The Danger in Being a Friend of the World, Pt. 2
James 4:2‑6
Well, it's so wonderful to be with God's people, to share in the songs of faith, the fellowship of those of like precious faith. And then to have that single great privilege of hearing the very voice of God as He speaks to us through His Word. I'm anxious that we all come to the Word of God together now so let's open our Bibles to James chapter 4. Our ongoing study of James has brought us to this great fourth chapter. We're looking at verses 1 through 6.
Let me read the text for you, beginning at the first verse of the chapter and reading down through verse 6. "From where come wars and fightings among you? Come they not here even of your lusts that war in your members? You lust and have not, you kill. And desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight and war. Yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. You adulteresses, know you 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. Do you think that the Scripture saith in vain, the Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But He giveth more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble."
One of the most definitive and decisive statements in all of holy Scripture is found in verse 4. It is this statement, "Friendship with the world is enmity with God." To be a friend of the world is to be the enemy of God. A very definitive statement and a frightening one at that, a serious one, certainly it's a forboding thought that people could be the enemies of God. Not so much from their point as from His point...God seeing man as an enemy and an enemy to be judged, an enemy to be destroyed.
In Deuteronomy chapter 32, let me just read you a couple of verses beginning at verse 41, "If I wet my glittering sword and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward them who hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives from the long‑ haired heads of the enemy. Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people for He will avenge the blood of His servants and will render vengeance to His enemies and will be merciful unto His land and to His people." A very vivid picture, a glittering sword, arrows wet with blood as God brings vengeance on His enemies.
In Psalm 68 and verse 21 it says, "God will shatter the head of His enemies." In Psalm 72 verse 9 it says, "His enemies will lick the dust." In Isaiah 42:13 it says, "The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war, He will utter a shout, yes He will raise a war cry and He will prevail against His enemies." In Nahum chapter 1 and verse 2 it says, "He reserves wrath for His enemies, darkness shall pursue His enemies," it says in verse 8. And as we noted last time, several portions of Scripture say His enemies shall become His footstool. The Bible is so direct when it warns such enemies by reminding them, as in Hebrews 10:31, that it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Anyone, the New Testament says, who does not give glory to Jesus Christ is the enemy of God. In 1 Corinthians 16 he pronounces anathema on anyone who does not love the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be an enemy of God is a fearful reality...a frightening thing. And the question that comes to us in this passage as James brings it to the readers is how do we know if we are the friend of God or His enemy? How does a man know that? How does a woman know that? And James answers by saying, "If you are the friend of the world, then you are...what?...the enemy of God."
And I suppose most people feel friendly toward God. They're not openly hostile to the concept of God. They're not hateful to the concept of God. But the biblical diagnosis of sinful man is that while he may entertain some sentimental thoughts that are positive toward a supreme being, he hates the true God. There's a major conflict between man and God. Jesus crystallized it when He said, "They'll hate you because they hate Me. They hate Me," John 15, "because they hate My Father. And if they hate My Father and hate Me, they'll hate those of you who belong to Me."
The violent animosity between God and man is best described in Romans chapter 1. If you begin at verse 18 you read this, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness because that which may be known about God is manifest in them for God has shown it unto them, for the invisible things of Him...that is the truth about God...is made visible in the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and godhead so that they're without excuse, because when they knew God they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful but because vain in their imagination that is useless in their thinking, their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise they became fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible men and birds and four‑footed beasts and creeping things."
In other words, man reacts against the God who is revealed in nature and conscience and creates a God who is more tolerable to him and that God is okay but the true God he hates...the true God he hates. That's the nature of man, he hates God.
Now someone comes along and says, "Now wait a minute, I know some people who are searching for God." Sometimes you'll talk to somebody and you'll tell them about Christ and they'll not respond and you'll go away and say to a friend, "You know, I know they didn't respond but they're searching...they're searching." Let me tell you something, the Bible says in Romans chapter 3..."No man seeks after God." Now that's scriptural...no man seeks after God. You say, "Well wait a minute, I meet people who are searching all the time." Listen, people are not searching for God, they are searching for all that God can give, but not for God. They're searching for everything God offers...love, joy, peace, forgiveness, security, hope, while at the same time they are rebelling against, running from and hiding from God. They don't want God, they want the goods God gives. And the only God they want is a God of their own making who will tolerate their sin and it's not until that is broken in them and in meekness they cry out in their sin for salvation that they begin to seek the true God and that only by the sovereign working of the Spirit of God. The true God with His absolute holy standards, men reject. The God of their own making they accept but men would like to have what God gives without God.
Now the question facing James is how to identify the enemies of God. How do we know who the haters of God are? How can we identify them? It's not easy, let me tell you why. First of all, they may have a certain visible morality. That's right. They may have a certain visible morality, it might even be a religiously constructed morality, like the rich young ruler who couldn't think of any commandments he had ever broken, but didn't enter the kingdom. There are a lot of people who have a certain visible morality but they're they enemies of God.
Secondly, they may have some knowledge of the revelation of the truth, like the Jews of the time of our Lord who were so steeped in Old Testament revelation that they knew it backwards and forward and yet were a generation of snakes, Jesus said, who couldn't escape the damnation of hell. And so those who hate God may have a certain visible morality, they may even have a knowledge of the revelation of the truth.
Thirdly, they may possess a form of worship. They may go through some religious motions like the form of godliness that knows no power of which Paul speaks in 2 Timothy 3 verse 5. Furthermore, they may have apparently successful religious enterprises like the people in Matthew 7 who claim to cast out demons and prophesy and do many mighty deeds in the name of Christ but who never really were known by Him at all. They may even feel badly about their sin like Felix who trembled before Paul but never forsook his sin and never confessed Christ. So when you're looking for the enemies of God there are those who are overtly living a godless live, there are those who are overtly rejecting Christ but then there are others who apparently look like maybe they don't hate God, maybe they love God. They have a certain visible morality. They have some knowledge of the revelation of the truth. They possess a certain form of worship. They have been apparently successful in some religious enterprises and they feel badly about their sins.
Well, churches today are filled with those kind of people as they were in the time of the New Testament when it was being written and James confronts the same issue here. And you know it because we've been discussing it for weeks and months. And so James is looking at a group of people and he knows in that group of people, Jewish people, in an assembly of the church and he knows some of them are real and some of them aren't...some of them have living faith and some, as he said in chapter 2, have dead faith. Some of them are truly redeemed and some are not. Some have all the outward trappings of lovers of God, but none of the inward reality. And so all through this epistle he's giving tests of true faith.
And here he comes to this very important test...the enemies of God may be known because they are lovers of the world...they are lovers of the world. That's how you can identify them here. Now friendship with the world in verse 4 may sound like a Christian's sin, but it can't be...it can't be a Christian's sin here in James' mind. We can be drawn to the world. We can do worldly things, we can entertain ourselves with worldly activities, we can have a certain desire to enter into worldly sins, but we are not lovers of the world, we are by definition lovers of God. It's one thing as we pointed out in the use of the word here which is the word philia, it's one thing to do worldly things, to follow worldly patterns, to think worldly thoughts, it's quite a...while loving God, but it's quite another thing to have a settled deep affection for the world. That makes one an enemy of God. And no Christian is an enemy of God, we're His friends, as we saw last time.
So, here is a means of revealing false faith...friendship with the world. And the terminology is frankly too strong to be referring to wayward believers who are the friends of God, sons of God, certainly not His enemies. And as I said, it's one thing to do worldly things and hate them, it's one thing to behave in a worldly way while loving God, it's quite another to love the world, to love the things of the world and to hate God.
So, James brings up the test then of worldly love and shows the danger and destruction it causes. Let's go back then to verse 1 just very briefly review. The first thing that happens when a person loves the world is conflict with others. Why? Because the dominant matter in the world is the sin of...what?‑ what is it?, it starts with a P?....pride. The dominant sin in the world is pride. Therefore you have all these people who are consumed with pride and that creates immense conflict among them because it's every man for himself. And so in verse 1 he mentions the wars and the battles, and he uses a vocabulary of violence, as we saw last time, because worldliness, love of the evil system of earthly sensual demonic activity inevitably creates conflict...conflict in marriage, conflict in the home, conflict at work, conflict at school, conflict everywhere from an individual basis all the way to a national level. All that is in the world literally is the lust of the eyes, everybody lusting to fulfill himself, the lust of the flesh, everybody lusting to fulfill himself, and the pride of life, everyone consumed with his own ego. And with those kinds of motives everyone is really at war with everyone else because they're all trying to do the same thing...fulfill their lusts and push themselves up the ladder a little higher. Inevitably this creates conflict with anyone who stands in the way of the gratification of anyone's desire.
So the first cost of worldliness, the first danger of worldliness is conflict with others. And we went into that in detail. Secondly, we noted in verses 1 to 3, conflict with self. A person who loves the world is in tremendous conflict with himself. Why? Because he has driving lusts, driving desires which he has to a consuming point. In other words, he can't restrain himself. Verse 1 again, these come, he says, come they not, these wars and fighting, even out of your lusts that war in your members. The word "lust" here, hedone, from which we get hedonism, have to do with desire for pleasure, the yearnings of self‑love that demand fulfillment, the yearning for pleasure that cannot be assuage until it is fulfilled. That kind of longing, that kind of groaning, that kind of tremendous compulsion toward the fulfillment of bodily desire and ego desire is as very cruel master...a very cruel master. These are the people of whom Jude says they walk after their own lusts. In other words, verse 17 of Jude, their conduct daily pursues the fulfillment of their lusts.
So, we would say, first of all then, conflict with self, you remember we said involves an uncontrolled desire...an uncontrolled desire, a desire for pleasure that wages a war within a person. You say, "I didn't think unbelievers battled." Sure they battle. They have a conscience, don't they? They have guilt, don't they? Why do you think they drink, take drugs, and go to therapists and all of that, to try to get the guilt relieved. Sure they have guilt. Sure they battle. First Peter 2:11, "The fleshly lusts that war against the soul. It isn't just believers that battle. Our battle is more intense because of the presence of new life in us. But even an unbeliever battles against the residual image of God created within him in his conscience and against that which he knows is right. And so he's in conflict with himself. There is a raging war. And I pointed out last time, do you think Liberace wanted to die of AIDS? No. But do you think he could control it? No. He could not control a life style that ended in that way because his uncontrolled desire consumes the lover of the world. And in verse 2 we see the level of that rage, that uncontrolled desire...you lust, you kill, you fight, you war...violent terms, violent. There is an internal hostility boiling in men that creates destruction. They are driven by the passion for self‑satisfaction. And you get in the way and they get very hostile. That's the legacy of loving the world and being controlled by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. You not only have conflict with everybody else but that conflict is generated on the outside because of an immense conflict on the inside.
And, of course, as society, like in our day, as society okays and approves more and more evil and flaunts it publicly, then the desires begin to run even more in an uncontrolled manner and we're seeing the fulfillment of Paul's words to Timothy, evil men are getting worse and worse, and passions are running wilder and wilder. I was told the other day that the average homosexual has 12 thousand partners in a life time....12 thousand. That is uncontrolled passion. And that's a symbol of the kind of driving compulsion that leads to the inability to control one's life.
Secondly, it is not only as we saw an uncontrolled desire that characterizes lovers of the world, but it is an unfulfilled desire. They can't even fulfill it. They can't even fulfill it. If they could fulfill it, do you think they would need 12 thousand partners? There's never any fulfillment, in that or in any other pursuit of evil. And notice what he says in verse 2, "You just and you have not so you kill." That's how the verse should be read. You desire to have and you can't obtain so you fight and war. There's a tremendous hostility because you can't get it. You lust but you don't have it. You desire to have but you can't obtain. You fight and war. You have not because you ask not. Three times he says that you have not, you can't obtain, you have not. Passion and frustration go hand in hand. It can't be fulfilled.
And thirdly, we said it's not only an uncontrolled desire and an unfulfilled desire, but it's an utterly selfish desire...utterly selfish, totally self‑centered. He says in verse 2, "Yet you have not because you ask not, you ask when you do ask and receive not because you ask for the wrong reasons in order that you may consume it on your own lusts." Let's talk about that for a moment. This is where we left off.
You have not because you ask not. What are they really searching for? I told you earlier, they're not searching for God, they're searching for all the things that God gives, like joy, peace, happiness, meaning, value, hope, fulfillment. Everyone's looking for that, everybody is. But they don't want God, they just want that and they think that's available through their worldly loves. And so he says you have not because you ask not. All that you really would desire to have of true joy, true satisfaction true happiness, true hope, true meaning, true purpose is available from God if you would ask. Hasn't he said that? Go back to chapter 1 verse 17, every good and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. Every good and perfect gift is available from who? From God. And if you ask He'd give it. Back in chapter 1 verse 5 he said if you lack wisdom ask God, He'll give it liberally and hold back nothing. God is the giver of all good gifts if you'd only ask. You have not because you ask not.
But then he turns right around in verse 3 and says you ask. Well what's the contradiction here? Well in verse 2 he's saying you do not have because you do not ask God properly. Then he says when you do ask you're not going to get it because you ask for the wrong reasons, not for the glory of God, not for the honor of God, but that you may consume it on your own lusts. So they are really deep in the pit. They don't ask God on His terms for all that He has and when they do ask they ask the God of their own designing to consume it on their own lusts and they receive nothing.
Now obviously when he says you receive not because you ask not in verse 2 he's not meaning that their lusts would be fulfilled if they asked God. He means that what is beyond their lusts, that is what they really seek of true joy and true peace, and true happiness and true hope and so forth is available from God but they never ask God on God's terms. When they do ask they ask the wrong God, the God of their own making, or they seek for it in some other source and for only the purpose of self‑ consumption. You don't ask. You don't come to God. The word is really to beg, aiteo. You don't plead with God. It's a common word for the humility of an inferior as he bows before a superior seeking for something. It's used in Acts 3:2 of a beggar seeking alms, in Matthew 7:9 of a child asking a parent, in Ezra 8 in the Septuagint, a commoner comes before a king and the word is used. It's used of a man before God in Matthew 7:7 and many other places. You don't come in submission. You don't come as a beggar before God. You don't come in dependence. When you do come you ask amiss, kakos, in an evil manner. That's what that means. Motivated by personal gratification and pleasure. Typical.
You know, there are people in the world, people who love the world who ask God for things. But all for the wrong reasons...all for the wrong reasons. You ask in order that you may consume it upon your lusts. The NAS says that you may spend it on your pleasure. He uses the word hedone again, hedonism, you may spend it on your pleasure, or literally in your pleasures. And that's in the emphatic position in the verse. So what they're saying is you ask so that in your pleasures you may spend it...indicating that that is the sphere of the intended use of what you want...purely for pleasure.
That's how it is for people who love the world. They exist for pleasure. They exist for the thrill of the moment. The word "spend" is to spend freely, to literally spend everything, to throw it around. In fact, that's the very same verb used in Luke 15:14 of the prodigal son who spent everything on riotous living. You ask in order that you may have it so you may spend it riotously without thought on your own pleasure. And you're never going to have the fulfillment of those things, God does not fill the request of people seeking worldly things for the sole purpose of selfish and sensual pleasure. So you're left with a terrible conflict within yourself. First of all, if you're in love with the world you're at odds with everybody else in the world because they're all stepping on each other's neck to get what they want. And everybody is expendable in the process, everybody.
Secondly, you're not only at odds in hostility with everybody in the world but you're having tremendous anxiety within yourself because one, your desires are out of control, two, your desires which are out of control are unfulfilled. And three, your out of control, unfulfilled desires have one goal and that is to be spent wildly on your own pleasure. And the seeds of self‑destruction are built right in, says James.
So friendship with the world sets up an ongoing conflict with others who stand in the way of a worldling's passionate desires. And it also includes a personal internal conflict and frustration as one is mastered by desire. That's why we have a generation of people who are so angry, so hostile, so bitter, so hateful, so full of revenge. They're in love with the world. And all that is in the world is a whole lot of lust and a whole lot of pride. And it is in conflict with a person and everybody in his environment.
But worse than that, and now we come to verses 4 to 6, friendship with the world means conflict with God...friendship with the world puts you in conflict with God. And this is really frightening. Three aspects. Number one is personal hostility to God...personal hostility to God, verse 4, "You adulteresses." The Authorized version adds adulterers and some scribe put that in just to equalize the sexes but that's not how it is in the original text. "You adulteresses," now James is writing to Jewish readers who are very familiar with that kind of terminology. And he's using it in a sort of metaphorical sense. He's not talking about actual women who are actually adulteresses. He is talking about unfaithfulness. He's talking about a prostitution of life. The word "adulteresses" would immediately remind his Jewish readers that Israel was an adulteress wife. They would remember, for example, Hosea 1:2 where Israel is designed...is designated rather as an unfaithful wife of Jehovah God. Such a term, by the way, is interesting to note was never used in the Scripture for Gentiles because only Israel could commit adultery because only Israel had a covenant relationship to God. You see? Gentiles could be fornicators in a metaphorical sense but only Jews could be adulteresses. Israel was the covenant bride of God, the wife of God, as it were, as symbolized in the relationship of Hosea and Gomer. And when Israel went a whoring after other gods, Israel became an adulteress. And because James is writing to Jews, this term is very vivid and very understood. And by the way, it's not a term that only James uses in reference to Jews, I believe it's used also by our Lord on a couple of occasions but in verse 39 of Matthew 12 He answered and said to them, that is the Pharisees and scribes, "An evil and adulteress generation." That's what He called them.
You also are guilty of adultery, that is you have violated the national covenant with God. And He repeats it again in chapter 16 of Matthew with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, "A wicked and adulteress generation," He says again. You'll find it in Mark 8:38. So for Israel because of their covenant relationship to God to abandon God was to commit spiritual adultery. Now adultery is in the simple definition sexual sin by a married person. In other words, one who is unfaithful to a partner. And that is precisely what James is saying, he's saying you have been unfaithful as Jews to the covenant that your people had with God. Their worldly love, their love of the world was a state of spiritual idolatry which constituted them attaching themselves to another deity which was adultery, spiritually speaking. The Old Testament makes very much of this. It is a rather ringing theme. In fact, I was thinking of Psalm 73 verse 27, "For lo, they that are from Thee shall perish, Thou hast destroyed all those who play the harlot departing from Thee." An indictment again of the Jews among Israel who played the harlot and departed from God. You find it again in Isaiah, Jeremiah, in Ezekiel and as I mentioned in Hosea.
In a sense it is equal to apostasy. Do you get that? It's equal to apostasy. It means to be near God and then to turn against God. For a Jew it meant to be a part of the nation or the people who were in covenant relationship to God as a nation, though not all of them were as individuals, but then to depart from God was a kind of spiritual adultery. We might say in terms of where James is writing that he has in mind professing Christians, people who attach themselves outwardly to the covenant people of God, namely the church. They apparently maintain some interest, some verbal commitment to God and Christ and yet they hold a deep affection for the evil system which Jesus said in the parable of the soils, "Chokes out the gospel before they can ever be saved and bear fruit." And they then become like the wicked adulteress Jews of Israel who were unfaithful to God. It's a great term for people who attach themselves to the church, who attach themselves to Christianity, but then with their tremendous consuming love for the world, give nothing to God and give themselves holy to the world and thus are adulteresses. That's what he has in mind.
There's really no middle point. One is either the faithful friend of God or His enemy, either a faithful lover of God or an adulteress. Jesus said, "He that is not with Me is...what?...against Me....against Me." And in Acts 8 in verse 21 Peter says to Simon, "You have neither part nor lot in this matter for your heart is not right in the sight of God." It's either one or the other. Your heart isn't right in the sight of God, you have no part in the Holy Spirit and in what He's doing. One or the other.
So, James writes, "You adulteresses, you who have made an outward profession of union with God in Christ and then cultivated a love with the world, you adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Whosoever therefore will..." the word "will" is an interesting word from boulomai, it basically means the will of desire...or the will of choosing one thing over another. There's another word, thelo, thelo means to sort of wish. We would say, "Well I wish a certain thing would happen....I wish my old aunt would die and leave me all her money." That's a wish. Or, "I wish I'd get a promotion..." or, "I wish something really good would come about in my relationship with my husband, I wish that." That's not the word here. This is the word, although they are often apparently interchangeable that seems to have the strength that says, "I choose this...I determine this...I desire this" in a deliberate choice choosing one thing over another. It is seemingly to me a more objective determination. And so, he says, "Don't you know that whoever will make a definitive choice to be a friend of the world becomes the enemy of God?" Now notice again, it almost gets lost here, "whosoever therefore will," or literally chooses to be a friend of the world, a philia, one who has a settled and deep affection for the world, the world being the evil system, then the little word "is," do you see that little word? "Is"...that's really not what the Greek word should be there, the word is a lot more than "is." Kathistemi means to make oneself, to make himself, to take a stand as, to be rendered as, to be constituted as, it is a decisive act, it is an act with finality that ushers you into a state of being. So it could read this way...whosoever therefore deliberately chooses to be deeply affectionate for the evil system takes his stand as the enemy of God. That's the idea.
The enemy of God...what a frightening thought. I want to be God's friend, don't you? I want to be God's friend. In the parable of Luke 19 verse 27 He says, "Take My enemies and slay them." Take My enemies and slay them. I don't want to be the enemy of God, it's a frightening thought.
Robert Johnson writing in the last century on this particular passage said, "To constitute oneself an enemy of God is to remain in spiritual death and grow more fit daily for eternal death, to have the almighty king of the universe as your foe."
So what does this verse say? That the first element of conflict with God is a personal hostility from God. If you love the world then, one, you're in conflict with everybody else. Two, you're in conflict with yourself. Three, you're in conflict with God. And it shows up in His personal hostility toward you. That's a frightening thought God is personally the enemy of those who are lovers of the world's system.
There's a second thing. Not only does friendship with the world mean that you are the personal enemy of God, but secondly...we could say so much more about that but let me keep moving for time's sake. The second thing is this conflict with God demonstrates a disregard for Scripture...it demonstrates a disregard for Scripture. Now verse 5 is very difficult, very difficult to understand. And I've gone around and around the barn so many times that I'm dizzy on this verse. And I want you to know you can't be dogmatic here, there are so many options and none of them can be conclusively affirmed by the biblical data. I'll explain that in a minute. So what I'm going to do is tell you a few things that I think might be as good as any opinion. Now you understand that? I'm not going to be dogmatic, but once I tell it to you I'm just going to go on and preach it as if it were the truth because it's as good an answer as any, but there might be others and