1020. The Source of All Conflict

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Sr. His intent was to make a school where the focus would be on Christ, so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from The University Chapel Platform. Today on The Daily Platform, Dr. Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University, is continuing a study series entitled Wisdom from Above, which is a study of the Book of James.

There's a study booklet available for this series, and if you'd like to follow along, you can order a printed copy from the website thedailyplatform.com. Let's listen to today's message, where Steve will guide us through the source of all conflicts from the Book of James. This morning we're reading from James chapter 4, as we are working through the whole point of James, and that is bringing us to maturity to become wise people. What is a wise person like?

And so we've looked at a number of things. We asked the question, who is a wise person? And we talked about wisdom from above. We talked about wisdom from below. And now we come to James chapter 4, and it's a continuation of the thought that actually runs to verse 10 and James 4.

So we have about four more messages in this series. And this morning as we look at James chapter 4, I wish I could tell you that it's actually pretty, but it's really not. It's almost as if James becomes a heart surgeon. We all know we have a heart, but none of us have seen what our heart really looks like.

And it's almost as if James puts us on the operating table in almost like an autopsy. He opens us up and he shows the depths of our heart. Because in order for there to be a transformation of our life, it has to start within, within our hearts.

There has to be a change internally. And so James unfolds the human heart to show us why we do what we do. And then of course that sets us on a pathway to becoming wise people. So let's begin this morning by reading in verse one down to verse three, as I speak to you on the theme, the source of all conflicts. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence 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 in 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. All of us know that wars, conflicts and fightings have been a part of all of human history dating all the way back to the time when Cain murdered his brother Abel in Genesis chapter four. Historians estimate that in the 20th century alone, there were over 200 million people who died in war and by oppression. In 2018 in the United States of America, there were 1.2 million violent crimes that were committed. I think ever since 9-11 which has been basically the span of most of your lives, the United States of America has been in a war against terror that has killed thousands of people.

So the question is why? What is the reason or what is the source of all of these conflicts? Before the time of Christ, there was a man named Herodotus who was called the father of history. He wrote a book entitled Histories and in this book, he conducted a historical investigation into the cause of war and he concluded that wars were caused by the relentless drive for power or imperialism.

Another historian that followed Herodotus was a man named Thucydides. He wrote and he said while speaking of war and human suffering, he said wars will always occur as long as the nature of mankind remains the same. The cause of all these evils is the lust for power arising from greed and ambition. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It was the cause of 17 million deaths including over 100,000 Americans who were killed.

And what was the cause? Well on the surface, it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by a terrorist organization called the Black Hand. However, when you look deeper, you'll discover that the war was rooted in European imperialism in the countries of Africa and in the growing desire among European nations to show their natural power and their dominance. Now I think if the apostle James was here with us today, everything I've said thus far, he would say amen to. And the reason is because this is what he writes in James chapter 4 when he really unfolds the cause or the source of all human conflict. And so we're not just talking about wars among nations, we're talking about conflicts among people. Everybody in this room is going to face conflict the whole of your life. You'll have conflicts in marriage, you'll have conflicts in church, you'll have conflicts in families, you'll have conflicts in relationships with friends of yours, and you have to ask the question why. What's the root of it?

What is the source of it? And this is what James is doing. Because the way we get wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And we have to understand the nature of the human heart as we seek to become wise people. So what James does here in these first three verses of chapter 4 is he states two primary causes for human conflicts. The first one is really the main one. And that is this, the reason for all conflicts is rooted in man's sinful desires.

Look at what he says in verse 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Where do these wars come from? This is a rhetorical question.

It literally reads, from where wars? Where do the problems come from? Or maybe we can ask it this way.

What is the source of all evil? That is a common question for which we need to have a clear answer. And James follows up with another question where he is forcing us to deeply consider the source of conflict with a serious search of our own soul. Look at the second question. He says, come they not hints, even of your lusts that war in your members?

The word hints means James is pointing a finger of accusation at the source of all evil. And here's what he is saying. That the heart of all human problems is the problem of the human heart.

Let me say it again. The heart of all human problems is the problem of the human heart. The source of all conflict comes back to our own. So you cannot point the finger this way. You have to point the finger this way. Or maybe I should say it this way.

When I point the finger at you, I have three fingers pointing back at me. And what he is saying is that the source of conflict is within our own heart. James has already said this. We go back to chapter 1 and he makes it clear that God is not the source of evil. He is not the author of temptation. Listen to what he says in James 1 14. Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Jesus said the same thing in Mark 7 21. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, theft, and so on.

So in James chapter 4, James not only confirms what he says in verse 1, but what he, excuse me, in chapter 1. But what he does here in verse 1, 2, and 3 is he expounds the idea of the depths of man's sinful desires in greater details. He takes us down into his surgical process.

He looks into our human heart and he points out what's there. And what does he say about man's desires? Number one, he says that our desires are thoroughly, or I could almost say we are radically corrupted. James uses three words to describe the depravity of our own desires. And I'd like us to notice those three words and I'm going to give them to you in the Greek.

Because when you read them in the English, it really doesn't grasp what James was writing when he uses key Greek words. And I'd like to read these verses in the ESV because I think it's clearer. And let me read to you the first of these three, three evil desires. Verse 1, he says from, he says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? Drop down to the end of verse 3.

He says, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions. So in verse 1 and verse 3, he uses the exact same word twice. The word passion, King James says lust. But what's the Greek word? Well, it's one that you probably recognize is the word hedon. Do you know any English equivalent to that?

What is it? Hedonism. So he's talking about the fact that everybody is actually hedonistic.

We're all that way. So what does the word mean? Hedonism is a philosophy about life.

It's what I expect my life to be like. And essentially it is the belief that life's purpose is found in the presence of pleasure and in the absence of pain. In other words, living should be pleasure filled and pain free.

Hedonism includes the idea of the indulgence and the satisfaction of your own sensual desires especially in contrast to what Jesus said, if anybody would come after me, let him deny himself. So this is not just a condition, it's a philosophy of life. And I would say that this philosophy is deeply ingrained in all of us. It's deeply ingrained in American culture, especially in the material secular culture of our world. Especially in the concept of the American dream. And I'm not here to criticize the right to property or wealth.

That is not wrong. But it's just the idea that it is deeply ingrained within all of us that we live for our own pleasures. And at the core of what James is teaching us is this, are we going to live for God or are we going to live for self? And there's a second word, this mentioned in verse two.

And let me read it to you in the ESV. He says, you desire and do not have so you murder. The second word is the word desire, but in the Greek, it is the word epithymia. And I emphasize this because this is the most common word in the New Testament for lust. Epithymia, it means a strong desire. It is not generally a word that refers to something evil, it's just simply a strong desire.

It could be good or bad. But in this case, it obviously flows out of your fallen nature and so therefore it's always viewed as wrong desires. It's the same word that's used in James 1 14 when he says every man is tempted of his own lust. It's the same word used in Galatians 5 16 when he says walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It's the sinful desires that flow out of us.

Just like a fish is drawn to a worm in the water that's on a hook that catches him. So there are things within the human heart to which we are all drawn. John writes about it. He talks about the world. He's talked about the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, the pride of life. All of those things are in the human heart.

We're all drawn to those things. And so James is saying, where do all these conflicts come from? They come from hedon.

They come from epiphymeia. And then there's a third word like I'd like you to take note of in verse 2. He says you lust and have not.

You kill or let me read it in the ESV. You desire and do not have so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain.

The third word is that word covet and the Greek word is the word zealous. And I've already mentioned this word to you because it's in James 3, 14 and 16 that talks about envy or jealousy. The word is, the meaning of it is the desire to attach yourself to something you want but you cannot get. It's frustrated desires. It's the person who lives with certain expectations and you're not getting them and so you find yourself unhappy, you find yourself discontent, you find yourself complaining.

My pastor used to say blessed is the man that expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed. And so what James does is he unfolds these desires. You could call them a trinity of evil residing in every human heart. All of us have hedon. All of us have epiphymeia. All of us have the desire, the, the zealous for things that we cannot get. So question, how did man become like this when the Bible says we're all created in the image of God? How do we become like this?

How do you explain the nature of the human heart? And the Apostle Paul answers that question in Romans 5, 12 when he says these words wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world. Adam the head of the human race sinned. His sin affected Adam personally.

In other words, he changed. But his sin also infected the whole human race corporately. As if a spiritual coronavirus infected the entire human race. And the results of Adam's fall are deadly.

All of us are like this within our own nature. The Westminster Shorter Confession of Faith asked this question, very important question. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell. In other words, how do you explain man's sinfulness?

And here's the answer. The sinfulness of that estate, that's where we are, wherein to man fell consists in number one, the guilt of Adam's first sin. Number two, the want of original righteousness. In other words, he's saying when Adam fell, all the righteousness we would have had we completely lost. The corruption of our whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. In other words, when Adam fell, we fell with him and in him so that our whole human heart was corrupted. And all of our sinful actions proceed out of these sinful desires. So let's consider then what James has stated. Number one, he says we are thoroughly corrupted within our own nature.

All of us. Sin has come to radically corrupt us. This is the way that we think. Our thoughts are not like God's.

This is the way we feel our emotions. And this has to do with the choices that we make. No one is left uncorrupted and no one has any part of them that is righteous.

There's no part of us that has maybe a little island of good over here and then the rest of us are bad. It is our entire nature has been thoroughly corrupted through the fall. Paul writes in Ephesians 2-3, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind and we are by nature children of wrath. Consider these terms, hedon, our way of thinking, epithymia, our way of feeling, zelos, the choices that we make. The inclinations of the human heart are completely given over to self-centeredness.

In other words, we're not God-centered, we're self-centered. The second thing I want you to consider is that we are thoroughly incapable of changing our natures. There is nothing about us that can change ourselves.

We can try to change our desires, we can try to become a better person, we can try to turn over a new leaf. Jeremiah says it this way, can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leopard change his spot?

Can the leopard go down to Walmart and by spot remover and change his spots? Then he asks the question, how may you also do good that are accustomed to doing evil? You cannot change what you are by nature without a change within your nature. You cannot see if you are blind.

You cannot hear if you are deaf. You cannot live if you are dead. You are in darkness and you cannot produce light, but you have to have light provided for you. And this is what God has come to do. He has come to change our hearts. He has come to give us sight. He has come to give us ears. He has come to give us life. And the way He does that is His own grace, by His own power, illuminating our sight and quickening in our hearts and making us new creations in Christ.

It's what we call being born again. But we have to understand that that nature within us has to be transformed, but the sinful aspects of our nature are with us until we get a new and redeemed body. So number one, man's desires are thoroughly corrupted. And then secondly, man's desires are thoroughly controlling. And I want you to go back and look at what he says here in verse one.

And I want you to notice something that's very interesting. He says, he says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? All right, so what is he saying here?

He's actually saying this. The reason why we have an external battle, the reason why we have conflicts on the outside is actually we have a war going on in the inside. And everybody here who's a Christian understands it. You have a struggle within your own heart. And what is the war? It says even your passions that are at war in your members, it's like he's given us an image to understand what's happening in our heart.

And that is these internal desires, all right, hedon, epithymia, zealous, those things. If you could look at them as if they're soldiers, okay, so imagine in your mind, hedon becomes a soldier and epithymia and zealous all become soldiers. And they are actually soldiers who are fighting in a war.

And what is it they are fighting for? They are fighting for your body. They are wanting to use your body as weapons of gratification. So let's take your eyes, let's take your mind, let's take your ears, let's take your hands, let's take your feet, let's take your mouth. Those desires are fighting for the right to use your body parts for their own gratification.

That's what he's talking about. There is an internal war that is going on so that sinful desires are fighting to fulfill their desires through your human body. And what is going to inevitably happen is that if these desires control our actions, then what's gonna happen? We're gonna have conflict.

We're going to have internal conflict, struggles mentally, but we're also going to have external conflicts with people. So listen to what James says that these desire, what happens when these desires are frustrated. He says, what causes these quarrels and these fights? It is this, you desire, you don't have, so what do you do?

You murder. You covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. He says the result of these restricted desires are fighting, wars, and murder.

Relational disruption, relational destruction are all caused by these sinful desires. And it's only when we come to recognize that God, well first of all, it comes when we recognize that really is the way I am. By the way, when you understand this about your heart, it should make you really scared.

It should. And the result of that is that when we become fearful of our own heart and fearful of our own God, it's actually where all wisdom begins because the fear of the Lord is the starting point for wisdom. Wisdom is seeing life from God's perspective.

Now I'm gonna stop right here because I actually have a second point and I have one minute left. And your desires change at 11 37 very quickly. But what I would like to do is really drill down deeply over this week and next week with these conflicts within our heart because what does Paul tell us to do? He tells us don't yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God. Here's what has happened on the cross.

The power of hedon, the power of epithymia, and the power of zealous is not removed from your heart when you get saved, but the power of it is actually broken through the cross of Jesus Christ. And through that cross with one another, if we are no longer controlled by these desires, we actually can have peace with people. The key to peace is not external.

The key to peace is an internal relationship you have with Jesus Christ who is the Lord over all the desires of your life. Do you have conflict with somebody? Are you frustrated?

Do you find yourself constantly in discontentment? Are you blaming everything on the outside or have your eyes been opened to see, as James says, the condition of our own hearts? Father, we thank you for your word. And Lord, help us to really see this. Illuminate our understanding, dear Lord, to the nature of our heart and to the power of the gospel when it is applied to our heart's condition. In Jesus' name, amen. You've been listening to a sermon from the book of James by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. For more information on Dr. Pettit's series, visit our website at thedailyplatform.com, where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled Wisdom from Above. Thanks for listening, and join us again next week as we study God's word together on The Daily Platform.