Somebody Loves You

Guest (Male): Walking in close fellowship with God now means walking in my brokenness before the Lord. Lord, who am I? You are everything, Lord God. I am ashamed. I am so sorry that I did all these things, Lord. It was dumb, it was stupid, and look what I've done, Lord God. I broke your heart. Sin breaks the heart of God. So here, James wants us to understand that.

Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. It is good to have you along with us today. Continuing our series in the book of James, Raul will urge you to spend daily time in the word and in prayer, establishing the Lord as the anchor of your life.

We'll see how communion with God will positively influence your interactions with others. You'll also be better equipped to resist temptation and honor the Lord with holiness. Let's listen as Raul Ries begins in the book of James.

Raul Ries: It's amazing that in chapter 4 he continues from chapter 3 talking about wars and fights that come from among you. People not getting along with each other. James says is pretty authentic. He says, "Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and you do not have; you murder and you covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. And you ask and do not receive because you're asking amiss that you may spend it on your own pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world, he makes himself an enemy of God."

When I read that last week and we were talking about this, we can be not only believers in Jesus Christ, but think of how many believers in Christ Jesus, after coming out of the world, we become so secluded by the church that we forget who really is in the world. Those people that need to be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why we do crusades.

We can't just stay within the four walls of this church. We have to go out to the world as Jude said, and sometimes we have to pluck people out of the fire before they get into the fire. Because the world has no idea what's happening. And yet when we came to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior through the power of the Holy Spirit saving us and making us new creatures in Christ Jesus, our eyes, our ears, our minds, and our hearts were changed, transformed.

Where now we see differently, we hear things differently. We pick up on things that we never did before. Our heart used to be wicked and desperately wicked. Who could know it? I the Lord know that. And then God gives us a new heart and a new spirit within us.

And then what blows me away is the compassion that Jude talks about. That we need to have compassion for those that are in the world. We know we're not of the world anymore, but we have to buy, we have to live, we have to work, we have to be in the world. But we don't have to be contaminated by the world any longer. Because as he's talking about how God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble, now in verses 7 through 12, he now says, "Therefore, submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you."

Immediately James begins to mention the further secret of spiritual victory as a child of God. Preachers often quote the second sentence in the verse, "Resist the devil and he'll flee from you," but that's not true. Satan is not the least bit afraid of any one of us here. He's not afraid of me and he's not afraid of you. I don't care what you know. He's not afraid. He is our enemy.

And what's interesting is that he is more clever than we really think he is. He's a pretty smart fallen angel of God. He knows what's up and he is much stronger than we are. He has the power above and beyond that we possess. And this is why the Holy Spirit says resist the devil and he will flee from you. But when we submit ourselves unto God, then that leaves the devil face to face with God, not with us.

It's very important that we understand that the enemy hates you and hates me. He hated Jesus. And he came and he tempted him three times. And when he came to Jesus and said, "Are you hungry, Jesus? Since you are the Son of God." In the Greek, it is not the word "since," it's literally the word "because you are God." He knew he was God because the word is used, "Because you are God, I know you are God. You can turn those stones into bread and you can eat. You can do that, you can do a miracle." But what did Jesus do? He came back with the word of God and rebuked the devil.

So it's really of importance that we understand that he's going to tempt you with alcohol, he's going to tempt you with drugs, he's going to tempt you with women, he's going to tempt you with power and money and all these things. Because his goal is to find a weakness in your life and to cripple you and eventually to kill you. He doesn't play fair.

If you think the devil's your friend, you are wrong. He's not your friend, he's your enemy. And he hates you because you came to Jesus Christ. And he's going to use everything you ever did in the world to try to embarrass you. And he's going to get you in your greatest weaknesses.

If women is your weakness, then he's going to try you with women. If it's money, it's going to be money. If it's power, it's power. Whatever it is, alcohol, drugs, whatever. And that's where you're going to have to make a stand and be strong. Why? Because eventually when you stand in obedience to God and you rebuke the devil, he will flee from you. He will go away, but he'll come again stronger. And that's why you have to know God's word and you have to know what God's word says.

This is one of the reasons here James begins to talk about submitting. He says, "Therefore submit to God." Now this is a real problem. Why? Because the word to submit here is also used in the book of Ephesians for husband and wife. It's a military term. In Ephesians, it's *hupotasso*. It means to be under, under authority, under orders.

And what's really cool is that here what he's talking about, he's talking concerning that if a person is not in submission to God, then you're a candidate to Satan coming and getting a hold of you and destroying you. Submission has to be there, which means it's not my will but thy will be done, O God.

Notice that it says specific here, submitting to God. Number one, there is submission of the creation of Jesus based on some of the scriptures like Psalm 8 verse 7, First Corinthians 15:27-28, Ephesians 1:22, Hebrews 2:8. Secondly, there is submission of Christians to one another. That's another area of ministry where a lot of times the pride gets into us and we don't like to submit to one another.

And the Bible says if we truly love God, we're in submission to God, and because we are submitted to God, we need to be submitted to one another in the love and the fear of God. That's what the scripture teaches. Submitting.

And then thirdly, there is submission as young men to the elders of the church. Why? Because they care for your souls. There is wisdom in the elderly that are godly. And how about this one? Husband and wives submitting to one another in the fear of God. Ephesians chapter 5 talks about this.

One of the things that happens in a marriage is when a person, one or the other, are not in submission to God, then they will not be in submission to one another. And there are many, many problems in that marriage. The marriage will fall apart, it will not last.

It's not until both people submit themselves to God. Because remember, there are only two commandments that God gave to us in the book of Ephesians for husband and wives. Two commandments, two rules. To the wife, submit yourself to your husband and to the husband, love your wife. That's it.

The wife will never ever submit to her husband unless the husband is loving and caring for his wife as his wife is the picture of the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Read Ephesians chapter 5. Real important. Because James here is bringing that great invitation to the child of God.

If you really want to have victory as a child of God, submit to God, resist the devil, and then he will flee from you. He will run away. He will go away. But remember when Jesus was 40 days, 40 nights and the devil was there in the wilderness, what did he do? He tempted him and once he finished tempting him, it says the devil left him but he would come again. He came back again stronger, but you'll be stronger too. Because you're going to be in prayer, you're going to be in the word of God, you're going to be seeking God.

The problem is when a child of God begins to backslide. Just like you're on a boat and you don't put the anchor down and you're out in the ocean and you go downstairs to go to sleep and then you come up to the deck next morning, you think you're going to be in the same place? No way. The tide took you out. That's what happens to backsliders. They lose focus where they were and they never anchor down on the word of God.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. It's our joy to help you walk more closely in step with God as you grow in your knowledge of his word. Visit somebodylovesyou.com for Bible-based resources. You can also download our free app for convenient access to various studies of God's word. Now back to more with Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: The word of God will keep you from sin. If you're not reading the Bible, studying the Bible, you're not praying, you're not fellowshiping, then you have no power, you have no resistance to the evil. You're going to get beat up. But you see when you're in the word and when you're in prayer and you're in fellowship and you want to be obedient to God and you want to go to the next level where God wants to take you, what is he going to do?

Yes, you're going to be tempted but you're going to pass the test. And when you pass the test, guess what? You move up a little. God will begin to use you even more. And if you do fail the test, I want you to understand this. That if you fail the test, I don't care what you do, you got to retake the test until you pass it.

But think about not passing that test, the miserableness, the condemnation and no victory in your life, but always defeat. That's not good. You want to have victory and that's only in Jesus Christ as I submit and I obey what God's word says. That's the only way that I can do that. And that's why here James says, "Therefore submit to God in obedience and then what? Resist the devil and he will run away from you. He'll leave. He'll leave for a short season but he'll come again."

And then I love the next verse. Look at verse 8. "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." Oh, I love that. You believe that? If I draw near to God, God will draw near to me. By faith I come to Jesus Christ. This to me is amazing that here in the word of God he's telling us how do we really draw to God? How do we do that?

Well, we draw to God by confessing our sins and asking him to cleanse me and wash me and I begin to love him and to serve him. That's how simple it is. First John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us for all our sins." It's a done deal. "Behold I stand at the door and knock and if any man open the door to their hearts, I'll come in and sup with you and you with me." Imagine that. This is what God says in his word.

And then he says this that's really important. He says, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands." Dirty hands, you sinners, "and purify your hearts, you double-minded." Isn't that interesting? He mentions the problem, the problem's with the heart. The heart's double-minded.

Remember what he says in Psalm 1? This is a very interesting Psalm. I love Psalm 1. The first Psalm that God gives us here by David, he says, "Oh how happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful." In verse 1, notice a walking, standing, and sitting. The progression of the righteous man.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, in his law he meditates day and night, and then if he does that, what? "He shall be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither and whatever he does shall prosper. But the ungodly are not so, they're like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly shall perish." How does God separate wheat from the chaff? Have you ever seen it? I'm not a farmer but I've been to Israel too many times.

They'll take this fork and in Vietnam they did the same thing. They take the fork, the wheat, and they throw it up into the air. And there goes the wheat. And the true wheat falls to the ground and the chaff blows away. He's talking about a real Christian and a phony person that is not a Christian in Psalm 1.

"Oh how happy is the man," he says, "who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the presence of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, in the word of God." Why? Because there's instruction and wisdom here and knowledge for us to learn what God wants us to do.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Who takes the first step? He does? No, you do. I do. You got to draw near to God and then he'll come to you. He's there. He's omnipresent. He's there all the time for you and for me.

Then he says, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify." The word here to purify literally means to chase. This is kind of like a parallel with spiritual adultery. Notice purify your hearts, you double-minded people. Because you can't have a double heart, you have to have a single heart. That's why God says he gives us a new heart when we come to Jesus Christ.

In Jeremiah 17:9 it says what? "The heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. Who could know it? I the Lord know your hearts." I know what's in your heart. It's not good. And being double-minded is like you want to be with God but the world's over here.

Kind of like Sodom and Gomorrah with Lot. He wanted to love God but he was sitting at the gates in Sodom and Gomorrah and moved his whole family in until God's judgment came. You can't have a heart like that. We have to have single hearts for Jesus Christ. He has to be everything to me. He has to be number one. Then my wife, my children, or husband, if you're a wife, and then everything else.

But God always has to be first. That's why he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you if you really seek him." And then check this out. This is amazing what he says here. Verse 9. "Lament and mourn and weep."

Notice the attitude that we should have towards sin. Not bragging about sin. How many times we hear bragging sessions about sin? The way we used to be. And it's kind of crazy what we did. But if you're still living in that culture and you still are boasting about that and there's really no mourning or lamenting or weeping over what you've done, then where is your true conversion?

God changed you. You should be ashamed of those things. We should not be boasting and bragging about those things. Oh yeah, we can share our testimony, but we don't proudly brag about it and think that, hey you know what? I'm the one. Be careful of that.

Because he says if you really are serious when you do this, he says, "Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy into gloom." You see, how many times you hear people boasting and bragging and all that and they're laughing, enjoying what they used to do when we should be ashamed of it.

We should be ashamed that we hurt people, that we did stupid things. God has done a whole new work in our lives. He wants Christians to really know that you've been cleansed, you've been washed, you've been separated by God himself. We should be walking in the light. We should be walking in the way of brokenness toward God in humility. Kind of like the Sermon on the Mount, mourning for our sin. Really being repentant for what we have done.

Walking in close fellowship with God now means walking in my brokenness before the Lord. Lord, who am I? You are everything, Lord God. I am ashamed. I am so sorry that I did all these things, Lord. It was dumb, it was stupid, and look what I've done, Lord God. I broke your heart. Sin breaks the heart of God.

So here, James wants us to understand that. We have to have a repentant spirit. If we obey these instructions that he gives to us here, then God will draw near to us, cleanse us, forgive us, and then he says here, and then the wars will cease in your life. Whatever your ghosts are, they'll stop. Whatever haunts you, it will stop. It's really important that we take the word of God as it is.

And we need to go back and think about what God has done. What does he say? When I come to Jesus Christ, he takes my sins and he buries them in the deepest part of the ocean. He casts them as far as the east to the west and he remembers them never again. If he doesn't remember them, why are you remembering?

Guest (Male): It is good to be reminded today that no matter how busy life gets or how difficult the journey becomes, the Lord will be our strength and our firm foundation when we prioritize daily time with him. You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. If you'd like to get a full unedited copy of today's lesson, just call us at 800-634-9165 and for a donation of $5 or more, we'll send a copy of Raul's teaching from James chapter 4 verses 7 through 10.

Now as you consider the need to reset your own personal goals and agendas, we'd like to offer you a helpful resource titled Traits of a Christian. Raul's eight-part series is available on both CD and flash drive, with each lesson exploring a unique aspect of the life that God desires for you when you submit to him in undivided devotion. You'll also discover the rich eternal blessings of surrender.

Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165 to order Raul's eight-message Traits of a Christian series. We'll send you the CD set for $22 or the USB for just $12. The number again is 800-634-9165. Or you can write to Somebody Loves You Radio, P.O. Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California 91765.

Catch Straight Talk with Raul on the Somebody Loves You Worldwide YouTube channel every Tuesday at 10 a.m. West Coast time. This channel also features a broad selection of biblical teachings on podcast. And when you look for us on iTunes and Spotify, you'll find a complete archive of all of these programs.

Thank you for your partnership. Every gift you give helps us keep sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. And join us next time for more practical instruction from the book of James. Contemplating the undeniable power of our words, we'll get a challenge to avoid gossip, slander, and judgmental comments that can do serious damage to people's hearts. Now here's Raul once again with a final word.

Raul Ries: You can be a child molester, you can be an adulterer, you can be a fornicator, you can be a liar. They're all sin. And God can make you a new person if you really truly submit and you believe in what God's word says and the power of the Holy Spirit will do that in your life. But at the same time, reckoning the old man to be dead.

Even though we're Christians, the reckoning of the old man is always popping up. The old man always wants to come out until the day we die. But by faith, I bring it to the cross of Jesus Christ and I know that he's forgiven me for everything that's happened in my life. The Lord reminded me that he is the only one that can cleanse us and wash us from everything and anything we've ever done if we're willing to submit to God and resist the devil and to lament and mourn and weep and not make it a joke.

Really mourning that will bring joy in our lives because of what Jesus Christ has done. And you might be here tonight in that same way where God is dealing in your life. And you know what? There's only one way and that's Jesus' way. Not your way, but his way that will work.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.