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Plainly Speaking
with Karl J. Forehand
The
War with God
(James 4:6-10)
by
Karl J. Forehand
But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says,
"God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil
and he will flee from you. Draw near
to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and
purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into
mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt
you. (James 4:6-10)
Several time, James describes the war
with others. Last week, we
discussed the war within. This
passage moves to another problem – perhaps the root of the other problems – the
war with God. The common
denominator of all wars is ultimately the battle with sin. But why do we battle with sin.
It is foundational to remember that the
battle with sin has already been won!
II Corinthians 2:14 likens our situation to the Via Triumphalis, the
procession after a victory. It says
that we are “continually” being led in the victory parade. Why?
Because, Jesus already won the battle.
Satan has been
defeated (Romans 1:18)
Satan has been destroyed (Hebrews
2:14)
Satan has been disarmed
(Colossians (2:15)
Satan has been doomed (Revelation
20:10)
The only weapon he has left is deception. His only power over us is what we give
him. In verse 5, of this chapter, it
tells us that God jealously desires our spirit – that relationship with the
inner man. Verse 6 tells us that,
because we sin, God gives grace that is greater than our sin. The battle is over, the victory has been
one, and the battle with sin is ultimately a battle with God that we
shouldn’t even be fighting. How do we
eliminate the war with God.
Eliminating
the War with God
1. Submit to God (7)
Submission means
to “come up under rank.” If you are
not a believer, you need to join the team.
If you are, then you need to submit to God. Are you submitted to God as the leader (Lord) of your life? Are you submitted to His plans for your
life? One way we submit to God is to
“resist the Devil.” How do we do
that? By praising the Lord.
Satan cannot endure the praise of
God. He literally has no power over
you when you are submitted. Jesus
told us that we cannot have two masters.
If we submit to God, Satan can’t have master over us. Satan can’t make you serve Him unless you
face Him. Resisting him is turning
your back on him and facing God.
Remember when Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan?” We have to make up our mind who is the
master of our life. We don’t have to
whip Satan – we simply have to turn away from him.
The question is this: Who is Jesus to you? As long as He is less than Lord, Satan
will buffet you. You will continue to
have a war within. You will war with
others and be at odds with God. Jesus
left us with no other viable option:
either He is Lord of all or not at all! He is not just “The Lord,” He has to be “My Lord.” He is not just lord of the church, he has
to be Lord of my life. He is not just
lord of Sunday morning, He has to be Lord of Saturday night.
I love the song, “I Surrender All.” I encourage you to pull our your old
hymnal and read through the words of this old song.
2. Draw Near to God (7-8)
The functions of the
Old Testament priest was to draw near to God for all the people. The book of Hebrews tells us that we are a
“kingdom” of priests. We have
permission to draw near to God. What
does that involve. It means
“cleansing” our hands of our sins, like the priests did symbolically with the
laver of bronze. We need daily
cleansing of sin as we draw near to God.
We also have to purify our hearts. Why?
Because we are “double-minded.”
We try to live in both worlds – God’s kingdom and the kingdom of this
world. The outwards sins of our hands
relate to the inner sins of the heart.
To draw near to God takes a single focus – a pure heart.
The promise of drawing near to God, from
Scripture, is that He will also draw near to us. It tells us if we will seek Him, we will find Him, if we seek
Him with all our heart. We find Him
because He is very near.
3. Humble yourself before God (9-10)
We are often amused by sin. Sometimes, we are careless with our
sin. Eventually, we get callous about
our sin. God has none of those
attitudes. God hates our sin. We have to avoid the temptation to gloss
over, hide or excuse our sin. We have
to deal with it. Dealing with it is
not necessarily going to be joyous – it may be more like a funeral.
We are battling with sin, and therefore
with God, when we don’t have to. It
has already been defeated. Why? Because we rely on ourselves. We must learn to submit to God – draw near
to Him – and start humbling ourselves.
Karl
J. Forehand, 2002
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