Let's read James chapter 1 verse 21. Follow along as I read here. James chapter 1 verse 21. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. That's a good King James term. Superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls when we look back a few verses here we see that the word of god is been very prominent in what we're dealing with notice in verse seventeen we have god is the author of every good thing and uh... inverse eighteen his will has be gotten us the word of truth the word being the instrumental cause of our regeneration, so that we would be a kind of first fruit of his creatures. And then a contrast seen in the next couple of verses, you have the good word of God coming down from heaven, and now you have the word coming up from us. In verse 19 and 20, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear and slow to speak and slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. So we've got the good, good stuff coming down, evil stuff coming out of our mouths, words full of anger, hate and wrath, words that do not work the righteousness of God. And that was our topic a couple of Wednesday nights ago. And then tonight, as we go on into verse 21, to sort of finish this little section here tonight, I didn't want to bite off too much, but just think on this a little bit. First of all, notice the word wherefore. And again, the old saying is when you see a word like wherefore, figure out what it's there for. So what is the word wherefore? Obviously it's a connecting word, and it is a word that is saying, in view of what has just been said, then here is the conclusion that we should make. This is how, then, we are to act as far as our responsibility is concerned. In short, we are to forsake—well, let me ask you, if you didn't know anything about And you just heard the term superfluity of naughtiness. If you were to put that in other words, what would be those other words? Superfluity of naughtiness. Of course, some of you have already cheated. You've got modern translation there. Okay, superfluous is the idea of the excess of something. Naughty would be naughty. Here's naughty and there's nice, right? It says a whole lot of naughty going on here. The excess, the literally super abundance of excess, of naughtiness. And notice again, we see the contrast here between the good word that comes down from God and then the words that is described by filthiness or there in verse twenty one and then this super fluid he of naughtiness the stuff that comes out of us and that is a remarkable contrast that which comes out of god this word this good word it's all good things come down from heaven it is a rep powerful word it is a regenerating word and it is a word of truth and then contrast that to what comes out of our mouths uh... words that are wicked, angry, not edifying, destructive words, words of wrath. And so notice that we have in the contrast here there is this that is coming from us in the first half of verse 21 and then in the last half the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. So the words that come out of us plus the word, then contrasted with the word that comes out of God. Notice that it is an agricultural metaphor, and we'll explore that in a minute, but just notice that the conclusion here, introduced by the word wherefore, has two parts to it, or two phases to it. First of all, notice that we are to put aside something, and then we are to receive something. sort of like two phases or two ways of looking at our duty. I believe the putting away is what we call repentance and the receiving is what we call faith. You find Jesus teaching in Mark's gospel in Mark 1 verse 15, the first time we see him going out and preaching his message is summed up by repent ye and believe the gospel. Repent and believe. You find that those two terms coupled quite often. It also appears to me that a lot of times Peter uses other language to describe the same thing that the Apostle Paul has described elsewhere. In fact, you will see as we get into 2 Peter, him refer to Paul's letters this coming Sunday. James seems to do the same thing, that James here is really describing something that Paul has already addressed in a couple of his epistles, namely, you put off the old man, and of course Paul gives you a whole list of works that comes out of it, works that we would call that superfluity of naughtiness, okay, that's the old man, and we are to then put on the new man. And again, we have these two phases. There is something to be rejected, there's something to be cast aside, to use James' language here, and then there's something to be received, there's something to be put on. You see that in verse 21? You got the two halves there working together. So what do we lay aside? Well, number one, we lay aside the filth, the vulgarity, some translate it, that comes out of our mouths. We are to put away all filthy speaking. Paul will speak in that language. In some cases, he's not talking about what we would call cursing. Cursing, technically, is swearing or uttering an imprecation on someone to curse them. We say cussing. to cuss them out is to bring down a vengeance of something or someone, an imprecation of judgment upon somebody. Swearing is typically using some sort of an oath. By this, we use that figure of speech. I'm assuming y'all are fairly up on cussing and cursing and swearing. Y'all don't need me to Yeah, unfortunately, you're up on those things. In fact, you know, I am blessed, I'm sure, because most of the situations I'm in, I'm not around that kind of speech all the time. Many of you at work or whatever, school or whatever, perhaps are around it all the time, and you have to sort of try to filter it out as best you can. But notice that what do we mean when we talk about vulgarity? How would you... I mean, we speak of vulgar, same as profanity, it's very similar, profane, lewdness, you're saying? Yeah? In other words, I'm just asking that for my own enlightenment here. So, that's the first thing that comes to me, vulgar speech, lewdness, is to speak of things that ought to be private intimate things that should not be divulged uh... to speak of things of that nature is and and vulgar is uh... speech that is just out of out of place should not be spoken in public that kind of thing well there's good there's some things it's good to be ignorant of it's one of them And then notice this superfluity of naughtiness again, the overflowing of naughtiness. I can't read this without thinking of a toilet overflowing. And there does seem to be a tie. One commentator, in fact, his translation of naughtiness was excrement. course now I'm getting vulgar, you understand, but you get the picture of this overflowing toilet. If you've ever had that happen, not a very pleasant prospect. But what he's describing is the heart, and remember, out of the mouth the heart speaks. That the filthiness that comes out of our mouth is essentially the heart, the wickedness, the vulgarity in our heart overflowing out our mouth. So it's the exact same thing as the toilet stopping up and everything is supposed to be flushed down comes out, comes over the lid. And here our mouths, we talk about somebody with a potty mouth, familiar with that expression I'm sure, Well, that's the idea, that we have a potty mouth. We have this in our speech. Now, I was sharing, I think it was David and Charles a week or so ago, and I was hearing Luther talk about somebody with a potty mouth. Luther apparently did a lot of his praying on the toilet. I'm not sure if he had some sort of a problem, but you can find quote after quote of Luther of these scatology, that's what it's called. That's a euphemism if ever there was one. A euphemism is trying to say something in a polite way. But for instance, I just thought I'd tell you what I was telling them. He's talking to the devil. This is 1531, he's sitting on the toilet talking to the devil. This is Martin Luther. He said, I am cleansing my bowels and worshiping God Almighty. You deserve, he's talking to the devil, you deserve what de-sins and God what ascends. That's pretty vivid. And that's just a sampling. I mean, the Luther is full of this kind of stuff and uses very, very strong language. And speaking of the Pope, you ought to see what some of the names he calls the Pope. Interesting. But that is exactly the sense here, is that the heart, our heart by nature, is that filthy. It is that vulgar. It is that unclean. And that out of the heart, the mouth then speaks. And so when you hear people using filthy, vulgar speech, you have an indication of what then is in their heart. and there is that intimate connection between the two we would like to say that's not true that what ice play out my mouth really isn't how i feel it's not really what's within but the scripture of makes that a very tight connection out of the mail come these unclean bank member jesus was telling them it's not what goes into the mouth is what comes out of the mail that files the man and it's because what comes out of the mail is an indication of what is in the heart And so we have this vulgar speech coming out of us, and notice the really stark contrast then in the second half of the verse, that we are to receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save our souls. The term the King James uses, engrafted, most feel would be better translated, implanted. Now the two ideas to engraft something is, of course, to graft a branch into a tree. So it's not a completely dissimilar idea, but the idea of the implanted word, I think, hits the mark here. Because the notion is that God's word is to penetrate and enter, be planted in the heart, and that our heart is like the soil that receives the Word. Now, that immediately should trigger in your mind the parable Jesus told about the four kinds of soils. First of all is the hard path, and that represents the heart that the Word doesn't ever penetrate. There's no penetration. In other words, there is no reception at all. And how do we receive the I will again probably bring this up in the wedding coming Saturday, that we receive a wife by believing her promises. We receive a husband by believing the husband, the promises, the oaths that are made. We give ourselves away in our words, we receive by believing those words. And so when we say the seed fell, this word of the kingdom, fell on the hard packed soil, What we're saying is there was no faith at all. There was no reception and the devil and his angels come whisk it away. But we have two other cases where one is which the seed falls on the shallow soil, the rocky soil. And then the second one, third one, the seed falling on the weedy soil. And there is some reception in both cases. In the case of the rocky soil, It actually sprouts up very quickly, but it has no root, so it quickly withers away when the sun and the hot wind blow on it. And there we have a reception of sorts, an outward reception, the appearance of a reception, and yet at the same time there is no root, he says. It didn't lose its root, it never had one. It just looked like it had a root. You assumed it had a root, but there really was no root there. It sprouts up quickly. In some cases, it seems that the seed on the shallow soil actually sprouts up faster than the seed on the good soil. There's a very rapid reception, and yet it simply does not last. It is not rooted in the heart of man. Now, in the case of the weedy soil, notice that what we've got going on there is that the seed is being added to what is already present in the heart. The heart has all these weeds growing. The seed of the word is being added to the weeds. You remember I used this language that we are not to accept Christ to, we're to receive him instead of. And here is the example in the weedy soil is that we are adding the seed of the word to soil that already has things growing there. And those weeds in the parable, what did those weeds represent? We say, the cares of this world, worldly concerns. In other words, what we're trying to do is to have our cake and eat it too. We want this world, we want the world to come. We're adding the world to come to this world. In other words, there you're looking at the reception of the word without repentance, you see. So the good soil is soil that the rocks are out of it and the weeds are out of it. In other words, when you think about the good soil, it's being described by, in other words, how did the good soil get good? Well, verse 21, there was the putting away of the wicked stuff that's there. In other words, that's what now has prepared the soil of the heart for the reception of the word. It's the repentance that goes before faith. Now, note the requirement for meekness here. in verse 21 receive with meekness the ingrat or implanted word. We have the idea that meekness then is a prerequisite for faith and I've tried to show you that in several places that just as pride is what produces the evil stuff that we've been talking about meekness is that which is absolutely essential for believing. Luke 18 the or the rich man. I'll get it right here in a minute. The Pharisee praying in the temple the public and one was exalting himself the other abasing himself and that one went down to his house justified well Paul tells us we're justified by faith but in that parable what's being emphasized is the fact that one was humble and one was proud And it was the humble man who gets justified, the proud man does not. Well, why is that true? Why didn't he save the believing man? Because humility is absolutely essential for saving faith, that we are receiving something outside of ourselves. We stand in need. We recognize that what we need we don't have. We recognize that what we need done we can't do. We are humbled before God. And meekness is simply the outworking of humility. It's how humility acts. It's the outward demonstration of humility. And so notice that without the meek heart, this reception does not take place. And then notice what it is that is being received. It is this powerful word, and dunamis, we keep talking about the word for dynamo, dynamic, that's the root of this term able here in verse 21. That this word that is being implanted in the heart is a powerful word that is able to save the soul, and it seems to me that James is speaking not only here of initial salvation, but ongoing salvation. In other words, there's an initial reception of the seed of the Word which then sprouts. The plant, however, doesn't just go away, it then continues to grow and develop. But what is fascinating is that it is the Word that is described as the powerful thing here now earlier we notice god the father bigots us his word this word of truth so in other words it is the reason this word is able to save your soul powerful is because it has the power of god behind it but we don't normally think of the power in conversion or the Christian life is flowing from the word. We talk about, well, so-and-so is a powerful preacher. But may I suggest to you that the power is never in the man. The power is in the message that the man is preaching. And a powerful preacher is simply preaching a powerful message. That's what makes a powerful preacher. And that it is the message that is the powerful thing and i'm all winner is that normally how we think we don't normally connect the power with the word you know if the guy yells loud enough and screams and hollers in pounds his fist enough it's powerful sermon what this is saying yes the man is merely the conduit he's merely the messenger that the real powerful agent here is the message that is being communicated and that the power is in that. It's the able thing. I am not ashamed, says Paul, of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe him. The gospel itself. Paul, in writing to the Colossian church, says the gospel that's been bringing forth fruit everywhere it goes has now come to you. And it's bringing forth fruit there. And it's almost like the gospel has legs. Well, we know from reading, it's this guy Epaphras that actually was the pastor, the guy who heard Paul and brought the gospel there. But it's like the gospel is rather than he bringing the gospel, the gospel was riding the man. The gospel got there by the means of the man. And having come there, it's doing there what it's doing everywhere else. Am I, y'all familiar with that? Colossians 1. Go there, go there. Look at how this, this emphasizes my point here. Colossians 1 verse 3. Colossians 1 verse 3. And I'm just saying how backwards this is from the way we think. Or maybe how frontwards it is. We're the backwards one. We got it, we got it backwards. But just read this. Colossians 1 3. Paul says, We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have to all the saints, and for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. Now there's the dominant thought now. Gospel. Which, the gospel, is come unto you, as it is in all the world, bringing forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day you heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth as you also learned of effortless our dear fellow servant who is for you a faithful minister of Christ who also declared unto us your love in the spirit so notice it's almost I mean obviously the gospel is something we proclaim but it's like the gospel used effortless as its mule to get to Colossi and that once it's there it bears for fruit there like it's bearing for fruit elsewhere in the world. It's doing there the same thing is doing everywhere else it goes. My friend Mike Frisbee that died a couple of months ago now used to have the saying that and now that he's gone I keep remembering these things he said some very very insightful But he said that wherever the gospel goes, there's hope for salvation. And that if the gospel is not there, then there is no hope. Because the gospel is the power of God's salvation. The gospel is that word that God's going to use to regenerate souls. And so if the gospel hasn't reached a place, then nobody's getting saved there. But if the gospel reaches a place, then you have every expectation that souls will be saved. Do you get the logic? And again, coming back to our belief in the sovereignty of God, then it is no accident that the gospel went to this place instead of that place. Because the very fact that the gospel went to this place would then tend to indicate that God must have some of his elect there. because the gospel is the appointed means by which god's gonna bring his elect to salvation so that that's a fascinating observation it ought to give us some hope i think he was telling me that one time when i was so down and dispressed and discouraged and just saying the way to bed don't get depressed down and discouraged because hey the gospel is here and wherever the gospel is you ought to be encouraged because this is the very thing god will use to bring sinners to salvation, and the very thing that God uses to keep us growing in grace. In other words, it's not just dealing with initial salvation here when he says this word that is able to save your souls. It's the whole process of salvation so that we are to receive this implanted word in the heart. Now just a couple of observations, and I think one of these I've already talked about. But first of all, this smacks or sounds like what the era that is sometimes called preparationism that must be avoided. Preparationism is the idea that you've got to get really bad before you can get good. You've got to get really bad. You've got to feel bad. You've got to be under tremendous conviction of your sin. You have to be under this deep wallowing in remorse before you can truly repent and believe. Now, there are times that people have experiences of a deep, deep repentance, and there's nothing wrong with that. The error comes in when you say, well, unless you have wallowed in the mire this long, in this deeply, then you can't believe the gospel. You see the problem? All of a sudden, we're dealing with something then that becomes meritorious in my wallowing in the mire. The more I wallow in the mire, the better now I'm more qualified to believe. And I actually, in this strange logic, I get better by being bad. If I get bad enough, then I'm good enough to believe. You all ever run into that? There was a fellow named L.R. Shelton down in New Orleans back in the fifties that was noted for this idea of preparationism. And unless you had been in the dumps for a year, according to Shelton, you couldn't possibly be saved. You couldn't possibly believe because you hadn't repented long enough or hard enough or deeply enough. And the problem was he had gone through that kind of experience himself. And so he assumed that everybody else is going to get saved and has to go through the same experience. But notice, that's just another way of a sinner trying to come before God with something, some qualification in his hands. It's just another form of self-righteousness. And the sad thing, and I learned this from his grandson, that L. R. Shelton, a very, very wicked man, I question whether he's even regenerated. I mean, honestly, from what the testimony of his grandson who knew him very very well so all of this stuff can be a tool of our own self-righteousness to recommend ourselves to God. Aren't we twisted? Have you ever thought about that? I mean we are twisted folks and we keep searching for something to keep us from simply having to come with an empty hand and lay hold of Christ. the the hyper calvinist wants to bring the evidence of his election with him this will be a i'm bring this to god i don't have to come empty-handed i'm bring this they fell out who believes in preparation is a missus preparation that now he can come to god with is a look i'm i've wallet in the dirt i'm i'm i'm i feel badly about my son and so forth i mean that shows you just how devious our hearts are that we seize anything at all rather than simply with as we sing in the song nothing in my hands i bring simply to that cross i claim casting away all other hope and cleaving only to christ so avoid that era moody it is said to ask some college students one time in chicago uh... he had a glass he said tell me how to get this class how to get the air out of the glass. One guy says, well, we can hook a vacuum pump up to it. He said, yeah, you could do that, but you'd destroy the glass. How do you get the air out of the glass? Well, the answer, of course, is to fill the glass with something else. And to a large degree, when Paul deals with this, put off the old man and put on the new man, I don't think we're to think of those as two phases or two steps, and one may take a while and then the other, but they are the simultaneous act of the soul. I've said a conversion is like an about-face. It's one motion, but it's looked at from two different directions. You can say when someone does an about-face, they're turning from something, and that's repentance. But you can also say they're turning to something. That's faith. But notice, it's really just one act. The one act of repenting of sin and believing the gospel is simply looking at the same action from two different directions. So don't let yourself fall into that trap. And what Moody was saying, and I think very appropriately, is that the overcoming of sin occurs when the life is filled with the life of Christ, with the grace. of salvation. And so we don't empty the jar and then later on decide to fill it. But that is one in the same act. Go to Matthew 12 a moment. Look at the teaching here. Now realize the context here is the nation of Israel committing the sin of apostasy, essentially. If you look at the overall context, they are accusing Christ of casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub and uh... they are committing the unpardonable sin if you will but Jesus uses this little parable to illustrate the situation Matthew 12 43 and he's talking about demons we'll learn about demons here's your good primer Matthew 12 43 says when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest finding none Then he saith, I will return into my house from which I came out, and when he is come, he finds it, notice this, empty, swept, and garnished. It's a furnished apartment, empty, ready to go. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first. even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation." So notice the primary focus of the parable is to explain what that generation is doing. They have had a cleaning of the house with the ministry of John the Baptist. The problem is the house didn't get filled when the Messiah came. And so the last state of that nation is going to be seven times worse than it was before John came. That's sort of fitting it into the context. But you sort of see a general principle here, don't you? That it is not enough to undergo a self-reformation. We're going to clean up our act. We're going to straighten up and fly right. That unless Christ fills the house, you're just setting yourself up, number one, for failure, and number two, to be in worse shape than you were before. Because now you say, well, I've tried that, and that didn't work. So self-reformation just never works, because it leaves the house empty. You've cleaned the house out. You've kicked the residents out. But you haven't invited a new resident in, so to speak. Oscar? Yeah, well, the old saying is, there's nothing worse than a reformed alcoholic. because now you've got to put up with all this bragging and it's all all the self-righteousness that's that's true that there there is shall we say there is a self-reformation that works temporarily and what in Jesus is dealing with that but at the same time unless the house is filled And we can talk about this theologic theologically John Owen in his treaties on sanctification how sanctification works basically stated that what happens why we quit sinning is that a more powerful principle enters the heart the love of Christ becomes more powerful than the love of sin and so we quit sinning That if you simply concentrate on stopping sinning, you'll never stop sinning. Do you understand what he's saying? The more you concentrate, it's sort of like trying to be on a diet to lose weight and concentrating on the food. The more you concentrate on the food, the more you stir up your appetite for the food. That's how fleshly work lust work. Or is that just me? You know, you're on this diet, and you're going down, and you can't have strawberry shortcake. You can't have prime rib. You can't have—in other words, all of a sudden, what's going on in my mind? I know what strawberry shortcake looks like, and my mouth's watering. I know what prime rib tastes like, and my mouth is watering. In other words, the more I concentrate on what I'm not supposed to eat, the more I want to eat it. I remember being on Atkins. I was having this discussion last night with a couple of guys that had been on Atkins' And you read all this stuff you can eat, you know, all these steaks and eggs and cheese. I mean, this sounds great. Eat as much as you want. And then about a month later, you would kill somebody for a baked potato. I mean, I never dreamed baked potatoes smelled so good baking in the oven until I went on the Atkins diet, until you can't have it. And then that's all you want. You want that baked potato, and you're ready to kill for it. Do you understand what Owens is saying? The more you concentrate on not sinning, the more it's just self-defeating. But how do you quit sinning? Another principle, more power than the love of sin, enters your life. And when the love of Christ becomes more powerful than the love of sin, you'll quit sinning. It's sort of like, when do you get married? Well, when the love of that one woman supersedes all the love of all those other women. course i'm speaking hypothetically here assuming you had all those hundreds of other girlfriends you know that you'd forsook for this one but notice that's what's going on you're willing to forsake all others to death do you part for this one that's where we are oscar bailiff bailiffs out here Yeah, our wills... I mean, it's difficult to understand why do we choose what we choose. And we would think, well, to quit sinning, I simply need to stop choosing to sin. But our wills are complicated. Edwards described how the will of man works like a scale, and that And this is a simple illustration that we can either do this or that. And most choices in life involve far more than just one of two things. For instance, I can buy a car or I can keep my money. If you believe you need your money, more than you need a car you won't buy the car if you need a car more than you need your money or love your money then you'll buy the car do you understand so he's saying that you have these motives that are like opposite motives and in a scale and it tilts one way or the other now then the question arises okay if that's the way it works what then determines the weight of the motive the weight weightiness and what edwards then goes on to say it's the nature of man that ascribes the way to the motives for instance then or don't say it if i'm a sinner sinning is a heavy everything it's going to help the scales in that direction my love of sin will give a weight to choosing sin so that might in other words you see his point the will is not detached from you it's not like spending the bottle or rolling dice, your will is an expression of your own heart, and that in the choices you make, you are being swayed in one direction or another by the weightiness of these contrary motives. Now, in real life, usually it's more complex than that. It's not just one or two things. It's a whole variety of things that enter into the picture. But ultimately, you think about it, that's got to be the way the will works. and so back to the question my quitting sinning involves me now esteeming christ more than esteeming sin i want him more than i want sin we still need to repent you know it's sort of like do we ever repent enough of what's the old puritan said i need to repent of my repentance because what we find is that yes we repent But tomorrow I'm going to need to repent again, and the next day I'm going to... The remnant of sin is still there. Yeah. Yeah. And there are times, there are seasons in the Christian's life, and this is why the remembrance of Christ in the cross has to be kept, shall we say, on the front burner, because the moment our appreciation of what Christ has done for us, which is the reason we love Him so, the moment that begins to be forgotten or slips, then sin, the remaining sin, raises its ugly head. It's always there underneath the surface. In other words, regeneration does not eradicate the sinful nature. It's still there. But the sinful nature is subdued as I receive the things of Christ. I don't know how better to. Right. Church of Christ. Camelot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. It's the illustration I use is like an airplane overcoming the law of gravity by the law of aerodynamics. But the airplane flies not because the gravity ceases to be. It's always there. but another power another impetus has come into the plane situation the law of aerodynamics supersedes generates lift that overcomes the law of gravity but the moment the plane quits moving through the air what happens it drops like a rock gravity is still there and i think that is a good way of thinking of our sin nature is always there under the surface ready to erupt the moment we quit receiving the ingratitude of the implanted word. Every time that happens, we then are going to fall like a rock. Now that doesn't mean that we're back, you know, unsaved, but what it just illustrates is that constant tendency between the flesh and the spirit. Walking in the flesh, you do not fulfill the lust of the... Walking in the spirit, you do not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I'll get it right here. doesn't say just quit walking in the flesh but walk in the spirit. You can't walk in the spirit and walk in the flesh at the same time. So if you walk in the spirit you don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. Somebody. David. Right. That birth process of sin that he just talked about. I'm repeating it for them. Yeah. Now it germinates. Of wealth and wickedness. Yeah. that what David saying it's like there's two things going on you got the germination of sin that he's talked about earlier in this chapter the conceiving of sin and bearing then it bearing fruit plus here you see another seed another germination going on another plant that is bearing fruit so it's like these two things are happening you know John. You get your Yeah the world in this keeps coming back. Yeah that's certainly true. Jim got to answer here. Yeah that's what I was trying to say with the like the diet illustration. The more you try to clean it up the more you remember Bunyan's illustration in pilgrims progress and maybe this would answer what you're saying that the in the interpreters house One of the visions or one of the scenes that Pilgrim or Christian saw was this woman come in with a broom and try to sweep the dust on the floor and the more she swept. Remember what happened. The more dust just went everywhere. But then she came in with a pitcher of water and sprinkle water on the dust and it could be swept up without going everywhere. And the interpretation was, is that the only way then to clean up the heart is to apply grace, that it's the grace illustrated here by the water, that that's what then enables us to clean up the room. So it's the sweet influences of the grace. I thought that was, of course, a very amazing illustration, but one that speaks to this. Again, back to the weeds, that The more we concentrate on the weeds, the more... The world is a very seductive influence. It sucks us in. It allures us. It's a tempest in that sense, that it never pays off... What am I trying to say? It never delivers what it advertises. It's always false advertising. And in that sense, it's like the seductions of a prostitute. It's like luring you, seducing you, enticing your lust. The world works like that. Because the world, you think of the advertising. If you just have this product, call it what you will, this widget, you will finally have what you were looking for. I mean, you will be happy and you will be content if you just get you one of these. Whatever that happens to be, that's the way the world markets its goods. And it never satisfies. It's always empty, empty promises at the end of the day. Riches, wealth, fame never quenches the desire for more. It's like a fire. It creates more. So that gets back to the weeds. The more we concentrate on the weeds, the more seductive the world becomes. Well anyway this is a fascinating discussion and do you see now why I say that this seems to be James's way of expressing exactly what Paul would be saying of putting off the old man putting on the new. He's just using a different figure using different words but it's really the same concept which is really what we all expect. We wouldn't expect to have Paul has one way of living the Christian life. James he has his way. No, they're really the same thing, just being described in different ways. I think that's helpful to remember. Well, all right. Let us spend time in prayer tonight.