Theodore Reik tells of how an Austrian Jew was trying to find a
refuge from Hitler. He went to a travel office to select a place to
which he could flea, and with the help of the clerk he began to
consider the possibilities. But each country had some difficulty
connected with it. In one you needed a certain amount of money; in
another you needed a labor permit, and others required a passport,
which he could not get, and still others would not allow immigrants
at any price. Finally, after going over the globe, the Jew turned to the
clerk and said in desperation, "Haven't you got another globe?" He
was frustrated by the limitations of only one world.
For the present, at least, man is stuck with only one globe, and this
limitation is tough on those who are looking for a utopia. This world
is all we have. The Christian, however, though he is also temporarily
stuck in it, is not stuck with it. The kingdom of Christ is not of this
world, and those who are citizens of His kingdom are to be in the
world but not of it. Their lives and conduct are not to conform to the
world pattern, but are to be a contrasting challenge to the world.
The Christian does not have another globe, but he has another
sphere, for his life is hid with Christ in God, and he is a citizen of
eternity.
This alternative is not automatic, however, and if a Christian does
not consciously commit himself as a living sacrifice unto to God, he
can become a victim of the secularism of the world. The words of
William Wordsworth are too true to ignore. "The world is too much
with us, late and soon. Getting and spending we lay waste our
powers." The tentacles of secularism do not stop at encircling our
society, but they continue until they worm their way into the church,
and straggle its opposition. If the world can just get the church to
lose its saltiness so that it does not cause their wounds to sting, and if
it can get it to hide its light so it does not reveal their shame, then the
world will join the church, for there will be nothing to fear. The
church will cease to be an instrument of God, and will soon be
worshiping materialism along with the world.
Georgia Harness defines secularism as, "The organization of life
as if God did not exist." It is practical atheism, and many feel
secularism is the greatest enemy of the church today. It is not an new
enemy, however, but has been with the church from the start. The
Christians to whom James writes were only 20 years removed from
the cross of Christ, and yet they were so infiltrated by worldliness
that they were in danger of becoming enemies rather than servants of
God. There is nothing quite like these words anywhere else in the
New Testament, and their uniqueness demands careful
consideration. The content can be broken into two parts: The
external symptoms of secularism and the internal sources of
secularism. First consider-
I. THE EXTERNAL SYMPTOMS OF SECULARISM.
The symptoms are so shocking that some commentators feel that
James cannot be writing to Christians. He must be addressing
non-Christian Jews, they say. They say, "Certainly you cannot
believe that Christians could fight and war even to the point of
murder." Phillips, NEB, Berkely, and the Amplified all use murder
in verse 2. The RSV retains kill, as with the KJV. There is no basis
for thinking that these were unbelievers, however, James speaks of
them as brethren in verse 11.
This does not prove they are Christians for non-Christian Jews
would also be his brethren, but when he speaks of their submission to
God and resisting of Satan in verse 7, and of their drawing nigh to
God in verse 8, it is obvious they are believers, for if not, James is
advising non-believers that they can be right with God without
Christ. Unless you admit that James is writing to Christians you are
faced with a book in the Bible that says a non-believer can come to
God on his own merits without trusting in Christ. This makes it
certain that James is right to believers.
Scholars have tried all kinds of things to escape the implications
of the strong language of James, and especially in verse 2 where he
says they kill or murder. If you cannot deny he was writing to
Christians, then next best thing is to deny that he wrote what he did.
Erasmus, the Greek scholar during the time of the Reformation, did
just that. He said the original must have said that they envy rather
than they kill, and so he inserted envy into the second addition of his
Greek New Testament. His conscience must have bothered him,
however, for in his third addition he changed it back to kill. He
knew he was tampering with the Word of God without a shed of
evidence to support him. Many other translations, however,
continue to use envy, and not until the KJV was printed did kill get
put back into the text.
Even great men like Calvin and Luther substituted another word.
Calvin used envy, and Luther used hate. In other words, no one
wanted to believe that Christians could be so much influenced by the
world that they could even go so far as murder. Men were willing to
reject a word from the Bible with no good reason except that they did
not want to believe it. Let's face it, we may not be happy about all
that God reveals, but we must accept it even it shatters our
pre-conceived notions. Luther came close with his substitute with the
word hate, for according to the New Testament the hate of a brother
is equal to murder. Jesus said in Matt. 5:21-22 that murder faced
judgement in the Old Testament, but that to be angry with a brother
would lead to judgment in the New. In I John 3:15 we read,
"Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer." So hate can be a
legitimate substitute, but it is no way lessens the seriousness of it.
Let us remember that the Christians to whom James writes are
Jewish Christians with a background of contention and fighting
among themselves, and with the Romans. Some of them had, no
doubt, been zealots who had cut a few Roman throats. The thief on
the cross who accepted Jesus was certainly a thief, and possibly a
murderer. The Jews were very militaristic. They had hopes for a
Messiah who would conquer the Romans, and give them all the
material benefits of life. They had a good start on being secularized
before they became Christians, and they brought their worldliness
into the church with them.
It is good to remind ourselves that the early church did not draw
on a Sunday School trained population for its members, but upon a
thoroughly paganized population. Even the Jews were in an awful
state of decline. Jesus called it an evil and adulterous generation
because they were so worldly minded and materialistic. Our failure
to make a distinction in our reference to the early church between
the church at Pentecost, and those founded by the Apostles after
Pentecost, has led to confusion in our minds, and has blinded us to an
understanding of much of the New Testament. When we refer to the
early church as our ideal, and that to which we want to conform, we
are referring to the Spirit filled church in which there was perfect
unity, harmony, and sound doctrine. This was the church at
Pentecost, but the church to whom the Epistles were written were
already far from the ideal. The battle with the world in the church
began immediately, and it was just this battle that was the cause for
much of the New Testament to be written.
We must face the language of James honestly, and not try and
brush it off as applying to non-believers. All of the Ten
Commandments have been broken by believers, and not to recognize
it is to blind yourself to the dangers you face, and the need for
constant growth in grace. We would not need the Ten
Commandments if it was impossible to break them. We do not
forbid fish to climb ladders. We do not prohibit elephants from
flying. Why command Christians not to lie, steal, kill, or commit
adultery, and covet if they can no more do these things then a fish
can climb a ladder, or an elephant fly? If the Ten Commandments
still have any meaning to the believer, it means he can break any, and
all of them.
Peter assumes this to be so when he says in I Pet. 4:15, "But let
none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil doer, or
as a busy body in other men's matters." This is strange advice to
give to Christians, but history proves it is needed, for just as the Jews
killed Christians thinking they were serving God, so Christians have
killed other Christians with the same enthusiasm. It would be a
study in itself to cover the history of murder within the church. Most
of this was by professing Christians who are not truly children of
God, but history gives many examples of true believers who killed.
Men like Calvin and Luther, and the great Puritans of early America
who murdered Indians and witches. And who knows how many in
the unrecorded history of the heart have hated another believer?
It is hard to believe that there are no Christians guilty of this right
today. Since there are born again Christians on both sides of almost
every serious conflict, it is likely that there are believers everyday
who are in a category with those to whom James writes. Many issues
are so emotional that we know they fill Christians with hatred and
bitterness, and sometimes it is directed toward other Christians with
an opposite perspective. When this happens it is because we are
being filled with the spirit of the world rather than the spirit of
Christ. This is an example of the external symptom of secularism.
Next we consider-
II. INTERNAL SOURCE OF SECULARISM.
James makes it clear that the external wars are products of
internal wars. War begins in the heart. Thomas Manton said we
carry an enemy in our bosom. The Canaanite is not wholly cast out.
There is still the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of
life, and if we feed them, they will consume us. Let your desires go
unchecked, and it is like putting a madman in the ship with drills and
dynamite. The sides will soon be split, and the waters of worldliness
will flood the ship and sink all that is spiritual.
These Christians to whom James wrote were fanatics for things.
They desired and fought to get what they wanted. They had set
their affections on things below, and not on things above. They were
not content, but operated on the principle that a man's life consists in
the abundance of his possessions. This naturally leads to conflict
with others, for some will hinder this goal, and others will get more
than us, and so in envy we seek to get it from them. Covetousness
becomes a ruling passion, and is a form of idolatry that threatens the
very soul. Peter warned Christians in I Peter 2:11, "Abstain from
fleshly lust which war against the soul."
The Bible is frighteningly realistic about the Christians personal
responsibility. James in 1:13-14 makes it clear that God is not the
author of temptation. God may test by trial, but never by enticement
by sin. Satan can not be blamed either, for he is a defeated foe, and
in 4:7 James says if he is resisted he will flea in defeat. Satan only
has power in a believer when a believer submits to him. In other
words, a worldly, secular minded, covetous Christian has no one to
blame but himself, and when he stands in judgement he will have no
excuse for the poor use he made of his body and time.
In the crash of 1929 J. C. Penny's business was quite solid, but
according to Dr. S. I. McMillen, Mr Penny had made some unwise
personal commitments. He was so worried he couldn't sleep. He
developed shingles and had to be hospitalized. Even under sedatives
he tossed all night. He began to break mentally as well as physically.
He became overwhelmed with a fear of death. He wrote farewell
letters to his wife and son, for he did not expect to live until morning.
The next morning he awoke and heard singing from the hospital
chapel. He got up and went to the chapel. They were singing, "God
will take care of you." As he sat there he said something happened to
him like a miracle. He felt like he had been instantly lifted out of a
dark dungeon into warm brilliant sunlight. He wrote, "I felt as if I
had been transported from hell to paradise. I felt the power of God
as I had never felt it before. I realized then that I alone was
responsible for all my troubles. I know that God will His love was
there to help me. From that day to this, my life has been free from
worry. I am 71 years old, and the most dramatic and glorious
minutes of my life were those I spent in that chapel that morning."
They were glorious because J. C. Penny was delivered from the grip
of worldliness, and he found freedom in the kingdom of God.
All of this ought to wake us up to do some serious
self-examination. Are we self-centered? Are most of aims and goals
in life materialistic? Do we covet the power, popularity, and
possessions of others? Benjamin Franklin said, "It is easier to
suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it." If we let
desire and covetousness have its way in our lives, it becomes a sort of
mental gluttony. It kills affection for all else, and becomes the alpha
and omega of our being. The solution, of course, as James says in the
following verses is to submit to God; to draw nigh to God, and to
humble ourselves before God. We must study these solutions to
secularism in depth, but our goal in this message is to make it clear
that the problem is real, and only as we are aware of the reality of
the danger can we honestly face up to it, and conquer it by the grace
of God.
It is possible for the world to enter the church and dominate its
attitudes and actions. It is possible for the church to be become so
secularized that it ceases to be a tool for God. Like the church of
Ephesus in Rev. 2, it is possible to leave our first love and substitute
our love for the world in place of our love for Christ. The result will
be that our candlestick will be removed, and we will no longer be the
light of the world, for we will be the world instead. All of this being
possible makes it shear folly for believers not to consciously dedicate
themselves to build up their faith and knowledge of God, and to
consciously battle the forces that operate in our own lives that tend to
make us world minded. It is only as we as individuals keep the world
out of our lives that we can keep the world out of the church.
