JAMES

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04600640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>BOOK OF JOB</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>    |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Content"><U>My Content</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photo Album"><U>Photo Album</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JOHNS GOSPEL"><U>JOHN'S GOSPEL</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PSALMS"><U>PSALMS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" 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 For days they learn to fall limp and to roll so as not to be injured.  There is nothing good about a fall.  It is only a hindrance to reaching the goal, but if you don't learn how to fall successfully it is not likely you will ever get a chance to reach the goal.  All the training is not to cross the goal line, but to survive until you get there.</div> <bR> <div>      What is true in football is likewise true in life in general.  If we  hope to make life a successful experience, and reach some worthy goals, the first thing we need to learn is how to fall.  Life is always filled with obstacles to overcome.  Scripture says, </div> <div> "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."  And, "Man that is born of a woman is a few days, and full of troubles," says the book of Job.  The Bible from Genesis to Revelation gives a realistic picture of life, and that picture looks more like a washboard than a slide.  We must face the facts of Scripture and history and realize that the future holds trials, troubles, and for some even tragedy.  This realism in the Bible, however, is combined with an optimism because it reveals to us the way to triumph through our trials.  </div> <bR> <div>      The Bible is very practical and one of the books most noted for being practical is the book of James.  It was written by James, not the Apostle, but James the brother of our Lord.  It was written by a man who grew up with Jesus in the same family, and who knew his teachings very well.  There are more references to the Sermon on the Mount in James than in all the other Epistles put together.  It also has the distinction of being one of the first books of the New Testament to be written.  It was written about 45A.D.; less than 20 years after the death of Jesus.  The very first lesson that James teaches, like that of the football coach, is the lesson on how to fall, or if we were to give it a title we might call it, The Secret Of Successful Suffering.  In these first few verses James tells us of three requirements necessary for the successful suffering of trials.  The first is-</div> <bR> <div> I.  A POSITIVE RESPONSE OF THE WILL TO TRIALS.  verse 2.</div> <bR> <div>      The difference between tragedy and triumph is all in how you count your trials.  James says by an act of the will count it all joy when tried.  Don't let circumstances take you captive and control your life, but compel them to yield the fruit of joy by a choice of the will.  The Christian is never to be under the circumstances, always on top of them.  Faith does not change what life brings to you, but it is to change what you bring to life.  Every trial calls for a choice that involves the will.  It is not what happens that determines a person attitude, but how they chose to count what happens.  One man can get a flat on the way to work and count it a blast from the hand of fate, and be upset all day because he lost an hour of work.  Another can have the same experience and count it as the providential protection of God that may have saved his life, and he rejoices all day in thanksgiving to God.  The difference between the scowling crab and a smiling Christian is all in how you count your trials.  The scowler counts them a jinx; the smiler counts them a joy.  </div> <bR> <div>      The Bible has a high view of man's will power, especially after he has been delivered from being dominated by the forces of evil.  For James to say, count it all joy, it is assumed that if they will so choose they have the will power to do so, and only if they do can they be successful in their suffering.  James can urge them, warn them, and counsel them, but only they can make the choice, but they can if they will.</div> <bR> <div>      When those two planes crashed in mid air some years ago killing all aboard there were three men who watched it on the radar screen.  They saw the two planes on a collision course and they shouted and shouted until they saw them hit.  One of them became violently ill, the second passed out, and the third  had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized.  They saw the danger but did not have control of the plane, and so all their efforts were in vain.  So it is in our experiences of falling into trials.  James can shout, count it all joy; preachers down through history can shout it; your friends can shout it, but then all they can do is stand and watch you go down unless your will responds in a positive manner and counts it all joy.  In other words, your will is the pilot in your life.  If it gives up all is lost, but if it refuses to be defeated you can never fail.  Your plans may fail, and the plane may go down, but the positive will, even then, land you safely with the parachute of joy.  As long as the will responds positively there is no such thing as defeat.  </div> <bR> <div>      When Dr. Maxwell from Prairie Bible Institute was in the Twin Cities, he told the story of the first man to bring a plane out of a tail spin.  His name was Stinson, I believe.  He was flying one day doing some fancy tricks when suddenly he went into a tail spin.  No one had ever come out of a tail spin before.  He tried everything he could think of.  He pushed and pulled, turned and twisted, and nothing happened.  It looked hopeless and time was short as he plunged toward the earth.  He finally decided to give it everything and get it over, and to his amazement, as he gave it the gas he pulled out of the tail spin.  He wondered, could it be he discovered the way to come out of a tail spin?  The only way to know was to try again, so he climbed up high and purposely went into another tail spin, and came out of it by the same method.  By an act of the will he turned a trial that had always brought tragedy into triumph. </div> <bR> <div>      Scripture tells us that God works in all things for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, but nothing works for good to those who will not count it good.  If we refuse to consider a thing good even when it is, it will not be good for us.  Like the woman who always complained about so many bad potatoes in her field.  One year almost all of them were good, and then she complained because she had no bad ones to feed the pigs.  Even blessings are not good to the person with a negative will, but to the person with a positive will even trials can bring joy.  But James makes it clear that this positive response of the will to trials must be based on the second requirement which is-</div> <bR> <div> II.  A POSITIVE RECOGNITION OF THE WORTH OF TRIALS.  verses 3 and 4.</div> <bR> <div>      The Scriptures tell us that no chastening for the present seems to be joyous.  James does not expect us to be joyful because we are suffering, or even while we are suffering, though that is not impossible, but the joy comes in reflection and by our recognizing how even trials can help us attain the spiritual goals of our life.  If we allow them, they can teach us patience, which is an essential virtue in becoming all that God wants us to be.  The joy we can have in trials is in recognizing that Christlike character is our goal, and if trials can help us to be more like Him, then we can rejoice and suffer successfully.</div> <bR> <div>      Virtues grow out of the possibility of vices.  Who has ever been brave who did not have a chance to be a coward?  How can one have courage who has never faced danger?  Who can know what patience is who has never been tried by impatience?  </div> <div> Trials are opportunities to develop virtues.  It is not the trial that brings joy, but the knowledge that the trial can teach us things that are never learned by a life of ease. </div> <div> Nobody would ever bother to watch football if there were no obstacles to overcome.</div> <div> Take away the opposition and the game loses all meaning.</div> <bR> <div>      A young Italian working in an American stone quarry had both eyes blinded, and he lost one arm by careless handling of dynamite by others.  He was helpless and the future looked dark, but a woman who lived near the hospital where he was, and who knew Italian, had compassion on him, and she helped him get into a school for the blind.  He was grateful for the fact that someone cared, and he became an eager student.  He went on to become one of the most popular teachers in that school.  If he had never had his tragic experience he likely would have remained an illiterate the rest of his life.  The loss of his sight lead to him seeing more than he ever did before.  He once said, "The day of my accident was the birthday of my mind."  He counted his trial all joy.  </div> <bR> <div>      Archidimus in Thucydides, the famous Greek historian, said, "We should remember that man differs little from man except that he turns out best who is trained in the sharpest school."  Henry Howard has pointed out that this is true in nature as well.  The Australian black-butt is a tree that grows in rich soil where there is a great deal of rain, and they grow so close together they are sheltered from the wind and storm.  It becomes huge in its life of luxury and ease, and it grows to a height of 300 feet, but in its sheltered life it develops no toughness of fiber, and, therefore, is practically worthless for any purpose where endurance is required.  </div> <div> In contrast with this tree is the English oak which battles the storms from its birth until it is strong and mature.  It grows slow but solid.  The Australian-butt will rot under ground in 6 months, but English oak is used in England for underground wooden pipes, and after 300 years they were dug up and found to be as good as when they were laid.  The proof that it is the trials endured that gives it the strength is that if the English oak is planted in Australia with its less vigorous climate, it grows twice as fast and is much feebler.  Therefore, even nature teaches that trials are of great worth in producing quality.</div> <bR> <div>      Who can find a greater quality of music than that of Handel's Messiah?  It did not come  out of a life of ease, but one of great trial.  In his biography we read, "His health and his fortune  had reached the lowest ebb.  His right side had become paralyzed, and his money was all gone.  His creditors seized him and threatened him with imprisonment.  For a brief time he was tempted to give up the fight, but then he rebounded again to compose the greatest of his inspirations, the epic Messiah."  If all had been going great for him, he may never have created his greatest work.</div> <bR> <div>      The greatest trial in all of history led to the greatest triumph in all of history.  When Jesus in the agony of Gethsemane recognized the worth of what He was to suffer for, responded with His will saying, "Not my will but thine be done."  He counted it all joy to go to the cross.  Scripture says, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross."  Never has there been such successful suffering, and James urges us to follow that same pattern that Jesus followed by making a positive response of the will to trials, based on a positive recognition of the worth of trials.  The particular value which James stresses is patience, which we will not deal with now, for now we want to look at the third requirement which is-</div> <bR> <div> III.  A POSITIVE REQUEST FOR WISDOM IN TRIALS.  verses 5-8.</div> <bR> <div>      In a sense, we are ending with the beginning.  We are covering last that which comes first.  Just as the response of the will is based on our recognition of the worth of trials, so our recognition of the worth of trials is based on our request for wisdom to be able to see it.  In other words, learning how to triumph in trials, and to suffer successfully, begins with prayer for the wisdom needed to guide our will to the proper choices.   Success in anything for the Christian comes down to the simple phrase, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."  </div> <bR> <div>      Like the football player, we do not wait until the tackler is upon us before we learn how to fall.  We learn this before the trial comes.  A Japanese proverb says, </div> <div> "Dig the well before you are thirsty."  Another says, "Shingle the roof before the storm."  The football player prepares through practice; the Christian prepares through prayer.  James is saying, if you don't have the will power to count it all joy when trials come; if you are not convinced that trials can be of great value, then you lack the wisdom which only God can give.  Therefore, you had better make a positive request for such wisdom, for without it you can never suffer successfully.  </div> <bR> <div>      Notice, he does not say we are to ask to be delivered from trials, but ask for the wisdom necessary to make them work for good in your life.  Alexander Maclaren said that the lack of wisdom is the chief defect in the average Christian.  It comes only by persevering in prayer.  Paul was constantly praying for the Christians of his day that they might have the wisdom of God.  In Col. 1:9 we read, "We do not cease to pray for you that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."  We have not because we ask not James says.  Here is a clear statement that to ask for wisdom is always in the will of God, and God delights to grant it.  James himself was known to be a man of prayer, and that explains his practical wisdom.  Tradition says he has knees like a camel because he spent so much time on them.  </div> <bR> <div>      Donald M. Baillie relates of how in the 17th century the Westminister Assembly met to draw up a Protestant Confession of Faith.  At that assembly was Dr. John Selden, one of the greatest scholars of the day, but who was a defender of the Erastian heresy.  He gave such a brilliant argument for the heresy that the good Presbyterians there were at a loss as how to defend the truth.  Then, unexpectedly,</div> <div> George Gillespie, a young Scotsman, rose in the meeting and spoke against the heresy in an amazingly effective way which swept away years of labor on the part of Dr. Selden.  When his speech was over his friends got ahold of the notebook that had lain in front of him hoping to find the outline of his argument, but on the page they found nothing but a single sentence penciled over and over again as he sat there waiting to speak.  There were just three Latin words, "Da lucem, Domine,"</div> <div> which means "Give light, O Lord."  He lacked wisdom but he asked of God.</div> <bR> <div>       Wisdom includes knowledge, but is more, for it is the ability to use knowledge to arrive at the best ends by the best means.  Wisdom directs the use of knowledge.  Many people have the knowledge of  how to drive a car, but they lack the wisdom which is necessary to drive it properly.  When a drunken man wants to drive a car, it is not knowledge he lacks, but wisdom.  Wisdom is the capacity to use knowledge effectively for good purposes.  Everyone suffers, but only the wise makes a success of it, for only the wise recognize that trials can be of profit if they are wisely used.  </div> <bR> <div>       Disraeli said, "The fool wonders but the wise man asks."  But notice that our asking must be positive.  It must be in faith without doubt.  God is ever ready to grant the request for wisdom, but He cannot answer the prayer of the double minded.  </div> <div> This is one who is not sure he wants God's will,  and so he would not be able to receive the wisdom of God anyway.  He is like Augustine who in his early prayers before he came all out for Christ use to pray, "O God, make me pure, but not now."</div> <div> He was double minded.  He wanted to follow two paths at the same time.  Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, for you will love the one and hate the other. The double minded man literally does not have a prayer. God refuses to grant any request from such a person. They are like people who are "Trying to serve the Lord in such a way as not to offend the devil." They think they can be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and get by with it. God demands a simple and single minded faith.</div> <bR> <div>      The lesson on how to suffer successfully involves the whole of one's spiritual life and relationship to God. In learning this lesson we will learn that which is necessary to be a complete and entire Christian. We will learn to fall in such a way that we are brought closer to our goal of Christlikeness for having fallen. We will do this by a positive response of the will to trials; by a positive recognition of the worth of trials, and by a positive request for wisdom in our trial. The most important thing to remember is that we must be asking God for wisdom if we are going to suffer successfully.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> DON'T WASTE ANYTHING  Based on James 1:2-4</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      Marcus Bach in his book The Power of Perception tells of how great worth is found in waste.  An old lead and zinc mine had been abandoned for years.  It appeared a worthless</div> <div> worn out pit with all its value exhausted.  But when man developed a new need, a need for Tungsten, the waste deposits from this old mine were reassayed and discovered to be full of Tungsten.  The ghost mine sprang back into life, and a thriving community grew up because waste could produce worth.  In other words, it was not waste at all, but valuable stuff.  Bach says, no mine is ever totally exhausted, and all waste just waits for man to discover a new use for it.  As men develop the power of perception, they see new values</div> <div> in what they formerly threw away.  Numerous are the examples of how what were once waste products are now valued products.</div> <bR> <div>      Nothing is more practical than the art of turning waste into worth and James the brother of our Lord was an expert.  He has the power to perceive the worth in what everyone else tends to call worthless-the trials of life.  What can be a greater waste in life than to suffer trials and tribulation?  We count it all joy when we can escape these worthless types of waste.  But James, with an advanced perception, says you are throwing away your own treasure .  There is great value to be gotten from tough times.  In fact, it is one of life's most precious values-the virtue of patience.</div> <bR> <div>      Less you think that patience is a very simple thing, let me point out how it covers a multitude of complex feelings and attitudes.  </div> <div> 1.  It means a calm waiting in hope.  This is the patience of the gardener or farmer who plants his seed and then must wait to see the fruit.  </div> <div> 2.  It means endurance of trial; a putting up with what is not pleasant, such as a nine year old boy who is convinced he can learn to be the world's greatest drummer.  </div> <div> 3.  It means self-control.  When too many things happen at once, you can still keep your cool and not go to pieces, but persevere through them all.  There are many different degrees of this virtue.  </div> <bR> <div>      James says to Christians who are struggling with life's adversities-don't waste anything in life-not even your negative experiences, for they contain great potential.  They can be used to produce the costly value of patience.  If you lack the wisdom to see this, ask God for it, says James, for none are so wise as those who have the power of perception that can explore the waste deposits of human burdens, and see how they can be turned into human blessings.  May God grant us wisdom as we try to see what James reveals concerning the value and the vision of patience.  </div> <bR> <div> I.  THE VALUE OF PATIENCE.  </div> <bR> <div>      Patience is a hard to win virtue.  It does not come from reading books and hearing sermons.  You cannot teach patience, because it is not taught, it is caught, and it is only caught by getting into the stream of life's trials.  Patience is like a purple heart.  The only way you can get it is by getting wounded in battle.  The great Henry Ward Beecher said, </div> <div> "There is no such thing as preaching patience into people unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear.  No man can learn patience except by going out into the hurly-burly world, and taking life just as it blows....and riding out the gale."  We cannot learn patience by this message, but we can learn to appreciate its value.</div> <bR> <div>      You have to be thoroughly convinced of the value of patience if  you are going to pay the price to obtain it.  Men fight for their country, and for their family, and for the honor</div> <div> of their faith, but whoever heard of fighting against adversity, and all the while counting it a joy because they are thereby gaining the virtue of patience.  We all know it is a wonderful thing to have, but is it that precious?  James clearly implies that it is.  It is so valuable to possess it that those who see its value can even suffer in joy when they know that their suffering is leading them to more patience.  Only a deep grasp of this value will enable any Christian to practice what James tells them to do.  Men can only enjoy suffering that pays high dividends.  </div> <bR> <div>      Men can suffer long fearful journeys, and hunger and thirst and pain of every description, if the end result is gold.  Men have suffered everything for gold, and just the hope of possessing it drove them to endure agonies beyond our comprehension.  A value less tangible, but just as real as gold, is glory, and again, there is no end to the suffering men and women will joyfully endure for glory.  The world of sports alone is ample evidence of this.  Millions of muscles shriek out in painful agony, yet there is no let up and relief, for the price must be paid for glory.  The point is, people count it all joy to suffer for any goal they are convinced is of high worth.  We fail to be motivated to suffer for the sake of patience, because we have undervalued it, and do not consider it as one of life's precious possessions for the personality.  </div> <bR> <div>      There is no doubt about it, Paul saw eye to eye with James on the value of patience, for Paul says it is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and in the great love chapter of I Cor. 13, the first positive characteristic of ideal love is patience.  In Rom. 5:3, Paul uses the word in the same way as James does when he says that tribulation worketh patience.  Jesus used this same word when He described the good soil in the parable of the sower as that which holds fast the seed of the word, and brings forth fruit with patience.  There are other texts we could look at, but these are sufficient to convince us that patience is a virtue which is a key</div> <div> to the fruitful Christian life.  </div> <bR> <div>      As soon as James opens his letter with a greeting, he launches into the praises of this virtue that is so precious that it ought to make us enjoy our trials.  If we cannot see the value in patience, we will not see the value in the trials that help produce it.  In 1934 the huge Jonker diamond was discovered in South Africa.  It was given to Lazare Kaplan,</div> <div> the patriarch of diamond cutters.  The owner also sent a plan for cutting it, but Kaplan</div> <div> said, had he followed that plan it would have been destroyed.  He spent one year just studying that stone, and planning how to turn it into 12 smaller stones.  Only after great patience in planning did he go to work, and his patience paid off, for he turned that egg size crystal into a dozen immortal gems.  Only recognition of great value could motivate such patience.  Nobody could exercise such patience to produce a ring of little value.  It takes great value to motivate patience.  </div> <bR> <div>      If you do not see the great value in patience, you will not see the worth of any kind of suffering.  Only a value system which places a high worth on patience can give you the power to perceive value in tribulation.  If you lack such a value system, you will consider</div> <div> all forms of suffering as worthless, and so you will waste a good chunk of your life's experiences.  James says you don't have to waste any experience of life, but can rejoice in its value if you see it develops patience.  What could be more practical than asking God to give you the wisdom to be able to turn all waste into worth.  Those who think like James are incurable optimists.  If even life's rough roads are increasing your supply of patience,</div> <div> then you can rejoice while you groan and moan.  You don't have to like the suffering, but you can't help but like the fringe benefits, if you are building up your patience.  Someone</div> <div> wrote, "Patience is like the pearl among the gems.  By its quiet radiance it brightens every human grace, and adorns every Christian excellence."  </div> <bR> <div>      In the history of Christian missions, it has been the virtue of patience that made the difference.  William Carey, the father of modern missions, labored 7 years before he won his first convert.  This has been true for many, and you just can't write the history of Christian missions without people of patience.  The second thing we want to consider is-</div> <bR> <div> II.  THE VISION OF PATIENCE.</div> <bR> <div>      The person who possesses patience perceives life with a particular perspective.  He sees life from the point of view of the whole and not just the part.  He sees the long run of things, and not just the now of them.  He has a vision that penetrates the cloudy now, and sees into the sunny yet to be.  James has a vision, not just of the present suffering of trials,</div> <div> but of the long range effects of what they can produce in us through patient endurance.</div> <div> He sees the outcome of it all leading to Christians being made complete, and lacking in nothing.  If the only way to the castle is by means of a rough road, than rejoice that you are on that rough road, for better to be struggling up toward and ideal than walking in ease down a road to no where.  </div> <bR> <div>      James does not portray the Christian life in a superficial manner.  It is a false hope to tell people the Christian life is the answer to all their problems.  The Gospel is not, come to Jesus and live happily ever after.  The Christian life is often a struggle and a battle, and an uphill climb over many obstacles, but it is worth it all because the end result is a happy ever after with a great sense of satisfaction, because we have come through the trials of life more like our Lord, who made it possible for us to fight the good fight by His grace.</div> <div> The point is, if this year is going to be a good year of Christian growth, it will not be all blue skies and barbecues.  There will be some struggle and hard decisions that force us to move up or down on the scale of Christlikeness.  James says, don't waste these times, but catch a vision of the value to be gotten out of them.</div> <bR> <div>      The patient Christian sees life as a process in which God works out His plan by stages</div> <div> and degrees.  This is a perspective based on wisdom.  God made reality this way, and it is folly to try to make it any other way.  God could have made it so babies were born a week after conception, but He chose to make it 9 months so life would begin with a process of waiting and expecting.  God could have made man so he would be like some animals, and be very soon independent after birth, but instead He made it so they need a long process of care and training.  This provides a school of patience for both parents and child.  Family life is a process of growth in learning patience.  Life is made to develop by degrees.  Jesus entered this process and grew in wisdom, and in stature and in favor with God and man. </div> <div> At 12 He already felt the need to be about His Fathers business, but God made it so He had to go home with Mary and Joseph and live in patient growth for 18 more years.</div> <bR> <div>      Jesus spent most of His life learning to develop patience.  Without this long process His humanity could not have endured the injustice of His arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  Jesus needed time to develop this virtue, and so do we.  There is no such thing as instant maturity.  The fruit of the Spirit, like the fruit of the soil, takes time to develop to maturity.</div> <div> Nobody is fully loving, joyful, peaceful, or patient upon conversion.  These and all other Christian truth grow by degrees.  </div> <bR> <div>       The virtue of patience is essential to every aspect of the Christian life.  You cannot become anything God wants you to be without patience.  Patience gives you the ability to see life in its wholeness and the long run.  It enables you to see how the trials of life can be part of the process you need to develop in specific areas you would neglect without them.</div> <div> Shakespeare said, "How poor are they who have not patience!  What wound did ever heal</div> <div> but by degrees."  Healing, growing, becoming Christlike-they are all achieved by degrees,</div> <div> and, therefore, patience is a necessity.  </div> <bR> <div>      The vision of patience enables us to be ever moving toward the goal of being complete,</div> <div> lacking nothing.  Impatient Christians always stop short of this goal.  The impatient Christian gets a glimpse of a Biblical truth, and immediately begins to proclaim he has found the key to the Scriptures.  He tends to blow it out of all proportions, and many will not go along with his enthusiasm, and so he starts his own church, or cult, and becomes an</div> <div> extremist, fighting the rest of the body.  The patient Christian takes time to see how new light and insight fits into the whole picture, and how to incorporate all aspects of truth into the whole.  The result is, he brings greater unity rather than division to the body.</div> <bR> <div>      Inpatient Christians have looked at Paul's emphasis on faith and the emphasis of James on works, and have concluded there is conflict, and so they choose up sides.  Patient Christians look deeper, and see both Paul and James in agreement, for the two must be part of the whole for there to be any authentic Christianity.  Patience builds, but impatience destroys.   If you want to be the best possible Christian James says nothing is more practical than the development of patience.  Try and imagine any other Christian virtue being complete without patience.  Imagine and impatient love.  I'll love you if you snap it up.    Sure I love my neighbor for a while, but when I asked him to come to church, and he said no, I gave up on him.  Impatient love is not Biblical love.  </div> <bR> <div>      Joy that is impatient will not last in a trial.  If all goes smoothly impatient joy can function, but patient joy can function even when the way gets rough, for it knows God can use even this to make us more Christlike.  God though the list of Christian virtue, and see how all of them lose their value if not combined with patience.  The problem with everyone</div> <div> of us is that our Christian virtue tend to all have a breaking point.  We will be kind and gentle when all is normal, but lose our cool and become like an unenlightened pagan when the waters get rough.  We have not arrived at the point where we lack nothing, for we clearly do not have the patience to be complete in the exercise of our virtues.  </div> <bR> <div>      Patience is both active and passive.  It can press on or hold on, which ever is needed.</div> <div> The active patience is called perseverance or persistence.  It is a never giving up spirit </div> <div> that plugs away even when progress seems hopeless.  A father was scolding his son for his lack of ambition.  "Why when I was your age I worked ten hours a day and five hours a night washing dishes."  The son said, "I'm proud of you dad.  If it hadn't been for your pluck and perseverance, I might have to do something like that myself."  Wise are the parents who make their children do what they don't have to do, just to learn to be patient.</div> <div> Even in our day of greater leisure, every person needs to be prepared to plod.  Shakespeare said, "Though patience is a tired mare, yet she will plod."  </div> <bR> <div>      If God did not have patience, the world would long ago be gone.  Love is patient says Paul, and God is love says John, and so God is patient.  The only way we can live the Christian life is by developing patience.  You cannot love yourself or your neighbor without patience.  Impatience is the key sign of immaturity.  The Christian who wants instant success in himself, or in others, will be a neurotic Christian.  They will never be happy, for they spend their entire life fighting the reality of life.  All of their energy will be spent in seeking shortcuts to holiness, and despising those who will not join them in their futile search.  Impatience mars every gift and perverts every grace so that even what is good</div> <div> becomes a waste.  </div> <bR> <div>      The whole point of Satan's attack on Christ in the wilderness was to entice Him into impatience.  Don't wait for food, turn the stones into bread now.  Don't wait for popularity,</div> <div> jump off the temple and get the crowds now.  Don't wait for power, bow to me and have  your kingdom now.  Satan's greatest trick is to get us to be impatient.  D. L. Moody said, </div> <div> "Paul when writing to Titus, second chapter first verse, tells him to be sound in faith, in love and in patience.  Now in this age ever since I can remember, the church has been very jealous about men being unsound in the faith.....They draw their ecclesiastical sword and cut at him, but he may be ever so unsound in love and they don't say anything.  He may be ever so defective in patience-he may be irritable and fretful all the time, but they never deal with him....I believe God cannot use many of His servants because they are full of irritability and impatience."  Moody, like James, is saying, let's get practical.  What earthly good is a Christian who believes in the Trinity, but who is so impatient he turns everybody off?  </div> <bR> <div>      The passive patience is endurance.  It stands fast and takes a pounding, but does not yield.  It patiently holds on waiting in expectation for a victory.  If mud splatters on your clothing, you tend to want to wipe it off now, but if you wait until it dries it will not smear,</div> <div> and come off much easier.  The poet writes, </div> <div>                     O wait, impatient heart!</div> <div>                                     As winter waits, her song-birds fled, </div> <div>                And every nestling blossom dead.</div> <bR> <div>                     Beyond the purple seas they sing!</div> <div>                Beneath soft snows they sleep!</div> <div>                They only sleep.  Sweet patience keep,</div> <div>                     And wait, as winter waits the spring.</div> <bR> <div>      We must confess that it is one of hardest things to do, for so many things in life put pressure on us.  Jesus, even in His perfection, still felt the tremendous pull of impatience.</div> <div> How long must I endure this generation, He moaned as He came to the edge of His own breaking point.  The folly of man; their blindness and pettiness, and weakness puts even divine patience to the test.  Trials put all of us against the wall at some point.  What do we do?  We hang on.  Many rescues take place because victims are able to hang on just a little longer than what seems possible.  </div> <bR> <div>      Jesus had to endure the weakness of those who loved Him as well as the wickedness of those who loathed Him.</div> <div>                O who like thee, so calm, so bright, </div> <div>                Thou Son of man, Thou Light of light!</div> <div>                O who like thee did ever go</div> <div>                So patient through a world of woe!</div> <bR> <div> Those who are not willing to endure trials will just not become what God intends for them to be.  If the Son of God needed to learn obedience by what He suffered, how much more must we endure to learn.  It is just a part of God's universal plan for all life to grow by degrees, and by struggle.  </div> <bR> <div>                I wish I were big the acorn said,</div> <div>                Like the great, green oak tree, over head-</div> <div>                Cool shadows it throws for all who pass-</div> <div>                But I am so useless and small--alas!</div> <div>                Only be patient, a kind voice spoke,</div> <div>                I was not always a mighty Oak;</div> <div>                For my beginning was humble, too;</div> <div>                Once I was an acorn--just like you!</div> <div>                                                                         Roberta Symmes</div> <bR> <div>      Emerson said, "Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience."  Study of one of the great Sequoias in California indicate it was a sapling in 271 B.C.  516 years later it was damaged by fire.  For over a century it repaired that damage, and grew layer after layer over the scar.  God built patience into that mighty tree, and it survived.  You and I have</div> <div> the potential for patience as well, but we must choose to develop it, and only testing can help us do that.  Nothing can be more practical than for us to ask God for the wisdom to see the value in testing, so that we do not waste anything.  </div> <div>                </div> <bR> <div>      </div> <div> ANGRY SAINTS   Based on James 1:19-20</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      Near the end of the last century a group of minors in a mid-Western state became angry.  They expressed that anger by igniting a carload of coal and pushing it down the mine shaft.  Like most who act in anger, they could not foresee the long range consequences of their action.  When the burning coal struck the bottom of the mine it spread to the layers of coal within the earth, and 52 years later it was still burning.</div> <div> It consumed 12 million tons of coal, and burned over an area of 10 square miles.  Now and then a road would cave in that had been undermined by the eating fire.  Property values in the whole area were greatly reduced, and all of the people suffered.  One farmer even dug up roasted potatoes from his field.  All efforts to quench the fire were fruitless, and so a moment of anger led to a lifetime of living with the consequences.</div> <bR> <div>      What those minors did illustrates what millions of individuals are doing daily by letting their lives be controlled by anger.  Add the letter D to  the word anger, and you have danger.  In a state of anger we are only one letter away from danger.  This means</div> <div> all of us live dangerously, because all of us get angry.  It is a universal human emotion,</div> <div> and the saints must wrestle with this trial, along with all the others they face. </div> <bR> <div>      James does not say we are to eliminate anger.  He says we are to be slow to anger.</div> <div> James is too realistic and practical to think that the saints will never feel angry.  Anger</div> <div> in itself is a normal and legitimate human emotion, but it is so little understood that most men fail to find its values, and let it be expressed in destructive, rather than constructive, ways.  There are no sinful emotions; only sinful uses of them.  Anger</div> <div> is no more sinful than joy, for God and Jesus experienced both of them.  </div> <bR> <div>      Anger handled properly will make a Christian more effective in living the Christian life.  Anger is a form of energy, and energy has to be used in some way.  You cannot destroy it.  You have to channel it, and like atomic energy, you can channel it to purposes of destruction, or to purposes of construction where it will be helpful rather than harmful.  When we are dealing with anger, we are dealing with a powerful energy</div> <div> which will serve the cause of good or evil, and, therefore, it is important for Christians to understand all they can about this energy which they possess. </div> <bR> <div>       Since most of the energy of anger is used for evil, the predominant emphasis of Scripture is on the peril of anger.  In verse 20 James makes it clear that the anger of man is not a fit instrument for doing the will of God.  The chances of being just and merciful when you are angry are about as great as the chances of removing a sliver gently with a wood saw.  It is just not the right tool for the job, and anger is just not the right tool for expressing God's righteousness.  That is why we read so many places in Scripture of the peril of anger, and the need to forsake its path.</div> <bR> <div> Psa. 37:8, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath."  </div> <div> Psa. 14:17, "He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly."</div> <div> Pro. 22: 24-25, "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man</div> <div>                            thou shall not go lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy</div> <div>                     soul."</div> <div> Pro. 29:22, "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in </div> <div>                      transgression."</div> <div> The Old Testament looks at anger as folly, but in the New Testament the language is even stronger, for anger is seen as one of the gravest of sins.  </div> <div> Matt. 5:22, "But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother with a cause</div> <div>                       shall be in danger of the judgment."  </div> <div> Paul, in several places, lists anger, strife, and wrath as the sins which make the saints carnal.  He writes in Titus 1:7, that a bishop must be blameless, "...Not self-willed, not</div> <div> soon angry."  All that the Bible says about the peril of anger is backed up by studies in modern psychology.</div> <bR> <div>      On the other hand, we dare not close the door on the positive side, and so before we look further at the perilous power of anger, we want to look at-</div> <bR> <div> I.  THE POSITIVE POWER OF ANGER.  James implies there is some value to anger by putting it in the same category with speaking.  He says we are to be slow to speak and slow to anger.  He does not say give up speaking and anger altogether, but recognize that both can do more harm than good, so use your tongue and your emotion of anger very cautiously.  Nitroglycerin can do a lot of good, but it can also blow everything to pieces if handled carelessly.  So it is with both speech and anger.  Speaking can be used for the glory of God, and so can anger.  Paul makes this clear in Eph. 4:26:  "Be ye angry but do not sin:  do not let the sun go down on your anger."  So, it is possible to be angry and not sin, and this means there can be a positive side to anger.  </div> <bR> <div>      Two things characterize a positive Biblical anger.  1.  It is slow in coming.  2.  It is fast</div> <div> in departing.  </div> <div> Prov. 14:29, "He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly."</div> <div> Prov. 16:42, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty...."</div> <div> Eccles. 7:9, "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry."  Counting to ten is a Biblical idea.</div> <div> All of these texts emphasize the point James is stressing.  We are to be slow in anger.</div> <div> Paul stresses the point that we are to quickly settle the issue of anger and not let the sun go down on our wrath.  Anger is to be hard to come, and easy to go.</div> <bR> <div>       Jesus is our ideal in everything, and he reveals in his manhood the ideal of positive anger.  The wrath of the Lamb is not our ideal, for what Jesus does as Lord is not for our example.  It is what He did as man that is to be our guideline to follow.  We have no right to play God, but we have a responsibility to be all that man can be by God's help, and that means to be Christlike.  If we examine our Lord's anger, we discover that He was slow to anger, and when it did come, He expressed it, and did not hold a grudge.  Jesus became angry with His disciples when they persisted in their blindness.  He rebuked them and said,</div> <div> "Oh ye of little faith."  When Peter insisted on holding Him back from fulfilling His purpose, He sharply responded, "Get thee behind me Satan."  </div> <bR> <div>      Anger expressed toward a loved one, not to hurt them, but to inform them, or prevent them from folly, is a positive anger, and is often necessary to maintain a good relationship.</div> <div> Husbands and wives who use anger properly never have to suffer the negative us of it.</div> <div> Jesus used it to communicate His frustration with those whom He loved.  If we do not learn this, we often let frustration go until it explodes, and that kind of anger is never positive. </div> <bR> <div>      A wife felt for years that her husband did not share his part of the cost when they went out for an evening with other couples.  It griped her, and she resented it, but she supressed it.  Supressing anger is something like trying to keep and inflated inner tube under water.  Part of it pops up, and while your struggle to get that part under, it pops up in another place, and finally you lose control and it leaps to the surface.  Supressed anger will pop up someplace else if it is not expressed.  Millions of people don't know it, but their physical problems are the result of supressed anger.  If you don't let it out, that energy has to do something, and it usually does harm to your body or mind.  It is like trying to hide</div> <div> a fire:  Something is going to get burned.  </div> <bR> <div>      Getting back to our story, the wife ended up with a need for therapy, and in a group session her resentment came out.  When she let her husband know about it she discovered</div> <div> that he had contributed his share all along in a quiet and unassuming way.  The point is, had she expressed her anger to him, and got it off her chest how she thought he was a cheap skate, the truth would have come out in the open, and the problem would have been solved before it became an issue.  Positive anger informs others of your hurt, and is not a means</div> <div> by which you hurt others.  </div> <bR> <div>      Anger is energy, and energy moves us to action.  The only way we ever get any problem in life settled is by someone getting angry and deciding to get to the bottom of it.  The people who strive for excellence are those who get angry with mediocrity and shoddiness.</div> <div> Jesus did this when He drove out the money changers in the temple.  That was positive anger because its purpose was not to do harm, but to protect others against a great injustice and evil.  If you can watch people being treated unfairly and unjustly, and not get angry, you are not being Christlike in your attitude.  </div> <bR> <div>      Prisons were vile hell holes until John Howard lost his temper, and did something about it.  Slavery was entrenched in our society until Lincoln got mad, and hit it hard.  Hospitals were terrible nightmares for the sick until Florence Nightengale got angry, and hurled her anger at government officials until things were changed.  Most of the great changes for good in the world begin with an angry saint.  A wife said to her husband, before you go to work give the maid a scolding.  He said I thought you were satisfied with her.  I am, but</div> <div> she is beating carpets today and she always does it better when she is angry.  Some things</div> <div> are done best when we are angry, and this is especially true when we fight evil.  </div> <bR> <div>      Martin Luther said, "When I am angry, I can pray well and preach well."  When you are angry you really care, and caring is what counts.  The man who lets nothing bother him,</div> <div> cares about nothing.  If you do care, and have the compassion of Christ, you will be angry</div> <div> at all the forces that mistreat and injure people.  Anger at evil is one of the ways the energy of compassion is produced.  If men never get angry at evil, there is no power generated in them to work for a change.  Jesus had a healthy anger against injustice, and He made His protest.  As God, He judged those who refused to heed His protest as a man.</div> <div> The positive anger of a Christian is anger that motivates us to protest against evil.  It instantly becomes a perilous power, however, if we take it upon ourselves and try and carry out the judgment of God.  Anger which motivates us to fight unjust laws and practices</div> <div> is positive, but anger which leads us to destroy the lives and property of the guilty, is anger</div> <div> which does not work the righteousness of God.  </div> <bR> <div>      The positive anger of Christ is brought out clearly in Mark chapter 3.  Jesus entered the synagogue, and saw a man with a withered hand.  Jesus had compassion on him, but He saw the Pharisees watching Him to see if He would heal on the Sabbath.  Verse 5 says,</div> <div> "And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart."  Jesus did not care what they would do, for He knew it was right to do good on the Sabbath, and so He healed the man.  He did not start a fight with the Pharisees and seek them do them injury.</div> <div> Positive anger drives us to do what is good and constructive.  The prejudices of people should not move us to fight them, but to help the people they oppress.  That is letting the energy of anger be used in such a way that it becomes a virtue.  That is being angry and not sinning, as Paul commands.  </div> <bR> <div>      Anger without compassion is not positive anger, and will always do harm for the cause of Christ.  Spiros Zodhiates tells of a church which had two candidates who came, and both preached on hell.  They both used the same text, and had the same Biblical position, but the people voted for the second rather than the first.  When asked why, they said the first one spoke as if he were glad people were going to hell, the second one seemed sorry for it.</div> <div> Both had the doctrine right, but only one had a Christlike spirit.  The truth of Christ without the love of Christ can never accomplish the work of Christ.  That is what Paul is saying in verse 20.  The anger of man just will not do the work of God.  Only that anger which is controlled by the spirit of Christ can be used for such a positive purpose.  Look now at-</div> <bR> <div> II.  THE PERILOUS POWER OF ANGER.  Anger has always been one of the seven deadly sins, but few Christians treat it as a serious sin.  They have to ignore the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, and the whole of Christian history to do this, but this is a small obstacle for the human heart which is deceitful above all things.  We can easily deceive ourselves into believing that anger is a mere trifle, and not to be compared with the sins</div> <div> we condemn in others.  </div> <bR> <div>      One of the reasons we minimize the sin of anger is just because it is so common among the saints.  Like the world, we tend to think if something is common, it must be okay.  If </div> <div> everybody is doing it, it cannot be wrong to do it.  If everybody loses their temper now and then, it is perfectly normal, and therefore, acceptable.  We follow this logic because we hate to face up to the fact that we all have a tiger in our tank that can suddenly give us power to do evil.  June Callwood in her book, Love, Hate, Fear, Anger And The Other Lively Emotions writes, "One of the most appalling discoveries a person can make about himself is to meet the hellhound of anger he contains.  A glimpse of this inner hyena leaves a man shaken and confused."  </div> <bR> <div>      Cain rose up and killed his brother in anger, but he was not a freak, he was normal man who didn't know how to control the energy of anger.  It has happened to born again Christians.  In a fit of anger they have killed someone.  More than one Christian has served a prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.  I read of one who got in a fight with his boss and gave him a push.  The boss hit his head on a piece of metal and died. </div> <div> Of course, this was not the intention of the Christian who pushed him, but that is the nature of anger.  It tends toward accomplishing evil ends rather than the righteousness of God.</div> <bR> <div>      Moses, the meekest man alive, and greatest man of God of his day, let his anger get the best of him.  He struck the rock he was to merely speak to, and God punished him for this act of anger by preventing him from leading Israel into the promise land.  Angry saints can be dangerous to themselves, and to others.  Studies have shown that when anger takes over the rest of the brain is as if it was paralyzed.  That means anger can turn a man into a robot gone bezerk.  There is no control, and one is not subject to the leading of reason,</div> <div> common sense, or the Holy Spirit.  </div> <bR> <div>      Anger is a primary cause of prejudice.  If you are angry at  how life is going for you, </div> <div> and angry at yourself for being poor, or angry because you are not shown respect because you are not rich, anger may be supressed and come out as prejudice toward others.  A test at Yale revealed this.  A group of men were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their feelings toward people of another race.  After the questionnaire was filled they were promised and exciting night of entertainment.  They were in a good mood as they anticipated a great evening, and they had a high degree of respect for the minority group they were being questioned on.  </div> <bR> <div>      Then it was announced that the evenings entertainment had to be canceled for some organizational meeting that meant nothing to them.  They were angry and aggravated, </div> <div> and in that state they were asked to fill out one more form.  The results revealed a radical change in their attitude toward the minority group.  Prejudice and negative feelings of all kinds were brought out as they expressed their anger.  The point is, and angry man cannot relate to others honestly.  Anger creates all kinds of destructive negatives which hurt us</div> <div> and others.  How can you prevent this?  The answer is found in the total context in which James deals with anger.  All of your problems come from within.  They are not from God.</div> <div> The battle is with your own self-image.  Anger is aroused by anything we feel is a blow</div> <div> to our prestige.  Dr. Dolby, Professor of Psychology at Baylor University said, if you say his knowledge of Spanish is poor, he is not the least upset, for he does not think of himself as a student of Spanish.  But if you question his knowledge of psychology, his anger begins to rise rapidly.  The person who feels he is being attacked or belittled will be angry.</div> <bR> <div>      The best defense against anger is your confidence in your status before God.  If you have assurance of God's approval and acceptance, you will not fear the puny pin pricks</div> <div> of peoples perverted tongues.  All you do when you get angry is reveal your own lack of self-respect.  The man who does not easily get offended can let criticism role off him like</div> <div> water off a duck's back.  He is secure in his relationship to Christ, and because he knows who he is, and what his worth is to his Lord, he does not have to defend his ego with anger.</div> <div> Christian maturity involves a total acceptance of ones value.  This includes the ability to accept failures as part of the process of growth, without any need to blame God, self, or others.  If you are like a pile of gun powder ready to flare up every time a spark of personal offense is produced, your problem is a poor self-image.  You lack an adequate supply of the water of life that can keep you cool.  </div> <bR> <div>      As followers of Christ we need to let the Spirit of Christ be the controlling influence </div> <div> that enables us to experience the positive power of anger, and escape the perilous power of anger.  </div> <bR> <div>                We mutter and sputter, </div> <div>                We fume and we snort.</div> <div>                We mumble and grumble,</div> <div>                Our feelings are hurt.</div> <div>                We can't understand things,</div> <div>                Our vision grows dim.</div> <div>                When all that we need is,</div> <div>                A moment with Him. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> THE SMALL IS SIGNIFICANT   Based on James 3:2</div> <div> By Pastor Glenn Pease</div> <bR> <div>      The story is told of a man who had lived all his life on one of the small islands of the South Pacific until he came to visit America.  He crossed the continent by train, and spent days watching the landscape.  When the train crossed the Mississippi River, and he was told how much further he still had to travel, he said this to a fellow passenger, </div> <div> "I have been thinking about Christopher Columbus.  People make such a fuss about his discovering America, but I don't think it was so much.  America is so big, I don't see how he could have missed it." </div> <bR> <div>      After crossing Iowa three times in July, I can understand his feelings.  We live in a big country.  Big is space, big in power, and big in world influence.  Bigness characterizes the thinking of Americans.  The huge Astrodome in Houston, Texas is symbolic of the American Ideal.  It has been called the eight wonder of the world.  And 18 story office building could be built between the surface and the dome.  Men have always been thrilled with bigness.  The ancient world had its pyramids, coliseums, towers and castles.  From the time we can first talk and our mother asks us how big we are, and we thrill her heart by stretching our arms and saying so big, we are made conscious of the significance of size.  </div> <bR> <div>      Bigness is not bad in itself.  Government can get too big and domineering, and so can business.  It can become a monopoly, but bigness in itself is not bad.  It has a tendency, however, to lead our minds astray by making us ignore the significance of the small.  James was a man who fully realized that the small is significant.  God inspired him to share this truth with all believers.  When we think of a great Christian leader,</div> <div> we think of great Bible scholars, men of deep prayer, and those with a powerful witness.  These are the big things in the Christian life, and we hear them exalted over and over again.  No one would think of ever denying there significance, but James makes it clear that you can spend your life concentrating on these big things and still be a failure because of your neglect of the little things.  He is thinking especially of that little thing in the lower front part of your head called the tongue.  </div> <bR> <div>      James does not say, if you read your Bible every day, you are a perfect man, or an ideal and complete Christian.  He does not say you are perfected if you pray and witness effectively.  He does say, however, you are perfected if you have such control of your tongue that you never offend with it.  The ideal Christian is the one who has realized the significance of the small, and has learned to make no mistakes with his or her tongue.  </div> <bR> <div>      If you have ever been wondering why you are not perfect, now you know.  Most sermons on the tongue are looked upon as messages on a minor problem in the Christian life.  They are just little talks on trivial troubles that Christians have.  The big things are what count, and so we tolerate some of the topical talks on texts about the tongue, longing to get back to the big stuff of Bible doctrine.  There is so much truth to our feelings that it is hard for us to grasp the significance of the small.  Certainly a message on the cross or resurrection is far more important than a message on the tongue.  Nevertheless, God through James forces us to examine the significance of the small, and the role of the tiny tongue in our total testimony as Christians.  </div> <bR> <div>      Big things only exist, and can only function properly, because of little things.  That is what James is saying in this passage.  A realistic look at any area of life will prove it</div> <div> is a true principle.  We could explore the great expanse of the universe, and point out that all of it, in its gigantic colossal bigness, is composed of tiny atoms so small that they are unseen.  All visible reality exists and functions on the basis of the minute and invisible atom.  This is God's doing, and He follows the same pattern in the spiritual realm.  Jesus describes it in Matt. 13:31 where He said the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed.  It is the smallest of seeds, yet it becomes a huge plant.  </div> <bR> <div>      God is concerned about the big also, and man can never match God when it comes to bigness, but in all God does there is the reality of the significance of the small.  We must grasp this truth, and see its application in all of life before we can deal seriously with the specific topic of the tongue.  If we don't, it will only be another message on a minor issue,</div> <div> and it will impress few, and change none.  We must recognize that James is not taking us down a side street or a back alley, but is right on main street when he writes so seriously</div> <div> about the tongue.  James knows that speech is the primary means of communication in all human relations, and that it is the source of much good or much evil.</div> <bR> <div>      Most all of the beautiful relationships of life begin and continue by means of the tongue.</div> <div> Just think back to the thrill it was to first talk with the one you came to love.  You might wish he or she would stop now, but it was music then.  All friendships begin with the tongue as we learn to know each other by verbal sharing.  We also lose friends by the same means.  We also hurt those we love by the use of the tongue.  All human relationships are made positive or negative depending on our use of the tongue.  </div> <bR> <div>      The two great commandments of Christ are to love God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves.  Keeping the second commandment is a matter of good relationships with other people, and this is a matter where the tongue is the key factor.  You cannot do the big things of the Christian life without the aid of the little tongue.  The big things collapse if the little things are not under control.  Since we cannot truly love God with all our being if we fail to keep His second commandment, it means even the biggest thing of all, our relationship to and obedience to God, depends upon that little piece of flimsy flesh in our face.  </div> <bR> <div>      It may be hard to believe, but the kind of Christian you are and will become depends more upon your use of your tongue then any other single factor.  The small is significant.</div> <div> So much so that we often fail in our Christian growth just because we don't believe it can </div> <div> be all that important.  But look at life, and you will see James writes wisdom from above.</div> <div> We need to give this truth more thought, and be more conscious about applying it in our lives.  Listen to the poets description of this truth, and see if it does fit your own experience.  </div> <bR> <div>                It takes so little to make us sad,</div> <div>                Just a slighting word or a doubting sneer,</div> <div>                Just a scornful smile on some lips held dear;</div> <div>                And our footsteps lag, though the goal seem near,</div> <div>                And we lose the courage and hope we had-</div> <div>                So little it takes to make us sad.</div> <bR> <div>      Most of the destructive conflicts within marriage start with some negative little remark</div> <div> you could write on a postage stamp, but before its effects are over, you need a legal size file to hold the folders with all the foul and foolish words.  How great a forest is set ablaze</div> <div> by a small fire says James.  We all know its true, yet we cannot bring ourselves to fight fire</div> <div> where it starts, and concentrate on controlling that little thing, the tongue.  </div> <bR> <div>      The folly of our neglect of this truth is all the more evident when we realize how encouraging a truth it is.  Many Christians feel so inadequate and inferior, and they know they will never be great Bible scholars, or great movers of mountains, by prayer, preaching, or witnessing, and so they live in constant guilt and frustration. James is telling us we do not have to turn the world upside down to be a great Christian. We do not have to have mighty gifts to be instruments of His grace. All we have to do is bring our tongue under control and use it is a way pleasing to Him and we can be what He wants us to be.</div> <bR> <div>       Every Christian has the potential for doing great things that will lift, and bring light and life into this world of so many needs.  The poet also writes of the positive side of the tongue.  </div> <div>                It takes so little to make us glad,</div> <div>                Just a cheering clasp of a friendly hand,</div> <div>                Just a word from one who can understand;</div> <div>                And we finish the task we long had planned;</div> <div>                And we lost the doubt and the fear we had-</div> <div>                So little it takes to make us glad. </div> <bR> <div>      Every one of us has the power in our tongue to be harmful or helpful to every person </div> <div> we know.  To learn to control this little muscle for the glory of God is the secret of successful Christian living.  The Christian who can do it is on his way to God's hall of fame, for James says if he learns to control that little member of the body, he will be able to control the whole body, and bring it into submission to God.  The little is significant, and because it is, everyone of us is significant in the plan of God.  There is not one so ungifted</div> <div> that he cannot use his tongue more effectively for the glory of God and the good of man.</div> <div> Now let us give our attention to some of the details of James on this important truth.</div> <bR> <div>      In verses 3 and 4 he gives 2 illustrations of the significance of the small.  One is for land lubbers, and one for the sea fairing man.  By means of a little bit you determine where a horse takes you, and by means of a little rudder you determine where a ship will go.  If James had lived today, he could have added another and said, by means of a little stick or wheel you determine the course of an airplane.  When Mariner I was launched it went off course and missed Venus by ten of thousands of miles.  It seems that in typing out the electronic instructions to the missile someone left out a hyphen.  This tiny little mistake cost 18 million tax payers dollars.   Numerous little things control the big things of life.  The whole elevator goes where you want it to by pushing a little button.  The illustration are endless, and the tongue is that little thing in the human body that determines where your life will go.  When Paul said in Rom. 12:1 to present your bodies to God as a living sacrifice, he was clearly implying that the tongue, as part of that body, must be submissive to God, or there can be no successful Christian living.  The body goes the way of the tongue.  </div> <bR> <div>      When we think of the weakness of the flesh, and the lust of the flesh, we almost always think in terms of the sex drive.  We all know the power of sex, and we are constantly made conscious of it, but reading James convinces me that sex is not as great a problem for Christians as is the tongue.  Christians have temptations, like everyone else, but they are aware of the dangers and tragedies of yielding, and, therefore, are usually on the winning side in this battle, but not so when it comes to the tongue.  We are not conscious of its power for evil, and so we frequently fall.  Listen as I read verses 6 though 8.  </div> <bR> <div>           The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts</div> <div>           of the body.  It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole</div> <div>           course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. </div> <div>           All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the</div> <div>           sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but </div> <div>           no man can tame the tongue.  It is a restless evil, full of</div> <div>           deadly poison.  </div> <bR> <div>      I can hardly believe that James is on the level.  It sounds like an extreme exaggeration.</div> <div> James makes it sound like our tongues are so evil that they make our mouths equivalent</div> <div> to the very pit of hell.  You would have a hard time convincing the most constant curser you know that his tongue is as bad as James makes it out to be.  And remember, James is writing to Christians.  I would not believe these words if they were not a part of the Bible.</div> <div> But because they are, and because the language is so strong, I have concluded that we have here one of the most significant passages in all  the Bible, but one of the most neglected.  If the tongue is really the primary tool by which Satan can trip us up, and cause us to fail, and if we are almost totally oblivious to it, and hardly give the matter any consideration, than it is no wonder that we are not advancing toward Christlikeness.  </div> <bR> <div>                 Its not the big events alone</div> <div>                     that make us what we are;</div> <div>                and not the dizzy moments when</div> <div>                     we're swinging on a star.  </div> <div>                Its just the things that happens, as</div> <div>                     along the road we plod;</div> <div>                the little things determine what</div> <div>                     we're really worth to God.</div> <bR> <div>      If little things are that important, than little things are big things, and one of the biggest things you can do is take care of the little things.  </div> <div>                     </div> <div>                </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>      </div> <div>      </div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>