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Bro. Otis Fisher
Fourth verse please. David left off some place near here, but there was a comment here that I wanted to make concerning this verse. Behold the hire of the laborers who have who has reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of the Sabbath.
I knew a deacon once in a baptist church that bragged about buying an antique piece of furniture from a little old lady because she didn't know the price of it. He got it for nearly nothing and he was so proud of that.
Then he turned around and sold it for a tremendous profit. Russell was that right? Now what do you mean probably? He's no longer with us by the way. You have lived in pleasure. You've lived delicately, lived luxuriously, been given to the soft and luxurious life on earth and you have been wanton.
Wanton means to waste or to squander, be extravagant or one who is immoral. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter thinking about a fat calf or a calf you were fattening for slaughter.
You have condemned and killed the just and he does not resist you. Be patient therefore brethren, be patient unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman and hath long patience for it. Behold the husbandman waited for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receives the early and latter rain.
Do not try to overthrow the rich. That's God's work if it needs to be done. Be also patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another brethren lest you be condemned.
Behold the judge standeth at the door and it was this word door I wanted to get to. Jesus is called the door. Now Clarence what's the purpose of the door? Okay it's a but now Brother David was talking about the sheep this morning.
Go back to that same thought in your mind. The sheepfold was usually man-made in that open country and would be of different material but anything that would protect the sheep for the night and the gate to it was an opening just large enough for one sheep to pass through at a time.
The shepherd would station himself at that gate and as the sheep came he would inspect each one. He would look them over for cuts, bruises, burrs, anything that might damage the sheep and he would anoint it with oil or took care of whatever needed to be and he would call each one by name as they passed through and he would do the same thing of a morning as they went out.
Now at night after the last one had come in this shepherd would lay down across that gate put his own body as the door so there could be nothing get in or out without his knowing it. He protected the sheep.
Jesus is that door the sheepfold is Christ or in Christ. Each day as we retire and drift into oh a state of unconscious vulnerability he inspects us and protects us. This is a type of judging. So Russell we should never end the day without our life being in order.
The judge is coming. He tells us to not judge because well Bill why shouldn't we judge? Okay we do not know therefore Roger about 99 .9 percent of our judging would be condemning. Our condemning is always based on visual circumstances.
When we judge we then are finding fault with the circumstances. Now Fred who is it that controls our circumstances? God. So when we find fault with the circumstances with whom are we finding fault? Right.
Even if we don't like the weather and say so. We call it providence of God or an act of God. He doesn't tell us we have to understand all of it. We do have to acknowledge that he is in control. When you pray do not pray against people.
Learn that. Pray against the evil influences that cause them to say or do whatever they did. Now turn to Philippians 2 14 and I want you to memorize this. Bill read it. Russell what's that mean? How many of you go through a complete day 24 hours without finding fault or something?
Did I see Clarence's hand going? Oh no. Ten. Take my brethren the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord. Take them for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience. Behold we count them happy which endure.
We have heard of the patience of Job, have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy to endure a cheerful continuance. Never taking your eye from the goal. Consider him that waits for a crop of corn or wheat or some grain.
He shows patience. He cannot rush it. Cannot do anything to hurry it along. So would we not then wait patiently for our crown which is far more precious than corn? Why do men time so long? Of course I know the older you get the shorter it is, but why do we consider time to be such a lengthy thing of our life?
Because we judge it by our life. How many of you remember when you're a small child and you couldn't wait until you was a teenager, but you had to wait. You couldn't wait until you could go to grandma's, but you had to wait.
Seemed like forever didn't it? Well in second Peter chapter three verse eight it says this, but beloved be not ignorant of this one thing that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day.
Clarence what do you think he's talking about? What's he trying to teach us? That's right. Everything in our life is relative to time. You've driven down the road or been a passenger in the car traveling 60 mile an hour and count the fence posts that are going by.
It's hard to do because you have a sensation but if you're in an airplane at 30 ,000 foot traveling 600 miles an hour you don't have a sensation of speed. Why? No fence posts. If there were fence posts oh you'd be scared to death.
But above all things my brethren swear not neither by heaven neither by earth neither by any other oath but let your yay be yay and your nay be nay lest you fall into condemnation. Now Roger says we're supposed to say yes or no not maybe and do not swear by anything.
Did you ever hear the expression by my mother's grave it is so or I swear by the bible that this is true? Greg what does that do to your credibility? Okay it's watering down your credibility and you're shifting part of the responsibility of yourself to something else.
Did you ever make an excuse and say but the train held me up but somebody got in my way but I just couldn't get away from my house in time but I overslept? Those are excuses. When you put a but on it you're trying to justify what you did.
Don't do that. Don't use but anymore. In fact don't swear by anything anymore. 13. Is any among you that is afflicted? Let him pray. Is he merry? Let him sing. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the lord.
Now why was this necessary at this time? Why didn't they take him to the hospital? Didn't have any. What about the clinic? Closed. All right so this was good advice. It's still good advice but it's applied a little bit differently.
The word anoint you see in the 14th and anoint him with oil. David what kind of oil? Olive oil. How many uses does olive oil have? Cook with it? There's just lots of uses. You can burn, use it for light.
Well this was the medicine they had. These two words there's two words in the greek for anoint. The one is chio but this one this word for anoint is alfio and it's referring to christ. No excuse me the first one refers to christ.
This one refers to medicine alfio anoint. Turn to john nine six. Roger when you get there read it. What was the medicine used? So that was what was used for the anointing. In verse 14 that we just read here's what we have.
We have the advice to pray and to get the very best medical help possible. So much of the time we pray as though it's the will of god that every christian gets sick and get well. And if we follow that line of thinking joy then we'd have to say that we expect every christian to live forever here in this body.
Can't be like that. Confess your faults one to another but oh and prayer of the faith shall save the sick and the lord shall raise him up and if he has committed sins they shall be forgiven him. Now can man forgive another man's sin?
Can one man confess for another man? Prayer blesses the person praying. When noah was in the ark fred and he sent forth a dove. You remember that? And what happened the first time he sent the dove out?
First time. I want you to understand that noah was blessed when the dove returned with an olive branch. He was also blessed when he didn't return at all. That's right. Well it says that his sins will be forgiven but only if he seeks forgiveness now.
No one can receive for someone else. If he is restored it is the lord that has raised him up not the elders or preacher or anyone else. He tells us to confess our faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now about this confessing our faults to one another. Several years ago they come into existence and i've forgotten what they called them but several christians would meet together in somebody's home and they would all confess their faults.
You remember anything like that? Yes. That quickly deteriorated into a gossip session. Now what's the lord say about gossip? What? Don't even listen to it. If you won't listen that takes the fun out of it.
Now we are to confess a fault to who? Who else? Right. The one you have wronged or that has wronged you. We're told to go to them. They may not even know it and discuss it with them. Now we should always confess our sins to God because all sins are against God.
They're not against each other. We can wrong each other and hurt each other but we do not sin against each other. We sin when we do that but i want you to understand sin is always against God. You can do nothing without him being involved in it.
So confess your sins to the one that is involved in it. Never confess it to the church unless the church was involved in it. In other words settle everything on the very lowest possible step. One other thing about confession I will have you know when we confess to the lord a sin and he forgives us when does he forgive us?
Well when you have a sin how do you feel? What's another word for it? Guilt. How did you get that guilt? Right. Now when you confess and truly confess what happens to the guilt? Who takes it away? Why won't he take it away when we act like we've confessed?
All right when someone has wronged you and they ask your forgiveness now you should always forgive them in your heart but you have to make a judgment. Is he asking just to get on the good side of me again or is he truly sorry for what happened?
If he is contrite if he is definitely sorry then forgive him verbally. Always forgive him in your heart but never never verbally until he sincerely asks for it. So the next time somebody wrongs you don't automatically say oh that's all right just forget it.
That may be all right and you may just forget it but don't tell that person that because you haven't helped them one bit. They'll do it again. So we should treat those that wrong us as he does us when we have sinned against him.
You understand? Elias was a man subject to like passions that we are. In other words he was human and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months.
We think we've been in a drought. Now how did Elijah know to pray concerning it not raining? But you have to go way back to Deuteronomy to find that. But he did tell him. Now later then he told him to go pray because he's going to send rain.
So he went and he prayed and it started raining. It's sad but there are preachers and I know one personally that claims that Elijah caused it to not rain and then he caused it to rain. He got God to do that which he had asked.
Well folks that's not true. What is what do I mean when you've heard me say it so many times God does not react to man. What does that mean Bill? He did react to man. What would that make him Clarence?
Would not be sovereign. He'd be a servant subservient to us. Russell can that ever be? No way. So just know it's absolutely true that he does not react to man. He is not a man that he should lie. He's not a man that he should have passions as we do.
He doesn't. He's the same forever. Absolutely the same. He never changes. In 18 and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth fruit. Brethren if any of you talking about Christians do err from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.
Let's start at the back end. To hide a great multitude of sins how would this come about? Why is that true? Well let's start at the front end. Let him know that he which converteth the sinner. What does convert mean?
To turn around. So here he has caused someone to understand or the Holy Spirit through you have caused someone to understand that what he did was wrong. He's converted from that. Doesn't mean salvation now and he shall save a soul from death.
This death is physical death. As far as we are concerned he will live longer but that's from man's viewpoint and he shall hide a multitude of sins. David how can a person that has confessed his sin been converted or turned back on the right track?
How is it that with that person a multitude of sins will be hidden? Exactly. If he had gone on as he was going there would be a multitude of sins that he would commit but now there won't. So it's true.
Confess. That brings us to the end of the book of James. The Lord will eat next Sunday we'll start Genesis. I guess Genesis is my passion. I thoroughly thoroughly enjoy studying Genesis. I hope you do and I would like for everybody to be here and others also.
Is there a word from anyone? Let's stand and pray. You dismiss us please.