Welcome to Affirm foundation, presented by Princeton ministries with Doctor Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

I was away all day yesterday. And as is common when I come home, usually ask the children, what would you like to do? Well, most of the time they say, let’s wrestle. Sometimes they say, let’s go out and have some ice cream. But it occurred to me what would ever happen if I came home. And rather than asking my children, well, what would you like to do now? If they asked me, dad, you had a long day. What would you want us to do for you? I don’t know how many parents have ever had your children say that to you? Well, at that moment, while I’m glad that you finally have come to your senses. Because I’ve been waiting for this chance for you to ask what you can do. And here’s what I want you to do. Throw away all of your toys.

I want you to have cauliflower for breakfast and spinach for dinner. That’s what I want. I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Well, no, that’s not what would happen if our children asked us, what can we do for you? Probably at that moment, you would think of the things that are most important to them. You might say, you know what I’d really like to do? I’d like to take you out to the dairy Queen. And then we’ll come back and we’ll wrestle. Sometimes I wonder, as Christians. If we are not as concerned about God our father. That we are frightened to ask him, Father, what is it that you want me to do? Sometimes we think that if were to ask that question, father, what do you want me to do? That he’s going to say, I’m glad you asked that question.

I’ve been waiting a long time for you to ask that question. I have a place in Bongo prepared just for you. It’s a terrible place. No one wants to go there. I’ve been waiting for someone to ask. And now that you’ve asked, I want you to go there. Do you think that’s what God the father would say? Or do you think he would know the desires of your heart and that he would give you those desires? As we approach a topic of drawing near to God, I’m all too aware of the bias that Christians have against asking God. What is it that you want me to do? There is something in our old nature that is frightened about that question. Because we believe that if were to ask that question.

God is going to place upon us such a burden to do something that we don’t want to do, that the rest of our life is going to be miserable and filled with terror. Do you know the scripture says that if we seek first his kingdom, if we first draw near to him, he will give us all of the desires of our hearts. James is aware of the bias in our own hearts against asking God, what is it that you want me to do? Because we’re afraid of what the answer will be. In James, chapter four, verses seven through ten, there are five things that the Lord asks us to do if we would draw near to him. Today is the first part in a two part series on these verses.

The first thing that the Lord tells us that he wants us to do, to draw near to him, he says, first, submit to me. Secondly, he says, learn to resist Satan. Third, he says, draw near to me. Fourth, he says, repent, change. And finally, he tells us in verse ten, to humble ourselves. First, he says, learn to submit yourself to God. Verse seven. Therefore, submit to God. Submission has fallen. On bad days. There was a time when the people gladly submitted to the king, but that’s not the case today. As a matter of fact, we have entered the age of personal sovereignty, where everyone believes that they themselves are their own king or queen. We find that submission, even the mention of the word, will raise the cockles. And everyone asks, what’s a cockle?

What is the issue that the Lord raises for every one of us that he calls us to simply submit to him? Why is it that we live in a day where husbands and wives find it so difficult to talk about mutual submission of husbands to wives to husbands? Why is it that we live in a day where children find submission so difficult? Why is it that we live in a country where it becomes increasingly difficult for citizens to submit to the government? Submission has fallen on bad days. And yet at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is submission. Submit to God. Jesus Christ came into the world as the son of God, but he submitted himself to the will of the Father. At the very centrepiece of Jesus Christ was submission.

And I believe that the very centrepiece of a true life in Jesus Christ is to be found submission. It is not a bad word. It is a wonderful word as we learn it in the context of scripture. Why are we called upon to submit to God? In the book of Romans, chapter nine, verse 20, the question is asked, will the thing that is formed say to him who formed it? Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for Honor and another for dishonour. Do we believe that our creator is the living God that he made us? Do we believe that he has the right to form one vessel for honour, another vessel for dishonour?

Most people are willing to say God is our creator, but we stop at that point. Scripture makes it very clear God has more purpose behind his creation. He creates us for his honour. Submission calls for total commitment. It calls for commitment to God’s word, and it calls for commitment to Jesus Christ. There’s a story every time we talk about submission and total commitment that comes to my mind about a hen and a hog. They were walking in front of a church and they saw a sermon title. The sermon title was, how can we help the poor? And so the hen reflected for a moment and he said, I know what we can do. We can give a special breakfast to the poor. We’ll give them ham and eggs. Nahar answered and he said, that’s easy for you to say.

The breakfast would only be a contribution for you, but for me it would mean total commitment. When we say we are going to submit to the Lord, it implies commitment. It does not mean that which is over and above which I have no use for anyway my time. Well, I want you to understand I have 40 hours that I must give at work, and after that I don’t have a lot of time. The Lord calls for the time after work and the time during work that all of that belongs to him. All of it, total commitment. He asks us to submit to him alone. To submit to God simply means that we are willing to submit first to his plan of salvation, that there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation.

It is simply a gift that God gives and that we submit ourselves to the plan of grace. Second, it means to remove all known areas of sin in our life. And how do we do it? First, by confession. As soon as we are aware that we have broken one of God’s teachings, that we would quickly confess that to him, but secondly, that we would make restitution to those whom we may have hurt through our sin. To submit to God means that we are willing to submit to his word. How often Christians are willing to submit to a portion of God’s word, but not to all of his word. If we truly will submit to the living God. It is a total commitment. Not partial, but perhaps one of the most difficult areas is submission to God’s providential circumstances that you find yourself in.

I know people who have an ongoing quarrel with God about the circumstances of their life. I don’t like living in New Jersey, one wife says. And do you know how many words have been exchanged over that dislike for God’s providential circumstance until finally breaking against God’s will and causing endless strife? A husband would simply retire. How many people have given up their work because of providential circumstances related to their work? A person they didn’t like that they had to work with? Two years of staying in a position before you will be able to be promoted to the next and fighting against the providential circumstances that you were placed in. So much of the movement around America is movement of people who are tired of the providential circumstances that they are in right now and would like to change those circumstances.

Yesterday I was in a prayer group with three ministers. We began to talk about the things that each of us was facing. One man is without a church. He’s been without a church for a year. As a man, have you ever been out of work for a year? How did you feel during that providential circumstance? Another man said, we own a building in Atlantic City. The good people seem to be moving out. The church has made a decision over a year ago to leave Atlantic City, but we can’t sell the building. It may be a year or two before the building’s sold. Do you think it’s difficult to live with that providential circumstance? Do you think it’s not tempting for him to say, I’ll look for a more flourishing ministry, but he’s there. He’s been there for a year.

And if I were a betting man, I would bet he will be there for the next year until the Lord changes the providential circumstances and that building is sold or there’s a change in the ministry. Another minister said, six months ago my wife went to the doctor. She complained of chest pains. They couldn’t find any. She went back a week later. She complained of back pains. They couldn’t find the problem. She went back a week later talking about pains in her forehead. They couldn’t find the reason. Her system over a one month period seems to have shut down, and for the last four months she’s been in deep depression. What do you think of the providential circumstances? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to go somewhere where the sun is shining bright?

How many Christians have not stayed with the providential circumstances that God has placed them in? To learn from God perhaps the most important lessons that you’ll ever learn in your life, but instead, because of affluence, because of opportunity, every time that God wants to teach us some important, vital lesson where we would learn more about submitting to God. We rise up and we change the circumstances. So often it’s in those providential circumstances that God has placed us that we learn the most about submission to the Lord. And so often when things are going perfectly, we learn so little about submission to the father. James says, therefore, submit to God. Secondly, he says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. I believe nothing is more clearly taught in the scripture than the message that men are exposed to Satan.

And yet we live in an age where Satan is seldom, if ever, discussed. As a matter of fact, we seem to live in an age where we have so studied specific disciplines that we’re able to explain why things happen simply from the technical study that we have investigated. For example, we saw in a Sunday school class that through the year and through the month, there are chemical changes that occur in the lives of men and especially of women, and that there can be plotted a relationship between those chemical changes of hormones and moods. And so periodically, a woman is able to point to a change that is occurring deep inside the chemistry of her body and able to say that estrogen is the reason.

But at the same time, we face the difficulty of the changes that occur so often in behavior, and we do not reflect why is it that God has put estrogen in my body? Why has he made this deep chemical change to occur periodically? Why? Is it simply so that I can explain my behavior during this week? Or is there a deeper truth that is vital for me to understand as a Christian woman, that truth that God has created me even with this estrogen, and he desires to teach me something even during this time where I feel discouraged and depressed. What is it that God wants me to know about myself? We’re able to plot why businesses succeed, why they fail, and if you want the answers, you go to a seminar.

But you know those businesses succeed and fail with people who are affected by the success or the failure. Often, we will explain the success or the failure dependent upon the technical information we know about the success or failure of businesses, and then we will answer, why did that business fail? I know why they didn’t have good accounting principles. Why did this one succeed? It’s because they had a good product. But we forget that behind those truths is even a deeper truth. And that has to do with, why did God create you in that providential moment to experience either success or failure? Because I don’t know anyone who is looking forward or trying to fail. But why does it happen? Is God providentially desiring to teach us something?

And do we ever consider that God is behind every success, every failure for a deeper purpose, to teach, to instruct, and to draw a person nearer to himself? And do we ever consider that there is a devil to be resisted? Perhaps the greatest teaching in scripture on Satan is found in the book of Job. We learn basic principles about the strategy and purpose of Satan. We read that God asked Satan, from where do you come? And Satan answered and said, from going to and fro on the earth, walking back and forth in it. And God allows Satan touch everything about the life of job except his body, practically. What happened? Well, the first report is that the animals and fields have all been wiped out. Tremendous business loss. Second, the report comes that there’s been a terrible accident.

Your children have been killed as a roof fell in. Third, the Lord allows Satan touch the body of job, and his body breaks out in boils. Question how does 20th century man analyze that story? What happens when we hear that a person has faced a business problem? What happens when we find out that a person has had a terrible accident? What happens when there are medical problems? How do we answer those questions? Do we say to job, I told you so, those Sabians who came and destroyed your field. Didn’t I tell you six months ago to establish a peace agreement with them? And if you had only established the peace agreement, this never would have happened. Don’t we say, you mean a wind blew down the roof of your house and killed your kids?

Don’t you remember three years ago I asked you to have that engineer check out the roof? I was there when that little wind blew. Do you remember that? It was three years ago, and we heard a little creaking. Why didn’t you have the engineers check out your house? That’s why the roof caved in. What happens when a person becomes sick? Don’t we say, you should have changed your diet? You should have gone for that yearly check up? Do we ever even hint that there is a devil?

And at the very moment that you have faced a financial calamity, a terrible accident, you face the terrible illness that behind the technical explanation of those events is to be found a God who has counselled with Satan and has allowed for his providential reasons for Satan touch your life, physically, financially, and did you experience the reality of Satan in your life at that moment? So often Christians give the counsel of Job’s friends and say, I know why this is happening. Here’s the technical reasons. I know business, and I know why it failed. But I know God. And I know that more than the business principles, more than the medical truths, more than the engineering technicalities behind all of those disciplines is to be found a God who is accomplishing everything according to his purpose.

And that when Satan touches your life, it is for the purpose of you learning how to resist him. And if we do not ask the question, how can I resist Satan? As Christians, then we will become technicians on how to make our business better. We will become dependent upon the information from the doctor and think that’s the only information that’s important to understand and unravel the evils of our age. Scripture makes it very clear there is another factor that you must build into your understanding of any event that happens in your life, and that is the work of Satan, and that every Christian is called upon to resist him. Job trusted in one important truth, and that was found in the book of Job, chapter 19, verse 25. Why was he able to accept the accidents?

Why was he able to accept the destruction of his business? Why was he able to accept the terrible illness that he faced? He gives us insight when he says, I know that my redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth. And after my skin is destroyed, this I know that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold not another. How my heart yearns within me. How do we resist Satan? It is primarily understanding that this earth is not our home and that the Father has prepared heaven for all those who love him, and that someday we will see him face to face in this life. Satan will touch your life. Learn to resist him. Learn how to see God behind every event, his sovereign purpose for your good. Let us pray.

Our God and our father, we come before you. Acknowledging that submission to you is difficult for us. We want to submit to no man. Father, forgive us. And father, forgive us. As we have all too often forgotten that there is a devil, that we are learning to learn how to resist him. Father, help us. We pray to see the importance of submission and resistance to the devil. Help that to be part of the factoring of the understanding of the events that we’re exposed to. Help us to gracefully accept the providential circumstances that you have placed us in. We give you thanks in Jesus name, amen.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton Ministries Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543 that’s Princeton Ministries, Post Office Box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. The Lord bless you, and Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you. We would like to thank Rone’s web development company for making this webcast possible. You can find their link at the bottom of our website, princetonministries.org.