The word adulterous is used here in the sense of spiritual adultery. Adultery is often used as a metaphor for spiritual adultery in the Bible. Marital faithfulness and faithfulness to God are closely linked. A key part of being truly human is faithfulness, for we were created in the image of God and He is completely faithful. Conversely, unfaithfulness is a characteristic of a sinful people, and we see the evidence for this all around us. We need to root out this weed of unfaithfulness that still resides in us.
James accuses his readers of being friends with the world and enemies of God. The world system is opposed to God, it is fundamentally atheistic. The world system says "we can manage without God", this is going back to the first sin in the Garden of Eden.
It is also fundamentally proud, exalting itself over God, but God opposes the proud and exalts the humble.
So we should submit to God, and resist the devil. We see again here that the activity of the devil and demons is taken as commonplace, and again it shows itself up in mundane ways, namely in the proud and self-sufficient ways of the world. Moreover, we defeat the devil by humbling ourselves before the Lord. He will flee from us. The devil and his activity are to be recognised, but not to be feared. Yet again, the key weapon in spiritual warfare is trust and obedience.
The injunction to "grieve, mourn and wail" is a call to repent. Instead of glorying in the world and its ways, we are to repent of all involvement with its ways.
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