The Misery of the Greedy Rich: Part 1

Get this recorded for our brothers and sisters. I could not make it this morning. We got some sickness about us and of course Brother Michael's in the still in the hospital so continue to remember him in prayer and I believe Zach is under the weather as well.

My wife had to stay on with Felicity. She's got a fever this morning so please remember those that are sick. Well as much is going to be said this morning as we continue our study through the book of James, this morning we're going to look at the misery of the wicked rich.

The Misery of the Wicked Rich

The misery of the wicked rich. You almost want to say wicked witch but it's wicked rich. But believe me James has some very very strong words here this morning. As I was studying this I could not help but just go to God in prayer myself and say Lord you search my heart here.

Very powerful words. The apostle James speaks as a prophet, an old testament prophet and he makes contact I believe by the spirit of the living God in a powerful way as he speaks to his readers that will be reading this letter.

Could you imagine being the ones to first read this? The Jewish audience and they were very familiar with these words in which he spoke. So building on the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ as James often does, he presents another test which really validates or invalidates one's claim as a Christian.

And this test of course is how one views money. How one views money. This is very serious and I think this is very applicable to all of us today especially in our contemporary age and that's why I put it into a two-part series here.

There's no way I can even get it in a two-part series. The scripture says so much about money. Jesus spoke much of it. It's all through the old testament. So these first six verses of James chapter 5 really form a strong, very strong, let me say this, rebuke.

And I can honestly say outside of the words of Jesus rebuking Jerusalem at that time before he cried over Jerusalem. He had woes to speak as well. James the apostle gives one of the strongest in the entire epistle here and one of the strongest rebukes you can read in the New Testament like I said outside of Jesus himself.

But in essence James gives a scathing denunciation and condemns those who profess to worship God but in fact they worship money. And this is nothing new is it? Nothing new is under the sun as Solomon said.

So basically he calls them to examine the true state of their hearts in light of how they feel about wealth and how they view wealth. So in saying that and I give you fair warning and these words are great words of love.

Let us never forget that. This is always, a strong rebuke is always in love, God's love. I say the way people view love today is just so erroneous compared to what God's love really is. And let me say this as well that what you're about to hear this morning as I read these six verses of James chapter 5 is so foreign to us and even to the most spiritual churches.

It's any wonder you don't hear messages from James chapter 5. How often have you heard messages from James chapter 5 verses 1 through 6? It's very rare. And it's because it's such a strong rebuke. It's so powerful and as we've already seen in the closing of James chapter 4, it's some very strong words as well but here he really pours on the fire.

So again I give you fair warning of the words about you're about to hear. They're very strong of rebuke but lots of love and it's about and it's really to people who love money. They had the love of money in their soul.

Money in of itself is not evil. It's a person's love toward it. It becomes an idol. As brother Keith has already pointed out, I love that brother Keith as you gave the balance of what it means to walk circumspectly of even people that's in poverty could be very idolatrous toward money.

You see people engrossed today after gambling and wanting to win the jackpot and that could be greed, beloved. You don't have to be rich to be greedy. It is an attitude of the heart and this is what James is actually talking about and it's very strong.

So we must always allow the word of God and I like what Tozer said to correct us in the same way that encourages us. So we need to hear this kind of truth, don't we? It's hard to swallow strong medicine but we need it.

We know it's in God's love and through the apostle here he gives us a lot of truth and he gives us a good moral compass to live by, also to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is very sobering. So in saying that, please turn with me to the book of James chapter 5, chapter 5 and we're going to be looking this morning at verses 1 to 6, 1 to 6. Very, very strong words of this apostle by the power of the Holy Spirit, the inspiration of the Spirit of God breathing upon him to write this letter.

It's the last chapter in this epistle. It's been taking us a full year, hasn't it, to get here, praise God, but here we are a year later. Chapter 5, verse 1 through 6, hear the word of the living God.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become mothy. Your gold and your silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire.

It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure. Behold, the pay of the laborers have mowed your fields and which have been withheld by you, cries out against you and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man and he does not resist you.

Let's stop right there and let's ask God's blessing upon this hour. As only I can minister and reach your ears, only the Holy Spirit can take it to our hearts. Let's pray. Our Father, how strong these words are, but how loving they are to us.

It's foreign to us to hear such words, but Lord, this shows you how holy your word is. Absolutely pure. Every word of God is pure. Absolutely holy. As you said in your word, it's like a two-edged sword.

It cuts. Oh, does it cut. It does deep surgery upon our hearts and our souls and how we need this, but it's great love that the one that does the surgery to our soul. How loving are you, Lord, to give us this truth.

Your word that pierces and searches the very reins of our motives of our hearts and Lord, we pray now within this hour that your blessed spirit would do a life-transforming work upon us today, including myself, Lord, as I minister these words.

My Father, it's you that are to be glorified. So, Father, we pray that your word would purge us, excuse me, the heat of your Holy Spirit would cleanse us and purify our souls and as well as the truth to give us the light to expose our sins, the fire is to be applied to purify it, cleanse us.

Father, your word says our God is a consuming fire. So, Father, show us, instruct us, reprove us, correct us, teach us in the way of righteousness. As we study your word within this hour, not only that we would just have the truth revealed to us and exposed, but Father, that we would be dealing with our sin, the sin of our hearts, hidden sins that we do not know of.

Well, Father, I pray by your spirit that you would tear away any idol that we would hold dear to our hearts and anything that would be displeasing to you, Lord. We'd ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. But the Apostle James has been like a physician, I'd like to say, in analyzing our symptoms, hasn't he?

Once again, we go to the surgery room. I feel like I've been doctored on many a times as we've gone through the book of James and cut on many times, but the surgeon is a loving surgeon. And just as a good medical doctor may press on and it's like he's asking the patient, are you sore here?

Are you sore there? How about here? Are you sore? We realize that he sees the very cause of the problem and he knows the very source of our problems, doesn't he? Because he knows our hearts better than we know ourselves.

We really don't know our hearts until God's word takes a hold of us because our hearts are so desperately wicked. We cannot trust our own hearts. He says we only come before God and His word and then we're naked before Him.

But I'd like for you to notice in chapter 4, he put his finger in such sins of bitterness. If you glance over chapter 4 verses 1 through 3, he dealt with the sins of bitterness as a good surgeon. And then he dealt with the sin of spiritual adultery in verses 4 through 6.

Then he dealt with the sin of double-mindedness and slander in verses 7 through 12. Then he dealt with the sin of arrogance and pride in verses 13 through 17. And now he continues in chapter 5 verses 1 through 6 as he puts his finger upon another problem.

And it's really, I say another problem, it's the same sinful problem that he was dealing with in chapter 4 and that's the sin of worldliness. And that's really what it is. Greed is the sin of greed, worldliness, self-centeredness.

The charge he gives is very serious. And we cannot fail to sense the righteous anger. Don't you sense it when we was reading through the text this morning, these six verses, almost like a holy righteous anger.

But it's holy. And he doesn't sin because it's God's Word, it's pure. The anger with which James pens these words, it's the same holy anger that moved Jesus to cleanse the temple. James is pulling no punches, is he?

He gives a strong rebuke. Now first let's ask this question, and I think this is very at the offset of the introduction to understand this question, because to whom exactly is he speaking to? Now this is very important because I've read through commentators and different views here, a lot is feeling that they sense that he speaks to those on the outside of the church that are wicked and lost that love money.

Or is he, in other words, is he speaking to those heathens out there that just are so engrossed to those idols, and they love these idols, they love money, but what about those within the church? Is he speaking to the true Christians?

Well, really that's a good question because there are different opinions about whether or not James is speaking to the rich people who are non-Christians, or is he speaking to the followers of Jesus Christ?

Or whether is he speaking to those that are part of the church in Jerusalem, and are living as greedy people within the church? Well James certainly has not been afraid to call out those who are part of the church for living as if they were not part of the church, you see what I'm saying?

I'd like to put it like this, he's speaking, and you see this the same as the writer of Hebrews, as he goes, the writer of Hebrews does the same thing. He's speaking to the Hebrew Christians, but at the same time there's tares among the weeds.

I really believe that. So James is dealing with the tares among the weeds just the same, but he's addressing it to the Christians. He's been doing that most of the letter to the Jews that are dispersed abroad.

He's also had, also has not been afraid to speak strong and harshly to those who claim to be Christians. I was reading Sinclair Ferguson and his commentary on this, and I love what he said, I had to write this down, and I've heard the book of Mark has been really rich and a blessing as y 'all been going through that, and my blessing and prayers are with you as well, but I read a lot of Ferguson myself.

He said this on his commentary on James, quote, an entire encyclopedia of sins can be found in our hearts, even after we have become Christians. Indeed, we are likely to be much more conscious of them than ever before, for the Spirit of God exposes sinful tendencies.

We never believe there were precedents. How right he is. He goes on to say this, it follows therefore that within the body of Christ to which we belong, there may be serious dysfunctionals. Professing Christians may not always be practicing Christians.

We are never wholly consistent. A man who seems to be a saint in the fellowship may be engaging in a serious sin outside of it. One only needs to think of the New Testament correspondence to find illustrations, not least Jesus' correspondence with the churches in the opening chapters of Revelation, chapter 2, verse 1, all the way through chapter 3 to verse 22.

And then he says this, alas, sin continues to be present in the contemporary church as well. And his closing thoughts are this, and listen to this, you'll love this. So perhaps we should not simply assume that James is addressing only those who are outside of the church.

He speaks, as it were, as a witness for the prosecution. More than that, he seems to act also as the prosecuting counsel, the jury, and even as the judge. And in the court case, the charge is read, the prosecutor makes his case based on the evidence of the jury and reaches its verdict, and the sentence is pronounced by the judge.

And then he says this, here, however, James' first words assume the verdict, then he cites the evidence for it, and finally indicates the consequences, end quote. That is very observant, and how true that is.

Greed Leads to Misery

Now, in the first part of this message, in part one of this today, I'd like for us to see and study three aspects I'd like to set before you of what greed is as we look within these six verses in our text this morning.

First of all, we will see that greed leads to misery. Greed leads to misery in verses 1 through 3. Greed leads to misery. Second, we will see that greed is seen by God. Verse 4, greed is seen by God. And third, we will see greed is self-deceiving.

Greed is self-deceiving in verses 5 and 6, and then we'll look at a couple applications at closing. So let's look at these points this morning as God would lead us by His Spirit to study this text, greed leads to misery.

Greed leads to misery. Notice what he says, come now you rich, weep and howl for your miseries are coming upon you. At first you might be thinking, wait a minute, I see a lot of greedy people who get more and more wealth for themselves.

Very prosperous people, they push and shove their way to walk over other people, and it seems like they get more and more. They don't look very miserable, do they? They look pretty happy. They're living their best life now.

They're living, they're getting all the gusto that they like and what they want. Well, can I say this, beloved, that that's worldliness according to Scripture, and that is the very reason for James' rebuke.

That's the very reason that the Spirit of God led him to rebuke these people. James begins his denunciation with a forceful pronouncement of impending judgment upon these people. And he does not pull any punches, does he?

In the light of the inescapable doom, I'd like to put it, that is coming against the wicked wealthy, notice verse 1, he says this, now come now you rich. He gets right to the point. Weep and howl. Weep and howl for your miseries are coming upon you.

He didn't say might, they are coming. Misery is coming to the greedy, to the wealthy rich, to the wicked rich. As noted before, the phrase come now is the insistent call of attention in our contemporary vernacular today, and it means listen up, pay attention, give me ear.

Once again, he gets right to the point, and what does he say? Weep and howl. Now let's look at these words. The word weep in the Greek means to sob out loud, to sob out loud, to lament. It was used to describe the wailing that took place when someone died.

You know, we have this illustrated all through the New Testament. I'll just give you a few verses here. Mark chapter 5, turn with me there very quickly. Let's look at this. Mark chapter 5, I know Sinclair Ferguson probably pointed these things out as you studied it, but chapter 5, let me begin in verse 35.

This is Jairus' daughter, and this is a funeral. It's a funeral possession, and while he was still speaking, speaking to Jesus, they came from the house of the synagogue official, the synagogue official saying, your daughter has died.

Why trouble the teacher anymore? And Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, do not be afraid any longer, only believe. And he allowed no one to accompany him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

And they came to the house of the synagogue official, and notice what he says, the scripture says, and he saw a commotion, and notice the text, and people loudly weeping and wailing. And entering in, he said to them, why make a commotion and weep?

The child has not died, but is asleep. Now, people are probably looking at Christ and thinking, you've got to be crazy. What are you talking about, she's asleep, she's dead. But that's the way Jesus looked at people when they died.

They really were not, in a sense, completely dead. Their soul lives, but Jesus knew he was the resurrection of life. He wasn't going to raise them up, but he chose to do a miracle here. And notice in verse 40, this tells you the way people thought of it.

They began laughing at him, laughing at him, but putting them all out. Now, hold on, that doesn't seem like Jesus. Jesus wouldn't do something like that, would he? Yes, he did. They were faithless, full of unbelief and laughing.

He puts them all out. He took along the child's father and mother and his own companions, and he entered the room where the child was, and taking the child by the hand, he said to her, Taladatama, come.

Which translates, means, little girl, I say to you, get up. All Jesus has to do is speak the word, right? And immediately the girl got up and began to walk, and she was 12 years old. And immediately they were completely astonished, astounded.

And he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this, and he said that something should be given to her to eat. The point of what James is speaking of, this is a living illustration of the way that James is saying, weep.

As someone had died, weep out loud. And Jesus did the miracle. There's another one that you can see in Luke chapter 7. You can go to Luke chapter 7, since that's the next book over. Look at Luke 7. This is an illustration of what James is saying in the Greek of weep.

Notice chapter 7, verse 12. Let's look at verse 12. As he approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a sizable crowd from the city was with her.

Again, there's a big crowd, right? Verse 13, when the Lord saw her, he felt compassion for her, and said to her, do not weep. Do not weep. And he came up and touched the coffin, and the bearers came to a halt.

And he said, young man, I say to you, arise. Now there's the funeral possession there, and Jesus basically breaks up the funeral. The dead man sat up and began to speak. Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, a great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people. This report concerning him, him went out all over Judea and all of the surrounding districts.

So there, this is the widow's son is raised in the city of Nain. And again, they were weeping, and Jesus was moved, and felt compassion for her, the widow. How compassionate is our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, one of the greatest, most memorial of the text is John chapter 11, when Lazarus dies.

Notice in John chapter 11, Jesus, you know the story, on purposely delayed. And all this was for the glory of God. It was God's timetable. God was never late. He's always on time. But I'd like you to notice something in verse 30.

Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met him, kind of outside of the village. And then the Jews who were with her in the house, counseling her, consoling her, I'm sorry, consoling her when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, and followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

You know, here's a lot of weeping going on here at the death of Lazarus. In verse 32, therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw him and fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And when Jesus therefore saw her weeping, she was weeping as she said this, and the Jews came with her also weeping, and he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled and said, where have you laid him?

And they said to him, Lord, come and see. Shortest verse in scripture right here, Jesus wept. Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, see how you loved him. Some of them said, could not this man have opened the eyes of the blind, have kept this man also from dying.

Let me stop right there and say this. The kind of weeping that James is calling for is a weeping against sin. We know that our Lord Jesus did not weep in a sense because of against sin in his life. He was sinless.

I really believe his weeping was in a sense as he was moved, deeply moved in spirit and troubled. And that suggests an anger and outrage of emotion toward death. That's why Jesus came was to destroy the works of the devil and death as an enemy.

So his weeping is a different kind of weeping in a sense that he's weeping because he is life in himself. He's the son of God, the son of man. He hates what sin has done to mankind in which God has created man, not for eternal death, but for eternal life.

And man has fallen into that, fallen prey to the works of the devil, right? And sin and the devastations of sin, which has brought physical and eternal death. So Jesus weeps. But this, you think of it, but the setting is everybody was weeping there.

And this is what James is telling us. Weep out loud. This is a deep, intense weeping. If someone dies, you've been there. If you've had a loved one that you really loved, weep. There's sorrow. There's deep intensity of sorrow.

But it also is depicted in the same Greek word of weeping, the outward reaction of sometimes accompanying of intense shame and guilt. There's a connection here. If you turn to Matthew 26, 75, and you're familiar with the story, as soon as the rooster crowed, what did the Scripture say here in verse 75 in Matthew?

Peter remembered the word of the Lord, the word which Jesus had said before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And what does it say? The text says, and he went out and he wept bitterly. Peter weeps bitterly.

So James is using this in a sense. And if you also look back at chapter four, verse nine, be miserable, mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. It's really the remedy of the sins that is upon them.

He's calling them. This is the way you should, what you should do. It's a command. It's a charge. Describes the sorrow that accompanies repentance, right? Godly sorrow. Where there's no lament of repentance, there's no grace of forgiveness.

So the positive of lamenting and mourning is grace and forgiveness. You know, everybody wants the other way around. They want all the benefits of God without coming to God, God's way. But we must always come God's way if we desire, if we want the benefits.

And you know, isn't it, that's the dilemma of today. People want all the benefits of God, but they don't want God himself. And I guarantee that is the stark contrast between a true believer and a non-believer, a professing believer.

A professing believer that claims to be a believer, that's not a believer at all, if you're with me. Wants all the benefits, but they don't want God himself. God himself. But the real believer desires to have God himself.

You know, this is a word, and it's a rich word. Now James adds another word. Weep and what? How? Now there's a word you don't hear often. How? You think of how, we think of as a wolf bailing at the moon or something.

But get this, only here in the New Testament does this word appear. Right here. The only time. This is a word that actually goes beyond lamenting and refers to shrieking and screaming. Wow. Shrieking and screaming.

So taken together, weep and how, it's coupled in unity. Weep and how pictures an intense outburst of despairing, violent, uncontrollable grief. The Old Testament prophets frequently describe such wailing over the effects of sin.

And in part two, I'm going to try to bring more of these out, but I want to just give you a few. Isaiah 13 .6, listen to the prophet Isaiah. He says this, well, well, for the day of the Lord is near. It will come as a destruction from the Almighty.

Isaiah 15 .3, in the streets they have girded themselves with sackcloth, which is the way they brought about humility. Sackcloth and ash is something that would rip against the flesh to humble them. On their house tops and on the squares, everyone is wailing, dissolved in tears.

You see this all through the Old Testament from all the prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah. They call Israel out to turn from their sins and they basically charge them and say, weep, wail, cry, cry out.

James then gives the reason the wicked rich are to respond with such an overwhelming grief. James says, weep and how, why should they weep and how? He tells them, notice the text back to James, because your miseries which are coming upon you, that's the reason you should weep and how.

He tells the reason why. The word miseries, here's a word, appears only here in Romans 3, in verse 16, in the New Testament. And basically it describes an overwhelming hardship, trouble, suffering, and distress.

Overwhelming trouble will be visited upon the wicked rich when they stand before the Lord in judgment. And you see this in Luke chapter 6. In Luke chapter 6, verse 24 and 25, Jesus warned them. What did He say?

Woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. So these people are taking comfort, talking about James' audience, in what they have now, and what they are finding false, in their own false comfort, in their false satisfaction.

And it's through greedy consolidation of riches, not realizing that one day, one day beloved, they will be facing misery beyond what any of us can even imagine. Keep in mind that James condemns them not for being wealthy, right?

Nor does Jesus necessarily just say for wealth's sake, but it's for misusing their resources. God gives us all things ritually to enjoy, but it's the way we use it. We're stewards of what God has given us.

And one day we're going to give an account of how we used what God has given us. That's sobering, isn't it? A. W. Tozer really believed this. He said at the judgment, he feels that God, we're going to give an account of every dime, every penny, whether we've been good stewards of it or we've wasted it.

That's very sobering, beloved. So really the sinful pursuit of riches and self-dependency and self-pleasure fails every one of us. That's what James is saying. Don't put your trust in riches. Don't put your trust in these things.

This should give us cause to turn to God in true humility. That's really what he's saying. And he says that in James 4 .10, humble yourself before God. And really we should mourn and weep over our sin.

That's what he's saying. In any sinful inclination that we would have within our hearts and seek humility in God's way for us. So James warns his readers, your miseries are coming upon you. What a strong language.

Such strong words. Now these are the wicked wealthy who profess Christian faith and have associated themselves with the church. And we still have them among us today, don't we? Look at the prosperity preachers.

They justify all this in the name of God. They do it in the name of God. They profane God's name. These are false teachers. And that's a sure sign. I remember MacArthur talking about the signs of false teachers.

And one of them is the love of money. Look at Balaam. Balaam loved money. He was bought. The king said, okay, I'll pay you off if you curse God's people. Well, he went along with that, didn't he? He did.

He was bought off. False teacher. There's so many illustrations about this throughout the New Testament. And really what he's talking about, the love of money. It's their God. And really what he is charging them against and he's blasting them is for prostituting the goodness and generosity of God.

And the only thing they can look forward to is and anticipate is divine punishment. Well, let's go back to the text and look at verse 2 and 3. 2 and 3 of James. And what does he say? He goes on to say this, your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth eaten.

Your gold and your silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure. Wow. Did you hear that?

Basically, what James is telling them is all that they have will perish. It's going to fade away. It's going to go. You can't count on it. If that's your God, your God's going to perish. It's going down.

Notice the words rotted, moth eaten, rusted. James points out the folly of hoarding food, hoarding expensive clothing, hoarding money, all which is subject to decay and pass away, all subject of theft, all subject of fire, all other forms of loss, it's going to pass away.

And he says that here, the very fact that these things are perishing and wasting away is a witness against those that you have trusted these uncertain riches and material possessions. That's what he's saying.

It's like James is saying in effect, look at all you've trusted in. It's gone. It's going to perish. It's passing away. You banked on this and you think it's bringing you happiness and security, and yet all it's brought you is misery and miseries coming to you.

That's what he's saying. So even though they have stored up for the last days, their treasures will nothing, they will do nothing for them in the very end. That's what he's saying. You can't count on it.

You can't trust in these riches. You know, you think of it, some of the most wealthiest, richest people on the face of this earth has found themselves the most miserable. Look at Howard Hughes. He was one of the most richest men in the world, and he was the most miserable old man you've ever seen in your life.

J. Paul Getty is another one I think of right off the top of my head. And he actually, I remember seeing the interview, and he says, money, he says, I wish I never had it. It's a curse. It's been a curse to my whole family.

And it brought nothing but misery. But they've loved it, and now where are they? Where is their soul? Well, let's go to the next point. Greed is seen by God. Greed is seen by God in verse 4. Verse 4, very quickly.

Behold, the pay of the laborers who have mowed your fields which have been withheld by you cries out against you, and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

Wow, what a powerful word. Now, what's the text saying here? Basically, the point James is making here is the wicked rich had gained some of their wealth by oppressing and defrauding their day laborers.

They have taken advantage of day laborers, those who worked for them. They were filthy rich by abusing their power and abusing those that worked for them. They put them down, and they got rich off their labor and working them to almost death.

Now, you think about this. This was a practice that was forbidden in the Old Testament. Lord willing, we'll look at more of this in part 2. But, and the one, and this is interesting, and the one who hears the cries of the defrauded laborers, James warns, has reached the ears.