The Sinner's Repentance and God's Response "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (Jas. 4:8).

The hands spoken of here obviously represent the overt acts of sin committed; nor is James speaking ambiguously. Rather, he clearly suggests six specific sins of which his readers are guilty, and from which their hands require cleansing if they are to recover their lost relationship with God.

These Christians are Guilty of Futile, Sinful Striving

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you ask with wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasures (Jas. 4: 1-3).

The condition of these spiritually carnal Christian Jews is reminiscent of Isaiah's description of ancient Israel: "But the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked" (Isa. 57:20, 21).

The expression of the spiritual and moral disease is not as important as the disease itself. The wars and fighting's or better, brawling. as the margin has it-the vain strife for things unattainable, the death-dealing blows against Christians the silence of God in relation to their prayers; these are all but the open external running sores that aggravate the body, distress the mind, and render its putrefaction a reproach before the world. Isaiah prophesied to Israel of a like condition: 'The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot to the head there is nothing sound in it. Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil" (Isa. 1:5b, 6).

What an accurate picture of many contemporary Christians! Brawling in the home, in the church business meetings, in conferences and assemblies; strife for positions, prominence or preeminence, even ill the body of Christ. Greediness for better and more material comforts and luxuries; murderous blows by subtle insinuations or questionable accusations against the reputations or characters of fellow Christians. Frenzied but futile prayers with fasting and howling that would shame the false prophets of Baal at the challenge of Elijah on Mount Carmel. All of this, and little wonder at the dead silence of an insulted and sadly offended righteous God.

But the deadly, cancerous germ that produces the putrefaction does not remain hidden. James is a faithful spiritual physician. He skillfully diagnoses the disease. "You lust..that you may spend it on your pleasures" (Jas. 4:2, 3).

Upon the impure altars of their inner spiritual beings there Continually burns the false fire of sinful passion, the flames of which greedily lick up the illegitimate sacrifices faster than they can be fed into it, and then hungrily cry for food for the flames that cannot be sufficiently supplied. Saint Augustine rightly observed that "man has salt on his tongue for God." The waters that issue from the material fountains of this world can only temporarily slake physical thirst, and the temporal, or material water cannot slake spiritual thirst. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, concerning the well of Jacob: "Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall him never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life" (John 4:13,14). Again, how true the words of St. Augustine: "The mind of man will never rest until it rests in thee [God]." And the author of Hebrews cites the remedy: "There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God...Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest" (Heb. 4:9, 11a).

These Hebrew Christians are indicted For the Sin of Spiritual Fornication

"You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (Jas. 4:4).

Worldly alliances, entanglements and commitments to organizations that prohibit the use of Christ's name, questionable alliances with unprincipled individuals or organizations, intermarriage of Christians with those who deny the claims of Christ upon their lives, indulgence in godless worldly amusements and sinful pleasures, adoption of the principles and practices of the world as the norm of Christian conduct, reliance upon and placing of hope for world peace in humanistic international alliances, conformity to worldly ideals and practices of immodesty or extravagance in attire and life styles of the ungodly, are among the modern counterpart sins of Christians, against which James cried out in the Christian Israel of his day. The line of demarcation between the unconverted world and the church has been so nearly erased in the present day that few are now able to recognize the boundary. The hour has arrived for a new delineation between the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. God is a jealous God and will not share His glory with another. Martin Marty sees the erosion to be such as to have erased practically all vital Christian distinctions from worldliness in America.

Sinful Pride comes in for Its Indictment At the Hands of This Inspired Apostle

James declares that "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (Jas. 4:6). Pride is the keystone sin of the spiritual nature. Remove it and the whole edifice constructed against God will collapse. Maintain it and God is barred from the life. It is that which exalts the self against God and leaves no room for him in the life. Death to the sinful proud self is an absolute prerequisite to the new life to the new life in Christ. Jesus said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone" (John 12:24b). So many of us abide fruitlessly alone in our snug Christian professions simply because we have never died to self. We are peculiar hybrids, so to speak, resulting from a cross between the Christian faith and the spirit of a godless age rendering us sterile and incapable of spiritual reproduction. We abide sadly alone, remaining impotent in the face of a defiant and aggressive world. Sinful pride holds the citadel of self for Satan.

It was this self-righteous, paralyzing pride that prevented the "elder son," in the parable of Luke 15, from the appropriation and enjoyment of his father's blessings. Hear the sad acknowledgment of this spiritually starved elder son to his father: "Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a kid that I be merry with my friends" (Luke 15:29). Then hear the father's mildly rebuking reply: "My child, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours" (v. 31). Pride paralyzes faith and thus prevents appropriation of blessings provided. It clogs the fountain of living waters and converts our lives into barren desert wastes. Pride must go before revival can come.

The writer will never forget an observation of his early Christian life when he witnessed a fashionable lady of the world, whose soul had been awakened by God, earnestly seeking peace with God. In the midst of her earnest quest she was
suddenly arrested by the violent assertion of the proud, sinful self. After a moment's hesitation and reflection on the opinion of another, she was heard to repeatedly exclaim,

"What would Doctor Shepherd think if he should see me here?" Then, defeated in her quest for God by the fear of one Doctor Shepherd's opinion, she sadly arose from the place of prayer, and like the rich young ruler, "went away sorrowfully.'

The Sin of Slander

Falls Under the Stroke of Divine Indictment

"Do not speak against one another, brethren" (Jas.4:11a).

There is no more deadly sin among Christians than the sin of evil speaking. It invariably deals a double deathblow. It deals out blighting death to the spirit of the speaker, and it unmercifully cuts down in cold blood the one spoken about. Or More hopes have been blasted, more reputations ruined, more confidences destroyed. more damage done to the kingdom of God by this foul fiend of the carnal spirit than perhaps any known enemy of God. And to think that it is one of the commonest sins of professed Christians! Bishop A. B. Simpson once said, I had rather play with forked lightning, or take in my hands living wires with their fiery current, than to speak a reckless word against any servant of Christ; or idly repeat the slanderous darts which thousands of Christians are hurling on others to the hurt of their souls and bodies. You may often wonder, perhaps, why your sickness is not healed, your spirit filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost, or your life blessed and prosperous. It may be some dart which you have flung with an angry voice, or in some idle hour of thoughtless gossip, is pursuing you on its way, as it describes the circle which always brings back to the source from which it came, every shaft of bitterness, and every idle and evil word. There is nothing which hinders, chokes the channel of prayer and ties God's hands like malice, unforgiveness and bitterness locked up in the hearts of God's professed Christians.

The noted Methodist evangelist of another generation, Beverly Caradine, relates that the greatest revival he ever witnessed started with two women coming forward and asking the pastor's forgiveness for having spoken unkindly of him. Such confession a1ways prepares the way for revival. The account is reproduced here for the reader's benefit. It broke the hard crusty feeling which had settled over the meeting. From that started a half dozen more confessions just like them, and like a flash the heavens were opened. The scenes which followed would be impossible to describe: hundreds shouting, waving, crying, laughing.... The altar was filled with weeping, praying seekers. Salvation rolled, heaven and earth came together. All by asking forgiveness and getting the hindrances out of the way.

The story is told of a very critical and slanderous woman who was visited by a neighbor lady in her community on a Monday morning. Soon the slanderous woman called the attention of her visitor to another neighbor's washing on the line outside the window. Said she, "As usual it is poorly laundered and quite unclean." Upon this the visitor arose and removing her handkerchief from her purse, she drew it across the windowpane, leaving a clean path behind. Then looking through she remarked, "Your neighbor's clothing is perfectly clean; the dirt is on your own windowpane." Thus, so often our vision of others and of life itself is blurred by the impurities in our own lives. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). David, when seeking restoration to the favor of God, prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10).

The Sin of Presumption is Indicted by God

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that" (Jas. 4:13-15).

Presumption is among the commonest of sins within the Church. So many of our Christian services are conducted presumptuously. We venture out into the day's activities without taking time for private devotions; our children are sent forth into the godless environment of many of our public schools without the blessing of the family altar; important business is transacted and far-reaching personal and church decisions are made, after which we ask God's blessings upon
our decisions. If all goes well, we compliment ourselves. If the outcome is unfavorable to our liking, we blame divine providence. On the wall of a doctor's waiting room there appeared the words: "In time of trouble, and not before, God
and the doctor we adore. But when the trouble is over and all is righted, God is forgotten and the doctor is slighted."

For many Christians God is little more than a "troubleshooter"; a sort of emergency recourse, or a temporary city of refuge, when in reality He desires to be the constant companion of our lives. W. H. Griffith Thomas writes most poignantly on the peril of presumptuous sins among self-righteous Christians.

Nothing is easier than self-righteousness and self-deception in religion. It is well nigh impossible to enjoy outward privileges without presuming upon them. The greater the knowledge, the greater the danger of being content with merely a nominal Christianity. It is one of the most solemn truths that without any real change of heart we may know a great deal of Christian truth, may even be occupied with Christian work, and closely associated with Christian people, knowing with great familiarity religious phraseology and living largely in a Christian atmosphere, and yet all the while may be without the new life that comes from the Spirit of God. The danger of such a position is far greater than that of willful and deliberate sin. Our Lord was constantly warning His hearers against such presumption (Matt. 7:22, 23; Luke 13:26, 27). The greater the privilege the greater the peril. The higher the delight the more imperative the duty. Let us ever pray the Psalmist's prayer: "Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins."

It has been said that man's natural course is to bypass God in the strength and vitality of youth as quite unnecessary; then gloat over human success and independence from God in the security of middle life; but finally turn and blame God for the reverses and insecurity of declining years.

Presumptive independence stands condemned among our most glaring sins.

The Sin of Omission is Condemned,

In his epistle, the Apostle James tell us, "Therefore to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin" (Jas. 4:17).

I t is shocking to discover in the gospels that Christ has much more to say about, and far greater condemnation of,
the sins of omission than the sins of commission. .In the great arraignment by Christ, as recorded in Matthew 25:31-33,41-45, it is not the sin of adultery, of robbery, of drunkenness, or even of overt dishonesty that condemns the assembled multitudes, but rather the sin of the failure to have done what was required by God. "Then He will, answer them, saying, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that, you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. And these will go away into eternal punishment' " (Matt. 25:45, 46a).

The parable of the talents teaches the same lesson of divine condemnation on the sin of omission. Even the rich man in hell, as depicted in Luke sixteen, has but one charge brought against him, that he had failed to do his duty to his fellow man while on earth, the condemned sin of omission. "Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony" (Luke 16:25b).

On the occasion of the delivery of the "Great Commission" to His disciples, Jesus' promise of His accompanying I presence with them is conditioned upon their obedience to I His command to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. We have no right of claim to His presence if we I fail to do His will as revealed for our lives. Of these sins of fleshly strivings, spiritual fornication, sinful pride, slander, presumption, and omission the hands I must be cleansed if we are to expect spiritual renewal in this age. On a church bulletin board there appeared the following pertinent exhortation "Repent now and avoid the rush on the Judgment Day.

God's Response to Man's Repentance "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (Jas. 4:8a).

What is the divine sequel to penitent man's approach to God? James hastens to answer this question: "He [God) I will draw near to you" (Jas. 4:8a). Modern practical materialism has affected much of man's thought about God, as the great philosopher Aristotle's concept of God influenced thought about God in his day. Aristotle resolved his concept of God into an impersonal magnetic force which was always passive and never active. So materialistic thought today would bid us adjust ourselves to certain fixed and unalterable laws with the desired consequences guaranteed. Not so with a correct concept of personal Christian theism. God is a person who can "sympathize with our weaknesses" (Heb. 4:15a), and is capable and ready to respond to our sincere entreaties. Blinded by our worship of illusory materialism, the here and now of our temporal world, we lose sight of the God who is personal and eternal.

How well it has been said that ...we have not merely to comply with an unconscious and impersonal law, but to follow the motions of a quickening Spirit. It is not merely a matter of conforming ourselves to the fixed laws of the universe. That is the creed of Stoicism, of Calvinism, which is baptized Stoicism, and of modern science. It is too simple, because we have to do not with mechanical law but with the living God. For the Word of God. ..is God Himself in action.'

When we have met the conditions of revival in submission to God-denial of the authority of Satan in our lives, in genuine repentance and humility-then "He who is coming will come, and will not delay" (Heb. 10:37b). Or as Malachi puts it: "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple. ..behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts" (Mal 3:lb). There are many encouraging evidences of approaching spiritual renewal. God waits on sinful men to repent of their sins and return to Him for help. The call comes today as of old if ...My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land (2 Chron. 7:14).

Malachi's message to Israel is equally true for us today. "Return to Me, and I will return to you; says the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 3:7b).

"Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you."The greatest need of this hour is a renewed manifestation of God. He will return when we return. The Father waits for the prodigal's return. Restoration to the Father's favor and our lost spiritual inheritance is conditioned upon our return to God. A recent scientific report in a popular magazine discusses the agricultural possibilities of the Sahara, the greatest desert waste of the entire earth. It is said, by this authority, that chemical analysis of the soil of the great Sahara Desert reveals it to be one of the most fertile areas on the face of the globe. The only deficiency is moisture. But, says this authority, there are exhaustless supplies of water beneath the sands of the Sahara, if they could only be brought to the surface for irrigation purposes. That this may yet be accomplished is believed to be a possibility, with the result that the greatest waste area of the earth, stretching across North Africa for a distance of upward of four thousand miles from east to west, and nearly a thousand miles from north to south, may be converted into one of the most fertile agricultural areas known to man. However this may be, it is certainly true that the only possibility of reclaiming the spiritual desert wastes of the Church and the lives of multitudes of her numbers in our day is to be found in a tapping of the exhaustless resources of the divine Spirit. To the Samaritan woman Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks of this water [the material water of Jacob's well) shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life" (John 4:13b, 14). If we will but bore through the hard pan and rock of indifference, lethargy and unbelief of professing Christendom, "and release upon the church and the world a mighty flood tide of the water of life, then our generation will experience that mighty spiritual purification and animation that will reclaim our waste areas and cause our generation to blossom as the rose. It is doubtful if any previous generation has ever had such great potentialities for reclamation as the present. The resources of our generation are practically exhaustless, but without God they are as devoid of spiritual value as is the great Sahara Desert of agricultural value. Animated by the Spirit of God in a mighty spiritual revival, this generation may yet become the most glorious and productive the world has ever known. The question is, "Will we repent and return to God?" When we do, revival will become a reality!

After ten days of earnest prayer and preparation by the one hundred and twenty disciples:

Suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2-4a).

The result of this flood tide of blessing was the conversion of some three thousand unbelievers. Again when the apostles had been released from prison and had joined the church in prayer, we read of them: "And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness" (Acts 4.31).

Once while serving as a missionary in Africa, an urgent call came to the author to conduct a revival in a girl's boarding school. Moral and spiritual conditions were at a deplorable level. Few if any of the students or African teachers were professing saving faith in Christ. Disciplinary problems were distressing the missionaries. For a week the gospel messages were delivered twice a day, and prayer for revival was offered to God. All efforts appeared to be fruitless, however, as the hearts of students and teachers alike were apparently locked against God. Undaunted, all the workers entered a determined effort of fasting and prayer. In the four o'clock service of the following day, everything appeared as hopeless of revival as before. At the close of the message, a time of quiet waiting before God followed and then as suddenly and as powerfully as on the day of Pentecost, a mighty sweeping presence of the Holy Spirit flooded the room. An attractive young lady who was the recognized leader of the student body was suddenly smitten by the Spirit with a deep sense of conviction and repented of her sin. In an instant, without urging or exhortation, every student and. teacher was on their knees crying to God for saving mercy. For some two hours the writer witnessed one of the greatest penitential prayer meetings it has ever been his privilege to see. At the close of that prayer meeting not a student or teacher remained outside the saving mercies of Christ. Nor did the moral and spiritual influence of that revival end with the service of that day. Spiritual and moral fruit continued. For more than a quarter of a century a barren desert of ecclesiastic sterility prevailed in America and Western Europe. The humanistic ideal of the inevitable perfection of humanity had pervaded the thought of statesmen, educators, and much of the clergy alike. The First World War occurred and shook the foundations of this philosophy. Ten years later, recovery was in progress when the great depression and then the Second World War struck the mortal blow to man's blind optimism. The great Korean War further emphasized the awful depth of human depravity, followed by the Vietnam fiasco. With European and Asiatic civilizations largely in ruins and America in jeopardy, men began, at last, to realize that there could be found no security in the temporal order.

Thus, once again, as always under such circumstances, it was recognized that if there was to be found any hope and security, it must be found in the spiritual and not in the material realm. This recognition turned the thoughts of men to God and opened the door for a new divine visitation. Evangelist Billy Graham came forth in response to God's call and has played a leading role in calling the minds and hearts of Americans, as also the rest of the world, back to God. Spiritual hunger and evidence of revival are seen in many parts of the world today.

In his little book, God Came to Gujerat, Floyd Banker graphically portrays the mighty manifestation of God in India that began under the ministry of Dr. Paul S. Rees in Akola, Berar in 1951, a movement that reached deep into the heart of India. This revival started with the confession and repentance of missionaries and national Christians. Africa has felt the mighty touch of God in some of her apparently most hopeless areas. For three years, from 1929-1931, a sweeping revival moved throughout Northern Sierra Leone, one of Africa's previously most unresponsive areas, resulting in the conversion of thousands of pagans

This revival started with the repentance and confession of the church, and even the ministry. Powerful spiritual revivals visited the campuses of Wheaton, Houghton and Asbury Colleges in the sixties. These all began with confessions, repentance and restitution.

The author had the privilege of engaging in three gracious revival campaigns outside the United States in the nineteen fifties. Two of these campaigns were conducted in the Bahama Islands. On the first occasion the messages were directed primarily to the Christians of the existing churches.

The Spirit faithfully applied the pungent truth and spiritual awakenings followed. Services were conducted in taverns, in the open air and in the regular churches. People were converted in all of these locations and conditions. Three years after the first campaign in the Bahama Islands a bartender testified that a man had been converted in his tavern and had never returned there, but had continued a faithful Christian to that date. A leading minister of the city verified this account. In another tavern a backslidden Christian dramatically smashed his flask of whiskey on the floor In the midst of carousing spectators and walked outside where he knelt in a gateway nearby with the members of the evangelistic team and gave his heart to Christ. Three others immediately followed him in yielding their lives to Christ.

Revival was begun in the great old tourist capital of Nassau and later reached large proportions. A month after the evangelistic party's return to the States, a Christian leader from Nassau wrote: When you were here in December you started a fire, and it has developed into a Holy Ghost revival. Our nightly audiences are above 2.000. There is no church in the city large enough for the crowds. So we are having the sevices in a city park.

Subsequently, information received from a visiting evangelist to that city indicated that he had witnessed many conversions. From the Island of Eleuthera a leading minister wrote, concerning this evangelistic crusade: "Everyone is still talking about the blessed time of refreshing your team brought to Eleuthera. The spirit of revival still exists." From a leading minister in Nassau came this report:

Echoes have come from many directions of this city, and from the out islands, of a spiritual awakening as a result of the Christian example and consecrated life of this Commission the evangelistic team while they ministered to the spiritual needs of those with whom they came in contact.

During a city-wide evangelistic crusade conducted by the author in 1955 in Mexico City, under the auspices of the Maranatha Evangelical Association, great evidence of spiritual hunger was witnessed in the churches. More than five hundred souls sought the Lord for spiritual restoration or initial salvation. The same spiritual hunger and response to the gospel of Christ was in evidence all the way from the poorest people in the slums to the materially prosperous Protestant churches of that great old city. Scores of hungry souls, were gathered into the Kingdom of Christ because they were willing to return to God. A man from the Yukon Peninsula who was more than ninety years of age chanced to visit his Christian daughter in Mexico City during this revival campaign. During a great movement of the Spirit in the Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church on a Sunday morning he came to know Christ as his personal Saviour. On the last Sunday morning service of this gracious campaign in the famous Ganti Street Methodist Church, more than one hundred and fifty persons found Christ as Saviour.

There can be no question about the reality of revival when men are awakened to a sense of their need, and when they are willing to meet the divine conditions requisite to God's manifestations to their souls. "From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says I the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 3:7a). . Said Jesus: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me" (John 14:6)