Do you have any enemies? Maybe it’s a former girlfriend or boyfriend or a co-worker or someone at school that you just can’t stand to be around? Do you hate anyone? Who is your enemy? Maybe you don’t have any enemies at the present time. Remember when you were a kid back in grade school even up to high school; did you have any enemies back then? I did! I’m not proud of that fact, but there were people that I truly hated with every fiber of my being? Looking back on those times I now see how foolish I was.
Now here’s the really scary question: Do you hate the One True God? Is God your enemy? Read James 4:1-10. Now go back and hone in on James 4:4 – Ye adulterers and adulteresses, 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. You can’t miss the meaning of this verse. Who are you friends with? Who or what do you love? What do you spend your time, energy and money on? Who do you love? Please listen: If you love the world (any worldly things or the pleasures of this world) then you are God’s enemy.
Be honest with yourself. Examine yourself and see where you really place your affections. Maybe you love your job, your house, your car, your hobby, alcohol, drugs, pornography or something else. What do you find yourself thinking about when you are alone and no one else is around? Is your focus on God or on things of this world? Are you focused on eternity or temporal things? In other words are you focused on things that are temporary, on things that won’t last? What grabs your attention? What has your heart?
If your affections are on anything except for God then James 4:4 should cause you to shudder. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31). Do you really want to be God’s enemy? Do you see how foolish this is? God, the great Creator, the One who gives you every breath that you take? The One who holds the keys to death and Hell? The One who formed us? The One who loves us? The One who sacrificed His only begotten Son on the cruel cross for sinners like you and me? The One whose glory is so magnificent that sinful men cannot be around Him in our sinful state (Exodus 40:34-35)? Is it really wise to hate the One True God?
Look at 1 John 2:15-17. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides forever.
Romans 5:8-10 states But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Colossians 1:21-22 says And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.
These verses all point to the same thing: love of worldly things leads to death. Sin leads to death (Romans 6:23). Only Jesus saves. Only Jesus can reconcile or bring you back into a right relationship with God; by His shed blood. Jesus was the propitiation for our sins. He was our substitute and our atonement. The wrath from God over our sins, the punishment that we rightly deserve, was poured out on Jesus Christ as He hung on the cross. God’s anger over sin was poured out on Jesus. The Bible says that it pleased God to bruise Him, it pleased God to crush His Son. God is not sadistic. God cannot tolerate sin and this shows you how much God hates sin!
God’s wrath poured out on His precious Son shows you how sin must be punished. It will be punished one way or the other. Either Jesus paid your sin penalty in full for you or the wrath of God still abides against you. John 3:36 states He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him. Romans 2:5 says But after your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
Are you saved? Have you surrendered your life to Jesus our Lord? Have you been born again? Have you spiritually passed from death to life? If you die tonight will you go to Heaven? Have you repented and put your faith in Jesus? If not, then you are THE ENEMY. The ENEMY OF GOD! Doesn’t that bother you? Repent and believe the Gospel.