with Dr. Biki's advice I decided to transfer to Free State University in South Africa for my PhD. So just to update you and thank you so much for this privilege that you have given to me to be a part of your chapel hour and to bring to you the Word of God I would like to invite you to turn your Bibles to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. And let's read verses 4 through 9. Let's hear God's word. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. 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. 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 and then this is our text for this message verse 9 be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. May the Lord add His divine blessings to the reading of His holy and precious word. Let's pause for a moment and ask God to help us. O our gracious God, how we thank Thee for Thy grace and mercy upon us. And it is only because of your grace that we can stand before you. Thou art holy, holy, holy while we are sinners. And yet, because of Jesus Christ and because of his righteousness imputed to us, you also count us righteous before you. And as we meditate on Thy Word this morning, we ask that You would help us. Bless each of us, Lord, we pray. Humble us and help us to be teachable to Your Word. And be Thy servant as He proclaims Thy Word. Grant Him, Lord, the unction of the Holy Spirit, that He may be able to preach with all boldness and passion. please forgive us for all our sins and keep us from sinning against thee in Jesus name we pray amen let me read verse 9 again be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness what we plan to do in this message with God's help is simply expound all the imperatives found in our text. And there are four commands. First, be afflicted. Second, mourn. Third, weep. And then fourth, turn your laughter to mourning and your joy to heaviness. And as we examine these four imperatives, I will draw some applications from our study. So let's consider the first imperative. Be afflicted, or in the ESV, be wretched. Now, in this chapter, James is specifically addressing those who profess their faith in Jesus Christ, and yet are double-minded, as we see in the last part of verse 8. Notice that. ye double-minded and in that verse the word double-minded literally means two souls and so James is referring to people who think that they have two souls one for God and one for the world of course you cannot have two souls for when God created you he only gave you one soul You see, a double-minded person is like a husband who is unfaithful to his wife. He says, I love you to his wife, but at the same time, he also says, I love you to another woman. His mind is divided between his wife and another woman. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 22 verse 37 thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind we are to love our God with all our mind but sadly our mind is sometimes separated between God and the world and in this sense we commit spiritual adultery against God as James writes in verse 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. now when we come to our text James chapter 4 verse 9 keep it in mind that he is talking to people who claim to be believers in Christ but commit spiritual adultery and James says to them be afflicted Of course, James is not suggesting that they should afflict themselves physically or that they should castigate themselves literally. The point of James here is that they are to feel afflicted or wretched on account of their sin against God. Well, if you are in Christ, you know it very well that Sin can torment you emotionally. Sin can make you feel miserable before God. Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, mentions that sin is the ruin and misery of the soul it is destructive in its nature and if God should leave it without restraint nothing else would be needed to make the soul miserable so you see as a consequence of our sin we experience emotional affliction and sometimes we even experience extreme sadness in our soul because of sin there is that misery in Romans chapter 7 Paul expresses his misery this way for I delight in the law of God after the inward man but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members and listen now please And he says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? This is a cry of a true child of God, a cry of a believer who continues to struggle with his indwelling sin, that sin that distresses his born-again soul, that sin that agonizes, that regenerates soul. O brothers in the Lord, I know you can relate to Paul here. Have you not also exclaimed, O wretched man that I am? And so going back to our text, James commands those who are worldly, those who are spiritually adulterous, he says, be afflicted. And that is to say, be wretched. Be miserable because of your sin. Show your misery before God. Don't hide it from Him. This is an invitation and of course a command for us to express the wretchedness of our sin before God. Are you weary? Are you heavy hearted? Tell it to Jesus. Tell it to Jesus. Are you grieving over joys departed? Tell it to Jesus alone. Tell it to Jesus. Tell it to Jesus. He is a friend that's well known. You've no other such a friend or brother. Tell it to Jesus alone. be afflicted, be wretched. Second imperative, mourn, mourn, mourn. Now, this is the outward result of our inward wretchedness. This is the external manifestation of our emotional affliction within us caused by our sin. When there is sin, there is sorrow. And so we lament over our sin. And here, James is echoing his half-brother, Jesus Christ. He's echoing one of the points of the sermon of Jesus on the mount. Do you remember Matthew chapter 5 verse 4? Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. And then previously Jesus has said, blessed are the poor in spirit. And so those who mourn are those who realize their spiritual bankruptcy before God. Those who realize that in and of themselves they are wretched and miserable in that apart from God there is no hope and help for God is their help Isaiah describes his lamentation in this manner Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I will dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Take note of that. My eyes have seen the Lord of hosts, this holy, holy, holy God. I've seen His holiness. I've seen His glory that fills the whole world. And having seen God's holiness, He could not help but cry out, woe is me. And there we learn that the more you see the beauty of God's holiness, the more you will see the ugliness of your sin. The more you get closer to Calvary, the more you will understand the depravity of your sin. And so James says, mourn over your sin with great sorrow, ask for forgiveness from God. Paul writes to the Corinthian church. in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 it is reported commonly that there is fornication among you such fornication as is not as so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife and you are arrogant ought you not rather to mourn imagine that his disappointment as a pastor of that church There is sin, but instead of mourning over that sin, they are arrogant. Oh, with love, let me ask you, brothers in the Lord, when was the last time you seriously grieved over your sin? Where's that godly sorrow in you, that godly sorrow that produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret? When you watch news and when you hear about the wicked things going on around this world, do you sorrow? Do you mourn? So be afflicted, mourn, and then third, weep. This is the outward expression of your sorrow over sin. You feel wretched, you grieve, and now you cry. Cry! Like the Children of Israel in Judges chapter 2 remember that story when God said to his covenant people Ye have not obeyed my voice Why have ye done this? Why have you disobeyed my law? Why have you committed idolatry? Why have you betrayed me? And it came to pass when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, and listen now please, that the people lifted up their voice and wept. They wept over their sin because they knew that they offended their God, the God who had redeemed them from Egypt. Perhaps as you're listening to this message, silently you're asking, why should I weep over my sin? Why? Well, think of this brother. It was because of that sin that Jesus had to die on the cross. And imagine the pain and the agony that Jesus had at Calvary while He was there hanging. Imagine His pain when He cried out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? And you ask, why should I weep over my sin? Oh, it was because of that sin that Jesus had to leave the glory of heaven and be born into this ugly, sinful, wicked world? Oh, do you still grieve over sin? And Jesus Himself wept because of sin? When Jesus wept in John chapter 11, he didn't just weep because of Lazarus, because Lazarus died. He wept also because of sin and the death it brought to humankind. and in a sense Jesus was recalling what took place in the Garden of Eden when the first Adam disobeyed God and his disobedience brought death to us and so Jesus wept over sin and he also wept over Jerusalem for her stubbornness and wickedness and unwillingness to repent of her sin And if our master wept over sin, should you not also weep over sin too? Jesus wept, of course, not only over sin, but also over sinners. I remember George Whitefield preaching from Acts chapter 19, verse 2, declared, first, I shall address myself to those who are dead in trespasses and sins. So in this context, he's addressing the unconverted. He says, and how could I weep? Oh, how could I weep over you as our Lord wept over Jerusalem? For alas, how distant must you be from God? Here is a preacher who is concerned with the unbelievers. He's weeping over them. Again, we'd love fellow preachers and fellow servants of the Lord. Do you really care for the souls of your members? When you look around and see the unbelievers and those who openly reject the Word of God and blaspheme Jesus Christ, what is your reaction? Do you show your love for them in tears? And then fourthly, so be afflicted, be wretched. mourn, weep, and finally let your laughter be turned to mourning or lamentation and your joy to heaviness. Now here James is particularly addressing those who again claim to be believers in Christ but find joy in their sins. Perhaps they enjoy the sins listed in the previous chapter of this book and the present chapter of this book. What are those sins? Bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, boasting or pride, lying or dishonesty, sinful passion, covetousness, spiritual adultery, worldliness and double-mindedness. they are like the covenant people described in Isaiah chapter 22 let me read that passage Isaiah 22 verses 12 and 13 and in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping and to mourning and behold joy and gladness and drinking wine let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die this is so sad God called his covenant people to repent of their sin to weep over their sin but instead what we see here they show great rejoicing in their sin telling each other let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die and we see this my friend and the unbelievers who take delight in their sin. Someone has said, the worst choice we can make is to enjoy the evil we engage in. Oh, may I ask you again with love, whenever you sin, when you committed that sin this morning or yesterday or last week, did you enjoy it? Do you have darling sins? Sins that you don't want to still give up? For you find those sins delightful. Oh, listen to James then. Let your joy be turned to sorrow. replace your sinful joy with godly sorrow turn away from your sin change your attitude toward iniquity you know it's interesting when James says turn your joy to heaviness in Greek the word heaviness literally means a casting down of the ice due to humiliation or shame and don't we do the same when we feel humiliated we show our humiliation by this and I think the best illustration that I can give to you is the parable of the Pharisees Pharisee and the tax collector Luke 18 verse 13 but the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. You see, this tax collector, he could not find joy in his sin. He felt so ashamed, humiliated. So Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. Last year in Chicago, after the General Assembly had passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, many gay marriage supporters rejoiced. Imagine that, my friend. People are rejoicing in sin. And our nation needs to hear this message from James. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Now, as I conclude this message, let me give you two concluding remarks. First, mourn and weep now over your sin. or else you will mourn and weep for eternity. Jesus says, blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Oh, pray to the Holy Spirit, ask him to give you a godly sorrow that will lead you to repentance and that will lead you to salvation. And then second, yes, it is good to feel miserable, to acknowledge our misery before God, but don't dwell on your misery, my friend. Dwell on the mercy of God in Christ. Learn from the Apostle Paul, after expressing his misery, remember? He says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. He does not stop there. He goes on to say, but I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see why he acknowledges guilt before God. He also acknowledges the grace of God given to him. That grace that is greater than all my sins, how shall my tongue describe it? Therefore, I fully agree with Robert Murray McShane when he said, for every look at self, take ten looks at Christ. Take ten looks at Christ. And how can we apply this practically as preachers now? Well, for sure you've had this experience where shortly before you proclaimed God's Word, you felt so unworthy. that if you would be given a chance you would leave the pulpit and maybe go home and not preach the word of God perhaps Satan told you how dare you are you you're going to to preach the word of God and you yourself you violate the word of God you are unholy and you preach about holiness And isn't it true that Satan is always there discouraging us and telling us that we are great sinners? And you know what? He's right. He's right. Satan, you're right in telling me that I am a great sinner, but you have to remember too that my Savior is also great. that God's grace is also great that I stand behind this pulpit not because of my righteousness but because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to me I preach the word of God not because I deserve it I don't deserve it but the Lord has called me into his ministry and so on what basis then do we preach on what basis then do we minister to our people on the basis of the grace of God and his mercy and so we need to keep reminding ourselves of that and so don't dwell on your misery don't dwell on your guilt focus on the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus and so really the purpose of James here in those four imperatives is not to discourage believers but to encourage them to fly to the cross and to look for that fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins that's the point of James here so the commands because really let's admit We can't obey those commands apart from God's grace. And so those commands bring us to the cross. For Jesus alone can remove the burden of our sin. And maybe again silently you're saying, talking about the burden of sin, what is that about? I don't feel burdened, I'm fine. Oh, you're fine? You probably need to hear this illustration and I'll end with this illustration about this Indian evangelist who was preaching and as he was preaching a proud youth interrupted him You tell me about the burden of sin. I feel none. How heavy is it? 80 pounds? 10 pounds? The preacher answered, tell me, if you laid 400 pounds weight on a corpse, would it feel the load? No, because it is dead, replied the youth. The preacher said, that spirit too, is dead, which feels no load of sin." My friend, this is scary. If there is no feeling of misery and righteousness, of sin in you, ask yourself. Maybe, I am saying maybe, you know yourself and God knows you, maybe your soul is still dead. Maybe you need to ask the Holy Spirit to regenerate your soul so you can feel wretched and mourn and weep by God's grace and experience the joy of salvation. May the Lord use this message to encourage us. Let us pray. Oh Lord, How we thank you for your mercy. That is so great. That mercy that is always fresh, new every morning. For great is your faithfulness. Oh Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness to us. That even when we are not consistently faithful to you, you remain faithful to us. Oh, how can we ever express our gratitude to you? Oh, Lord, forgive us for all our sins. And help us, Lord, to hate sin with all our mind, soul and heart. And to love righteousness all the more, to love Jesus, who is our righteousness, Jehovah's in Kenya. Lord, we thank you for calling us also into your ministry. We thank you for the privilege that we have to proclaim your word. We don't deserve it, Lord, and so humble us that we may exalt you and glorify you in all that we do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.