For the past few Sundays we have admitted that we all have trials and tribulations and temptations in our lives. We have seen how the trials strengthen us and make us more like Jesus. But James doesn’t just give explanations and facts about all these mishaps in our lives, he ends chapter one with an explanation of how we are to prepare to be able to withstand all these unwelcomed events in our lives.
Last time, we talked specifically about the temptations that lead us astray. Without a shadow of doubt, there are several preparations that have to be made in order to overcome temptation. Without these preparations, temptation can never be conquered. So let’s see what advice James gives us.
READ James 1:19-21. So James starts out by telling us to be quick to hear the Word of God. The moral to these 3 verses is seen in verse 21: receiving the Word so that a person’s soul will be saved. The greatest temptation in the world is for a person to walk through life doing what he wants and pleases, and rejecting God.
James says in verse 15 that the result is death. If a person is to be saved, if he is to be delivered from the great temptation that will doom his soul, he must prepare himself. He must be quick to hear the Word of God. He must make sure that he hears the Word of God. How can person make sure that he hears the Word of God?
This passage says that a person has to do five things.
First, he must be slow to speak. This means that a person must be willing to listen instead of speaking his own ideas about right and wrong and about how a person is saved. He must sit and listen instead of hanging on to his own ideas; he must be willing to listen to God’s Word instead of insisting upon what he thinks.
Secondly, he must be slow to wrath or anger. This means at least two things”
1. A person must not react against what God says about temptation and sin nor about what God says about salvation. If a person reacts against God’s plan of salvation and follows his own plan, he is dooming himself. No person can ever be saved or conquer temptation if he reacts in anger against God’s Word.
2. A person must not become angry and act against others in wrath. Anger and wrath disturb and distract. An angry person cannot focus his thoughts and spirit upon God’s Word, not enough to fear what the Word is saying.
The third thing we must do to be sure to hear the Word of God is to put aside all filthiness. The picture is that of taking off a dirty garment and putting it aside, away from yourself. If a person enjoys the dirt and filth, then their mind is going to be on it. Their mind won’t be clear, at least not enough to hear the Word of God.
It’s interesting when you study the Greek word used for filth. It’s taken from the Greek word rupos which sometimes refers to wax in the ear. The picture is descriptive: a person with wax in the ear can’t hear the Word of God clearly. So he must take the wax out of his ear and put it away or else he will be deaf to the Word of God.
Fourthly, a person must put aside all that remains of evil. Even after putting aside all moral filthiness, there will still be some evil that will show up within us. So, we must be alert to these and put them off and lay them aside as well.
And the fifth way to make sure you hear the Word of God is that we must receive the Word of God with humility. We must be as a child before God. That is, sit before Him humbly just as child does his father. The idea is that we must be humble, gentle, quiet, and attentive in listening to the Word of God.
And when we sit before God like this, we discover a most wonderful thing. Note the word “planted” (v. 21). It means to implant, to be born within. When a person listens and hears the Word of God, it is planted within his heart and life. What God says is actually born within his heart, and the person hears exactly what God says. So, this is the first preparation that a person must make to withstand temptation: he must be quick to hear the Word of God.
An American Indian left the reservation to visit downtown New York. Walking down a busy street with his friend, he suddenly stopped and said, “I hear a cricket.”
His friend said, “You’re crazy. There’s no way you can hear a cricket in all this noise.” The Indian said, “No. I hear a cricket.”
His friend said, “It’s noon! There are thousands of people bustling around, cars honking, taxis squealing.. I don’t believe you can hear a little cricket in all this!”
The Indian listened again and walked across the street to a cement plant with a shrub in it, dug beneath the leaves and there it was, a cricket.
His friend said, “You’ve got amazing hearing.” The Indian said, “No. My ears are no different from yours. It simply depends on what you’re listening to. Let me show you.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change and dropped it on the sidewalk. Every head within a block turned to look. “You see what I mean? It all depends on what you’re listening for.”
The reason we’re not hearing Jesus speak, is because we’re listening to the sounds of this world, and we’re not tuned to the sounds of God’s Word.
READ verses 22-25. So, preparation 2 is to do the Word of God; don’t be a hearer only. It’s not enough to hear and know the Word of God; we must live and do the Word of God. I just love it when I hear people repeating throughout the following week, things that were said during the Sunday sermon. They heard the Word, but then are thinking about how to implement what they heard into their daily lives.
Let’s note 3 points that James makes.
1. The person who only hears and knows the Word deceives himself. If a person thinks that he can hear and learn the Word of God and then go out and live like he wants, he deceives himself.
There are many who hear the Word of God week after week, and they learn and know as much of the Word as anyone. They think that their listening and learning makes them acceptable to God, that it makes them safe and secure. When they slip into sin, they feel that they can ask God for forgiveness and that He will forgive them. They just feel that God would never reject them. But note something, the most critical fact: God doesn’t accept us because we hear and know the Word nor because we confess our sins. Each of these is necessary and very important, but they aren’t enough:
• God accepts us because we confess and repent. That means we turn away from our sins and turn to God. God accepts us because we turn to Him and live for Him. When we believe God, really believe Him, then it’s that we trust and follow Him, doing exactly what He says.
2. The second point James makes is that the person who only hears and knows the Word soon forgets what he has heard. If a person doesn’t practice what he learn, it soon fades from memory. It’s just forgotten, and it never becomes a part of the person’s life. He’s like that person who looks in a mirror to see if he needs to do anything to his appearance, then walks away and thinks of something else and forgets the pimple or messed up hair that needed to be cared for.
And that happens so often. We hear the Word and are convicted of some defect, some shortcoming, some failure that we need to clean up. I hear it all the time, “You preached right at me this morning.” But as soon as we walk out from under the Word, we are distracted by the world and its affairs and we soon forget to do what the Word of God told us to do.
3. The third point James makes is that the person who hears and does the Word of God is blessed. The Word of God will free a person from all the temptations of this life and give him the full and victorious life that his soul longs for and that’s a life that will continue eternally with God. A person who does and lives the Word of God will find that they are freed from all that enslaves their soul on this earth.
The Word of God is the law that gives freedom, the law that sets a man free to know God and have fellowship with God forever. But the critical point in all this is
that we HAVE to continue in the Word of God. We have to continue to live just like it says. If we do, then we will be blessed.
READ v. 26. So, here’s preparation number 3. Control the tongue. Keep a tight reign on the tongue. If a person thinks he’s religious, that is, thinks he’s acceptable to God, and he doesn’t keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself. No matter what he thinks or professes, his religion is empty.
The words “religion” and “religious” describe a person who is very religious, who gives great attention to religion and is very faithful in his religious worship and service. But he is loose with his tongue:
• Interrupting and dominating the conversation.
• Being easily provoked and lashing out at others.
• Gossiping and telling tales
• Criticizing, judging and condemning others
• Using slang and cursing
• Engaging in off color and suggestive talk.
• Talking about and running others down.
No matter what a person thinks, if they don’t keep a tight reign on the tongue, that person deceives himself. His religion is empty. He doesn’t please God and is unacceptable to God. So, for a person to withstand and to conquer temptation, that person must control his tongue.
READ v. 27. Preparation number 4 for conquering temptation is to practice pure religion. Visit the needy, and keep yourselves from being polluted by the world. There are 2 things that James mentions that are necessary in this preparation.
1. A person must visit the orphans and widows in their affliction. This would certainly include visiting those who are orphaned, widowed, shut in, newcomers, lost and unsaved, bedridden, lonely, grieved, and fatherless or motherless.
Whatever the need, God expects us to visit them. He expects us to reach all within our community, and the task isn’t really all that difficult. Just think of a church within a community being surrounded by rows of houses. The minister and the members can easily visit every home by simply setting up visitation hours and going. As we go, all we have to do is share that we are visiting for Christ and the church to see if we can be of any help to the family. Again, it gets down to showing our community that we really care.
A few years ago, a home within 3 blocks of this church caught fire and burned to the ground. Kenny and Linda went and ministered to the family by offering clothes to help. What a ministry is out there if we keep our eyes open.
2. Secondly, a person must keep himself from being polluted by the world. How easy is it to be polluted by the world? (Let them respond to the question) Pure religion doesn’t become corrupted with false beliefs or with false religion. It holds to the purity of the gospel and the Word of God. Pure religion doesn’t focus on form and ritual and ceremony. It focuses on the power of God to change lives eternally and it reaches out to change people’s lives by visiting them.
Pure religion doesn’t become morally corrupt; it doesn’t become entangled with the affairs and pleasures of this world. True religion stirs people to separate themselves from the things of this world that arouse their fleshly desires and cravings.
True believers of true religion keep themselves unspotted from the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, the boasting of what he has and does. This, as James emphasizes, is a necessary preparation if a person is to conquer the temptations of sins of this world.
So, to quickly recap, James says these 4 preparations need to be made to overcome and withstand the trials and temptations of this world:
1. Be quick to hear the Word of God.
2. Be a doer of the Word and not a listener only.
3. Control the tongue.
4. Visit the needy and keep yourself from being polluted by the world.
These may seem trivial, but they are instructions from God’s Holy Word. Let’s take them to heart.
