Book of James - Ch. 5, Vs. 4-9 (03/26/2000)

James and the Rich Who Oppress the Poor

I think my mark was, we finished verse three. Is that correct? Well, let's start. We're gonna cover verses four through nine this afternoon. And then, I don't know, Brother Otis, do you think you'll finish verses 10 through 20 next time?

Okay. So we may have two more times after this and then we'll be in a new book. Well, I'm gonna start with first, we're covering verses four through nine. But part of this passage deals with some of the stuff at the first part of the chapter.

So let's start with verse one. Go to now you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.

That sounded like a good sermon over at First Baptist this morning, wouldn't it be? Wow, can you imagine people preaching like this? Let's see. Maybe that's why Martin Luther wanted to kick James out of the Bible.

He didn't think James was part of the canon. So James was not popular with these sermons. He says, your gold and your silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.

Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Now, I believe that's where we stopped. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is a view kept back by the rich men.

A fraud crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

You have condemned and killed the just and he has not resisted you. Be patient therefore, brethren. So this word therefore apparently relates to the passage we just covered. So apparently the passage we just covered was a group of people that are in a different group than the group that starts with verse seven.

And I think there's more that separates them than just the amount of income they have. But let's go ahead and read verses seven through nine. Be patient therefore, brethren, and to the coming of the Lord.

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain. Be also patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. So let's stop there. Well, if you take this passage in the first part of the chapter where it's talking about the rich man, this passage does not speak of the rich in general.

We know that because there are many men and women of God in the Bible who were wealthy people who were very, very close to the Lord. And it's interesting if you turn the page there and look at verse 11.

Behold, we count them happy, which endure you have heard of the patience of Job. Job was perhaps the richest personage that we read about in the Bible. He was very, very wealthy and yet very, very close to the Lord.

Abraham was a very wealthy man. David and Solomon, of course. Solomon was extremely wealthy. Even John in the New Testament's dad had servants in their fishing business, so they were not poor. Barnabas, well-to-do.

Remember when Jesus called Levi the tax collector? I guarantee you that fella had some money because he had probably gotten some of it in the wrong way, but he got rid of a lot of it when he got saved.

Not all of it, but he gave a lot away. And so it's not speaking against being rich. What it is speaking about is a particular type of rich person. And I believe as you read the description of this person, he is not born again, number one, but it doesn't say that in the passage, but it leads us to believe that when we look at the attributes that he has.

I don't think attributes would be the right word. How about the symptoms? The first symptom we find is that he heaped treasures together for the last days in verse three. And let me read you a verse out of Luke that relates to this, Luke 12, 20.

But God said to him, thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then shall those things be, then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? David, would you turn this, let me see what's wrong with this thing.

Can't tell, it's just not right. Just turn it down just a little bit. Number one, not a lot, but just a little bit. It's bothering me. Okay, thanks. Now thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and this is the key, he layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. That's the kind of person this is speaking to.

And it does not imply that there aren't wealthy people who are rich towards God. And I'll give you a little logic here. Have any of you ever heard of the gift of giving in the New Testament? One of the spiritual gifts that God gives?

Have you ever stopped to think that God could not give you that gift if he didn't also give you something to give away? So it's not speaking against riches. What it's speaking against is riches being God and taking the place of God.

So these people heap treasures together in the last days unto themselves. They're not concerned about everybody else. Ask yourself this question to be a good test. If you thought that Y2K really was gonna happen, did you store enough stuff for yourself or did you store enough for yourself and everybody else in the whole church to get by for a while?

Because could you be happy if you're the only one that made it? Well, if you could, that's the wrong kind of attitude. You have to be wanting to share. If you have riches, that's fine, but are you willing to share it?

Can you be happy if you're the only happy person? Could you be happy if you're the only one that had the needs met, no one else did? And I don't believe if you're saved, you could be. And so this group of people, they have a different God than we do.

Their God is their money. Now, the second point about this group of people is they kept back money which was owed to the laborers by fraud. So they had people working their fields. Now, I can promise you that in itself is not bad because think about the parable of the talents.

You remember that one? Who was it that got rebuked in that case when the Lord came back? Was the one that created a lot of money with money and invested wisely and leveraged his money or who was it? It was the one that did nothing with it.

The one that hid the talent. And in fact, he took that away from him, gave it to the guy that had made all the money. And what did he say? What did the one that got rebuked say? He said, Lord, the reason I didn't wanna invest this was I was afraid I would lose it because I know that you're an austere man and that you reap where you sowed not and you gather where you strew not.

And that teaches a business principle of leverage that the Lord says it's wise if you can swing it to earn off the efforts of a lot of other people because you multiply your man hours. That's not wrong.

It's a wise thing to do. So the Lord is not teaching not to do those things. But what he is saying is that this person had all these people working with him out here. He was earning off all their efforts and then he didn't pay him or he withheld it.

He didn't pay him on time. He just didn't pay him. And so, and he did so by fraud. He acted either like he didn't have the money or for some reason he didn't pay him fraudulently. And so the third thing we see about this particular person is it says that he lived in pleasure.

The Greek word is a little bit stronger than just saying pleasure because it's not like the Lord doesn't want us to be happy but it literally means this is a person who indulges in luxury and it comes from the root word which means effeminacy.

Isn't that interesting? Like an effeminate person or debauchery and riot. And that's what these people were doing with their money. It says they were wanton which means wild, assentious and unchaste. And it says they condemned and killed the just.

So they used their money for power in a wrong way to condemn those who were living for the Lord. So these were not saved people. These were wealthy people of the world and they were using the money for Satan's purposes.

Patience, the Coming of the Lord, and the Early and Latter Rain

Well, then we go into verse seven and we kind of see what the word therefore is all about don't we? Because these same people were mistreating the church and due to the oppression of the evil world system the Lord is coming back to his own and saying therefore we must be patient.

So let's go into verse seven now. Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he received the early and the latter rain.

Be also, be ye also patient. In other words, be patient like the farmer is patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Let's stop there a minute and look at these things. Now this, if there was ever a passage written to us in the last days, this is one of them.

It is so clearly an encouragement for those of us who are living in the last days where we may not have all the things we think our family is supposed to have. We see what Hollywood puts out there and shows us what you're supposed to have.

You may not have everything a church is supposed to have as you look at what the world throws out and says, here's really, if you're successful here's what you have. And the Lord is saying, look, you know actually it's the rich man using his money for the devil that needs to weep.

It's not you. You don't need to weep. So be patient and be patient like the farmer because there will be the early and the latter rain. We're gonna talk about that in a minute especially over in the Middle East.

They have two rainy seasons and God uses this prophetically to talk about the first and second advent of Christ. And we'll look at that in just a moment but let's look at this word patient first of all because it's an important word in the Greek language.

It comes from two Greek words. Let me get you to jot these down. The word itself for patient is makrothumeo. And the first word is makro which means long, like length, long or something that lasts a long time.

Thumeo literally means to be passionate. And it comes from the Greek word thumos which means passionate, has to do with breathing. And so you put it all together. Makrothumeo means long spirited, long spirited.

Be long passionate. In other words, even in the midst of times when things get hard, when there's a lot of persecution where the world hates you, it will even use its money and its power against you to cause you harm.

Stay passionate about the Lord's work. Stay passionate about the Lord himself in the light of all this. In this word patient, we lose a lot of that beautiful color that the Greek has, to be long spirited, to be long passionate through all of it.

And it says unto the coming of the Lord. This word coming is a beautiful word in the Greek language. It's parousia, parousia, spelled P-A-R-O-U-S-I-A. Actually it's sia, I said it in Texan, didn't I?

Parousia, and it's the same, it literally means to be brought alongside or to be near. And it is the word that has to do in the scriptures with the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first coming and the second coming.

His advent, that comes in the Greek language from this word parousia. And it means he is near, he is actually here, God with us. His name shall be Emmanuel, God with us. And that's the parousia. And so it says you need to be long spirited and compassionate and passionate, I mean about the work of the Lord until he is along beside us at the second coming or in our case at the rapture.

And so there's a lot in these words that are really beautiful things. Now let's look a moment here at this interesting phrase where it says, until he received the early and the latter rain, talking about the farmer, he's very patient as he plants the seed.

From that point, there's not a whole lot he can do, is there? It's kind of, he's not in control. Don't you think that's one reason our country was stronger back at the end of the 1800s, early 1900s, people had to have had more patience because the predominant 90 of the people probably were farmers, or at least of the family owned businesses were farms.

And they knew very well that they were not in control of everything. And I guess no one knows that better than a farmer or a rancher. You ever been in the cattle business? I have, notice it's past tense.

I have been and shall not be in the future in the cattle business, because you ain't in control. There are those who control the markets and you're not the person. And you go out and invest in all the cattle and all the feed and everything.

And you don't know what the price will be when they're fat and ready to go. You may have to keep them a while. You may not have enough grass to keep them or water or whatever. You're totally out of control and it creates an enormous amount of patience.

That's why I ain't doing it anymore. I got enough. Oh, goodness. Patience, he's teaching. Now, what about this early and latter rain? Turn up, find the Book of Joel for a moment. There's probably, this is a very important passage in our day because it really clarifies a lot of this problem of the charismatic movement that we see and answers a lot of our questions about the sign gifts, whether they were still operative during the church age, whether they will be at some point in the church age.

Is it all counterfeit? Is it all fake? Is some of it real? What's going on? People claiming they can see visions again nowadays. People are claiming they can heal people with the touch of the hand again nowadays.

People are claiming they can speak languages they never studied. And really, it sounds like gibberish to us, but they claim it's some dialect out of Africa. It's a real language. Probably is, they're saying, and they don't know if it is or not.

What about all these things? Well, it's interesting when you go into the account of Pentecost when speaking in languages occurred in the New Testament. Now, it had already occurred and been prophesied in the Old Testament, but it occurred.

And I think it was Peter that quoted a portion of Joel. And he says, this is that which you have read, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, et cetera, et cetera. Remember that? It's interesting that he did not quote the entire passage in Joel.

And the reason he didn't is because the entire passage did not apply to the first advent. Only part of it applied to the first advent or the first coming of Christ. But the other part of Joel jumped all the way through the church age to the end of the church age and landed at the second coming.

And it refers to that. But if you go back and you read the part that was quoted in the book of Acts, here's what you find. Joel chapter two, verse 23. We'll just read some of it here. It says, be glad then you children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you, now notice this, the former rain, moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the latter rain or the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain of the first months.

So there we're talking about the same former and latter rain that's discussed in James chapter five and verse seven. It was a well-known thing in the Middle East, still is, because you have two rainy seasons and the farmers depend on that.

And it's used here prophetically to talk about the first and second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions.

And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And Peter, I believe it was, who quoted this and said, this is what you're seeing. These men speaking in foreign language, they're not drunk.

They were claiming they were drunk. They said, no, this is prophecy being fulfilled. But notice that he did not quote verse 30 and following. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.

That's the old Testament word for saved. Isn't that beautiful? See, our modern theology, you get to say, dear Jesus, come to my heart and say amen and you go live like you were. But in the old Testament, when you got saved, you got delivered.

Amen. And you know what? Today, when you really get saved, you get delivered. And so he says, same, you know, this is quoted in Romans chapter 10, verse 13. We studied that this morning. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved is a direct quote from this verse.

It's just that the Hebrew word is translated better into delivered. And that's what salvation is all about. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance as the Lord hath said, you know, don't read over things.

Always remember the little words and phrases so significant. Why is it that people are gonna be delivered? Because the Lord said so. So here we see God is the God of salvation and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

Well, now notice a former and latter rain. Former rain, actually it's backwards, but I don't want to confuse you, but really the latter rain is in the spring over there. And the former rains in the fall, but forget that because that'll confuse us Texans.

So let's just play like the former rain means the first coming is really the other way around, but we're gonna do it that way in English. So it makes sense. The former rain represent the first coming.

The second season at the opposite end of the season, the rain coming down represents the second coming of the Lord Jesus to the earth. And they did not quote verse 30 of Joel chapter two, because that did not happen at the first advent, but it will happen during the tribulation period.

You go over and you read in the book of Revelation, it talks about exactly same thing. It talks about the moon being turned to blood. It talks about the sun being turned to darkness. It talks about the terrible things that happen.

It calls it here, the terrible day of the Lord, the horrible judgments of God that come down through the tribulation period. When you see that, then you need to realize that your sons and daughters are going to once again prophesy.

The old men are gonna dream dreams again. Their young men are gonna see visions, the servants and the handmaids in those days are gonna have the spirit poured out upon them. You're going to see speaking in tongues, your languages, literal languages that had not been studied.

You're going to see the gift of prophecy revived again. You're going to see a word of knowledge revived again. You're gonna see everything that you had in the early church that passed away during the church age, it will be back again.

Now, if you go into Joel chapter three, now you might ask, well, why? Well, I don't know that it matters if we know why, but there is some insight into it because in 1 Corinthians 13, it says specifically that prophesying and knowledge and tongues will cease.

And it says, when that which is perfect has come, and that's in the neuter tense, which means it's a thing, it's not a person. A lot of them say it's Jesus coming back. No, it's not. If it were Jesus coming back, then why is the prophecy saying that it will start again?

How could it start again if it never stopped? Does that make sense to anybody? How could these things, if you read Joel, it's saying at this particular point in time, I'm going to pour out these things on these people as if it's a new thing.

How could it be new if it had been ongoing throughout the entire church age? Are you with me on that? So you have it at the first advent, it ceases, but then it comes back again at the end right before the second coming.

In Joel chapter three, verse one, for behold in those days and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, now that has begun, the Jews are coming back to the tune of about 100 ,000 a year to Israel from all over the world.

I will also gather all nations and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land.

Assemble yourselves and come all ye heathen and gather in yourselves together round about, thither calls thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, get you down, for the press is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of Decision.

The sun and the moon shall be darkened and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem. And the heavens and the earth shall shake, but the Lord will be the hope of his people and the strength of the children of Israel.

So shall ye know that I am the Lord, your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy and there shall no strangers pass through her anymore. What is this? What is this valley where all these Gentiles are gonna be brought to and God's gonna judge them?

What do you think that is? What valley do we call that now? The Valley of what? Megiddo. I've been there, seen that. Man, Napoleon stood up, I stood somewhere, I guess, where he's in the vicinity where Napoleon stood and he looked down into the Valley of Megiddo and he said, this is the most natural battlefield in the world, Napoleon said.

There've been other great warriors that have stood there and said the same thing. And God in his sovereignty is going to draw all of the armies of the Gentile world into that valley, put them right there, and that's where they're gonna be destroyed.

The Bible says that the blood will flow as high as the bridles on the horses in that huge valley. And I've seen that thing, I don't know how many square miles that thing is, but that's a lot of blood to fill it up that high for that many square miles.

And this is what this is talking about, and clearly it says this is the latter rain, and this is when your sons and daughters will be prophesying and all this stuff's gonna be happening during this time.

Now, have you seen this happen yet? I haven't. I haven't seen the moon turn red, the sun darkened. I haven't seen the Battle of Armageddon yet. There's a lot of this stuff I haven't seen, and these are the things that will be happening around the times when this recurrence of these sign gifts occurs.

And that's why your pastor has concluded that they cease during the church age, and we don't really have them yet. I do believe as we approach the second coming, I know we will have them. Who's to say how far before it starts these things might start happening?

And as much as I hate to say it, as a Baptist, you might, I don't know, I don't know that this can be proven, but you might see some legitimate signs before we go from here. I don't know that. But I'll tell you one thing, you better try the spirits, because what Satan has done is he has knowing, see, he can read this Bible, and he knows all this stuff is about to take place, so what do you think he would do?

He'd put the counterfeit out there first, so it's very difficult to discern the real thing from the counterfeit. So don't be so dogmatic that you say you couldn't have some of these in our lifetime, because you might if we're getting into that last of the last days.

It's gonna revive, God's gonna bring it. I put my theology here, and I'm gonna tell you this is my opinion based on my study of the Word of God, but it is an opinion, and many good Bible students disagree with this.

My opinion is the reason it revives is because the Antichrist removes the Word of God from the world. He burns Bibles like no one you've ever seen. That's my opinion, and when that which is perfect is come, that's the canonization of the scriptures, so you don't need a prophet.

You don't need a word of knowledge, because you've got the Word, right? But when all these are destroyed in the tribulation period, or whenever that begins, where you don't have Bibles on every coffee table, and they come in, they literally take them away and begin to burn them and make it against the law to have them.

I can see how the church hiding off in some little barn somewhere would need the gift of prophecy for the new believers to hear the truth, because they don't have a Bible. So it makes sense to me that there will be another outpouring during that time.

I have a hard time figuring out why we need it right now when we've got 15 Bibles in every house. So my opinion is what you're seeing today is counterfeit, but isn't it interesting how James throws in this idea of being patient.

You're in the end times. Remember, there's a former and the latter reign. Just as sure as he came, he's coming again. So be patient. Continue to have zeal in your lives. Continue to have this thumos, this heat for the Lord in your life, no matter how discouraging it gets.

Establish Your Hearts for the Coming of the Lord

Now, let me go down to this place in verse eight. Be also patient. It also says to establish your hearts. This word is sterizo, which means to set fast. And you've seen the little word set, S-E-T, in the Bible a lot, where it says God sets things.

And it's always God that does the setting. But in this place, we are, what should I say, working together with the Lord, because it says set your hearts. And it means to place something and to turn it resolutely in a certain direction where it can't turn back again.

The word establish comes from the same exact word, to establish yourselves and your hearts in the last days. Now, why do you think the Lord tells us that? Why do we need to make sure that our heart is set and established in a certain direction so that it can't turn and go this way?

The Bible says in the last days, if it were possible, that the very elect would be deceived. So if you're not established and set right towards this book and in it, set in this direction, who knows, you might could be turned.

Some of these counterfeit things might turn you. The Bible teaches very clearly in the last days that there'll be many false signs and wonders that will allure the flesh into these types of churches and congregations and so forth.

And so he's encouraging us to say, look, the Lord's coming back, but you need to set yourself in his direction until he comes. And then we go down in verse, he does say the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, so that's an encouragement for us.

Don't Grudge Against One Another Before the Judge Stands at the Door

And in verse nine, he goes back to a theme that we saw earlier in the chapter, I'm sorry, in the previous chapter, chapter four, verses 11 and 12. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned.

Behold, the judge standeth before the door. He goes back to this theme of not judging each other. And in this place, he adds another word, don't grudge against each other. And this is from a root word, the word grudge is from a root word that means don't stand against your brother or don't murmur, the word murmur is implied.

Don't take a stand against your brother and don't murmur against him, it says, because it says, lest you be condemned. And it goes back to the scriptures, you know, like in Romans 14, 10, but why dost thou judge thy brother?

Or why dost thou set it not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And every time you see this in the true sense of what he means by don't judge, to help you figure out how, when are you supposed to discern, when are you not?

What he always says is this, he says, listen, all of my children are gonna stand before me and I am going to judge you. I am your judge, you're working for me. I'm your boss, you're working for me. Don't let somebody else play like they're your boss because they're not, so they have no right to judge you.

So just remember that we're gonna stand before the Lord. And that's what it says here at the end of verse nine, behold, the judge standeth before the door. What door? He's at the threshold of coming again.

He's at the very threshold, he's standing at the door, fixing to step through it and set foot on this earth again. And so don't be caught grudging one another. Don't be caught taking a stand and murmuring against one another.

Listen, we don't have a lot of that in this church, but every year we'll have a little bit of it. And usually there's kind of a rooting that takes place and God just fixes it. You stick, if you just preach the word, God will fix those things, but don't be involved in it.

Don't pick sides. Somebody comes to you and says, well, you know, this guy's over here doing this over here. You don't believe that, do you? Say, well, I'm not gonna tell you what I believe. I believe you're my brother and so is he and we're in this thing together.

Tell him that, because in the carnal church, the baby church, the Corinthian church, Paul said, I have heard there are divisions among you. And the word division in the Greek means party making. You got one little group over here trying to bring people into their party, the Republicans.

We're gonna be over here and we'll be against the Democrats. And you got another one making a party over, we're the independents. And he's over here, we're the Democrats. And those guys over there are wrong.

You know, here's what they believe and they're wrong. And these guys are certainly wrong. We're the only right group. And that's only baby carnal Christians get involved in that. And Jesus, through James, is telling us, you're in the last days.

You got enough people out there in the world trying to kill you. These rich, lost people, just talking about the power mongers, the whole world system. They're trying to destroy everything you've got in your family.

And they're doing a pretty good job of it. They're trying to destroy your church. So don't bite each other. Don't make teams, be in it together. Jesus is coming back quickly and the judge will stand right before you and fix everything that's a real problem.

So don't worry about it. And it was interesting. Let me close with this, because I had a thought in Sunday school. That is a problem in Sunday school. I get so many thoughts, I can't listen. And then I get called on to answer a question that I didn't hear.

Isn't that right, Brother Alfred? That happens to some others. But in this little passage here, where it talks about, in Romans chapter 10, in verse 11, where it says, "'Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.'".

I wanna take you to Isaiah 28, 16. Look that one up. And then I want you to look at Isaiah 49, 23. I wanna read those two to you. Isaiah 28, 16 says, "'Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, "'Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation stone, "'a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, "'a sure foundation.