The Book of James, From Whence Come Wars? James 4:1-3 - Lesson 17

James 4:1-17,  From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? ²Ye 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. ³Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. ⁴Ye adulterers and adulteresses, 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. ⁵Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? ⁶But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. ⁹Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.  ¹¹Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. ¹²There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? ¹³Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: ¹⁴Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. ¹⁵For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. ¹⁶But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. ¹⁷Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

It is easy to read this chapter and think that James must be talking about those that are lost, those who have not been redeemed by the blood of Christ.

He uses words like wars, fightings, lust, kill, adulterers, adulteresses, and proud.

Certainly he cannot be talking about believers, can he?

But look at other places in this book, namely James 1:2 where he addresses his readers as My brethren, and in James 2:1, 2:14, 3:1, 3:10, 3:12, 5:10, and 5:12 which include this same address, "My brethren."

Yes, James means for these strong words to be attached to believers for Christians are not immune from these sins, including the sin of murder.

Does not Paul rebuke the church at Corinth concerning the sin in the church that even shocked the Gentile Corinthians.

He told them to deliver the fornicator to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Paul did not propose the idea that this man was not saved for he knew that the flesh was weak and even capable of governing in the life of a believer.

We have already been told by James in chapter one that we are not to blame God for our sin or for thinking that temptation comes from God, but we are to know that temptation comes from within.

Now here in chapter four James adds to our knowledge as to the source of the sin of believers. For from where does sin come?

James 4:1-3,  From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? ²Ye 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. ³Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

James is boldly addressing the problem of conflict among the saints.

This is not to be a surprise to us for a study of the scriptures reveals that there was even conflict among Christ’s disciples.

The was conflict between Peter and Paul, lawsuits among the Corinthian saints, the conflict between two women at Philippi, among other examples.

But here in James, conflict even leads to murder.

James does not rule out murder among the saints for he knows that there is no sin of which a saint is not capable.

Certainly David was a saved man when he committed adultery and attempted to cover it up by murdering Bathsheba’s husband.

So the message of James to us is that if we think ourselves incapable of any sin, we deceive ourselves.

As long as believers are in the flesh and believers allow the flesh to rule anything can happen, including murder.

For James speaks of this path of the flesh, this path of sin, this path of death, in comparison to the path of wisdom which leads to life.

Paul told of this path in Romans 6:16, Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Jesus was very clear in his teaching where he taught that the work of the heart, and not the actual deed was to be considered to determine upon which path you are on.

In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew Jesus said that he who looks upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

And again in that same passage Jesus discussed the sin of murder but he tied it to being angry with a brother.

We think of murder as the ultimate sin but Jesus traced the source of the sin of murder back to an angry spirit.

This angry spirit sees others without any worth, without any value, and thus the angry spirit sees the world as being better off without them.

How many times are we murderers in our hearts in only one day.

We get angry at the driver who cuts us off, who puts our life at risk, perhaps calling him an idiot or other foul name.

Or we yell at the television which pictures the corrupt politician who cares little for anything except maintaining his position, or we are angry at someone near and dear to us who has hurt us.

Oh! how we denounce those who commit the heinous crime of murder but what about us when we think of murder as Jesus has defined it as emanating from the heart.

We do tend to love definitions of sin that exclude ourselves but the definition of sin that Jesus Christ provides, finds us all guilty.

So according to Jesus, the One we should strive to sincerely call Master, we are not to have this kind of anger toward others lest we be included in the list of those on murderer’s row.

We are not to let things get out of hand but we are to quickly seek forgiveness before our differences build up further, for murder is the fruit of unresolved anger and hostility.

So James is certainly not far a field of what takes place in a Christian’s heart when he speaks of murder.

Now James goes on to tell us why Christians have conflicts and that is because they choose to yield to the lusts that war in their members.

This word lust means sensual delight.

Sensual comes from the word "senses".

So this lust has to do with what is seen, tasted, smelled, touched, or heard.

It has to do with the consciousness of this world.

So lust is an inordinate appetite that the senses satisfy.

It can be a lust for that which enters the eye, the mouth, the nose, the hand, or the ear.

This is opposed to what satisfies our God for without faith it is impossible to please Him.

Faith does not come by the senses, for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

We do not access faith by the senses, we access faith by the Spirit of God.

But the driving force of carnal Christians is that which satisfies the senses.

This describes Christians who have allowed their senses to rule their desires.

In yielding themselves servants to the flesh, they then obey the flesh rather than the Spirit of God.

Their desire for the pleasure of the flesh, satisfied by the senses, is greater than the desire for the pleasure of their spirit.

In doing this their pleasures dominate their lives and feed the war within their bodies.

From this war comes conflicts and strife with one another in the body of Christ.

This is what happens on the path of the flesh, the path of sin, the path of death.

But the opposite happens on the path of life where the flesh is mortified or reckoned dead through the power of God’s Spirit for on this path the Christian, daily dies to self.

Instead of putting on the old man he or she puts off the old man and in so doing puts the interests of others ahead of his or her own.

Like our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, we become servants, rather than striving to be masters.

Instead of division and conflict, we promote unity within the body of Christ.

Think about your own body and its unity.

Think about your own body parts getting along with all of the other body parts.

Now think about a body that is smitten with a disease like Parkinson’s, a disease that brings about an uncontrolled shaking.

The body parts are no longer in unity but function without consideration of the other parts of the body.

The hand is no longer useful, and on the contrary may even become hurtful to other parts of the body.

But as Christ’s body we are to have unity of purpose for we are to fulfill the mission of the head, the Lord Jesus Christ, as so well expressed in the second chapter of Philippians.

Philippians 2:1-7,  If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, ²Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. ³Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory (self conceit); but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. ⁴Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. ⁵Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: ⁶Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: ⁷But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: ⁸And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

This scripture went unheeded at the church at Corinth!

For this church, instead of being a church of servants, was a church of self preservers or self seekers.

Instead of unity, some Christians took other Christians to court to settle a matter that should have been settled as servants.

Pleasure dominated the life of the man living in open sin, while others were also guilty of sexual immorality.

Others were corrupting the Lord’s supper driven by the appetite of their flesh instead of the appetite of the Spirit.

Paul in writing to the Corinthians displayed the servant heart for which we are to strive in the Christian walk.

He presents no claim for their support even though the sower of the word ought to reap benefit from that sowing.

He preaches the need for bringing the body under the control of the Spirit rather than having the flesh in charge.

He brought to their mind case after case of Israel’s history which showed that Israel’s failures were the result of letting the flesh have its way.

Even in the matter of their church meetings the Corinthians were not concerned in edifying others, but in the expressing before others of what they saw as gifts and wisdom.

They exhibited not the servant’s heart but a heart that had to be served.

And so much of the source of the wars and fightings among them came not from realizing the pleasures, but from the seeking of those pleasures.

Verse 2 tells us this,  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.

Their lusts, their desires, drive them to act in a sinful manner to get what they want.

Pay attention to the wisdom of God’s Proverbs for they tell us that just the seeking of riches will bring about poverty.

And that poverty does not necessarily mean that you have nothing in the bank but it means a poverty of soul, a poverty of God.

Proverbs 23:4 tells us to not seek to be rich, Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. ⁵Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

And Proverbs 28:22 tells us of a connection of the seeking of riches to an evil eye,  He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

Even with murder and envy they cannot obtain what they want.

Christians are not to think of themselves as have-nots for in reality we are the ultimate haves.

James himself recognized this in James 2:5, where he said, we are  heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him.

And Romans 8:17 tells us that we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

Now an heir is one who waits until things come about for an heir does not make things happen!

God told us to wait. Waiting is a faith activity.

Waiting excludes lust for lust does not wish to wait for lust is not a faith activity.

Christians who yield to the flesh are not waiting on God’s good timing.

To everything of God there is a season.

The Christian who lusts after things and does not get them is not conducting himself as God has told him for there is no faith in lust.

James says:  Ye have not because ye ask not, and even if ye ask you do not receive for ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Whatever it is that you ask is not asked as a servant but as one who wishes to be served, as one who wishes to consume without benefit to others.

God does not give us what we ask for simply to satisfy our fleshly lusts expressed through our senses.

Our Father meets all of our true needs, but He does not cater to our every whim.

The pursuit of fleshly lusts is the pursuit of vanity, and in this pursuit, we always come up short.

God desires for us to be content in our circumstances and to learn endurance.

That which we most need is wisdom, not wealth.

God wants us to "be perfect, not deficient in anything" but this has much more to do with our character than with our earthly possessions.