Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Jas 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Jas 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
MHCC - Here are cautions against corrupt affections, and love of this world, which is enmity to God. (1-10)
1. Your will must be submitted
2. Your Resistance needs to be strong
3. You can be assured the devil will flee
1. Your will must be submitted
a. Acc - Submit-to God Continue to bow to all his decisions, and to all his dispensations.
b. Dan Jackson - Selfish indulgence is responsible for discord. This is the pursuit of personal pleasure without regard for God or other people.
c. One Writer states, “All human conflict is ultimately traced back to the frustrated desire of wanting more than we have, and being resentful of what others have, whether it is position or possessions.
d. Mark Shaufele - Seeking our own will leads to:
a. Quarrels
b. Strife
c. Heartache
d. Financial trouble
4. When God bolts the door, don’t try to get in through the window. The will of God never will lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.
e. Chris Talton - I Timothy 2:8 which tells us to lift up holy hands to God. By lifting their hands to God, they are doing several things.
f. First, they are offering everything to God. They’re saying, Lord, here are my hands and everything that I hold in my hands. I give you everything that I am and have as an offering. Use it however you want.
g. The second thing that they are doing by raising their hands is asking God to search their hands. They’re saying, Lord, if there is something that I am holding onto that is dirty or is distracting me from you, then I want you to take it out of my hands. Whatever you want God, my family, my business, my home, my leisure time, I let go of it.
Lilyan van Almelo , writes While accompanying our son and his fiancé to sign some pre-wedding ceremony papers. While filling out the form, our son read aloud a few questions. When he got to the last one, which read: "Are you entering this marriage at your own will?" he looked over at his fiancé. "Put down ’Yes,’" she said.
2. Your Resistance needs to be strong
h. RWP - take a stand against." It is imperative; Result of such a stand is that the devil will flee.
i. Imperitave, means – very important, urgent, necessary
j. Tom Sine wrote in an article in World Christian magazine,
Fifteen years ago the dominant value among college freshmen was “finding a meaningful philosophy of life.” Today that value has dropped to number eight on the list. Predictably, “being well off financially” has soared to the top of the list of 70 percent of all freshmen.
k. Don’t let culture dictate to you how to think, what you like, where you go, how you act. Be proactive instead of Reactive. Reactive is what the church world has seemed to be over the years. They watch what the world is doing and that is what the preachers have preached against. How about trying to be proactive, be a leader, resist Satan,
l. Dave Reever, Who is a Vietnam vet has stated in one of his many speeches of how God saved him during the war, how when a teen the guys he ran around with tried to get him to go drinking with them. Dave, a preachers son didn’t drink and had never had alchohol at all. When being approached his friend said, Everyone is doing it, and Dave replied, “If I am somebody, who is part of Everybody and I am not doing it, then everybody is not doing it. He says, he can’t understand the immense pleasure of getting drunk coming home and throwing up all over the furniture.
m. You don’t have to let the Culture around you control you, with God’s help you can stand strong and tall and Resist Satan.
n. ACC - Resist the devil - He cannot conquer you if you continue to resist. Strong as he is, God never permits him to conquer the man who continues to resist him; he cannot force the human will. He who, in the terrible name of JESUS, opposes even the devil himself, is sure to have a speedy and glorious conquest. He flees from that name, and from his conquering blood.
o. Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
p. Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
q. Your resistance may almost seem to lead to Rejection here on earth. All human beings like to be accepted, there is just something in our human makeup which wants to be accepted. It sometimes seems that we reject this and we reject that which can carry over into feeling like we are rejected by everyone.
r. Campbell Morgan was one of 150 young men who sought entrance to the Wesleyan ministry in 1888. He passed the doctrinal examinations, but then faced the trial sermon. In a cavernous auditorium that could seat more than 1,000 sat three ministers and 75 others who came to listen. When Morgan stepped into the pulpit, the vast room and the searching, critical eyes caught him up short. Two weeks later Morgan’s name appeared among the l05 REJECTED for the ministry that year. "He wired to his father the one word, ’Rejected,’ and sat down to write in his diary: ’Very dark everything seems. Still, He knoweth best.’ Quickly came the reply: ’Rejected on earth. Accepted in heaven. Dad.’" In later years, Morgan said: "God said to me, in the weeks of loneliness and darkness that followed, ’I want you to cease making plans for yourself, and let Me plan your life.’"
s. Submission and rejecting Satan will lead to him fleeing from you.
3. You can be assured the devil will flee
a. I am not saying you will never have trouble with the devil, but what I am saying is he will flee the battle when you draw closer to God.
t. Eph 4:27 Neither give place to the devil.
u. Barnes"Do not yield to the suggestions and temptations of Satan, who would take every opportunity to persuade you to cherish unkind and angry feelings, and to keep up a spirit of resentment among brethren."
v. JFB - he will flee--Translate, "he shall flee." For it is a promise of God
w. Barnes - The true way of meeting him [speaking of the Devil] is by direct resistance, rather than by argument; by steadfastly refusing to yield in the slightest degree
x. James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
y. Annie Johnson Flint, the hymn writer, put it this way:
He giveth more grace, when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength, when the labors increase,
To added affliction, He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
His love has no limit,
His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto man,
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth and giveth and giveth again.
God’s grace will be there when your in the midst of the battle, submit your will to God and the Devil will flee
z. Dan Jackson goes on the write, “We win the war with worldliness by “drawing near to God.”
aa. Singer / Songwriter Bob Dylan
i. You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
Its either your serving God or your serving Satan
bb. Jesus was tempted, Turning the stone into bread, casting himself down, and then showing all the kingdoms of the world…..the end result Mt 4:11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
cc. Michael McCartney - Submission to God brings him closer to you as does resisting the influence of evil drives the Devil away. The result of learning these two disciplines is a closer relationship with God Almighty and the enemy driven farther away.
dd. James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
ee. Andrew Murray. - God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.
FATHER, MOST HIGH, BE WITH US written in 1839
Father, Most High, be with us,
Unseen, Thy goodness showing,
And Christ the Word Incarnate,
And Spirit grace bestowing.
O Trinity, O Oneness
Of light and power exceeding;
O God of God Eternal
O God, from Both proceeding!
While daylight hours are passing,
We live and work before Thee;
Now, ere we rest in slumber,
We gather to adore Thee.
Our Christian name and calling
Of our new birth remind us;
The Spirit’s gifts and sealing
To firm obedience bind us.
Begone, ye powers of evil
With snares and wiles unholy!
Disturb not with your temptings
The spirits of the lowly.
Depart! for Christ is present,
Beside us, yea, within us;
Away! His sign, ye know it,
The victory shall win us.
Awhile the body resteth;
The spirit, wakeful ever,
Abideth in communion
With Christ, Who sleepeth never,
To God, th’Eternal Father,
To Christ, our sure salvation,
To God, the Holy Spirit,
Be endless adoration.
This song was written with Our verse as its core James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you
