I'd like to turn with you tonight to
James chapter 4, and I'd like to read
the first ten verses, James chapter 4, verses
1 through 10.
It says, From whence come wars and fightings
among you?
Come they not hence even of your lusts
that war in your members?
Ye lust and have not, ye kill and
desire to have, and cannot obtain.
Ye fight and war, yet ye have not,
because ye ask not.
Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask
amiss, that ye may consume it on your
lusts.
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.
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and
your joy to heaviness.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and he shall lift you up.
Now, I have read this portion of the
word of God for many years, and I
don't know how you react to the reading
of it tonight, but my impression reading it
for a number of years was, well, it
certainly isn't written to us.
Whatever else you want to say about these
ten verses, they're not addressed to believers today,
that was quite obvious.
After all, it says things like, you lust
and have not, you kill and desire to
have, and cannot attain.
Couldn't have been written to believers, could it?
You kill.
And one night I was reading J.B.
Phillips' paraphrase of James' epistle, and I really
found the Lord dealing with me as I
read it.
Because this passage came alive to me as
it had never come alive before.
And it came straight home to me that
the Lord was speaking to us in this
portion of the word of God, and especially
so in the type of materialistic society that
we're living in today.
And that's really what this portion has to
deal with.
It has to deal with life in a
materialistic world, and the tendency for even believers
to be caught up in that type of
an existence.
And so I'd like to look at it
with you tonight from that viewpoint, that the
Lord is speaking to Christians.
Not even to nominal Christians, but to true
believers.
And you might entitle the passage, Covetousness, Its
Cause, and Its Cure.
Covetousness, Its Cause, and Its Cure.
In verse one and the first part of
verse two, you have the lust for pleasures
and possessions, and how it leads to fighting.
The lust for pleasures and possessions, and how
it leads to fighting.
James says, From whence come wars and fighting
among you?
Come they not hence even of your lusts,
the word there is pleasures, that war in
your members.
When you first read this verse, you think
of the war in Vietnam.
And I don't say that that might not
be included, but that isn't the primary thought
here.
The thought isn't primarily what's happening in Vietnam,
it's what's happening on Main Street.
And it's what's happening, unfortunately, in too many
Christian homes.
It's describing in this verse the insatiable desire
for more.
And isn't this the type of life that
we have about us today?
People never satisfied with what they have, and
no matter how much our salaries are raised,
there are always plenty of things in department
stores to gobble up the increase.
In fact, go beyond this in a day
of credit buying, and extend ourselves beyond what
we are able to purchase.
He says, Ye lust and have not, ye
kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain.
Now just to illustrate this, let me tell
you the story about Jane and Bob.
Jane and Bob are a typical average Christian
young couple.
They get married, and they don't really want
too much.
They want to live moderately, and on the
same level as their friends.
Bob has a good salary, and well, they
feel that they really should start out with
a home anyway, and so they do.
They purchase a home.
They don't have the money, but they have
enough to make the down payment, and the
rest is bought with a mortgage.
And unfortunately, the interest rate is kind of
high, but Bob's salary is, well, it's sufficient
really to take care of the interest and
the principal payments.
And they're quite pleased with their little home.
When the home was made, there was a
space left there, and the faucets were left
there for a washing machine.
And it wasn't long before Jane really felt
that that's one piece of equipment she would
like to have.
She would like to have a washing machine,
and so they got one on higher purchase.
It was a nice machine, and it was
installed there in the house.
After they had been married for six months,
Bob got a raise, and this relieved the
pressure on them just a little bit, that
increased income.
But at the same time, now that Bob
was going up in the company, he felt
that he really should have a later model
car.
The old car really, well, it was all
right.
It was in working order, but it was
a certain amount of prestige and status in
connection with his work in the company.
And so he felt, well, a new car
would be good.
And it fortunately had plenty of chrome on
it.
And of course, they didn't have the money
for that.
They had to buy the car on the
installment plan, and it meant that at the
end of the month when Bob was making
out the checks, he really had to just
scrounge a little bit more to get the
money together to make all the payments that
were being made.
And then, of course, the family started coming
along, and every time a child was born
into the family, the obligations increased, and there
was an increased strain on the family budget.
Jane came home from a sister's meeting one
day, and she told Bob that she really
thought that with all the work she should
have a dishwasher.
Actually, one of the other sisters had got
a new dishwasher, and that's really the thing
that triggered it off.
But anyway, she did have more work to
the family, and she felt that a dishwasher
would be a great help to her, and
Bob agreed.
And fortunately, right after that, Bob was promoted
to district sales manager, and of course, that
meant a little more help, too, with their
finances.
But the strain was telling on Bob, too,
because with his increases in pay and with
his promotions in the company, he was under
more strain all the time, and he decided
that really the least he could do, well,
he didn't like to be away weekends, because
it was nice to be at the assembly,
but he had been checking the advertisements for
these Johnson speedboats, and he decided that really,
to take the pressure off him, it would
be nice if he could have a speedboat
to go off on the weekends.
And so they did.
They had a two-car garage, and one
side of it was used for the speedboat
for the weekends.
And after three children had come along, Jane
thought, well, maybe wouldn't it be better if
they had a bigger house?
I mean, they were probably weren't exactly crowded,
but other young couples in the assembly, well,
there were some that had a bigger house
than they had, and it would be awfully
nice if they could.
And by this time, Bob was getting just
a bit edgy, because he really had to
keep his nose to the grindstone.
It was really pretty hard.
They just never seemed to get ahead.
No matter how fast he moved up in
the company, he, well, I mean, the salary
wasn't enough.
They were living on credit by now, and
all he could do was keep his head
above water.
And the same was true with Jane, too.
I mean, it seemed her workload was increasing
all the time, too, with all the appliances,
too, and that seems strange, but a lot
of the time they were out of work,
and that made it worse than if they
didn't have them at all.
And the thing that she noticed especially was
that she didn't have a car to do
the errands with.
And so one night when Bob came home,
um, she suggested maybe a second car.
She didn't want a new one.
An old jalopy would do, but just as
long as she could get around easier to
do the errands.
Of course, that meant added expense with insurance
and all the rest.
And there was one other thing that she
really did feel was quite important.
Most of the others had this, too, and
that's something she had never gotten.
That was a deep freeze.
And she said, well, they could buy a
quarter of beef and save a lot of
money if they only had a deep freeze
and could put some of these things away.
Would help, wouldn't it?
And one day a salesman came to the
house.
Bob wasn't home, but Jane was home, and
he was selling encyclopedias.
And he told how important it was, you
know, for children growing up today to have
an encyclopedia available.
And anyway, I think Jane was tired and
word weary, and her sales resistance was low
that particular day.
And when he took out the form, she
signed it.
She didn't really realize, well, I think he
told her that it would cost about $200,
but it was the down payment that she
was thinking of especially.
And so Bob came home, and Jane told
him what she had done, and he just
exploded.
I mean, it was just the straw that
broke the camel's back.
He said, well, why, why, we need an
encyclopedia like we need a hole in the
head.
And the battle was on.
The battle was on, and pretty soon the
walls of the house were quivering, and the
window glass was bulging out, and the children
were in tears, and they wished they were
a million miles away.
And there was a strain in that house
for the days to come, and some pretty
harsh, irritating words were spoken.
In fact, that particular night, you could definitely
hear the windows of the neighbors' houses closing
when the fight was on.
Why?
What was that all about?
James chapter four, verses one and two.
Read them again and see if that isn't
exactly what James is saying here.
From whence come wars and fighting among you?
Come they not, hence, even of your pleasures
that war in your members you lust, and
have not you kill?
Ah, kill!
Where is the killing to them?
My dear friends, it's possible to kill with
words as well as with bullets, isn't it?
Have you ever known people living in this
world, their bodies kept on functioning but their
spirits were gone, have you?
Just killed by harsh, bitter words is what
it's talking about here.
Not necessarily shooting a man down in cold
blood, that would be more merciful in some
cases, than just this harsh, bitter, acrimonious
slaying of one another with words.
And I think that's what James is talking
about.
You kill in desire to him, and cannot
obtain.
Cannot obtain!
You say, why, James got so many things,
and she never got enough of them, and
neither did Bob.
Never got enough.
Why?
Covetousness, that's why.
Never satisfied the delusion that a man's life
consisteth in the abundance of the things that
he possesses.
And what we never seem to learn is
that material things don't bring happiness.
They bring strife, but they don't bring happiness.
I like what David Livingston once said.
He said he was determined to have no
possessions except in relation to the kingdom of
Christ.
Why, that's good, isn't it?
Determined to have no possessions.
Maybe I can give you the exact quote,
I think I He said, I will place
no value on anything I have or possess
except in relation to the kingdom of Christ.
David Livingston.
I will place no value on anything I
have or possess except in relation to the
kingdom of Christ.
Hudson Taylor used to take an inventory of
his personal possessions every year and eliminated all
that were not necessary in service for the
Lord Jesus.
And I don't know whether it was he
or some other servant of the Lord I
read of who said he enjoyed the luxury
of having few things to care for.
He enjoyed the luxury of having few things
to care for.
We live in our country in a very
materialistic society, and it's no different in Australia.
And incidentally, it's no different behind the Iron
Curtain either, because although they don't have all
of these gadgets, they'd like to have them
all.
But we live in a very materialistic culture.
There never was a time in our country
when so many families were being broken up,
when the divorce rate was so high, and
when there are so many unhappy people rushing
off to psychiatrists for treatment.
There never was a time.
And of course, if we'd only go to
the Bible, we'd know this is true, that
the world itself is not big enough to
fill the human heart.
As Pascal said, there's a God-shaped vacuum
in the human heart.
Only God can fill it.
It's absolutely true.
Material things do not do it.
They do bring strife, and that's what James
is pointing out in this passage of the
Word of God.
The reason for failure to obtain satisfaction.
Two reasons are given in verses 2 and
3.
First of all, failure to pray.
In telling you the story about Jane and
Bob, you'll notice I never said once that
they prayed about any of these things.
I never made it a matter of prayer
whether the Lord wanted them to have it,
they just went ahead and got it.
And so James says here, you fight in
war, yet you have not, because ye ask
not, ye ask and receive not, because ye
ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon
your love.
I personally believe God expects us to pray
before purchasing, to make our purchases a matter
of prayer.
I believe it honors Him.
You say, you mean before you buy a
pair of shoes?
Yes, before you buy a pair of shoes.
God is interested in a pair of shoes?
Yes, God is interested in the shoes you
wear.
You say that in the Bible?
Yes, it says that in the Bible.
He took the children of Israel through the
wilderness.
There were no Safeway stores in the wilderness.
He fed them all the way and provided
them with shoes that never wore out.
I haven't been able to find those in
the stores yet, but God provided His people
with them.
Shoes, and if God's interested in the clothes
that you wear, the shoes that you wear
and the hat that you buy, He's interested.
And I believe if we take these things
to the Lord in prayer, we can see
God's hand in a marvelous way.
I've bought batteries for the car, shock absorbers
for the car.
In answer to prayer, I just happened to
get there at the time when they were
on sale.
Little things like that might not have meant
anything to anybody else, but they meant a
lot to me because I saw the timing
of God in little things like that.
Last time I went to buy shock absorbers
for my car, the lady who sold them
to me said, My, you're getting these for
two dollars cheaper each.
I said, How come?
She said, They're on sale today.
I said, Thank you very much.
I had prayed about it the night before.
I had no idea they were on sale.
We fail to pray, or if we pray,
sometimes we pray with false motivation, mixed motives,
and God even sees through that.
God even sees through that and deals with
us accordingly.
Now in the next verses, verses four and
five, James speaks of this covetousness as a
form of worldliness.
That isn't what we think.
When we think of separation from worldliness, we
never think of covetousness, but that's what it's
spoken of here.
It says in the origins, Ye adulteresses.
First of all, this spirit of covetousness is
described as spiritual adultery.
My Jane and Bob would really have been
surprised if you had mentioned that to them.
They really would have been shocked if you
had said to them, Jane and Bob, you're
guilty of spiritual adultery.
I think they'd have gone off in a
speedboat next weekend instead of coming to the
meeting.
That's what the Bible says.
It calls this form of covetousness as insatiable
desire for more adultery.
Why?
Because it takes God off the throne in
your life and puts things on in his
place.
That's why.
That's exactly what Bob and Jane were doing.
They were living for a world of things
and preoccupied with material things.
This is where their thoughts were, and it
finally burst in a grand war.
The second thing, he describes it as friendship
of the world.
Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship
of the world.
That's strange, isn't it?
You don't think of that when you interview
a person for fellowship.
That's what it is.
Friendship of the world.
Why?
What is the world?
Worldliness essentially is the love of passing things.
That's what worldliness is.
It's the love of passing things.
And so James is right here when he
says, friendship of the world.
And then the third thing he describes is
enmity with God.
Enmity.
Pretty strong language.
Yes, it is strong language.
And it's shocking that this language is used
as descriptive of Christian people.
It just shows you the kind of a
rat race we can get into today when
we get our eyes off the things that
are eternal and get them occupied with the
passing show, with the vanity fair.
And then he speaks of it as enmity
with God, and then in the next verse,
verse five, he says it's contrary to the
scriptures, and it's contrary to all that the
Holy Spirit would have in our lives.
Now, verse five is obviously a very difficult
verse, as you know, and has many different
interpretations.
I'll give one or two.
It says, Do you think that the scripture
speaks in vain when it says, the spirit
that dwells in us lusts to envy?
Well, first of all, we know that the
scripture doesn't speak in vain, and we know
that this whole attitude of covetousness is contrary
to the scriptures.
Now, do you think the scriptures speak in
vain when they say, the spirit that is
in us lusts to envy?
You may think of it this way.
Do you think that the scripture teaches that
the Holy Spirit leads a person to be
covetous like this?
Of course, it doesn't.
Or lust to envy means that the Holy
Spirit in us craves our total and complete
devotion to the Lord and not to material
things.
You may see the verse in two ways.
First of all, the denial that the Spirit
of God could be the source of this
type of behavior, or secondly, as an affirmation
that when the Spirit of God lusts in
us, he is jealous of our devotion to
the Lord in a good way, in a
good jealousy.
Then in verses six through ten, the Lord
tells Jane and Bob what they should do
in a situation like this.
My, the Bible is really a practical book,
isn't it?
Coming down to us right where we are
in the twentieth century.
Maybe by now, if Jane and Bob have
studied this passage of scripture, and they say,
my, that's just us.
It's just a mirror of what we've been
going through.
And they say, what are we going to
do?
Well, maybe they're discouraged, and they say, what's
the use?
And so Jane says in verse six, but
he giveth more grace.
He giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the
humble.
In other words, Jane and Bob, if you
come to the place in your life where
the Lord puts his finger on something, don't
fight against it.
Just break under the hand of God.
The tendency with too many of us is
to grit our teeth and just to plunge
on and refuse to be broken before the
Lord.
This says, God knows how to resist the
proud.
It is a wonderful thing that the great
God in heaven himself, he cannot resist the
brokenhearted.
That's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
Powerful as he is, he doesn't have the
power to resist a brokenhearted soul, and he
gives grace to the humble.
So Jane and Bob, don't give up.
Maybe the walls of your home are quivering
with tension and friction and fighting and all
the rest, and it's all come in because
of covetousness and unsatisfied, but don't give up.
There's a way out, and here's the way,
and there are certain steps in the way.
The first step is this, in verse 7a,
submit yourselves therefore to God.
What does that mean?
Well, I think it means to get down
before the Lord and say, Lord, we know
you're speaking to us.
We know you're speaking to us.
We do know, don't you?
I do.
When I'm in a meeting and the Spirit
of God comes along and he puts his
finger in something in my life that isn't
right, and I swallow hard, I know that
the Lord is speaking to me.
What am I going to do?
Well, the thing to do is just to,
in that moment, just to break before the
Lord and say, Lord, here I am.
Speak to me.
Tell me what you want in my life.
And so that's why the first thing that
Bob and Jane should do is just get
before the Lord, and as I say, break
before the Lord.
Brokenness is something we don't hear too much
about.
In fact, I was brought up in a
Scottish family, and my brokenness was a sign
of terrible weakness.
You know, Scottish is supposed to be doer
and never show any emotion at all.
Pardon me if there are any Scottish people
here.
But you know, there are these national characteristics
ingrained in us of the scriptures that say,
Admit yourselves, therefore, to God.
That's the first thing.
Then, as soon as you start to do
that, and be soft before the Lord, and
just be like clay in the hands of
the potter, and somebody's voice comes to you.
It's the voice of the devil.
And I said, look, you mustn't do that.
Don't be a fool now.
Don't make a fool of yourself.
The devil.
And I think that's why it says next
here, resist the devil, and he will flee
from you.
In fact, with Jane and Bob, there might
be the tendency for Jane to say, well,
I'm not going to give up.
After all, I was right in this thing,
and Bob's saying, well, I'm not going to
give up either.
After all, who's been footing the bill?
And the devil will say to both of
them, that's right, go at it.
You're both right.
The scriptures say, no, Jane and Bob, submit
yourselves to God, and resist the devil when
he comes to you with all this kind
of insidious talk.
Then what does it say to do, sir?
It says, draw nigh to God.
He will draw nigh to thee.
How does that, what does that mean?
Well, I only know one way of drawing
nigh to God, and that's in prayer.
Isn't that right?
Okay, first thing you do is break before
the Lord, resist the voice of the devil
when he tells you to be proud and
unrelenting and unforgiving.
Just resist him, and then just get down
before the Lord.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw
nigh to thee.
Isn't that nice to know that in that
home with Jane and Bob and the crying
children, the warring parents and the crying children,
that the Lord is waiting in heaven, waiting
for them to get down on their knees,
and then in a very real way, he'll
draw nigh, and he's not too near right
now.
He's watching, but he has to separate himself
from that kind of a situation.
Draw nigh to God, he will draw nigh
to thee.
What else does it say?
Well, the next thing it says, cleanse your
hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, he
double-minded.
The hands speak of our acts, and the
heart speaks of our motives.
How do you cleanse your hands and purify
your hearts?
Only one way I know, and that's by
confession of sin.
Confession of sin.
Confession and putting away of sin.
And practically what it means is for Jane
and Bob to get down on their knees
and say, Lord, we're really in a backslidden
condition.
We've put things on the throne in our
lives, and we've taken you off the throne,
and we've got away from the Lord, and
our house, our home is in shatters as
a result of it, and we're coming to
you and we're just confessing our sin, and
we're putting it away.
We're going to end this mad business of
accumulating material things, and we're going to be
satisfied with a modest standard of living so
that we can devote ourselves more wholeheartedly to
the work of the Lord.
Confession and forsaking of evil acts and motives.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your
hearts, ye double-minded.
What else?
Deep sorrow for sin.
Verse nine says, Be afflicted and mourn, and
weep.
Let your lot to be turned to mourning,
and your joy to heaviness.
And finally, an utter humbling of selves before
God.
Verse ten.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and he shall lift you up.
Let me just go over those again.
What is the cure for covetousness in the
home of Jane and Bob?
Well, the first thing they should do is
just submit themselves to the Lord and say,
Lord, you've been speaking to us, and we
hear your voice, and we want to hear
it still.
The second thing they should do is resist
the devil as he comes to them and
tells them not to break, not to be
soft, not to confess.
After all, you were right.
And then the third thing is to approach
God in prayer, and the promise is he
will draw nigh to you.
The fourth thing is confession and forsaking of
evil acts and motives.
The fifth is deep sorrow for sin, and
the last is an utter humbling of self
before God.
The cause and cure of covetousness.
Now, I'd just like to say that I
was brought up in assembly fellowship, an assembly
just like this one, and you know that
in all my life in assembly fellowship, I
have never known the people of God to
come before the Lord in confession of sin
and humbling of ourselves before God.
It's a strange thing, isn't it?
I'm not saying it hasn't happened.
Probably some of you have had it happen,
but I've never had it happen.
I've never been in a meeting where the
Christians have really wept before the Lord confessing
sin and failure.
We don't do it in my assembly.
I sometimes think the reason we don't do
it is that visitors might come in and
find out we're not perfect, and the sooner
they find it out, the better.
And yet I do know this, that there
never has been a revival among God's people
apart from these steps that are listed here
in James.
Isn't that strange?
I've never heard of a revival even among
the people of God that was not preceded
or accompanied by this.
And I believe that this is what we
really need today.
I can remember a meeting in Chicago.
It was a missionary meeting, missionary study class,
and of all the meetings I've ever attended
in my life, I have never been so
conscious of the voice of God speaking as
that night.
And I've never been in a meeting where
so many people were in tears.
I'd like to tell you about it.
I'll tell you what happened.
It was a missionary study class.
There were four speakers.
That's enough to kill any missionary study class.
It didn't kill this one.
The last speaker was a young man devoted
to the Lord Jesus, a true disciple of
the Lord Jesus, and he got the platform
at 8.30 and was supposed to speak
until 9.
And that young man got up, and for
that time he poured out his soul in
the most impassioned plea for world evangelism that
I've ever heard in all my life.
And you could have heard a pin drop
in that meeting.
The Spirit of God was really moving on
hearts in that meeting.
I can remember some of the things he
said.
He said, there are a lot of things
in the Bible I don't understand, but those
aren't the things that bother me.
He said, it's the things I do understand
that bother me.
And I remember him holding up a book,
a communist book that he bought for 35
cents in Vienna, a beautifully bound book setting
forth communism.
He was showing what the communists are doing
today and how we're asleep at the switch.
And oh, God was really working.
And all over the audience you could hear
people weeping while the meeting was going on.
God was speaking.
At 9 o'clock, the chairman got up
and handed the young man a note.
And you know what the note said.
It said, brother, your time is up.
One of the worst things I've ever seen
happen in a meeting.
The dear young brother looked down at the
note.
Nobody would have cared if he had gone
on for two more hours.
Nobody would have cared.
But listen, the meeting stops at 9, everybody
has to get home, and so there you
go.
So he looked down at the note, and
very graciously he brought his message to a
close, and he said, let's pray.
And he started to pray, and as he
prayed, it seemed the world with all its
need came before him, and he started to
weep.
And he wept so uncontrollably that he couldn't
continue his prayer.
I've never been in a meeting like this.
If it had been put on, you'd have
known it wasn't put on.
And then he said, let's pray silently.
And he put his handkerchief up to his
mouth, and all you could hear was that
dear fellow's muffled sobs over the PA system.
He finally regained his composure.
He closed his prayer, and he got down
and sat on the front seat, and put
his head between his knees, and wept.
In fact, he wept for a half hour.
The reason I know is I sat beside
him.
When he got down, the chairman made his
second mistake.
He said, let us sing hymn so-and
-so.
Usually a hymn is very much in keeping
at the end of a meeting, and very,
very appropriate.
But that night, one of the worst things
he could have done was give out a
hymn.
Nobody, repeat, nobody wanted to sing.
So the song leader got up, and instead
of getting up on the platform, he stood
down there.
His face was ashen.
He stood there long enough to sing the
first line of the first verse, and he
sat down.
And all I could think of was the
glory of the Lord so filled the place
that the priest couldn't minister.
And then the meeting was dismissed, and everyone
went home, and the dear brother sat there
and wept.
Why was he weeping?
Well, I believe he was weeping because God
had spoken, and we, God's people, weren't ready
to break before the Lord.
We had to just stay there and have
a time of confession and forsaking of sin,
because we just don't do it, do we?
I like to tell one of the other
parts of the story.
Some months later, I got a letter from
a fellow who had been in that meeting.
He had been with me in the Navy
in the Second World War, and he was
in that meeting that night, a fine Christian
fellow.
And he wrote me a few months later,
and he said to me, Dear Bill, my
life has never been the same since the
missionary study class.
He said, Oh, the bitter, bitter regrets.
But maybe God can still salvage something from
my life for His glory.
And shortly after that, he packed up his
bags and, with his wife and three children,
went down to serve the Lord in Brazil
as missionaries.
That was one of the byproducts of the
meeting.
Another thing that happened is some of the
EMEA students took an unsaved friend out to
the meeting that night, Judy Ramisetti.
Judy Ramisetti sat in the meeting that night,
and dear friends, I tell you, not a
word of gospel was preached.
But at the end of the day, you
can be saved.
Can you be saved when no gospel is
preached?
Yes.
If the Spirit of God is moving, you
can be saved whether any gospel is preached
or not.
But I'll never forget the sadness, the pathos
of the situation that God really spoke that
night.
And except in individual cases, we really weren't
ready to hear, to break before the Lord.
I wonder if Jane and Bob were willing
to do it.
If when the Lord brought them to that
crisis in their lives, if they were willing
to stop accumulating and start forsaking, put away
this terrible lust for covetousness, lust for things,
and start just living a life of discipleship
before the Lord.