Anytime we’re seeing a person, a splinter group, doing their own thing, applying things.  “This little group over here does it a little differently than the rest of us.”  I want you to understand something.  That’s flesh.  It’s divisive.  It’s prideful.  It’s disharmony, disunity, and isn’t tolerated in our midst.  If you insist on it, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.  I’m basically just reading Scripture to us.  Are you a judge of the law or a doer?  James would like to know.  If we’re going to judge one another differently than the Word does, we are judging the law.  Let God be true; amen?  As he goes down, he talks about the variances, “emulations,” and that’s an interesting word.  It means jealousies.  You’ll find that jealousy is a great power behind strife, division, the critical spirit.  It’s amazing how that Adamic nature, and we talk about Adamic, but it didn’t start with Adam.  Let’s call it satanic, Adamic.  It’s in our members, jealousy.  Satan was jealous of God.  He wanted what He had.  We want the attention others have.  We want the possessions others have.  That’s why God basically told us as human beings, “Hey, you can’t covet your neighbor’s wife, your neighbor’s livestock; amen?  Get your own.  Be content.  Be satisfied with the wife of your youth.”  When we sit around criticizing these things, it just shows we’re not content.  We think of ourselves so highly.  We’ve been so unjustly treated by God.

From the other side of the coin, we sit there, and we say, “I thank God that I’m not like these other people.  I am so gifted.  I am so knowledgeable.  I’m so spiritual.  I am so right on every subject.  I am unteachable.  I am teacher.”  James says, “Don’t desire to be a teacher.”  You’re going to be under the greater judgment; amen?  You want to go teach everybody?  Do you want to go set everybody straight?  God’s going to hold you to everything that you want to put forth.  Tragically, many of us are so accepting of this image.  It’s already Adamic.  It’s already in us, and then Mama Zebedee comes and promotes it.  “Oh, honey, you’re so special.  You’re so this.  You’re the best.”  Our children should be encouraged; amen?  I mean, encouragement is a great part of what the whole relationship of a community is.  We’re to encourage one another to finish this course.  We’re to speak unto edifying, we’ll see as we go on.  We’re living right now, generationally, to where our children have been told they’re all special and great and the best and the—whatever it might be.

That culture, the world, has crept in, and the church has bought all of this stuff.  We’ve talked about it before.  We’ve had to deal with it here in the fellowship when, all of a sudden, we had people in our midst here that did not want to paddle their children.  Dr. Spock got them.  He’s going around getting everybody.  “We’ve got a better way.  I’m going to sit with them, and I’m going to talk with them.”  The child just ate a bug.  He’s eating boogers, and we’re going to sit and talk with him about spiritual things?  You tell him what to do, and they have one job.  The Bible gives them one job.  What a great, simple task it is to be a child!  Children, obey your parents; amen?  The old adage, and I’ll tell you what, there’s a lot of good to it.  “Children should be seen and not heard.”  Your children do not need to come in and start interrupting adult conversations.  Some of you younger parents, you’re almost tilting.  There’s an order.  God has established an order in the church and in the home.  Many of our children are to the place right now—some of you can remember before this became so prevalent, but many, not all, we know this is not speaking of your child; “It’s those other people.”  Okay, so, that’s those other people.  Kids used to have a common respect for all adults.  You can see it in the response of our children, how they respond to some of us “common people” and how they respond to those who are recognized in our midst as being “special and spiritual and authoritative.”