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Tonight's lesson is on the second of six specific sins of the Early Church that James addresses. The first had been the sin of evil speaking. A large part of that sin was verbally questioning the motives of others. James now moves on to a much broader scoped sin and potentially more serious, the sin of leaving God out of one's plans.

We must remember that the church at the time of James' letter was still primarily Jewish and that they had been forced to leave their homes, jobs and cities and flee throughout the world in order to escape the tremendous persecution in the Jerusalem area. The majority of the church, then was having to make business decisions such as where to work, where to live, where to go, and what to do. The book of James is very functional and "down-to-earth," and this area is no exception.

Let me say that we as human beings do not have the ability on our own to foretell the future. The demonic world does not have the ability to foretell the future. Some psychics and fortune tellers have the ability through their sensitivity to the demonic realm to tell you your past. They then can make suggestions that the demonic spiritual world wishes to be your future, which, if acted upon with faith, probably will come true. Remember that Satan desires to be as God: in every way and in every power. For this reason, the Devil often tries to copycat the ways and methods of God. A fortune teller who tells about something that has happened in the past of a person then usually has the person’s trust. That deceived person will believe anything that the psychic tells them about their future because of their fear which is simply negative faith. When they act upon that faith, it usually comes true. It wasn’t the “prophecy” that made it come true, but the stepping out in faith and acting upon the fortune that made it come true! Of course, the demonic world to which the fortune teller is linked will NEVER prophesy actions which would cause a person to move closer to God.

Church and preaching works the same way. God chose through the “foolishness of preaching,” to save people. When you come to church, the preacher has prayed and studied and area that God wants to be presented to the church. The preacher has (hopefully) been in contact with the Spirit of God. Under the direction of the Spirit of God and through the Word of God, the preacher will usually identify a problem or something about the past and then preach the will of GOD for the future of your life! IF the word is mixed with faith and acted upon, it will come true. If a person is a skeptic to God’s Word or does not act upon it, then the forecast of God’s will for their future has done absolutely no good.

A good example of this scenario is someone deciding to be baptized in the name of Jesus. The preacher feels that week to preach about water baptism. He then begins to preach about your past, and through the preached Word of God, you see that you have sinned and fell short of the glory of God. He then makes a prediction of God’s will for your life: “God wants you to be baptized in water and in His name.” If you do so, then God will apply His blood to your past sins and forgive and erase every one of those sins from your spiritual account. When you act in faith and decided to get baptized, the prophecy comes true, if you don’t, then your sins remain! We didn’t get the process from devil, he stole it from God! It was God’s first! So was many other things such as dancing and playing musical instruments - those were God’s ideas first!

So we can see that no human being has within themselves to foretell the future. Only God absolutely knows the future and even He chooses to allow us to be free moral agents. That means that we control our own destiny. God knows what will be the results of our choice whichever way we choose, but the choice is ours. No one goes to hell or heaven by accident, either way it was choice made somewhere in their life. As for me, “tell hell I am not coming!”

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These early Christians were treating their works, their future destinations, and their business decisions as separate from the church. Some people have tried to teach that we should not plan anything in advance and that is also not scriptural. The sin came from the fact that these people had left God out of their plans. They were making their own plans and then asking God to bless it, rather than first asking “God what do you want me to do, and where do you want me to go?” Too many Christians today want God to help out when their plans have fallen through, not realizing that they made their plans on their own without asking or considering God’s will. Usually the reason that our plans go horribly is because we neglected to get God involved before we made the decision. If you really desire to do something, whether it be a work or business decision or a relocation of your home or changing your children’s school. BEFORE you set plans in motion you should consult God in prayer, check out what His Word has to say about it, and see what your pastor thinks. If you run to God AFTER you’ve set your plans in motion, then usually He’ll let it go because you’ve tied His hands. The vast majority of people who come to me for help do so because they have already made a decision and want to see if I will give my blessings upon it. If it doesn’t contradict God’s word directly I have to say “go ahead and do it,” because they have already set the plan in motion. My hands as a pastor, and God’s hands, are tied by their decision. Very few people come to me before committing to one direction or another and ask my advice. If more people would in matters of business and direction of our lives, I probably would have fewer problems and messes to deal with later!

The reason people commit this sin so much is that they like the boost to their pride, when something goes right and they can take the credit. We like to say “it went well because of what I did.” Of course, when things go wrong -- as they invariably will -- then everybody wants God to help! Sometimes He does, for God’s mercy is unexplainable, but sometimes God allows us to reap the detriment of our personal decision. When this happens people usually get bitter at God for not working a miracle, not realizing that they brought the problem upon themselves due to not including God in their plans BEFORE they made up their mind about what they were going to do.

The other source of the problem is when people do not view their life with what I call an “eternal view.” Before you came to God, you lived out of a survival instinct. You did whatever you thought would help you most at that time in any given situation. You really didn’t consider the spiritual implications of your actions.

When you come to God, however, we must learn to think differently! We must continually look at things through the eyes of an “eternal view.” That is simply asking ourselves “how will this affect my eternal destination and my chances for making it?” If a business decision involves working more hours and missing church services, then that will definitely affect your spiritual strength and unity with other brothers and sisters. The colder you grow, spiritually, then the more likelier you are to give in to temptation and miss out on eternal life. If you get a job offer in an area, you need to consider foremost the local church that you will be attending and the pastor to whose teaching you will submit yourselves. The church environment and the pastor’s teaching will have more importance in eternity than where you live or how much money that you make! Your child’s education will influence how they think and how they prioritize their life. It will also forever affect their level of comprehension and ability to study and understand God’s Word. The carnal education will definitely affect the spiritual education!

That’s an eternal view in life. James says that our life is but a vapor, or as the dew in the morning. Compared to the whole day, the time that the dew is upon the ground is but a small fraction. The time between that dew falls and the sun evaporates it is the first part of a much longer day! Our lives on earth is but the first part of a much larger chunk of time called “forever.” And how we act, what attitude we have, and what we do while in this short life affects how we will spend eternity! Everyday life is much more important than we realize and for different reasons than we think. We must have an “eternal view.”

Today in our society, some people bristle and get offended when a preacher begins to talk about the decisions and their way of everyday life. People today prefer church on Sunday and their own will on Monday through Saturday. We even tend to view work as something unrelated to our church and spiritual duties.

But that was not the way the Jewish people believed under Moses. The word for work in the Hebrew is “abad.” This same word is used for both physical labor (see Exodus 5:9, 11; 39:32, 42) AND for WORSHIP and SERVING GOD (see Exodus 3:12 Deuteronomy 6:13)! What this means was that when the Israelites got up on “Monday” and went to work, that they considered it an opportunity to glorify God and worship HIM! Just as they brought a sacrifice of praise to the temple on the Sabbath, they also considered working honestly and sincerely as a sacrifice of praise to God!

It is still that way today! The way that you work your physical job needs to be a form of worship to God! It needs to be a testimony of God’s mercy and truth. For instance, are you always looking for an excuse to loaf, or do you try to give an honest day’s work? Do you spend your time in gossiping with your co-workers, or trying to fulfill your job description? Are you honest with your bosses and strive to keep a Godly, positive attitude? When you do so, it is a form of worship to God! When you are ethical, fair, and hard working you are offering up a sacrifice to God and He will respond by blessing your job situation, wages, and environment! Our reputation should be so outstanding that when people find out that you attend our church that they WANT to hire you! The parallel is clear: how you act throughout your work week cannot be separated from your walk with God! Both should glorify Him!

We should consult with God when making future plans and then place them in God’s will. Jesus taught us to pray after God’s will. We then must trust God’s will. Sometimes the answer that is God’s will is not the one that we wanted. When this happens, we shouldn’t try to manipulate the circumstances and try to make what we want to happen. When you give something to the Lord, accept the answer. If you are trying to change the answer, then you are not trusting God!

This verse has an implied ending. “Ye ought to say if the Lord will...” And if He doesn’t? Then accept it that He knows best and continue doing what you know to do. This is so simple to state but hard to learn and live. We overcomplicate decisions in our lives because of our own wills. Only God knows the future and only He knows the true “eternal view.” We must get to a place where we trust His plan. Some people do not pray for God’s will because they are scared that they might not like the answer. Even when you do not understand, God’s plan is still best for you ultimately! The basic rule of thumb is do not change anything or do anything different unless you have a direct Word of God to do so, or clear spiritual direction. “When in doubt don’t,” applies to a Christian’s dilemma of which path do I take? If you the Word of God addresses it specifically, then you act according to God’s Word. If you have clear spiritual direction to change something, then by all means do it! But if you are not sure that you are doing the right thing, then wait and ask God for further direction. There’s nothing wrong with that! If it the will of God, it will not change with a little bit of time, for God is timeless. Typically decisions that must be made in a rush that you are not completely sure if it is God’s will, are not!

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The classic Bible lesson of the sin of leaving God out of one’s plans is found in the beginning of the story of Ruth. There was a Jewish man who lived in Judah whose name was Elimelech. He lived somewhere in the times of the Judges. When you read the Book of Judges, you are reading the events of the nation at the same time that the Book of Ruth was taking place.

At this time, many Israelites were turning to idol worship. When they worshipped idols, God would allow armies to come in and raid their crop supply. God would also remove His hand of blessing from them and allow famines, droughts, and swarms of locust and such to terrorize their fields! He did so because He wanted them to return to worshipping Him! God always has the eternal view in mind! He does not mind affecting your personal comfort if it means provoking you to do the right thing and having you for eternity! That is tremendous love for us, one that we really do not understand, but must learn to live.

There was a bad famine in Israel because of their idol worship, and Elimelech made a bad decision and made it by not consulting God’s will. Elimelech’s decision was to leave Judah and the promised land and move his family to Moab, a nearby nation which was known for it prosperity.

Moab was never the will of God for Israel. When Moses had been leaving Egypt, God had specifically warned against them going through Moab. The Moabites were the descendants of Lot’s son that was born of incest. It would eventually be God’s will for them to be destroyed, and they eventually were because of their sexual perversions and promiscuity and their pride. The land of Moab was surrounded on two sides by very rugged and high cliffs. The other two sides were hilly wilderness. There was one way into Moab and one way out: “the king’s highway.” The elevation and easily defended position of Moab made it one of tremendous prosperity. The reason that God did not want the children of Israel to pass through there on their way to the promised land was because He knew that they would rather stop and live there than push through and fight the giants for the promise place that He had for them! Moab represented a cheap substitute to what God had for His people; a place of easy living and no sacrifice!

Probably by now you are realizing the spiritual implications of James’ teachings. They do not only apply to moving physically but also in moving spiritually in God. Elimelech was in the promised land which was in a drought because of the idol worship. He did not consult God about what to do to feed his family, but if he had consulted God’s will for the situation, God would have told him to take a stand against idolatry and begin to proclaim worship for the one, true, living God! If Elimelech would have done so, no doubt spiritual revival would have broken out in Israel and the drought and famine would have ended. We might have been reading about Elimelech today as one of the greatest judges of all time! Instead Elimelech chose Moab. It was easier to move to a place of compromise rather than do what was right. It was easier to move to a place of no sacrifice, rather than fight for the things of God. It was easier to accept the cheap substitute of Moab rather than fight the spiritual giants of the promised place that God desired for him to have!

Eventually in your walk with God, you will have a famine due to something that God wants you to change. God will also make sure that there is a Moab in the Spirit. God allows Moab to exist because He wants to see how serious we are about our love for Him! In every spiritual decision in your life, there will always be an easy way out. There will always be an action that you can take to avoid sacrifice. There will always be an area that you can go rather than deal with the spiritual problems in your life! But is never God’s will to run from your problems! If you would rather run to a less sacrificial lifestyle rather than face the truth about yourself, you are settling for Moab!

Things did not turn out well for Elimilech. The Bible says that he “sojourned” in the land of Moab. That means that he did not intend to stay there permanently, but just to bide some time until someone else took care of the spiritual problems that he was facing. Unfortunately, his plans did not go as planned. Elimilech died in Moab and both sons soon followed. His plans for prosperity and happiness and avoiding sacrifice had ended with the sacrifice of his very life and sons. They died away from the presence of God, and away from the promised place that God had for them! Elimilech failed to consider the eternal implications of his decision to move his family out of the will of God and he paid for it dearly!

We must ask God’s guidance not only in our physical locations and employment, but our spiritual decisions as well. If you choose not to obey the Word of God in any area, you are choosing Moab. It will be good for a while and then grow worse! The sad thing about this story is that after their daddy died, Elimilech’s sons chose to stay in Moab. Elimilech raised sons with the same attitude of compromise that he had chosen!

The good side of this story is that Naomi the wife of Elimilech, though she was worn down and distressed and emotionally beaten after living for years in Moab, decided that she was going back to the promised place! She had stood by her husband’s decision, and quietly submitted to her son’s wishes for their household, but now that she was in charge, Naomi decided that she was returning home to worship her God!

In an emotional meeting, Naomi bid farewell to her two daughters-in-laws and wished them well. Orpah, one of the daughters-in-law, cried and told her how much she would miss her, kissed her goodbye and then returned to Moab. Ten years of hearing about the one, true, living God had not had much effect on Orpah. She quickly calculated that she did not plan to spend the rest of her life in sacrificial living caring for the old, beaten down Naomi. Somewhere in her mind, Orpah decided that she could still make a life for herself and get married and have kids and prosper in Moab. She had formulated her plans but committed the sin of leaving God out of her plans. Rather than sacrifice, Orpah chose Moab and after her kiss, walked away back to her lifestyle and gods.

Something in Ruth was different. Like Orpah, Ruth had been raised an idolater. She had been born in Moab and had never even heard of the one, true, living God until she had met her husband. As she looked at her mother-in-law and realized that she would have to forever make a decision about the path that her life would take, Ruth made the most important decision of her life: she decided to keep God in her plans!

Naomi tried to dissuade Ruth. It was a long journey of about 120 miles that the two women would make on foot and by themselves. There was no guarantee that they would make it. The road from Moab to Judah is very treacherous and mountainous and there would be long nights of suffering in the cold of the mountain passes. The fact that it was harvest season tells us that the weather had begun to get colder as fall had come. If the two ladies did make it safely on the journey, then they did not have much of a life to anticipate. Naomi and Ruth would both be widows and Ruth would be a stranger. They would be reduced to a life of poverty and Ruth would have to spend long days scrounging in the fields behind the reapers just to scratch together enough food for her and her aged mother-in-law. Orpah had definitely chosen the best logical decision to the human mind, but Ruth chose to include God!

Something was in Ruth that no matter what it took to have relationship with this one, true, living God, then all of the sacrifice did not matter! The fact that she might never have a normal life did not matter! The fact that she would be taken care of in Moab did not matter! Ruth was saying, “no matter what the sacrifice, no matter what the cost. I’m going to keep God in my plans and make Him the ultimate part of my decision!” Naomi realized that she had made up her mind; there was no use arguing with her.

God blessed Ruth. Even though she had not made the best business decision, she had kept God in her plans! Ruth’s resolution caused her to perform her hard work in the fields with joy and a great attitude. She was sacrificing, but she was learning about the one, true, living God! She had no family and no friends, but she was learning to worship Jehovah God! Her attitude in the sacrifice got the attention of a wealthy man named Boaz. They ended up married and Ruth eventually gave birth to a son named Obed. She and Naomi lived out the rest of their lives with plenty in God’s promised land! Ruth had made God the focal point of her life’s decisions and God had responded with blessings!

Ruth’s son, Obed, went on to have a son named Jesse. You know the name because Jesse was the father of King David. David’s great (26x) grandson was a man named Joseph who married a young girl named Mary who had a wonderful child named Jesus! Ruth became the Great (29x) grandmother of the Messiah, God Himself come in flesh! Ruth’s decision to keep God the main part of her plans for the future, literally became her SAVING GRACE!

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16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

Some people rejoice in the fact that they are smart enough to make their own decisions. They may have seemed to make the right decision for a time, but if they leave God out of their plans, they eventually will falter spiritually. As for me, I will choose to include God in my plans and trust Him completely. If I do so, then it does not matter how the decision seems to flesh, God will bless!

We quote this scripture quite a bit about many things. In context, it is actually referring to leaving God out of your plans. The moment you plan something without asking God’s help, you have sinned by leaving Him out of those plans. God will never bless sin.

Instead try these suggestions. First, every morning begin your day by offering the day to God and asking for his guidance and blessing and help in making the decisions that you must make. Second, regularly study God’s Word so that you know what His Word implicitly says for all circumstances. Third, beware of times when it is much easier to avoid the sacrifice by choosing an alternate path that you are not sure about. Remember, when in doubt spiritually, don’t! Fourth, when confronted with a situation that you are not quite sure how to handle, take a moment and ask God what His will is for the situation. Learn to quote and claim the verse that we mentioned earlier in our series:

“Upbraideth not” means that God does not resent giving direction but will freely give it! If there is no answer, then you have your answer! Accept it and trust God!

Finally, strive to keep an “eternal view” about your plans. Always ask yourself the question “will this decision help or hurt me spiritually?” “Will this make it harder to live for God?” If the answer is yes, even if only “a little,” leave it alone! Nothing matters more than making it to eternal life! Our life is but the first part to great plans that God has for us in eternity! No sacrifice is too great that you cannot endure down here in this life! Keep God in your plans!