Bible Questions Answered:
“How can we help but be a friend of
the world we live in?...”
Raleigh/ Rocky Mount, North Carolina
Bible Answer:
Bible Text:
James 4:1-10 NLT (James addresses
the Jewish Christian congregation.)
1 What is causing the quarrels and
fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war
within you?
2 You want what you don’t have, so
you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have,
but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away
from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask
God for it.
3 And even when you ask, you don’t
get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will
give you pleasure.
4 You adulterers! Don’t you
realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of
God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world,
you make yourself an enemy of God.
5 What do you think the Scriptures
mean when they say that The Spirit God has placed within us is filled
with envy?
6 But He gives us even more grace to
stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say,
“God opposes the proud but favors
the humble.”
7 So humble yourselves before God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Come close to God, and God will
come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts,
for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
9 Let there be tears for what you
have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness
instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
10 Humble yourselves before The
Lord, and He will lift you up in honor.
God's child is in
flesh and spirit, and the two are at constant war with each other.
Our sins have been
forgiven, yes, but our fallen human nature, received by and through
the fall of Adam, is not rescinded! Human nature and its fallen
tendencies must be battled throughout life.
One day this battle
will for ever be over, ….
I John 3:2 KJV
Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when
He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He
is.
...but not until
then.
Friendship with the
world.
James 4:5 NLT
What do you think the Scriptures
mean when they say that The Spirit God has placed within us is
filled with envy?
God will “not,”
take second place in our hearts and lives!
In the Old
Testament, He told Israel:
Isaiah 1:18-21
KJV (God's people, unfaithful.)
18 Come now, and let us reason
together, saith The Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be
as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye
shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye
shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of The Lord hath
spoken it.
21 How is the faithful city become
an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but
now murderers.
Jeremiah 3:1-25
KJV (Husband and wife, God and His people.) Also see Hosea
chapters 1-3.)
1 They say, If a man put away his
wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return
unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou
hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me,
saith The Lord.
2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high
places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast
thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast
polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
3 Therefore the showers have been
withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a
whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.
4 Wilt thou not from this time cry
unto Me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?
5 Will He reserve His anger for
ever? will He keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done
evil things as thou couldest.
6 The Lord said also unto me in the
days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel
hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every
green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
7 And I said after she had done all
these things, Turn thou unto Me. But she returned not. And her
treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw, when for all the causes
whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and
given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared
not, but went and played the harlot also.
9 And it came to pass through the
lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed
adultery with stones and with stocks.
10 And yet for all this her
treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto Me with her whole
heart, but feignedly, saith The Lord.
11 And The Lord said unto me, The
backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous
Judah.
12 Go and proclaim these words
toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith
The Lord; and I will not cause Mine
anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith The Lord, and I will
not keep anger for ever.
13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity,
that thou hast transgressed against The Lord thy God, and hast
scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye
have not obeyed My voice, saith
The Lord.
14 Turn, O backsliding children,
saith The Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of
a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
15 And I will give you pastors
according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and
understanding.
16 And it shall come to pass, when
ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith The
Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of The Lord:
neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it;
neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.
17 At that time they shall call
Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be
gathered unto it, to the name of The Lord, to Jerusalem: neither
shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.
18 In those days the house of Judah
shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out
of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an
inheritance unto your fathers.
19 But I said, How shall I put thee
among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage
of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call Me, My Father;
and shalt not turn away from Me.
20 Surely as a wife treacherously
departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O
house of Israel, saith The Lord.
21 A voice was heard upon the high
places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they
have perverted their way, and they have forgotten The Lord their God.
22 Return, ye backsliding children,
and I will heal your back slidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for
thou art The Lord our God.
23 Truly in vain is salvation hoped
for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in The
Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
24 For shame hath devoured the labor
of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their
sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame, and our
confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against
The Lord our God, we and our
fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the
voice of The Lord our God.
God considered
Israel's friendship with the world and its ways, spiritual
adultery.
The same theme is
seen in the New Testament with Christ and His bride.
II Corinthians
11:2 KJV
For I am jealous over you with Godly
jealousy: for I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present
you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Ephesians
5:21-27 KJV l(See also: Revelation chapters 19 and 21.)
21 Submitting yourselves one to
another in the fear of God.
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto
your own husbands, as unto The Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of
the wife, even as Christ is The Head Of The Church: and He is
The Savior Of The Body.
24 Therefore as the church is
subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in
every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it;
26 That He might sanctify and
cleanse it with the washing of water by The Word,
27 That He might present it to
Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such
thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
“May one have a
career and, not considered a friend of the world?”
Yes!
Even the Apostle
Paul, had to work to eat...and did not consider it “friendship with
the world.”
II Thessalonians
3:8 NLT (Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians...)
We never accepted food from anyone
without paying for it. We worked hard day and night so we would not
be a burden to any of you.
Acts 18:1-3 NLT
1 Then Paul left Athens and went to
Corinth.
2 There he became acquainted with a
Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy
with his wife, Priscilla. They had left Italy when Claudius Caesar
deported all Jews from Rome.
3 Paul lived and worked with them,
for they were tent makers just as he was.
James 4:4 NLT
You adulterers! Don’t
you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy
of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the
world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
James here is
referring to scriptures such as we have already read such as Isaiah
chapter 1, Jeremiah chapter 3, and Hosea chapters 1-3.
Spiritual adultery
is as its physical counter part, infidelity to ones vowed mate!
We cannot say we
love God, and love and serve the things of the world as well!
Just one
example....
Matthew 6:24 KJV
No man can serve two masters: for
either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold
to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon
(money).
In the Old
Testament, God would not share Israels love and her love for Baal, as well,
one had to go!
And in our day, God
will “not,” accept our shared love! Our love and service must be
to Him, without exception, or nothing at all. Marriage to our Husband, means total
commitment, as He is to us!
James 4:5 NLT
What do you think the Scriptures
mean when they say that The Spirit God has placed within us is filled
with envy?
James 4:4-6 MSG
(The Message)
4-6 You’re cheating on God. If all
you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you
get, you end up enemies of God and His way. And do you suppose God
doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “He’s a fiercely jealous
lover.” And what He gives in love is far better than anything else
you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the
willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”
Here are but a few
scriptures of the Apostle Paul's writings concerning, human nature,
and our on going war with the world and The Spirit Of God.
Romans 6:19-23
NLT
19 Because of the weakness of your
human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you
understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to
impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you
must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you
will become holy.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you
were free from the obligation to do right.
21 And what was the result? You are
now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal
doom.
22 But now you are free from the
power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things
that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our
Lord.
Romans 7:14-25
NLT (The Constant Struggle With Sin.)
14 So the trouble is not with the
law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am
all too human, a slave to sin.
15 I don’t really understand
myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead,
I do what I hate.
16 But if I know that what I am
doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.
17 So I am not the one doing wrong;
it is sin living in me that does it.
18 And I know that nothing good
lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is
right, but I can’t.
19 I want to do what is good, but I
don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
20 But if I do what I don’t want
to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me
that does it.
21 I have discovered this principle
of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what
is wrong.
22 I love God’s law with all my
heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my
mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
24 Oh, what a miserable person I am!
Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
25 Thank God! The answer is in
Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I
really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am
a slave to sin.
Romans 8:1-17
NLT (Living In The Spirit.)
1 So now there is no condemnation
for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
2 And because you belong to Him, the
power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin
that leads to death.
3 The law of Moses was unable to
save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what
the law could not do. He sent His own Son in a body like the bodies
we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s
control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
4 He did this so that the just
requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer
follow our sinful nature but instead follow The Spirit.
5 Those who are dominated by the
sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled
by The Holy Spirit think about things that please The Spirit.
6 So letting your sinful nature
control your mind leads to death. But letting The Spirit control your
mind leads to life and peace.
7 For the sinful nature is always
hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.
8 That’s why those who are still
under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
9 But you are not controlled by your
sinful nature. You are controlled by The Spirit if you have
The Spirit Of God living in you.
(And remember that those who do not have The Spirit Of Christ living
in them do not belong to Him at all.)
10 And Christ lives within you, so
even though your body will die because of sin, The Spirit gives you
life because you have been made right with God.
11 The Spirit Of God, who raised
Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ
Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this
same Spirit living within you.
12 Therefore, dear brothers and
sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges
you to do.
13 For if you live by its dictates,
you will die. But if through the power of The Spirit you put to death
the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.
14 For all who are led by The Spirit
Of God are children of God.
15 So you have not received a spirit
that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit
when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, “Abba,
Father.”
16 For His Spirit joins with our
spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.
17 And since we are His children, we
are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s
glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His
suffering.
I Corinthians
3:16 KJV
Know ye not that
ye are the temple of God, and that The Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Galatians
5:16,17 KJV (Spiritual warfare.)
16 This I say then, Walk in The
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against The
Spirit, and The Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the
one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
I Peter 2:11 KJV
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as
strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against
the soul;
The Answer:
James 4:8-10 KJV
8 Draw nigh to God, and He will draw
nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts,
ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep:
let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of
The Lord, and He shall lift you up.
I Chronicles
4:9,10 NLT
9 There was a man named Jabez who
was more honorable than any of his brothers...
10 He was the one who prayed to The
God Of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my
territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all
trouble and pain!” And God granted him his request.
Psalm 19:12-14
NLT
12 How can I know all the sins
lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant from deliberate
sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and
innocent of great sin.
14 May the words of my mouth and the
meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my Rock and my
Redeemer.
Psalm 119:11 KJV
Thy word have I hid in mine heart,
that I might not sin against thee.
Psalm 141:1-4
NLT
1 O Lord, I am calling to you...
2 Accept my prayer as incense
offered to you, and my upraised hands as an evening offering.
3 Take control of what I say, O
Lord, and guard my lips.
4 Don’t let me drift toward evil
or take part in acts of wickedness. Don’t let me share in the
delicacies of those who do wrong.
Luke 11:4 KJV
And forgive us our sins; for we also
forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into
temptation; but deliver us from evil.
John 17:14-17
KJV
14 I have given them thy word; and
the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as
I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from
the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through thy Truth:
thy Word is Truth.
