Lord, Come Soon

Well, I won't be ringing. Good day guys. Hey, it looks like we're we're kind of low today. Is everybody out working? Yeah. All right, that's okay. Open up your Bible. James chapter 5 we are back to James.

And.

We are.

We're gonna look at.

Verse 7 and we're going to go down to verse 11. And I want to Want to look at these verses we're going to we're going to read the scripture then we're going to pray and then I'll start the lesson so.

Uh.

James 5 7. James 5 7. Title of today's lesson is Lord come soon. So they give you an idea where we're going. Be patient therefore brothers until the coming of the Lord. 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. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble Against one another brothers so that you may not be judged.

Behold the judge is standing at the door as An example of suffering and patience. Brothers take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold we consider those blessed who remained steadfast.

You have heard of the steadfastness of Job and you have seen the purpose of the Lord. How the Lord is compassionate and.

Merciful. All right, let's pray.

Father I thank you for your word Lord as I seek to preach now and 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.

I pray that you would open the hearts of your people.

To.

Understand your truth 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.

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 Lord.

I pray that today would be a day of reckoning. That today would be to them a challenge to their very soul. Where do you stand with the Lord Jesus Christ Lord? Let it be that that that those words resonate.

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 in the dead. Father are we ready to see our maker?

Face to face Lord if we are not make us ready. Make us willing to the day of your power Lord. May it be in Jesus name.

Amen.

The Context of James 5:7-11 and the Judgment of the Rich

All right guys we are back in our study of James we have for the last several months gone verse by verse through this text as Is my normal mode of preaching is just to simply go verse by verse and it allows us to maintain the context Of the passage and what we're going to do today is we're just going to walk through this text together.

I'm going to I'm going to show you three Aspects of this particular text that I want us to know that I'm going to look at first what we call the exhortation. Then we're going to look at the illustration.

And then we're going to finally look at the motivation so that's the the three parts that we're going to look at today the exhortation the Illustrations and the motivation. 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 as a pretext.

We didn't it doesn't have any meaning 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. That's how we interpret Scripture we have to observe what comes before.

Those of you who were here when we studied verses 1 through 6. Well, remember we talked about rich folks. Remember that message and I know it was a few weeks ago. I was out sick last week. We talked about the fact that rich people and under James statements here ought to be concerned about the fact that They are trusting in their riches and not in Christ and he says to them He's in fact, let's look at verse 1.

He says come now you rich weep and howl for the mercies. For the miseries that are coming upon you you your riches have rotted your garments are moth-eaten your gold and silver have corroded and their Corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire.

You've laid up treasure in the last days. Behold the wages of your laborers you who've 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.

You've lived on the earth in luxury and self and judging Indulgence, you've fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You've condemned and murdered the righteous person and he does not resist you. So this is a word of condemnation to the unjust rich.

People who live in the lap of luxury and are willing to despise and depose others on their own accord. Willing to put others down to lift themselves up willing to step on other people to build themselves up.

That's who James is condemning here. And it is a word of condemnation. Notice. He doesn't call them to repentance. He's telling them of their judgment. Now. You might say well, that's a type of call to repentance.

And yes it is. It's a form of a call if I tell you you're going to be judged. The implied statement is you need to repent because of that 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.

He's talking to the church about the rich. He's saying don't envy the rich. Because look at what's going to come upon them don't envy the rich because of what's going to happen to them. They have everything now.

They have all the goods. They have all the luxuries. They have all the food. They have all the enjoyments of life, but all of that's going to rot away. There is no U-Haul on the back of the hearse. There's no way to take it with you.

You are not going to have it at the end of your life. Naked you came into this world and Naked you will leave. You understand you didn't bring anything with you. You're not taking anything with you and Ultimately all of the people who've trusted in their riches all of the people who've trusted in their luxuries all the people who found comfort outside of God.

Inside of their their their passions and their pleasures will find themselves at the end of their life to be lost and.

Desperate.

No matter how good this life is for them. The next life will be immeasurably terrible and so James is talking to the church about them. He's saying don't envy that. Don't look at that and want what they have don't look at that and say boy, I sure wish I was that guy.

Because I understand that that guy's got a heavy burden the burden of His riches which will one day come and stand as judgment against him. Now again, that was last time's message. I'm not trying to repeat what I said last time.

I'm just bringing you to a context because if you notice in verse 7 it says be patient therefore. What is the word therefore mean interpreters we learn how to interpret the Bible. What is there for me?

That's right, yeah. The joke is the joke in interpretation is if you see therefore you need to know what it's there for. You need to know what it's there for and and and and the reason for that is because anytime you see the word therefore.

Or maybe it's translated in your Bible then it's sometimes translated then. Anytime you see therefore or then or because of this this is all pointing back to what was just said as A result to understand verses 7 to 11.

You have to understand verses 1 to 6 James has just talked about the rich and at the end of that. He talked about the fact that the the rich have persecuted the poor. They have condemned them. They have murdered them.

They have treated them poorly. Therefore be patient. See now how it works. What patience is he calling them to? Patience in the face of injustice you deal with this you deal with injustice. Do you deal with injustice?

Yes, sir. Yes. You deal with injustice all the time. What are some of the ways that we deal with injustice? Well people treat us poorly. People don't huh? What's that? Extra home or well. That might be a slight injustice.

But but what are some of the ways in life we really deal with injustice. We have we have Employers that don't want to pay us what we're worth. We have people that don't want to treat us what we're what how we should We have we have we go out and we try to go out in the world and do good and the world steps on our feet and and spits in our face.

We deal with injustice all the time and depending on where you are in life. You may be dealing with some really severe.

Injustices.

You may be dealing with some things. You know I was I was telling the story just a little while ago about a man in my life a person I know who's his wife left him and Left him for a man that lived across the street.

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. So every day come home from work he had to see his wife in the home of another man. Well The injustice of that in his heart. I'm sure was immense and to find comfort in the midst of that Would be very difficult to be patient in the midst of that injustice.

Would be like having acid in your mouth. Right. I mean you guys are with me right and you can you can paint a picture you can paint a picture of your own Life in times where you faced injustice. Maybe somebody stole something from you.

Maybe somebody broke your heart. Maybe somewhere along the line somebody made you feel like you were less than human you've been there. And so what is our natural inclination what's our natural response to people who mistreat us.

Yeah, we want to take the acid in our mouth and spit it in their face. We want to out loud scream at them. We want to take our fists and pummel them until they're drenched in their blood. Right. I mean be real guys.

I'm being honest. We want to explode. All of the hatred and all of the anger and all of the flesh just wants to.

Let out and.

I'm like a tyrannosaurus and the Jurassic Park movie just roar with anger and tear things apart and you ever done that. You ever let your anger control you. That's the situation that we find ourselves in in this text and.

So we see. The first word here it says be patient in ESV. 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.

Yeah, but five seven yesterday.

Okay.

Everybody says be patient. Yeah. Okay. All right. I want to just kind of I think that I've talked about this word before. But I just in case that I haven't I want to share with you something. This is an important word.

And by the way, this is our outline. We'll get back to it in a minute, but I want to talk about that first word. It says be patient the Greek word. There is macro through months. It's actually that the it's got a longer ending on it.

The word is macro through Mesa tie, but in this phrase, it's macro. Thoumas is the root. Yes, sir.

Patient.

It'd be patient. I'm going to show how it could be either because patients would be the What it is and to be patient is the action that we're doing being patient, but in this sense, it's an action be patient.

It's a command. It's actually is an imperative here. It's a it's a verb and it's a command. It's telling us to do this, right? But here here's this is a compound word in Greek. Macro thomas macro that was macro mean you all know big Micro small.

Micro is small macro is big right? So so macro is big. What is thomas?

No.

Anger you say what so it means. Big anger. Not exactly. What it was it mean? What it means?

No.

If you take big and you take that out and you put long that's a better way of saying it so long. Angered and another way of saying it. So what does it mean to be long anger? I mean, it takes you a long time to get angry, right?

The word you said long suffering is a sort of an older way of saying how we would say be patient. Older translations would say be long suffering be long and Getting angry be. Most people are micro thomas.

They are quick or small anger anything will set them off. For a moment, they're immediately angry, right? Most people are not long angered. Most people are short. And so James is calling us here to a different type of life.

He's calling us here to he's giving us and by the way, this is the exhortation. The exhortation is be patient which is Macro thomas be long angered when you're mistreated. Deal with it. Don't allow it to overcome your sanctity when you are facing injustice.

Strive with it. Do not allow it to make you act like the devil when you are facing difficulties. Overcome it know that Christ said in this world. You will have trouble but take heart. I have overcome the world.

This is the call. This is the exhortation. Be Patient easier said than done. Amen. Now just for the sake of my outline I do want to show you that he says this three times. He says at first in verse 7.

He says be patient therefore or therefore be patient. He says it again in verse 8 you also be patient. But in verse 9, he says it a little bit differently. But I want to show you how it's really the same thing because in verses 7 and 8 He says be patient but in verse 9 he says do not.

What?

Grumble, haha.

Grumble do not grumble. Or complain. I like complain. We can write complain up there. Anybody else got a different word. Grudge not. I like now that's King James, right? I like it. I like it same thing.

You see what he's saying though. It's the same thing because what's the opposite of being patient?

First.

That that's first nine. Impatient. Well opposite of patience impatience, right? The opposite of being long-suffering is being short-suffering or. Easily angered right quickly angered. So he says be patient be patient do not.

Grumble.

You say well, what does it mean to grumble? No, you didn't have to ask. You know what? It means a grumble.

Absolutely.

Absolutely, you say well, how does this attach to grunt? How does this attach to patience? How is this another way of saying be patient? Well think about it guys. What is it that comes out of our mouths as soon as we lose patience?

Complaints. Curse word, okay. And and that's a type of grumbling, right if I just haul off and throw out an expletive. Oh, but I don't say it say whatever if I just haul off and say it that's Loss of patience.

Any of you guys got kids? I? Have five of them. I Have a 21 year old daughter. 18 year old sons about to go in the Air Force. Have a six year old daughter three year old and 18 month old. Literally, I span the spectrum of children.

My little 18 month old is proof That babies are born in sin. Because she gets angry so quickly. She has no macro through month she is not long angered. She has this face that she met a little 18 month old.

I take something away from her. She goes. Like like if she could say the curse word She would say it.

She didn't know how to speak yet.

But if she could if she could holler and she does holler back and she is just just just she curses me with her face. And I look at her and say who you think you are. You 18 months old. She thinks she runs the show.

That's a problem, but she's so angry. You know, that's what we are like. When we allow ourselves to be so angered so quickly as we're like little babies. That's why when you see somebody that's acting a fool in the Walmart.

Somebody gets upset in the Walmart starts cussing and throwing things. What do you say quit acting like a baby. Right. Quit acting like a child. So in a sense this exhortation is really an exhortation to maturity.

Be patient don't grumble don't act like a child. Yes.

What's the.

First right is 13. Yeah, but but when I became a man I put away childish things. It's first Corinthians 13. I have to look. Yeah, it's towards the end of this chapter. I do want to show you another passage of you very quickly.

Turn with me to 1st.

Corinthians.

10 Now that you mentioned that I just want to show you.

Something.

Find it here. Yeah, it said begin at verse 7 Paul is talking about.

Israel.

What was Israel like when they came out of the wilderness? They were like a bunch of children I've been talking about babies. They were like a bunch of Spoiled children. All they knew how to do was complain.

I Was all in fact Moses. Sometimes I read Moses's as a pastor. I read Moses's words. And I think just how just how much I relate to this guy because it's it's just a life of complaint and living in Complaint hearing people complain and but this is what it Paul talks about this.

He said do not be idolaters. Some of them were as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual sexual immorality as some of them did and twenty three thousand fell in a single day.

We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents. All of these are things that happened in the wilderness, of course verse 10 nor Grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.

You go back and you read Exodus you read numbers and You will see a people that was given over to Impatience. They were given over to grumbling. They were given over to this anger that would just overcome them every time.

They didn't get what they felt like they deserve. Every time they felt like they were suffering and injustice every time they felt like they were dealing with something that they didn't deserve to.

Deal with.

They would complain. Paul says don't do that. Don't be a grumbler. James says do not grumble guys. I'm telling you. This is the hardest thing. Because the easiest what the easiest thing for us to do is to give into that.

To give into anger to give into frustration to give into grumbling and to not be patient. I'm not telling you this is easy. I'm telling you as a man who's who's who's who's who's been in the Lord for almost 20 years.

It's still hard today sometimes my flesh. It's the hardest battle I fight. Because this overwhelms the desire to be Impatient the desire to be a grumbler. The desire to talk about people instead of two people 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. 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. It's a lack of gratitude. So James is saying be patient brothers be patient and by the way Notice that in each of these verses going back to James 1 Notice that or James 5 and in each of these verses he's calling them brothers.

In fact, he calls them brothers. Every time he now he says be patient therefore brothers. Verse 9 do not grumble against one another brothers. Verse 10 as an example of suffering and patience brothers.

He's saying brothers. Why why is he emphasize any time you see a word in the text that's repeated? What does that tell you? It's important. It's emphasis right? This is a this is actually a way that the Hebrews would show emphasis.

They didn't have what they couldn't bold things. They didn't have computers to Italicize words they didn't go around underlining things. The way that they would tell you something was important is that they would tell you Over and over and over again and he's saying in this passage brothers brothers brothers.

Why?

We are the body of Christ and therefore when it comes to patience. Therefore when it comes to not grumbling you have to consider yourself family. You have to look at yourself as brothers in Christ. That's the exhortation.

This is an exhortation to you brothers. Be patient. Do not grumble. Against notice that in verse 9 against one another the grumbling is against one another. So that's the that's the call. That's the call.

Be patient. Do not grumble now. Let's look at that or the exhortation now. Let's look at the illustration. He gives us several illustrations here. The first he gives us illustration of a farmer. Look back at verse 7.

He says see how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth being patient about it. Until it receives the early in the late rains. How many of you guys in here are farmers? Really? What kind of farming have you done?

Okay, what kind of farm have you done brother? Watermelons one of my favorite things in the world. That's awesome. Yes, sir.

Okay.

Tomatoes, squash, orange, vegetables.

Okay.

So you guys. They'll say you guys are herbalists. Do you understand how a farmer can be an illustration of patience? Yes, those of you who've done it. Because you can't just put a seed in the dirt, you know, Amazon has ruined us.

I mean.

You can have everything you want if you're willing to pay for it. You have it tomorrow. You could buy a scuba tank have it sent to your house tomorrow. You could buy new tires for your car and have them sitting on your doorstep tomorrow if you got the money.

We don't have any patience, but you know, what's funny. Even though Amazon can get it to you tomorrow Walmart still exists. Why? Because we want it today. People will pay ten times as much to get it today without having to wait till tomorrow.

People will be happy to go to Walmart and pay twice as much just to have it today. Because we're so impatient. Farmers and an agrarian life Was a totally different lifestyle. You put a seed in the ground and you couldn't coax it.

You couldn't talk to it. You couldn't challenge it. You couldn't make it you couldn't for all you could do is nurture it and Wait, and then it might not even take hold. You won't know until the first seed.

Little seedling breaks through the soil and there you got that what we call the first fruits, right? The first fruits is promise of the harvest. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection, right? He's a promise of the harvest at the end of the age.

But we look at that seed breaking through the ground and now we've still got to wait for it to grow. And we got to water it and it might die in the middle of it. You'd be you're growing something up and you might have what you think is just a crop of watermelon and some kind of some.

Kind of worm gets in there some kind of I don't know anything about it. So I'm kind of you understand some kind of poison or something gets into it and now it's destroyed. And now you got to start all over and you got to wait for the season to go back to where you can start all.

Over again a farmer is a terrific example of patience. And so James use a says see how the farmer waits. Are we willing to wait. Not usually. Are we willing to wait? He says he waits for the precious fruit of the earth.

Are we willing to wait? For God. Several years ago. I did a sermon. Called what can we do while we were waiting on God and I preached on Acts chapter 2. You remember what happened in Acts chapter 2. Jesus ascends 40 days after the resurrection.

How many days was it? Until the day of Pentecost. From the no from the 50 days after the resurrection from the ascension. It was 10 days, right? Jesus ascends on the 40th day and then you have 10 days later that the Holy Spirit falls.

So how many days were they waiting? Well, they I'm thinking about the 10th. From the 4th from the day because they had Jesus with him for 40 days the celebration that he's there. They're excited now. He says I'm going away and the Holy Spirit is going to come.

You go and you wait. They're going to go sit. And what did they do while they waited? They prayed and They waited. They didn't know when he was going to come. They didn't know when the Holy Spirit was going to fall.

They didn't know what they knew it was going to happen. But they didn't know when. So all they did was they went and they prayed. They took care of some business. Remember Judas had died. So they chose Matthias to take his place and took care of a little business.

They did what they could. But ultimately they waited patiently on the Lord.

So.

What are we to do? Are we to be angry or are we to wait? James tells us here to wait. He says look how the farmer waits on the crop. Look how the farmer is patient. Waiting for the later and the the early rains.

He's he's he's patient. Can we be like a farmer? That's the call. That's the illustration, but he gives us another illustration and he gives us the illustration of the prophets Verse 10. He said in fact, he uses the word example.

He said yes. We're in James 5 7. I'm sorry, brother. I'm sorry. No, I just use that as I just look at that as an illustration. No, we're back at James 5 and he said he's looked at the farmer in verse 7.

That's the first illustration. Now he's going to look at the prophets. Let me ask you a question. Did the prophets have patience? Well in this particular example, I Think he's looking at the ones who give examples of patience.

Think about.

Jeremiah.

And he's watching as his Entire world is falling around. Falling apart around him and and you're right brother. I mean he he had a hope of a promise for the future. We're talking about that in a minute.

We get to our ultimate motivation. But but at this point he's he's an example to us of patience, but we're most of the prop by the way you look at the Major prophets minor prophets. 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, but I'm thinking of it there were two major events.

One happened in 722 BC one happened in 586 BC. In 722 BC the northern tribes there were ten northern tribes. 722 BC the Assyrian armies came into the northern tribes and totally decimated the northern tribes.

Absolutely destroyed them 200 years later. Well about 150 years later in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon comes in to the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin Destroys takes into captivity. This is Daniel.

You know, you've read Daniel taking them off into captivity. That's that scenario. So within a hundred and fifty years the entire twelve tribes of Israel have been drug into captivity. The northern ten tribes would never be reconstituted.

This is why by the time of Jesus they were called Jews Judah it was referring to the Jewish tribe of Judah. Because that's what was reconstituted not all twelve tribes, but the major focus was back on the tribe of Judah.

So we see this Destruction that's happening. You read Isaiah. You read Jeremiah you read the prophets they're dealing with the fact that their whole way of life is coming under assault and We have three different types of prophets.

We have the pre-exile at the exotic and the post exotic which means those who prophesied before it happened those who prophesied while it was Happening and those who prophesied after it happened. But they're all dealing with this major event.

Their world is coming to an end. They're being destroyed. That's why Nehemiah and Ezra come along later, even though they're earlier in the book Nehemiah and Ezra actually later because they're rebuilding after that destruction.

Right. But the point James is making is this 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. If those men can be patient. How much more should we? Be able to be patient see the example the farmer.

Waits.

The prophet endures.

See.

The prophet endures. So that's the examples he gives. But he gives a third example. He gives first the farmer who's the example of waiting. He gives second the prophet who is the the example of faithful endurance.

Then he gives another example the example of Job. He points to one man. Look look with me here. He says Verse 11 behold. We consider those who we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. He's still talking about the prophets.

Then they were blessed because they remained steadfast. They endured. You have heard of the steadfastness of.

Job.

Have you?

You know the story of Joe. Job had everything. Job had a great life. He had a wife. He had children. He had land. He had prosperity and in a moment it was all gone. Satan challenged God. Now, this is a kind of a I don't want to get too far into the situation with Joe, but ultimately Satan Challenges God and he says here's a man who only loves you because you've blessed him if you take away his blessings He will not love you anymore.

And God says I'll let you take away his blessings don't touch him. So Satan comes down destroys his whole world takes away every good thing that he has every blessing that it can you imagine? You say right?

Oh, he's. I live a hard life now. And yes you do guys. I don't. I don't know you enough to say anything about the life that you live right now. But I'm telling you something it could be worse. You have somebody who cares about you who loves you.

He's pastor mark. He's here for you. People here are feeding you. There's warmth in the winter and cool in the summer. Little things mark does here that just shows love to you. I've seen it Thousands of times since I've been ministering here and working and and I care for I love you.

I Don't even know you all but I love you. I'm here. I care. I'm not here just to hear myself talk. I hear because I care about you. What if everything was gone and you had a wife who said you know what you just need to curse God and die.

And the joke wife says you just need to curse God and die. You have three friends who come to you all of them basically saying it's your fault. Everything you're facing is you must be you must be this must have happened because of how bad you are.

I've never seen the righteous suffer your suffering. That means you are.

Unrighteous.

All right, that's the that's the point of the three friends of Job now again. I'm I'm truncating a lot. There's a lot more to the story than this. But ultimately he had a wife who said curse God and I had three friends that ultimately are saying it's kind of your fault.

That's what I'm saying. He's got he this is this is his whole world. And yet he endured and you know what he said chapter 13, I think it's verse 14 he said though he slay me. Yet will I trust in him though he slay me.