last week but I want to touch on it again in verse two he says you lust and do not have so you commit murder commit murder well Erasmus famously
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changed the word for murder to envy to envy the word in the Greek for murder is
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the word for Envy is the th after the pH very similar and so he changed it to envy
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and he re the problem is of course that the Greek manuscripts have no punctuation and so when we read a sentence we don't
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necessarily know where to put comma semicolons or periods and this is one of those Erasmus put it this way you desire and do not have semicolon
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you envy and covet and cannot obtain semicolon so you fight in wage war
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the problem with what he's doing here and we have had many opportunities to talk about textual variants in our
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when are we authorized to modify the text of the Bible that we have in front of us of us and no I wouldn't say never I wouldn't say never
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pardon me well first of all yeah the whole Council but there's there is actually a first step and that first step is textual variance we don't have 100 consistent manuscripts
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we all accept that okay that's a reality of History okay you can you can wish that we had and wonder why we don't but the reality
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is we don't we have textual variants and whenever there are textual variants then we have to determine now your who
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whatever version of the Bible you have that's exactly what they've already done they've done it for you but they might have done it wrong
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and you'll see brackets right and little notes in the margin saying in the best or the oldest or whatever they're making judgments on the different manuscripts and there's a whole methodology
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but the point being is that if you don't have a textual variant you don't have a basis to change the text that's kind of the first step now beyond that the whole Council of scripture
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comes into play certainly any passage that has a variant that contradicts any other teaching is going to be very suspect you know that's the process
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the process but you don't even start it if every manuscript has it the same way right and here in James 4 verse 2 all the manuscripts we have have it the same way
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so why did Erasmus who was no dummy why did he do it well over in First Peter chapter 2 verse
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1 the opposite flip has been made the most common word is flonet which is envy but in some of the manuscript it's funet
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which is murder so over here in First Peter chapter 2 there are textual variants okay so on the basis of that Erasmus came over here to James chapter 4 and
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said I'm going to introduce the textual variant none of his manuscripts supported that and none of the manuscripts that have been discovered since him have given any support but Luther supported it and Calvin
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supported it and on the weight of their testimony it has proceeded into the modern realm in commentaries so I bring this up simply because you may encounter it
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and and I want to point out that there's no basis for that change nor is there any need for it because Erasmus was trying to smooth out James's
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writing but what he ended up with is what I call a rolling redundancy he says the same thing but the next time he says a little bit more elaborately but he's still saying
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the same thing and I I don't think rolling redundancy is a part of Hebrew parallelism I hate to you know you got to be careful disagreeing with Erasmus
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but I think the actual way it should be and many of our English Bibles do render it this way you desire and do not have
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so you murder you covet and cannot obtain so you fight and wage war
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I think it is the correct it first of all it takes the word murder as it is in the text okay secondly it
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that Envy leads to violence it's a parallelism not a rolling redundancy about covetousness and envy James is saying okay he says you desire
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and do not have
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well that's basically a definition of envy isn't it so you murder
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then he says you can't you covet and cannot obtain well doesn't that look at the parallelism you desire and do not have you covet and cannot obtain okay so the parallelism
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the parallelism is much
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so you fight in wage war okay a little bit expanded on that last stanza but that is not uncommon
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that's parallelism okay and it has the beauty of no reason to change that word yeah it works better leaving it the way all our manuscripts have it okay so
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um but it also shows us this is this is this is not the problem if we were to interpret him literally obviously this would be a big problem
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I mean not only are they murdering they're throwing hymnals at each other you know they're fighting they're no this is the problem your covetousness your Envy
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your passions that you said in verse one your desires that are unfulfilled and you're trying to fulfill them yourself by your own machinations by your own
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intrigues which are essentially on the path to murder the only thing that will stop murder is if you get what you want before it goes that far
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and that's you know so the problem isn't that this is what was going on the problem is this is going on
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it is yeah it's parallelism he's saying this these are desire covet yeah these are the same things so are these it's parallelism he's not introducing any new thought with this second stanza
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okay that's Hebrew parallelism it's it's Progressive in the sense that he goes a little bit further okay a couple words here instead of one it's it's poet it's prophetic
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he's speaking as a prophet and prophetic parallelism is something we read commonly in the Old Testament but also more frequently than we realize in the New Testament
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so um you know I don't agree with Erasmus on this I think he's um he's wrong
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this is the two ways you'll either as he said as he's going to say a little bit later in the chapter you'll either submit yourself to God or you'll covet and not obtain
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desire and not have that's a choice that's a two paths two-way wisdom
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and we're presented with it constantly we're constantly presented in this life with someone else who has something we would like to have but don't
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right and I mean the list is endless in terms of physical attributes mental attributes economic status material possessions
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cars yeah set of golf clubs what you know whatever every almost every waking moment and we may dream covetousness I don't know I
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don't remember my dreams but um it wouldn't surprise me if we covet in our dreams we coveted we coveted the knowledge of God
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right that's how it all started is we saw that it was good good for food and good to make us wise we coveted what God desired for us to
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have but not that way and and our almost the entire history of sin has been born out of covetousness Plato recognized that
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he says every war has begun With Envy okay now I don't know if that if that absolute statement is uh is is Justified
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but it's it's not unjustified it's not it's not excessive um at every every struggle now we're going to modify that Lord willing when
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we talk about anger we have the example of both God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ the God man
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exhibiting anger that was by no means covetous was not rooted in Envy but rather in righteousness
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so this is our problem as Fallen Sons and Daughters of Adam of Adam but as but as redeemed Sons and Daughters of God
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this is the battlefield of the Flesh and the spirit that Paul speaks of in Galatians so and that's where we read in Galatians 5 verse 17 that if you bite and devour
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one another take care lest you consume one another that's right in the context of Walking In step with the spirit and the Deeds of the Flesh and the fruit of the spirit that's all right there and
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that's all one section and so this is where the rubber meets the road as it were in terms of each one of us walking
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with the spirit and walking with the spirit you know if you if you listen to preachers talk about walking with the spirit you know they're always talking
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about some powerful act or Miracle or something like that um actually I think walking with the spirit is submitting to the Providence of God in every circumstance of your life
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that's hard enough seeing something that someone else has and you don't have and and actually rejoicing for them and
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not feeling sorry for yourself that's hard to do okay I mean I think what I started out by saying that we we tend to focus on the marks of a healthy church I wonder if we
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shouldn't think more about the marks of an unhealthy Church we think about all the things that we can do for God maybe we should think more about what we shouldn't do
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that would bring shame to God not doing some mighty deed in the spirit but submitting but submitting and being at peace with what God has chosen as our lot
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so I think that's where James is heading in all of this he's not um he's certainly not encouraging the poor to become rich I don't think he's advocating that the rich give up all their wealth
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at least that would be somewhat incongruous with what the rest of scripture teaches scripture teaches and so
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okay this is what's going on in your hearts we're not starting with murder and fighting and Waging War these are the products of covetousness
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and passion and passion unfulfilled desires and envy and so where are we to take these things well in chapter one he said If any man
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asks wisdom let him ask of God in chapter 3 when he talks about a very similar thing similar thing verses 14 and 15 16 that I've already
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read I'll reread verse 16 to set the context again for where jealousy and selfish ambition exists there is disorder in every evil thing now that I think proves
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what I'm trying to say here where jealousy exists jealousy exists every evil thing will result this is the source this is the problem
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right but he goes right back to to what he said in chapter 1 verse 5 he says but the wisdom from above is first pure than Peaceable gentle
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reasonable full of mercy and good fruits unwavering and without hypocrisy and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in Peace by those who make peace
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successfully accomplish very often very often we're presented with these opportunities all the time
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how often do we respond this way rather than
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in the same vein that he was back in chapter one chapter one when he says consider it all joy when you encounter various trials and the reader's first response is how am I supposed to do that
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you know this isn't Fun you know this is this is difficult this is miserable he says if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God
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he says in chapter 3 who among you is wise and understanding but if verse 14 you have bitter jealousy blah blah blah what does he say
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the wisdom from above is pure and Peaceable okay so his response is in the midst of these
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trials ask God well that's what he says in verse 3.