Prone to Wander

The Book of James as Wisdom Literature and the Final Exhortation

We are in James. Good day, fellas. How are y 'all? Struggling? Well, so am I. We are all struggling together. Alright, I'm going to erase this, but I want you guys to keep. I want you to memorize this forward, because whoever wrote it up here was right.

It's good looking stuff, but I've got to erase it.

Man, that's a dope picture of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yeah, that's a Trinity symbol, and then this about baptism here, yeah. Interesting. Well, I'm excited, because today is the last day in the book of James. Who was here when we started? Me. Were you? Alright, and brother, only a couple.

Only a couple were here. So that means I can just start over next week. But we were in the book of James, we started, and we have gone verse by verse through the book. That's the way I teach. It's the way I think we ought to learn the Word of God, is to go verse by verse, and looking at each passage and learning what it has to tell us.

The book of James is a treasure of information. As I said from the beginning, it's very similar to the book of Proverbs. You all here at Set Free are required to study Proverbs, correct? It is part of your wisdom, gaining godly wisdom and becoming godly and wise men.

And that is God's treasure trove of wisdom is the book of Proverbs. Well, James is similar in that James is a book of wisdom. And it simply gives us over and over and over reminders of imperatives that we should live by.

In fact, it has, at least as far as I understand, some of the most imperatives, meaning commands per passage of any of the books of the New Testament. James is what we call an epistle. What is an epistle?

It's a letter. But it doesn't function a lot like a letter because if you think of Paul's letters, you read like Romans or 1 Corinthians, Paul begins with an announcement of his name, I Paul, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ to the church at Corinth.

You know, blessings and peace upon you. And then at the end of the book he says, greet so-and-so or say hello to so-and-so or welcome so-and-so into your home, right? So it reads very much like a letter.

Like if you're writing something to your mom, it reads very much like that. James is a little different. He begins it as a letter. He says he's writing to the diaspora or the people that have been dispersed, meaning they had been under persecution, they'd been pushed out and he's writing to those people.

He says that in the first part of the book. But the end of the book doesn't end like you think it might. You think if it's a letter, it might end with some type of a positive greeting. You know, like our modern letters might end with love, Keith.

Or, you know, in some way kind of draw to a conclusion. Well, James ends his letter very abruptly. In fact, it's almost as if there's more to come. And there's not. This is all we've been given. This is all he was inspired to write.

But this is it. This is the last few verses we're going to look at today, verses 19 and 20 of James 5. So if you have your Bibles, open up to James 5. And it's just these two verses. Now this comes on the heels of what we talked about last week.

James had talked about prayer. He said if you are suffering, pray. If you're in joyful, sing praise. And if you are sick, or what we talked about last week, if you're weak, go to the elders. Have the elders pray for you.

Have them put oil on you. Have them encourage you. Go to the elders and have them pray for you. And then he talks about the value of prayer that comes from somebody who is a godly person. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

That's verse 18. Then we come to or no, I'm sorry, that's what he talks about there before verse 18. And then we get to verse 19 and we read these words. I'm going to read them and then I'm going to pray and begin the sermon.

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Let's pray. Father, as we draw to a conclusion of this book of James, I pray by the mercies of God that you would, by your mercy, give me the grace to preach what is correct, that you would keep me from error for the sake of your great name and for the sake of my conscience and, Lord, for the sake of these men.

These men are very important, Lord. They deserve to hear the truth and I pray that you would keep me from any type of lie or any type of falsehood. And I pray, Lord, as we seek to exegete this passage, as we seek the understanding of what James has written, I pray, Lord, that you would enlighten our minds, that the words would go into our ears, that it would enlighten our minds and, Lord, that it would seep down into our very soul.

Lord, for those who know Christ in this room, Lord, that this would be to them a challenge for themselves that they would not wander and when they see others wandering, Lord, that they would reach out and grab them as if they were catching them from going into the fire.

And, Father, for those who do not know Christ, Lord, be it any man in this room, maybe he has deceived himself into thinking he knows Christ and does not or, Lord, maybe he is living an outright rebellion to the Lord and doesn't care.

Lord, may it be today that the words that are preached are to this person a challenge to their very soul and that today would be to them a day of reckoning.

Lord, a reckoning for the soul. We pray in Jesus'.

Name. Amen. Amen. Alright.

The Danger of Backsliding and the Subtlety of Wandering

Well, today we're going to look at the subject of backsliding. The subject of backsliding. Now, if you've been in church any time for any length of time, you've heard the term backsliding. In fact, some people are really proud to use that word.

You go to them and you say, hey, are you a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Christian, but I'm backsliding. What does that mean? Well, it means something different to different people, but a lot of times what it means is I ain't doing what I'm supposed to do.

I know what I'm supposed to do, but I also know I ain't doing what I'm supposed to do. A few years ago, I was invited to an event out in Arizona. My wife had won a contest. She was a sales lady for Bell South.

She was the top 100 salespeople in the United States with Bell South. So they took the top 100 salespeople and they flew them out with their spouse to a dude ranch in Arizona. You ever seen the movie City Slickers?

That was me. Except for I didn't get to ride the horse. I'm too big. I had to ride in the Jeep, but that was okay. I was a little big, and I'm okay. I don't like horse in no way. But while we were there, every time we'd turn around, they were serving drinks.

Because again, they were lavishing on these high salespeople. I didn't drink. My wife didn't drink. So every time we'd turn around, we were having soda while everybody else was drinking. That's fine. One night, after all the festivities were over, the head guy and I don't remember his name.

I don't know who he was, but he was the head guy of the department or something. President, ace, head, whatever. My wife said, this is the guy I want you to meet. He's very important. Okay. Straighten my shirt up.

Make sure I'm tucked in. Zippers up. Make sure I'm good. I'm going to walk over and meet the head guy. So I did. I walked over. He was at the bar, and he was if there's three sheets to the wind, he was all three of them.

He was well past being drunk. He turned around, and my wife said, Mr. So-and-so, this is my husband, Keith. He's a pastor. And I've never seen anyone get so sober so fast. Like God had called him to attention.

And he goes, wang! And he grabs my hand, and he starts shaking my hand, but I thought he was going for milk. Because he was going back and forth hard like that. And he just about pulled my shoulder off.

And he's looking me dead in those big red bloodshot eyes. Just looking at me in the face. And he goes, I want you to know, I went to the altar last Sunday. And he's just shaking. And I said, okay. I don't know what to say.

It didn't take.

I didn't say that, but in my heart, I'm thinking,.

I don't think it took. But I've always thought about that. You know, that's the way people treat Christianity. People treat Christianity as almost like a drive-through opportunity to go get it. You know, sort of like an Etch-a-Sketch.

You can sketch all over it and then you shake it up, right? I heard a Catholic say that one time. He said, that's what, when we do this. He says, we've got all these marks and we just shake it up. You know, because that's this.

We're going to confession. One church open to drive-through confession.

Yeah. No, if I'm lying, I'm dying.

It was a drive-through confession. Because people didn't have time to get out of the car and go sit inside and wait on the priest to sit in the box and confess through the wall. So they put a drive-through confessional you could pull out.

Father, forgive me for I have sinned.

And you're out.

We have taken a very low view of the Gospel. We've taken a very low view of the Christian life. And it shows. It shows by how we behave. It shows by how we treat the church. It shows by how we think about backsliding.

When you hear that person say, I'm a Christian but I'm backsliding. Often times it's with a little smile or a little grin. As if to say, I'm saved. I'm going to heaven. My ticket's punched. I got my fire.

Insurance.

But, right now I'm living like the devil. And my friends, that's the attitude of so many people. That's the attitude of so many people. There's no concern for the state of their soul. I'm just backsliding.

That's all. Well, I want to look at this text and I want to consider that when Paul, excuse me, James, I forget who's speaking here he says, he says, my brothers, stop right there just a second. You know me, I go word for word.

My brothers, he's talking to believers. That's the first thing to remember. He's talking to people who are, at least they claim to be believers. You know, throughout the book of James, he's talked to different people.

He's talked to believers. At the beginning of chapter 5, he talked to the wicked rich people. Those weren't believers. He was talking to the people outside the church and how they should mourn and weep over the fact that they're going to be under judgment.

They're having all their goodness now, but at the end of life, they're going to be in hell and they ought to repent. So he's talking to different people, but at this point we know this word here, he uses the word adelphos.

That's the word brother. He said, my brothers, if anyone among you, among who? Among the brothers. So if anyone who is a believer, or at least a professing believer.

Wanders from.

The truth. If anyone among you wanders from the truth. And again, before we get to the next part, let's just stop and let's talk about the fact of how that happens. How does someone wander from the truth?

It's almost always.

Slowly. Very.

Few times does someone just wake up in the morning and say, today I'm going to go nuts. Today I'm going to go crazy. It's a subtle thing. I've got to tell you guys, I've been coming here for six months or more.

I met Pastor Mark last year. He invited me to come start teaching here and I've loved every minute of it, but the thing that breaks my heart the most is how many guys are gone. And I've seen them week after week start to wander.

They start thinking about how good that alcohol used to taste or how good that drugs used to make them feel. How good them women used to warm them up at night. And so they start to wander. And their heart starts to think about everything that the outside could provide that they can't get here.

Because it's not really comfortable here. You're sleeping in a room with three or four other guys. You're dealing with bed bugs. You're dealing with food that don't always taste good and people that don't always treat you good.

You know, there's a hymn. I don't know how many of you guys grew up in church listening to hymns. A lot of people don't even hear hymns anymore. Hymns aren't popular. People listen to more contemporary music.

But there's a hymn called, Come thou fount of every blessing. Tune my heart to sing thy praise. Streams of mercies never ceasing. Calls for songs of loudest praise. Well, the last verse of that song begins with this statement.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Isn't that the state of our heart? Prone to wander. Wandering begins with wondering. I wonder what it'd be like to go do thus and so. I wonder what it'd be like to go back to this or that.

You know what the Bible describes that as? It describes it as a dog going back to its vomit. You know, the dog will throw up on the ground and leave and come back and eat it. That's what it means. The dog going back to its vomit.

That's what it's like. We've been called out of darkness. We've been called into light. But men tend to the darkness because the darkness hides. The darkness covers. The darkness provides a place where we aren't seen.

And it provides a cool comfort to the flesh for a little bit. For a few minutes. And we want that cool comfort to the flesh for a few minutes. So we're prone to wandering. Pastor David McClellan said this.

He said, Backsliding is so subtle. Often we have eyes for it in other people, but do not have eyes for it in ourselves. Hear that again. Backsliding is so subtle. Often we have eyes for it in other people, but we do not have eyes for it in ourselves.

Is that true? Do you see other people? You see what they're doing and it's easy, right? Oh man, this guy over here. I don't know you brother, but I'll pick on you. Oh man, I see him every day. He's thinking about this or he's talking about this or whatever, but I don't see that in me.

It's so easy to be a fruit inspector when you're inspecting somebody else's fruit. It's so easy to be nitpicky when you're picking on somebody else. 1 Corinthians 10 -12 says this, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. What does lest mean? Lest means except that he might fall. The idea is this, if you think that you're standing and you're the righteous, you're the good, if you think you're standing, you better be careful because you might be the next one to fall over.

It's like this, you ever heard the expression, don't put yourself on a pedestal, that's the easiest place to get knocked off? You know? And the reality is true. We put ourselves in a position where we think we're good, it's everybody else who's got the problem.

James is saying to us, if any one of you wanders from the truth, the possibility is there. The possibility of wandering is there. The prone to wander is there. So the first thing we have to consider from this passage is being honest with ourselves, not to be flippant about ourselves, but ask ourselves the question, are we right now prone to wander?

Is our heart fixated on the things of God or is our heart fixated on everything but the things of God? So James says, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, that could be any one of us. We have had two churches close and join our church in the past 10 years.

I've been the pastor for 13 years. And in 13 years there have been two churches that closed and we inherited their people. The first one was a minister who, a woman came into his church. Her husband was in Iraq so she was lonely and she was attractive and he was married and had two boys, but she was to him more attractive than his wife and so he chose.

To wander. And boy did he.

He wandered right out of his own bed into her bed, wandered right out of the pulpit into drugs and alcohol, destroyed his life, destroyed the life of his wife and children. Thankfully they were able to move on, but it took a long time.

Destroyed the ministry of the church. I inherited a group of people that were broken because the man they trusted to give them the Word of God had wandered. Second church, not the same thing, but similar.

I get a visit one night on a Wednesday night, about 15 people show up. In a church our size when 15 people show up, you know it. Our church don't have 75 people in it, so 15 people is a good size percentage of the whole body.

And on a Wednesday night even less, we get about 25 -30 people on a Wednesday night. So 15 people show up on a Wednesday night, that tells you something. So I find the guy who I think is the leader, you know you can usually tell who's kind of the guide of the group.

And I asked him to stay behind us, I need you to tell me what's happening here. We don't have 15 visitors on a Wednesday night normally. And he said, well we have a church and the church is closed. Our pastor was found having embezzled over $40 ,000 from church funds.

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. The potential is there men, the potential is there.

To wander. Now I've.

Thought about this passage sometimes, and I've thought about this passage a lot. I've thought about the question, is this person wandering? A saved person? Who is just failing? Is this person a saved person who's just failing at the moment?

Or is this person a person who was never saved and they've just been playing a role? Because you know that happens, right? There's two types of people. There's people who are saved and there's people who are lost.

There ain't no in-between. And if you're saved, you're saved. And if you're lost, you're lost. But sometimes there's lost people who think they're saved. Did you know that? That some lost people think they're saved?

Churches are full of them. How do I know that's true? Matthew chapter 7. Jesus said, not everyone who comes to Me and says, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But those who do the will of My Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

On that day, many will come to Me and say, Lord, Lord, have we not done many mighty works in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and done these things in Your name? And I will say to them, I never knew you.

Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness. What does that say? Jesus didn't say, I knew you and then you left. He didn't say you were saved and then you got lost. He said, I never knew you. That tells me that there's people in church, some people in ministry, who don't know Christ and Christ doesn't know them.

Yes, sir. And that's sad, isn't it? And you see that guy wandering. And that's what James is dealing with. It amazes me that this is the end of the book. This is the last thing James is going to tell us.

What's his biggest concern? You know, the last thing you say to somebody is usually one of the most important things. You know, your last words. You know, the last time you're going to say something. My son's about to leave to go to the Air Force, June 11th.

He's going to be on an airplane. A few weeks ago, we had a chance to go away just he and I. We spent 10 hours in the car together, driving back and forth from here to West Florida. And I was excited because that was really the last time that we're going to have that much time to talk.

So I made the point of spending that time talking about the things that were important. Talking about his need for Christ, his need to stay in the faith and not depart when he gets to the military. There's all these opportunities for debauchery and all these things.

Stay focused on the Lord. Stay going. Your mother and I have brought you up. Continue in this way. Because that's my concern for him. It's the last time. You know, we may talk a few times between now and the 11th, but we're so busy.

That was the last time it was just going to be him and me. And so I had that opportunity to really enforce upon him something important. This is James' last words to us. And his last words is a concern for people who are prone to wander.

Why? Because of how insidious, how common it is for people to wander. It is too common. And it is a sad reality. So that's the first thing. That's the concern. The concern is my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth.

Restoring the Wandering Brother and the Role of Christian Responsibility

Now, the next one, we've seen the concern. Now we're going to see the hope, the response. He said if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back. Notice he's not bringing himself back.

He's wandering. So what happens? Somebody comes along and becomes to him a brother. What was the question that Cain asked God when he was looking for, am I my brother's keeper? You know, there's no answer, but the answer is yes.

The answer is yes, we have a responsibility to each other. If we're believers, if we are in Christ, if we belong to Christ, we are part of a family. That's the way I look at you guys. You know, I have my church.

Pastor Mark has his church. Some of you guys are part of our academy. We teach a seminary class. Some of you guys come to that. And I care about you and I really do, like my brothers. And that's why I say, when I come week after week and I see that guys have gone, I'm like, where did he go?

What can we do? And again, I'm not pretending like I could do any better. I know Pastor Mark is breaking his back here to love you guys. And I know sometimes you might not feel that way. Sometimes you may have a hard feeling.

But the reality is he cares for you. And that's why he's here. And I'm not here to be his spokesman today. He didn't ask me to say this. I'm saying this because I see this. Someone has to bring back the wanderer.

Someone has to go get the person who's wandering. So this becomes an imperative for us. If you are in Christ and you are firm in your faith and you see someone else wandering, they become your responsibility.

You can't save them. But you can reach out to them. You can't force them to come back. But you can reach out and give them a hand and say please come back. You can extend a hand of love and try to pull them back in.

And that's what he's saying here. He's saying, and if someone brings him back. The word actually means to convert them. The Greek word here for brings him back is literally the word for convert. Here's the thing, you can't convert anyone.

You say, well why would it say someone converts him? God converts men through men. Let me say that again. God converts men through men. You say prove that pastor. Romans chapter 10. How will they believe if they do not hear?

And how will they hear unless someone preaches to them? How will they believe if they don't hear? And how will they hear unless someone preaches it? God converts men through other men. So you see somebody wandering, you become a tool in the hand of the Lord.

You become as it were like a fishing rod. Being sent out with a hook. And God's the one reeling, but you're the one that's the hook. You're the one that's out there. You're the tool in the hands of the living God.

Brother do you have your hand up? I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you.

Sometimes the wandering can start it starts in our minds. To suppress that, I think I haven't had a drug business since I've been here for three months now. But certain things that I knew weren't good, certain girls said it'll come to my mind.

But I'll suppress it right then. I'll pray and go to work. But some of those secret thoughts that we don't talk about it's like you're saying, I think it's good to say, man I'm struggling man I'm thinking about this, but I don't talk about it.

I think that's like the first prayer of Riceburg, go to that brother that you know, that you're talking to. I'm thinking about this and I want it. Because you don't want it to keep festering. You know what I mean?

Even if you prayed it already. And if it comes back, do it again and confess it to someone. It's more prayer, it's more help. And God will help you with it.

Amen. What you just did, you connected it to what we talked about last week. There's the whole idea of confession and the idea of going to the stronger brother. If I know I'm wandering, if I know I'm the guy in the first part of this, I'm the wandering guy.

And I know my heart's wandering I ought to be trying to find people that I know aren't wandering. Over the years I've dealt with depression. Never to the point where I had to be medicated or anything like that.

And I've never tried to do anything physically to stop it, drugs or anything like that. But I have dealt with severe depression at certain times in my life. When I see myself dealing with that, and Charles Spurgeon, a great Puritan preacher, he dealt with it.

And so I would go to his writings. And I would read what he has to say. Because here's a guy that's stronger than me. He's a godly man. Even though he's dead, 150 years he's been dead, but his words still sit in that book.

And I can go to his book and I can be encouraged to, here's a man who's dealing with the same thing. The same doubts. The same struggles. The same fear. Help me. I remember one day I was weeping on my knees in one of our Sunday school rooms.

Because I was just so overcome with depression. And I had to preach. It was a Wednesday. And I had to preach in less than an hour. And I'm face down on the cushion of the chair. Tears in my face. I'm holding my head.

My arms are on my knees. Arms down. And the elders of the church came in. What is wrong? I said, I can't even say. I feel broken. I feel lost. I feel depressed. I feel, and I couldn't really even say it.

They just prayed for me. They just got down on me. Put their hands on me. They prayed for me. Each one of them prayed. And God lifted my spirit in that moment and gave me the strength. Now I'm not telling you the depression went away automatically.

But He gave me the strength for the day. The Bible says God's mercies are new every morning. Sometimes we do have to get refreshments every day. And while God's taking us through, we need a daily dose of God's strength.

A daily dose of that Holy Spirit strength and energy to get us through the day. God doesn't give us grace for tomorrow. He gives us grace for the day. For today. And that's why it says His mercies are new every morning.

God doesn't let you take grace out on credit. You get what you get for today. And sometimes that's all you get is what you need right now. And I was thankful for that. But yeah, brother, it is. And those secret things are the hardest things.

Because some things you feel like you can't share with anybody because people think you're weird. Or people think you're a deviant. Or people think you're crazy. And I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about me.

We don't want to tell people what we deal with because it's some stuff that's bad. It's in our minds. As I've said many times, if somebody could take just your thoughts and project them on a TV screen and show your family, you'd probably not have any friends or family left.

Just the things you've thought about. Just the horrible things you've considered in your life. So we know how prone we are to wonder. But again, James is telling us we ought to be looking for our brother as well.

When we see him wandering, we ought to be concerned to convert him. To bring him back. To be that fishing rod. To be that hook. To be that life preserver. Reach out. Put arms around him. Bring him back.

Say, don't go. I think I've told you guys this story, but I'll make it brief. There was a friend of mine who was a minister. I used to sell t-shirts. I had a t-shirt business. I did screen printing.

So he came to me to get screen printing done. While we were sitting there talking, he said, Keith, I want to let you know I'm probably going to divorce my wife. My heart just fell in my stomach. Because I knew this man.

I knew his wife for many years. And I said, brother, what in the world? What's going on? And he said, well, we're just not happy and I think things would be better if we just separated. I had a choice right then.

I could have said, well, brother, I'll pray for you. But instead, I looked at him and I said, brother, I love you like a brother. And right now what you need to hear more than anything else is this. You need to repent of your sin and go home and love your wife.

You do not have any biblical grounds for divorce. And if you leave your wife, you will be sinning against Almighty God. Repent and go home and love your wife. He was shaken, but he was not angry. He just stared at me for a few minutes and he said, you're right.

A few days later he called me and asked me if I'd start counseling with him and his wife and I did. And together, they are still together today. This was several years ago. Now, I don't tell you that to make myself the hero of any story.

What I'm saying, though, is it would have been easy for me to just say, well, I'll pray for you. But I saw my brother wandering and I said, I've got to try to bring him back. The story could have just as easily been this.

I called him to repentance. He said, I ain't got to listen to you. And he left and didn't have anything else to do with me. I've had that story happen too. I've counseled many people who left the counseling room ready to divorce as much as they were when they came in.

So I'm no hero. I'm saying the point is this. Are we willing to call our brother to repentance? In love, not in anger. I love that man. It's harder to tell somebody to repent than it is to just say, well, I'll pray for you.

That's an easy escape. It's hard to be honest with people, especially people you're close to. In fact, this is what I always hear people say. They say, well, I can't tell somebody about Jesus until I get really close to them.

So I've got to develop a really good relationship before I can tell them about Jesus. Then they develop a really close relationship and they say, well, we're too close. I can't tell them about Jesus because now we're too good of friends.

I don't want to mess up the friendship. You see? It's just a scam. They just don't want to tell them about Jesus. But the reality is this. The closer we get to somebody, the harder it is to be honest with them.

The harder it is to confront them. And yet, James here says, my brothers, if any one of you is wandering, meaning the ones in the group, the people you are closest to, if they're wandering, go after them.

Go after them. You can't change their heart, but you can be the tool in the hand of Almighty God that God uses to change their heart. And it says right here, if you bring him back, this is verse 20, he says, let him know that whoever brings back the sinner, whoever converts the sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death.

Now, I've had to think about that a lot because it makes me wonder, is this a saved person? A saved person isn't going to go to hell. But I will tell you this. There are some people who have died as a result of sin.

So it could very well be that James is here talking about physical death. There are people who, because of sin, have died in their sin. But if it is speaking of spiritual death here, then I would say it's referring to an unbeliever.

Because if you do go to a person who thought he was a Christian and is now wandering, and you call that person repentance and he experiences real repentance and real faith, he will experience real regeneration and you will have taken his soul from death to life.

You will have been like the ferryman who took the man from one side of the stream, which was death, to the other side of the stream which was life. God is the boat and you have guided him across that ferry.