Join us in another enlightening session on ‘Through the Bible’ as Dr. J. Vernon McGee delves into the book of James, chapter 3, exploring the profound implications of having genuine faith. Host Steve Schwetz introduces heartfelt letters from listeners who have found their faith strengthened through Dr. McGee’s teachings. Prepare yourself to uncover new layers of understanding as we explore how trials and tribulations serve as God’s way to test and fortify our faith.
The firm of foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re in school this week on Through the Bible. Dr. J. Vernon McGee calls it God’s University. As the Bible bus pulls up to James 3, verse 14, our class is going to take a quiz. I’m Steve Schwetz, welcoming you aboard for another great study in God’s Word. So grab your Bible and turn it to James 3. And as you do, let’s hear a couple of letters from our fellow passengers. The first one comes from a homeschooling family in Fontana, California. What a blessing to be taught by Dr. McGee and to hear all of our children say how much they love Dr. McGee. I love it when our 17-year-old son says, Dr. McGee is so tight. I wish he were my grandpa. Well, for those of you who maybe don’t have a tween or teen in the house nowadays, tight means cool or awesome or something like that, I think. So anyway, she goes on. My husband and I, along with each of our seven children, have committed money to support the Bible Bus each month, We are a grateful bunch. Well, isn’t that a fun letter? Thanks for your support, by the way. And we’re so glad that you’re able to join us each day from Fontana. Next, we hear from Wayne in South Carolina, and he says this. I’ve always enjoyed studying God’s word, but in the past few years, I’ve grown so much in prayer. It is an immense blessing to read and hear reports of how my prayers impact souls worldwide. I love Steve and Greg’s reports. And of course I’m on the world prayer team. As we travel, I look up the president of each nation and pray for him or her as well. I financially support through the Bible and I am grateful to be part of the team. It was not long ago that I was in an almost hopeless situation, but God turned it and me around. Dr. McGee’s teaching was a big part of it. Well, thank you, Wayne. Thanks for being part of the team and for taking the time to pray for the leadership in each country. That is an important thing to be doing as well. And let’s pray. Heavenly Father, as we open your word, would you open our eyes that we can see you at work in our lives in the many different ways that you move and in the world around us. We ask this in Jesus’ name.
SPEAKER 1 :
Amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now let’s dive into James 3 with Dr. J. Vernon McGee as we go through the Bible.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, friends, we concluded last time with chapter 3, this first major division of James. And we gave the first three chapters the title of Verification of Genuine Faith. The saving faith must be made real. And there’s a difference in faith, by the way. You can believe the wrong thing, Or you can just nod your head and call that faith. Now, faith, that is saving faith, produces something. And so God, first of all, he tests faith by trials. We saw that. I’d like today, as we move through that first section very briefly, give you a quotation that is found in Dr. Laman Strauss’s book on James. He has one of the best books on the epistle of James. Well, he is quoted from someone else who’s also a friend of mine who has suffered a great deal. And that’s Dr. Richard Sumi. who is now at Dallas Seminary and was formerly at the Wheaton Bible Church. And he served also in Patterson, New Jersey. He is an outstanding Bible teacher. And he’s had kidney trouble. He’s been on a machine now for several years. And if there’s any man that knows what it is to suffer, he certainly knows that. Now, Dr. Strauss quotes from Dr. Sumi, and now I’m going to give you that quotation because it made a great impression on me because I knew it did not come from a preacher who was just giving his theory, his idea. This comes from a man that has suffered. Listen to him. Life on earth would not be worth much if every source of irritation were removed. Yet most of us rebel against the things that irritate us and count as heavy loss what ought to be rich gain. We are told that the oyster is wiser. that when an irritating object like a bit of sand gets under the mantle of his shell, he simply covers it with the most precious part of his being and he makes of it a pearl. The irritation that it was causing is stopped by encrusting it with the pearly formation. A true pearl is therefore simply a victory over irritation. Every irritation that gets into our lives today is an opportunity for pearl culture. The more irritations the devil flings at us, the more pearls we may have. We need only to welcome them and cover them completely with love, that most precious part of us, and the irritation will be smothered out as the pearl comes into being. What a store of pearls we may have if we will. And I think Dick Sumi is going to have quite a few pearls, by the way. And that comes from his heart and comes out of experience. And I wanted to share that with you today. Now, God tests faith by trials. Then we saw that God does not test faith with evil. Evil comes from our flesh within. The troubles on the inside of us. Now, the next way God tests us, though, he tests us by the word and not by the doctrine we hold. We may be fundamental, but what do we do? Are we living that out? The thing that James is saying, if you’re going to be a witness for Christ today, knowing is not enough. Now, that’s important. That’s the foundation. But you need to build something, as Paul says, on the foundation. No other foundation can any man lay. You can’t lay the foundation. But my friend, you can build on it. And if you’re on the foundation, you’re going to build something. Now, we have another test. God tests faith by attitude and action in respect of persons. And then God tests faith by good works. Good works are important for a child of God, but not for the unsaved. And we’re going to see that as we come to it now in today’s lesson. Now, in chapter 3, last time we saw that God tests faith by the tongue. The tongue is your fraternity pen. Tongue tells who you are. We rush through the last part of chapter 3 purposely because… Actually, chapter 4 that we come to now is a new division. We have here the vacuity and vapidness of worldliness. And what is worldliness? Actually, he deals with many questions here. You have, how do you really fight the devil? And what is your life? It all anchors back in this subject of worldliness. Now, what is worldliness? We’re going to see that today. Now, you need to move back into chapter 3 to pick up really his subject. And he gives the key in verse 14 of chapter 3. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, demoniacal. For where envying and strife are, there is confusion in every evil word. And the scripture makes it very clear that God is not the author of confusion. He just very frankly makes it clear that he’s not engaged in confusion at all. And the confusion that you find today in the world is a confusion that is brought about by this matter of the working of the devil and it’s using that little tongue that causes so much trouble in the world. But that comes out of the heart. As we said last time, what’s in the well of the heart will come up through the bucket of the mouth. Now, for where envy and strife are, there’s confusion and every evil work, verse 17. But the wisdom that’s from above is first pure. And that’s the important thing. That means it’s undiluted. It is that which comes down from God and it’s identified, this that’s pure, it’s peaceable, it’s gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace. Now, there are two things that we need to have in mind as we enter this next chapter. And that is that if you’re a child of God today, That tongue that you have is going to be used for a blessing for others. The tongue can be a blessing or it can be a curse. It can be either way. A very whimsical story is told about a famous chef that a wealthy man had and he said, I’m having guests tonight and I want you to serve up the most wonderful recipe that you have. And so that night he served tongue for the cocktail, tongue for the entree, and tongue for dessert. And the owner called this chef in and says, what do you mean? Well, he says, you asked me to serve the greatest that I could serve, and here it is. Well, he says, what do you mean it’s the greatest? Well, he says, the tongue can cause more strife. It can cause more sorrow. It can actually ruin a man’s character. And therefore, it is without doubt the most potent And then he says, all right, tomorrow night, serve me that which is the very best that does the most good. And lo and behold, the next night, he had tongue for a cocktail, tongue for the entree, and tongue for the dessert. And again, he called him in. Well, he says, not only does the tongue do evil, the tongue can do good. It can be a blessing. The tongue can help and comfort, you see. So that’s exactly what James is talking about here. And there must be righteousness before there can be peace. I wish that this could get into the United Nations. I wish this could get into Washington and Moscow and China and in all the other capitals of the world today, that you can’t have peace and righteousness. There’s a day coming when the psalm says that peace and righteousness… They have kissed each other. They don’t even know each other today. And they wouldn’t even recognize each other today. He’s moving now into the fourth chapter. And we come here into something that I think is quite important to know today. What is really worldliness? What is worldliness? And let me read the first verse here. From where come wars and fightings among you? Come they not here, even of your lusts at war in your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Now, what is worldliness then? And here is what he says. Now, the average person today, and I think the average Christian in our so-called fundamental churches, especially when we talk about how separated we are from the world, I think that they’d give an answer that might be something like this. They would say, it’s the kind of amusements that you attend. What kind of amusements do you indulge in? What kind of movies do you go to? Do you dance? Do you drink? And they would call that worldliness if you did that. May I say to you at the offset, James would not agree with you. Somebody else says, well, it’s the kind of crowd you run with, the gang you hang around with. After all, birds of a feather flock together. And if you are with a worldly crowd, they’re engaged in these things, then you’re a world. I’m sorry to have to tell you, And I’ve said that James takes you to college. If you give that as the answer in James College, you’d fail. You would bust the course. You wouldn’t pass it. Then somebody else says, it’s the conversation you engage in. You must learn to say praise the Lord and hallelujah at the right time. And therefore, that’s what worldliness is, when you have a worldly conversation. And again, you fail the course. And somebody else says, well, it’s the way that you dress. And I have news for you. You still haven’t passed the course. Somebody else says, well, it’s a person who engages in business and making of money to the exclusion of all else. And he neglects the church. He’s a worldly individual. I have news for you. You didn’t pass the course in James College. And then somebody else says, well, it’s the person who does not go to church, but spends time on the golf course, fishing, boating, and goes out to watch the Dodgers play baseball. Now, my friend, I don’t approve of any of the things that I mentioned, but that just doesn’t happen to be worldliness. Most of those sins are sins of the flesh. And if you put down any one of these or all of them, you flunk the exam. You fail the subject. You busted the courts, by the way. Now, I have here the answers of James. None of them are right. Now, they may be symptoms of the disease, but nobody ever died of symptoms. You die of the disease. And these are evidences of something that’s deeper. Henry Ward Beecher had a brother who was a pastor in Upper New York, and there was a clock in the church that never would keep time. And so the brother, Henry Ward Beecher, put a sign under that clock. It says, Don’t blame the hands. The trouble lies deeper. And I think that’s the thing that we need to recognize today, that what we call worldliness is the hands, but the trouble is back down deeper. And frankly, my feeling is that Thackeray, who, by the way, was a Christian, I think that he probably dealt with this in a way that no one else has dealt with it. And I’m going to mention something he wrote. He wrote a novel called Vanity Fair. It was of the world. And by the way, Thackeray was a Christian. And he wrote that novel on the background of the wars of Napoleon. And he presents characters that are all filled with weakness and littleness and pettiness and jealousy and envy and discord and strife. All of that is there in the background of the wars of Napoleon. And someone asked Thackeray one time, says, why don’t you have some wonderful heroes in your novels? You always present little people. And he says, I hold a mirror up to nature and I do not find heroes among mankind. They’re filled with littleness and pettiness and strife and sin. And when you get to the end of Vanity Fair, he does a masterly thing. He says, come now, show is over. Let’s put the puppets back in the box. The play is ended. That’s man, as Shakespeare said, he struts and puffs his way across the stage of life, filled with worldliness. Now, Dr. Griffith Thomas pinned it down a little closer. A person that was very much distressed one day came to him and says, don’t you think that the world is becoming Christian today? And Dr. Griffith Thomas says, no, I don’t think that. I think the world is becoming a little churchy, but I think the church is becoming immensely worldly. Now, I think that this gives us a background for what we’re going to see here. Since World War II, there has been a breakdown of the wall of separation between church and state. And the separation that many had was legalistic and, I think, unscriptural. The church was like the little Dutch boy keeping its finger or thumb in the die. Then we have the aftermath of the war. TV came along, lawlessness and immorality, juvenile delinquency, first the beatniks, then the hippies, and then dope, marijuana, and even worse than that, and then the philosophy of existentialism, and then a tidal wave swept over the dikes of separation, and even the little Dutch boy was washed away. Now, there’s no simple answer to the questions. But I’m going to let James give us here, I think, a very definitive answer. And it is something that we’re going to see. What is worldliness? Well, worldliness, actually, if you want to pin it down, it’s strife and envy. And that is the thing he’s saying here. Now, you remember that he said back in chapter 3, verse 13, “…who’s a wise man, endued with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good life his works with meekness of wisdom.” Faith is the major in this university, and all elective courses are related to faith. Now, works of faith does what? It brings meekness. And that is the thing he talks about here. Wisdom that is pure, it’s gentle, it’s peaceful. And there’s meekness. Someone has put it like this. Knowledge is proud that she’s learned so much. Wisdom is humble that she knows no more. And humility means submission. And then you have here, he presents this, there’s bitter end ring and strife in your hearts. That’s world in it’s. And what does it lead to in the church? Well, it’s produced all the cults. It’s actually produced all the denominations, factions, and divisions, and a spirit of rivalry, and cults and cliques that have risen and abound in the church today, a zeal, a jealousy, factions, and divisions. And he defines this as earthly division. That is, it’s confined to the earth. It’s sensual. That is, it’s psychological. You see, the eggheads today do not know, actually, everything that’s to be known. And they don’t know what comes first, even the chicken or the egg. And they’re eggheads. And then it’s devilish. And my friend, when we talk about it being devilish, It is something that is quite terrible, by the way. And what does it produce in this world? It produces confusion. And we need to recognize what he’s saying here then. From where come wars and fightings among you? And wars have to do actually with the wars of nations. Fightings have to do with little skirmishes, that little fight that you had in the church. You remember? Come. They not hear even of your lusts at war and your members? You wanted to have your way. Ye lust and have not. And you have an overweening desire. There is a lack of knowledge. And we need to recognize that, first of all, you must be born again. You must be regenerated. And now that faith in Christ that regenerated, And now you’re indwelt by the Spirit of God. These are the things that represented the old nature that you had. Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and you desire to have and you cannot obtain. Ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Now, what is the answer to this? This, you see, is the Spirit of the world. When the spirit of the world gets into the church, you have, as Dr. Griffith Thomas put it, you have a worldly church. What is a worldly church? That’s going in for amusements. Well, I don’t approve of a lot of things modern churches are doing, but back of that is strife and envy. My friend, you think it’s bad out on the battlefield? Did you think it was bad in Vietnam? Well, it was. But inside some churches, in the hearts of some individuals there, in the business world, you see it’s competition. Not long ago, a man that left this area to go back east said to me, I’m leaving an area where it’s dog-eat-dog, competition in the business world. That’s worldliness. Political parties split, and one group is pitted against another. You see it in capital and labor today. And you see them meeting around a conference table. It’s a battle that’s going on. You see it in the social world today. There are social climbers on the social ladder. And they are stepping on the hands of others as they go up. It’s in your neighborhood and my neighborhood. One family does not speak to another family. And it’s in family quarrels, brother against brother. And then that spirit gets into the church. That, my friend, is worldliness. The have-nots. You desire and you have not. These are the have-nots. And ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that you may consume it upon your own lust. Now, when you do even ask God, you’re asking it to consume it in a very selfish way. Ye adulterers and adulterers, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. This is the way of the world. Take by force what you want. By hook or crook, lay hold of it. And be envious and jealous of other folk. Cause strife. That’s worldness. Disturbed and distraught people are running around this world today like ants. And they go to the psychiatrists. How can we keep worldliness out of the church? Well, that’s the thing we’re going to look at next time. And more important, how can we keep it out of our own hearts and our own lives? He’ll deal with that in this very important chapter. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
For more great teaching by Dr. McGee, why don’t you join me this weekend for a Sunday sermon, Tongues on Fire from James 3. You can listen by app online at ttb.org or call 1-865-BIBLE if we can help you find it on a local Christian radio station. And if you’d like to download Dr. McGee’s free booklet titled Tested and True, Lessons on Faith from God’s Classroom, you’ll find it at ttb.org. Now that booklet is based in James chapter 1, and Dr. McGee gives us some practical instruction on living the Christian life, all revolving around one important theme. And we’ll discover why God allows trials in our lives, and then three reasons he tests a believer’s faith. Again, download it at ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find it. I’m Steve Schwetz, wishing you a wonderful weekend as we walk with the Lord together. Through the Bible is a five-year study of God’s entire Word, and together we discover God’s purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know Him yet?
