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South Bay SDA Church

Phil Mills

Superfluity of Naughtiness

The title for our study this morning is an expression straight from the Bible, superfluity of naughtiness.

This spring I've been taking a master's gardener's course.

So before we look at our scripture passage together I want to ask an agricultural question.

Which part of the following do you think causes the greatest loss of crops worldwide?

Plant disease insects and nematodes weeds or animal pests such as rodents deer birds Which of these do you think is the correct answer?

Well we'll look at the answer later in our study this morning, but before we open God's Word let's pray.

Dear Lord, help us to be able to concentrate on your Word, to understand it, and apply it in our hearts.

I pray that you'll be right here helping me, sending your Holy Spirit in Christ's name, Amen.

Though it encompasses only 2 verses, our passage today is 1 of the most important passages in the book of James, because it tells us how to be saved.

It also deals the way in which many will be lost let's look at it together therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness I like the King James Version choice of words superfluity of naughtiness We teach our children not to be naughty.

But it is not only our children that are naughty, adults are often naughty too.

And it's not just children who should stop being naughty.

According to our text, the Bible says adults need to lay naughtiness aside as well.

Our world is filled with adult naughtiness.

There are so-called adult beverages, adult books and magazines, adult movies, but sin is sin at any age.

God doesn't have a strict 10 Commandments for children and a permissive commandment for adults.

Whether we are adults or children, we are to lay aside all filthiness in superfluity of naughtiness.

However, the expression of superfluity of naughtiness is hard for most of us to understand.

Perhaps the ESV is most clear, translating the Greek word rampant wickedness.

Some sins are common and widely accepted in society.

Though society regards popular sins as harmless, the Bible tells us to lay all such evil aside.

In its place we receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save our souls.

We shouldn't miss the fact that how we respond to this passage will determine whether we are saved or lost.

From these 2 verses we can learn with biblical certainty whether we're saved or lost.

We need to pay attention to these verses.

It's not enough for us to hear God's word, we are to be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves.

We are so deceptive that we deceive ourselves.

The fact is, the liar we're most apt to believe, to be honest, is ourselves.

The lie we are most apt to accept as truth is the lie we tell ourselves, and the flattery that exposes us to the greatest danger is the flattery we give ourselves.

We can divide these 2 verses into 3 parts.

Lay aside all filthiness and rampant wickedness that surrounds us.

And 3, don't just talk about the word, don't just think about the word.

The James that wrote this book is an older stepbrother of Jesus.

James was simply echoing what his stepmother Mary had said to the servants at the wedding of Cana.

In these 2 verses, God has given us practical and important instruction on Christian living.

James likens the Word of God to seed that must be planted into properly prepared soil and then carefully tended.

Just as there must be preparation before planting a garden, there's a necessary preparation to successfully sow God's seed of his word.

And this essential preparation involves laying aside certain thoughts and actions.

The black walnut tree in Eric and Rachel's front yard has helped me understand this passage better.

Some of you may recall that black walnut trees contain a natural plant poison called juglone.

Juglone kills some plants and inhibits the growth of others.

Juglone not only poison plants but it's poisonous to horses, ponies and may be lethal to dogs.

This powerful poison is present in every part of the black walnut tree.

Juglone is in the black walnut tree bark, it's in the black walnut wood, its leaves, but its highest concentration is in the roots.

Even when a black walnut tree is cut down the soil remains poisoned for years.

When plants that are sensitive to Juglone are exposed to it the plants turn yellow, they wilt, the plants growth is stunted and the plant will eventually die.

You have to lay aside, remove the black walnut tree and its roots before you can successfully grow asparagus, apples, cabbage, or potatoes in its vicinity.

The black walnut illustrates impurity in the life because the impurity poisons the seed of the word, impurity must be removed from the life.

We live in a society of rampant wickedness.

The Greek word translated filthiness has a broad meaning that includes moral impurity rampant in our society.

Wherever you turn there's something immoral that's beckoning.

The media glorifies moral failures all around us.

Music, movies, literature, news, advertisements are designed to appeal to our carnal nature in immoral ways.

Much that is immoral is now accepted as normal behavior.

Well over 80% of young people openly live together before marriage.

But James makes his appeal to lay aside such filthiness and rampant wickedness for our souls' sake." Paul's warning that evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived has occurred in front of our eyes.

And Christians young and old are not immune from these corrupting influences that surround us.

These poisonous influences impact Christian families and children causing suffering, heartache, abuse of infractured homes.

And it is only by the Bible that churches can resist these forces.

This past week after years of contentious debate a special meeting of the worldwide United Methodists was held to determine whether or not the church would allow sexual perverts to be ordained as ministers and whether Methodist ministers could officiate at so-called marriages between individuals of the same gender.

There were raucous demonstrations by those excusing and promoting that which the Bible calls an abomination.

Immorality is poisonous to Christian life.

And this passage sets us before us life and death.

To choose sinful thoughts and behavior, how much approved by the world is to forego eternal life and to choose eternal death.

I like the Jerusalem Bible's translation of this verse, do away with all impurities and remnants of evil like noxious weeds all impurities must be pulled out by the roots and not a trace be allowed to remain.

The text continues, Humbly welcome the Word which has been planted in you and can save your soul.

Just as churches must decide who they will welcome into church fellowship, individuals must determine what they are going to welcome into their minds, into their lives, into their homes.

When we welcome impurity, we banish God's Word.

When we welcome God's Word, we banish impurity.

And if we would see God, we must be pure, because Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

Ministers of the gospel from sketches from the life of Paul, page 322, ministers of the gospel whose character are otherwise almost faultless frequently do great harm by allowing their forbearance toward the erring to degenerate into toleration of their sins and even participation with them.

In this easygoing way, they excuse and palliate that which the word of God condemns.

And after a time they become so blinded as even to commend the very ones whom God commands them to reproof.

The only safeguard against these dangers is to add to patience godliness, to reverence God, His character and His law, and to keep His fear ever before the mind.

By communion with God through prayer and the reading of His word, we should cultivate such a sense of the holiness of His character that we shall regard sin as He regards it.

We should spend a moment looking at the word the Bible uses to describe moral impurity, filthiness.

I had an employee who had grown up in the world and received little biblical instruction.

She became a Christian later in her teen years and told me even before she learned the Bible, she wouldn't participate in some of the activities of her teenage friends because it made her feel, in her words, dirty.

There's a reason that certain thoughts, certain jokes are called dirty.

Gross immorality is frequently attached to filth.

Human feces has become a major problem in San Francisco.

Last summer, a large medical convention backed out of choosing the city to host its event, citing dirty streets filled with needles, trash, and human feces and urine.

It is interesting to note that after the early church departed from the teachings of the Bible and looked away from God to the Pope, God's teaching was often forgotten.

Saint Francis of Assisi considered an unwashed body, however smelly, a badge of piety.

Pope Innocent IV considered daily bathing to be sinful.

In fact, in 1250, he passed sentence against Emperor Frederick the second condemning him as a heathen why the first accusation on his list was the Emperor bathed daily The longest reigning monarch in European history was Louis XIV of France.

Louis the Great, builder of the world's largest royal domain, the 2014 acre Versailles Palace.

The palace contains 721, 206 square feet of floor space which I would not want to mob.

Interestingly historians debate whether Louis XIV had more than 3 baths in his life.

The king's personal physician, Guy Crescent Fagin, wrote the king was never pleased to become accustomed to bathing in his chamber.

Nobility and royalty would attempt to hide their human stench behind a perfume-sweet smelling garment.

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Superfluity of Naughtiness

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