Lord, Come Soon

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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May 9, 2019

00:00: Well, no, I won't be ringing if we don't take down one of them.
00:05: Good day guys! Good day! It looks like we're kind of low today.
00:10: Is everybody out working? Yeah, there's a lot of them out.
00:13: Alright, that's okay.
00:15: Open up your Bibles.
00:18: What's that? James chapter 5.
00:22: Amen! We are back to James.
00:27: And we are going to look at verse 7 and we're going to go down to verse 11.
00:46: And I want to look at these verses.
00:52: We're going to read the Scripture and then we're going to pray.
00:55: And then I'll start the lesson.
00:56: So, James 5-7.
01:01: James 5-7.
01:02: The title of today's lesson is, The Lord Comes Soon.
01:06: So that will give you an idea of where we're going.
01:10: Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
01:17: See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.
01:27: You also be patient.
01:30: Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
01:35: Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
01:41: Behold, the judge is standing at the door.
01:44: As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
01:51: Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast.
01:56: You have heard of the steadfastness of Job.
01:59: And you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
02:06: Alright, let's pray.
02:09: Father, I thank You for Your Word.
02:12: Lord, as I seek to preach now, and to provide an observation and an interpretation and an application of Your Word, I pray first and foremost that You would keep me from error.
02:25: I pray that You would open the hearts of Your people to understand Your truth.
02:31: Lord, those men that are here today that belong to You by faith, that they would be drawn closer to You, that this would be an opportunity for them of growth and an opportunity for them to be conformed closer to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
02:47: And Father, for those who do not know You, Lord, who maybe have not bowed the knee to You, maybe, Lord, they think they know You and they really don't because they've come to You by way of some form of man-centered gospel, but they've not come to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
03:02: Lord, I pray that today would be a day of reckoning, that today would be to them a challenge to their very soul.
03:09: Where do You stand with the Lord Jesus Christ? Lord, let it be that those words resonate.
03:15: Are we ready for the coming of the Lord? Are we ready for when He will burst through that eastern sky and when He will come and He will judge the living and the dead? Father, are we ready to see our Maker face to face? Lord, if we are not, make us ready.
03:34: Make us willing for the day of Your power.
03:36: Lord, may it be in Jesus' name, amen.
03:43: Alright, guys, we are back in our study of James.
03:46: We have, for the last several months, gone verse by verse through this text.
03:52: As is my normal mode of preaching, it's just to simply go verse by verse and it allows us to maintain the context of the passage.
04:02: And what we're going to do today is we're just going to walk through this text together.
04:05: I'm going to show you three aspects of this particular text that I want us to note.
04:11: I'm going to look at first what we call the exhortation.
04:17: Then we're going to look at the illustrations.
04:22: And then we're going to finally look at the motivation.
04:27: So that's the three parts that we're going to look at today.
04:30: The exhortation, the illustrations, and the motivation.
04:33: But before we do that, let's understand that no text sits by itself on an island, but it's always in the midst of a context, right? A text without a context is a pretext.
04:45: It doesn't have any meaning.
04:47: We could make it say anything we wanted it to say if we don't look at what it's saying in relationship to what comes before it or what comes after it.
04:54: That's how we interpret Scripture.
04:56: We have to observe what comes before.
04:58: Those of you who were here when we studied verses 1-6 will remember we talked about rich folks.
05:04: Remember that message? I know it was a few weeks ago.
05:06: I was out sick last week.
05:08: We talked about the fact that rich people, under James' statements here, ought to be concerned about the fact that they are trusting in their riches and not in Christ.
05:22: In fact, let's look at verse 1.
05:23: He says, Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
05:29: Your riches have rotted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evident against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
05:38: You've laid up treasure in the last days.
05:40: Behold, the wages of your laborers who have mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
05:50: You've lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence.
05:54: You've fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
05:57: You've condemned and murdered the righteous person, and he does not resist you.
06:00: So this is a word of condemnation to the unjust rich.
06:05: People who live in the lap of luxury and are willing to despise and depose others on their own accord.
06:15: Willing to put others down to lift themselves up.
06:17: Willing to step on other people to build themselves up.
06:21: That's who James is condemning here.
06:23: And it is a word of condemnation.
06:24: Notice he doesn't call them to repentance.
06:27: He's telling them of their judgment.
06:30: Now you might say, well, that's a type of call to repentance.
06:32: And yes, it is.
06:34: It's a form of a call.
06:35: If I tell you you're going to be judged, the implied statement is you need to repent because of that.
06:39: And there is an implied call to repentance in that section, but it's not really a call to repentance because he's not talking to the rich.
06:47: He's talking to the church about the rich.
06:51: He's saying don't envy the rich because look at what's going to come upon them.
06:56: Don't envy the rich because of what's going to happen to them.
06:59: They have everything now.
07:00: They have all the goods.
07:02: They have all the luxuries.
07:03: They have all the food.
07:04: They have all the enjoyments of life.
07:06: But all of that's going to rot away.
07:08: There is no U-Haul on the back of the hearse.
07:10: There's no way to take it with you.
07:12: You are not going to have it at the end of your life.
07:15: Naked you came into this world and naked you will leave.
07:21: You understand? You didn't bring anything with you, you're not taking anything with you.
07:25: And ultimately, all of the people who have trusted in their riches, all of the people who have trusted in their luxuries, all the people who have found comfort outside of God, inside of their passions and their pleasures will find themselves at the end of their life to be lost and desperate.
07:46: No matter how good this life is for them, the next life will be immeasurably terrible.
07:54: And so, James is talking to the church about them.
07:58: He's saying, don't envy that.
08:00: Don't look at that and want what they have.
08:02: Don't look at that and say, boy, I sure wish I was that guy.
08:07: Because understand that that guy's got a heavy burden.
08:10: The burden of his riches, which will one day come and stand as judgment against him.
08:16: Now again, that was last time's message.
08:18: I'm not trying to repeat what I said last time.
08:20: I'm just bringing you to a context.
08:21: Because if you notice in verse 7, it says, Be patient therefore.
08:25: What does the word therefore mean? Interpreters? We learned how to interpret the Bible.
08:30: What does therefore mean? Because it means something before that.
08:33: That's right, yeah.
08:37: The joke in interpretation is if you see therefore, you need to know what it's there for.
08:42: You need to know what it's there for.
08:44: And the reason for that is because any time you see the word therefore, or maybe it's translated in your Bible then.
08:51: It's sometimes translated then.
08:53: Any time you see therefore or then, or because of this, this is all pointing back to what was just said.
09:00: As a result, to understand verses 7-11, you have to understand verses 1-6.
09:07: James has just talked about the rich.
09:09: And at the end of that, he talked about the fact that the rich have persecuted the poor.
09:16: They have condemned them.
09:17: They have murdered them.
09:18: They have treated them poorly.
09:20: Therefore, be patient.
09:23: See now how it works? What patience is he calling them to? Patience in the face of injustice.
09:33: You deal with this.
09:35: You deal with injustice.
09:37: Do you deal with injustice? Yes.
09:40: You deal with injustice all the time.
09:42: What are some of the ways that we deal with injustice? Well, people treat us poorly.
09:48: People don't...
09:49: Huh? What's that? Extra homework.
09:53: Well, that might be a slight injustice.
09:56: But what are some of the ways in life we really deal with injustice? We have employers that don't want to pay us what we're worth.
10:04: We have people that don't want to treat us how we should.
10:09: We go out and we try to go out in the world and do good, and the world steps on our feet and spits in our face.
10:16: We deal with injustice all the time.
10:18: And depending on where you are in life, you may be dealing with some really severe injustices.
10:24: You may be dealing with some things...
10:26: I was telling a story just a little while ago about a man in my life, a person I know, whose wife left him and left him for a man that lived across the street.
10:41: So not only did she leave him, but she left him and she was across the street with the man that she left him with.
10:49: So every day he'd come home from work, he had to see his wife in the home of another man.
11:00: Well, the injustice of that, in his heart I'm sure was immense.
11:06: And to find comfort in the midst of that would be very difficult.
11:11: To be patient in the midst of that injustice would be like having acid in your mouth.
11:21: Right? I mean, you guys are with me, right? And you can paint a picture of your own life in times where you faced injustice.
11:30: Maybe somebody stole something from you.
11:34: Maybe somebody broke your heart.
11:38: Maybe somewhere along the line, somebody made you feel like you were less than human.
11:44: You been there? And so what is our natural inclination, what's our natural response to people who mistreat us? Yeah.
11:57: We want to take the acid in our mouth and spit it in their face.
12:01: We want to out loud scream at them.
12:05: We want to take our fists and pummel them until they're drenched in their blood.
12:10: Right? I mean, be real guys.
12:12: I'm being honest.
12:13: We want to explode all of the hatred and all of the anger and all of the flesh just wants to let out.
12:25: And like a Tyrannosaurus in the Jurassic Park movie, just roar with anger and tear things apart.
12:32: You ever done that? You ever let your anger control you? That's the situation that we find ourselves in in this text.
12:50: And so we see the first word here, it says be patient in ESV.
12:57: Anybody else got a different word? Is everybody in the first line of verse 7, does everybody's text say be patient? If you have ESV, I know it does.
13:08: Yeah, 5-7, yes sir.
13:12: Okay.
13:14: Everybody says be patient? Okay.
13:17: Alright, I want to just kind of...
13:18: I think that I've talked about this word before, but just in case that I haven't, I want to share with you something.
13:25: This is an important word.
13:26: And by the way, this is our outline.
13:28: We'll get back to it in a minute.
13:30: But I want to talk about that first word.
13:32: It says be patient.
13:34: The Greek word there is makrothumos.
13:41: It's actually got a longer ending on it.
13:44: The word is makrothumesata.
13:47: But in this phrase, it's makrothumos is the root.
13:50: Yes, sir.
13:51: Is that patient or patience? Be patient.
13:55: I'm going to show how it could be either because patience would be what it is.
14:00: And to be patient is the action that we're doing, being patient.
14:03: But in this sense, it's an action.
14:05: Be patient.
14:06: It's a command.
14:06: It actually is an imperative here.
14:09: It's a verb and it's a command.
14:11: It's telling us to do this.
14:13: But this is a compound word in Greek.
14:18: Makrothumos.
14:20: What does makro mean? You all know.
14:22: Big.
14:22: Micro is small.
14:24: Micro is small.
14:25: Makro is big.
14:27: So makro is big.
14:29: What is thumos? No.
14:34: Anger.
14:37: So it means big anger? Not exactly.
14:41: What does it mean? What it means...
14:44: Is it bigger than your anger? No.
14:46: If you take big and you take that out and you put long, that's a better way of saying it.
14:53: So long angered is another way of saying it.
14:57: So what does it mean to be long angered? It means it takes you a long time to get angry.
15:02: The word you said, long suffering, is sort of an older way of saying how we would say be patient.
15:09: Older translations would say be long suffering.
15:13: Be long in getting angry.
15:18: Most people are makrothumos.
15:22: They are quick or small angered.
15:25: Anything will set them off.
15:27: For a moment, they're immediately angry.
15:30: Right? Most people are not long angered.
15:35: Most people are short angered.
15:37: And so James is calling us here to a different type of life.
15:41: He's giving us...
15:44: And by the way, this is the exhortation.
15:46: The exhortation is be patient, which is makrothumos.
15:52: Be long angered.
15:55: When you're mistreated, deal with it.
15:59: Don't allow it to overcome your sanctity.
16:02: When you are facing injustice, strive with it.
16:07: Do not allow it to make you act like the devil.
16:09: When you are facing difficulties, overcome it.
16:13: Know that Christ said in this world you will have trouble, but take heart.
16:17: I have overcome the world.
16:20: This is the call.
16:21: This is the exhortation.
16:23: Be patient.
16:28: Easier said than done.
16:30: Amen? Now just for the sake of my outline, I do want to show you that He says this three times.
16:38: He says it first in verse 7.
16:39: He says be patient therefore.
16:42: Or therefore be patient.
16:44: He says it again in verse 8.
16:45: You also be patient.
16:48: But in verse 9, He says it a little bit differently, but I want to show you how it's really the same thing.
16:55: Because in verses 7 and 8, He says be patient, but in verse 9, He says do not...
17:03: What? Grumble.
17:06: Grumble.
17:07: Do not grumble.
17:10: Or complain.
17:11: I like complain.
17:12: We can write complain up there.
17:15: Anybody else got a different word? Grudge not.
17:18: Now that's King James, right? I like it.
17:21: I like it.
17:21: Same thing.
17:23: You see what He's saying though? It's the same thing.
17:25: Because what's the opposite of being patient? That's verse 9.
17:32: The opposite of patience is impatience.
17:34: Right? The opposite of being long-suffering is being short-suffering.
17:38: Or easily angered.
17:40: Right? Quickly angered.
17:42: So He says be patient.
17:44: Be patient.
17:44: Do not grumble.
17:47: You say, well what does it mean to grumble? No, you didn't have to ask.
17:51: You know what it means to grumble.
17:55: Absolutely.
17:57: Absolutely.
17:58: You say, well how does this attach to patience? How is this another way of saying be patient? Well, think about it, guys.
18:06: What is it that comes out of our mouths as soon as we lose patience? Complaints.
18:12: What did you say, brother? Cursed word.
18:14: Cursed word.
18:15: Okay.
18:16: And that's a type of grumbling, right? If I just haul off and throw out an expletive.
18:21: I don't want to say it.
18:22: Whatever.
18:23: If I just haul off and say it.
18:26: That's loss of patience.
18:28: Any of you guys got kids? I have five of them.
18:33: I have a 21-year-old daughter, 18-year-old son who's about to go into the Air Force.
18:38: I have a 6-year-old daughter, 3-year-old, and an 18-month-old.
18:43: So literally, I span the spectrum of children.
18:48: My little 18-month-old is proof that babies are born in sin.
18:59: Because she gets angry so quickly.
19:03: She has no macro through months.
19:05: She is not long-angered.
19:07: She has this face.
19:08: She's a little 18-month-old.
19:09: I take something away from her.
19:10: She goes.
19:12: If she could say the cursed word, she would say it.
19:17: She doesn't know how to speak yet.
19:19: But if she could holler, and she does holler.
19:22: Ah! Ah! And she curses me with her face.
19:31: And I look at her and say, who do you think you are? You're 18 months old.
19:35: If she thinks she runs the show, that's a problem.
19:38: But she's so angry.
19:40: You know that's what we are like when we allow ourselves to be so angered so quickly is we're like little babies.
19:49: That's why when you see somebody that's acting a fool in a Walmart, somebody gets upset in a Walmart, starts cussing and throwing things, what do you say? Quit acting like a baby.
20:00: Quit acting like a child.
20:04: So in a sense, this exhortation is really an exhortation to maturity.
20:09: Be patient.
20:11: Don't grumble.
20:13: Don't act like a child.
20:17: Yes, sir.
20:17: What's the passage? 1 Corinthians 13, yeah.
20:25: But when I became a man, I put away childish things.
20:31: It's 1 Corinthians 13.
20:32: I have to look.
20:33: Yeah, it's towards the end of the chapter.
20:36: I do want to show you all another passage.
20:37: If you very quickly turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10.
20:42: Now that you mention that, I just want to show you something.
20:45: Hold on, I've got to find it here.
20:59: Yeah, it says, beginning of verse 7, Paul is talking about Israel.
21:05: What was Israel like when they came out of the wilderness? They were like a bunch of children, weren't they? I've been talking about babies.
21:12: They were like a bunch of spoiled children.
21:17: All they knew how to do was complain.
21:20: In fact, sometimes as a pastor, I read Moses' words.
21:28: And I think just how much I relate to this guy.
21:32: Because it's just a life of complaint.
21:34: Living in complaint.
21:35: Hearing people complain.
21:36: But this is what Paul talks about.
21:38: He says, do not be idolaters, as some of them were.
21:41: As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, rose up to play.
21:44: We must not indulge in sexual immorality, as some of them did.
21:47: And 23,000 fell in a single day.
21:50: We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.
21:54: All of these are things that happened in the wilderness, of course.
21:57: Verse 10, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
22:05: You go back and you read Exodus.
22:08: You read Numbers.
22:10: And you will see a people that was given over to impatience.
22:16: They were given over to grumbling.
22:19: They were given over to this anger that would just overcome them every time they didn't get what they felt like they deserved.
22:26: Every time they felt like they were suffering an injustice.
22:29: Every time they felt like they were dealing with something that they didn't deserve to deal with, they would complain.
22:39: Paul says, don't do that.
22:42: Don't be a grumbler.
22:44: James says, do not grumble.
22:49: Guys, I'm telling you, this is the hardest thing.
22:52: Because the easiest thing for us to do is to give in to that.
22:56: To give in to anger.
22:58: To give in to frustration.
22:59: To give in to grumbling.
23:01: And to not be patient.
23:03: I'm not telling you this is easy.
23:05: I'm telling you as a man who's been in the Lord for almost 20 years, it's still hard today.
23:15: Sometimes my flesh is the hardest battle I fight.
23:20: Because this overwhelms the desire to be impatient.
23:25: The desire to be a grumbler.
23:28: The desire to talk about people instead of to people.
23:32: All of this is part of the problem, right? That's called gossip, right? If I have a problem with you, and I talk to you instead of to you, that's gossip.
23:41: And that's a form of grumbling, right? Because most gossip is, hey, did you hear about so-and-so and what he did to me? It's just another form of grumbling.
23:50: It's a lack of gratitude.
23:54: So James is saying, be patient, brothers.
23:56: Be patient.
23:56: And by the way, notice that in each of these verses.
23:59: Going back to James 5.
24:02: In each of these verses, he's calling them brothers.
24:05: In fact, he calls them brothers every time he announces, be patient, therefore, brothers.
24:10: Verse 9.
24:13: Do not grumble against one another, brothers.
24:16: Verse 10.
24:17: As an example of suffering and patience, brothers.
24:20: He's saying brothers.
24:21: Why is he emphasizing? Any time you see a word in the text that's repeated, what does that tell you? It's important.
24:29: It's emphasis, right? This is actually a way that the Hebrews would show emphasis.
24:33: They couldn't bold things.
24:35: They didn't have computers to italicize words.
24:38: They didn't go around underlining things.
24:42: The way that they would tell you something was important is that they would tell you over and over and over again.
24:47: And he's saying in this passage, brothers, brothers, brothers.
24:50: Why? Because we are the body of Christ.
24:54: We are the body of Christ.
24:55: And therefore, when it comes to patience, therefore, when it comes to not grumbling, you have to consider yourself family.
25:03: You have to look at yourself as brothers in Christ.
25:06: That's the exhortation.
25:08: This is an exhortation to you.
25:10: Brothers, be patient.
25:13: Do not grumble against...
25:15: Notice that in verse 9.
25:17: Against one another.
25:18: The grumbling is against one another.
25:24: So that's the call.
25:26: That's the call.
25:28: Be patient.
25:28: Do not grumble.
25:29: Now let's look at the exhortation.
25:31: Now let's look at the illustration.
25:32: He gives us several illustrations here.
25:34: The first, he gives us the illustration of a farmer.
25:36: Look back at verse 7.
25:39: He says, See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains.
25:47: How many of you guys in here are farmers? Really? What kind of farming have you done? Soybeans, peanuts, spackles, squash.
25:59: What kind of farming have you done, brother? Watermelons.
26:10: Watermelons are one of my favorite things in the world.
26:11: That's awesome.
26:12: Yes, sir.
26:12: Oh, forgive me, I used to grow marijuana.
26:14: You used to grow marijuana.
26:18: Tomatoes, squash, orange.
26:19: Okay.
26:20: So you guys...
26:23: That's funny.
26:26: I was going to say, you guys are herbalists.
26:30: Yes.
26:35: Do you understand how a farmer can be an illustration of patience? Yes.
26:40: Those of you who've done it.
26:42: Because you can't just put a seed in the dirt.
26:44: You know, Amazon has ruined us.
26:48: I mean, you can have everything you want.
26:52: If you're willing to pay for it, you can have it tomorrow.
26:55: You could buy a scuba tank, have it sent to your house tomorrow.
26:58: You could buy new tires for your car and have them sitting on your doorstep tomorrow.
27:04: If you've got the money, we don't have any patience.
27:08: But you know what's funny? Even though Amazon can get it to you tomorrow, Walmart still exists.
27:15: Why? Because we want it today.
27:18: People will pay ten times as much to get it today without having to wait until tomorrow.
27:22: People will be happy to go to Walmart and pay twice as much just to have it today.
27:26: Because we're so impatient.
27:29: Farmers and agrarian life was a totally different lifestyle.
27:34: You put a seed in the ground and you couldn't coax it.
27:38: You couldn't talk to it.
27:40: You couldn't challenge it.
27:41: You couldn't make it.
27:42: All you could do was nurture it and wait.
27:47: And then it might not even take hold.
27:50: You won't know until the first seed, little seedling, breaks through the soil.
27:55: And there you've got what we call the first fruits, right? The first fruits is the promise of the harvest.
28:00: Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection.
28:02: He's the promise of the harvest at the end of the age.
28:04: But we look at that seed breaking through the ground and now we've still got to wait for it to grow.
28:10: And we've got to water it.
28:12: And it might die in the middle of it.
28:14: You're growing something up and you might have what you think is just a crop of watermelon and some kind of worm gets in there or some kind of, I don't know anything about it, you understand, some kind of poison or something gets into it and now it's destroyed.
28:28: And now you've got to start all over and you've got to wait for the season to go back to where you can start all over again.
28:32: A farmer's a terrific example of patience and so James Uses says, see how the farmer waits.
28:39: Are we willing to wait? Not usually.
28:46: He says he waits for the precious fruit of the earth.
28:49: Are we willing to wait for God? Several years ago I did a sermon called What Can We Do While We're Waiting on God and I preached on Acts chapter 2.
29:04: You remember what happened in Acts chapter 2? Jesus ascends 40 days after the resurrection.
29:09: How many days was it until the day of Pentecost? No, it was 50 days after the resurrection.
29:17: From the ascension it was 10 days.
29:19: Jesus ascends on the 40th day and then you have 10 days later that the Holy Spirit falls.
29:24: So how many days were they waiting? I'm thinking about the 10th.
29:34: Because they had Jesus with them for 40 days.
29:37: The celebration that He's there.
29:39: They're excited.
29:39: Now He says I'm going away and the Holy Spirit's going to come.
29:42: You go and you wait.
29:48: They're going to go sit and what did they do while they waited? They prayed and they waited.
29:56: They didn't know when He was going to come.
29:58: They didn't know when the Holy Spirit was going to fall.
29:59: They knew it was going to happen, but they didn't know when.
30:04: So all they did was they went and they prayed.
30:07: They took care of some business.
30:08: You remember Judas had died so they chose Matthias to take his place.
30:11: So they took care of a little business.
30:12: They did what they could, but ultimately they waited patiently on the Lord.
30:23: So what are we to do? Are we to be angry or are we to wait? James tells us here to wait.
30:33: He says look how the farmer waits on the crop.
30:37: Look how the farmer is patient waiting for the later and the early rains.
30:44: He's patient.
30:45: Can we be like a farmer? That's the call.
30:51: That's the illustration.
30:52: But he gives us another illustration and he gives us the illustration of the prophets.
30:57: Verse 10.
30:58: In fact, he uses the word example.
31:00: Yes? We're in James 5.
31:07: I'm sorry brother.
31:08: I just looked at that as an illustration.
31:12: No, we're back at James 5 and he said he's looked at the farmer in verse 7.
31:16: That's the first illustration.
31:17: Now he's going to look at the prophets.
31:19: Let me ask you a question.
31:20: Did the prophets have patience? Well, in this particular example, I think he's looking at the ones who give examples of patience.
31:34: Think about Jeremiah.
31:38: He had to just take it on faith that the Messiah was coming even though he would never see Him in his lifetime or any of His glory.
31:47: And he's watching as his entire world is falling apart around him.
31:56: And you're right, brother.
31:57: He had a hope of a promise for the future.
31:59: We're going to talk about that in a minute when we get to our ultimate motivation.
32:02: But at this point, he's an example to us of patience.
32:08: What were most of the prophets? Now, by the way, you look at the major prophets, minor prophets.
32:12: What are most of them dealing with historically? What are most of them dealing with in their prophecies historically? Not all of them, but what are most of them dealing with? You're all right.
32:32: There were two major events.
32:35: One happened in 722 B.C.
32:37: What happened in 586 B.C.? In 722 B.C., the northern tribes, there were ten northern tribes.
32:46: In 722 B.C., the Assyrian armies came into the northern tribes and totally decimated the northern tribes.
32:53: Absolutely destroyed them.
32:57: Two hundred years later, well, about 150 years later, in 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon comes into the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin.
33:09: Destroys.
33:10: Takes into captivity.
33:11: This is Daniel.
33:12: You know, you've read Daniel.
33:13: Taking them off into captivity.
33:15: That's that scenario.
33:17: So within 150 years, the entire twelve tribes of Israel have been drug into captivity.
33:24: The northern ten tribes would never be reconstituted.
33:28: This is why by the time of Jesus, they were called Jews.
33:32: Judah.
33:32: It was referring to the Jewish tribe of Judah.
33:36: Because that's what was reconstituted.
33:38: Not all twelve tribes, but the major focus was back on the tribe of Judah.
33:44: So we see this destruction that's happening.
33:48: You read Isaiah.
33:50: You read Jeremiah.
33:51: You read the prophets.
33:53: They're dealing with the fact that their whole way of life is coming under assault.
33:58: And we have three different types of prophets.
34:00: We have the pre-exilic, the exilic, and the post-exilic.
34:02: Which means those who prophesied before it happened, those who prophesied while it was happening, and those who prophesied after it happened.
34:10: But they're all dealing with this major event.
34:13: Their world is coming to an end.
34:16: They're being destroyed.
34:19: That's why Nehemiah and Ezra come along later.
34:21: Even though they're earlier in the book.
34:23: Nehemiah and Ezra actually later because they're rebuilding after that destruction.
34:27: Right? But the point James is making is this.
34:33: If those men could be examples of patience when their whole world is being destroyed, when men, women, and children are being laid to the sword, when they're being hung on posts, when they're being drug off into captivity, when they're being robbed of their heritage, their homeland, and their way of life.
34:59: If those men can be patient, how much more should we be able to be patient? See the example.
35:08: The farmer waits.
35:11: The prophet endures.
35:13: See? The prophet endures.
35:18: So that's the examples he gives.
35:20: But he gives a third example.
35:21: He gives first the farmer, who's the example of waiting.
35:24: He gives second the prophet, who is the example of faithful endurance.
35:28: Then he gives another example, the example of Job.
35:32: He points to one man.
35:34: Look with me here.
35:35: He says, verse 11, Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast...
35:44: He's still talking about the prophets then.
35:46: They were blessed because they remained steadfast.
35:48: They endured.
35:49: You have heard of the steadfastness of Job.
35:56: Have you? You know the story of Job? Job had everything.
36:03: Job had a great life.
36:05: He had a wife.
36:06: He had children.
36:07: He had land.
36:08: He had prosperity.
36:09: And in a moment, it was all gone.
36:13: Satan challenged God.
36:15: Now this is kind of a...
36:16: I don't want to get too far into the situation with Job.
36:18: But ultimately, Satan challenges God and he says, Here's a man who only loves You because You've blessed him.
36:25: If you take away his blessings, he will not love you anymore.
36:29: And God says, I'll let you take away his blessings.
36:31: Don't touch him.
36:32: So Satan comes down, destroys his whole world.
36:35: Takes away every good thing that he has.
36:38: Every blessing.
36:39: Can you imagine? You say, Raul, I live a hard life now.
36:45: And yes you do.
36:46: Guys, I don't know you enough to say anything about the life that you live right now.
36:50: But I'm telling you something, it could be worse.
36:53: You have somebody who cares about you, who loves you.
36:56: He's Pastor Mark.
36:57: He's here for you.
36:58: People here are feeding you.
37:00: There's warmth in the winter and cool in the summer.
37:04: Little things Mark does here that just shows love to you.
37:08: I've seen it thousands of times since I've been ministering here and working.
37:13: And I love you.
37:16: I don't even know you all, but I love you.
37:18: I'm not here just to hear myself talk.
37:21: I'm here because I care about you.
37:23: What if everything was gone? And you had a wife who said, you know what, you just need to curse God and die.
37:31: That's a joke the wife says.
37:33: You just need to curse God and die.
37:35: You have three friends who come to you, all of them basically saying it's your fault.
37:39: Everything you're facing is this must have happened because of how bad you are.
37:46: I've never seen the righteous suffer.
37:48: You're suffering.
37:49: That means you are unrighteous.
37:52: That's the point of the three friends of Job.
37:55: Now again, I'm truncating a lot.
37:57: There's a lot more to the story than this.
37:58: But ultimately he had a wife who said curse God and die.
38:00: He had three friends that ultimately are saying it's kind of your fault.
38:05: That's what I'm saying.
38:06: This is his whole world.
38:10: And yet he endured.
38:11: And you know what he said? Chapter 13, I think it's verse 14.
38:15: He said, Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
38:21: Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
38:28: I'll make my case before Him.
38:32: And that's what he does.
38:33: That's what Job does lay his case before the Lord.
38:36: But he trusts Him.
38:38: He trusts in the Lord.
38:40: That's what gives him the endurance.
38:42: That's what gives him the patience.
38:44: That's what allows him to stand up in the midst of dead kids.
38:48: Dead livestock.
38:50: Destroyed land.
38:52: Everything's gone.
38:53: Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.
39:00: Remember what the three boys and Daniel...
39:05: I call them boys.
39:06: They weren't boys.
39:06: They were men.
39:07: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were facing the king and the king said, If you'll just bow down, you'll be saved.
39:18: But if not, I'm going to put you in the fiery furnace.
39:20: What did they say? They said, Listen, O king.
39:23: Our God will save us, but even if He doesn't, we're still going to trust in Him.
39:30: Even if He doesn't save us, I'm going to trust in Him.
39:37: He can, but He doesn't have to.
39:40: He will, and I trust that He will, but even if He doesn't, that's where my trust is.
39:47: And that's where I want to end.
39:48: The final thing is the motivation.
39:50: This is the key to today because I want to take you back up to verse 7 and I want to show you how this all works.
39:56: Because He says, Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.
40:00: Verse 8 Be patient, establish your heart, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
40:07: Verse 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
40:10: The judge is standing at the door.
40:13: What's the three things that He says there? The Lord is coming.
40:19: The Lord is at hand.
40:21: The Lord is standing at the door.
40:24: That's our motivation.
40:26: That's our motivation.
40:28: You see, the exhortation is be patient.
40:31: Don't grumble.
40:32: The illustration is look at the farmer.
40:33: Look at the prophet.
40:34: Look at Job.
40:35: Why can we be like the farmer? Why can we be like the prophet? Why can we be like Job? Only one way.
40:42: Christ is coming.
40:45: That's right.
40:46: That's the motivation.
40:48: That's ultimately the only thing that can cause us to be patient.
40:51: That's the only thing that can keep us from grumbling.
40:53: That's the only thing that can keep us steadfast is to know the Lord is coming.
40:58: Thus, the title of today's lesson, The Lord Comes Soon.
41:01: Anytime we're facing something this difficult, what should be the cry of our heart? The Lord comes soon.
41:09: You know, I think we've gotten to a place where people don't want Jesus to return anymore.
41:19: I want to tell you, I want to share a bit of my own life with you.
41:22: I was a teenager.
41:24: I didn't get saved until I was 19 years old.
41:27: So I spent my teenage life apart from Christ.
41:31: And you know what I used to think about? Because I had friends who were Christians.
41:34: I thought I was a Christian.
41:35: I went to church.
41:37: But you know what I used to think about? Boy, I hope Jesus doesn't return.
41:41: Because I've got a lot of things I want to do.
41:46: I remember being 16 years old, I wanted to be a magician.
41:51: I was.
41:52: I worked for an entertainment company.
41:54: I was a stand-up magician.
41:55: I worked for DeLand Entertainment.
41:57: I did parties.
41:58: I did all kinds of banquets and stuff.
42:03: I even did Boy Scouts.
42:04: I went and had a big show where I had a girl disappear.
42:06: It was really neat.
42:08: And you know, I wanted more than anything to be a magician.
42:10: When I met my wife, I wanted to be a magician.
42:12: I was dressed in a suit and tie and doing magic tricks.
42:15: I wanted to get a job with Disney.
42:18: Go to work for Walt Disney World.
42:21: Being a professional magician, that was my dream.
42:24: And I hear somebody talking about the coming of Jesus.
42:26: I said, boy, I sure hope He waits.
42:29: Because I want to be a magician.
42:32: I sure hope He waits because I want to get married and have kids.
42:35: I sure hope He waits because I want this or I want that.
42:40: Let me tell you something.
42:42: Jesus changed my heart when I was 19 years old.
42:44: I'm thankful that He did.
42:49: And the cry of my heart now is, Lord, come now.
42:52: The only thing that keeps me from wanting the Lord to come back today is I have family that ain't saved yet.
43:00: That's the only thing that keeps me from wanting Jesus to split the sky right now is I hope that my family comes to know Him.
43:07: I hope some of you who don't know Him come to know Him.
43:12: That would be the only thing that would make me say, Lord, wait.
43:16: Wait until they come.
43:18: But you know what? That's not up to me.
43:21: It's not up to me.
43:24: The real longing of my heart should be, Lord, come soon.
43:29: Lord, come quickly.
43:31: Do you want the Lord to come? Do you want the Lord to come? I don't know if we do.
43:40: I think we get so comfortable in this life that we don't want the One that's coming.
43:44: I've got a lot of soul cleansing to do before He comes.
43:50: Let me tell you, brethren, and we can talk about this another time, but you cannot clean yourself up enough for Jesus.
43:56: You either come to Him naked, bare, and be ready for Him.
44:02: But I understand.
44:03: I had a friend.
44:05: I just buried him a few months ago.
44:07: He was one of my best friends in the world.
44:08: He was an 86-year-old man.
44:09: And he said, I do wish I had more years to repent.
44:13: That was one of his life things.
44:15: He said, I do want to repent more.
44:17: He said, I just want to repent more.
44:18: So I understand the heart, what you're saying.
44:20: But this again, going back to the context, James is calling us to what motivation? The Lord's coming.
44:28: And if the Lord is coming, we can endure anything.
44:33: If we didn't know there was an end, if we thought it was just going to drone on forever, then yeah, we couldn't endure anything.
44:42: But knowing that there is a finality, knowing that the Lord is coming, knowing that there is a day when all of this is going to be over, gives us patience for the day.
44:59: Though the sorrow may last through the night, joy comes in the morning.
45:08: Yes, sir? So the motivation is the good stuff, but we talked about motivation like verse 12 at the end.
45:15: It says, let your yes be yes, your no be no, lest you fall into judgment.
45:21: So that can be our motivation too, is to help.
45:23: Yeah, absolutely.
45:25: The motivation is twofold.
45:27: You're right.
45:27: Because the motivation first is motivation for His coming.
45:31: But if you're not saved, you should be motivated by that in a different way.
45:34: He's going to come with a sword in His hand.
45:37: And He is going to come to make His enemies His footstool.
45:39: And He is going to grind His enemies into powder.
45:42: So today, are you an enemy of Christ or are you His friend? That's a very good point.
45:47: Because if you are still His enemy today, His coming should frighten you.
45:53: In fact, I want to tell you, when I was that teenager magician wannabe, that was what I really didn't want Jesus to come for.
46:02: Because I knew I wasn't ready.
46:05: Yeah, I wanted to be a magician.
46:06: Yeah, I wanted to grow up and get married.
46:07: Yeah, I wanted to have kids.
46:08: But really the most important thing in my heart is I knew I wasn't ready for Him to come.
46:14: Don't come because I'm not ready.
46:18: Are you ready for the Lord's coming? Are you ready today? If Jesus were to set His foot on the Mount of Olives today, would you be ready to meet Him? If you're not, I pray for you.
46:33: My heart goes out to you.
46:35: And I tell you this, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
46:39: Repent of your sins and trust in Him and know that there is salvation in no one else.
46:43: For there is no other name given among men by which you must be saved than that of the Lord Jesus Christ.
46:50: And at the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, every knee shall bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
46:58: Believe on Him and you will be saved.
47:02: Let's pray.
47:04: Father, I thank You for this text.
47:06: I thank You for Your Word.
47:07: Father, may it be that You drive us to You, You draw us to You, You compel us to You.
47:14: And Lord, if we're Yours, give us comfort in Your coming.
47:17: And Lord, if we're not Yours, give us fright for Your coming, that we might cling to You, that we might run to You, that we might see in Christ the only one through whom we can be saved.
47:30: And it's in His name we pray.
47:31: Amen.