In this sermon, Dr. J. Vernon McGee explores the question of what worldliness is according to the book of James. He compares the epistle to God's University, with James as the Dean, and emphasizes the importance of understanding and living out the teachings in the epistle. Dr. McGee highlights that worldliness is not simply defined by external behaviors like attending certain amusements or engaging in certain vices, but rather it encompasses the attitudes and desires of the heart. He points out that worldliness is characterized by selfishness, envy, discord, and a focus on temporal pleasures rather than eternal values. Dr. McGee also references the insights of Dr. Griffith Thomas, who observed that while the world may be becoming more "churchy," the church itself is becoming increasingly worldly.

For the last several weeks, we've been attending God's University in our study of the book of James. As we enter the classroom today, we come to our first exam. It's only one question, but the answer may not be as clear as you might think. Our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, will administer the test, asking the question, what is worldliness? Dr. McGee first gave this sermon sometime in the 1960s during his 21-year ministry as the pastor of the historic Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, teach us to live a life that is pleasing to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. When we began this series, we likened the epistle to God's University, and James was the dean of God's University. Now this metaphor holds good through the entire epistle. And as you well know, there are exams and quizzes in every university, and there happens to be in God's University. The difference is that James hands out the questions to study and even gives you the answers to the questions. You won't have to buy them or steal these questions and get the answers. You can just turn to the epistle of James, you can read the questions, and you can get the answers. But in spite of the fact that all of this information is given out, these are hard quizzes and they are stiff examinations. They must be wrought out on the anvil of life. They are an experiment to be made in the laboratory of life to see whether they work or not. Now there are some big questions in this epistle. Who is a wise man imbued with knowledge among you? And then he asks other questions. What is your life? That's not my question, it's James' question. So he asks some big questions and one of them is, what is worldliness? That's our quiz for today. Now I ask you that question this morning and I can see that there are hands up all over this auditorium because you know the answer. You say we're a fundamental church and we certainly know what worldliness is and we can define it. And so I think maybe we ought to get your answers today. And I see back yonder in the balcony and I'd like to ask you for your answer. Well you say it's the kind of amusements that you attend, like going to movies or dances or drinking and smoking. That's worldliness. Well we thank you. And does somebody else want to say what worldliness is? And I see back yonder and under the balcony a hand and that's part of saying, well it's the kind of a crowd that you run with. It's the gang you hang around with. After all, birds of a feather flock together. Well that's clever, but let's see if we can get another answer. And I see that over here that somebody's saying, yes, it's the way that you dress and you reveal whether you're a worldly Christian by the way you dress. I heard this one that one woman said, the trouble with being a woman these days is that you've got to look like a girl, dress like a boy, think like a man, work like a dog. Well we accept that answer, but we pass on because there may be some other ideas and I see somebody down front here. They have an answer for it. It's a person, they say, that engages in business and the making of money to the exclusion of all else. The one who neglects the church, all right, and we will accept that. And then I see we have another answer over here. It's the person who does not go to church, but he spends his time on the golf course. Well, you're meddling now, but fishing and boating and you go to Dodger Stadium instead of to the church. Well, these are some of the answers and it may be that where you're sitting this morning you'd like to add something else to it. But if you this morning have put down one of these that I have mentioned or even all of them, I want to say to you, you flunked the exam, you failed the subject, you busted the course because I have here the epistle of James. I have the question that he asks and I have the answers that he gives to this most important question, what is worldliness? And none of these are right, but I hasten to say this, these things you've mentioned are merely symptoms of a disease and the disease is worldliness. But after all, you don't treat symptoms. Now this morning, let me pass on to you the statement of two men, two outstanding Christians of the past, brilliant men who got at the heart of the matter. One was William Thackeray, who was a novelist. He was a Christian. He wrote a novel called Vanity Fair, that's the world. All that takes place in that novel is on the background of the wars of Napoleon. The characters there are filled with weakness and littleness and meanness and pettiness and jealousy and envy and discord. And someone said to William Thackeray one time, why is it that your heroes are not heroes and your heroines are not heroine? He says, my business is to hold a mirror of nature up to life. That's all that I do. And in life, I see no heroes or heroine. And his novel Vanity Fair does not end. They lived happily ever after. It ends like this. Come now, let us put the puppets up. The show is over. My beloved, he is at the nub of what worldliness is. Dr. Griffith Thomas, one of the great men of the past, you'll see his name listed among the editors in the Schofield Reference Bible, a person very disturbed, came to him one time and said, Dr. Thomas, don't you think that the world is really becoming Christian? Well, he says, I'll agree to this, that the world is becoming just a little churchy, but the church is becoming tremendously worldly. May I say to you that these two men are getting at the nub and the very heart of what worldliness really is. Now, since World War II, there's been a total breakdown of the wall of separation between the church and the world. The wall that was put up, however, was a legalistic, and I believe an unscriptural wall in many respects. The church was sort of like the little Dutch boy who kept his finger in the dike to keep the water out. But then we had the aftermath of war. Then we had the entrance of that idiot box TV. Then there was the rise of lawlessness and immorality. And then among the eggheads, existentialism, the futility of life. And then juvenile delinquency and the beatniks and dope and marijuana. Then the tidal waves swept over the dikes of separation, and even the little Dutch boy got washed away. So today, the wall of separation is gone in this hour in which we are living. What is worldliness? Will you follow today very closely? James will give you actually here no simple answer. But let him give to us today a definitive explanation of what it is. And I'd like this morning to read from the Amplified, a translation that's quite helpful as we've seen in the epistle of James. I want to read verse 13. Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his good works with the humility of true wisdom. Now if you follow in your translation, you will notice that the emphasis here is upon the fact that James never loses sight of it in the entire epistle, that faith is the major in the university of God all the way through. His theme is faith from beginning to end. And all the elective courses are related to faith. And when he mentions works, as we saw last Lord's Day, they're the works of faith. And one of the works of faith is meekness he mentions here. Meekness is humility. Someone has said knowledge is proud that she's learned so much. Wisdom is humble that she knows so little. And so here, the thing that he's saying is this, that this wisdom that he talks about that is going to come down from above as he'll make it very clear to us, that this kind of wisdom is first of all humble. It is that which is submissive and it's submissive to the will of God. Then he goes on to say here in verse 14, but if you have bitter jealousy, envy, and contention, that is rivalry in your hearts, do not pride yourself on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the truth. Now he's talking here about that which is the thing that is the wisdom of the world and it is characterized by envy and by jealousy. The word for envy here is zealous. We get our word zeal from that. And it is a very interesting word, by the way, it means actually jealousy, it means factions, it means divisions, it means this business today and it's in the church of dividing up, taking sides around personalities, around issues today and dividing the body of Christ because of it. A wife came home from a missionary meeting and she said to her husband, she said, did you know that the Shekel Grubers are having a quarrel, they're having a lot of trouble and that everybody in the church is taking sides, some are on her side and some are on his side, and he interrupted her and he says, I suppose there are a few odd characters in the church that are minding their own business. May I say to you today, my beloved, this business of dividing up and taking sides is the thing that he is talking about here. I keep on reading, this wisdom, it's superficial, is not such as comes down from above but it's earthy, unspiritual, even devilish. Now he describes and defines this wisdom of the world. It's earthy, he says. That is, it's confined to the earth, it's limited to the world. It's what our Lord, when he was talking to Nicodemus, he says, if I have told you earthly things how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? It's the same word, the wisdom of the world, Christ said to Nicodemus, honestly I've just been talking to you like I talk to any unsaved person, though you're a religious man. I've talked to you about earthly things, how are you going to believe if I do tell you about heavenly things? Now there's a great deal that passes for that which is spiritual in the church that's nothing in the world but earthly, just earthly wisdom, that is all. And then he says it's sensual, and the word is psychological, it's supical in the Greek. It means human. Knowledge you see is not limited today to man's puny brain. The eggheads today do not know which came first, the egg or the chicken. Even eggheads can't answer that one. And we feel today that anything is not even knowledgeable unless somebody knows it. There's a great deal that the human race does not know about this vast universe and about God and about life and many things that just do not happen to be in the depository of human wisdom today. He says it's sensual, and then he says it's devilish. And when he says that it's a terrific word, it is actually demonic he said. He's saying that it's demonic if you please. And he's dealing here with something that is quite interesting, and I read on to lay hold of it. For wherever there is jealousy and contention, there will also be confusion and all sorts of evil and vile practices. Now again we have the same word zeal, and it means the zeal of cults. Have you ever noticed how zealous the cults are in propagating themselves? Well where does that zeal come from? Does it come from God? No, it comes from below. It's satanic, it's devilish, it's demonic. May I pass on to you this morning the statement of Dr. Samuel Zwaymer. I had the privilege of taking a series of lectures under him. He was the great missionary to the Muslim world. I believe frankly that he was probably one of the brainiest missionaries that I ever listened to. And he was very successful working among Muslims, he worked among the intellectuals. Listen to this statement, you cannot explain the wickedness of the world as merely human. It's human plus something, and that is why non-Christian religions are successful. They are supernatural from beneath. They're demonic if you please. And so today, James is saying to you and me that there are two kinds of wisdom. He's saying that there is a wisdom that comes from above. There is a wisdom that comes up from beneath, and that he labels as being human wisdom. It's a sensual thing, it's psychological, and it's demonic. Now he says here that there will be here two things, the cults if you please, and the cliques. It will be divisive you see. It is that which divides, because back of it there is envy and jealousy, and there is this matter of factions, for that's exactly what this word means here, divisions. The spirit of rivalry, if you please. Now he says there will be confusion as a result of it, and there is confusion today, I think in the church, I believe you'll agree to that, unsettled, restless if you please. My beloved, there is in this world today the human wisdom. This morning the brains of the world are engaged in the wisdom of the world, working out the problems of the world, and in spite of all of that, there happens to be trouble in Vietnam, there's trouble in Selma, Alabama, there's trouble in Washington, D.C., and if you don't think that Los Angeles has it, you're wrong, it's here also. And all of that is the result of the wisdom of the world, because the wisdom of the world produces confusion, always brings confusion. But where God is, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, Paul says to the Corinthians. And then, not only that, but he says every evil work, and that gives the wrong impression. Actually if you want a good Americano phrase for it, it means good for nothing. It's the kind of work that is trivial, it's paltry, it's trite, it comes to naught. You want to go back a few years and look at the things that engage people's attention. You remember what the fad was back in the 30s? You remember what the fad was in the 40s? You remember what the fad was in the 50s? Well, we've even forgotten it, but it was then in the headlines. It was then, it occupied the attention and thinking of man in that day. Just good for nothing, the wisdom of the world. Never really come to anything at all. It was a rainy night, and a little boy was playing in the house, and he was really causing trouble, and finally his mama said to him, says, Willie, why don't you be good? And he says, well, I'll be good for a nickel. And she said, why don't you be like your father, be good for nothing? Well, my beloved, that's the kind of wisdom that we're talking about, the good for nothing kind. And if I may say this today, and I know I'll be criticized for this, but this morning there's practically every state in the union engaged in the moonshot in Apollo. There are over 20,000 people that are giving their time right now to that project. The brains of the world are of this country, and 20 billions of dollars are being spent. Good for nothing. Wisdom of the world. Good for nothing. Come to North, if you please. After all, what are all these shots out in space done for us so far with the millions that have been spent? And this morning, if a war should break out, there are enough missiles in Cuba to knock out every great city on the eastern seaboard. And coming over the top of the world, the West Coast would go. We've paid so much attention to get to the moon that we've forgotten we have problems right down here. My beloved, the wisdom of the world, if you please. Now will you notice as we move on into this, and that's what we must do, but the wisdom, now listen to James here, the dean of God's university, but the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then it's peace-loving, courteous, it's willing to yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits, it's wholehearted, straightforward, impartial, and unfain, free from doubts, wavering and insincerity. Now that enlarges upon it, but it brings out exactly what James is saying here. Now he says the wisdom which is from above, two places that wisdom comes from, from above and from beneath. And what he's saying is the point of origin. Don't be ridiculous here, as a man said to me, which direction is heaven? Well if you mean that it's a 90 degree angle of a line drawn horizontal to the earth, that that's the direction God is, then you're wrong, because on the other side of the earth in India this morning you'd be pointing in the opposite direction. A philosopher once asked a very humble Christian, he says, where is God? And this very humble Christian said, well pardon me sir, but let me ask you a question first, where is he not? My beloved, that question has to be answered first before you answer the question, where is God? A skeptic saw a little boy going to Sunday school and he said to him, son, he says, how many gods are they? The little fellow thought a minute, he says there's one, there's only room for one, you couldn't have room for another because he just occupies heaven and earth. So don't point in a direction and say God is in that direction. This is not a directional question. Why does James speak of the wisdom that's from above? Because it speaks of the condescension of God, he who is so high has stooped so low in order that he might, as he says, if any man lack wisdom, what kind of wisdom? Heavenly wisdom, not wisdom to put over some kind of a business deal that God could not approve of, but my beloved, heavenly wisdom. If any man lacks it, he's to ask of God and our heavenly Father says he'll stoop to do that. A king once was sitting with his counselors, they were planning the strategy of their war they were carrying on, very busy. They'd worked into the evening and as he was sitting there with his counselors, he heard his own child who'd come down the steps, he heard that child cry because the little fellow had fallen. The king immediately pushed his chair away from the council table and rushed to his little boy that he might pick him up. And my friend, when he did that, he wasn't any less kingly when he did it. He was just as much a king as he was when he was sitting there planning the strategy of the war. And our great heavenly Father, the king of this universe, he has come down in order that he might bring salvation and redemption and that he might help his children down here, especially when they stumble and when they fall. Then we're told something else that's from above. The tense that's used here means it just keeps on coming down. God just keeps on coming down to be what his children needs, if you please. Whatever a child has needs. Some of you heard us on the radio this week when we were talking about that mixed multitude that came with the children of Israel out of Egypt. They got out in the desert, that mixed multitude, where they didn't know which way to go to begin with. And they were very unsettled, disturbed folk. And they began to yearn for the leeks, onions, and garlic. And they said, we want to go back to Egypt and get the leeks, onions, and garlic. Now I got to thinking about that. Do you know, I'm of the opinion that there was probably some pious Israelites who'd been raised down in Egypt on leeks, and onions, and garlic. They liked it all, so. And I have a notion that one of these Israelites, he received the manna with thanksgiving and yielded to the will of God. And I think he was amazed when he ate the garlic, it was garlic-tasted manna. God had just sprinkled a little garlic on it for him. God is what his children need, my beloved. And these things that he mentioned here are a divine endowment. You couldn't work them up down here to save your life. They are not a human acquisition at all, because he says that these things are first pure. Well, you notice that. Our Lord, the first beatitude he ever gave was, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We fundamentalists are getting away from a great many things today. We think we can toy with the impure, and because our doctrine is right, that somehow or another we can go on with God. I don't believe it. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Gurdie, the great German, said, great thoughts and a pure heart, these we should ask of God. And if we've been born anew, as our Lord said yonder to this man Nicodemus, it means as Paul wrote to a young preacher and says, it's not by works of righteousness which we've done. It's according to his mercy he saved us. But it's by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. And when our Lord said you must be born of water and of the Spirit, he's not talking about a baptism. He's talking about the water of the word of God to cleanse your heart. And my beloved, if he doesn't cleanse your heart, you haven't been born again. Let's face up to Scripture. You have to be cleansed. Yes, but going through this world you get dirty, and you certainly do, and every child of God will get dirty if he's honest about it. But he'll go immediately and he'll confess if we confess our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We need more emphasis upon this business of having the Spirit of God cleanse our hearts and lives today as we read the word of God. This is still the best bar of soap that there is, all these cleansing agencies that are advertised today on TV. Have you ever noticed TV advertisements come in two categories? One category says how to get dirty, drink beer and smoke cigarettes. And then the other category is how to get clean after you got dirty. The soaps and the cleanses and the sprays and all that sort of thing, and you can buy some of it in the economy size, pour it in your bathtub and bathe in the stuff today. May I say to you, and that seems to be important as far as the world is concerned, but a child of God needs to recognize that he must be pure. We need that today. The word of God out cleans them all. It is still God's method of cleansing, my beloved. Then the second that he mentions here that this wisdom from above, it not only brings purity, but it's peaceable. And the word is tranquility here. It's peace of mind. Every Jew knew about that. Their word of greeting was shalom, peace. They'd known so little of it, by the way, down through the centuries, but that was their word of greeting. The Lord Jesus brought peace by the blood of his cross of sins forgiven, but he also brought a peace, which he said, my peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world give I unto you. And my friends, that is a peace that many Christians need today. I was very much interested in going across the street this week, the Lincoln Savings over here had a display of the presidents of the United States, pictures of them, and then a personal letter that each one had written. It was a very unusual collection. And I went down just to read what the presidents of the United States from the very beginning said. Quite interesting. I got to the one of Woodrow Wilson. Somebody had written him about the League of Nations, and he said, and I was very much interested in this, because I had a different impression of Woodrow Wilson. He says, society cannot be made good as such. Only individuals can be made right, and then you can have a right society. I wish our president and the great society he's building today would recognize that. You've got to have individuals born anew, my beloved, before you can have a new society. And this morning, the UN is trying to bring peace, and they're fighting for it. The great society is talking about it today, and they're going to do it with money. But that's not the way peace will come, that peace that must come to the human heart. And my beloved, until it's in our hearts, it can never be around us today. St. Francis of Assisi wrote a prayer for peace. Will you listen to it? Many, many years ago. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Great truth, my beloved, for a child of God that is there. And this business of strife today, well, someone has said it takes two to make a quarrel. And the Spanish have it like this, there's a cunning little proverb from the sunny land of Spain. But in Northland or in Southland is its meaning true and plain. Write it deep within your heart, neither lose or lend it. Two it takes to make a quarrel, one can always mend it. Interesting, is it not? He's talking now about envy and about that thing that is destroying and will destroy the individual and mankind. That's the spirit. Now we've come to where we can answer our question. We've just now got to it. What is worldliness? What is it? All right, will you listen to James now? He'll give it to us very quickly. What leads to strife and how do conflicts originate among you? He's talking to believers. Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? What is worldliness? We can put it in a nutshell. Worldliness is when the spirit of the world gets into the church, my beloved. That's worldliness. This spirit that's out yonder in the world that he's been talking about, listen to him. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish. Now you think it's bad in Vietnam this morning? You ought to see the inside of some churches today. It's just as bad. You ought to see the hearts of some professing Christians today. Oh my beloved, that spirit that's out yonder in the world, it gets in our hearts and then gets into the church. There's competition in the business world. Dog eat dog is the motto. There is today among political parties the split. Even in the parties today, there's a split. One group pitted against another group. Capital and labor this morning. Rivalry. One trying to out bargain the other and out do the other. And you move into the social world today. The social climbers are on social ladders today, stepping on the hands of those beneath them and bowing and obsequious to those above them as they try to get up the ladder. And then there's not a neighborhood in Southern California where you do not find one family that's not speaking to another family. And then there inside the family there are the quarrels, brother sent against brother. What is this? It's the spirit of the world, if you please. And he says, you are jealous and covet and your desires go unfulfilled. You become murderers. The hate is to murder. You burn with envy and anger, not able to obtain. So you fight in war. You do not have because you do not ask. And so you have two groups that are in the world today, and they tell us that's the fundamental problem in the world today. Those that are the haves and those that are the have nots. And one of the reasons today that the white race is hated throughout the world, they are the haves today. And the colored races are those that are the have nots, and they are hating the white races. There is the war, the internecine war going on everywhere today. My beloved, that is the spirit of the world. Listen to this man as he speaks here to us when he says, ye adulterers, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Now the way of the world is to take by force what you want. If you are a have not, you take it by force. And there are a great many people in the church today, as they're juggling for position, wanting something, striving for something, they use the same methods that the world uses today. And my friend, that is worldliness, according to James. Disturbed and distraught people running about today like ants. How can we keep worldliness out of the church? Is it possible today to keep worldliness out of the church? Briefly, let me mention what James mentions here, because he says it can be kept out. Listen to him. Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your own lusts. There must be more prayer to keep the world out of the church. Now the world today has only one recourse, and I'm not criticizing them at all. They have one method, go and get it, brother. Man said to me the other day in the business world, and he's been successful. He says, I found out early in this game, you have to go get it. That's the law of the business world, and I'll not criticize it today. But God help us when that gets into the church today. That's worldliness. That's the spirit of the world. And the only answer is more prayer. We should make this a matter of prayer today. And there must be real prayer. We must pray as this man James prayed. You know, he was known in the early church as Old Camel Knees. And the reason they gave him that name was when he died, they tried to coffin him, and they got all the rest of him in the coffin except those big old bony, corny knees that he had. He'd spent so much time on them. When this man said we need more prayer, he knew exactly what he was talking about. You know, we have today, instead of hard knees, we have hard heads and hard hearts. And we need to pray today that God will give us more hard knees and less hard heads and less hard hearts. There needs to be more prayer today to keep worldliness out. We need something else that James mentioned. We need more grace, but he giveth more grace. Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. This cannot be attained by self-effort. Striving today to overcome is still striving, if you please. We need faith, the kind of faith that this man Joshua had when he marched around Jericho. Jericho's the world, friends. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down when they were compassed about seven days. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. We need today more grace today, not the spirit of competition in the church, not this business of going after and driving through, but we need today, my beloved, this spirit of more grace in our hearts to look in faith to him. And that's the only way to overcome the world. That's the way Joshua did. He did the most absurd thing any man could do, to walk around that city. But that man knew what it was to walk by faith. And then finally, we need more consecration and communion today. Will you listen to him? Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, he'll flee from you. Draw nigh to God, he'll draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. It means coming to God with empty hands today. Our problem today is we bring our plans to God. We say, Lord, here's the blueprint. We've already worked them out and they're pretty good and we don't want you to change them, but we would like to have you bless them. And as a result in the church today, we do have worldliness, my beloved. Worldliness is manifested in divisions, in cliques, in groups, in individuals. It's not the parties you go to, but it's the party spirit you manifest. It's not the funny hat you wear, but the hot head that's under it. It's not the painted face today, but the war paint that you have on. And it's not, my beloved, the makeup that's put on the lips today, buddy, it's that gossipy tongue today. It's not the latest fashion that makes you whirly, but it's the last fight that you were in. It's not what you go to see, it's the method that you use in getting what you want. May I say to you today, that's worldliness. Maybe you've come in here, I'm through now. I guess some of you think I should have been through 30 minutes ago. That's a strong medicine. Some people are finding James' verse strong medicine. And I advise you to miss church while we're in this epistle because he's rough on us. My beloved, may I say this in closing, you may have come in here today, I'm talking to believers today. But you may have come in here today out of a disturbed world, and it is a disturbed world this morning. And you may be this morning an unsaved person, and you know what I'm talking about. When God says, there is no peace, he says, my God, to the wicked, the wicked are like the troubled sea. And you know what that is today. I hope that when you came in here, that you did sense the fact that there are people in this place, and they are, that know what the peace of God is in their hearts. They know what it is to rest in him. May I say that that can be your portion today? On one condition, in one condition alone, we're told in scripture he made peace by the blood of his cross. That's the peace that your sins are forgiven, and God's not against you today, but he wants to be on your side, and he's condescended, he's come down, that he might redeem you. He loves you. And this morning he wants to save you, and you say, my, but I'm so disturbed in here. So much anxiety. I feel that guilt complex. That makes no difference. That's the reason Jesus died for you, because he knows you, and he can remove it. He can remove it by that one formula. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, though they be red like crimson, they shall be white as snow, and he alone can wash you today, and he can give you that peace. Not the peace he said that the world giveth give I unto you, but his peace. It's yours. Yours for the asking. Shall we pray? Do you want that peace this morning? Are you here today probably disturbed, anxious, wondering? Maybe you're saying I have so many problems within that I am disturbed. Are you here with heads bowed, eyes closed? I'm wondering right where you're sitting if you'd like to say, preacher, pray for me. I want that peace that you're talking about today. I need that peace. Pray for me. Today, if you're disturbed and anxious, and don't have peace in your heart, then God wants to give you peace. The Bible says, he made peace by the blood of his cross. So when you receive Christ, you will have peace because your sins have been forgiven. To find out more about God's plan of salvation for your life, you may call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE anytime, and leave a voicemail request for the salvation packet. And when you do call, be sure to leave your name, address, and the call letters of this station. For information about ordering a cassette copy of today's sermon, or any of our other resources, you may call one of our service operators at 1-800-652-4253, Monday through Thursday, from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific time. If you'd like to be on our mailing list for our monthly newsletter, then call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE anytime, or use our internet order form at ttb.org, or write to Sunday Sermon. For those in the U.S., box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. This is Steve Schuetz for the Through the Bible Radio Network with the prayer that God will fill you with His grace, mercy, and peace. ♪ Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe ♪ ♪ Sin had left the Prince unsaved ♪ ♪ He washed it white as snow ♪ This program has been brought to you by the faithful friends and supporters of Through the Bible Radio Network.