Submit yourselves to God
James 4:7-8 “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.”
My husband has had lots of messages using these verses for they supply a real encouragement to the battle weary soldier of Jesus Christ.
The Lord showed him once that the first thing to do in any battle….with yourself, the world, or the devil….is to:
Submit yourselves to God.
We cannot properly resist the devil, if we are not submitted to God….for we are not standing with the Lord,….but we are fence-sitters….not having decided either way.
To submit to God is to exercise your will for the Lord.
“This is what You want Lord, and I will, to do it.”
“Submit” here is to place ourselves in a subordinate position to God.
Very much as if we are soldiers under our Captain Christ Jesus.
But once we have…then we are called to “resist the devil”….or stand against him.
This is not having a conversation with the devil….for that was how Eve was tricked.
No we are to talk to Jesus Christ about it…and proceed from there.
This we do when we choose to do God’s Will, for the devil would have us do the opposite.
We resist the devil when we cry, “Lord, avenge me of my adversary!” (Luke 18:2-7)
We resist the devil when we deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Jesus wherever He leads.
We resist the devil when we plead the blood over us, or others (Revelation 5:6)
“You can’t stop birds from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.”
“…and he will flee from you.” This is a wonderful experience when after you have come to complete submission to God, and stood against the devil….he flees.
But we are not to stop there….for we must remember this is a battle.
“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”
(I want to mention here, that James is a very practical book. He sees everything in black and white….there is no middle ground….there is no compromising with evil or sin….
…we are to deal with it by drawing closer to God and HIs Will.)
No Christian that doesn’t seek to get as close to Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit and His Word, is as safe as he should be.
“Draw nigh”….approach… HIs throne of grace to get mercy and grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
And He will “draw nigh”…approach… to help and supply our every need.
(My husband once received that we should fight with skill….using every weapon at our disposal….knowledge of our salvation, Christ’s righteousness, faith, and prayer in Jesus name.
But when we are in the heat of battle…things happen, we become weary if we are not practiced in staying close to our Captain.
And in the Roman army there were ways of holding on….and of signals between units. Of getting extra help….and being safe till it came.
The panoply is a Roman structure, made in the battle….made from the shields the foot soldiers carried.
When they were cut off from the main body of men, or being overrun…then they would signal for the panoply to be made. Each man would fit their shield together down on the ground…while the men hid behind it….others would place their shields over their heads…and they would have a mini fort built, till the rest of the army could rescue them.)
You see the real battle is that the devil wants us to get far away from the Lord Jesus. If we are left to our own devices….we are in trouble.
“Cleanse your hands, ye sinners;”
Our hands signify our willingness to work….to do, to be obedient. Have we let our hands hang down….have we not been obedient…or fully obedient to HIs Will?
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins….and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
He forgives and cleanses….if we come to HIm and confess our sins.
(I want to mention resentment, here. There are so many resentments these days….over opinions, over practically anything.
Now this is not convictions from the Holy Spirit….those must be followed, no matter what anyone else thinks.
But resentments are those feelings of hurt, anger,….or differences of opinion that are left to fester….like the sore which begins to turn red, then pussy, then infected.
We’ve preached before that no Christian should feel resentment….because we have a Savior to go to, and He saves us to the uttermost. Whether the hurt is past, present, or future….We have a Captain of our Salvation which is ready to stand in the battle against this wile of the devil…to lead us to Victory in faith.)
“And purify your hearts, ye double minded.” We all know that double minded means two-spirited…vacillating from one thing to another.
Notice it is our hearts that needs to be purified….for our affections and our emotions lead our thoughts this way and that.
When our hearts are purified….or given single vision….we look for Christ in everything, and what He wants, is where our affections and emotions….and thoughts do.
With singleness of purpose….doing His Will…whatever that Will might be, from the heart!
Our wills then can tame the heart and mind….when they are submitted to God….our wills become a real force for God in seeing to the wiles of the devil….and the sins of vacillating hearts.
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 